Devour The Works of Sacramento Food Bloggers

If you’re trying to live a healthy lifestyle while living in Sacramento, you’re in a great location for culinary inspiration. Not only is the city located in northern California – home to lush valleys and a Mediterranean climate known for creating exceptional produce – but it also fosters a tight-knit community of talented food bloggers. Plus, Sacramento is located in the state of California, whose city of Berkeley birthed the sustainable foods movement during the 1970s.

Below is a list of entertaining, mouth-watering Sacramento-based recipe blogs. These bloggers encourage home cooks to use local, whole, often organic foods, and while some recipes may favor the fat-and-calorie-conscious, some recipes are downright cholesterol-laden.  Consider yourself warned (and hopefully hungry).

Regardless of your dietary preference, for Sacramento residents, finding the ingredients for these recipes involves visiting your local grocery store or one of the area farmers markets. If you’ve never visited a farmers market, in this economy it is worth considering, since locally grown produce, low overhead and generic packaging will usually save you money. Go grocery shopping at Sunday Farmer’s Market near Southside Park, the farmers market at Country Club Plaza, Certified California Grown Farmers Market near City Plaza Park, Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op on Alhambra Boulevard or Oto’s Marketplace – which isn’t technically a farmer’s market – on Freeport Boulevard.

When you taste the food inspired by the blogs listed below, created in your own Sacramento apartment kitchen, you probably won’t even think about calories. Bon appétit!

Simply Recipes

What it Is

This food blog written by Elise Bauer is one of the top-visited sites of its kind in the world and is updated a few times per week. The whole-foods recipes are passed down from family members, created in Bauer’s kitchen or modified from cookbooks, magazines and newspaper clippings Bauer and her family collected over the past 30 years.

Why it’s Delicious

 Simply Recipes offers recipes in a variety of cuisines, from French to Chinese to Californian to authentic Mexican, in user-friendly categories such as vegetarian, budget friendly, low carb and by course. You won’t find any canned soup dishes on this blog, but the recipes are astonishingly easy to recreate. The pictures of each dish, some of which show step-by-step instructions, are texturally rich and simply gorgeous.

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

What it Is

 A true man’s man, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook creator Hank Shaw is a former line cook, fisherman and clam digger. His blog focuses on “honest food,” usually in the form of wild game, cured meats, unusual seafood and slightly untamed vegetables.

Why it’s Delicious

Shaw hunts for his meat or purchases it from cruelty-free, local farms, and he offers his tips on how to do the same. Because most of his recipes focus on locally caught or harvested foods, the ingredients are usually inexpensive. Plus, his experience with catching fish makes him an expert in how to cook it, so rest assured that innovative recipes featuring common fish, such as salmon, tilapia, tuna and halibut, are in abundance.

Vanilla Garlic

What it Is

 Vanilla Garlic began as a restaurant review site, and after creator and food writer Garrett McCord began posting a few original cupcake recipes, the site became one of the most popular cupcake sites on the Web. Also included are his recipes – mostly original – for cookies, muffins, candies, desserts and brownies.

Why it’s Delicious

Unabashedly honest McCord put the spice in Vanilla Garlic, both with his straightforward language and his creative cupcake combinations, such as kumquats, cinnamon and allspice; semolina sponge cupcakes with citrus syrup and coconut; and tomato soup cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Plus, McCord lists other noteworthy Sacramento food blogs in the right-hand navigation bar on every page of his site.

Poor Girl Eats Well

What it Is

 Poor Girl Eats Well is a food journal that serves up delicious, whole-food, good-for-you recipes for bargain-basement prices. Blog creator Kimberly Alexandria, the daughter of a former restaurant manager, breaks down the price point by serving and shows you multiple ways to use one package of vegetables.

Why it’s Delicious

Man, can this girl stretch a dime. Her fresh uses for leftovers and sheer determination to relentlessly scour the food store aisles for a bargain are genius. Don’t miss the $25 Shopping Cart posts, where Alexandria fills up her shopping cart at various Sacramento grocery stores – including the oft-expensive Whole Foods – for $25, and suggests multiple meals utilizing those ingredients.