Tell us a little about yourself and your passions. Why did you decide to name your blog, “Yes I Want Cake”?
I am a stay-at-home mom and feel very blessed to be where I am in my life. I taught elementary school for four years, and although I loved that, there’s nothing that compares with raising your own child twenty-four hours, seven days a week.
I love to be active (running, crossfit, bootcamps, walks...A LOT of walks) and I enjoy eating healthy most of the time. If I want a piece of cake, though...I’m having it (that’s where the name of my blog comes from). I don’t have any rules about my food, I just truly love fruits and vegetables and feel best when I eat them, so they make up the bulk of my diet.
I eat what I want when I’m hungry, and stop when I’m full. I also like feeling good, so I what I want is to eat things that make my taste buds and my body happy. It’s as simple as that.
Cauliflower Sweet Potato Bisque - I love this soup. I’ve made it numerous times this month. It takes approximately five minutes to throw together, and is so creamy and comforting. Also...it’s packed with vegetables and no one even notices.
Cobb Salad - I have this for lunch almost every day of my life. It has bacon in it. Enough said.
Broccoli Asparagus Pizza - Pizza? Healthy? Sort of. I made the crust myself and there are at least four servings of vegetables on top of it. That’s a win in my book.
One-Skillet Lemon Garlic Chicken - My husband and my daughter are big meat eaters (I’m not), but this one is such a crowd pleaser. It doesn’t require dirtying more than one dish, and is probably the best chicken recipe I’ve ever come up with.
Blackberry Cream Cake - This is about as healthy as I like my cake to be. It is one of my favorites because of the time in my life when I made it. I was going though a rough patch - a very hard season - and this cake is so truly simple and insanely light and delicious and non-complicated and easy and wonderful and pleasing.
I usually start with seasonal ingredients and let things snowball. When a new season kicks into gear, I take a notebook page and write all the words and foods I associate with that season. (For example, when September hit, my page had words like comforting, soup, caramel, pumpkin, warm, cozy, pie, cinnamon, apples, squash and crisp.)
Then I just sort of mix and match from that list until things start to make sense. Oh, pumpkin soup sounds good. I have a lot of apples on my counter why not make an apple crisp? How about some....butternut squash soup? Butternut squash chili? Yeah...there we go.
It’s almost like a big word search. Figuring out which words fit together and if I can make relevant and legitimate recipes from them.
I also read a lot of food blogs, and subscribe to several food magazines. I am overwhelmingly inspired by the amazing things I see other people come up with.
What ingredients are always in your kitchen and why?
Eggs - they go in most baked goods, and I love to bake. We also eat a lot of eggs for breakfast.
Quinoa - a protein packed alternative to rice (although, I love rice too), this little grain is a mainstay in my kitchen. I put it in cookies, granola, treat it like morning oatmeal, add it to countless salads, throw it in alllll the Mexican food I make, and eat more quinoa based side-dishes than I can count.
Whole Milk - My daughter and husband chug the stuff, so when the carton empties, I pretty much drop what I’m doing and run to the grocery store to restock. It also comes in handy in a lot of recipes. Almost like butter...all that fat just makes things delicious. Don’t be afraid of a little fat.
Apples - my favorite food
Spinach - goes in everything! Smoothies, salads, soups, omelets - I pack it in wherever I can.
How do you motivate yourself to exercise after a long day?
I don’t. I am an early morning exerciser through and through. Since I was in third grade, I have risen before the sun to exercise. I used to sneak out of my house at 6am to go running with my neighbor when I was eight years old. I do not feel like myself if I don’t get my heart pumping first thing in the morning. It starts my day off with a sense of accomplishment, some endorphins, and a little fresh air. I don’t know how people wake up without it - it’s like my coffee. Except for the fact that I can’t live without coffee, either.
For more from Katie, http://yesiwantcake.com/, and follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter
