I'm Veronica (otherwise known as VJ), and I'm the cook, photographer and recipe writer behind this website. I live with my husband and cat in a little market town in Lincolnshire.
I've been cooking and baking for more than 40 years, but I'm not a trained chef. I'm a home cook who loves good food, enjoys experimenting in the kitchen and, perhaps most importantly, wants recipes to work when someone else makes them.
Foodle Club is where I share the recipes I cook at home - from easy family dinners and traditional favourites to homemade pies, pastries, breads, sauces and desserts.
A little about me
I was born in Yorkshire in the north of England, but spent many years living in South Africa before eventually returning to the UK.
Those two very different food cultures have had a huge influence on the way I cook.
Growing up in Yorkshire gave me a love of traditional British food - proper pies, pastry, hearty family meals and the sort of baking that has been passed down through generations.
Living in South Africa introduced me to an entirely different world of food. I discovered curries, bobotie, vetkoek, chutneys, braais and many other dishes and flavours that became part of everyday family life.
You'll find plenty of both on Foodle Club, along with recipes inspired by dishes I've eaten on my travels or simply things I've experimented with in my own kitchen.
What you'll find on Foodle Club
The recipes on Foodle Club are written for ordinary home cooks using ingredients that are readily available from supermarkets.
I particularly enjoy recipes that deliver plenty of flavour without making cooking unnecessarily complicated. That might mean a comforting pie with homemade pastry, a quick chicken dinner, a curry simmering on the stove or a batch of something useful to tuck away in the freezer for another day.
You'll also find plenty of recipes for homemade basics and cooking staples. I'm a great believer in making things ahead when it makes sense - sauces, pastry, dumplings and other useful building blocks that can turn what's already in the fridge or freezer into dinner.
And while I enjoy trying new things, I don't believe that everything has to be reinvented. Sometimes the traditional way of making something is still the best.
Recipes that have been cooked in my kitchen
Every recipe on Foodle Club is one that I have actually made myself.
I cook the food, test the quantities, photograph the process and write the instructions based on what happened in my own kitchen.
Where I think something might cause a problem, I try to explain it. If the consistency of a dough matters, I'll show you what you're looking for. If an ingredient can be substituted, I'll tell you. And if I've discovered something that makes a recipe easier or gives a better result, I'll pass that on too.
My aim isn't simply to give you a list of ingredients and a set of instructions. I want you to understand enough about the recipe to make it successfully in your own kitchen.
British and American measurements
Because Foodle Club has readers on both sides of the Atlantic, you'll normally find both metric and US customary measurements in my recipes.
I cook primarily by weight, particularly when I'm baking, because I find it more accurate. Where cup measurements are useful, I include those too.
I also try to point out ingredient differences that can cause confusion - such as cornflour and cornstarch, or the differences between ingredients sold under different names in the UK and US.
It's a small thing, but it can make a very big difference when you're standing in the kitchen wondering whether you've bought the right ingredient!
Why I started Foodle Club
Before retiring, I spent many years working in IT as a computer consultant and trainer.
Creating Foodle Club turned out to be a rather good way of combining two things I enjoy: cooking and explaining how things work.
I've always believed that good instructions should tell you more than what to do. They should give you enough information to understand why you're doing it.
That's the approach I try to bring to every recipe on this site.
Foodle Club started as a place to record and share recipes, but over the years it has grown into a collection of hundreds of dishes that I hope people will return to whenever they need a little inspiration for dinner - or simply want to know how to make something properly.
Welcome to my kitchen
If you enjoy traditional home cooking, discovering recipes from different parts of the world, baking from scratch, or simply finding practical ideas for getting dinner on the table, I hope you'll find plenty here to tempt you.
Have a browse, find something you fancy and give it a try.
And if you make one of my recipes, I'd love to hear how you got on. You can email me at [email protected].
Happy cooking!
Veronica