Hi, I am Coeby, the creator of the Wholesome and Happy recipes and blog. I am the mother of two young boys who keep me busy. When life gets crazy you will most likely find me in my kitchen ignoring all my other responsibilities. My two boys are always close by, sticking their fingers into dough or banging pots and pans on the floor. Continue reading to learn more about me…
History of my kitchen
I have always loved being in the kitchen. Growing up I frequently volunteered to make dinner, in order to get out of my school work. While I was in college, my weekends were often filled with cooking and baking. I would do this while video calling my family and they would joke that they were watching “Cooking with Coeby.”
Since I’ve been married, and started a family, coming up with new dinners in my kitchen has brought me a lot of joy. I love cooking for my husband who says his favorite food is a 1000 way tie between every thing he has ever eaten. My husband is always impressed by the successful dinners that I make without a recipe at hand. eventually he started to encourage me to write down the things that I cooked, so that I could replicate them in the future.
I toyed with the idea of starting a blog for a for a few years. After several friends starting asking me for recipes to the foods that I would share with them I decided it was time. For a year I started writing down the things I would cook in the kitchen, and began putting together a blog. In January 2024 I launched Wholesome and Happy as a place to share the things I was doing in my kitchen. To learn more about why I launched my blog read Creating Wholesome and Happy.
My food philosophy
Although I hate to admit it now, I was a pretty picky eater growing up. I came from a family full of them. My mother was great at making sure our family always had a dinner to gather around every evening, but whether we ate it or not was our own choice. When we sat down to eat dinner, the meat was usually my favorite part of the meal, and I would often pick around the other food to get to it. I didn’t think dinner would be complete with out a health portion of meat. My mom always made sure we had a vegetable on the table, but it was usually a side that I often chose not to eat. It was also far from unusual for our dinners to come out of a box because, my mom, unlike me, preferred to spend as little time as possible on the kitchen. Since moving away from home, meeting my husband, and starting to cook dinners for my own children my ideas about food have changed almost entirely.
Resourceful
My mom frequently says she follows the cheap food diet. growing up, our home’s pantry was stocked with mark downs and the freezers were full of day old bread. Because of this when I moved out, looking for discounted food was often the way that I shopped. I learned to use the ingredients that I found on sale to decide what I was cooking that week. As I continued to go to school studying community health, I began to be a little more contentious of the nutrition, and not just the price of the food I was eating. I still get a lot of joy from finding good deals at my local grocery store, but am learning to be more selective about what I choose to buy. Still, the inspiration for my meals usually come from what I find marked down in the produce section of the grocery store. Check out this post to learn about how you can meal plan resourcefully
Plant focused
As a child, our meals usually consisted of a meat, and grain or starch, with a side of vegetables. I often favored the meat in these meals, and left the vegetables on the side of my plate forgotten. I have since come to appreciate not only the nutrition, but also the flavors that vegetables bring to the meals I create when they are fully incorporated. One of the biggest reasons that I started to eat more plant focused meals is for the nutritional benefits. You may have heard the recommendation to make half of your plate vegetables. When I first heard this I thought it an outlandish suggestion. This was because I was used to having my vegetables as a side rather than a true part of my meals. I discovered that when you incorporate vegetables, rather than just having them as a side, eating half a plate of vegetables is not only feasible but also delicious.
from scratch cooking
It has always intrigued me to find ways to cook food that you would normally buy at a store or a restaurant at home. From the time I was young I have always loved making things like cookies and cinnamon rolls from scratch. I continue to love baking sweets from scratch, but I have also learned to make so much more. Using the most basic of ingredients I make things like bagels, tortillas, and yogurt, all from home. I also dabble in making home made cheese. I am only in the beginning of my journey of learning to make my favorite things at home. Step by step, I hope to one day eliminate my need for processed food entirely. Read this article to learn more about my “from scratch” journey and how you too can learn to cook from scratch.
Life outside the Kitchen
My home and Family
Me and my husband Dana met in 2018 while going to school at Utah State University. We lived in the same apartment complex, and went to church together. But if you ask him, he remembers seeing me first, behind the counter at the local restaurant I worked at. I was taking his order with my hair pulled back in a ponytail and my restaurant baseball cap on my head. Dana didn’t ask me out until several months later, then we dated on and off for just over a year. We got married, In June of 2020, and a year later welcomed our first son into our family. Our family currently lives in a town home in Cache valley (northern Utah.) We love the area and hope we never have to leave.
Schooling
Growing up I was home-schooled and that has given me a passion for making every day activities into learning experiences for my kids. I went to college at Utah State and graduated in 2021. I got a double major in Community health and Communication studies. Although I don’t frequently have opportunities to use my degrees in a formal setting, I enjoy finding ways to use the things I learned in my daily life as a mother, and member of my community.
Hobbies
As a mother I spend most of my time with my children, and I love it that way! I enjoy taking them on walks to the park and letting them explore. I like sewing especially when I can think of something useful to make. On weekends when the weather is nice, our family likes to go on bike rides, hikes, or go to the neighborhood pool. When we have time away from the kids, me and my husband enjoy mountain biking and cross country skiing. My favorite season is winter, I love the snow. I cannot wait until my boys are old enough to help me build their first snow man.
Dreams
- designing and building my own home
- living on enough land to have a cow and learning to make all my cheese from scratch
- running a sprint triathlon
- becoming a motivational speaker
Dislikes
- chocolate
- emptying the dishwasher