Meet Lesa Roemke - our 2010 summer recipe competition winner
“I am a stay-at-home mom living in Middleville, Michigan. I have two daughters; Carolena is 2 1/2, and Eva is 3 months. My husband, Jim, is a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He is the pastor of a small church here in Middleville. “I started getting into cooking after I got done with grad school, about two years into my marriage. I watched a lot of cooking shows on TV, and started experimenting with different recipes and ingredients. We lived in Texas at the time, and the produce there was amazing year-round. (I didn't really realize how great the year-round produce there was until after we moved back to the Midwest!). While I have never been an artistic person, I found that cooking was a great way to express my creativity. There are so many ways you can change a recipe to make it really fit your personality and tastes. I really believe that cooking is an excellent form of personal expression. “Even though our town is tiny, it has a wonderful farmers' market from May to October. My husband, daughters, and I love to walk down there every Friday morning. We often buy sweet corn, zucchini, onions, shallots, garlic, yellow squash, and freshly picked berries. Michigan is known for its fruit, and the cherries grown around here are the best. “I am a collector of recipes. I have a large binder full of recipes that I have tried and liked, but I am always searching for new recipes. I plan out my family's meals one month at a time, and I usually plan 10-15 new recipes each month. I guess you could say that I get bored easily! I started a blog about 3 years ago, where I post recipes that I have tried. I almost always include pictures of the final dish, which is something readers really like. I post the recipe and how I changed it from the original, because it never fails that there is at least one thing about a recipe that I would change the next time I make it. “I am not a big fan of traditional lasagne, but my husband and I love Mexican food, so I thought I would try a Mexican lasagne. Since we love Mexican food so much, I am always trying to come up with new things to make, other than the standard taco night. Now, you may be thinking, "Zucchini in a Mexican lasagne? Weird!" It wasn't part of the original recipe that I came up with, but the second time I made it, I had a zucchini in the fridge that really needed to be used that day. And I was trying to figure out some way to incorporate a vegetable into this dish, so I thought, what the heck? I love the flavor of zucchini and I thought it might work in here. And I think it did. When Jim first saw that it had zucchini in it, he thought it was weird, but then when he tasted it, he liked it. I use ground turkey, but obviously you can use ground beef if you wish. I am just trying to use more ground turkey lately for health reasons and in this dish you can't tell a difference at all. “My inspiration for cooking really is my family. Cooking and trying new recipes would be so boring if there was no one to taste it! I love it when my husband yells from the living room, "I don't know what you're making, but it sure does smell good!" The measure of success for any recipe is whether or not my husband liked it (with bonus points if my two-year-old did!) No matter how much I like a recipe, it's no fun to make or serve if the rest of my family doesn't like it. Whenever I have family coming to visit for a couple of days, the first thing I do is figure out what dishes I am going to make them when they are here. “Thank you so much for choosing me as the winner of your contest. When I announced on Facebook that I had won a recipe contest, lots of people asked for the winning recipe, and several commented saying that they made it and loved it and want to pass it along to their other friends. That's awesome! (Pictured above – Lesa and Eva in August 2010) Click here for Lesa’s winning recipe.
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