Everyday Southwest

About US

By admin published on February 5, 2009 in Uncategorized

The Everyday Southwest bloggers are a team of sisters – Donna Kelly and Sandy Hoopes – born and raised in Southern Arizona. They have chile peppers in their blood! When the rest of American children were eating peanut butter and jelly, Donna and Sandy were eating bean burros for lunch!  They love to cook the foods of the American southwest, and  traditional American fare with a southwest twist.

Come along with us on our southwestern culinary adventures!

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Donna is a dedicated food enthusiast and has spent 30 years developing her cooking skills, combining practical everyday cooking experience with some professional training at a Culinary Institute of America Boot Camp, the Santa Fe School of Cooking, and at other cooking schools. She considers every recipe a challenge- and she remakes it with gourmet flair while still being affordable and accessible to the average home cook.

Donna is the author of five published cookbooks: 101 Things to do with a Tortilla; 101 Things to do with Chicken; 101 Things to do with Canned Soup; and French Toast: Sweet and Savory Dishes for Every Meal; all published by Gibbs Smith Publisher. Donna has one book soon to be published: Quesadillas. She has also finished another two books, 101 Things to do with a Toaster Oven, and 100 Appetizers for under Five Dollars, both of which will be published in 2010.

Donna has been a repeat guest on Martha Stewart’s Sirius Satellite Radio Show Everyday Food. She is a regular guest on morning television shows Good Things Utah and Studio 5 in Salt Lake City. Donna won a national recipe contest in Cooking Light Magazine’s Ultimate Reader Recipe Contest. Her recipe was “Lemon Raspberry Fruit Nachos,” which was published in Cooking Light Magazine in the January/February 2009 issue. Donna’s “Sesame Shrimp Scampi” recipe was featured in the August 2009 issue of Cooking Light magazine.

Donna’s day job is as a prosecutor, primarily handling Special Victim’s cases since 1990. She and her very patient husband Jim began their eternal honeymoon in 1977 and are the parents of four fabulous children.

Sandy is an Arizona “lifer.”  She has built her family and raised two sons  in the Arizona desert.  Sandy spent a decade as a stay at home mom before entering her second favorite profession, Elementary Education.  Recently, Sandy has returned to school and is working toward degrees in both Journalism and  Culinary Arts.  She has already earned her pastry certificate and will complete her culinary degree in 2010.  For fun, Sandy enjoys cooking classes with great Southwest chefs such as Robert McGrath, Mark Tarbell and Silvana Esparza as well as taking cooking vacations to the Culinary Institute of America’s Boot Camp and the Santa Fe School of Cooking.  Sandy uses the skills she has learned to cook for the men in her life and make family meals something to really come home for.

Sandy is also the Lifestyle Editor for the Paradise Valley Community College news paper. She hopes to combine both degrees to become a food writer.  Thus, achieving her ultimate dream job; a job with a chair.