A Little About Me

The heart behind The Intentional Kitchen

I’m a wife, a mom to two boys, and someone who spends probably 90% of her day in the kitchen. In my kitchen, there’s almost always something cooking, a recipe I’m working on, fresh herbs being chopped, or a sourdough loaf proofing on the counter. What I can promise you is that there will be a little chaos happening in the background! The kitchen has always been my happy place.

I didn’t grow up in a particularly health-conscious home. Like a lot of millennials, my childhood was filled with boxed meals, fast food, and plenty of processed snacks. It wasn’t until I got older that I really started paying attention to nutrition and how the foods we eat can affect how we feel. As I started raising my own family, giving my boys a strong nutritional foundation became incredibly important to me. I wanted to be intentional about what I was putting on their plates, not just for today, but to help establish habits that would serve them throughout their lives.

I’ve always loved cooking, though. Even back in college, I realized that making food for someone was one of the ways I naturally showed them I cared. Acts of service are absolutely my love language, and whether I’m making breakfast for my boys, preparing their school lunches, or hosting friends and family for dinner, there’s something really special to me about showing people love through food.

And that’s really where The Intentional Kitchen comes from. For me, intentional cooking is about taking simple, everyday foods and finding ways to make them even more nourishing. Anyone can make a loaf of sandwich bread, but what if we could add a little extra protein or fiber? What if we could make our favorite cookies with thoughtfully chosen ingredients? Or make homemade versions of the foods our families already love?

It’s not necessarily about reinventing what we’re eating. It’s about being intentional with how we’re making it. Over the last several years, sourdough has become a big part of my kitchen, along with freshly milled flour, homemade breads, and recipes that focus on real, minimally processed ingredients.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my recipes aren’t always the quickest. I genuinely enjoy spending time in the kitchen, and I’m willing to take a few extra steps to make something I feel good about feeding my family. But I also believe that you can take things one step at a time. You don’t have to change everything overnight.

Funny enough, this website actually started because of my husband. I’d make something for dinner, he’d tell me how much he loved it, and then he’d ask why I never wrote anything down. I’ve always been a “pinch of this, a little bit of that” kind of cook, so documenting actual measurements wasn’t exactly my strong suit. But he had a point. These were recipes I wanted our boys to have someday, and hopefully recipes they could share with their own families. So The Intentional Kitchen became a place to preserve those recipes, with the hope that other families might enjoy them just as much as we do.

More than anything, I want my boys to grow up remembering that the kitchen was the heart of our home. That there was always something being made, that our table was always a place for family and friends, and that their mom showed them how much she loved them through the meals she prepared. And if a few of these recipes find their way into your family’s kitchen, too, that would make me incredibly happy.

Welcome to The Intentional Kitchen.