Oh Sweet Basil, A Recipe Box Recipe

All photos by Jessica Janae Photography

This site has been around for almost 10 years and in all of that time we’ve failed to make something clear, this is a husband and wife team. I know! I don’t know how we failed to fill you in on that. Both Cade and I work on this site. I’m Carrian and I do the photography, a lot of the writing, and most of the emails as well as a lot of the recipe development. Cade is my sweet husband who does a lot of the recipe development, behind the scenes work, some emailing and commenting and other boring things, haha. Anyway, with a new year we thought it was high time we shared our story.

The Pizza That Started Our Love Affair With Food

Years ago, Cade and I went on a little vacation to San Francisco for our anniversary. It was in February, colder and windier than expected, but also one of our favorite vacations to date. We really explored the city and we ate a lot of good food. I wish I could remember everywhere we ate, but one particular night we ended up in an Italian neighborhood and sat down for some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. The Margherita pizza was recommended to us and it did not disappoint! That fresh basil inspired us to start playing around with different ingredients and recipes which is exactly what we started doing as soon as we got home.

Cooking together brought us closer together than we ever expected and it was so dang fun to create together! If you don’t ever cook with your family we really encourage you to try it. Take a cooking class with your spouse. I promise it will be so much fun and you get to eat, nothing wrong with that! Anyway, being the girl that I am I would often ask Cade if he liked a recipe, but I quickly learned that I was too tender hearted and would feel a little bad if he didn’t so we came up with something that would later lead to a blog of our own.

A Recipe Box Recipe

I didn’t like to hear if something wasn’t as good, so I started asking, “Is it a recipe box recipe?” In other words, is this one a keeper? I felt a little removed and not so sensitive if Cade said, “it’s good but maybe not a recipe box recipe”. Within a short amount of time we were inviting neighbors over to enjoy the yummy recipes we’d discovered and unfortunately when they would ask for the recipe I’d often fail to email it. So Cade thought up the brilliant idea of putting all of the recipes we tried on a blog so that anyone could grab them whenever. Little did we know that within a short amount of time people from all over the world and not just our friends would be finding and using our recipes.

Cade and I still love to be in the kitchen together. He’s a fantastic cook and so supportive of me and this business we’ve grown together. And in case you haven’t read our story, he’s an amazing husband and the only man that could have ever helped me survive Hyperemesis with three pregnancies. You can follow us along on instagram, facebook, twitter and pinterest (yes, he even pins with me!) and we hope that you’ll find your own recipe box recipes here.

A Few of Cade’s Current Favorite Recipes

World’s BEST Pulled Pork

Pan Fried Tortellini

Sloppy Joes

Dulce De Leche Ice Cream (more like Gelato)

A Few of Carrian’s Current Favorites

Chocolate Chip Banana Zucchini Bread

Creamy Artichoke Dip

Killer Pizza Sauce

Reese’s PB Cookie Pie