Inside Joanna McMillan's kitchen

Once a chubby kid, Joanna McMillan aka Dr Jo, discovered the confidence and health-boosting benefits of exercise and spent her early career as a fitness instructor. She'd always wanted to study science, which ultimately set her on the path to degrees including a PhD in nutrition and dietetics. Her mission is to encourage people to forget fads, eat real food in appropriate amounts for their body, and to do it forever.

The staples

My pantry: Cobram extra virgin olive oil, without a doubt, I use every day in at least two of my meals. There's always cans of tomatoes and jars of passata for sauces and simple chicken and vegetable dishes I just throw in the oven. I have all types of nuts and eating them every day dramatically reduces your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. They're great for snacking and I put them in my muesli. Chia and other seeds are a great source of fibre. Canned fish is handy because I try to eat at least three fish meals a week so it's a regular lunch. I always have chickpeas in cans because they're easy to use. If you've got them in cans you'll use them more often.

My fridge: Obviously there's always loads of veg. I like skim milk, not because there are any weight loss benefits – there aren't – but I like the freshness of it. I make that EasiYo yoghurt all the time. My kids are always asking for Nutella​ so I make my own version with hazelnuts, honey to sweeten, milk powder and cocoa.

I'm cooking

Last dinner at home.

I cooked my family's favourite – a slow-braised pork ragu. I always put loads of vegies in my ragu and fold through big handfuls of basil, parsley and spinach at the end. We had it with wholemeal tagliatelle and salad on the side.

Secret vice

I'm not an extremist in terms of nutrition. I try to eat real food in appropriate amounts so I therefore don't see any food as being particularly naughty. I don't have a sweet tooth so I rarely have dessert. I suppose sometimes I eat too much. And I do like a good mature cheddar or brie.

I'm drinking

I drink a Nespresso coffee just with some skim milk. There's loads of evidence it's good for you in all sorts of ways but how you have it is important. I often have a good old English Breakfast tea with skim milk and if I'm being proper I'll brew a pot using The Slow Tea company leaves. Green tea is good, hot or cold, in the afternoon. I tend to drink pinot noir in winter and pinot grigio or pinot gris in summer.

We buy cleanskins from Kemenys Bottle Shop – they're such good value. And I love French champagne as a special treat.

My toolkit

My lovely man was complaining about my blunt knives so the other day he came home with three Global knives for me. Some women get flowers, I get sharp knives! Vitamix​ is my client but I was already using their blender, which is so powerful. I can make my own nut butters in it and once you've had it home-made you'll never eat the commercial stuff again. The Jamie Oliver Tefal​ non stick pan I use every day.

Favourite

My recipe journals have some of my Mum's recipes in her beautiful handwriting as well as other old favourites from other members of my family. It's irreplaceable.

Inspiration

I read cookbooks galore but I rarely follow a recipe. I'll flick through them while the kids are watching TV and it'll give me ideas. I'm loving Ottolenghi​ at the moment because he does such great things with vegies of course. I also love the MoVida book because that fits in with my love of Mediterranean food, loads of olive oil, legumes, seafood – it's my kind of food.

Kitchen highlight

The bench. We entertain a lot and there's room for our friends to sit on the stools with a glass of wine while I'm cooking. It's central to family life.

Food discovery

Teff flour is versatile unrefined product from an Ethiopian grain. I'm always looking for healthy alternatives and I used it instead of white flour to make pancakes for my kids on the weekend. It worked really well and because it's dark in colour they thought I'd made chocolate pancakes!

Most memorable meal

This year a girlfriend and I left our men and our kids behind, and went on holiday together to Croatia. We hired a boat with a skipper, who at lunchtime pulled up at a tiny village on an island close to Dubrovnik. There were no menus and we just let them feed us – all seafood they'd just caught that morning. Everything was done very simply with herbs and lemon and it was beautiful.