Seasoned Cooks: Your guides to better home cooking.

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Are you a seasoned cook?

Everyone can cook something, right? Don’t believe those people who say they can’t boil water, they know full well how to turn the burner to high and let it roll. Whether you’ve never set foot in a kitchen, or are quite accomplished, the learning never ends and we all have the potential to become seasoned cooks.

Why we started this cooking blog

We want to share what we’ve learned in our 7 years of trial and error in the kitchen and encourage you to branch out and be adventurous with us as we explore a plethora of flavors, cuisines, equipment and techniques!  

Maybe you’re already a wonderful cook, but you’re getting a little bored with your routine.  What you make is good, but you’d love to expand your repertoire.

You want to “spice things up” and take on some larger, more complicated cooking tasks, but you’re apprehensive. 

You may think…

“I want to get better at cooking, but my schedule doesn’t allow it.” 

“I don’t want to waste money. Will my efforts be in vain if a recipe doesn’t turn out right?” 

“I don’t have space to work in my kitchen or hold all this fancy equipment”

Or maybe you think…

“I’m a terrible cook. I can’t learn any new tricks and should rope off my kitchen with yellow caution tape that reads”:

DO NOT ENTER!! BEWARE OF BAD COOKING!!

In either case, we can help you get unstuck from wherever you are in your culinary journey. 

What types of recipes do we make at Seasoned Cooks?  

We’re generalists. We do a bit of everything. Why? It’s like if you only listen to one genre of music, like jazz, and never branch out to rock n’ roll. We don’t like getting stuck in one way of thinking.  Taking on multiple cuisines and techniques opens up the floodgates of creativity.

Each recipe unlocks new lessons. The more you know, the more you can improvise and create your own unique dishes. The common denominator we go for is maximum flavor.  We will try just about anything once, which is how we have and still are becoming more seasoned in the kitchen. 

We’re going to show you how to:

• Be more creative in the kitchen
• Read between the lines of recipes
• Break down tasks so that you get more done in less time
• Make grocery shopping less of a hassle
• Set up and clean your workspace
• Find inexpensive cooking equipment

The origin of Seasoned Cooks: How it all began…

Our first ever attempt at baking together was over at Jill’s parents’ house making apple pie. This was long before either of us had much in the way of our own equipment.  At their house, they had drawers and drawers full of knives of every shape and kind. Unfortunately, every last one of them was dull as a bald porcupine. How were we going to slice the several pounds of apples required for the recipe? 

We started with a bag of slippery apples and the dullest knives in the drawer.

7 years later, we had pie we could call delicious.

Seasoned Cooks

We persevered, and with every push of the blade the apples slipped out of our hands, fell to the floor, and rolled around mocking us. We eventually managed to get them cut, taking about twice as long as planned. At least we managed not to permanently maim ourselves. 

Making the crust was equally challenging without a food processor. But what we did have was a manual pastry blender and butter that lost its chill within minutes. We managed to cobble together a mealy dough that came apart in our hands as soon as we tried to pick it up.

We rescued the recipe with a genuine store bought frozen pie crust for our unevenly hacked up apples a la Friday the 13th. The result was good, but not great. A good first try.  

Amazingly, that experience didn’t kill our spirits.  We wanted to try again, and try we did. Each time we improved and learned to develop an instinct about what worked and what didn’t. We weren’t bad cooks, just not as seasoned as someone who has spent years, day after day doing it. 

While we haven’t been able to make this a daily endeavor, yet, we have given it a consistent effort over the years. Countless recipes later, we can say we have accomplished a mastery of pie and many other foods. We’ve only scratched the surface, however,  and we’re excited to share all of our new adventures with you.