My Aunty Recipes

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About Us

Welcome to My Aunty Recipes! We are dedicated to sharing reliable, thoroughly tested, and deeply comforting family recipes that bring people together around the dinner table. Every dish on this site is grounded in real culinary experience, cherished family traditions, and foolproof home-cooking techniques.

Meet Nicole Lopez: Founder & Lead Recipe Developer

Hello! I'm Nicole Lopez, the founder, head cook, and recipe developer behind My Aunty Recipes. Cooking has been the centerpiece of my life for over twenty years. What began as a childhood fascination in a busy family kitchen has grown into a lifelong mission: creating approachable, restaurant-worthy meals that any home cook can make with confidence.

My culinary education combines hands-on home cooking heritage with formal culinary coursework in pastry foundations, knife skills, food safety, and savory flavor building. Over the past fifteen years, I have tested, written, and refined hundreds of recipes—from quick 25-minute one-pan weeknight dinners to slow-simmered Sunday soups and bakery-quality holiday bakes.

Our Origin: The Story Behind "My Aunty Recipes"

The name My Aunty Recipes is a tribute to the woman who first taught me to hold a wooden spoon: my Aunt Sarah. Aunt Sarah was the culinary heart of our family. Her home kitchen was always filled with the hum of conversation, the warmth of a preheated oven, and the comforting aroma of toasted spices and browned butter.

When Aunt Sarah passed down her grease-stained, handwritten recipe binder—filled with dog-eared index cards, margin notes, and family favorites—I made it my mission to preserve and modernize those timeless flavors for today's busy households. That handwritten binder remains the guiding soul of everything we publish here.

A Defining Cooking Memory That Sticks Out: The Candlelit Storm Sunday Braise

If you ask me which single food experience permanently cemented my passion for cooking, it wasn't a fancy meal at a three-star restaurant. It was a stormy November Sunday afternoon when a sudden autumn gale knocked out the power across our entire neighborhood. While most families scrambled for takeout, Aunt Sarah calmly struck a match, lit a row of beeswax candles along the kitchen windowsill, pulled her heavy vintage Dutch oven from the bottom pantry, and smiled knowingly: 'The greatest food in the world happens when you slow down and let gentle heat do the talking.'

By the golden flicker of candlelight, she seared a thick beef chuck roast in rendered butter until a deep, crackling mahogany crust formed on every edge, perfuming the whole house with caramelized savory aromas, crushed black peppercorns, and fresh garden rosemary. As torrential rain drummed hard against the window glass, she tossed in rustic chunks of carrots, sweet yellow onions, and celery, deglazed the pan with rich homemade bone broth, and slid the pot over the steady blue flame of our gas stovetop to simmer undisturbed for four slow hours.

When she finally lifted the heavy lid, the beef was so tender it yielded to the soft press of a fork, resting in a mirror-glossy reduction that coated the back of a spoon. We sat around the kitchen table draped in cozy knitted wool blankets, passing around warm toasted bread to swipe up every drop of that velvety pan gravy. In that quiet, candlelit room, the storm outside ceased to matter. That evening taught me that cooking is everyday alchemy: taking modest, affordable supermarket ingredients, treating them with unhurried patience, and transforming an ordinary cold day into an enduring sanctuary of warmth, comfort, and togetherness. Every single comfort recipe I develop for My Aunty Recipes is created to deliver that exact same feeling to your home dinner table.

The My Aunty Recipes Kitchen Standard

There is nothing more frustrating than spending time and hard-earned money on groceries only for a recipe to fail. That is why every recipe on My Aunty Recipes adheres to our strict kitchen testing protocol:

  • Multiple Test Rounds: Each recipe is prepared and cooked in our home kitchen a minimum of 2 to 3 times before publication to verify flavor balance, texture, and repeatable results.
  • Real Home Equipment: We test recipes using standard consumer appliances—conventional gas and electric ovens, standard stovetops, basic Dutch ovens, cast iron skillets, and common air fryers—so your results mirror ours.
  • Accessible Ingredients: We prioritize wholesome, everyday ingredients available at standard supermarkets. When specialty items are used, we always provide accessible supermarket swaps.
  • Dual Measurements: To support cooks worldwide, we provide both standard US volume measurements (cups, tablespoons) and precise metric weights (grams) for baking accuracy.
  • USDA Food Safety Adherence: All meat, poultry, and seafood cooking guides specify safe minimum internal temperatures (measured with an instant-read thermometer) in accordance with USDA safety guidelines.

Editorial Standards & AI Transparency Policy

At My Aunty Recipes, transparency and editorial integrity are paramount. We believe our readers deserve to know exactly how our content is created, tested, and reviewed:

1. 100% Human Recipe Development & Kitchen Testing:
Every single recipe concept, flavor combination, cooking method, and ingredient ratio is originated, cooked, and tasted by real human recipe developers in a physical kitchen. We never use artificial intelligence to generate blind, untested recipes or food instructions.

2. Responsible Use of AI as an Editorial Assistant:
Like modern newsrooms and publishers, our editorial team utilizes artificial intelligence software as a productivity tool. Specifically, AI tools assist us with:

  • Proofreading text for grammatical clarity and mobile readability.
  • Standardizing recipe schema markup so our recipes display clearly in search engines and recipe card readers.
  • Cross-referencing USDA FoodData Central databases to generate preliminary nutritional estimates and Daily Value (% DV) calculations.
  • Organizing reader search queries to identify the questions home cooks ask most frequently about specific cooking techniques.

3. Human Review & Culinary Fact-Checking:
Every draft, nutrition estimate, cooking time, and technique tip undergoes meticulous human review, fact-checking, and editorial approval before going live. If a digital tool suggests a calculation, our culinary team independently verifies it against culinary science and real cooking times.

4. Ongoing Updates & Reader Feedback:
Cooking is an evolving conversation. We actively monitor reader feedback, comments, and seasonal questions. Recipes are routinely re-tested and updated with additional tips, ingredient substitutions, and troubleshooting advice to ensure maximum success in your kitchen.

Connect With Us

We love hearing from our community of home cooks! Whether you have a question about a recipe substitution, want to share a photo of your finished meal, or simply want to say hello, here is how you can connect with us:

Publisher & Corporate Entity

My Aunty Recipes is owned and operated by ZOLD LLC, an independent digital media publishing company committed to quality culinary and lifestyle content.

Corporate Headquarters:
ZOLD LLC
30 N Gould St Ste N
Sheridan, WY 82801, United States

Operating Editorial Office:
5424 NE 105th Ave
Portland, OR 97220, United States
Inquiries: contact@myauntyrecipes.com