Hello lovely readers!

So that’s another year under my belt, another year in which your support has enabled me to publish my recipes for a living (dream job or what?!?!) so let’s just get that first THANK YOU out of the way.

Behind the scenes, 2022 has been a lovely calm year after the tumultuous 2021. No lockdowns, no cross country moves, no house build delays, no Airbnbs, just me in my own kitchen and my own home office doing my thing. And breathe… Quiet normality has been nice.

Most Popular Recipes of 2022

And here’s the part where we look at the most popular of my 2022 recipes, purely based on traffic:

Air Fryer Ravioli Chips – It turns out the internet really, really needed a ravioli recipe without breading because these instantly brought in the Google clicks.

The Jennifer Aniston Salad! This salad went viral, but lots of you didn’t want a Tik Tok video, you wanted a printable recipe, and that’s what we do here! This is why the world needs us Elder Millennials on the scene.

Roasted Broccoli, Halloumi and Smashed Potatoes. The most popular recipes are rarely my personal favorites, but this year, we break that trend with this recipe! I LOVED this one and am delighted that so many others have found and enjoyed it too.

And a special mention for my Vegetarian Christmas Salad! Which was published a couple weeks before Christmas but got so much love in a very short time.

My Overlooked Favorites for 2022

I always have a few that are special to me even if they don’t bring in the big numbers, and that’s what this section is for. If you want to take a chance on something that didn’t grab you the first time around, why not give these overlooked recipes a chance.

There is just so much to love about these Halloumi Stuffed Sweet Potatoes! Filling and nutritious and full of contrasting flavors and textures, they are the perfect light dinner.

This vegan taco meat deserves to break the internet! I am sure my roasted chickpea and mushroom “meat” will be back next year in a few other forms – it’s just too good, and too easy, to stop playing around with.

Perfecting this pesto recipe was definitely a highlight of the summer, and this angel hair dish will always be my favorite way to serve it.

The Kids’ Top Pick of 2022

Ha. There is only one to choose from.

This Sweet Potato Risotto for Kids was the only thing I shared to my baby, toddler + kid page ALL YEAR because my 6 year old’s distrust of food that isn’t mac and cheese or pizza is no joke. Deep breaths. This risotto, however, was able to hit the spot and is packing in some sweet potato too. A winner. Parents of mac and cheese lovers, you’ll want to try this one!

Looking Ahead…

I guess next year’s big focus needs to be budget recipes! With the cost of ingredients going up around the world, things feel a little different in the food space lately. It is important to me that this an inclusive space, and that my recipes are realistic for the majority of families so this is on my mind A LOT. You may have noticed that most of my new recipes now comment specifically on how to make them at a lower price point, by making appropriate substitutions or by reassuring you when budget range ingredients will do the job well. I test most of my recipes 3-4 times each so I can actually try it different ways, and this is why I talk so extensively about substitutions. I also recently started a new category for Budget Recipes and I have been working to assign older recipes to this. It is all a work in progress, but know that it’s on my mind to start building up a more robust collection of cheap meal ideas.

I also plan to keep bulking out my air fryer recipe collection, as more people embrace air fryers. And maybe we could add more than one recipe to Happy Veggie Tots this year?!?! The kids will decide. I’d also like to add more whole grain and bean centric recipes to the table here, as I continue to battle the temptation to make pasta at every meal (why is this so hard?!?!)

Thank you!

As always, I couldn’t do this if it weren’t for those of you who look at my recipes, read my posts, rate the recipes you try and generally spend time here. In 2022 this site was 100% ad funded, and I admittedly do allow an ad-heavy layout on my site, and not one of you has complained.

I love what I do, but it’s harder work than a lot of people imagine, and my ads give me the best chance of coming out of this with a fair salary for the work I put in. It means so much to me and my family that I get to run this as a viable business.

You can help!

If you’re wondering how you can further support Happy Veggie Kitchen, or other small blogs and websites, here are the things that that really truly help us grow:

Rate the recipes you enjoy: When a recipe shows up on Google with lots of positive ratings, people are more likely to consider that recipe.

Pinterest user? Pin the recipes that interest you and mark “Tried it” on the ones you’ve made: The pins that send me the most traffic are not the ones I pin, or the ones my blog friends with thousands of followers pin, it’s the ones real users pin. Pinterest knows the difference. If you’re a user, consider pinning my recipes that you are interested in to your boards. And if you try one, pleeeeeease mark as “tried” and share a photo – this can dramatically increase the visibility of your pin in other people’s feeds.

Subscribe : Subscribing over email means that the social media algorithms won’t let my recipes fade out of your feed and you will be the first to know when there are new recipes. Sign up here!

So with that I am signing off for the rest of the year, and I will see you in mid January once the kids are back at school and the photography studio (er, my kitchen window) is back in action.

Christine