The rise of Instagram-famous food bloggers didn’t skip Wichita.
Erin Clarke graduated from Kapaun Mount Carmel in 2004. She has gone on to amass millions of readers on her Well Plated blog and more than 400,000 followers on Instagram, where she shares easy, healthy recipes for home cooks.
Clarke now lives in Milwaukee but returned to Wichita this fall on a book tour for her second cookbook: “Well Plated Every Day.”
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I understand you grew up in Wichita. So tell me a little bit about how Wichita kind of influenced your interest in recipe development and your career.
I grew up on my grandmothers’ wonderful, classic, stick-to-your-ribs Midwestern cooking: you know, pot roast, macaroni and cheese, things like that. And so that just kind of love of comfort food combined with — I feel like in the Midwest, we have a great sense of practicality — and those two things have become really big influences on my cooking.
When I first got into cooking for myself, I found myself really missing my grandmothers’ recipes living away from home, so I started calling them to get the recipes. And they’re very indulgent, like classic food that your grandma makes that you love, and I wanted to see if I could find ways to make tweaks to make them more nutritious so that we could enjoy them more regularly.
(Editor’s note: Clarke’s grandmothers were Sondra Reber and Dorothy O’Neill.)
Like what?
One of my most popular recipes on my blog, and one of my husband’s favorites, is a homemade Hamburger Helper. And I hear from people all over the country that love this. Their kids love it. But it has a couple of little touches in it, like there’s a little bit of Dijon mustard, there’s a little bit of hot sauce, even though it’s not spicy. It makes it — and I know that this sounds like a hilarious word to apply to Hamburger Helper — but it makes it a little bit gourmet. It gives you that feeling of nostalgia that you grew up with, but it’s made with all simple, wholesome ingredients.
When you started your cooking journey and this blogging journey … where were you in the world?
I was actually in Madison, Wisconsin. … When I got married, my husband started law school. He’s from Wisconsin, and I found myself just in a job where I was really lacking creativity.
I was just so bored, and I really wanted a challenge. And one of my friends said, ‘Well, why don’t you start a blog?’ And I said, ‘What is a blog?’
So your business is really cool because it’s really ranging over media platforms. You have a blog, you have social media accounts. Now you have two cookbooks. So can you tell me … what are you excited for about this latest cookbook?
For me, this new cookbook is really reflective of where I am on my journey with Well Plated. So I started in this place where I was cooking in a teeny tiny kitchen on a budget, and I didn’t have a ton of time. I didn’t have a ton of money to spend on ingredients, but I still wanted to eat really well. And I started sharing those recipes, and they started gaining popularity.
Over the years, I have gotten better and better to the point that I am now proud to call myself, like, a professional recipe developer. My recipes are meticulously tested. They’re easy to follow, and I just feel like this — I’ve been writing recipes now for 13 plus years, and these are the best recipes I’ve ever written.
Tell me a little bit about recipe development. What’s your process like? How do you develop these recipes?
As I get into cooking it, I take notes along the way, and that’s kind of where some of the art comes back in again. I’ll taste it and be like, ‘Something isn’t quite right.’ Say there’s a soup, and I recognize that it’s missing a little pop of acid. I’ll ladle the soup into four different bowls. I’ll try one with lemon juice. I’ll try one with red wine vinegar. I’ll try one with white wine vinegar, one with balsamic. And I’ll kind of taste and decide, ‘OK, this is the one that I like the best.’
Your grandmas, who you said were so passionate about cooking, what do you think they would think if they knew that your business was cooking and recipe development, but it was all done through the internet?
Well, I’m lucky. My Grammy lived to see my business, and there was no one that was more proud of me. It was difficult for me to explain to her why I could not print off my entire blog to give her. But she subscribed to the emails; like they were very, very proud and also very excited when I would give them credit as it was rightfully due for their recipes, too. … You know, my Grammy’s lemon cream pie has hundreds of comments, and the fact that the internet made a way for so many people to enjoy her recipes is really, really cool.
A longer version of this interview originally aired on KMUW, Wichita’s public radio station.
Grammy’s Lemon Cream Pie
1 pie crust, homemade or store-bought
3 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 3 large lemons)
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
12 oz. full- or low-fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature
For the homemade whipped cream:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Fit crust into a 9-inch-wide pie plate. Line crust with aluminum foil or parchment paper, then fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until the edges begin to turn golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove foil/paper and weights and continue baking until bottom looks lightly golden and the edges have browned, about 5 to 8 additional minutes. Let cool completely.
Place heatproof bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water to create a double boiler. Add eggs into bowl and beat with hand mixer on medium speed until thick and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Slowly add sugar, then lemon juice and zest. Continue cooking over simmering water untilit forms a smooth custard, about 8 minutes. Let cool to almost room temperature.
In a large mixing bowl or standing mixer, beat cream cheese on medium-high speed until soft and smooth, about 3 full minutes. Reduce speed to medium, then gradually add lemon custard to the cream cheese until no white streaks remain. Pour the mixture into baked pastry shell and refrigerate until fully chilled.
To prepare whipped cream: In a large mixing bowl or standing mixer, beat cream at medium speed. When it starts to thicken, add powdered sugar and vanilla, increase speed to high and beat until soft peaks form. Spread over the chilled pie, slice and serve cold.
