About Us
Welcome to our family’s unofficial guide to navigating mealtime chaos! We are Julie & Marcie – two sisters and moms with busy families who intimately understand the struggle of getting dinner on the table fast.
Have needy kids, picky eaters, limited time…no patience? ⏱️
We get it! And we’re here for you – with easy recipes that take 28 minutes or less, activities to occupy your kids so you can actually cook, and tips and tricks for simplifying mealtime along the way.
➡️ What Led Us Here…
We are sisters (2 ½ yrs apart), bff’s, and busy moms, with 6 kids between us. We grew up on the east coast with a mom who’s an incredible cook and baker (even accepted to Le Cordon Bleu once but regrettably never went), and a foodie dad who was always taking us to try the best & newest restaurants around town. Needless to say, good food has always been central in our lives! But as we grew up and started our own families, we struggled with the reality of having to make a family dinner every night. Back in 2017, we used to call each other (and our mom!) constantly, seeking advice on what to make our kids for dinner (something they’d actually eat!), and how to actually cook when our kids were either needy, cranky, or simply being their wild toddler selves. We were desperately seeking a resource for quick recipes and ways to keep the kids distracted so we could actually cook! Long story short – we couldn’t find it, so we created it: Platein28 was born!
So, What is Platein28?
Platein28 is our answer to mealtime chaos, conceived completely out of honest experience. We have developed over 200 recipes that satisfy both grown-ups and picky-eater kiddos, and kid-approved crafts that will successfully occupy your kids while you cook. For families with budding sous chefs, we’ve developed loads of tips on how your kids can actually help you cook and what kitchen tools are best for kids. The thing is – you don’t have to be a chef to make good food. And the mealtime struggle is manageable. Our philosophy is that life is hectic, but dinnertime doesn’t need to be!
Now we’ve been recipe-testing on our kids and friends, and helping other grownups get food on the table for over 8 years, with over 20,000 views every month. You can find our community on Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. And we love our affiliate partners – Amazon, Thermoworks and Kikkerland!
Julie
- What I do @ Platein28: Content Creator, Recipe Developer, Food Photographer, Finance Manager, Editor
- A little bit about me: Julie here, aka the older, wiser sister 🙂 Actually, you could say I’m the more wayward, unconventional sister. I represent the west-coast side of the Platein28 equation, living in Portland, Oregon. My partner and I have four kids between us, ages 9-11. We also have two beastly, but loving rescue pit bulls. When I’m not recipe-testing or blogging, you can find me going to the movies, chauffeuring my kids around to their 10 million activities, taste-testing tequilas (afterwards, ha), making travel plans, or doing activist work for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
- Food philosophy: Making food has always been a love of mine, and when I started food blogging 8 years ago, I never turned back! When it comes to food, I value keeping things local, using lots of whole, less processed ingredients. Farmers’ markets make my world go round! But I’m also a realist and can totally get down with some frozen pizzas. Because I was a single mom for years, I really understand being strapped for time and needing to feed kids fast – no judgment ever on how you gotta make that happen!
We come at this honestly, drawing our expertise from real-life cooking and LOTS of testing on our families. Our kitchen knowledge is supplemented by completing SEO-based courses from Cooking with Keywords, Top Hat Rank webinars, and attending the annual Tastemaker Food Blogging Conference. We love our food blogging community!
Marcie
- What I do @ Platein28: Content Creator, Recipe Developer, Food Photographer, Social Media Manager, SEO Manager
- A little bit about me: Marcie Groller, the younger, upbeat yet reserved sister, who lives in the sunny South! My husband, two kiddos and I live in North Carolina with our lazy English bulldog, who you can usually find snoring loudly on the couch. When I’m not researching new recipes my kids will LOVE, you can find me playing tennis, volunteering at my kiddos’ schools or cruising on the intercoastal waterway with the family.
- Food philosophy: My love for cooking started with a simple goal—making meals my family would actually enjoy. After plenty of trial and error, I found easy ways to win over even the pickiest eaters, like sneaking in veggies, making food fun to eat, and serving up creative dipping sauces. With a husband in residency and two little ones to juggle, I also had to find a way to get dinner on the table fast while keeping the kids entertained. Crafts became my go-to solution—keeping their hands busy so I could focus on cooking without the chaos.
💜 More Personally…
Platein28 is a labor of love from our family to yours. We are sisters, with collectively 6 kids ranging from 9 to 12 years old. We live on opposite coasts, and have very different lifestyles, family structures, home situations, and even politics. These differences really help us capture different parent realities. Afterall, one size does not fit all, and there is no standard family. We test out everything on our site to hone in on what’s practical and what works for different taste buds. And our beautiful mama, Melodee, chimes in at every step!
