Quick Meals In Minutes

This site actually started out as Trader Joe’s Recipes in 2002 –
a place to share the recipes we were creating in the store.

Yes, I was paid to play with food, along with Ruth, Jessica, Elizabeth, and Jeff.

In fairly typical corporate fashion, about 2005 the corporate office found out about the site and they didn’t like the idea of one of their employees running a website with their name and logo on it. The site was extremely popular with our customers, so TJ simply morphed into Totally Joyous.
Same recipes, same fun food, just without the TJ name or logo.

From there, it grew into more recipes, cookbooks, and the actual food blog in 2005.

Products come and products go, so many of the recipes were done, tweaked, and sometimes completely redone with different ingredients as things changed on the shelves.

Today, even more products have come and gone, but that doesn’t mean the recipes have to disappear. Take an old favorite, swap in something new, change it up, and make it your own. Use your imagination and, most importantly, have fun with them!

I retired in 2018 after 17 years, and while I did have my fingers in many of them, I certainly didn’t create all of these recipes. It was a collaborative effort with some very talented, creative people – and a lot of tasting along the way!

The rest, as they say, is history…

Evolution of a Demo Program