Welcome!

Welcome to Heritage and Home, the food and drink section of Tempe Tempest, with a focus on comfort food and heritage recipes. Every recipe posted here has gluten-free, soy-free and dairy-free options. All recipes posted here get kitchen-tested numerous times to ensure that ingredients taste and perform as expected. If you substitute shiny or light-colored metal pans in a recipe that calls for glass cookware, add 25 degrees to the recommended cooking temperature. A recipe designed to cook in a glass pan at 350 degrees F needs to cook at 375 F in a metal pan, for example. If you have questions about a recipe or any ingredient or technique used in it, please comment below or feel free to email me.

My professional cooking expertise ends just slightly past the prep cook level. I worked in a beach concession for a year selling festival fare, and have prepared community meals for 75 to 100 people while working at an adult day program. The community meals were developed to accommodate the needs of people on low-sugar, low-fat and low-sodium diets, and to allow people with various physical differences to participate fully in planning, preparing and serving the meal.

I follow USDA recommendations for safe food handling in all my community-meal recipes. I use the USDA recommended cooking times and minimum internal temperatures for pork, beef, chicken, lamb, seafood, eggs, and wild game. I also use recommendations from the American Culinary Federation, the Institute of Food Technologists, and the Research Chefs Association when making and using marinades.

I use separate cutting boards for meat and vegetables. I sanitize all surfaces, cookware and serving ware that comes in contact with raw meat, seafood or eggs before placing cooked food on or in them. I cook vegan and gluten-free options separately from standard or meat-based recipes. Although I do not keep a kosher or halal kitchen, I do use recipes from religious heritages and do my best to acknowledge and follow the restrictions that requires, including posting links to noted chefs from that particular religious background.

I look forward to hearing from you about your own kitchen adventures, and encourage you to post feedback on the recipes I provide here.