I Missed You Guys

For the last two years I have been crazy busy working and helping my husband build our new home and farm so Cook Better Than was kind of ignored, but I find myself with more time lately and the fun of the holidays approaching so I am back! We are going to get this food blog back in shape; new recipes and how-to posts will be coming fast and furious, get ready!

Cook Better Than blog Michelle Donn

In these two years my stepdaughters have both gone off to college and we moved to the 20 acre farm we built in Palm City, FL. We have my horses, three crazy dogs, one cat and my husband is raising Cracker Cattle, they are a heritage bred for Florida that is smaller and leaner than most beef cattle in America.  Crackers as a breed have developed over centuries to be more tolerant to the environment in Florida and this heartiness makes them ideal organic all natural beef cattle, with no hormones, antibiotics or drugs needed. The lean all grass fed beef is more like the meat you get in Argentina than at Publix. We should soon have not only the beef from our cattle available for purchase but also from a few other ranchers in the area, can you say organic Florida Wagyu! Stay tuned for details on buying your share of a whole cow.

Another benefit of our new farm is that my mother has her own home on the property, multigenerational living is a new trend and I have to say in many ways makes life so much simpler. My mother is still pretty spry for her mid-seventies so she often helps with cooking and taking care of the dogs when we are swamped. She has her own full kitchen but she and I are happy to trade off the fruits of our labors, I make chili on Monday, she gets a big pot of it for her fridge. She makes a batch of cookies on Wednesday; we get a few dozen for our cookie jar. Maybe there was a reason humans lived like this generations ago.

Blog Makeover

The upgrade and makeover to the blog is in phase one new fun logo and simpler design for the site live now. I just need to come up with a great new design for the home page and get my older recipe posts all formatted to the new style.  With over 100 existing recipes that may be quite a bit of work, so please be kind if a few images are cropped funny or the comments are not displaying correctly, I am but a lone food blogger doing all this work from my kitchen counter. If you want to volunteer your tech skills in trade for a vat of Hummus get in touch!


Let the video revolution begin, haha

Next we are going to be adding videos. I have no idea why I agreed with my husband when he thought this was a great idea (I blame the wine), but here I go. Like the photos on my early recipe blog posts I am going to guess that over time I will get better at both the video editing and my presentation skills. Either way, check out my first how to video “How to Get a Free Sunday Dinner” also known as “Save Money by Cutting your Own Pork Chops.” My goal with the videos is to have short videos not of just me in the kitchen cooking but also of cool food things on our farm and here in South Florida. A few of my ideas include a visit to the organic farm that is a few miles up the road and following the progress of my husband’s plan to grow pineapples.  There is also a Cracker Cattle heritage auction in the fall and a local restaurant with a kitchen garden I have been dying to learn more about in Stuart, FL. Wish me luck!

Let’s Get Social

My loyal if neglected fans on Facebook number over 10,000 but it’s time to get working on some of the other Social Media platforms. So please look for us everywhere you like to get social online. We are pumping up our Pinterest, increasing our Instagram, growing our GooglePlus, and trying to remember to Tweet. We have also added a community Facebook group called “Helping Each Other to Cook Better than Most Restaurants” where I will be doing weekly and monthly themes like: tailgate favorites, thanksgiving hacks, great food destinations, and 30 minute meals. I hope that the group will take on a life of its own with people sharing recipes, hints, how to, foodie vacation ideas and more.

Thanks Everyone

I still firmly believe that if you passed high school chemistry you can learn to cook and cook well, and I know that $50 at a grocery store will yield you more delicious food than $50 spent at Applebee’s ever could. At my home the wine is good, the company great and the food is fabulous.  There is no reason why it can’t be the same at your house!

November 2, 2017

Michelle Donn is living the life cooking in Palm City, Florida with one husband, 3 dogs, a cat and a heard of cows and horses that changes all the time! 

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