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Chef Donna At Home
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Hi! I’m Donna…

I’m a classically trained chef with a soft spot for happy faces around my dinner table. Welcome to my home kitchen here in Pennsylvania.

In my lifetime of cooking, I’ve seen how good food can transform a house into a home and I want to help you achieve that, too.  Here I offer you over 30 years of well-tested recipes and skill lessons to make your life a little easier and your cooking enjoyable.

Whether you’re cooking for a large family or just for yourself after your workday, you need quality, well-prepared food and I’d love to help you make that happen. As a cooking school instructor, one of my favorite things was to watch my students grow their skill set, reduce their frustration and improve their lives in the process.

I have learned through my extensive cooking experience as well as in my formal culinary training, that food doesn’t need to be fancy or trendy or include exotic ingredients in order to be satisfying. Good food needs to be properly prepared and well seasoned.  Learning how to accomplish both of these will satisfy your palate as well as your wallet – and pay respect to your hard-earned money and time.

What you can count on from me:

  • Well tested, well written tasty recipes from a trained chef designed for your own dinner table.
  • Skill lessons to make your results better and your cooking time more fun.
  • Reality-based cooking. Doable food for real people. And there’s no shame here in using ready-made ingredients.
  • Respect for the hard-earned money you have wrapped up in ingredients. Let’s use that stuff in your pantry and freezer! No “must-have” bottles of $32 truffle oil only to drizzle on a half teaspoon’s worth.
  • Real-life photos. Maybe someday I’ll have award-winning food photography skills, but in the meantime, my pictures will represent what home cooking is really like.
  • No drama writing! Don’t you hate trying to find the recipe in a blogger’s post that’s cluttered with paragraphs about what their great aunt’s neighbor’s dog’s reaction was to the smell of bacon? Me too. Ain’t happening here.
  • Love and respect for our food. It’s one of God’s greatest gifts to us.

Getting a little more personal …

Family selfie

Family is everything. I’m wife of over 30 years (gulp!) to a cool-headed operator and mother of two young men who make us very proud. (Whew, we ended up saving for college instead of bail! Thank God!) I was an Army wife for 24 years and am now an Army mom.  Our family knows the meaning of service and sacrifice.

Donna with dog

The furry half of “family is everything.” This is Radja, our Belgian Malinois. He’s a retired explosives detector who served in Afghanistan for 8 years and who is, by far, the most spoiled member of the family. He likes his eggs scrambled and his venison rare.

Eighteenth century bread baking

My husband and I are French & Indian War living historians.  Weird hobby to some, but fascinating and fun. I have done a tremendous amount of cooking outdoors over an open fire in all kinds of weather. 

I’m a prolific gardener so that means that from May to September you can usually find me in my vegetable, herb or flower beds wearing a cheap hat and grimy overalls, singing off-key. I’m pretty sure my neighbors have never seen me in presentable clothing.

With hunters in my family, we’re often blessed with venison and pheasant.  I enjoy cooking with these pristine, all-natural proteins and perhaps can enlighten a few folks as to what the heck to do with that deer lurking in their freezers.

The recipes on my site are a conglomeration of decades of cooking. Some are my own originals, some are from family & friends, some are from books and other sites. I will always credit the source where possible. Please credit me with the use of the recipes here and ask for permission for use of photos. Muwaah.

Site header design by Abby Diamond @finchfight

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Photo of Donna

Hello and welcome!  I’m Donna, a classically trained chef whose first culinary love is cooking for my family and second is helping you cook for yours. Let’s make something tasty together!

Get to know me here…

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