We are Donna and Anne (the D & A), a reunited birth mother & daughter food blogging team – formerly known as Fab Frugal Food. On our new Apron Strings blog, we share recipes, memories, and stories of our reconnecting through our shared love of food and cooking.
We reunited in 1999 and started cooking together, making up for lost time. We eventually found we liked working together so much that we co-authored a cookbook, “101 Things To Do With Tofu”, published by Gibbs Smith. Then, in 2009, anxious to work together again, we created the blog Fab Frugal Food.
We’ve loved this blogging experience, and have learned so much along the way, but have decided to take the leap to grow beyond our original frugal cooking concept, and start to share more of ourselves.
Join us as we start to tell our stories, one recipe at a time. And bring a fork.
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Donna Kelly is a dedicated food enthusiast and has spent 35 years developing her cooking skills, combining practical everyday cooking experience with some professional training at a Culinary Institute of America Boot Camp, the Santa Fe School of Cooking, and at other cooking schools. She considers every recipe a challenge- and she remakes it with gourmet flair while still being affordable and accessible to the average home cook.
Donna is the author of several published cookbooks: 101 Things to do with a Tortilla; 101 Things to do with Chicken; 101 Things to do with a Toaster Oven; French Toast: Sweet and Savory Dishes for Every Meal; and Quesadillas, all published by Gibbs Smith Publisher.
Donna has been a repeat guest on Martha Stewart’s Sirius Satellite Radio Show Everyday Food. She is a regular guest on morning television shows Good Things Utah and Studio 5 in Salt Lake City. Donna won a national recipe contest in Cooking Light Magazine’s Ultimate Reader Recipe Contest. Her recipe was “Lemon Raspberry Dessert Nachos,†which was published in Cooking Light Magazine in the January/February 2009 issue. Donna’s “Sesame Shrimp Scampi” recipe was featured in the August 2009 issue of Cooking Light magazine.
Donna’s day job is as a prosecutor, primarily handling Special Victim’s cases since 1990. She and her very patient husband Jim began their eternal honeymoon in 1977 and are the parents of four fabulous children.
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Anne Tegtmeier has spent most of her life as a modern dancer. After growing up in Colorado, she graduated magna cum laude from the Boston Conservatory, where she received her BFA in dance. Since 2001 she has also worked as a licensed massage therapist. Anne has spent many years as a vegetarian and is a passionate amateur cook. Her vegetarian chili recipe from “101 Things To Do With Tofu” was a finalist on the first season of Food Network’s Ultimate Recipe Showdown (she came in second in her category). She gave birth to her first child, Lily, in April 2008. Inspired by this, she became a doula and is now attending Birthingway College of Midwifery’s lactation consultant program. She also writes the advocacy blog Dou-la-la.
You can contact Donna or Anne at ourapronstrings[at]gmail[dot]com.
Great Blog! I just shared one of your recipes on my site at CouponTerri.com. Check it out and learn how to save money on all your recipe ingredients with coupons and sales.
What’s better than One Pot Pasta? CHEAPER One Pot Pasta!
I just wanted to stop by and say, hello :-)
Today, I posted one of your recipes on my blog (Hi-Pro-Tatoes) and one of my readers (http://barbarabakes.com) told me about your blog … How exciting!
I subscribed to your blog feed and can’t wait to see what your next post will be!
I am intrigued by the recipe for eggs in avacado halves. The link does not work…can you help?
I intrigued by the recipe for eggs in avacado halves. The link does not work…can you help?
Thanks for the delicious and beautiful lunch today. I enjoyed it so much last year too. I am the one who was sitting on the end of the table near the food and asked if you were the chef. I came right home and have been enjoying your site! You are just amazing.
Thank you so much Brenda! Food is my therapy!!!
Thank you. I’m supposed to cook for my new vegan girlfriend this week and have absolutely no idea what to make! I found tons of recipes at this vegetarian recipes site but with soo many to choose from I just got confused. Do you have any recommendations, like .. the tastiest vegetarian recipe, ever, or something?! Thanks in advance! I hope it goes well
I love your blog.
It’s very interesting and clear. I found you in google and I’ll for sure come back to check for new fresh posts. Keep blogging like this, if more people shared this kind of great information, the net would be much better
Thanks Victoria! We’ll definitely keep ‘em coming.
LOVE THE RECIPES!
Please keep them coming..
My only disappointment is that there isn’t more!!!
New website looks … Fabulous! (there was no other adjective)
Thanks Nancy! We hope you come back often!
Hello,
I recently came across your blog and I really appreciate your food and photography! I am currently working on expanding a user generated food database called Recipes Wiki and am looking for some dedicated food bloggers to post their recipes. I was wondering if you would be interested in participating by adding a few of your favorite recipes to the site. Of course, all of your recipes would include a link back to your blog and will be attributed to you. This is a great opportunity to promote your site to a diverse foodie audience. Recipes Wiki gets an average of 310K monthly uniques and we expect that to grow tremendously after our official launch in February. Our goal is to engage all food lovers to work together to create a comprehensive food database that is community driven and free to the public. If this is something you are interested in please let me know. I hope to hear from you!
Thanks,
Kim
P.S. Feel free to peruse the site at http://www.recipes.wikia.com but remember that we are not finished making it look pretty yet :)
Great blog Anne. Super impressed. Who does your food photography? Super high production value, the whole site actually. Applause applause. xx Lisa
Congratulations on the great blog Anne. Who does your food photography it’s really high production value- the whole site actually. Applause applause. xx Lisa