About

About Marla

• I grew up in NY (Long Island) and now live in Southern California.
• My favorite place on earth is Telluride, Colorado. Winter, Spring, Summer & Fall.
• Love to ski, surf & be active at all times, all seasons.
• Proud mom to two kids (a boy & a girl) that keep me really busy.
• Unless otherwise noted I shoot and style all of the photographs on this blog.
• I love food. Cooking it, eating it, styling it, photographing it. My life is all about the next bite.
• It is very important to me to eat the highest quality, all natural, healthy foods.
• I am type A with a wake-up time of 4am. This way I can get many things done and out of the way before sunrise.
• Love art, design & photography. When I see something beautiful I get cold chills and very excited.
• Love coffee. Piping hot dark espresso roast capped with the perfect crema.
• After attending Syracuse University, I freelanced as a graphic/textile designer for Disney, Scholastic, Warner Bros. and other fun companies.
• I say what I mean & mean what I say.
• Live on social media including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon and Instagram
• Travel thrills me for business & pleasure. Lately I should just leave my suitcases packed as life is go, go, go!
• Family Fresh Cooking is my *happy place*  Love that I can take it anywhere I go.
• Life + Work = Fun. I love keeping busy at all times.
• Mindful living is my mantra in everything I do.

Mission

Family Fresh Cooking is meant to inspire a lifestyle. My mission is for my family to stay fit and strong both mentally and physically. Daily we have multiple opportunities to decide what food to eat. Certain foods make us feel great, while others destroy our moods and energy levels. Whole food ingredients and mindful eating behaviors allow us to live healthy, happy lives. The most important thing is to never feel deprived, as food is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Some goals with this blog are:

• To help you create ideas, heighten awareness and have fun with daily meal planning.
• To have all ingredients healthy, fresh, and clean using as much organic and sustainable ingredients we can find.
• To focus on mindful eating and portion control to keep us looking and feeling our best.
• To encourage you to eat 6 small meals a day. This way you can keep energy levels high and avoid energy crashes and “pig-outs.”
• To help enlighten and demystify the home cooking experience. My mission is to keep it real, healthy and delicious.
• Share alternatives to refined sugars. Most of my recipes are sugar free.
• To add recipes, healthy tips, and techniques that work for me and the family as often as possible. The recipes will be my own creations, if adaptations from others are used they will be cited.
• To provide resources that can provide us with a wealth of information and keep us on track. References will include magazines, other blogs, websites, cookbooks and other inspirational material.
• To make you smile with pretty pictures of food that encourage you to cook up my recipes.
• For this blog to serve as an exchange of ideas, I will share ideas and then you guys can post your comments. Together we can craft tools, tricks and techniques to stay fit and well fed.

Creative Thinking

Bringing out the flavors in natural foods does not take much effort at all. Great ingredients speak for themselves. I want my foods to have dynamic flavors. I love taking traditional recipes and adding unique ingredient twists to make them more fun. Real homemade food simply tastes better then anything pre-packaged and processed. Why have a plain bowl of oatmeal when you can have healthy, loaded with flavor Pumpkin Flax Coconut Oatmeal or Saffron Pear Baked Oatmeal? Add a little something special to asparagus with a hint of flavorful spices and cheese in Roasted Asparagus with Gruyére and Smoked Paprika?

See my post 10 Secrets to Skinny for more inspiration.

We also always pack our lunches at home, see my Project Lunch Box for more on that.

The Testers

My kids and husband are my recipe testers.  It is so cool to watch my kids become little foodies. I enjoy providing them with clean, healthy adventurous foods.  Kids are so often given bland, fatty, salty, sugary, lazy over processed “foods.”   People think that is all they will eat.  In this house I prove that theory wrong time and time again.  My kids are doing it….they are eating the real good stuff, whole foods, the way it should be.

Please Note
Use your own judgement or the advice of your doctor to decide which ingredients and products are appropriate for you and you family. Family Fresh Cooking does not accept any responsibility for injury sustained as a result of following the advice or suggestions contained within the content of this blog.