About Me

       My name is Autumn Christiansen, I am a wife and mother of three beautiful and very active children; ages 4, 3 and 1. When my children allow me some time to myself, my passion is experimenting in the kitchen. I love, love, love to cook, and baking brings me particular joy (and much to my husbands dismay, an increasing waistline for him). I am a very adventurous eater and am always searching for new and exciting recipes. I love finding and creating recipes that test my skills to the ultimate degree, but I also love when I find or create a recipe that totally and completely simplifies my life and puts healthy food on the table when I’m in a time crunch; so this blog is a compilation of both. I also am an avid coupon-user and deal-seeker so you will often find tips to cutting costs in recipes and menu plans on my blog.
Another thing that brings me great satisfaction in life is building my family’s food supply. In April 2008 my husband was layed off from work and we were left with learning how to survive on what we had in our savings account and our home food storage. I became an even more creative cook, learning how to prepare even more economical meals than I was already doing at the time. Our home food storage was something we relied very heavily on during the 19 month layoff. In September 2010 my husband was finally able to find work and in October our third child was born. It was with somewhat lifted spirits and a severely depleted food supply that I found myself at a friend’s home learning about some incredible food products. Thus began my new adventure as an independent consultant with a company called “Shelf Reliance”.
Shelf Reliance offers a line of home food storage products called “THRIVE”. These products taste incredible, simplify my life by shortening dinner prep. time when I’m hurrying to throw a meal together, and save me treacherous trips to the grocery store with three children in tow because everything is shipped straight to my door through an innovative program called the "THRIVE Q". For someone who is so hopelessly obsessed with food and everything related to food, I was absolutely amazed to find such fantastic-tasting, high-quality products coming out of a can. THRIVE products are now a part of my every day cooking and I have made it my mission to teach others about the importance of having their own “home store” of products that are a part of their every day, and on hand for those unexpected life’s crisis (even if that crisis is needing to have dinner on the table in 10 minutes flat).
Having to eat from my “home store” of food was something I never really expected I’d have to do, but was eternally grateful to have it when the need arose. Preparation for those unexpected times of need is so totally key to “grinning and bearing it” through life’s trials. If there is anything I can do to help you with your preparation goals, please let me know.
In the mean-time, join me in falling in love with cooking!