Growing up in Alberta, Canada, Janessa Heck’s childhood home was a place where cooking was a life skill learned early.
"When I was about nine or ten," she remembers, "my parents assigned my sister and me each a night of the week where we were in charge of dinner."
What started as family fun around the stovetop eventually turned into a lifelong embrace of cooking. As Janessa grew up and moved out on her own, she continued experimenting with new recipes, often texting photos of her latest dishes to share with her family.
She also leaned heavily on food blogs for inspiration. "I’d always thought it would be kind of cool to start one," she said.
And so, in December 2020, The Nessy Kitchen was born. Named after her childhood nickname (“Messy Nessy") from her own cooking/baking messes (which she always cleaned up afterward, mind you), the blog began as a humble collection of recipes that came with grainy food photos, having been snapped in dim Canadian winter light.
"The first year and a half, I had almost no visitors to my site,” she says. "I didn’t know anything about SEO or how content even got found."
But instead of giving up, Janessa kept at it. She taught herself food photography. She learned the ropes of digital publishing. And slowly, the audience came.
The Nessy Kitchen now draws tens of thousands of monthly readers. And while Janessa posts a variety of dishes, one thing has struck a chord with folks: oat flour.
Funny enough, that particular niche (originally stemming from a digestive health issue Janessa had) has become one of her blog’s defining features.
Her most popular recipes? Oat flour standouts like her applesauce muffins and her chocolate cookies.