For a while now, I’ve been meaning to do a post about a
really wonderful, low-carb blog called Buttoni’s Low Carb Recipes. Peggy has a real gift for coming up with
super low-carb equivalents and even although she says she is less into baking,
she has plenty of talent in that area as well.
Peggy is a teacher by profession and now retired. She admits she received her love of cooking
mostly from her Dad, but actually from both parents who enjoyed cooking – and would
sometimes spend almost the whole day together in the kitchen putting together a
new and exotic recipe they had found.
Lately Peggy is trying to lose the last 20 lbs as she has
maintained a good loss (about 28 lbs) for a couple of years, so she is back to
induction-style foods. Anyone who is on
induction will really enjoy Peggy’s latest recipe creations. I was amazed at
how she could make Revolution Rolls look like real hamburger and hot dog
buns. Peggy’s biscuits inspired my
gluten-free ones. I will be forever
grateful to her for that. It was fun
when Peggy was maintaining as she tried my gluten-free bake mix.
I asked Peggy to help me out – to tell me a little bit about
herself and her cooking style or approach to cooking. Here is what she said:
I'm not a fancy cook at all. So in addition to an Atkins low-carb focus, I always try to keep my website recipes simple enough for the working woman to pull off in an hour or less. I leave the complicated recipes to the professional chefs. My brother (formerly a pro chef) will cook dishes like that, but not me, not ever; just not my style. My recipes usually go together with one bowl, one stew pot, or one skillet, because if you have a huge stack of dishes left after preparation, well that's just no fun, whether you work or not?
I love the delicate flavors that spices can give a dish, so my recipes often have the occasional exotic spice. And people are always asking if they can sub in other spices for them. But I always tell them the chosen spices are essential to the overall flavor and omitting them or substituting will usually completely change the final dish. I just don't get why some cooks don't get that aspect about cooking. Some things you can tweak but spices are essential to exact flavor outcomes.
Fellow Atkineers on the Atkins Community forums tell me it's the flavor and simplicity they like about my recipes. I know when I'm cruising low-carb blogs out there, if a recipe takes a lot of steps to prepare, I usually move on. I assume my readers feel the same way. People are too busy in this workaday world for that type of cooking anymore. I don't do 4-star dining at home; I go to a 4-star restaurant for that.”