Welcome to Mamma Rocks the Kitchen! I’m Kristina, and this little blog/ website is my online home away from home. I love to cook, create recipes and take pictures of delicious food.
A little bit more about me, truth be told I am not a trained chef and I never went to culinary school, I’m a food enthusiast who loves to cook quality home style meals for her family and turned my love of cooking into a career. I love to cook down home style meals… you know the ones your mom or grandmother might have made, but I’m not stuck on one type of cooking style over another – I will try anything once and if I like it… will try to make it my own. I love stews, soups and family friendly meals especially taking old school recipes and putting my own little twist on them. My passion is to cook things that are practical, interesting, delicious, budget friendly and above all, meals that my family will ask for seconds on. I love all types of foods and look for new and exciting things to try every day.
But I am only half of the Mamma Rocks team… Meet my husband Brian, he is a video producer, editor and graphics animator by day and the Mamma Rocks the Kitchen food blog techie by night. He loves to BBQ and smoke off all kinds of delicious food – low and slow, spending hours over smoldering coals, drinking beer and making some of the most delicious melt in your mouth BBQ you have ever had – if you’re a BBQ lover be sure to check out some of his grilling recipes.
Together we’re the Mamma Rocks the Kitchen website team!
When I first meet my husband close to 20 years ago I did not know how to cook at all (for real – except for a few basic recipes). In fact, when we rented our first apartment together my idea of cooking was to pop open a jar of store bought spaghetti sauce (whatever was on sale) and boil some pasta. It wasn’t until my then boyfriend (soon to be husband Brian) made an astonishing confession to me about 3 months after we moved in… you see I had noticed that he wasn’t eating dinner anymore when he got home from work so I asked him, “are you not hungry… is there something wrong?” and that’s when the truth came out. He shamefully admitted that he had been stopping at the Railhead Bar (now closed) in the Hoboken train terminal on his commute home from New York to New Jersey where we lived. There to grab a hot dog and beer because he just could not stand the thought of eating jarred spaghetti (yet again!) for dinner. It was then that I took it on as my personal mission to learn how to cook heathy, tasty meals for my soon to be husband and I, not only as a way for us to save money but to show him how much I loved him in the food that I prepared (and so that he wasn’t eating hot dogs out of a train station bar instead of eating with me). Unfortunately, it was no easy task to learn the ins-and-outs of cooking, but I was determined… so armed with a copy of The Joy of Cooking and a Betty Crocker cookbook I started my adventure. As you can imagine, a lot of what I made that first year or so wound up in the garbage…
Flash forward 18 years and now I am a mom to 2 beautiful daughters AND I have started my own personal chef service called, Mamma Rocks. The experience of cooking for others and seeing how much they enjoy my cooking is amazing… but everyone I cooked for wanted to know my recipes!!! Keeping up with the requests just got crazy, so my husband and I started this blog to share my recipes with my clients and gives me a great opportunity to share my love of cooking and food with the rest of the world! 🙂
On a more personal level, I’m constantly trying to learn how to be better at things that really matter, like hanging out with my family, appreciating the love I have for my husband and kids, and learning how to just be… me. So much like me, this little blog of mine will evolve over time… you see I am not a photographer, and I am definitely not the best writer, those are my husband’s departments, but as I grow and learn the ins-and-outs of how to blog and take better photos my little site here will evolve along with me, so be sure to bookmark or follow us and check back often.
Thanks for visiting, I hope you enjoy my recipes!