Recipe writing is my hobby. Hi, my name is LaRena! Let me tell you a little about me.
As a matter of fact, recipe writing as a hobby started when my husband would ask for the same thing. I often would tell him I can try to recreate it but I didn’t write it down so I don’t remember it. As a consequence, I began writing a cookbook for my family with my favorite recipes, as I think everyone should have a copy of their family’s favorite recipes. However, I can no longer use these recipes and have in most cases had to rewrite them using different ingredients.
To tell the truth, I have always loved writing my own recipes. However, not that long ago the way I eat changed and I had to relearn how to cook and bake using ingredients I had never heard of before. So, if you are gluten-free, refined sugar-free, and often dairy-free my recipes may help you.
Recipes should be written down and handed down as a family heirloom. By the way, everyone I know treasures their families recipes or desires to have grandma’s recipe for XYZ.
My Story:
About 7 years ago my health started to decline rapidly. In fact, I was in the emergency room more times than I want to even think about. Soon I was on medications. At any rate, I began to have chronic urticaria which in layman simply means chronic hives. My hives were huge sometimes with liquid inside them that I could push on and move around. Not to mention the fact that I had them from head to toe.
In any case, I had them sometimes 24 hours a day 7 days a week. No medication worked. I can’t imagine having them 24 – 7 for the rest of my life. Needless to say, I no have hives about 3 – 4 hours a day.
I have a list of autoimmune illnesses.
My Health and Hobby of Recipe Writing:
My health started to decline more and more. This went on for several years before a friend suggested we go to a Functional Medical seminar. Something rang true at that seminar and I became a patient of the doctor who put on the seminar.
My diet was revamped. I no longer eat hydrogenated fats of any kind, grains of any kind including corn and rice, nor do I consume any refined sugar. In other words, if I can’t pronounce it or know what it is I don’t eat it. I don’t devour any preservatives, food colorings, or additives. Above all, I now read the ingredients to absolutely everything I purchase. Not to mention I limit my dairy.
My kids have a dairy intolerance and my daughter seems to have issues with eggs. Therefore I try to create recipes that everyone in the house can consume. Therefore, I have to make almost everything I eat from scratch.
To tell the truth, I was stunned as to what I was going to eat. Immediately I took to the internet thinking that there would be a ton of recipes that I could avail myself to. However, I found little help. Consequently, there were grain-free items but not refined sugar-free. Or there would be refined sugar-free but not dairy-free.
Since going grain-free and refined sugar-free I am reclaiming my health and improving. Not to mention that I am now only on medication for my thyroid.
Blogging My Recipe Hobby:
When I first started my blog I knew nothing about blogging. Someone asked me why my blog was not formatted. I thought it was. What they had meant was the background to writing a blog required some computer knowledge and I had none. It took a long time before I understood what SEO, or meta description.
Consequently, because I did not have these items my blog was not searchable through Google. At any rate, I now know what they are and how important they are. More importantly, I am now going back through my blog putting all my recipes into SEO, meta description and other technical behind the scenes stuff so that they can be found by Google. (As you can tell I am no computer wizard)
Recipe writing is my Hobby:
They say that “Necessity is the mother of invention.” I couldn’t agree more. For this reason, I began researching and experimenting. In fact, I still do research. Research lead me to ingredients I had never heard of before. Not to mention that many of my friends had never heard of them either. The next step was to experiment. In the beginning, there were many times that I thought about giving up as the recipes were failures.
As a result of my newfound wisdom, I started sharing my recipes with friends who then encouraged me to start this blog. In fact, I had several friends who saw pictures of my recipe hobby on my Facebook Page and highly encouraged me to write this blog. Thanks especially to both my friends name Michael and Mike from high school, my friend Debbie, and lastly my friend Amy. Needless to say, they thought the pictures were so enticing that they did not even care what the ingredients were they just wanted to try the recipes for themselves.
As a consequence, I have informative blog posts about Cassava Flour Information, Monk Fruit Sweetener Information, and Yacon Syrup Information.
Some of my favorite recipes are Gluten-Free Swedish Midsummer Strawberry Cake, Flourless Chocolate Cake, The Best Prime Rib Roast.
Fun Facts:
I love to travel and travel hack. That means I try to find the cheapest way to travel so that I can travel more often. Little tricks like using budget airlines to travel. My favorite is Norwegian Air. Therefore, my recipes tend to have international flairs as well as American flavors.
Currently, I am on the tail end of my homeschooling journey. In fact, I love history, science, microeconomics, and improv. I have a BA in Theater. Not to mention, the fact that I have lived in other countries and love to learn about culture, customs, traditions, and languages.
By the way, I have two children and totally and completely in love with my amazing husband. Believe it or not, I have been writing recipes for over 30 years for my family. Writing recipes has always been a hobby of mine.