When I went back to work three weeks ago, I swore to myself that I was going to stay on top of my BlogLovin’ feed. See, I follow 126 blog (and that’s with fairly regular weeding out of blogs that I just scroll right past in my feed), so when I don’t keep up with that I end up with hours worth of blog reading to catch up on the weekends. For a few nights I did great, checking my feed every night and marking posts as read. Now? I have 88 posts in my feed. And that’s mild.
Still, there are some blogs that I don’t feel like I have to read every word of every post….and others that I wouldn’t dare miss a word of. As you’ll see here, I love blogs with a conversational tone, and photography and layout definitely draw me in….but more than anything I love blogs that feature recipes that my family and I will actually eat. Here are my top ten food blogs!
10. Fifteen Spatulas
I actually just discovered Joanne‘s blog a few weeks ago. I started watching lots of video blogs (ahem, vlogs) on iFood.tv (on my Roku) and Fifteen Spatulas quickly became one of my favorites. Joanne’s videos are short but informative and well-produced, which can be kind of difficult to come by. I’ve moved on to watching her YouTube channel and reading her blog. After suffering from gastroesophageal reflux disease in college, Joanne started cooking everything from scratch, carefully reading ingredient labels. Eventually her condition healed and she has continued her whole food, cooking from scratch lifestyle, cooking good food that real people like to eat and showing us step by step just how simple it can be.
9. Pinch of Yum
Lindsey is a teacher turned full-time food blogger who is totally transparent about everything she does on the blog. I love that about her. She has written an ebook about food photography and a how-to about starting a food blog. She and her husband run a separate website (Food Blogger Pro) devoted to helping subscribers with all aspects of running a food blog. Her husband publishes a post every month detailing the previous month’s blog-related earnings….and wow. It’s seriously impressive. Lindsey’s blog is proof that hard work and attention to detail can build blog success. And she’s a recipe posting machine, publishing basically every other day. Oh, her recipes are all right too!
Melissa is a self-proclaimed baker by day, designer by night. She publishes a wide variety of simple, beautiful recipes and a weekly kitchen tip. I love the slightly self-deprecating name of her blog, but even more than that I adore her photos, with their clean white backgrounds (an Ikea desk!) and simple styling. She is a prolific Instagrammer, and if you love food-related Instagram posts you will not be sad that you followed her.
Naomi (whose husband is also a food blogger), mostly bakes but she also posts about other sweets, savory foods, and party foods and drinks. She’s not afraid to pull out a kitschy favorite (tomato soup cupcakes, anyone?) but also creative yet classic preparations like these eggnog cupcakes (which I have made and they are as amazing as they sound). I love that she experiments with the styling in her photography, and every photo is more beautiful than the last.
Molly is another blogger that I recently discovered, after she was nominated for a Saveur Best Food Blog award. She uses her blog to write about cooking on a North Dakota farm. She’s also an accomplished percussionist with a degree from Juilliard. Her recipes tend to be fun and updated versions of classics, like these eggs Benedict Cumberbatch. I adore her photography.
I’m a little jealous of Lisa and the strong food heritage she took with her from Texas to NYC. I mean, yeah we have Southern food….but Texas has its own cuisine. It’s purely, 100% Texas. I love that Lisa is not afraid to pull out the punches and serve you cheese dip, buttermilk pie, and nine different varieties of salsa. She’s published two successful cookbooks as well. If you love Tex-Mex, you seriously need to read Homesick Texan.
Mandy calls her blog an angry food blog and outlet for her misery….but I really don’t pick up any of that in her posts. From her Beijing kitchen she writes posts about foods from a variety of cuisines (Chinese, Mexican, halal), plus sweets and breakfast and everything else under the sun. The thing that got me reading, though, was the eye-catching visual aspect of her blog. Her layout is amazing, with her posts in column format-something I’ve never seen from another food blog-and her photos, with their low-key, dark backgrounds, are stunning. Plus her pups are pretty adorable (scroll to the bottom here).
Another blog that caught my eye because it is visually stunning, i am a food blog drew me even further in because I can’t stop making her recipes, like this burger, these fifteen minute doughnut holes, and this breakfast sandwich that I’m making for dinner tonight. Stephanie‘s heritage is Chinese and many of her recipes reflect this….but she definitely doesn’t play to just one theme. One thing I will say about her food is that it is comfort food, across the board. Her photos are amazing….lots of white backgrounds, but she isn’t “married” to that look. She makes great use of GIFs and fantastic graphics customized for each recipe. Her first cookbook, Easy Gourmet will be released on September 2.
Lisa‘s blog can be a bit controversial at time. A few years back she started a challenge for herself and her family to see if they could follow a list of “real food rules” exactly for 100 days, later repeating the challenge on a budget of $125/week (of mostly organic food) for her family of four. Now, they’ve relaxed a little bit, but they still follow the rules almost all the time. Lisa posts great whole foods recipes on her blog as well as commentaries about the food that we eat, which is where it gets a little controversial at times, because sometimes people get offended by what they perceive as judgment. I’ve never read Lisa’s tone as judgey….just trying to inform people about the fact that we don’t have to be resigned to eating a steady diet of processed food. One of my favorite things about her blog is her extensive focus on the school lunches that she packs for her daughters. The 100 Days of Real Food Cookbook will be released on Tuesday.
I am sure that you guys are not surprised to see SK in the top spot. I’ve made it pretty clear here that as far as food goes I pretty much worship the ground that Deb walks on. Deb’s blog is arguably the most popular food blog on the inter webs and her recipe index is gigantic and if she doesn’t have a recipe that you need….well, you probably don’t need it. She meticulously studies and tests every recipe until she finds the perfect formulation, then she shares it. Plus her photos are simple perfection. Amen and amen.
So those are my top ten food blogs….what are yours?
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