Hi! I’m Ali, and I am so happy that you found your way here.
I created Gimme Some Oven to celebrate life around the table, with recipes that are simple, fresh, and full of flavor. With two littles underfoot these days, I know how relentless the dinner grind can feel. My hope is that this space can offer a bit of inspiration for everyone — and make everyday cooking feel a bit more fun.
So whether you’re throwing together a quick weeknight dinner, hosting a cozy brunch with friends, or just craving a warm batch of cookies, I hope you’ll find recipes here that feel doable and delicious.
Cheers!
About Ali
About Me
When I began Gimme Some Oven back in 2009, I was working full-time as a musician by day and spending my evenings cooking, photographing, and sharing recipes just for fun. Over time, that creative outlet grew into a full-time career — and for more than a decade now, I’ve had the absolute joy of writing and developing recipes here on Gimme Some Oven.
Even after all these years, it still feels like magic to create a recipe in my kitchen and see it come to life on tables all around the world! Your trust in my recipes means the world to me, and I work hard to make sure each one is thoughtfully developed, thoroughly tested, and truly worth making — the kind of recipe you’ll want to return to again and again.
Beyond the blog, my husband and I are now settling back into life in Kansas City with our two young boys after spending six wonderful years living in Barcelona. My favorite things include sunny days, an excellent plate of nachos, lingering around tables with good friends, and always dreaming up our next adventure. I occasionally share more about life behind the scenes here if you’d like to follow along.
About Gimme Some Oven
So what kinds of recipes will you find here?
Short answer: a bit of everything.
The recipes I share here are the ones we’re actually making and eating in our home. My husband is pescetarian, our boys are still a bit veggie-suspicious, and I enjoy a wide range of foods — so our meals reflect that mix. We do our best to cook seasonally, and most weeknights are all about quick, flavorful recipes that come together in 30 minutes or less. But I also love slowing down on the weekends with a cozy cup of coffee and baking our favorite 1-Hour Cinnamon Rolls, or inviting friends over for a big pot of chili with homemade guac and margaritas.
You’ll notice here that we’ve got a soft spot for Mexican food, big bowls of soup, noodles in all forms, and cookies of just about every variety. While most of my recipes lean fresh and lighter, you’ll also find your fair share of fun treats and comfort food favorites — we’re all about balance!
My hope is that you’ll find recipes here that work well for real life, whatever that looks like for you right now. And if there’s ever a recipe you’re craving, I’d love to hear from you!
My Favorite Recipes
FAQs
I can’t take the credit. 😉 The name actually came from my former bandmate, Jay, who tossed it out during a rehearsal years ago when I mentioned I was thinking about starting a food blog. It made us all laugh — and it stuck! Now it feels like a fun little reminder of my past life as a full-time musician.
You bet! Every single one of the 2000+ recipes on this site has been developed and tested in my own kitchen. I now have a team of recipe testers who join me each week to test old and new recipes to help ensure they are as clear, reliable, and delicious as possible. We want each recipe to be the best it can be when it reaches your table!
The best way to ask about substitutions is to leave a comment on that specific recipe post. That way, we’ll be sure to see it, and other readers can benefit from the answer too.
Yes! We’re constantly retesting, updating and rephotographing older recipes to make sure they’re as reliable and delicious as possible. Whenever we make a significant change, we do our best to note it clearly in the recipe notes so that you know what’s been updated.
No. We made the decision back in 2018 to stop publishing sponsored content on Gimme Some Oven. While we were grateful to partner with brands we genuinely loved in the past, it’s important to us that readers know all product mentions are now completely unpaid — just things we personally use and recommend.
This is probably the most-asked question we receive. Sorry, not yet! I keep putting it off, but someday I look forward to finally writing one. 💛
Giving Back
While we love creating and sharing recipes here, we also recognize what a profound privilege it is to have consistent access to fresh food, clean water, and a safe place to gather around the table. Not everyone has that — the statistics are sobering, and they remind us how important it is to keep working toward change.
That’s why we donate a portion of our profits to support three organizations working to fight food insecurity and expand access to nutritious food and clean water around the world. Every time you visit this site, your pageviews directly help support that work too, and we’re so grateful. We’d love for you to learn more about these incredible organizations and consider supporting them in whatever ways you can too.
It’s our hope that this space not only inspires delicious meals, but also plays a small part in supporting communities far beyond our own kitchens.
TWP is a community-led initiative in Mali focused on developing economic opportunities for women through organic food production, access to clean water, and a commitment to environmental stewardship.
Cultivate Kansas City is a locally-grown nonprofit working to grow food, farms, and community in support of an equitable, sustainable and healthy local food system for all.
World Central Kitchen is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises.
Love your bog and recipes.
Hi Ali,
I found your vegan Pho recipe today and was so excited to make it, I had all the spices delivered so I could cook up a batch after work. Needless to say it turned out absolutely wonderful and I followed the recipe as written.
I love Pho but wanted to keep it vegetarian and this recipe did the trick. Now I can whip up a batch to save for meals during the week and I know my family and friends are really going to love this recipe.
Thank you for creating such a wonderful recipe for us to use and enjoy!
Ali, I have used many of your recipes and enjoy your blog and your non-cloying way of expressing yourself (“Perfect Mommy” Bloggers, take note). Today, however, I read about you for the first time and discovered that you live in Barcelona… figures… Alicante, right here :)) I am going to make this pecan pie, which I miss over here, for Christmas. Thank you for your hard work, insight and style. Fins aviat!
Hi Ali,
I love your site. Any chance you have a recipe for a vegan cheese that tastes like real cheese for a lasagna? Thanks.
Michael Hehir
Dear Ali,
I just love your blog! It’s one of my absolute favorites! I’m going to use your mash potato recipe this Thanksgiving. Your Jumbalaya was one of the best dishes I have ever made! And I love how you adapt recipes for your vegan/vegetarian friends as I have a vegetarian daughter and your plant based recipes are every bit as terrific! Happy Thanksgiving!
Sending you warm holiday wishes from Michigan!
Kind Regards,
Gianna.
Greetings!
My name is Marissa, and I’m a stepmom (prefer the term bonus mom tho lol) and wife, and I habe to say since discovering your website, have been making our family very happy with your wonderful recipies!
My kitchen aid from the dark ages and although it’s given me years of reliable service, its gotten me to thinking….one of these days…….:( I
I saw your beautiful mixer in the background in that gorgeous photo of you in your kitchen, and was curious, is that your favorite mixer to date that you’ve had? Since you are overseas I bet you’ve tried some pretty amazing ones, any suggestions? If you’ve already mentioned this somewhere on your website I sincerely apologize.
Hope all is well with you and your little family!!!!
Most respectfully,
Marissa Smith
I’ve made pumpkin roll and hated the mess it made. Since I found your recipe and how you roll them up I’ve made several in the past month. Now I’m loving to make them and absolutely no mess. Thankful I stumbled onto your recipes. Thank you so so very much. Sue
PS- you have a beautiful family.
I first found your Beef Jerky recipe or was it the chicken Wings the best so if I’m searching for a way to cook sumpin an I see GIMME SUM OVEN, I’m there and haven’t been disappointed yet.
Thanks for your little corner of the net. GB
Your great.
I want to make a particular recipe I found on your blog, and probably will, but as a blogger I wanted to let you know (in case there is anything you can do with your website design) that recent web trends I’m seeing are not appealing to a number of people (on actual computer screens – not talking about on a phone), but most won’t bother to say anything and just click away.
But you seem nice, so here’s some specific suggestions. I’m sorry if this comes off as harsh, it’s not meant to be, just trying to be helpful in a fairly concise way. If I was giving you this advice professionally it would cost you, but today you happened to be my “last straw” in the visual overload arena, so I felt like taking the time.
HUGE images (and oversized fonts) can be very “in your face”, extremely distracting/off-putting – I have to “page down” just to get past one (1) of the – I rarely look at them anyway unless they are of the recipe, but the others are irrelevant. This is a website, not a coffee table book. Efficiency and limited distractions in a busy world is highly desireable and less visually stressful. Try:
1. not so much white space (eg,: MORE than 1/3 of THIS page is white space), and decrease line spacing so it doesn’t look like a school report meeting an obligatory number of pages without having to actually use a lot of words,
2. no preliminary discussion about why I will love it (I’m here, so obviously don’t need to be sold), I just want the recipe,
3. have 1 or 2 nice pictures of the dish (SMALLER than the written recipe),
4. put recipe up near the TOP (I don’t want a table of contents or yet ANOTHER link), otherwise I feel like I’m being played, to some degree,
5. if there is useful related information, keep it brief,
6. if monetization is part of the design, make ads limited, MODESTLY sized (read “MUCH smaller”), carefully placed, and relevant (however much of that is under your control) or most people just scroll past them quickly.
I suspect you only have so many templates available to you when you design your page, but you should be able to change it rectroactively, and should.
Good luck.
Ali, looking up your baked chicken recipe I immdiately liked your direct approach. Simple but with an emphasis on important details. I’m a vegetarian but my wife eats meat so, Chicken happens sometimes. I do almost all the shopping and cooking – I call it hunting and gathering. Sometimes I plan things out some but sometimes I look at what we have and see what I can compose. Having been a multi instrumentalist and composer most of my life, it’s not really that different with food. Keep doing what you love!
Health through Creativity,
Alex