Hi, I’m Rachel. I cook a lot of chicken, beef, and pasta, I write down what actually works, and this site is where it all ends up.
How I Got Here
I started cooking with my mom and grandmother, spending a lot of time in the kitchen watching them turn simple ingredients into meals our whole family enjoyed. That is still the thing I care about most – not complicated technique for its own sake, but knowing how to take what is in the fridge and put something on the table that people are glad to sit down to.
I am a serious home cook and recipe creator rather than a professionally trained chef, and I would rather say that plainly than dress it up. What I have is years of cooking at home, testing recipes, and paying attention to what makes a dish work before I share it with anyone else.
What I Cook
Mostly chicken, beef, pasta, and comforting family-style meals. Meat is where this site started and it is still the heart of it – roasts, weeknight chicken, ground beef done properly, the cuts that reward a bit of patience.
What I most enjoy is finding recipes that are simple enough for a busy weeknight and still feel like something. That is a harder balance than it sounds, and it is the thing I am usually chasing when I develop a recipe.
How These Recipes Are Written
I want to be straightforward about this, because plenty of recipe sites are not.
There are around 130 recipes on this site, and I have personally cooked and tested about 80 of them. For those, the timings, temperatures, and quantities are ones I have genuinely worked through myself, usually more than once.
The remaining fifty or so are still being reviewed and refined before I consider them fully tested. They are written from established technique and checked against USDA safe minimum internal temperatures, but I am not going to tell you I made something when I have not gotten to it yet. Each one gets the note added once it has earned it.
If a recipe does not work for you, tell me. I correct pages, and I would far rather hear about it than not.
On Food Safety
Cooking times on this site are a guide – ovens, pan thickness, and the starting temperature of your meat all move the numbers. For anything where it matters, cook to internal temperature and use a probe thermometer rather than the clock. Where a recipe has a safe minimum internal temperature, I list it.
Get in Touch
Questions, corrections, recipe requests, or partnership enquiries all reach me at [email protected], or through the contact page.
Thanks for cooking with me.
– Rachel Hartman
Home cook, recipe developer, and founder of Meatology Recipes
Boston, Massachusetts