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Hello and welcome to Breakfast and Brunch Recipes!

My name is Laura Warnke. I started this site in February of 2006 with a few boxes full of family recipes handed down from many generations, including both of my Grandmothers, my mom and many other family relatives and friends.

My Grandmothers have both passed away and I realized how easily many of these great recipes could vanish without some sort of documentation.

Inspiration

My intention was to preserve many of the family recipes that I remembered enjoying when I was younger and also to share some of my favorite recipes with others. Many of the recipes on this site are quite old and from the Depression era and are just really good comfort foods and family favorites.

My Background

I am a home cook and my training has mainly consisted of watching and learning from my Mom and Grandmothers while they made some of my favorite recipes.

I have a wonderful husband and young child and reside in Wisconsin. I grew up on a fairly large diary farm so there was plenty of cooking to be done to feed everyone and also any hired help.

I grew up on all the good stuff...whole milk, butter, sour cream, cream cheese and cottage cheese. In fact, I don't ever remember their being a carton of milk from the store in our home the entire time I lived there, as we were able to get milk directly from the source - the cows! Also, margarine was a completely forbidden item in our house.

Sunday brunch was our family's way of relaxing from the hectic work schedule of running a dairy farm. Most times it would be buttermilk pancakes and other times homemade waffles. There are a lot of memories attached to sitting around the breakfast table on Sunday mornings and also part of the inspiration for this website.

I have made and photographed most of the recipes posted on this site. I find it is much easier to write a recipe if I have made it at least once. Our family has had many "brunch recipes" for our evening meal, in order to test out a recipe. If no one likes the recipe, it usually doesn't get posted on my website unless I really feel it has something to offer.

Cookbooks

I offer a line of Old-Fashioned Cookbooks on this site that are really unique. Each cookbook offers recipes on a different type of food. A few of my favorites are the Bread Pudding and Desserts and also the Southern and Peach recipes.

I like these cookbooks because they are slim and don't take up a lot of space on a bookshelf and always seem to have the recipe I am looking for. You can mix and match the cookbooks and fill in the gaps with recipes you may not have, like a good selection of vegetable garden recipes or tomato recipes.

Building this Website

In June 2011, I quit my day job and became self-employed, working on this website full time. Prior to that I worked on this website nights and weekends, whenever I found a spare hour or two.

Balancing a day job, parenting, and writing a website can be a challenge at times, especially when it comes to new recipes.

I am quite thankful to SBI for helping make my dream of staying home with our son during the summer a reality. It also allows me to be there for him after school.

Have you ever considered building your own website? Here is my story on how I got started on the road to self-employment and how you can too.

Best regards,

Laura Warnke
Breakfast and Brunch Recipes

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