The Naptime Chef

HELLO FRIENDS! I know, I know, it’s been a minute. What can I say, life sped up and it got too hard for me to maintain a food blog while doing everything else with my family and other business interests. I needed to explore life beyond this world and I’m glad I did because it paid off in spades. To put this into context, my very first post on this website was January 6th, 2009. That’s almost 16 years ago!

I started this blog in 2009 as a way of helping people and writing about a topic I love: food as a way of enjoying life. However, as I blogged and traveled over the next decade it got harder and harder for me to square this mission with the values of the blogging-turned-influencing world. The race to follower count, the rampant consumerism, the blatant plagiarism, it was going against everything I wanted to spend my time doing. This is why I decided to take a break and reevaluate.

Come join me at my table…

Since then, I started a successful life coaching business and have enjoyed every second of it. I’ve also been deep in the world of growing children and all that entails. I’d say the biggest lesson that came out of this journey away from blogging and back again is how much I love to help people live their best lives. In the case of The Naptime Chef, I love to be here helping you make good food and have fun in the kitchen. It’s as simple as that. I still love my coaching work and will never give that up, but in this space I can be your coach in the kitchen. Spoiler alert: your food will be delicious and life’s going to work out. I know this to be true.

As for the product side, yes I’ll always tell you about kitchen equipment and books I love if I truly love them. But I’m not going to sell for the sake of selling or encourage the crazy “hauls” of stuff I don’t think you need. I prefer curation to consumption in my own life and want to focus on that here as well. There’s a lot to be said for keeping life simple and enjoyable!

When it comes to feeding your family, you can easily live a wonderful life and cook fantastic dishes with straightforward ingredients. I still cook almost every day and am happy put our favorite meals on repeat because it makes sense. We love the dishes, I know how to cook them well, and every time they get just a little better. I think we all appreciate a mixture of novelty and comfort at mealtimes.

I hope you’ll join me on this new, revised journey with The Naptime Chef website + newsletter. I still have so much love for this world and I’m sharing it with you as a way of helping us all build lives we love. xxKelsey

Are you ready for the best snack board assembly instruction ever? I’ve got you covered!!!

Are you ready for a One Pan Roast Chicken with Rosemary Potatoes? I’m am! Let me explain…As I’ve shared a lot recently, the past few years have been a journey. One of the brightest spots along the way has been my involvement with Gatherer Entertainment. I’ve talked a bit about it before, but it’s a production company focused on content for women 35+. Given that I’m in that group now it really speaks to me – I definitely look for different internet content than millenials! 

To that end, a couple years ago Jenna and I worked together to develop a show that speaks to parents about cooking. It’s all about cooking smarter, not harder and making delicious food for your family. Here’s the first episode and stay tuned because I’ll be rolling out all of them over the next several weeks! Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could get this viral so we could get the attention of some networks/platforms who’d like to order more episodes? I’m game to film more if that’s what you want! 

So, enjoy the show and thanks as always for your support. Let’s do this, 2019! xxKelsey

Hello! I’ve been popping into The Naptime Chef Facebook page a lot recently to say Hi in person. This is all new to me because Facebook LIVE didn’t exist when I first started this page way back when. I know, I know, I sound super old when I say that. Anyway, I really just love the more personal interaction with all of you. I’ve been having fun getting into video again and this is a great way to do it without being crazy formal!

So, today I stopped in to talk about the cookbooks I’m currently drawing inspiration from. I always find this time of year a little tricky since it’s cold once day, and quite warm the next. I mean, what’s a cook to do? In the end I usually employ my VERY unscientific method of selecting books by scanning my ROYGBIV bookshelves and pulling the books that speak to me at that moment.

I really focus on the ones that contain the healthy/hearty fare. I’m not quite ready for gazpacho and grilled shrimp yet! At this point in the year a good salad, a pan of roast chicken, and a chilled glass of rosé sounds perfect. I also happen to me semi-training for my first half-marathon on June 2nd. I have got to get on the stick about that, and that includes eating nourishing foods while I train.

Here are the books I selected above. I highly recommend them if you are looking for some new seasonal inspiration!

Food52: A New Way to Dinner : This awesome playbook-style cookbook is lovely to read and the recipes are spot on. It truly provides ALL the tips in tricks for getting one grocery haul and making it into several delicious meals over the course of the week. I also love that the chapters are organized by season. 

I’m so, so excited to share this author interview because I absolutely adore this book! I’m also thrilled to share these fun photos from the book signing in Darien the other day. They the coolest women, just as they sound in the book, and we had a blast. Do you want to win a copy? If so, be sure to sign up for my newsletter and the exclusive giveaway! 😉

The book signing was at Kirby & Company in Darien, Ct.

It’s such a beautiful store and they really went with the rainbow theme of the book!

We are stretching boundaries of Cookbook Club this month for an interview with Clea and Joanna of The Home Edit: A Guide to Organizing and Realizing Your House Goals. I LOVE this book for sooo many reasons – it speaks directly to my organized Virgo heart! To be honest my favorite sections are the pantry and cookbook shelves sections because they obviously are incredibly relevant to me, but I swear this whole volume is amazing and is worth adding to your collection.

TSLN) The Home Edit is a goldmine of organizing advice! How long did it take you develop your organization style?

THE) Thank you! We’re so excited to finally be able to share it with everyone. Although we’re both extremely organized people, we come from different backgrounds. Clea worked in the fashion industry and went to art school, so her approach is very aesthetic-driven. Joanna comes from a traditional organization background, so that’s where a lot of the functionality comes in. From the start, our differences help us work really well together and it’s also been the reason THE signature style is what it is today. It’s definitely a collaboration!

TLSN) What is the most common organizing problem you encounter and how do you solve it? And, to add to that, do we all honestly have to start decanting our spices?!

THE) Too many items and not enough space. It’s why purging the items you no longer want or need is so important. If not, then you are essentially shuffling clutter back and forth— which is not organizing! Basically, we solve the space by viewing it completely empty. It’s the only way to properly decide on storage solutions that will fit the space and make items more accessible. Often times, it comes down to getting creative by maximizing vertical or floor space that was otherwise ignored.

You don’t have to do anything. Our rule of thumb is that organization isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. Storage solutions need to fit someone’s lifestyle and space measurements, or else people won’t maintain it. We love storing our spices in glass jars because it saves space and we can’t resist a good ROYGBIV moment. However, some people prefer to keep spices in their original packaging and use a turntable as an accessible solution.

TLSN) What’s the wildest organizing job you’ve ever had to tackle? Spill it! 

THE) We’ve organized an ENTIRE 5,000 square foot house. Every closet, every drawer, every shelf, literally all of it. It took about three weeks to complete, but it looked AMAZING at the end! That’s one of the many things we love about our job—being able to see a space completely transform.

TLSN) What’s next for The Home Edit? I’d like to request a line of ROYGBIV storage containers and labels in perfect cursive, please!

We’re OFFICIALLY launching an NYC team in April, AND we’re so excited to finally share that we will be launching an exclusive collection of products we designed with iDesign, which will be available ONLY at The Container Store in May!”

I have to share this recipe for the Homemade Cinnamon Honey Peanut Butter from Uncle Will. He is a bit of a health champion and swears this is a great protein-heavy snack. It’s easy to make, tastes amazing, and is a delicious dip for fruit or vegetables, or spread on bread. I’ll admit, I’m not usually one for making homemade peanut butter but this is truly amazing!

When I first was given Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals by Lindsay-Jean Hard, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I like to think I’m good about not wasting too many food scraps. But did I want to start making banana bread with the peels? It turns out, YES! After making a couple of recipes and given this a thorough read through I can honestly say this is a wonderful book for even the most unsure. I promise, it really is about using those scraps we all find ourselves hold after a good vegetable chopping session. Things like beet greens, banana peels, apple cores and more are simply reused to flavorful results.

I’m super excited that Lindsay-Jean stopped by today to chat with us and giveaway a copy of her book!

TNC) This book is so inspired! What first interested you in work with food scraps?

LJH) Thank you! It started on some level when my husband and I were living in Japan. We joined a CSA for the first time, and it was really a period of discovery for me—leaning about new-to-me produce and how to cook it—and it also got me thinking more about where my food was coming from. Knowing that local farmers had grown all of the items in my box made me want to make sure I was honoring that time and effort by putting it all to good use.

Years later, when I was working at Food52.com, the editorial team was brainstorming new columns, and someone suggested one based on the “Garbage” chapter within Gabrielle Hamilton’s cookbook Prune. It struck a chord in me, and I all but insisted that I had to have that column—it was called, you guessed it, Cooking with Scraps. I would hunt through the recipe archives on Food52 for recipes making smart use of underutilized produce parts and other odds and ends, and feature those community members’ recipes (and a few of my own). I learned so much from fellow Food52-ers from that column that I really wanted to share that knowledge with a larger audience, and Cooking with Scraps, the cookbook, was born!

TNC) The banana peel cake is sooo interesting… whatever made you think to use the peels?

LJH) I don’t remember how I first learned that they are edible, but once I figured that out, it was enough for me to assume that they could be cooked, blended, and used like any other fruit purée in a baked good. My first thought was to use the peels in “banana” bread, but I didn’t already have a favorite banana bread recipe to use as a jumping off point, I did, however, know that my grandmother’s banana cake is perfection, so I decided to start there instead, and lo and behold, using banana skin purée in her recipe in place of bananas was an easy (and delicious) substitution.

TNC) Can you advise a cozy winter menu of recipes from the book?

LJH) Right now I’d love to warm up with a bowl of Brothy Beans with Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Rind with a Crispy Breadcrumb Fried Egg on top, and a Vanilla Pod Brandy Hot Toddy to sip on.

TNC) What food scrap do you think will surprise people the most as being flavorful and fun?

LJH) I think banana peels are definitely the most surprising, but second place might go to spent coffee grounds. They still hold a lot of flavor, more than enough to lend their roasty goodness to dishes savory and sweet. In the book, I used them to add texture and flavor to a nut butter, and on Food52, I use them in a French Silk Pie, both directly in the crust with chocolate cookie crumbs, and also to infuse flavor into the whipped cream topping.

TNC) What’s next for your food scrap recipes? There is so much more to do with this and the food sustainability movement!

LJH) Great question! So far I’ve had suggestions for follow up books—Scrappy Cocktails (self-explanatory) and Cooking with Scrappy (scrap-focused recipes for dogs, the person who suggested it has a dog named Scrappy). Both good options, but I’m still open to other ideas. 🙂