About Me

Welcome! My name is Jami and I’m so glad you’ve found my little corner of the internet at An Oregon Cottage!

What will you find here?

My hope is that every recipe and article provides you with inspiration, knowledge, and the confidence to live your own simple homemade life! That’s the most important thing I want you to come away with after a visit – to have the confidence and ability to do the things you want, and not just another recipe for your file.

What does the tagline “simple homemade life” mean?

Well, first off it’s definitely NOT doing all.the.things! At it’s core a simple homemade life is choosing to live more simply and intentionally by reducing things, wants, and outside commitments in order to have more freedom, more time, and more purpose. It’s also about going back to basics by making as much as we can of what we use, working with the earth and our hands, like our grandparents and great grandparents.

So a simple homemade life looks like:

• A slower lifestyle: where you make time to wander the garden with a cup of coffee, clip flowers for the house, and spend a few minutes putting them in a vase.
• Simple foods: where you can enjoy the flavors of the in-season asparagus or beans that you grilled or roasted along with chicken in a simple sauce.
• Prioritizing people: sitting on the porch or around a table with the people you love takes priority over busy work.
• Doing things that bring joy: a night of knitting (or any craft/hobby), reading, or hosting a family game night.
• Making a home: where you live in a space that brings you joy and welcomes others in anytime.

Basically, choosing to slow down and make things easier will have a ripple effect on all areas of your life – your daily tasks, finances, cooking, cleaning, and how you spend your days!

“I love your recipes. They have three things in common pretty much all the time: Simple, delicious, & on the healthy side.”

More About Jami

I am a former special ed preschool teacher, wife to Brian – my funny and easygoing other half who you can see in many videos on our You Tube channel – and a mother to a sweet daughter and awesome son, both young adults now (eek!). We had a lovely dog, Samson, and now enjoy a spirited Maltese mix, Jynx (little dogs really ARE different!).

I grew up baking and cooking but it was when I started a family and grew a garden that I learned about preserving and eating vegetable-heavy foods that use in season produce. Which then led to a lot more healthier food choices and the difference eating real foods can make (with an occasional Kettle brand Salt-and-Pepper chip thrown in!). The teacher in me LOVES to share what I’ve learned and what’s made a difference in my life.

We live in a semi-rural area in the central Willamette Valley of Oregon where we slowly changed our 1982 ranch house into a farmhouse-style cottage before selling it in late 2016 and finding an old 1900 farmhouse to revive in 2018.

In addition to the website, I have written a number of cookbooks after many readers asked for them! They include Freezing Produce the Easy Way, Real Food Recipes for Weight Loss, Vegetable Gardening The Easy Way, and more that you can find in my shop here.

“I have only been “consuming” internet material since 2012 and your blog/website was one of the first I read, and more importantly it’s the ONLY one I’ve stuck with over the years. I have made several of your recipes and always refer to “my friend in Oregon” as the place the recipes come from. One of my current favorite reads from you is your Good Things list.“

About An Oregon Cottage

I started An Oregon Cottage in February of 2009 as a way to share EASY recipes, frugal tips, garden successes (and failures!), remodeling adventures and the joys of a simple life – always from the mindset of what I would’ve wanted to know when I was first starting our family and raising our kids.

Over the years, the site has become a business (!) and evolved into a Food & Garden blog emphasizing three main areas:

• Simple, real food – for real families with real lives
• Organic gardening – the simple, easy way
• Preserving – quick and easy ways to enjoy the season’s bounty throughout the year

Ready to explore ways to live your own simple, homemade life?

Here are some places to start:

• Recipe Index – Index of all my recipes.
• Pantry Basics – Probably my favorite -simple recipes for pantry staples like ketchup, mayo, and chocolate syrup (and yes, that’s a staple in our house!)
• Vegetable Gardening 101, with an emphasis on e.a.s.y.

“Aside from a couple news-type subscriptions, yours is the only one on “real life” that I keep. I read every communication, and use several of your recipes on a regular basis.”

I’d also love to hear from you! Feel free to email me at: jami@anoregoncottage.com. Also be sure to follow me on You Tube, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook – I love to connect with readers any way possible!