Hi, I’m Eileen!
I’m so glad you found me here. The Good Enough Kitchen is a site where I hope to help you become the good cook I know you can be – because if I can do it, so can you!
Good cooking isn’t some kind of magic or a skill that is gifted to a select few. Like everything else, it is the product of patience and lots of practice. The recipes here were created with the true beginner in mind. My food is simple but tastes great and looks…good enough. Ha ha. Nothing super elaborate here, just food you will be happy to eat and will be proud to serve to friends and family.
The mission of The Good Enough Kitchen is to take the pressure off in the kitchen and to help you see just how simple good cooking can be. I love the internet, but looking at the amazing kitchen creations on IG and Pinterest can definitely make anyone feel like a bit of a loser. My goal here is to let you know that with patience and practice, you can start creating meals that will have you deleting your takeout apps.
You Can Do This!
Like most people, my cooking was definitely NOT GOOD, when I started. Cooking was my first Girl Scout badge and I was a disaster every step of the way. In fact, my strongest memory of the process was pouring the water out of a spaghetti pot and resting my arms on the heated bottom.
In spite of the many injuries and messes, with practice I learned that I absolutely loved cooking – especially baking. I am a super homebody by nature and creating meals became an important part of creating a cozy space. There are few things that make me happier than baking up some chocolate chip cookies on a rainy Sunday and sharing them with my family.
Today, with almost 50 years of experience, I still cut and burn myself, still drop things on the floor, and still create a general mess in the kitchen, but my creations are consistently really good and, at least as of late, I have learned to make them look good as well.
So don’t worry if you are clueless in the kitchen; you can do this! I don’t come from a long line of cooks and bakers, but I still figured it out. And between my job as a teacher in NYC and the 3-hour roundtrip commute, I also understand what it means to be pressed for time (and to be exhausted). You can still do this!
Also…
I don’t love eating. I definitely like making food more than ingesting it.
I have unusual likes and dislikes. I dislike pancakes and French fries, but I love cottage cheese and uncooked vegetables. I don’t like coffee, but love anything coffee-flavored.
My childhood food memories are weird. The only thing I remember my paternal grandmother “cooking” for me and my brother was bologna on white toast with mayonnaise and lettuce. My maternal grandmother made me “ice cream sodas” using diet coffee soda and vanilla “ice milk.” I found all of those things to be delicious.
My cooking is generally “healthyish” especially as I get older, if not for me, than to make sure my husband stays the super fit and healthy person he is today. That said, we are not above eating pizza or Twizzlers – just not at the same time.
