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.
Hi Ali!
I ran across your blog today completely by chance and wanted to tell you the quick story! I use MSN.com for reading news articles while at work and one of your recipes (5-Ingredient White Chicken Chili) popped up in the feed and caught my eye. This will make more sense in a second. I am born and raised in your neighboring state, Oklahoma (there’s the love of an easy chili recipe reference) and still live here, in OKC.
Coincidentally, I am traveling for the first time to Spain next month with my boyfriend and we’ll be visiting my (much younger) sister who is in Barcelona now, doing the second half of her GAP year. We will be primarily in Madrid during our visit but are planning to take the bullet train to Barca for an entire day, if not overnight. She will have moved with her program to Seville by the time we get there so hopefully we’ll get a chance to spend a little time there too.
As I navigated through your website, I noticed that you now live in Barca and have SO many great travel recs as well as for Madrid! I have been on your site for at least an hour now and have found it so thorough and helpful that I sent it to my sister as well. In fact, I’m taking notes and copying various links to some of your recommendations for myself and our upcoming trip. I’ll be downloading the Barca walking guide too.
Anyhow, thank you for posting this and for making it so easy to explore. I’m very much looking forward to being there and discovering all that we can in the time allotted. I appreciate your dedication to passing along great eating and travel recommendations. And what a crazy coincidence to boot! The stars do align every once in a while :)
Thanks again!
Blair
Hi Ali,
I discovered your website by chance while looking for a recipe for cinnamon rolls (which was great..thank you!) and fell in love with your writing style as well as the beautiful pictures when I was living in the US. I moved to Barcelona about 1 month ago and haven’t figured out where to buy ingredients, particularly baking ingredients such as good quality flour, yeast, spices, extracts and chocolate – chips, cocoa powder, bar – in addition to baking pans and other supplies. Do you have any favorites you can share? I would really appreciate it and looking forward to trying more of your recipes as well as reading more of your posts when you get a chance. Your stories have been very inspirational for me in choosing to live in Barcelona!
Thank you!
Hi Cristina, welcome to BCN! It’s always a bit of a scavenger hunt here trying to find ingredients/supplies. Gadgets Cuina is my go-to for most bakeware and supplies, and they carry quite a few extracts as well. Taste of America for Hershey’s chocolate chips and vanilla extract. Most grocery stores carry mini chocolate chips, yeast (levadura de reposteria), and spices, but you can find regular-sized chocolate chips at granel stores or online. To approximate American all-purpose flour, look in the nutrition facts for basic harina that has 10g protein. (I just buy mine at Aldi.) Best tip – join the Ingredient Hunters BCN group on FB. Suerte! :)
Dear Ali:
I’ve been following your blog for probably close to five years now. You are, hands down, my absolute fave! Your recipes are fresh and delicious every single time. I never worry about whether a recipe will taste good – it always does. And, my family loves it! Just wanted to take a moment to let you know that you rock!!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
What a small world! I’ve been perusing your recipes online and just discovered you’re from my hometown. Hello from Doo-Dah! Thanks for all the goodness.
I’m an Iowa girl and I adore you. You cook my kind of food, Mexican and pasta, my favorites. I’ve been making your enchilada sauce for over 2 years and its the only one I use. I will add a little unsweetened dark chocolate when I remember. I saw my Hispanic Mother in Law do it. I usually follow your recipe the way you make it though because it’s perfect. Thank you for coming into our kitchen and sharing your recipes with us :)
I just fell in love with your blog even before I tried anything ❤️. You have a beautiful style of writing. The internet shepherded me to your blog when I was looking for ideas on how I could put to use the abundance of grapefruit that I ended up buying from Costco. (I am swearing to not get fruit from there unless I am having a party 🙃). Planning to get some tequila to try the grapefruit margarita today. Ciao
SO GREAT! you’re a big inspiration! Please share tips on how you live abroad as an American. Did you apply for VISAS ahead of time? Is this hard? Also, it’s so cool to see you traveling with your dogs, how did you do that? How long do they have to be quarantined? We’ve been making your recipes for a while and they’re all great. Cheers to living a wonderful life, Ali
Ali, I just wanted to say thank you for your Fried Rice recipe. I was looking for something with all of the ingredients I had on hand, and your recipe fit the bill!
It was so simple, yet so tasty for my family of 5 (including 2 teenage boys that are always hungry 😋).
I also added the leftover chicken to our meal and it was delish! Thanks again. I appreciate your time and effort into sharing these simple yet tasty recipes! 😊
Jennifer
Love this RECIPE !! This was missing something EVERY TIME I made it though! A touch of All spice 😍
Do you have a cookbook? And if so, what is or their titles?