This is a post about you, not me. Along those lines, I have some questions, I want to get to know you better. To find out what you like, and also what you need.
Why? I’m thinking of writing another cookbook. For the past ten years, I’ve had cookbook writing on the brain. And in the past four years I’ve created two of them. Now, I’m entertaining the idea of writing a third book. If I do, I’d like it to be of benefit to my readers. So here are my questions:
- What, if any, are your dietary restrictions?
- Are there foods you are not allergic to that you avoid?
- Which type of recipe (i.e., bread, salad, entrees, sides, desserts, etc.) do you find most useful?
- Of the cookbooks you own, which sections do you find yourself using most frequently?
- What is your definition of “healthy food”
- If you could ask for one thing in a cookbook, what would it be?
Feel free to answer all of the questions above, or just a couple. I’m really looking forward to hearing from you, and getting to know you a little bit better.
I will (as always) read each and every comment left below and while there may be competing requests and wishes, I will do my best to incorporate them into my future projects.
Sherron says
I avoid dairy as well as foods that are high in fructose (due to my fructose malabsorption issues) so I don’t eat a lot of fruits or use sweeteners that are high in fructose (such as honey, agave)
I would love to see a recipe book that has a section of
Quick Meals (meals that can be put together in 30 minutes or less)
Slow Cooker Meals
Casseroles
Recipes that focus on naturally gluten-free would be wonderful.
I have more than enough dessert recipes, but I struggle with finding dinner recipes for my family. I’d love a book that is all dinner foods.
I know that this adds a lot to the cost and time frame of the book, but pictures of each food is great.
Sandy Grady says
Hi Elana,
My family has enjoyed your Almond Flour cookbook very much! My husband and I and one of our sons have a wheat allergy which we only discovered earlier this year. We have eaten healthy for years but have been experimenting with Paleo cooking because of a family tendency toward auto-immune disorders. We are a large family (four boys), and Paleo often seems overwhelming for family cooking. Currently, I’m reading Everyday Paleo to help with menu planning, but one of the things that bothers me about many of the Paleo books I’ve seen is the reliance on out-of-season produce. I’m trying to get to where we mostly buy in-season, local produce. I’d buy any cookbook that would help make the Paleo lifestyle easier and more economical for large families! Currently, we still have two days per week that are vegetarian just to save money.
Thank you!
~Sandy
staci says
I would love to see another cookbook! I love your cookbooks and I search your site all the time. A paleo cookbook would be great. Your cupcake cookbook is useful, but it is all dessert so I to have a variety of appetizers, lunches, and dinners in the next cookbook would help to round out my cooking needs. Especially lunches for on the go and dinners that do not take a long time to cook perhaps that someone could make after work (prep the day before is doable). In other cookbooks recipes with very unique ingredients always intrigue me, but I find that I do not cook those recipes as often because of not having that ingredient on hand. Also my husband tends to turn up his noise at strange ingredients or foods.
The one thing that I miss with your cookbooks/website is the nutritional facts for an individual serving of a recipe and occasionally the recipes for muffins do not say how many are designed to make.
Another useful addition to your cookbook would be the common mistakes individuals make when cooking without dairy, gluten, etc. For example, how not to over mix coconut flour batter and try not to let it sit to long or you may get flat muffins (I read it in one of your posts) and how sometimes a little extra moisture from fruit, etc is not necessarily a good thing for coconut/almond flour cooking. I have learned alot from the tips and hints that you and your readers have put in the bottom of the recipes. It would be great to put a section of the most helpful or commonly used tips in your cookbook!
Just my two cents – any cookbook from you will probably be great!
staci says
noise = nose. Sorry I guess it has been a long day.
Sue says
I absolutely love the idea of the tips for cooking! I made a post on Aug. 25th about how intimidated I am by cookbooks. Comments like these would be so great! What a great post!
A Bit of Brooklyn says
How about a cookbook with recipes devoted to breakfast and brunch type food? I’m a carb addict and am always searching for fun things to make for breakfast– something that will not send me on a sugar high and hopefully will give me some nutritional value.
Have been following your site for years, love some of your ideas, thanks!
Nikki V says
I would love to see a cookbook from you that includes lots of healthy snack ideas, especially for school lunches. It’s easy enough to find dinner recipes all over the place, as well as muffin and bread recipes. Not that I don’t appreciate all yours. But refined sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free snacks that are appealing to a kid are hard to come by. This is the area we struggle the most. (My son is also allergic to almonds, but we don’t expect your recipes to be without almonds.) :-)
Katherine Daley says
1. Severe Gluten intolerance and minimal dairy due to mild lactose intolerance
2. I follow the low FODMAP diet for my SIBO, so I minimize my intake of many of the high FODMAP foods that I am not allergic to (onions, garlic, cruciferous veggies, apples, pears) but that nonetheless contribute to my gastrointestinal problems in large amounts
3. Definitely entrees, especially ones that tend to be complete meals, or a hearty casserole, etc. that can be served with a salad
4. Desserts and entrees
5. Healthy food is that which we have evolutionarily adapted to eat, is minimally processed, is as local and organic as possible, and is not inflammatory to our system (such as most grains and starches)
6. If I could ask for one thing in a cookbook, I would ask for some tasty gluten-free, egg free meals (I have gluten intolerance and my daughter is allergic to eggs- tough combo!)
Tina says
Hi Elana!
I would love a cookbook that concentrated on quick easy meals, with few ingredients, but are really healthy (mainly low sugar and low carb). I am currently a college student and use your first cookbook all the time because your recipes taste great, don’t need alot of ingredients that I would need to store, are quick, and they are lower in sugar and don’t use grains. I am also on the paleo diet for health reasons which is how I first found out about your cookbook because none of your recipes use grains or processed additives. Many of the paleo cookbooks on the market are good, but the main problem is they rely on either putting alot of time in to make the meal taste good or they rely on animal fat to give it the flavor (they use bacon quite often, which is not good for the intestines). Most of the people I know who use your recipes constantly are like me and either completely eliminate grains from their diet or greatly limit them because even though they are only allergic to gluten, they really can’t handle any of the grains. I know I would love a paleo cookbook that relied more on spice variety for flavor and less on fats or sugar for flavor, with a focus on entrees instead of the treats.
Thanks,
Tina
Sue says
I can completely agree with this post on needing to know how to use spices and herbs to make meals tasty and give a variety of tastes rather than using fats as she described or a complex list of ingredients.
Dawn says
Wow, after reading some of the comments/suggestions above, I’d say you have your work cut out for you! I love all the ideas. GAPS soup recipes would be great & I forgot soy-free also.
Dawn says
1)No dairy, legumes, grains or sugars-these will probably be lifetime restrictions due to autoimmune disease/immune dysfunction.
2)Temporarily, I am also avoiding eggs, nuts & seeds, chocolate & starchy vegetables until my immune system is doing better. I don’t think I’m allergic to these but I’ve read multiple times that it’s helpful to abstain.
3)Entrees, desserts
4)Entrees, desserts
5)The kind of food that was eaten before 10,000 years ago!
6)Suggestions for substitutions because there is always something in any given recipe that I can’t have.
Sara says
I admit that I don’t have the energy to read all the comments to know if someone has said this yet. Please forgive me. I would love any book from you, especially if you made it available on Kindle and I could download it to my iPad! My new thing is having my recipe books on my iPad- it saves so much space on my kitchen for other things like fermenting and baking! :) Thanks for all your hard work- I love your recipes!