Hey friends! ♡

With so many new faces here lately — and so many of us spending more time than usual in the kitchen right now — I thought it might be helpful to do a quick review today of my favorite methods for to cook proteins in the oven!

Below are tutorials filled with tons of tips, step-by-step videos, and foolproof recipes for how to make perfectly-baked:

• Chicken Breasts
• Steak
• Pork Chops
• Salmon
• Whole Fish
• Shrimp
• Tofu

Any of these proteins can be served on their own or incorporated to other recipes that you might have bookmarked. And each tutorial below also includes tips on how to store and freeze these proteins, if you would like, plus options for various ways to season and customize each recipe to your liking.

So bookmark this post, grab your favorite protein, and — hey — time to gimme some oven!
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For all of you working on meal planning right now with pantry staples — I’m here to help! ♡

Below I have compiled a list of all of my favorite recipes made with pantry staples that are legit easy-to-make. And more importantly, totally delicious. I’ve divided the recipes up into the following categories to hopefully make them a bit easier to search, including:

• Pantry-Friendly Breakfast Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Soup Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Pasta Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Rice & Grains Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Beans Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Casserole Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Snack Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Sauce Recipes
• Pantry-Friendly Dessert Recipes

Each category is full of tried-and-true recipes that center around basic pantry and refrigerator staples. I have also included notes to help with potential ingredient substitutions/adaptions that you might need to make during the coming weeks, as well as tips for how best to store and freeze these recipes too.

I really hope that this list will helpful! Let me know in the comments below if there are any other questions or requests that you have for specific kinds of recipes right now. And of course, stay tuned for many more pantry-friendly recipes to come in the weeks ahead!

Sending lots of love to you all today. ♡  We’re going to get through this together. (more…)

This year marked the 10th anniversary of this little corner of the web. And wow, what a year it has been. ♡

Here on the blog, I shared 131 new recipes, focusing especially on filling in some gaps for classic recipes that you all have been requesting over the years (lasagna, beef stew, potato salad, shepherd’s pie, deviled eggs, caramel sauce), learning how to make important staples from scratch (pasta, gnocchi, hummus, quick-pickled onions, sun-dried tomatoes), creating simple side salad recipes for every occasion (Italian, Mexican, Mediterranean, sesame ginger, and kale), and offering more vegetarian dinner recipes for those of you focusing on more plant-based meals (vegetarian gumbo, mushroom lovers pasta, cauliflower curry, vegan pho, butternut mac and cheese and more). You have showed up for it all, making this a record-breaking year for the number of visits to this site…which is something that I still struggle to wrap my mind around. Yet leaves me feeling more grateful for you and your presence here than ever. Thank you.

Behind the scenes, Barclay and I made the decision to extend our initial plans to stay in Barcelona for two years and continue on with (at least) a third. And I have to say, our past few months here have been our best yet. Something new just seemed to “click” for us around our two year mark in Barcelona, and we’ve found ourselves feeling more at home here with our sweet friends, with the culture, with the language, and with this magical city than ever. ♡  Our adventure living abroad continues to be one of the greatest privileges of my life. And I owe my deepest thanks to each of you for helping to make this special season possible. Your continued support of this blog has allowed me to live out a dream I could never have imagined even 10 years ago when this blog began — turning this site into my full-time job, allowing me to work remotely from homes around the world, and doing meaningful work I love each and every day. Your support truly means everything to me. So again, thank you.

I have some pretty exciting plans up my sleeve for this year ahead, and hope that it may be one of our most healthy, delicious and inspiring yet. So stay tuned for good things to come! And again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here as we move forward into our second decade together. (Not to mention moving into the roaring 20’s together tomorrow — woot!)  I’m sending a biiiig, warm, Spanish hug your way today from over here Barcelona. And wish you a wonderful start to your new year ahead.

Without further ado, here is my last post to close out this year — 19 of my personal favorite recipes from 2019!

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Happy New Year’s Eve Eve, everyone!

As is our end-of-the-year tradition here at Gimme Some Oven, I just went back and did a tally of the new recipes that you all clicked on and loved the most this past year. And let’s just say — 2019 was a very delicious year.

From learning how to make some of everyone’s favorite restaurant dishes here at home (hello, pho, pad Thai, refried beans and lasagna), to lightened-up vegetarian soup recipes (especially this amazing chili and lemony orzo soup), to an ultra-quick-and-easy way to make homemade gnocchi, to some throwback American classics (potato salad and deviled eggs), to everything I’ve learned about authentic sangria while living here in Spain and more — I feel like these recipes are all staples that we will collectively be bookmarking and remaking for years and years to come.

I will be back tomorrow to share an additional list of my 19 favorite recipes from 2019, so stay tuned for a few favorites that you might have missed. But without further ado, here are your favorite 19 recipes from 2019! Take a peek and see if your faves made the list! ♡

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To all of you who love taking pictures of food as much as I do, I have fun news today!

We’re looking to hire an assistant photographer here at Gimme Some Oven! ♡

With over 1500 recipes here on the blog now (and over 10,000 recipe photos, whew), we are on the search for a food-loving photographer to help update many of the older photos here on the blog, as well as assist in shooting some exciting new projects coming up this year. So if you are interested in a delicious part-time job this that would allow you to choose your own hours, work from home, with a bonus of some seriously tasty food to enjoy on the job — then I would love to have you apply.

Here are the details! (more…)

Actually, I’m terrible at picking favorites!

So to whittle things down this year, I thought I would share with you the dozen or so new recipes that we probably make the most often here in our little Barcelona kitchen.

You know — the ones that have made it into our “rotation.” The ones that work well for our little pescetarian/omnivore household. The ones that I would be serving if you came over for dinner on a normal weeknight. The ones that always, magically, deliciously hit the spot.

These ones. ♡

So, if you happen to be looking for some inspiration for the new year ahead, take a look through the list below. And if you decide to give any of these recipes a try, just know that chances are they will be on our dinner table the same week too! Enjoy, everyone!

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Happy Almost-New Year, everyone!

As is our annual tradition here on the blog, I’ve rounded up two delicious collections of recipes to share with you this week — your favorite recipes from 2018 (today’s post), and some of my own personal faves (coming soon). There was plenty of overlap here, of course. ♡  But I have to say, I’m so pleased that you guys fell in love with these particular recipes!

From our series on how to cook proteins in the oven (the big hit of the year, full of tips on how to bake chicken, steak, pork, shrimp, salmon and tofu), to the cozy wild rice soup that swept Pinterest, to the iced coffee that changed all of our lives, to the everyday salad that Barclay and I can’t stop making, to tamales and soups, healthy muffins and artichokes, casseroles and cacio e pepe — I love that these recipes were such a hit in your homes too. It’s been a delicious year around here for sure.

That said, I’m already hard at work on a batch of fresh and healthy new recipes to kick off the new year that I think you’re going to love. But when you have a sec, would you mind filling out this quick 1-minute recipe survey for me? More than anything, I want to make the kinds of recipes that you want to make in 2019. So if you have any recipe requests, blog suggestions, or cooking goals in mind for the new year, I’m all ears. :)

Cheers to another great year ahead, everyone! And without further ado, here were the recipes that you made the most in 2018… (more…)

Fa la la la la, friends!

Our collection of 2018 holiday gift guides is hot off the press today, just in time to do some shopping this weekend from the cozy comfort of your living room. You know, snuggled under a nice warm blanket (psst, I have a few good recs below), with a fireplace cracklin’ in the background (a real one if you’re lucky, or we make do with Netflix), cuppa hot tea in hand (or mmm, maybe some homemade mulled wine), holiday tunes playing in the background (I can’t wait to start playing this album)…you do you.  We’re going for stress-free, snuggly shopping this year. Because I think we can all agree that “adding to cart” sounds infinitely more appealing than braving the cold and crowds this season, right?

Well to that end, I have ten brand new holiday gift guides here for you today that will hopefully some of the stress out of gift buying this year. And I’ve gotta say, I’m pretty excited about them! We have gift guides for the hostess, cook, baker, ethical fashion lover, cozy homebody, traveler, yogi, guys in your life, and pet lover. Plus a new one this year per your request — an entire gift guide devoted to my latest favorite beauty products! Lots of good stuff to share. Plus, the majority of items this year are from Amazon, so you can Prime your hearts out and also have a few items bookmarked for the big sale days this weekend.

So take a scroll through the ten guides below. And hopefully they will help you spot a few special somethings for the special someones in your life. And take a little extra hustle and bustle out of your holiday to-do lists. And make this gift-giving season extra warm and bright.

Happy holidays, everyone. ♡

Update: These gift guides are no longer active. Please see this year’s new gift guides!

…our brand new Gimme Some Barcelona Travel Guide!

Ever since we moved to Barcelona this past fall, my inbox has been downright overflowing with messages from you all asking for our best travel recommendations around the city. Which — I’ve gotta admit — came as a total surprise. We’re the first to admit that we’re total newbies here, and are just getting to know the city ourselves. But that said, we have definitely learned a ton during our time here, already have a long list of great recs and tips to share. So! We’ve finally created a little space here on the blog with a list of our faves, including recommendations on what to do, where to stay, and where to eat when you come to Barcelona.

If you (or anyone you know) are planning a trip here in the coming years, we hope that this can be a helpful resource to make your trip all the more special. And if you have recommendations of your own, we would love to have you share them (on the travel guide page) so that this can hopefully be an even better collective resource for us all. We promise to keep updating our list regularly with new places that we love. So stay tuned for more to come.

Thanks so much to all of you who have reached out for recs, and cheers to hopefully many new (and delicious) Barcelona adventures to come!

Love,
Ali & Barclay

I think 2017 officially goes down in history as the Year I Was Most (Happily) Distracted From Work.

Truly. Between getting engaged, planning a wedding, applying for residency visas to Spain, getting married, going on our honeymoon, remodeling and renting out Barclay’s old house, selling nearly everything we own, moving (with our dogs) to Barcelona…and then moving again once we arrived in Spain…I seriously don’t know how we kept our heads above water this year. Much less, kept this blog up and running. ? ? ?

But in the best of times, and the worst of times, and the absolute craziest of times…making space in my day (even just a few minutes) to cook some sort of nourishing food has always been the thing that grounds me. Even better, now, getting to share so many of those meals with my favorite person in the world. And even better, when we get to gather friends and family around the table with us to toast glasses and pass the dishes around and spend real time together talking about real life. Oh man, those will forever be my favorite moments in life. And whether those are centered around a 5-course tasting meal or a pizza we just pulled out of the freezer, you can always count me in for time around the table with those I love.

So anyway, I know I’ve probably said it a thousand times here, but that’s why I love to cook. And that’s why I specifically love to cook the kinds of quick, easy, share-able, and delicious recipes you’ve come to count on here at Gimme Some Oven. And especially in the midst of a year of so much change, these are the kind of recipes that have quite literally sustained us in real life. Real, crazy, wonderful, amazing life.

Yesterday I shared a list of your favorite new recipes on the blog in 2017. And, as is our tradition here each year, today I thought I would follow up with some of my own personal faves — some of which seemed to fly under the radar this year, but I wholeheartedly love and recommend. Also! I just wanted to mention here too that 2017 was the year that we started experimenting with making some behind the scenes videos (not about recipes!) on the blog too, which has turned out to be a refreshing and fun new project. So if you haven’t already, would love to have you check them out on our YouTube channel and subscribe for the year ahead, because we have some fun new ones coming your way soon.

More than anything, today I just wanted to say thank you for such an amazing year together. Your amazing encouragement and support — especially with getting married and moving abroad this year — downright blew me away this year. And your faithfulness in continuing to tune into the blog, and try new recipes, and send me photos (eeee, my fave!) so that I can follow along in your kitchen means the world to me. Seriously, I tell everyone that each of you are truly the best. And I’m so thankful for your support that allows me to do what I love to do.

So thank you.

I’m sending so much love your way from Spain as we wrap up this year, and absolutely can’t wait for what’s ahead next year. Love you all!

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