6 Year Blog Anniversary, 6 New Things, and Giveaway (closed)!

Just One Cookbook celebrates its 6 year blog anniversary with 6 new blog updates & international giveaway!

January 1st, 2017 marked my 6 years of blogging. I’ve known some of you from the first year of my blogging days and got to know many of you virtually over these 6 years.

I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for spending your precious time reading my blog, using my recipes in your kitchen, and letting a bit of me be a part of your life!

6 New Things You Will See on JOC in 2017

I’m excited to share some news and updates for this year.

1. Introducing a New Series

I’ll be sharing recipes from a Japanese TV program called Shinya Shokudo (深夜食堂). This series is now available on Netflix as Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories. If you watch this show and are curious about the recipes shared on the episodes, I’ll do my best to recreate these recipes on my blog!

2. Bringing Back Old Great Recipes To Life!

Do those beef rolls above appetizing to you? Then how about these in the picture below?

No? I don’t blame you. If I see a recipe with the lower picture online, I’m not sure if I’d cook it either. But both of the pictures are cooked with the exact same recipe. Yup, it’s power of food photography.

This year I’m hoping to update some of the not-so-delicious pictures for my old recipes. A lot of recipes are really good (like one above), and they are worth sharing again.

3. Introducing Easy Recipes (but without Step-by-Step Pictures)

▲Chocolate Almond Toffee Recipe

Noooooo! I can hear your voice from far and near. I deeply understand how much you love my step-by-step pictures for each recipe, and I’ve been receiving great feedback from you guys non-stop (Thank you!).

Mr. JOC has been taking pictures of step-by-step cooking process WHILE he films. This requires mad skills, guys. In the past, we thought of stopping taking step-by-step pictures many times to improve our videography because it slowed down our whole shooting process.

We’ve been thinking about this for the past 2 years and we finally decided that we will have 2 types of recipes: regular recipes with step by step pictures (published with same frequency as now) and super easy recipes without all the detailed step-by-step pictures (new!).

Basically, I’m going to increase one more post per week (I’m hopeful) and these additional posts will be easy recipes that shouldn’t require visual aids to follow. I want to be able to cook and photograph on my own during the weekdays when Mr. JOC is not at home (I simply can’t take pictures while I cook…)

Hopefully, you’ll like the idea of getting more recipes from me as post-editing will be much faster.

4. Make More Top Down Videos

I love watching quick 1 minute videos of how dishes are being made. Even though they’re not really helpful for making recipe, they are quite entertaining. If I plan on making a really easy dish, then I’ll try making short videos to complement it – just for fun.

5. Creating a New Shop Page

Every day I receive questions about the kitchen tools and gadgets I use in my recipes, and my current Kitchen Tool page (above) doesn’t help much. So I have asked my web designer to create a brand new shop page for us! Hopefully, this will help you find the kitchen tools that I love and use.

6. First Q&A Session

A lot of you have shared your personal stories with me over the 6 years, and it’s my turn to open up. Here’s my first Q&A (#askJOC).

Subscribe to YouTube Channel

Last but not least, I’d like to invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Just One Cookbook started as a food blog; However, Mr. JOC thought the videos would be very important and convinced me to start my channel 3+ years ago.

Mr. JOC spends his weekend filming my recipes and edits my videos at night during the week. It’s a lot of work to put into creating videos. Even though you might prefer reading blogs, I would like to invite you to my channel today and take a look at our videos. If you enjoy them, please like and share our videos. Your kind support means so much to us and we enjoy reading your comments.

Time for Giveaway!

I’m giving away the set of Global 8″ (20 cm) Chef Knife and Hinoki Cutting Board (value of $155 total) to 3 winners!

Please Note: If you are entering this giveaway from outside of the U.S., the winning prize will be a $150 Amazon gift card or $150 cash gift via Paypal.

GIVEAWAY RULES:

• Please Note: Your email for the comment entry has to match with your email address in my Email Newsletter Subscription mailing list.
• This giveaway contest closes on Sunday, February 5, at 12 p.m. PST and is open to everyone worldwide!
• Three (3) winners will be selected via Random.org and contacted via email, so please include a valid email address in the email address entry box (please double check your spelling!).
• The winner is required to respond within 48 hours to claim the prize.

HOW TO ENTER:

The more tickets/comments left will increase your odds of winning!  Good luck!

Ticket# 1 (Required): Subscribe to Just One Cookbook Email Newsletter if you haven’t and leave a comment below on this post.

Ticket 2 (Optional): Write your feedback (anything!) on a separate comment below.

Ticket 3 (Optional): Like my Facebook and leave a separate comment below on this post.

Ticket 4 (Optional): Follow my Instagram and then leave a separate comment below on this post.

Ticket 5 (Optional): Subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a separate comment below on this post.

Full Disclosure: This giveaway is sponsored by yours truly. 

*****

Thank you so much for participating this giveaway! The winners are:

Congratulations Kristina Fukuda (#1310), Theresa (#960), and Liza (#183)! I’ll email you shortly. Thanks again everyone!