Welcome to Jo Cooks where you’ll find delicious, tried-and-tested recipes for every occasion made with every day ingredients! They all come complete with step-by-step photo tutorials, videos and detailed instructions, all to help you succeed in your kitchen.
Jo Cooks has been around since 2011 and it started out as a place for me to store my recipes that I’ve collected over the years from friends and family. Here you’ll find hundreds and hundreds of delicious recipes, so make sure to check out the Recipes section and browse all your favorites!
People ask me all the time, what sort of food I cook and blog about. The truth is, everything. I cook anything and everything, and well, we eat everything, and if my husband and I can’t eat everything, there are plenty of friends, family or neighbours who love to help us out. I, most of all, love simple recipes with few everyday ingredients that you can either find in your pantry, or are easy to find at your local grocery store.
ABOUT JO
My name Joanna Cismaru, Jo for short, and I am the brains behind my food blog, Jo Cooks. I’m a writer, photographer, cookbook author and most importantly, I’m the cook that prepares all these scrumptious recipes that you can find here. My husband Remo, is the other force behind this blog. He’s the taste tester, IT genius, accountant extraordinaire and last but not least, my biggest supporter and pillar of strength.
We have a new puppy, his name is Han Solo and he’s just a ball of energy. We got him for our previous puppy, Indiana Jones, to have a brother, but unfortunately Indiana Jones passed away from Lymphoma earlier in the year. Our hearts are broken, he was only 3 years old and the best dog ever. Luckily, we still have Solo who’s helped us through this difficult time. He’s an Aussie Doodle, super smart and full of energy.
As long as I can remember I’ve always loved to cook and putz around in the kitchen. I’m seriously passionate about food and I do consider myself a foodie! I love all food and I will always try everything at least once, well maybe except bugs. I won’t try bugs and cats or dogs! But everything else goes.
I am totally self-taught and have no formal culinary training but I have been cooking for over 20 years. I’ve learned from my mistakes because there have been mess-ups in the kitchen, but I think that’s what makes us stronger and better at what we do. I love Julia Child’s style of cooking but I love to simplify meals, so that they are more attainable for the everyday cook.
MY PREVIOUS CAREER
In my previous career, I worked in the IT world doing software development, and while I enjoyed it, it was quite stressful. To relieve some of that stress, I always turned to cooking and baking, thus discovering my latest passion, and so this new “so-called” career evolved.
I am totally self-taught when it comes to cooking, though I have to thank my mom for teaching me the basics. I must say that I enjoy baking more than cooking so you will find quite a few baking recipes here. While I’m not a fancy baker I do love my breads and rolls and the occasional cake or pastry.
FUN FACTS
I was born in Romania, Transylvania to be exact. My family moved here when I was just a child. While I can honestly say I’ve never met a vampire, I do love my garlic. Here you will also find some of my favorite Romanian recipes that have been passed down to me from my mom and mother in law.
My husband and I met online back in the 90s when online dating wasn’t even a thing. Almost 20 years later we’re still happily married and together we’ve made all our dreams come true.
My all time favorite food is anything Italian like lasagna, pizza, any kind of pasta and bacon!
MY COOKBOOKS
The Big Book Of Jo’s Quick & Easy Meals
I wrote a new cookbook called “The Big Book Of Jo’s Quick & Easy Meals” and will be available on August 2nd, 2021. You can now PRE-ORDER it at:
30-Minute One-Pot Meals
If you love my recipes and would like more of my creations, you can find my first cookbook “30 Minute One Pot Meals” available to order.
You can order my “30-Minute One-Pot Meals” book at:
I made the deconstructed stuffed pepper casserole and it was an awesome hit! My husband now wants me to make it all the time!! I didn’t use beef or pork but I used tofu. It turned out spectacular. Today I’m making it without tofu or any meat. Should be phenomenal! Good job Jo. Thank you so much for your beautiful recipes! By the way I ordered the books from Amazon.
Thank you for your support and everything. I’m happy to hear you’re enjoying my recipes! 🙂
I love this book is very nice and i like to get the book
Jo thanks for having the guts and gumption to follow another passion. I also am self taught. I don’t cook as much as I used to. I have gotten older and arthritis has kicked in. I enjoy your recipes. Keep on doing what you love! It is wonderful you share with all of us.
Thank you so much, Trish.
Roasted Cornish Hens. I made it today and the whole family from grandma to grandkids just loved it.
I subscribed and looking forward to trying more delicious recipes.
Thank you.
That’s awesome Deborah! We are so glad you all enjoyed it!
Hi Jo I have just found your wonderful blog today! I’m looking forward to trying lots of your wonderful looking recipes! The only question I have is about cups! I’m from the UK (living in the USA) and so far I have avoided recipes with cup measurements because I’m used to weighing and measuring everything and I can’t get a consistent measurement with cups! So what is a cup of flour in grams or lbs and oz for the purpose of your recipes??!! Thank you so much and I’m so sorry for the loss of your dog. Hans Solo looks so cute he must help ease the heart ache. We brought a Labrador puppy home with us in Feb this year! Life has never been the same but it’s fantastic! Dogs definitely weave their way into our hearts!!!
Hi Francesca,
Welcome to the blog! So glad to have you join our little world of food. Life is definitely never the same after getting a puppy, so glad you find is as fantastic as we do with ours. Dogs are absolutely amazing!
As for the measurements, any conversion method you find on the internet will help you with that a lot. For example for a cup of flour you would use 136 grams or 4.8 oz. Let us know how your recipes turn out! Also note that all our recipes do have metric conversion, in each recipe card below ingredients you can convert to metric. Hope this helps.
That’s fantastic thank you!!!
I had a roommate in college (Stephan Juranics) who was from Transylvania, and was an exchange student. You are now the second person who I know from Transylvania.
That’s great! Welcome to the blog!
To Joanna ,,Nice to meet you on line , love the food of area you are from. me Italian. and. Lithuanian if you can get this awesome cook book Taste of Lithuania by Beata Nicholson . You will love its stories and traditional Lithuanian recipes. it is a journey and may inspire your next book. ” PeaceBeWithYou ” And as always ” Good Appetite “
Hi Joseph, welcome to the blog.
Thanks for the recommendation 🙂
The breaded cauliflower looks great and i did manage to have some panko stick but over all it wasn’t sticking well at all. it is really tasty the bits that did keep the batter on.
Hello,
I’m a new subscriber (so I can’t rate a recipe :c ), but I hope that following your repices will introduce me to the chef side of myself! FYI I found this link by looking though Rocky Road Ice-Cream recipes… Maybe I should start with that one first.
Wish me luck!
Good luck, Gabriela! I’m sure you’ll find some recipes you like, there are hundreds and hundreds of them. 🙂
The French herb bread recipe does not include proofing the yeast .is that correct?
Not sure which bread you’re talking about? If you comment on that recipe, we’ll help you there.
I have been searching for a recipe for Mexican Casserole that has refried beans and excited to find one in your email. I do have one question, can I substitute green enchilada sauce for the red because we prefer it. Thank you
Yeah I think it should be just fine. 🙂
I LOVE ALL YOUR RECIPES !!
Thank you!
Which instant pot do you recommend?
Hi Kelly,
We use our Instant Pot Lux 6-in-1, but any Instant Pot works well for the blog recipes. We like that one because it has all the cooking options in one pot so it’s convenient for storage as well.
One way to comfort your dog, from the loss of his buddy is to buy Solo a big, lightweight stuffed dog. Dogs hurt too!!
Thank you! It’s been over year now, but yeah we bought him lots of toys. He had a stuffed dog too but he’s a power chewer so it was gone in a couple hours. 🙂