WELCOME TO Carrie’s Kitchen
It’s nice to meet you!
I’m Carrie, and I sort dinner.
Not in a Cordon Bleu way. More in a “toddler making mess at my feet, husband on a late shift, what can I make in 20 minutes that everyone will actually eat” way. If you can relate then you’re in the right place.
Carrie’s Kitchen is where I share the dinners I actually make. All my recipes are tested in a real kitchen, usually cooked with a toddler at my side and stress-tested by a family with opinions.
The recipes are approachable, easy to customise and weeknight friendly because that’s the kind of dinner I cook every night.
If you’re standing in front of the fridge at 4:30pm with no plan and a hungry family, you’re exactly who I’m cooking for.
What You’ll Find Here
- One-pot and traybake dinners that do the work for you
- 20-minute pastas for the nights you have nothing left
- Slow cooker recipes you can dump and forget about
- Honest notes on what worked (and what didn’t)
Where to Start
If you’re new here, these are great recipe collections to start with:
Or head straight to the full recipe index.
Every week on Substack, I share exactly what I fed my family, including the fails.
Everything We Ate is a weekly dinner diary: what I planned, what actually happened, how I used up leftovers, and the nights we have fish fingers and air fryer chips. It’s free, honest and unfiltered – I share photos of the food we actually ate, not the picture perfect images you usually see.
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Stay Connected
If you enjoy simple, cosy recipes that make life easier, you can:
- Follow along on Substack for weekly meal plan inspiration
- Join my email list to get my free 15-Minute Pasta Recipes ebook: quick dinners for the nights you have nothing left.
A Bit More About Me
I’m based in Fife, Scotland, and I cook dinner most nights solo while as husband works shifts. Which means I’ve genuinely stress-tested every recipe on this site.
What’s here works. The stuff that didn’t doesn’t get posted.
When I’m not cooking, I’m usually at the park with my daughter, or very likely reading a book I’ll tell you about on Substack.
The Full Story
Before I became a mum, cooking was my hobby. It’s the reason I started sharing my recipes on this site in 2019. I spent my downtime at work daydreaming about what I was having for dinner. Elaborate breakfasts were what got me out of bed at the weekends. I spent my days off shopping for fancy ingredients and experimenting with techniques.
Then I had a baby and everything changed. My free time was non-existent, and I got so overwhelmed scrolling social media during contact naps, saving recipes I loved the look of but knew deep down I’d never have the time (or mental energy) to recreate.
I had to pivot. Dinner became less aspirational and more what can I make with what I have in my fridge while my toddler builds a block tower at my feet. So, I get it, I understand the struggle. I know the problem isn’t ‘what should we have for dinner’ but ‘what can I make for dinner right now, with the resources I have?’. And those resources aren’t just ingredients; they are your time and energy and effort.
Naturally my content has pivoted too. At Carrie’s Kitchen you will find the approachable family friendly meals I have stress-tested in my own kitchen. They aren’t designed to be ‘insta-worthy’ or ‘restaurant quality’, but flexible and straightforward homemade meals.
There are still those remnants of my past life floating around, like cocktails and Date Night pasta dishes, if you want something for a special occasion. But the bulk of my recipes are fuss-free family meals.
And I know every kitchen is different, every day is different, so I also include plenty of choice for ingredients swaps to save you a trip to the shop. When possible, I also like to include different cooking methods, so you can oven or air fry or slow cook if you prefer. And I’ll let you know when you can prep ahead, what to do with leftovers and the best options for storing, freezing and batch cooking.
I am also a convert to some time-saving frozen prepped items and shop-bought convenience when used properly. I know everyone is conscious these days of UPFs and ‘cooking from scratch’ has become a bit of a badge of honour in some online spaces, but there is no shame here. I’ll let you know options for making your own as well as what items to use for shortcuts.
My mission is simple – to help take a bit off the mental load of feeding your family.
Check out my favourite dinner recipes
These are the meals I serve my little family over and over again. These recipes have been tried and tested and come right from my family kitchen to yours.
