OH, Forks! A Little Bit of Everything and All That’s Gluten Free Cook Book 2014

GF4M: Nutrition Label Hell

gluten-joke-quote

GF4M: Nutrition Label Hell

Now that I’m officially on fire with this new nutrition label program, the perfectionism has stepped in. I think I’ve said before that novel writing is MUCH easier than cook book design! I’m still averaging about an hour per recipe in BOTH programs! Doing the math, that’s only equaled one recipe per night! DISLIKE! Because there HAS to be a better way, I’ve spent the last few days testing out new methods, new ways of creating the most output, with the least input? Bah. I’m losing my mind in calorie counts, and potassium percentages…

I love cooking. I love making super healthy, fresh ingredient food things. I also like to write books, and the stress of the cook book is making me get side-tracked on the novel!! No matter how hard I try to focus on one major project at a time, it never works out that way! I do better with more stress, and pressure, I think. As you can tell, this morning, I’m full of rambling words, well, anything to avoid doing nutrition labels this early in the morning! 🙂

As with my years of learning the gluten free eating style, of course, I’m nowhere near perfect. Sometimes it’s just….inevitable. And like in this YouTube movie….the pressures at times are just too great! Check out this short video, One More Grain by Michael Bihovsky, and get a good morning laugh!

Thanks again for your patience! It won’t be too much longer now!!! Skye Falcon’s Gluten Free for Me #1 will be completed soon! Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for lots of new recipes, pictures, and more!

Can It! It’s Jelly Time!

2014-06-04 13.49.45

Can It! It’s Jelly Time!

~

I LOVE canning!! Don’t you? If you don’t, you should! It’s so simple to keep your garden veggies, salsas, and fruits longer, doesn’t take up all your freezer space, AND it’s something fun to do with the kids. (Okay, okay, sometimes. I’ve heard not all kids like to listen, or help. Shocking, I know.) I was even lucky enough that my dad built me my own canning shelved armoire. A few months back, while the cook book development was happening, I created a few new recipes for canning, and today began trying some of them out!

A few years ago, I made up a pretty smashing recipe for spicy strawberry jelly. Many people loved it, requested more, and had multiple jars. My jellies are low sugar, and most often organic. This was true of the Organic Strawberry Jalapeno jelly. This favorite WILL be coming back for my summer sales, as will a new flavor freshly made today… Organic Strawberry Orange! It’s pretty fabulous, and has the sneakiest hint of orange. Really refreshing, and not too out there!!

We do the most canning with salsas, tomatoes, peppers, pickles, green beans, applesauce, fruits, and jellies. If stored correctly, many of these things will last up to 12 months! Many of our canning recipes will be available in our e-book, Gluten Free for Me: Can It! Book. This is due soon after the cook book is released!!

Thank you, so much, for checking in and for the support! Support ALL your local authors, artists, and small businesses!

Hello, Summer Heat! Welcome back, Garden!

20140522_155651

Hello, Summer Heat! Welcome back, Garden!

~

Taking myself out of the garden for a bit this Memorial Day weekend to get a few blogs updates, and some cook book work done in the rainy and early parts of our long weekend. I hope you’re having a great weekend with your family, and friends!

I’ve been busily getting the garden going, and keeping the “organic” part happening. It’s not much harder to go organic, I just have to make sure that nothing funny gets put on my plants. That’s proved especially difficult as we prep our house and get it ready for sale later on this year. Painting the garden fences was a chore, but looks so much better now! Now to tackle the back fence….

20140525_172326

The tomatoes, green beans, zucc’s, snap peas, 12 different types of peppers, raspberries, sweet corn, sunflowers, onions, strawberries and potatoes are all growing SO well! We’ve had a decent amount of rainy days, so I haven’t had to spend much time watering extra….yet.

20140522_155657

One of the reasons I love summer so much (more like why I tolerate the ridiculous heat quietly) is that it gives me the freshest produce for my recipes. Love the whole home-grown aspect of living. No worries—my garden is already planned out where we’re moving, too. Garden size is indeed a stipulation for quality, peaceful living. HA!

20140522_155908

The cook book is still coming along. While I did take a few days off for said gardening work, I’m still busily making nutrition labels for each and every recipe. It’s a long, long process….one that I didn’t have any idea just how long it truly was going to take…. Until I started doing it! Slow, but sure! It’s getting there!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Don’t forget to THANK those who have served, or are serving for keeping our country safe!

Gluten Free for Me Mid-April 2014 Updates

th (22)

Gluten Free for Me Mid-April 2014 Updates!

~

Well, made it to the middle of April, only by the skin of my nose. Finally coming around and getting back to my “normal” after sickness-self. Even though I had a few weeks down, I was still able to be productive from bed, publishing a book, and working on the others!!

The past few days, I’ve managed to get the green house up and prepped for planting! We’ve bought all our seeds organic this year, and are proceeding with an all organic garden for the first time EVER! I’m very excited about this…as you may or may not be able to tell! With the help of the kids, we got the garden beds all cleaned out and ready for planting AFTER our last frost. I know, I know…some people have planted, or are in the next few days. With as much as we plant, and the wacky Indiana weather…. I’m too afraid I won’t have the energy to cover, uncover, re-cover, and uncover all the plants over and over. I mean, yesterday I was outside in a t-shirt, sweating while tearing weeds out of the garden. Tonight it’s going to snow, and tomorrow the high is 37.

So, this week the green house will be planted, and seeds will begin their journey of life, to production. I’m working on planning the garden beds’ layout, and using many natural bug and pest deterrents this year. Our strawberries, potatoes, and onions are already growing!!!

Gardening is, by far, one of my favorite past times, ever. I love that I can grow our food, and use it in most all of these fabulous recipes!!! The best part is…. I’m REALLY GOOD at it, too!! HA!

Check back with us soon for more recipes posted for you to try!! We’re getting closer, and closer to publication of the cook book!!!! Now I need to get off of this magic box…and go make the recipe for the new GF4M Can It! book! Organic GF Spaghetti Sauce!!

Gluten Free for Me Cook Book Updates April 2014

2014-04-09 19.47.19 stuffed french toast straw cream

Gluten Free for Me Cook Book Updates April 2014

~

It’s hard to believe that April is almost half over, but we’re so thankful that the weather has finally taken a warm turn!! With the publication of Skye Falcon’s Phoenix on Fire going live, the focus has now shifted back to this fabulous cook book! Hopefully, with no major hang ups….we’ll have the “birth” of this new baby this summer!!!

As I sat today watching my kiddos at swim practice, I began rifling through the pages, and pages, and pages of recipes we have made from all these new recipe creations. I quickly came to the conclusion that we needed more than one cook book. Trouble is, we’ve got a whole book worth of recipes that we swear by for canning. And then a whole other pile of “one pot” recipes, too. So, you’ll see “Gluten Free for Me: Can It.” and “Gluten Free for Me: One Dish Wonders” appear in cook book format soon, too. (Maybe they’ll all hit at the same time??) Realizing this was sort of overwhelming…. as we’re quickly remembering the work done on a cook book is about twenty eight million times harder than that of a novel!!

Overall, we’re very happy with where the cook book is progress wise, and where it’s headed in marketing and sales. This gluten free cook book will have basic recipes, all the way up to the insanely complicated–but insanely, ridiculously tasty. Some of these recipes are our old family recipes that I’ve tweaked to be healthy, and GF. And the others are straight from my head, and tested on my poor, helpless family members. (Just kidding…they have no complaints, as of yet.) Some of these recipes will have dairy free, or vegan options, for cooking, too.

We’re currently running some surveys, and questionnaires about the general public’s thoughts on cook books in general, and people’s general likes on layouts. WHY are we doing this? Simple. We want you to use this cook book, all the time. We want it to be easy, and have the information in it that YOU want, and/or need, to successfully remake these recipes. As planned now, our cook book will have pictures, nutrition labels with serving size, ingredient list separate from directions, step by step directions, and cooking/prep time. The type-face of all the sections are quite different, so the title and ingredient list will stand out to you, with the picture. The feedback we’re getting tells us we’re dead on with the layout, so far.

Many of you know I’ve been dealing with massive illness, that keeps raring it’s ugly head at the worst times. It’s been WEEKS since I’ve made any real progress on things (except for the Phoenix on Fire!) in the kitchen, and I’ve been so happy to get back to it! Tonight I managed to get some samples of our GF Banana Pear bread ready to go. I’m in love with the cute little loaves the new pan made!!

10168195_245759488941511_5833243390574093162_n

While making those fancy little loaves, I decided to do a new creation, based off of the fad I’ve seen go across Pinterest, and Facebook! Stuffed French Toast! Of course, ours is GF, and can be made dairy free, too! We went with a strawberry vanilla cream filling, with a spiced bread. The kids moaned through dinner, and I ate mine in mere bites… So, safe to say it’s freaking delicious!! If you’re in to the stuffed French toast craze, rest assured this will satisfy your gluten free desires!!

As always, If you’re reading this, we THANK YOU. Your support does not go unnoticed, and is ALWAYS appreciated!

 

Gluten Free for Me 2014 Cook Book Updates!!

gf4m1a

Gluten Free for Me 2014 Cook Book Updates

~

Our inboxes have been bombarded with questions, and we wanted to address some of them in a more public forum, like our blog. We’re so thankful for those who have stuck by us on this ride, and those that are being patient. We’ll try to answer the most asked questions below. If you have any other questions, please feel free to message us, or inbox us on Facebook!

When will the cook book be available? The cook book will be published in the summer or fall of 2014. We first said that it could be done by spring, and parts of it will be. But, we don’t want to rush it, as perfection cannot be pushed!

Where will the cook book be available? The cook book will be available from Amazon, as an e-book, and also print copies will be available in some local stores around Fort Wayne, Indiana.

How much will the book cost? I cannot tell you that, at this point. We are aiming for 100 recipes, hopefully most all with pictures, and nutrition labels. It should be comparable to other cook books of it’s size already for sale.

Where do your recipes come from? Many of my recipes are old family recipes that I’ve manipulated, changed, and managed to get gluten free. Over half of the recipes in the cook book originated in my brain. We like to help people with their gluten free ventures, by using normal ingredients that one may already have, and sticking with ingredients that won’t cost you a fortune.

Will every recipe be gluten free in the cook book? Yes, every recipe will be gluten free, or have options to make it dairy free, or vegan. Each will be marked as such. We also have plans for an “Everything Else” category in the cook book, that will have a page of safe gluten free substitutions, and even gluten free pet treats!

I’ve heard you’ve done taste tests. How can I get involved with those? To be a taste tester, you must be reasonably close to Fort Wayne. We arrange drop offs of our treats to your at your home, or work place. We ask that those who sample, fill out a comment card in return. When taste tests are coming, they will be posted on the Facebook page. Feel free to LIKE our page!!

~

Thank you, again, for the support! We cannot wait to share this with you!!