Just Jo. That’s me. A girl with a passion for food.
My life in food has been a long, languid love affair which doesn’t appear to be going off the boil any time soon. I have been fascinated by food for pretty much as long as I can remember. I was a creative little kid and very much loved drawing, painting and crafting things with my hands. I put this down to my joiner-by-trade Daddums – in fact, I think everything I have chosen to do with my life stems from my love of seeing my imagination come to life be it on a page or in a pie dish!
It wasn’t until I left home for university (to become a dentist of all unlikely things) and thad the freedom to experiment, that I started to get my hands dirty and explore the world through what I put on my plate. Luckily, I can’t recall throwing many meals away and only a few cakes ever came out burnt or dry! My student loan was not wasted on frivolous but disastrous dinners!
Although my tastes and preferences have changed over the years, my love of food has remained true. I started blogging in August 2011 and at that time, I was brimming over with enthusiasm for all things edible and once I figured what on earth a blog was, I knew I had to start one of my own. I started sharing recipes I loved from other cooks and once my confidence developed, I started *eek* sharing recipes I’d come up with myself. At the time of writing, I’ve spent 5 years getting the recipes I live with out onto this blog (Every Nook & Cranny is simply filled with food) and I am really proud of them. They are things me and my very Hungry Hubby, extended family, friends and colleagues love to eat.
Over the years, I’ve shared hundreds of recipes on this blog. Baking is my deepest held passion so a great many of these recipes are sweet and savoury bakes. I love to experiment with new techniques, push the boundaries of the “rules of baking” you hear so much about and hopefully, bring a little of me into everything I create. I want you to see where you can bend the rules and stamp a little personality on all of your bakes. When my Daddums was diagnosed with coeliac disease, I started experimenting with gluten free baking. It’s a veritable minefield if you are hoping to reproduce traditional cakes gluten free so instead, I focus on naturally gluten free ingredients and celebrate them for what they are. I expand this section of the blog as my recipes prove themselves to me so you don’t have to waste your time and ingredients. My philosophy is each gluten free bake has to be delicious to the point that non-coeliacs do not detect any odd textures or have to eat everything within 12 hours of coming out of the oven as it’s staled already!
There are plenty of gluten-laden treats for the rest of us though. I adore making pastry and bread making is one of the most wonderful things any home baker can do. Cakes, cookies, and cheesecakes abound as do store cupboard favourites like homemade jam and your own sweet and savoury spice mixes with plenty of ideas on how to use them.
When it comes to meal times, I have recipes to make when you find yourself able to inhabit the kitchen all weekend long but even more fast food ideas for the rest of time when you just can’t bare to spend longer than 30 minutes in the kitchen when you’re exhausted midweek. I know all about that – I’m now a doctor and despite being a devoted foodie, I get first hand how sometimes you just need feeding, now. So I am furnishing the blog with easy to make, fast to prep interesting meals to keep you motivated to cook for yourselves. And for times when the takeaway is singing it’s siren song to you, I even have fakeaways to scratch your dirty, secret junk food itch 😉
Perhaps the most exciting development on the blog, for me at least, was that in the summer of 2016, I became a brand ambassador for Instant Pot and I am utterly delighted with it! I had never used a pressure cooker in my life but I am well and truly bitten by the bug which is taking the world by storm right now and am so inspired by this electric pressure cooker that I simply can’t blog my recipes (both sweet and savoury) for the Instant Pot fast enough! I’m getting lots of great feedback from my readers who are now coming here looking for pressure cooker recipes and I plan to big up this section of the blog in 2017.
As for when I post, Tuesdays are Instant Pot Days. Thursdays are shared between more traditional cooking methods and Instant Pot recipes. Saturdays will forever be devoted to traditional oven-based home baking. I write a quarterly newsletter at the moment as I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to get one out monthly. I do all my own photography which is time consuming but I absolutely adore it. The word photography actually means to paint with light and I am loving learning how to tell the story of life in food through a lens. Between blogging and the day job, there is very little time for much else in my life! Bar cuddles from Hungry Hubby and regular beasting from my long-suffering personal trainer, this blog is my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
May you find something truly delicious to eat here.
Lots of love,
Just Jo xxx