Lehi People
New cookbook brings restaurant favorites to your kitchen
Favorite Family Recipes (FFR) started in 2007 as a blog for a few siblings to archive favorite recipes from their mom and other relatives. Over the last 17 years, it’s grown into a must-follow business sharing recipes ranging from mom’s favorites to restaurant copycats and so much more.
“My mom had this recipe box. She is an excellent cook and made fabulous dinners and desserts the whole time we were growing up, so we constantly called her to get recipes. My two youngest sisters had the idea, ‘Let’s start putting all of her recipes online, and then we all have access to them all the time,’” shared Echo Blickenstaff, the oldest sibling of the FFR team and a Utah County local.
Blickenstaff runs FFR alongside sisters Emily Walker and Erica Walker. The blog also includes contributions from their sister Elise, their brother Devin and Echo’s daughter Kelsey. About five years after running the blog for family members, they realized their reach was starting to move beyond just relatives.
“We noticed that people started coming and leaving comments outside of the family. The first one that really shook me was a comment from somebody in Denmark. They had seen one of our Danish recipes and had written, ‘Oh, I love this recipe, and this is how we do it in our family,’ and it was just so exciting,” shared Blickenstaff. “I remember, for some reason, the number 60. I saw 60 people coming to see these recipes and leave comments. We knew there weren’t that many people in our family, so we decided to turn it into a business.”
Two million Facebook followers and three cookbooks later, FFR firmly believes that cooking brings people together.
“A lot of motivation for what we do is sharing the importance of cooking for your family and how it brings your family together,” Blickenstaff said. “That was very important to my mom when we were growing up. When my dad came home from work, we all sat down, had dinner, and discussed what happened that day. I wish I could say that there was never a fight or an argument; of course, there were things like that, but it gave us an opportunity to connect every day.
“I think in a world where everything is online, and we’re in front of screens constantly, it’s so important to have that time,” she continued. “Whether it’s with a spouse, with a group of friends or with a family with children, it’s important to have that human connection, and food does that for us. It brings us together. We all want to eat, we all need to eat every day, and having that time and home-cooked food brings a time where you can connect with other people. We’ve tried to do that with our families, and now my children are having children, and I know they’ll carry that tradition on in their homes. Yes, it takes time, yes, it takes more effort, but the benefits are 100% worth it.”
FFR has an extensive collection of “copycat” recipes. They started out when Erica Walker moved from Utah to Washington state—no longer living a short jog from Cafe Rio’s sweet pork (when Cafe Rio was a Utah-only establishment). She created a way to make it herself so she could have it when she pleased. When the sisters realized they had created a dead-on replica, they decided to try some more restaurant-inspired recipes.
Their third cookbook, “Most Requested Copycat Dishes: 101 Homemade Versions of Your Favorite Restaurant Recipes,” was published on Oct. 1. It covers some dishes that are tried and true for Utah natives, like Cafe Rio’s creamy tomatillo dressing and Cafe Zupas’ Nuts About Berries salad, along with favorite drive-thru meals like Wendy’s chili and Arby’s beef and cheddar sandwich, and even Disneyland legends like the churro and the jalapeño cheese-filled pretzel.
Though they have a hard time choosing, each sister has a favorite recipe (or two) found in the cookbook. Blickenstaff’s favorites are Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscano and Nothing Bundt Cakes’ chocolate chocolate chip cake; Donovan’s favorite is the Carnival Cruise Lines’ chocolate melting cake; Emily’s is Outback Steakhouse’s Alice Springs chicken; and Erica’s is Torchy’s Tacos’ queso.
All these recipes and many more can be found in their newest cookbook and their ever-popular website, favfamilyrecipes.com. One portion of the book even includes tips to help you duplicate your own restaurant favorites, which are not covered by FFR.
“Achieving the perfect copycat recipe might take time. Don’t rush the process. Enjoy the journey of experimentation and improvement,” shared Erica Walker as part of Shadow Mountain Publishing’s recent press release. “Don’t expect 100% accuracy all the time. Restaurants wouldn’t stay in business very long if their recipes were easy to replicate. … One day, you will hit the nail on the head and call all your friends to announce the new recipe you created (well, duplicated). Happy cooking!”
“Most Requested Copycat Dishes” can be purchased from Deseret Book in stores, online, or on Amazon. For more information about Favorite Family Recipes, visit their website, Instagram or Facebook page.
