About Us

We're Darcy and Dale, and these are our favorite recipes.

Dale is the chef in our household. He has always cooked, even before we met in college. He likes learning and experimenting, and he’s perfectly happy taking time to prepare a meal he feels like eating.

I was a workaholic for most of my career, often coming home from work at 7 or 8pm or even later. My dinner usually consisted of something quick and easy: opening a can of soup, or microwaving some leftovers or a frozen meal. I’ve always loved food, but I was rarely willing to take the time to prepare it. And because I rarely cooked, I wasn’t good at it. I had a few tried-and-true specialties, but when I’d try something new, it was discouraging to spend time and effort and then be disappointed with the result. And since I was always busy and time-deprived, I really didn’t enjoy the process.

The pandemic was life-changing for us in multiple ways. Before the pandemic, we ate out often: usually Friday and Saturday evenings, and sometimes Sunday too. We had favorite foods at each restaurant: the steak at Wood Ranch, the baby back ribs and wedge salad at Lone Star, the street tacos at High Park, the bloomin’ onion at Outback, the lettuce wraps and nachos at BJ’s, the jambalaya at Lucille’s, the tri-tip at Texas Pit Barbecue, the Chinese chicken salad at Pasta Bravo.

With the pandemic, we started cooking every meal at home. We made a point to learn how to make our favorite foods from restaurants, so we wouldn’t miss going out. In addition, the pandemic was a turning point for me personally, since I was working crazy-long hours when it started, and no hours at all when it finally wound down. Having a lot more time on my hands and a lot less stress, I decided it was time to become a better cook. I'm still not the primary chef in our house, but I am getting better and adding to my specialties.

Now, post-pandemic, we have a habit—perhaps even a ritual—of cooking and enjoying a nice meal together every evening. Dale usually makes the meat, I usually make salads or sides, and we often share the kitchen, tripping over each other (and our dog) in the process. I occasionally miss eating out, but only the ambiance, rarely the food. We still sometimes order a pizza, but only because we haven’t yet perfected pizza-making at home.

This site is a compendium of many of our favorite recipes. Some are nostalgic favorites from our Midwest upbringing, others are adaptations of our restaurant favorites, and others are low carb favorites. Some are so simple they barely warrant a mention, and are here only because we forget the temperature or cook time or some other detail. We also make use of prepared mixes and processed foods when they are good, cost-effective, and save us time.

I’ve tried to attribute recipes to their original sources, but for many that we’ve made—and tweaked—often, I’ve lost track of the original source.

This site was written selfishly for us so that our favorite recipes are just a click away, but since you are here, I hope you find something good!

Darcy