Stress-free FEASTING

Queenstown food blogger Jana MacPherson is known for her simple yet delicious weeknight dinners. During the festive season, her suite of Haier kitchen appliances are put through its paces

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For many busy working mums, food prep – from weeknight dinners to after-school snacks – feels endless. For Jana MacPherson, it's part of her brand. The clever cook and food blogger has more than 35,000 followers on her Instagram @the_macpherson_diaries, many of whom subscribe to her Dinner Club for recipes, meal plans and shopping lists.

A kitchen, then, needs to run smoothly, especially during the busy, food-focused festive season. In her Queenstown home, Jana's Haier appliances are the quiet workhorses behind many of her most popular recipes, from salmon curry to chicken and broccoli pasta bake.

Between recipe testing and cooking for her two children, her Haier 600 Series builtin oven works overtime. But at a push, her favourite feature just beats out the air fryer and steam-assisted cooking functions.

“It's the self-cleaning mode,” she says. “I turn on the self-cleaning function at 10pm, wipe it down in the morning and it looks amazing. I'm a working mum, I don't have time to scrub an oven.”

Jana's cooking motto is “simple but delicious” and she inspires thousands of followers to recreate her weeknight favourites. In her own kitchen, the pizza oven setting gets the biggest workout, she says. “I use it once a week. I make dough, top it with whatever's in the fridge and it comes out crispy outside, soft in the middle. This week, I've been using the Christmas ham for toppings.”

When she's after weeknight dinner inspo, Jana turns to the Flavorly Recipe Hub on her SmartHQ app, which links directly to the oven. “I love the air fryer recipes. The Korean crispy chicken wings are delicious.”