my-goodness-kitchen-blog

My Goodness Kitchen’s mouthwatering recipes and gorgeous foodie photos are sure to snatch attention, regardless if you’re a staunch carnivore or a dedicated vegan. The talented blogger/chef/photographer/author/mom (what’d we miss??) behind it all is Amanda Logan. We spoke with Amanda about her My Goodness Kitchen journey, blogging tools she’s found helpful, and her future plans.

Featured Blog: My Goodness Kitchen
Solo Pine Theme: Sitka


Interview with Amanda of
My Goodness Kitchen

How did you find yourself at the helm of My Goodness Kitchen?

Before my daughter was born I was a writer producing mostly corporate and editorial content. While I have loved being at home with my little person, in the early days I found myself really struggling without a creative outlet. There is only so much to be said about diapers and daytime naps. 

So, I began blogging. 

I have always been an enthusiastic cook and as the only vegan in a family of omnivores I felt I could provide a unique perspective on plant-based living. My tagline for My Goodness Kitchen  is “Vegan Tested on Carnivores.” While I thought I was unique it turns out there are a tonne of people like me living a plant-based life surrounded by family and friends who still eat animal products. My solution to that is to create delicious food that everyone can enjoy – vegan or no – and thankfully that has resonated. 

What WordPress theme features have you found to be the most helpful in terms of functionality or the most impactful visually to your blog?

I have a food blog so the site’s visual impact is super important – we eat with our eyes, don’t we? Clean WordPress themes that allow the content to shine – particularly the photography – is paramount. I am not a particularly technical person so having the ability to customise a blog theme to work with my brand without having to get in to too much code is fantastic. I find WordPress to be a wonderfully intuitive platform that allows the average person – me – to create functional, easy to navigate blogs without too much technical know-how. Choosing a theme that fits your niche and then customising it to suit your brand is such a gift to bloggers. 

my-goodness-kitchen-amanda
Amanda, founder of My Goodness Kitchen

Are there any must-have WordPress plugins or other blogging tools you consider to be essential to any food blogger?

I would say Yoast is necessary for any bloggers – especially if you don’t know a lot about SEO. Specifically for food bloggers, a good recipe plugin is imperative if you want to rank on Google. I personally use WP Recipe Maker Premium. I also use Tasty Pins for Pinterest – it allows me to control which images I want readers to pin to Pinterest and the descriptions. While I love the flexibility of plugins I try not to load my site with too many to keep my page speed down. 

What convinced you to use a Solo Pine theme for your food blog?

I first came across Solo Pine when I saw their Sprout and Spoon theme on another blog – I just loved it. What has kept me with Solo Pine is the service. I have had themes from other theme providers and found the service to be almost non-existent. I felt like every question or issue I had with a theme cost me more money. And we’re talking basic stuff.  As someone who isn’t technical that can get pretty expensive and to be honest I felt a bit silly about the whole thing. Solo Pine has been so good to me and even though I buy their themes off the shelf – so to speak – I feel like our relationship is more of a collaboration. If I want something tweaked, they tweak and are so gracious with their advice and service. They even customise their themes further if you need them to for a really reasonable fee. I change my mind A LOT so that has been great for me. I am now using their new Sitka theme and love it! So many options. It’s fantastic. 

What’s your absolute favorite go-to snack? 

Hummus and carrot sticks! No, avocado and kimchi on toast. Can I have two? I love simple, fuss-free food so both of these snacks are perfect to me. I used to make my own hummus but recently we’ve started buying a brand here in Australia that sells hummus by the kilogram. We go through at least a kilo every week!

Where do you envision My Goodness Kitchen in 5 years? What do you hope to accomplish in that time? 

I was lucky enough to publish a cookbook last year – Great Vegan Meals for the Carnivorous Family – and the blog is now growing happily. My little family always dreamed  of moving on to a property and filling it with rescue farm animals. I would like to take My Goodness Kitchen in to the real world where we offer vegan cooking classes from our farm, offer farm-stays and perhaps food photography workshops. I’d like to continue growing the blog and expanding it to include more plant-based lifestyle articles and resources. Another book would be wonderful. Choosing a plant-based life-style has its challenges and I would like to help people navigate those. 

Do you have any advice for other bloggers that are just getting started on their food blog journey?

Food bloggers wear many hats – recipe developer, photographer, SEO-pro, writer and social media expert to name a few – and it can be really overwhelming. My advice for a new blogger would be to take one or two of those things and immerse yourself in them. Learn them well and then move on to the others. Also, where possible surround yourself with suppliers who support you so you can get on with the business of blogging. 

Be sure to check out My Goodness Kitchen!


Want to be considered for a future Customer Spotlight?
Submit your Solo Pine blog here!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *