My name is Danielle Cochran. I’m a Recipe Creator and Brand Ambassador focusing on gluten free and dairy free recipes that taste amazing.
I live in Florida with my husband and two bully breed dogs Stitch and Tank. All three are rescue mutts… (yes you read that right)
My husband and I have been together for 20 years. We enjoy fishing together and traveling the world.
My favorite place to eat is in Italy and my favorite place for adventure is Australia.
Nothing makes me happier than spending time with friends and enjoying cocktails and great food. We laugh because our “Brunch” always seems to turn into dinner.
I love entertaining. My husband makes the best cocktails and I enjoy testing new recipes on our friends and family.
It cracks me up because now they always ask, do you need pictures or can we eat, lol!
My poor husband hasn’t had a warm meal since I started @TheSaltyCooker.
How I Got The Name “The Salty Cooker”
I started The Salty Cooker a couple years ago after lots of encouragement from my family and friends.
I didn’t even have an Instagram account at the time and knew nothing about social media.
After a lot of resistance I created an account and started to post pictures of dishes I was making.
To my surprise people started following me and asking for recipes and cooking tips.
My name The Salty Cooker came from my husband and a friend of ours in North Carolina.
On Topsail Beach its customary to name your house and since my husband and I love saltwater fishing we named our house The Salty Hookers.
When I decided to start my food blog and was trying to come up with a name my husband and our friend suggested I go with The Salty Cooker because I’m “Salty”.
After a couple of drinks and some convincing (they wouldn’t let it go) these two created my profile name.
Why I Went Gluten Free & Dairy Free
I love food and I never considered going gluten free or dairy free. But a while back a friend of mine came to visit that I had not seen in years. She looked incredible!
So I asked her what she was doing and she said she gave up gluten, corn and dairy. She explained that she would have her cheat moments but on a day to day basis she gave it all up.
She’s a nutritionist so when I heard her tell me all the benefits she was experiencing, more energy, losing weight, better sleep, better digestion, etc I had to try it.
Two days later I decided to give it a shot. I told my husband for the next two weeks we were going gluten free and dairy free.
You can probably imagine he wasn’t thrilled. My husband isn’t a picky eater but he likes what he likes. So asking him to change anything is a challenge.
He reluctantly agreed and after two weeks we were both sold!
Muscle soreness after workouts went way down, inflammation in joints disappeared, belly bloat was gone, no more upset stomach after a meal, our skin cleared up, and we both had more energy.
My Search For Gluten Free & Dairy Free Recipes That Taste Amazing
After deciding to go gluten free and “mostly” dairy free (sometimes I just have to have real dairy) I found a new challenge…
How can I make my favorite recipes still taste great?
As someone who absolutely loves food I found it challenging to find gluten free and dairy free products that really tasted great.
That’s when I got obsessed with finding the best gluten free and dairy free product and ingredients.
I’ve dedicated the last year of my life to tasting and testing different gluten free and dairy free products to cook with and I share the best recipes here for you.
Over the years I’ve had some amazing successes (like these gluten free and dairy free ice cream sandwiches) and some horrible failures (I lost count of how many times I try to make gluten free corn bread before I finally nailed it).
It can be extremely frustrating but is also extremely rewarding when you finally get it right.
One of my favorite things to do is host dinner parties and only tell our guests that the entire meal was gluten free and dairy free after desert is finished.