Hello, and welcome, to Chef Joe’s Kitchen.  I am Joe Chavez and I am a retired Chef with over 30 years of experience working in fine dining restaurants, hotels and healthcare kitchens.  I first started out washing dishes at a pizza place in South Lake Tahoe when I was 16 years old.  I eventually worked my way up to prep cook, pizza cook, then making the pasta dinners.  I have worked in many places in my career, but it was this pizza place that sparked my passion for culinary knowledge.  I went to Culinary school and eventually became an Executive Chef, but I never forgot where it all started.  I use a lot of my professional cooking experience in organizing and preparing meals for my family and I want to bring some of that experience to you.   

I am now retired and went from cooking for around a thousand people a day to five.  My wife is a nurse at a major medical facility and I am a stay at home Dad to our two school aged kids.  I have an awesome Mother-In-Law and she joins us for dinner.  In my kitchen, I have a dry erase board that I plan out my dinner menus for the week and I try to stick to it as close as possible.  It sure makes things a lot easier not having to figure out what to feed my family an hour before dinner.  I also buy our meats in bulk at Costco and portion it out in vacuum seal bags to freeze.  Having the menu board allows me to look at the ingredients I will need before I go to the store.  I also have an app on my phone that lets me keep a grocery list, so any ingredients I need, go into the phone app.  Oh yeah, on the bottom of my menu board, my kids like to keep track of who has to clear three plates and who has to clear only two!  Yup, it’s a big deal to them!  But, whatever works for them, as long as the table gets cleared and the dishes rinsed!  At the ages of 8 and 9, they are starting to learn how to cook some things, although, my daughter is more interested and likes helping cook stuff.  My son likes to make pizza, but the rest of it, he is like “meh”!  

I have compiled recipes that are some of my family’s favorites.  During the weeknight, due to various after school activities, I try to have easier, less complicated, recipes.  During the weekends, I have time for more time consuming recipes, like braising and smoking.  If you want to up your cooking game, try using some good bases to make stocks and demi glace.  In restaurants, they have time and manpower to make these from scratch.  At home, I don’t have the time to do that, so I have been using Minor’s bases with great results.

I started a small Facebook Group that is quite successful, locally, which focuses on everyday meals being cooked at home.  I have had many people ask for recipes that I have compiled over the years and thought it would be cool to have videos to accompany those recipes.  So, with the help of my wife, we started making recipe video shorts, how-to videos and kitchen tips and tricks.  I hope you enjoy my site and have some awesome takeaways that you can incorporate into cooking for your family every day.

Remember, food tastes best when it’s simple and fresh!