One of the things I am most excited about with this blog is the ability to teach people how to cook and bake sugar-free in a clear, incremental, simplified fashion. I know from experience how overwhelming it can be to open recipes just to be completely confused as to how to proceed with foreign sweeteners, flours, and ingredients. I also know all too well about wasting ingredients (and money) trying to make recipes that others like (but that my family wouldn’t touch!) or trying to convert a recipe from “unhealthy” to healthy—without understanding how a certain sweetener works or how a “flour” can be substituted.
Likewise, I want to know as much as I can about the taste, texture, time, difficulty, and more of recipes. Will my kids like this? Is it something that is elaborate, that only long-time sugar-free bakers will have success with? Is it something that is quick? Does it freeze well?
Enter my Recipe Labels. I am an instructional writer—I have written seventy curriculum books in language arts, writing, reading, and more—over fifty thousand pages. My expertise in instructional writing will be all over this blog, my e-books, my healthy mixes, and even my organization/efficiency posts. These Recipe Labels are just that—instructional tags to help answer the questions that different kinds of cooks (and eaters) have.
Each recipe in the blog, the book Sugar-Free Solutions, the book Healthy Mixes: Sugar-Free, Flour-Free, and the upcoming Healthy Mixes books, contains a set of Recipe Labels like those shown below. These labels will help you see how each recipe fits in with your family’s eating patterns (i.e. low carb, healthy, Trim Healthy Mama, etc.) as well as how each one fits with your cooking/kitchen systems. Short descriptions are provided below to introduce you to each label.
Recipe Labels
Very Low Carb (VLC): This label will help those on a very low carb diet (or low carb/high fat one) determine how a recipe can fit into their eating plan. Most of the recipes in the Healthy Mixes books can be made very low carb (in part due to my Very Low Carb “Flour” Mix and in part due to the sugar-free sweeteners). (Exceptions to these include yeast-based recipes, which are low to moderate in carbs using my Sprouted Flour Mix.)
Family-Friendly (FF): Some healthy recipes are more accepted by children (and husbands who are used to the SAD {Standard American Diet})! Others taste too different or too “healthy”—or even “yucky.” When I was first learning how to cook and bake more healthfully, I would have loved it if recipes had told me how appealing they might be to my family (and to my child-like palate!). This label will help with that!
Store-Bought-Stella (SBS): Busy people who work full time and manage homes also want to be healthy! Unfortunately, many healthier recipe providers assume that cooks have a great amount of time to dedicate to planning, prepping, shopping, baking, and cooking. This is often not the case in today’s busy society. Healthy Mixes makes a genuine attempt to help those who formerly relied on fast food and store-bought foods learn to cook and bake healthful dishes using quick mixes (and sometimes store-bought foods to make “semi-homemade”) and other tricks and tips. I am a mnemonic, quick tip, short cut teacher in all seventy of my curriculum books—as well as in my recipes! SBS labels will help those who want convenience in preparing foods that are more healthful than the typical alternatives.
Homemade Hannah (HH): Cooks who love spending time in their kitchens coming up with all manner of homemade items will love Healthy Mixes e books. These mixes combine the convenience of mixes with the healthful/homemade aspects of the homemade kitchen. You HH’s will love experimenting with mixes! You will also love the Recipe Labels and little details that I give with the recipes and tips. I am a teacher through and through—and most HH’s are great learners, so it’s a great match! 😉
Freezer Cooking (FC): I have been a freezer cook (of homestyle, not always healthy entrees) for twenty-five years. I started out with a sugar and white flour mix cookbook (that had some freezer meats and bases) and then branched out to freezer, or what is often known as “once a month,” cooking. Some of the mixes in the series will be freezer-friendly (especially some of the meat mixes) as will many entrees, candies, cookie doughs, bread dough, and more at the blog. Freezer cooking has been a great joy to me, and I enjoy passing the skills along whenever I can.
Trim Healthy Mama-Friendly (THM) (www.trimhealthymama.com): Trim, Healthy Mamas, rejoice! Healthy Mixes combines the healthful aspects of the THM eating plan with the convenience and step-by-step instructions that many who are not used to cooking more healthfully need when trying to following the THM program. The Recipe Labels following each recipe in the e-books and the blog (as well as this book!) will alert you to when a recipe fits into the THM program—and whether it is an S, E, or FP. (The Recipe Labels will also tell you how you can tweak a recipe to fit.)
Sugar Free (SF): All of the Healthy Mixes e books, blog posts, and newsletters contain only sugar-free recipes. Additionally, they will help you learn how to use various healthy sugar-free substitutes successfully. The SF label will include information on how to use the sweeteners listed in the Sugar-Free Solutions Chart contained in this e-book.
Gluten Free (GF): Most of the recipes I create are gluten-free, with the exception of the Sprouted Flour Mix ones. (And even those are acceptable to many gluten-free folks…though not to those with celiac disease). This label will indicate the gluten-free recipes and will also give you insights in to how to make the recipe gluten-free if it is not already.
