Let’s Love to Cook with Larson Folkerts
She might be one of my most favorite people ever. A sweet friend of mine, our kids godmother, and a former employee of Moore House Interiors, who was called to the life of being a stay at home momma after having her sweet little boy, Hayes in 2020. I’m so excited to introduce Larson Folkerts to yall & her newest adventure, Let’s Love to Cook & A Month of Dinner. If you’ve been around, you’ve seen me share about A Month of Dinner on social media. I absolutely love the concept & heart behind why Larson started this, as well as the recipes. I own all of her booklets & we use her recipes weekly—they are all kid & husband approved in my house! Let’s dive in!
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Hi! I’m Larson Folkerts, I’m a 20-something wife and a mother to two young children under 3 years old. We live on land in the country outside of Houston. I love to cook and learned how to cook from my mom and grandmother, who are both incredible cooks! I’m still learning how to cook alongside my mom whenever we are together, she is so talented with food! I’ve taken my passion for cooking and turned it into something I never in a million years expected to create in Let’s Love to Cook and A Month of Dinner.
Apart from cooking, I enjoy being with my family, being outside, hot coffee, taking care of our home and a nice glass of Dry Farm Wines in the evenings.
What made you decide to make these cookbooks & who are they geared towards?
In the beginning of 2023, I started sharing a lot of cooking content and recipes on social media. My DMs began to quickly blow up and messages quickly began coming in more and more. I showed my husband one day and he said I should come up with a book or something tangible for people so I created A Month of Dinner, Volume 1.
I want A Month of Dinner to be approachable for anyone! But the messages I was initially receiving (and continue to receive) were primarily from busy moms—mom’s of school-aged kids and mom’s around my age with newborn babies and toddlers. Families, newlyweds, empty-nesters, working professionals, students… People of all ages and stages of life are cooking from A Month of Dinner! I think they’re most helpful to moms, especially because the recipes are kid and husband friendly, but they’re easy, healthy, affordable weeknight recipes for anyone to cook. I believe that my generation and younger ones don’t really know how to cook like previous generations because they haven’t been taught how to cook, our culture pushes convenience for food and they feel they don’t have the time to do it. Many young mothers who have never been taught how to cook are finding A Month of Dinner helpful in making cooking approachable for them!
Tell us about A Month of Dinner because it is very different from a normal cookbook.
A Month of Dinner really is different than a regular cookbook! It’s essentially my “system” I use to plan meals on a weekly basis for my own family to save time and money while creating good, healthy food. A Month of Dinner features a month’s worth of dinner and dessert recipes, broken down into 4 weeks. Each week has 4 dinner recipes, a dessert recipe, a prewritten, pre-budgeted grocery list and “plan ahead” tips. There’s also a “pantry staples” list included as well. What’s unique about my “system,” is I use coordinated ingredients across recipes. For example, you buy a bag of carrots week one. I think many of us are familiar with buying a bag of carrots, you use a few for a recipe and then the bag sits in your refrigerator for weeks until you decide to throw it away. In A Month of Dinner, you use that bag of carrots in different recipes over 4 weeks so it doesn’t go to waste. If you use half an onion in a recipe Week One, I tell you how to use the other half in a different recipe. Everything is planned and coordinated which saves you so much money and time!
You can pick and choose recipes that look good to you or you can follow it as a guide from start to finish. The pre-made grocery lists aren’t brand-specific either! So you can use the list at Walmart or at Whole Foods and use whatever brands you like or quality you prefer (organic or not organic, gluten free or store brand). The recipes are accessible to anyone regardless of where they live or where they shop! I use simple, basic ingredients to create flavorful dinner recipes. Produce, protein, herbs, spices, grains and some dairy. No crazy expensive ingredients, no sauces that will be used once and forgotten about, nothing goes to waste.
Something I’m really passionate about is making cooking good food accessible to anyone. I love cookbooks and have many popular books that I think are beautiful! But I think popular food bloggers and cookbook authors have forgotten about the average American cook. To me, the average cook isn’t shopping at Central Market in a big city and doesn’t have time to spend 2 hours making dinner or taking pretty pictures or spending money on expensive, obscure ingredients. The average cook is a busy mom trying to get food on the table for her family, she wants it to be healthy but she wants it to be fast and she doesn’t care if it’s Whole30 approved or if it’s photogenic. No one is creating food for that person anymore but that person is cooking more than anyone else! Or a rural ranch wife, for example, who drives over an hour to the store once a week to stock up. She’s not going to find a lot of popular yet obscure ingredients so many cookbooks use nowadays, at her small town grocery store. I come from an agriculture background and know many of these women. They’re not going to be cooking from the latest hot cookbook because they can’t get half the ingredients required for the recipes!
What is your goal & mission behind creating A Month of Dinner?
I truly, from the bottom of my heart, just want to help people cook at home more. Big picture, I think it is a vital skill and crucial for the overall health of this country. Fast food is killing us. It’s expensive. It’s making people sick. Cooking REAL food at home in your own kitchen is beneficial in so many ways. Eating a home-cooked meal together at the table as a family has so many benefits, especially for children. There is so much love and joy in cooking food at home and I want to help others find that! I want to help people realize cooking doesn’t have to mean you’re making some “maple glazed crispy sriacha kale udon spiced chicken bowl.” “Meatballs” can be made in 30 minutes and taste gourmet with simple, affordable ingredients. Cooking has become so insanely complicated and it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to simplify it and help others see it can be enjoyable!
I get messages on a daily basis from people who say that they have discovered cooking can be fun and that cooking dinner at home is having positive impacts on their families. Those messages make me emotional and tearful! To know the power of food is working in the homes of others is incredible and that’s what my mission is all about. My brand or website or motto, whatever you want to call it, is ‘let’s love to cook’ and that is my mission summarized!
What are some of your family's favorite go-to recipes from Volumes 1 & 2?
From Volume 1, we love Chicken Pot Pie Pasta, Shrimp Scampi and I think I do the Flank Steak about every 10 days, it’s a go-to for us! From Volume 2, we enjoy the Sausage and Pepper Pasta, Beef Stir Fry and I love the Spicy Asian Grilled Chicken!
What are your must-have kitchen gadgets that you think everyone should have?
My personal must-haves are a Dutch oven, a garlic press, a glass measuring cup, a mini food processor or blender and basics like a whisk, a spatula and a wooden spoon. I think there’s a lot of “stuff” out there but you just need to keep it simple!
What are must-have pantry staples that you always have on hand?
You’ll find a full list of pantry staples in both volumes of A Month of Dinner! But some of my essentials are olive oil, soy sauce or coconut aminos, baking necessities (flour, sugar, baking soda), Sambal Oelek garlic chili paste, balsamic vinegar, honey and Dijon mustard!
You have Volumes 1 & 2, plus your Fall & Winter Collection out, what's next on the horizon for Let's Love to Cook?
I have Volume 3 of A Month of Dinner in the works! Planning to release it the first half of this year and I’m super excited about it. I feel like it might be the best one yet!! It will be the same format as the other two, with 4 weeks of meals, grocery lists, etc. I’m also going to include some lunch ideas and add extra instructions to all the recipes on how to modify for gluten-free and dairy-free, if needed. This volume will have the most recipes to date and they’re going to be my spin on cleaned-up family favorites! Doing things like Tex-Mex Enchiladas, Asian Lettuce Wraps with Peanut Sauce, Tuscan Chicken Pasta, Fish Tacos and lots more!
I’m a full-time mom and my family comes first above all else. I hope I can continue to grow Let’s Love to Cook and I’d love to do a collaboration or two the remainder of the year, but I’ve also turned down some opportunities because I know what my limits are and my family is my utmost priority. I’m not sure what’s ahead, I just know I’m really enjoying connecting with so many people and sharing recipes and cooking content. It could all completely fizzle out and that’s okay because I know people are learning how to love to cook and that’s what this is all about!
