The Idea
I couldn’t make up my mind on what to make for dinner. That’s how this all started. Somehow this is related to being male. And I want to argue against that but… I feel like that’s a trap.
We also rarely ever order takeout at our house and we never go out to eat. We cook everything at home. So for me personally, I needed some recipe ideas. And they needed to be at a glance. Fresh ideas, someone give them to me now. I’ll pick one and make it for dinner… boom.
But there really isn’t anything like that, the web for recipe ideas is just a rabbit hole.
We kept rotating the same ten meals for dinner over and over. And every time I wanted to branch out it was way too much hassle for the results. And the lack of appreciation… let’s not even go there. So, I decided to make a digital recipe book for our house.
Phase One: Phone Apps
There are some really good apps out there that can easily make this a reality. I actually started out using RecipeBook and the Recipe Keeper apps for iPhone and Windows 10.
The idea is awesome at first but for some reason it just doesn’t work out that well. Not everyone in your house wants to download those apps. Then you have to share the recipes with them between phones, or let everyone just look at it on your phone to decide if that’s what they want for dinner… etc.
I needed something that everyone is already familiar with and they don’t have to put any effort into. Which is part of what I wanted initially. It should be easy to gather ideas for dinner, not hard.
And no more having to read everything for a recipe. Sometimes you only have time to watch a quick video, if that even exists. In comes my YouTube idea.
Phase Two: YouTube
I scratched the app idea and moved to YouTube to make a family recipe book. But I soon discovered after making the channel that making the videos was a LOT of work.
As an artist on the side also, I was never going to be okay with something that didn’t look good.
One thing led to the next, and before I knew it I had created exactly what I wanted for myself in the first place. What’s more, I had put so much work into just the first five videos, I felt that this could be something that I should share with everyone.
Bringing It All Together
The goal was to create a channel geared towards giving at-home cooks an array of recipe ideas at a glance. Realistic ideas, with short videos. Ingredients can be found at any grocery store or Walmart. And the food is the star of this show. No Instagram models necessary.
That’s what Traver Recipes turned into. Simple, effective, and in the end happy!
All of my recipes are on my YouTube Channel. Feel free to make and share any of the recipes you see there. As an amateur home cook I’d also love to know what you would change, so drop me a comment and let me know what you think! And if you have any requests let me know!
Best of wishes, Derek Traver – Author and editor of Traver Recipes.
Traver Recipes 