The post The Perfect Cookie Doesn’t Exist? Try Melissa Stadler’s Chocolate Chip Recipe! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>But with so many recipes to chose from, it’s easy to get lost. Luckily for us, we’ve come across Melissa Stadler’s iconic Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. When it comes to her recipe, Stadler has a few tricks up her sleeve such as adding cornstarch for thickness and putting nonstick silicone baking mats on top of the cookie sheets.
But ultimately, the finished product is greater than the sum of its parts. “These aren’t some ordinary bite-size cookies,” writes Stadler. “No, these are a full-on meal. Well maybe for some people. Here’s the deal—you make them big. Really big. Like only four can fit on a cookie sheet, BIG. These are the BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER. Yep, I said it.”
Aside from her mouthwatering cookies, Stadler is known for her quick and easy dinners, healthy recipes, and other forms of decadent desserts. The founder of Modern Honey, Stadler is also a two-time Pillsbury Bake-Off finalist. In other words: even if you’re not a fan of chocolate chip cookies (which of course you are), you’d want to take note!
The post The Perfect Cookie Doesn’t Exist? Try Melissa Stadler’s Chocolate Chip Recipe! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post This Chef’s Recipes are Inspired by the People She Loves Most appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>According to Gerard, her love of cooking comes from her family. Coming from a family of ten, a big family meant even bigger meals. In an effort to tame some of their mealtime chaos and get dinner on the table at a respectable hour, Gerard began to help cook by the age of 14.
“I am one of seven kids, so my parents had their hands full with my brothers and me,” she further explained in an interview with All Sorts Of. “We wouldn’t eat until nine or ten at night. One night I just decided I was making dinner. I think I made a Rachel Ray recipe and everyone loved it. I’ve been cooking for friends and family ever since. I love to cook for people, seeing their reactions is so rewarding!”
Her dedication paid off. The author of the Half Baked Harvest Cookbook and Half Baked Harvest Super Simple, a New York Times bestseller, over the years Gerard has amassed a following online, with her Instagram page alone sporting an impressive 3 million (!) followers.
“My cooking has changed so much from the start of HBH,” says Gerard. “Back in the day my recipes were long and far too complicated to cook up on weeknights. Over the years I’ve really learned to create recipes that are easy, but still consist of layers of flavor. My goal is to create recipes that are easy enough for weeknights, but taste like they took hours to make. I’m not one for boring recipes and I’m all about layers of flavor and texture.”
Based in Colorado, Gerard lives in a converted horse barn that was designed entirely around her lifestyle. “It’s where I shot my first cookbook, and where I spend my days experimenting with new recipes, photographing my creations, feeding my family, and making one giant mess in the process,” she writes on her website.
The post This Chef’s Recipes are Inspired by the People She Loves Most appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Dana Shultz Simplifies the Art of Cooking appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>“Minimalist Baker was born out of a desire to make simple cooking available to the everyday cook—like me,” said Shultz in an interview with Portland Monthly. “I would go and look at recipes on blogs and was generally evaluating whether or not I’d make the recipes based on how much time, equipment, and number of ingredients they required. I wanted simple, and it wasn’t there.”
Her blog concept was simple: share recipes that require 10 ingredients or less, 1 bowl, or 30 minutes or less to prepare. “All eaters are welcome,” is her website’s motto, and one we’re likely to adhere to. Her recipes are a mix of savory and sweet, including desserts, breakfasts, and entrées, many of which are plant-based.
“I’m most proud of the Coconut Sugar Caramel Sauce, Vegan Tiramisu Cake, and the Hearty Cocoa Black Bean Burgers, because they were concepts that took a lot of working through and experimenting in order to get the final result I had envisioned,” shared Shultz. “I think people will really enjoy these recipes because they each offer something different and unique in the realm of plant-based cooking.”
Her recipes also don’t require fancy ingredients or expensive equipment, and fit nicely with Shultz’s idea of having a minimalist lifestyle. Over the years, Shultz’s food philosophy has evolved greatly, and she now enjoys a diverse diet free from labels.
“Our plans include continuing to perfect and improve what we already do on Minimalist Baker, which is to provide simple, plant-based recipes that are mind-blowingly delicious,” she notes. “If we can keep doing that, I think there will always be a place for us in the internet world and beyond.”
You can expect to find new recipes on her website and Instagram every three days!
The post Dana Shultz Simplifies the Art of Cooking appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Odette Williams Teaches the Art of Baking a Simple Cake appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Williams traces her love of cake back to her childhood, when growing up in Sydney, she developed the habit of making cake batter for an afternoon snack. “There was never anything sweet in the house. All that was around was vegemite,” shared in an interview published on Martha Stewart’s website. “I used to come home from school and make cake… I got crafty about scaling a recipe, since I didn’t want to eat a whole one.”
Cake wasn’t just treated as a treat. Over the years, Williams understood the power of baking as a way of lifting the mood, a cure of sorts. “Cake’s made me really happy,” she explains. “It’s picked my spirits up when I’ve been low. It’s put me out of my delirium when I’ve been with a newborn baby. I’ve transported it to a friend with a broken heart, or to a dinner party where it’s served with something sparkling.”
The recipes in her book are her family’s go-tos—cakes that Williams equally enjoys baking and eating. According to Williams, her cakes aren’t extravagant, not too rich or complex, and above all, they’re easy and quick to make. In her book, she also addresses the fundamentals for getting cakes just right, with foolproof recipes that can be cranked out whenever the urge strikes.
With easy recipes and inventive decorating ideas, Williams gives you recipes for 10 base cakes, 15 toppings, and endless decorating ideas to yield a treat. More important to her is the process of baking with patience and love. “There’s a visceral, emotional reason why we bake cakes,” she explains. “These small gestures towards one another can really pick someone’s spirits up and give us that simple happiness. That’s what it’s all about.”
The post Odette Williams Teaches the Art of Baking a Simple Cake appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Eat Your Way Around the World with The Foreign Fork appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The idea is simple: cooking one meal from every country in the world in alphabetical order. “Every two weeks I’ll start a new country and I’ll start off by giving an in-depth view of the country,” she further explained in an interview with Eat Blog Talk. “So I’ll get fun facts and I’ll give an overview of the history. I’ll talk a little bit about the food culture and the flavors that are normally incorporated into the food in that country. I’ll also just give any other relevant information that might not go into those specific categories.”
After some initial background research comes the main dish. Depending on the country, she’ll share two to five recipes from that country over the next two weeks. “I try to do a main dish and an appetizer, and I always try to do a dessert because I love dessert,” says Drzazgowski. “So I’ll feature some food from that country.”
Like most food blogs, The Foreign Fork began as a passion project. After spending her final semester abroad, Drzazgowski backpacked across Europe. During her time across the ocean, she visited 15 countries in 18 weeks. Her favorite thing to explore in each and every one of them? Food.
“I’ve always loved cooking and baking, but when I was abroad, my love transformed into a border-line obsession,” she admits on her website. “I took countless cooking classes and food tours, I visited every local market I could find, and I would spend hours before dinner researching which restaurant would provide the most authentic experience.” Having returned to Michigan, she decided to keep her passion alive through the kitchen. Hence The Foreign Fork came to be.
With almost 200 countries behind her, Drzazgowski’s hobby has long outgrown its humble beginnings. And though she admits to being an amateur when it comes to cooking, her inquisitiveness makes up for it. “When I’m actually starting to cook from a country, I definitely do a lot of research,” she stresses in the interview. “It’s really important to be representing the culture of the country that you’re cooking in an accurate light and making sure that you’re doing it correctly. So I spend a lot of time doing research before I cook for my country.”
The post Eat Your Way Around the World with The Foreign Fork appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Follow Bento Monsters—Your Kids Will Thank You! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The creator behind the massively successful food blog Bento Monsters, Ming is a stay-at-home mom to two boys. Based in Singapore, her fascination with bentos (Japanese boxed lunches) is tied with her parenting experience. In fact, she started “bento-ing” when her firstborn began primary school in 2011.
“I’ve loved to bake since I was a teenager,” Ming further relayed in an interview with The Early Hour. “It started when we had our first lesson in baking during Home Economics in school. But I only started cooking after I got married and the passion for cooking came when I began making bentos for my first born.”
According to Ming, her son had problems adjusting to the longer hours at primary school and she hoped to cheer him up and let him feel her presence and love through her packed lunches and small love notes. And so, she found herself packing charabens: a style of elaborately arranged bento which features food decorated to look like people, characters from popular media, animals, and plants.
“It helped to give him something to look forward to at recess,” she notes. “He always enjoyed looking at the bento and lunch notes I prepared for him.”
Soon, her younger son began requesting these bentos as well, and Ming’s bento creations would become the edible artforms they are today. After documenting her creations and taking photos of them, she decided to launch her blog in 2011 as a platform for her to share these creations.
“I didn’t think people would be interested when I started the blog,” she admits. “I had only intended it to be a platform for me to make a journal of our lunches. Before the blog, I used to print out the bento photos and paste them on a scrapbook, and my boys and I would flip through it now and then. When the photos started piling up, I thought it was easier to just upload it on a blog.”
Over the years, making cute lunches evolved into a passion that Ming indulges in whenever she has pockets of free time. Take a look at some of her impressive creations in the gallery below.
The post Follow Bento Monsters—Your Kids Will Thank You! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post In a Sea of Food Bloggers, Del’s Cooking Twist is a Hidden Gem appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Describing herself as a happy French woman, Fortin has spent over 10 years abroad between Stockholm, Chicago, and now Vancouver (where she is currently based); and admits her cosmopolitan background has naturally impacted her cooking. You can expect to find fusion food, a mix of this and that on her blog.
A flexitarian as well as an advocate for a healthy balanced lifestyle, Fortin’s blog focuses mainly on healthy recipes, mostly plant-based, sometimes vegan, gluten-free, or the occasional lactose-free.
“I am a true food lover at heart,” she admitted in an interview with Fashion Stories. “So far as I can remember I have always liked baking, and already when I was a child I used to bake simple recipes when I had friends over.” According to Fortin, food has always been a big part of her life.
“Experimenting in the kitchen is my favorite activity. Later on, life gave me the opportunity to cook for my family during an entire summer and I had lot of fun, using a great cookbook from which I learned the basics of French cooking. My curiosity in cooking and baking is endless, and so is my creativity!”
These days, her passion has fully blossomed into a full-time job, with professional projects including video tutorials, freelance food writing, and baking workshop events, among others.
“In a long term perspective, I hope I can afford living only off of my blog activities,” she relayed. “I am truly passionate about this and my creativity has no limits when it comes to food projects. I can work hours and hours for days, and still dream about new projects at night. My mind is all about that!”
Follow her recipes here, and show her some love on Instagram (you won’t regret it!).
The post In a Sea of Food Bloggers, Del’s Cooking Twist is a Hidden Gem appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Jen Hansard’s Smoothies Will Give You the Kick Start You Need appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Like most of us, Hansard admits she used to rely on coffee to get her through the days. Her daily eating habits included 4 cups of coffee, bean burritos and grilled cheese sandwiches. “I was nutritionally deprived and my body was unable to give me the energy that I once had,” she admits on her website. “Then I discovered green smoothies thanks to my friend… and I was instantly hooked. I started drinking at least one green smoothie a day and my energy levels soared.”
According to Hansard, she went from being exhausted and feeling defeated—to being energized and empowered. “It blew my mind that one simple healthy habit could make such an impact in my life,” she notes.
In an interview with Starter Story, Hansard further elaborated: “With a daily green smoothie, I had more energy than I knew what to do with—so I began running again. I had more energy to put into my blog. More energy to chase after my kids and play with them on the monkey bars. I was beginning to feel like my old self with energy and dreams—the college version of myself!”
But taking this initial passion and turning it into a blooming business required more than a boost of energy. “It was a ton of luck AND a ton of hard work,” she breaks it down. “There was no clear plan, it was more of us following the momentum and building as we went. I had no clue it would turn into anything half as cool as it is now, but I definitely did the work to get it there.”
These days, her company aims to equip their one million followers (nicknamed “rawkstars”) along their wellness journey. Their website includes a designated smoothie shop where you can purchase anything from sustainable smoothie supplies to plant-based cookbooks and cleanse kits. But you can also enjoy a smoothie-based diet thanks to their recipes, which judging by their photos look both healthy and absolutely delicious! Drink up!
The post Jen Hansard’s Smoothies Will Give You the Kick Start You Need appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Divya Alter Believes In the Healing Power of Healthy Food appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Her cooking and lifestyle in general leans on the Shaka Vansiya Ayurveda tradition, a healthy lifestyle system that people in India have used for more than 5,000 years. According to this ancient medical science, food can actually restore our innate ability for healing and wellness. Its practice teaches us how to link our physical and mental needs with the foods and seasonings that will balance us accordingly.
“I grew up in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and my conscious relationship with food began when I was 18, while interning at the kitchen of an underground yoga ashram,” writes Alter on her blog. “I’ve been a vegetarian and a cook since then (27+ years).” Having studied Ayurveda in India, over the years Alter’s cooking evolved from a fun hobby to a full-time job and a health necessity.
“I’ve always been drawn to Ayurveda, food, and healing in general, but I dedicated my life to the study and practice when I faced some serious health challenges years ago,” Alter further explained in an interview with Golubka Kitchen. “Vaidya Mishra and Shaka Vansiya Ayurveda answered the questions no one else could and equipped me with personalized self-care practice that made a big difference in my life. There is no way I can keep this precious knowledge to myself—I must share it with others!”
These days, Alter is the cofounder of Bhagavat Life, the only Ayurvedic culinary school in New York. She and her husband launched North America’s first Ayurvedic chef certification program and Divya’s Kitchen, an award-winning, authentic Ayurvedic restaurant in Manhattan. The restaurant also sells products aligned with the Ayurvedic teachings online—anything from special teas to spices and blends.
“I’ve been a lacto-vegetarian for the past 30 years,” says Alter. “Thanks to my occupation, I have the luxury to prepare fresh seasonal meals and I rarely eat leftovers. The ingredients vary with the seasons, but here are a just a few things I enjoy. My life is fast-paced, and I need a lot of grounding and Vata balancing.”
If you’re in NYC, make sure you visit Divya’s Kitchen, and follow her blog for recipes and other resources!
The post Divya Alter Believes In the Healing Power of Healthy Food appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Amanda Forcella Will Encourage You to Lean Into a Plant-Based Diet appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>“We all deserve to be free, to be happy, to be nourished both physically and mentally,” she writes on her blog. As part of her goal to live in harmony with nature, Forcella sticks to seasonal and local food, and offers well-timed recipes on her website. Those include hits like her gazpacho (perfect for August) and peach tart (just in time for July).
“Health is wealth and while I don’t mind spending more money on high-quality food, it has been our experience since switching to a whole foods, plant-based diet that our grocery bill has drastically lowered,” Forcella noted in an interview with Golubka Kitchen, where she talked about her shopping habits. “The way I buy food is to first buy everything I can at my farmers market—these are local, fresh foods and are way cheaper direct from the farmers than from a Whole Foods or other grocer,” she says, explaining that she buys almost all of her vegetables and fruits there, plus things like nuts, bread, olive oil, and soaps.
“Then I buy other items at my local co-op to fill in the gaps: usually things like grains, tofu, dried legumes, seeds, spices, cocoa powder/chocolate, and teas. Our staple foods are generally very low cost: potatoes, beans, squashes, oats, quinoa, rice, seasonal fruits and vegetables, whole wheat bread for the kids, and seeds (pumpkin, sesame, chia, hemp, and sunflower are our favorites).”
Things Forcella avoids are: cookies, crackers, plant milks, plant yogurts, chips, juice boxes, candies, cereal, plant meats/cheeses, or really any processed/snack foods. “Instead, for snacks and lunches, we simply eat whole foods,” says the blogger.
According to Forcella, her healthy diet also affected her mood and even skin care. |My herbal infusions have made such a difference in my skin and hormonal health (completely tied together for me),” she shares. “Eating plenty of raw, seasonal greens and making sure I get enough fats, especially seeds like hemp/flax/chia, makes my skin feel and look best.”
Follow her tips and tricks for a more balanced lifestyle:
The post Amanda Forcella Will Encourage You to Lean Into a Plant-Based Diet appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post The Perfect Cookie Doesn’t Exist? Try Melissa Stadler’s Chocolate Chip Recipe! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>But with so many recipes to chose from, it’s easy to get lost. Luckily for us, we’ve come across Melissa Stadler’s iconic Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. When it comes to her recipe, Stadler has a few tricks up her sleeve such as adding cornstarch for thickness and putting nonstick silicone baking mats on top of the cookie sheets.
But ultimately, the finished product is greater than the sum of its parts. “These aren’t some ordinary bite-size cookies,” writes Stadler. “No, these are a full-on meal. Well maybe for some people. Here’s the deal—you make them big. Really big. Like only four can fit on a cookie sheet, BIG. These are the BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER. Yep, I said it.”
Aside from her mouthwatering cookies, Stadler is known for her quick and easy dinners, healthy recipes, and other forms of decadent desserts. The founder of Modern Honey, Stadler is also a two-time Pillsbury Bake-Off finalist. In other words: even if you’re not a fan of chocolate chip cookies (which of course you are), you’d want to take note!
The post The Perfect Cookie Doesn’t Exist? Try Melissa Stadler’s Chocolate Chip Recipe! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post This Chef’s Recipes are Inspired by the People She Loves Most appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>According to Gerard, her love of cooking comes from her family. Coming from a family of ten, a big family meant even bigger meals. In an effort to tame some of their mealtime chaos and get dinner on the table at a respectable hour, Gerard began to help cook by the age of 14.
“I am one of seven kids, so my parents had their hands full with my brothers and me,” she further explained in an interview with All Sorts Of. “We wouldn’t eat until nine or ten at night. One night I just decided I was making dinner. I think I made a Rachel Ray recipe and everyone loved it. I’ve been cooking for friends and family ever since. I love to cook for people, seeing their reactions is so rewarding!”
Her dedication paid off. The author of the Half Baked Harvest Cookbook and Half Baked Harvest Super Simple, a New York Times bestseller, over the years Gerard has amassed a following online, with her Instagram page alone sporting an impressive 3 million (!) followers.
“My cooking has changed so much from the start of HBH,” says Gerard. “Back in the day my recipes were long and far too complicated to cook up on weeknights. Over the years I’ve really learned to create recipes that are easy, but still consist of layers of flavor. My goal is to create recipes that are easy enough for weeknights, but taste like they took hours to make. I’m not one for boring recipes and I’m all about layers of flavor and texture.”
Based in Colorado, Gerard lives in a converted horse barn that was designed entirely around her lifestyle. “It’s where I shot my first cookbook, and where I spend my days experimenting with new recipes, photographing my creations, feeding my family, and making one giant mess in the process,” she writes on her website.
The post This Chef’s Recipes are Inspired by the People She Loves Most appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Dana Shultz Simplifies the Art of Cooking appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>“Minimalist Baker was born out of a desire to make simple cooking available to the everyday cook—like me,” said Shultz in an interview with Portland Monthly. “I would go and look at recipes on blogs and was generally evaluating whether or not I’d make the recipes based on how much time, equipment, and number of ingredients they required. I wanted simple, and it wasn’t there.”
Her blog concept was simple: share recipes that require 10 ingredients or less, 1 bowl, or 30 minutes or less to prepare. “All eaters are welcome,” is her website’s motto, and one we’re likely to adhere to. Her recipes are a mix of savory and sweet, including desserts, breakfasts, and entrées, many of which are plant-based.
“I’m most proud of the Coconut Sugar Caramel Sauce, Vegan Tiramisu Cake, and the Hearty Cocoa Black Bean Burgers, because they were concepts that took a lot of working through and experimenting in order to get the final result I had envisioned,” shared Shultz. “I think people will really enjoy these recipes because they each offer something different and unique in the realm of plant-based cooking.”
Her recipes also don’t require fancy ingredients or expensive equipment, and fit nicely with Shultz’s idea of having a minimalist lifestyle. Over the years, Shultz’s food philosophy has evolved greatly, and she now enjoys a diverse diet free from labels.
“Our plans include continuing to perfect and improve what we already do on Minimalist Baker, which is to provide simple, plant-based recipes that are mind-blowingly delicious,” she notes. “If we can keep doing that, I think there will always be a place for us in the internet world and beyond.”
You can expect to find new recipes on her website and Instagram every three days!
The post Dana Shultz Simplifies the Art of Cooking appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Odette Williams Teaches the Art of Baking a Simple Cake appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Williams traces her love of cake back to her childhood, when growing up in Sydney, she developed the habit of making cake batter for an afternoon snack. “There was never anything sweet in the house. All that was around was vegemite,” shared in an interview published on Martha Stewart’s website. “I used to come home from school and make cake… I got crafty about scaling a recipe, since I didn’t want to eat a whole one.”
Cake wasn’t just treated as a treat. Over the years, Williams understood the power of baking as a way of lifting the mood, a cure of sorts. “Cake’s made me really happy,” she explains. “It’s picked my spirits up when I’ve been low. It’s put me out of my delirium when I’ve been with a newborn baby. I’ve transported it to a friend with a broken heart, or to a dinner party where it’s served with something sparkling.”
The recipes in her book are her family’s go-tos—cakes that Williams equally enjoys baking and eating. According to Williams, her cakes aren’t extravagant, not too rich or complex, and above all, they’re easy and quick to make. In her book, she also addresses the fundamentals for getting cakes just right, with foolproof recipes that can be cranked out whenever the urge strikes.
With easy recipes and inventive decorating ideas, Williams gives you recipes for 10 base cakes, 15 toppings, and endless decorating ideas to yield a treat. More important to her is the process of baking with patience and love. “There’s a visceral, emotional reason why we bake cakes,” she explains. “These small gestures towards one another can really pick someone’s spirits up and give us that simple happiness. That’s what it’s all about.”
The post Odette Williams Teaches the Art of Baking a Simple Cake appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Eat Your Way Around the World with The Foreign Fork appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The idea is simple: cooking one meal from every country in the world in alphabetical order. “Every two weeks I’ll start a new country and I’ll start off by giving an in-depth view of the country,” she further explained in an interview with Eat Blog Talk. “So I’ll get fun facts and I’ll give an overview of the history. I’ll talk a little bit about the food culture and the flavors that are normally incorporated into the food in that country. I’ll also just give any other relevant information that might not go into those specific categories.”
After some initial background research comes the main dish. Depending on the country, she’ll share two to five recipes from that country over the next two weeks. “I try to do a main dish and an appetizer, and I always try to do a dessert because I love dessert,” says Drzazgowski. “So I’ll feature some food from that country.”
Like most food blogs, The Foreign Fork began as a passion project. After spending her final semester abroad, Drzazgowski backpacked across Europe. During her time across the ocean, she visited 15 countries in 18 weeks. Her favorite thing to explore in each and every one of them? Food.
“I’ve always loved cooking and baking, but when I was abroad, my love transformed into a border-line obsession,” she admits on her website. “I took countless cooking classes and food tours, I visited every local market I could find, and I would spend hours before dinner researching which restaurant would provide the most authentic experience.” Having returned to Michigan, she decided to keep her passion alive through the kitchen. Hence The Foreign Fork came to be.
With almost 200 countries behind her, Drzazgowski’s hobby has long outgrown its humble beginnings. And though she admits to being an amateur when it comes to cooking, her inquisitiveness makes up for it. “When I’m actually starting to cook from a country, I definitely do a lot of research,” she stresses in the interview. “It’s really important to be representing the culture of the country that you’re cooking in an accurate light and making sure that you’re doing it correctly. So I spend a lot of time doing research before I cook for my country.”
The post Eat Your Way Around the World with The Foreign Fork appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Follow Bento Monsters—Your Kids Will Thank You! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The creator behind the massively successful food blog Bento Monsters, Ming is a stay-at-home mom to two boys. Based in Singapore, her fascination with bentos (Japanese boxed lunches) is tied with her parenting experience. In fact, she started “bento-ing” when her firstborn began primary school in 2011.
“I’ve loved to bake since I was a teenager,” Ming further relayed in an interview with The Early Hour. “It started when we had our first lesson in baking during Home Economics in school. But I only started cooking after I got married and the passion for cooking came when I began making bentos for my first born.”
According to Ming, her son had problems adjusting to the longer hours at primary school and she hoped to cheer him up and let him feel her presence and love through her packed lunches and small love notes. And so, she found herself packing charabens: a style of elaborately arranged bento which features food decorated to look like people, characters from popular media, animals, and plants.
“It helped to give him something to look forward to at recess,” she notes. “He always enjoyed looking at the bento and lunch notes I prepared for him.”
Soon, her younger son began requesting these bentos as well, and Ming’s bento creations would become the edible artforms they are today. After documenting her creations and taking photos of them, she decided to launch her blog in 2011 as a platform for her to share these creations.
“I didn’t think people would be interested when I started the blog,” she admits. “I had only intended it to be a platform for me to make a journal of our lunches. Before the blog, I used to print out the bento photos and paste them on a scrapbook, and my boys and I would flip through it now and then. When the photos started piling up, I thought it was easier to just upload it on a blog.”
Over the years, making cute lunches evolved into a passion that Ming indulges in whenever she has pockets of free time. Take a look at some of her impressive creations in the gallery below.
The post Follow Bento Monsters—Your Kids Will Thank You! appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post In a Sea of Food Bloggers, Del’s Cooking Twist is a Hidden Gem appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Describing herself as a happy French woman, Fortin has spent over 10 years abroad between Stockholm, Chicago, and now Vancouver (where she is currently based); and admits her cosmopolitan background has naturally impacted her cooking. You can expect to find fusion food, a mix of this and that on her blog.
A flexitarian as well as an advocate for a healthy balanced lifestyle, Fortin’s blog focuses mainly on healthy recipes, mostly plant-based, sometimes vegan, gluten-free, or the occasional lactose-free.
“I am a true food lover at heart,” she admitted in an interview with Fashion Stories. “So far as I can remember I have always liked baking, and already when I was a child I used to bake simple recipes when I had friends over.” According to Fortin, food has always been a big part of her life.
“Experimenting in the kitchen is my favorite activity. Later on, life gave me the opportunity to cook for my family during an entire summer and I had lot of fun, using a great cookbook from which I learned the basics of French cooking. My curiosity in cooking and baking is endless, and so is my creativity!”
These days, her passion has fully blossomed into a full-time job, with professional projects including video tutorials, freelance food writing, and baking workshop events, among others.
“In a long term perspective, I hope I can afford living only off of my blog activities,” she relayed. “I am truly passionate about this and my creativity has no limits when it comes to food projects. I can work hours and hours for days, and still dream about new projects at night. My mind is all about that!”
Follow her recipes here, and show her some love on Instagram (you won’t regret it!).
The post In a Sea of Food Bloggers, Del’s Cooking Twist is a Hidden Gem appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>The post Jen Hansard’s Smoothies Will Give You the Kick Start You Need appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Like most of us, Hansard admits she used to rely on coffee to get her through the days. Her daily eating habits included 4 cups of coffee, bean burritos and grilled cheese sandwiches. “I was nutritionally deprived and my body was unable to give me the energy that I once had,” she admits on her website. “Then I discovered green smoothies thanks to my friend… and I was instantly hooked. I started drinking at least one green smoothie a day and my energy levels soared.”
According to Hansard, she went from being exhausted and feeling defeated—to being energized and empowered. “It blew my mind that one simple healthy habit could make such an impact in my life,” she notes.
In an interview with Starter Story, Hansard further elaborated: “With a daily green smoothie, I had more energy than I knew what to do with—so I began running again. I had more energy to put into my blog. More energy to chase after my kids and play with them on the monkey bars. I was beginning to feel like my old self with energy and dreams—the college version of myself!”
But taking this initial passion and turning it into a blooming business required more than a boost of energy. “It was a ton of luck AND a ton of hard work,” she breaks it down. “There was no clear plan, it was more of us following the momentum and building as we went. I had no clue it would turn into anything half as cool as it is now, but I definitely did the work to get it there.”
These days, her company aims to equip their one million followers (nicknamed “rawkstars”) along their wellness journey. Their website includes a designated smoothie shop where you can purchase anything from sustainable smoothie supplies to plant-based cookbooks and cleanse kits. But you can also enjoy a smoothie-based diet thanks to their recipes, which judging by their photos look both healthy and absolutely delicious! Drink up!
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]]>The post Divya Alter Believes In the Healing Power of Healthy Food appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>Her cooking and lifestyle in general leans on the Shaka Vansiya Ayurveda tradition, a healthy lifestyle system that people in India have used for more than 5,000 years. According to this ancient medical science, food can actually restore our innate ability for healing and wellness. Its practice teaches us how to link our physical and mental needs with the foods and seasonings that will balance us accordingly.
“I grew up in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and my conscious relationship with food began when I was 18, while interning at the kitchen of an underground yoga ashram,” writes Alter on her blog. “I’ve been a vegetarian and a cook since then (27+ years).” Having studied Ayurveda in India, over the years Alter’s cooking evolved from a fun hobby to a full-time job and a health necessity.
“I’ve always been drawn to Ayurveda, food, and healing in general, but I dedicated my life to the study and practice when I faced some serious health challenges years ago,” Alter further explained in an interview with Golubka Kitchen. “Vaidya Mishra and Shaka Vansiya Ayurveda answered the questions no one else could and equipped me with personalized self-care practice that made a big difference in my life. There is no way I can keep this precious knowledge to myself—I must share it with others!”
These days, Alter is the cofounder of Bhagavat Life, the only Ayurvedic culinary school in New York. She and her husband launched North America’s first Ayurvedic chef certification program and Divya’s Kitchen, an award-winning, authentic Ayurvedic restaurant in Manhattan. The restaurant also sells products aligned with the Ayurvedic teachings online—anything from special teas to spices and blends.
“I’ve been a lacto-vegetarian for the past 30 years,” says Alter. “Thanks to my occupation, I have the luxury to prepare fresh seasonal meals and I rarely eat leftovers. The ingredients vary with the seasons, but here are a just a few things I enjoy. My life is fast-paced, and I need a lot of grounding and Vata balancing.”
If you’re in NYC, make sure you visit Divya’s Kitchen, and follow her blog for recipes and other resources!
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]]>The post Amanda Forcella Will Encourage You to Lean Into a Plant-Based Diet appeared first on foodisinthehouse.com.
]]>“We all deserve to be free, to be happy, to be nourished both physically and mentally,” she writes on her blog. As part of her goal to live in harmony with nature, Forcella sticks to seasonal and local food, and offers well-timed recipes on her website. Those include hits like her gazpacho (perfect for August) and peach tart (just in time for July).
“Health is wealth and while I don’t mind spending more money on high-quality food, it has been our experience since switching to a whole foods, plant-based diet that our grocery bill has drastically lowered,” Forcella noted in an interview with Golubka Kitchen, where she talked about her shopping habits. “The way I buy food is to first buy everything I can at my farmers market—these are local, fresh foods and are way cheaper direct from the farmers than from a Whole Foods or other grocer,” she says, explaining that she buys almost all of her vegetables and fruits there, plus things like nuts, bread, olive oil, and soaps.
“Then I buy other items at my local co-op to fill in the gaps: usually things like grains, tofu, dried legumes, seeds, spices, cocoa powder/chocolate, and teas. Our staple foods are generally very low cost: potatoes, beans, squashes, oats, quinoa, rice, seasonal fruits and vegetables, whole wheat bread for the kids, and seeds (pumpkin, sesame, chia, hemp, and sunflower are our favorites).”
Things Forcella avoids are: cookies, crackers, plant milks, plant yogurts, chips, juice boxes, candies, cereal, plant meats/cheeses, or really any processed/snack foods. “Instead, for snacks and lunches, we simply eat whole foods,” says the blogger.
According to Forcella, her healthy diet also affected her mood and even skin care. |My herbal infusions have made such a difference in my skin and hormonal health (completely tied together for me),” she shares. “Eating plenty of raw, seasonal greens and making sure I get enough fats, especially seeds like hemp/flax/chia, makes my skin feel and look best.”
Follow her tips and tricks for a more balanced lifestyle:
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