Thanks to "The Restaurant Guy"

My thanks to John Dickson, The Restaurant Guy, for mentioning my book signing this Saturday in Santa Barbara at Savoy Cafe & Deli. If you live in the area or are planning on visiting the Santa Barbara area, you should check out John's blog for local events and happenings.

~Tracy

About Delightfully Free: Delightfully Free is a gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free cookbook of 141 recipes. It includes delicious resources for autism, Celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, obesity and just plain healthy living. It contains 114 color photographs, 114 vegetarian or vegetarian compatible recipes, and 103 vegan or vegan compatible recipes.   

Book Signing in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara is one of my favorite places to visit and on Saturday November 3rd, I will be signing my cookbook at a fabulous little cafe, Savoy Cafe & Deli, in Santa Barbara, California.

I will be there from 12:30 PM to 8:30 PM, so if you're in the area, please stop by and say hello. While there, enjoy their home-made, organic, all-natural menu, including gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy-free and/or vegan desserts. Owners Kathy and Paul really have created a delightful spot in beautiful downtown Santa Barbara! They are located at 24 West Figueroa Street, just off State Street.

I hope to see you there!

~Tracy

About Delightfully Free: Delightfully Free is a gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free cookbook of 141 recipes. It includes delicious resources for autism, Celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, obesity and just plain healthy living. It contains 114 color photographs, 114 vegetarian or vegetarian compatible recipes, and 103 vegan or vegan compatible recipes.  

Let's Embrace the Season

Isn't this a wonderful time of year! The crisp air and fall leaves always inspire me to put up our Fall decorations and start cooking and baking! That's how the Fall-themed recipes in the book came to be. Because when all the parties and family gatherings come, complete with all of those tempting dishes that we want to enjoy because they seem inseparable from the day, what are we going to do? Eat the goodies, have the momentary gratification... and then regret it for the next several days? Not on my watch! There is a much better way!

Let's embrace the season! But let's do so in a new, smarter way! We truly do not have to digest all of those calories packed with carbs, fats and sugars to enjoy the party. Honest! That is exactly what my new cookbook, Delightfully Free, is all about.  I have re-created recipes for our favorite things, including Herbed Turkey Dressing (no gluten, low in fat, I promise), home made Orange Cranberry Sauce (much lower in sugar, and unrefined, natural sugar at that), everything we need to complete the package including the gluten free, dairy free, refined sugar free Pumpkin Pie! 

Now here is one of my more original dishes that is so much fun! We have been making this one for over 20 years, so it is a solid family tradition. I love this dish and call it Festive Pumpkin Stew. Some dear memories of my kids, their grandparents and other assorted friends and family members around the table come to mind, and so, I'd like to share it with you.

This is a beautiful, one of a kind dish, and not just because you can make it in a pumpkin. It is savory, slightly sweet, and has a hint of sherry. It can be made vegetarian/vegan by eliminating the meat and substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth. The one shown in the photo was made with Ahi, but chicken or stew meat can be used instead of the fish. It's made with onion, garlic, yams, Yukon Gold Potatoes, bell peppers, dried apricots, tomatoes, corn and a little sherry.

I have always served this dish on the night our family gathers to trim the Christmas Tree. We garnish the white serving platter with a wreath of Kale or parsley and fresh, whole cranberries around the base of the pumpkin. 

This recipe makes enough to easily serve 10-12 people. We usually have some leftover, which is good because my father in-law really looks forward to this dish and I love to pack some up to send him home with. As a regular dinner for a smaller crowd, the dish can easily be halved. It can also be made without using a pumpkin, and served simply as the exotic stew that it is. I hope it might become one of your family's holiday traditions. Here's the promised page from my cookbook which will allow you to create your own Pumpkin Stew tradition!

I wish you all the best as we enter this wonderful time of year and I encourage you to get my cookbook now, so you can prepare the other dishes I will be talking about in the next few weeks. 

~Tracy

About Delightfully Free: Delightfully Free is a gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free cookbook of 141 recipes. It includes delicious resources for autism, Celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, obesity and just plain healthy living. It contains 114 color photographs, 114 vegetarian or vegetarian compatible recipes, and 103 vegan or vegan compatible recipes. 

 

                                                              

I'm Seeing Pumpkins!

There is something so cute about pumpkins. It has a lot to do with their spunky orange color and their round, squatty shapes. They just make me happy! Pumpkin patches and arrangements of Mums and fall leaves are now turning up, featuring all sizes of pumpkins on front porches and in windows. The days are getting shorter, the air is getting crisper. All of this puts me in the mood for a nice warm Pumpkin Spice Muffin and a hot cup of coffee. 

It's like that with all of the rest of the wonderful foods connected with this season, but unfortunately, most of the favorite holiday dishes we look forward to are way out of the realm of acceptable "clean eating" for those of us with food sensitivities (and most of them are hazardous to anyone's health). Sadly, in the past years, we have had to go without, or settle for  stripped down, bland, lack luster "healthy food" that caused our friends and family to sympathize with us, but certainly not want to share. I just couldn't give up, though, on warm, savory turkey dressing wafting herbs and other seasonings, Harvest Pumpkin Bread and everyone's favorite, homemade Pumpkin Pie, because these dishes are synonymous with the season!

So, I've re-created many of the old favorites (and even a few original ones) to be gluten free, dairy free and refined sugar free, and included them in my cookbook. Not a single recipe made the cut before it was tested extensively over the years at many a  family gathering. My new, healthy versions competed alongside the “traditional” recipes. Okay, you may have guessed by now that I have a “blended” family of eaters. Along with the "clean eaters," we have some dear ones who feel that they can consume whatever their eyes set upon without any consequence. Well, I'll leave that debate for a future post, but suffice it to say that this group of carefree eaters is a tough sell on anything they might consider "healthy food," let alone with gluten, dairy and refined sugar removed. 

I am pleased to report the outcome of my efforts. My friends and family have been won over to my “good-for-them” recipes as some of them call it. In fact, they routinely request my new renditions of the traditional recipes for repeat performances at the next gathering! This warms my heart because now, the folks I care so much about are happily enjoying healthy food. No one feels like they're missing out on a thing. In fact, I like to not even mention that there is something surprisingly  “different” about my Orange Cranberry Crumble or Eggnog Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce until the last crumb is gone. The reactions when they find out are always so entertaining, enthusiastic and rewarding.

~Tracy

About Delightfully Free: Delightfully Free is a gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free cookbook of 141 recipes. It includes delicious resources for autism, celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, obesity and just plain healthy living. It contains 114 color photographs, 114 vegetarian or vegetarian compatible recipes, and 103 vegan or vegan compatible recipes. 

 

                                                                  

I Love Fall

 I love this time of year! The leaves change, we pull out our sweaters and boots and start thinking of all the wonderful things we can do with apples! Cinnamon and cloves come to mind, baked apples, apple crisp, and how about Apple Cinnamon Granola!

One of the things I missed when I started eating "clean" was granola. Store bought, and even homemade recipes, use rolled oats, which convert quickly to sugar because they are a broken down, processed food. Then, to make it worse, they are full of refined sugar...lots of it. So what was considered to be a healthy snack, turns out to be high in simple carbs and laden with refined sugar.

My cookbook, Delightfully Free, is not only free of gluten, dairy and refined sugar, but it is also free of rolled oats. So, when it comes to granola, there are four things to be delighted about! In my recipes only steel cut oats are used. I've got to say, it is very hard to find a granola, or a recipe for granola, that is made with steel cut oats and is refined sugar free.

That is one reason that I am so pleased to offer my new cookbook. In it, I share my secret of how to take healthy, whole steel cut oats and prepare them for baking. In Delightfully Free, my Oatmeal Cookies, Raisin Squares and two kinds of granola recipes use the real thing--steel cut oats. 

To tie these two healthy Fall favorites together, try my Apple Cinnamon Granola. As sweet and crunchy as mine is, it's also wholesome and low in natural sugar.  
 

~Tracy

About Delightfully Free: Delightfully Free is a gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free cookbook of 141 recipes. It includes delicious resources for autism, celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, obesity and just plain healthy living. It contains 114 color photographs, 114 vegetarian or vegetarian compatible recipes, and 103 vegan or vegan compatible recipes. 

 

                                                                  
   

Bri's Big Black Bean Brownies Adventure!

Lately, my husband, Brian, has been back in the kitchen now that it's no longer a “construction zone” with limited access allowed. (I last talked about Bri in my April 2011 post: "I'm Seeing Less of My Husband!") He loves to make the Hummus recipe and knows it by heart, and is not shy about showing off by reciting it for guests who appreciate that it has become his specialty item. He also likes to talk about the "extras" he adds to it.

But, today, Black Bean Brownies are the subject. You see, Bri just came home from our long time mechanics, Swedish Asian Auto Service in Santa Ana, California and, of course, he told them about the book and many of them wanted copies. (They obviously not only care about healthy cars, they care about healthy eating too!) Well, upon his return from Swedish Asian, Bri announced that he had suggested that they start with the Black Bean Brownies recipe and, before long, he decided that he was going to make them a batch before visiting again the next day. This set him into action making the Black Bean Brownies. Here's the story in his own words. Take the wheel, Bri.

Bri: Well, thanks honey. Now, where's the accelerator pedal on this blog? How's that for keeping with the visit-to-the-auto-mechanic introduction?

Tracy: If you do as well here as you did in the kitchen yesterday...well, wrong analogy. I'm sure you'll keep the “car” out of the ditch. Tell them how it went yesterday with the Black Bean Brownies.

Bri: You know that I've made quite a few of your recipes and feel like I've helped out on a bunch of them. But, I've never made any of the baking ones because either you or one of our girls is always baking something. But, I was mentally ready...I had my game face on from the beginning because I knew you were leaving and no one would be home to help me. Plus, I didn't want you to come home and have to bail me out if I messed up. I felt like the back-up quarterback finally getting my big break. So, I assembled my team of ingredients and little measuring doodads, and I remembered how you always say to read through the recipe first, so I did that, sort of. Then, I started putting things in the blender and blending away. Somehow, despite my careful attention, I had forgotten to add the agave nectar and figured it out as I was scooping the mix from the blender to the baking pan. No worries, it can just go back in the blender for a little additional tumble time.

Tracy: Wow, lucky that you remembered in time.

Bri: Yeah, I'm still not sure how I saw it in all the clutter I had out on the counter.

Tracy: Just one reason why I like to be organized and keep my work space clear.

Bri: You know that I usually clean up as I go, but you see, I was trying to break the Black Bean Brownie Land Speed Preparation Record, so...things got a little hectic. But, once I had this little mishap I knew the 3B-LSP was unattainable, so I slowed up a bit and started reading more. One big thing I appreciated was always having the cookbook available to look at. Because it lays open so easily, I just laid it open to the Black Bean Brownie recipe and placed it on the counter just outside of the war zone. Any time I had a question, I would just glance over and there the recipe was for me to read without handling the book or needing to turn pages. The one splatter that made it over onto a page wiped off just fine. So, nice design work my dear.

Tracy: Thanks, you're so sweet to say. Any other challenging moments, Bri?

Bri: Yeah, when I got to the part about laying the stuff into the pan, I just about called you in a panic. I kept scrapping the blender trying to get more into the pan because I was looking at Brownies that looked like they were going to be about a quarter inch high at best. I even thought about adding the mix that I had noticed smeared up on one of the cabinet doors. Well, anyway, before picking up the phone, I read the recipe for the first time, er, re-read it again and saw-- plain as day-- near the end of the list of ingredients..."baking soda” and “baking powder,” and, of course, because I had cleaned up a smidge, I saw both containers. I remembered for sure that I had added them in the batter because it was a little tricky getting the powder measured out without spilling it onto the counter. Anyway, without going into how the counter looked, I had fortunately just heard you talking about someone who had left baking powder and baking soda out and how their Brownies didn't rise. So, that gave me the reassurance to think let's do a Hail Mary with this thing and see if I can nail some fluffy, delicious, good-for-you Brownies. I gave my Brownie mix a little pep talk, confidently put the pan in my pre-heated oven and even remembered to set the timer.

Tracy: Remembered to set the timer, Bri? I'm so impressed!

Bri: Yeah, it even went off after 16 minutes and, by the way, I sure am glad there wasn't anything in the microwave.

Tracy: Those two can be tricky to sort out, but there really is a timer that doesn't also work the microwave.

Bri: Well, yeah, but they both go "ding," so it worked out for me.

Tracy: What next?

Bri: I was raring to go as soon as that timer sounded. I had a toothpick to stick in the middle to see if my brownies were done and I had pot holders for the tricky oven-removal procedure.

Tracy: How did it go?

Bri: Well, from past experience, I remembered that I needed to hold a hot pad in both hands (I'm so glad we have had that aloe plant out back). Unfortunately, knowing both hands would be holding something, I stuck the toothpick in my mouth to hold it there.

Tracy: Okay, so tell me you didn't use that toothpick.

Bri: Well, why not? It was definitely not in for longer than 5 seconds.

Tracy: Bri, I've told you the 5-Second Rule only applies when you cook for your guys on your football weekends. Tell me you got another one.

Bri: Well sure, George from Seinfeld taught me about “double dipping.” Besides, I knew enough to know it would be a KFP to use that toothpick.

Tracy: “KFP”?

Bri: That would be short for “Kitchen Faux Pas.” Anyway, the toothpick didn't come out clean—from the Brownies, I mean. No worries. I'll just give them some more tanning time. After another two minutes that toothpick was coming out as clean as a Matt Barkley to Marquis Lee touchdown pass. I was so thrilled, I must've poked the toothpick in a couple dozen different spots.

Tracy: Was that the toothpick equivalent of running up the score, dear? Seriously, you did great because I thought your Black Bean Brownies were very moist and delicious. Good work, honey.

Bri: Well, thanks honey. I must admit I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Plus, they really liked them over at Swedish Asian. And I'd like to say that I really do like my guys down at the shop and have appreciated having them over the years. Guess I better go clean the kitchen now.

~Tracy

About Delightfully Free: Delightfully Free is a gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free cookbook of 141 recipes. It includes delicious resources for autism, celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, obesity and just plain healthy living. It contains 114 color photographs, 114 vegetarian or vegetarian compatible recipes, and 103 vegan or vegan compatible recipes. 

Baby Boomer Health

A newly released Australian study concluded that the Baby Boomer generation is in much worse health than their parents generation. Wow! Frankly, I think they could have figured that out and saved the money by looking around at what people are eating these days. The evidence speaks for itself. Alarming numbers of us are overweight and are having other health issues. The use of prescribed medications has multiplied in reckless proportions.

This particular article on the Baby Boomers' health noted that "the findings are alarming and evidence that new public policies are needed." But hey, let's rescue ourselves! I recommend that we don't just sit around, waiting for those new public policies. We already have the ability to make dramatic, positive changes in our own lives and those of our families, and I'm talking about changes that address the root of the problem, instead of just medicating it!

I would urge instead that we all keep learning about healthy eating. For example, what if we cut out the "foods" higher in fat and put our foot down against deep fried, trans fat-laden "foods" and instead started eating fresh vegetables and fruits, and whole, less processed, foods?  Parents could cut out so much of the problem by being aware of the widespread use of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and the adverse consequences its consumption has on them and their children. Thankfully, as more and more people are understanding the negative impact of not only HFCS, but refined sugars in general, many are also becoming aware of food intolerances including those to gluten and dairy.

That's why I believe my new cookbook Delightfully Free is a fabulous resource. If you or your family has issues with weight, blood sugar levels, food intolerances, or would simply like to eat more healthy, I commend to you my cookbook which offers tasty, family-friendly recipes with no HFCS, gluten, dairy or refined sugars. Of the 141 recipes included in my book, 114 are vegetarian or vegetarian adaptable. There are 103 vegan or vegan adaptable. Whether you're just getting started on the path to healthy eating or have been on that path for some time, this book, full of the favorite foods we crave, offers as the cover notes, "Delicious resources for autism, celiac disease, obesity, lactose intolerance & healthy living!"

Because I know firsthand how difficult it is to move away from foods that are processed and filled with detrimental ingredients, I have included in my book a helpful section entitled "Stocking your Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free Pantry."  It is "stocked" with tools and information to get you started with what you need to know to begin preparing delicious meals, snacks and desserts that are healthy and free of so many of the ingredients that have been causing some of the problems noted in this new Australian Study.

If you haven't already, I hope you'll give my book  Delightfully Free a try. I am sure you'll be happy you did!

Here's to a new way of healthy living 

~Tracy

About Delightfully Free: Delightfully Free is a gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free cookbook of 141 recipes. It includes delicious resources for autism, Celiac disease, diabetes, lactose intolerance, obesity and just plain healthy living. It contains 114 color photographs, 114 vegetarian or vegetarian compatible recipes, and 103 vegan or vegan compatible recipes.

Fat Tuesday

Back of the Book

Now that you've seen the cover of Delightfully Free and had a peak inside, we end our tour of the book by showing you the back of the book.