Cooking Confessions

Listed below are my cooking confessions! I have posted a note about different events that happened while posting on this website. Such as the issues I had getting the website up and running or a significant recipe post number.

2/13/18

One year ago today I posted my first recipe! Now I have posted over 150 recipes. The 150th was Mama Dip’s Carrot Cake, which is on the banner for this website. I posted it on February 3rd because it was National Carrot Cake Day (to see more Food Holidays see the National Food Holidays category or look at the Food Holiday Calendar). As of one year of posting I have:

  • 155 posts
  • Over 3462 pins on my posts from my Pinterest account Recipe Thief
  • Over 46 food quotes
  • Over 60 pieces of food trivia
  • Over 46 comics about food

11/11/2017

Today I added a Food Holiday Calendar page. All of the National Food Holidays are listed in calendar order with links to specific recipes for that specific Food Holiday. Some days have more than one recipe lists, so you have more than one way to celebrate!

You can also see all of the Food Holidays at once by going to the posts category National Food Holidays which shows the most recent National Food Holiday posted first.

9/21/2017

Today I added the category National Food Holidays! This category shows all the recipes that I have stolen and posted about that celebrate a specific calendar day devoted to a certain food or recipe. Examples include: March 26th is National Spinach Day which you can celebrate by making Mini Spinach Quiches or April 7th is National Coffee Cake Day which you can celebrate by making Buttermilk Coffee Cake or September 21st is National Pecan Cookie Day which you can celebrate by making Pecan Pie Cookies.

6/25/2017

Today is post #50! I saved the recipe I posted today Skinny Funfetti Cake Cookies for today. I stole this recipe a long time ago and I have made many versions of this recipe. At first I had some issues making this using the blogger’s ingredients due to differences in packaging size for my local area. So, I made many versions that didn’t cook all the way through or came out too dry. Finally I tweaked a version that worked for me and what I could purchase at my local grocery store.

Once I found a recipe version I liked, I make this recipe over and over for all kinds of functions and holidays. The recipe calls for funfetti cake mix which has multi-color sprinkles mixed in. At holiday times there are different sprinkle color versions of the same cake mix at my grocery store. I can find orange & black (Halloween), red & green (Christmas), red & blue (4th of July or Memorial Day) and pastels (Easter). One time I found an autumn mix with orange, yellow, brown and red sprinkles.

Every time I made these cookies people asked for the recipe. I always gave the original website, but let them know how I tweaked the recipe. This was my most requested stolen recipe! So I found it fitting to use for post #50.

3/29/2017

So today, I’m finally going to tell people about my blog and Pinterest account (Recipe Thief). I wanted to wait until I had posted 12 recipes before I told everyone. I don’t know where I came up with the number 12 but I made myself wait until I reached that number. It was difficult to wait, I was excited to tell people but I am glad I waited; there were a lot of bumps in the road. Here they are:

  1. I broke my camera. I was trying to do too much at once and my camera fell off the kitchen counter and I broke the lens. After lots of searching online, there are no camera stores anymore in my area; I finally was able to get a reasonable price for a refurbished lens from Nikon.
  2. I couldn’t pick the .com version of my website name, a domain company had the rights to the .com part and wanted to charge me a ridiculous amount of money to “rent” it from them, so that’s why I have a .net website.
  3. There was a delay in the installation of my website theme. I thought I would register with the hosting service and I would be good to go. But the pre-installed themes (basically the website layout) were not food blog friendly. They were more for selling products online. So I lost a few days waiting for a theme I purchased above the normal registration process to install.
  4. I posted the first three recipes, then there was an update in the system and the update would not read the previously posted recipes. I had to find a new plug-in (program) to make my recipes be printer friendly. So that delayed me a couple of days also.
  5. I had to pick a Pinterest account that is different than my website name. If you search stolen recipes on Pinterest you get results for “stollen recipe” which is a German Christmas yeast bread. I had never heard of this dish until after I registered my website name, created my email and was creating a Pinterest account. I didn’t want my Pins to be lost in the shuffle. And I couldn’t change my website name, I would have had to pay to register all over, I couldn’t afford that expense. One day when I am no longer irritated with myself for not doing more research I will make “stollen” and post about it. I ended up picking “Recipe Thief” for my Pinterest account, you can find me by typing “Recipe Thief” in the search bar, and I am under people “Recipe Thief.” Or click on the link Recipe Thief.
  6. I had to find a new photo editor website, the first one tried to extort money out of me. I had signed up with an online photo editor to just make collages for Pinterest pins. I edit my photos myself, but my computer program will not let me manipulate the pixels to get the best range for Pinterest. So I first went the route of a highly recommended photo editor website that was supposed to be free. It was initially. Then the website started to send me emails to upgrade to a pay package for a monthly fee. After multiple daily declines to not pay to upgrade, I didn’t need all the extra services with the pay account, I only wanted to make the collages. The website started to slow down then freeze while I was trying to make a collage. I would get a pop-up saying, “we’re experiencing technical difficulties with this aspect of our website. Please log into Premium as a work around.” Premium was only accessible if you paid for it. So I had to search again for a new photo editor website.
  7. My website was frozen for two days when I tried to insert my name in the footer. I followed instructions exactly, but I somehow crashed the website. I had to play email tag with technical support that was in a completely different time zone, so it took awhile to be able to be available at the same time as the technical representative. Thankfully they fixed the program. But I lost another two days.

So, as you can see there were lots of bumps in the road to get here. I am happy with the set-up and where I am going with this website. Hopefully my thievery over the years brings some good recipes to people.

2/13/2017

Hi! My name is Laura and I love to cook and bake, but I am not creative enough to make my own recipes from scratch. So I must confess I steal other people’s recipes!! Don’t tell anybody.

I have privately taught people how to cook for a long time, I even taught high school food lab classes for awhile, but I never used my own recipes. I have always used someone else’s recipes, sometimes I use the recipe exactly, and sometimes I make adjustments. I just don’t have that magic touch/spark/creativity to make a recipe completely from scratch, I can be inspired by someone else’s recipe or idea then add or subtract from there.

As long I have cooked for people, I have been asked for a copy of the recipes I make. I have always given credit where credit is due for the source of recipes. So if I am citing the source, that’s not stealing right? Just borrowing, maybe? Or maybe advertising or promoting a cookbook or blog post?

These are recipes that I have collected over the years and that have been popular requests for repeat performances or multiple requests for copies. I don’t know how long I will be able to keep this blog, once the word gets out that I am stealing. So come join me while you can while I commit culinary crimes!!