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Six Years of Sarah’s Cucina Bella

Today is a milestone for my blog: Six years since I started publishing it. I hoped it would help me redefine my journalism career, but I had no idea that it would propel me into this amazing niche where I write recipes professionally, take photographs and live and breathe food. I feel so blessed.

This year I would love to hear from you — my wonderful, kind readers who make me smile with every comment. Come out of the woodwork today and share a little or a lot about how long you’ve been reading, what your favorite posts are and who you are. I’d really love to hear from you all!

But what’s a blog birthday post without a little reminiscing? Let’s do it in food. It’s totally the best way, right?

Here are some of the recipe highlights of the last six years:

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries -For years, these have been a runaway favorite here — and with good reason. The seasoning combination of cinnamon and paprika give these fries incredible flavor that compliments the natural sweetness of the sweet potatoes.

Easy Daikon Salad – I love trying new ingredients, which is what I thought I was doing when I started playing with daikon radish — until I tasted it and realized I’d been eating it for years without knowing what it was called. Crazy, right? But the big upside is that I ended up this recipe for a sweet-savory and refreshing salad that is such a treat. It really celebrates the lovely daikon radish.

Garlic Scape Carbonara – Carbonara is a classic Italian pasta dish that I adore. It’s what I default to when I can’t decide what to make. In this version, I added seasonal garlic scapes for a delicious twist that caught the eye of Saveur Magazine. The result was a creamy pasta dish full of a gentle garlic flavor and delicious bacon.

Homemade Ketchup Recipe

Homemade Ketchup – Making your own condiments is easy and economical. This recipe for ketchup is a flavorful condiment that’s awesome on fries, burgers or whatever else you use ketchup on. After making this, I started rethinking all of our condiments too.

Whole Wheat Biscuits – The number one comment I’ve received about this post is that my layering method for creating light, fluffy and flaky biscuits really works. I swear, when you have these whole wheat biscuits, it’s practically life-changing.

Thank you so much for reading my blog! Here’s to many more years to come.

Sonya

Friday 11th of November 2011

Congratulations on your blogging anniversary!

I'm not sure if I missed it or it just didn't stand out because my family members are Heinz addicts, but thanks for highlighting the ketchup recipe. Now that we have to avoid corn I've been trying to recreate their favorite but haven't hit on a recipe they like yet. I'll give this one a shot!

sarah

Friday 11th of November 2011

Thanks, Sonya. Hope you love it!

Kalyn

Thursday 10th of November 2011

Congratulations on six years! I remember the first time you entered WHB all those years ago. For me it's been especially fun seeing glimpses of Wil and Paige in the kitchen with you.

sarah

Friday 11th of November 2011

Kalyn, I have been working a bit in the archives cleaning up old code and whatnot and it's amazing to see how small Will was when I started blogging. And I will never forget how you called me out on being pregnant before I had really told anyone. Thank you so much for all your kind words through the years.

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry)

Thursday 10th of November 2011

Congratulations on six years of blogging! What a tremendous achievement. It's not easy to keep a food blog going for that long. Thanks for all of the recipes you've shared. We all look forward to many more.

sarah

Friday 11th of November 2011

Thank you, Lydia!

Kate

Thursday 10th of November 2011

I'm going to have to try those sweet potato fries. I always go spicy instead of sweet.

sarah

Friday 11th of November 2011

Kate, sweet potato fries are our favorite thing. I'd love to hear how you make them!