About Me

Hi, my name is Katie Jasiewicz…

I’m the author and owner of Katie’s Cucina. A busy mom of two children who loves to feed her family delicious meals that don’t take hours to cook! My mission is to create easy-to-make modern comfort food for the busy family!

A little bit about me…

I’ve always had a love for cooking, and more so over the past two decades… eating! My real love for cooking began when I was 9 years old. My dad was deployed to the Gulf War and my mom worked part time out of the home. We had a babysitter a few nights each week. I was tired of eating microwave dinners night after night, and started experimenting in the kitchen.

I remember craving breakfast potatoes one evening. Me being the ripe old age of 9 I decided to make them. I remembered watching my mother fry them in a pan—how hard could it be? I diced up a potato and started frying the raw pieces of diced potato in a pan. Little did I realize that you can’t fry raw potatoes (well you can, but you need to have a decent amount of oil/butter and a lid to soften them up). I was disappointed after they were “done” cooking. They were still crunchy raw potatoes. Not the melt-in-your-mouth potatoes that my mom would make.

After that, my mom started giving me basic cooking lessons. By age 10 I was cooking for my younger brother, our babysitter, and myself. At the time, my meals consisted of shake-n-bake chicken, canned veggies, with homemade mashed potatoes. Yes, I was making mashed potatoes from scratch. That was one thing that my mom never made from a box. She felt that mashed potatoes should never come out of a package. I never knew about instant potatoes until I was able to drive and shop for myself!

From there, I read cookbooks and magazines and kept experimenting in the kitchen. My dad has told me before that I’ve surpassed my mother’s cooking (but he’d never say that to her)!

Female with brown hair and blue tank top in kitchen slicing potatoes into a green pot.

So there you have it.

No professional culinary training. I’m a home cook that has refined my skills over time. Before I had children I would take 1-2 cooking class each year to challenge myself and learn new skills. Now, that I have kids I’ve sadly stopped attending cooking class. Maybe one day I’ll go to culinary school?

Home life…

Mother and 2 children eating toaster oven english muffin pizzas over kitchen counter.

Some will say that I married my high school sweetheart. Others disagree. My husband, Jon and I dated once in high school, but thanks to high school politics that didn’t work out. Right after we graduated high school we began dating and 6 years later we were married. We had a “5 year plan” and chose to wait to start a family. We bought a home and did our fair share of traveling.

My husband and I both went to Rollins College. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Organizational Communications. I spent 9 years practicing corporate Marketing for a national education publishing company. I was unhappy with my job for many years, but hung on to it for the people I was surrounded with and the benefits.

Katie’s Cucina started picking up steam in 2012/2013 and that’s when I realized I could make this my full time job. I worked hard over those years to make this blog of mine, my full time job. The ultimate end goal was for me to stay at home and raise a family.

I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in March of 2014. I left my corporate Marketing job in June 2014 to take care of my son and have been self employed since then. After a complicated pregnancy and birth I thought I was done having kiddos. Something was pulling on my heart strings and I knew I needed just one more child. My sweet Reagan was born in February of 2017.

My full time blogging days halted to a very part time status. Now that I’ve been blogging for a decade, so much has changed. I’ve started ramping up my time spent on the blog to catch up to all the changing technology and most importantly my amazing audience!

How did Katie’s Cucina start?

Six months after getting married I was in need of filling my extra time with something new. I’ve always been a busy-body. If you know me, sitting around is not my style. Time after time I had friends and family asking me for recipes. One of my co-workers encouraged me to start a food blog, and thanks to her push this now 10 year endeavor/career was started! At the time I started Katie’s Cucina as a hobby. A way to share recipes with the people I care about.

Little did I ever know that Katie’s Cucina would grow from a hobby to a full blown business! I never thought I would be an entrepreneur and own my own business. I remember people always telling me when I was younger to do what you love. I never fully understood that until I was miserable in corporate America.

I’m living the American dream… blogging allowed me to stay at home and raise a family while still earning an income and ultimately truly doing what I love to do!

Featured On

Over the past ten years I’ve been featured in print, television, and on the web among a variety of different popular brands and media outlets.

You can find me part of Martha’s Circle (as in THE Martha Stewart).

Some of the Buzz Feed post I’ve been featured on:

I’ve also been featured on Country Living, Huffington Post, The Today Show, Red Book Magazine, Edible Arrangements, and Woman’s Day to name a few.

I was a recipe contributor to Food Fanatic from February 2013 – February 2020. I shared one pot meals which I have grown to love over the years. It’s definitely a reoccurring theme here on Katie’s Cucina!

I’ve was the the recipe contributor for the Nonahood News from March 2016 – October 2021. This is my local community newspaper where I shared a seasonal recipe intertwined with information about what is going on in our community. Food related, of course.

Read my interview with Orlando Voyager Magazine, May 2021.

Before I had kids I started doing morning television segments. I absolutely loved doing them, but holy cow so much prep work! I made my TV premier on the Nationally Syndicated morning show “The Daily Buzz”. After that segment I filmed another Nationally Syndicated recipe segment for Life, Love, Shopping. Followed by a recipe segment for my local Fox 35.

New to Katie’s Cucina?

If your new to Katie’s Cucina I hope you’ll stay a little while and feel comfortable visiting whenever you want.

If my about page didn’t answer your questions check out my FAQs page.
If your looking for a specific kind of recipe you can check out the recipe index tab.
If you like to travel check out my travel tab. I share a variety of travel post from restaurant reviews to vacation reviews.
Are you a brand or PR professional looking to work with me? Feel free to email me at Katie@KatiesCucina.com
You can receive every blog post via email. I also send out a free weekly newsletter that gives meal planning tips and insight into what might be happening on the blog. Feel free to sign-up here.

If you have questions or just want to keep in touch feel free to follow me on social media; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram. Make sure you sign up for my free weekly newsletter. You can always email me at: Katie@KatiesCucina.com