Hello!
My name is Jo and I am a British ex-pat living in Brisbane, Australia.
I am a mother of two (a girl and a boy aged 8 and 5), and wife to a FIFO (Fly-in-Fly-out) husband, who works away for 2 weeks then is home for 2 weeks every month.
I like to cook mostly from scratch with real ingredients but I don’t like long complicated recipes. I like quick and easy meals that are family friendly – If that’s what you’re after, you’re in the right place!
I first started Jo’s Kitchen Notebook just for me, because I wanted to have easy access to my most-used recipes without searching through a stack of paper in my kitchen. I tend to talk about food a lot, and I like making snacks for my friends when they come over, so the conversation often turns to what recipe did I use, how do I make something, so I started telling my friends about my blog so they could get the recipes easily. Since my youngest child started school this year, I found myself in need of a project, and I’ve really enjoyed blogging more regularly. Now I hope to help other parents who could do with some tips, ideas and inspiration to help them cook real food for their families.
Jo’s Kitchen Notebook is so-called because I have a kitchen notebook (well actually 4…well really it’s 5) where I scribble down recipes I want to try and recipe ideas, meal plans, healthy eating ideas and lunchbox hacks. When I’ve decided a recipe, a cooking tip or an idea is a keeper, that’s when I’ll put it online!
More About Me
I first started cooking in my Mum’s kitchen as a teenager. I would mostly bake cakes and biscuits, but sometimes we would search for or adapt recipes together based on what we wanted to eat for dinner. My Mum lived in Hong Kong as a teenager and in Cyprus as a newly-wed, so her favourites tend to be Chinese and Greek food.
When I moved away to university at 18, I was cooking entirely for myself for the first time and I learnt some simple, hearty recipes that I could throw together from my store cupboard. A staple was vegetarian curry made almost entirely from tins – curry paste, tinned tomatoes, tinned chickpeas, tinned potatoes and frozen mixed vegetables!
Since then I have loved recipes that involve very little preparation or technique, but the finished product tastes great, completely out of proportion to the amount of work that went into it*. That’s what excites me in the kitchen.
* To date, the best examples of tiny effort, big reward I’ve found are Thai red curry made from the best curry paste (my favourite is Mae Ploy brand – also used by professional chefs) and Nigella Lawson’s Chocohotopots from her ‘Feast’ book – rich, sweet and gooey chocolate puddings.