In this episode, I am joined by cookbook author and founder of the popular recipe blog Half Baked Harvest, Tieghan Gerard. After spending her early years in the kitchen with her parents, she was inspired to create her own blog to bring easy, delicious, and healthy recipes into the homes of people across the world. She gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to develop a recipe, how long a recipe should actually take to cook to keep our attention, and spills her top tips for getting the perfect, social media-worthy food pic. Plus, we discuss the pros and cons of social media and how anyone can cultivate having healthy boundaries - even as a content creator!

The recipes you’ll find on Half Baked Harvest are inspired by the people and places Tieghan loves most. She come from a family of ten, and a big family means BIG meals. In an effort to tame some of their mealtime chaos and get dinner on the table at a respectable hour, she began to help cook. She soon realized how much she enjoyed it, and before she knew it, she had taken over cooking their meals full-time. She captured the process in photos and documented her best recipes, and that’s how Half Baked Harvest was born.

Tieghan spent the first 14 years of her life in Cleveland, Ohio until her family moved to the very snowy mountains of Colorado. She now live in a converted horse barn and work out of a studio barn that she built next door. It is a special place that she was able to design entirely around my lifestyle. It’s where she shot her third cookbook, and where she spends her days experimenting with new recipes, photographing her creations, feeding her family, and making one giant mess in the process. Her hope is to inspire a love for food in others, as well as the courage to try something new!

Since starting her blog in 2012 she has since been featured on The Cooking Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Crate & Barrel, Shape Magazine, Self Magazine, the Huffington Post, and PopSugar, among others. Half Baked Harvest was named Readers’ Choice Favorite Food Blog by Better Homes and Gardens in both 2014 and 2016. It was also the recipient of Saveur Magazine’s 2016 Award for Most Inspired Weeknight Dinners as well as the 2016 Bloglovin’ Best Food Blog Award.

A few of my favorite things we cover this episode:

• The inspiration and origins behind her infamous blog, Half-Baked Harvest.
• Insight into her fourth cookbook, coming in Fall 2024.
• Her specific process of recipe development and creation.
• The number one recipe of hers to make (hint: tacos!).
• Exactly how to take a Half Baked Harvest-worthy photo for social media.
• Some of her most disastrous moments in the kitchen.
• Controversial recipes she’s created and her secrets for tuning out the noise.
• How to create healthy boundaries with social media.
• Why confidence is key for content creators.
• A sneak peek into the Half Baked Harvest products launching soon and other areas of her career that she’s most excited about.

Links to things we talked about in this episode:

• Half Baked Harvest
• CleanSimpleEats.com code WILLCOLE for 20% off your first order
• Drinkkarma.com/willcole code willcole for 15% off your first order
• Nutrafol.com/scalp code WILLCOLE for $10 off your first scalp care order
• zbiotics.com/willcole code WILLCOLE for 15% off your first order
• Talkspace.com/abw for $80 off your first month

Happy listening and we hope you learned a little bit more about the art of being well!

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In health,

Dr. Will Cole