Lorrie Perencevic

I have been cooking and baking since I was a child. My Mom baked most of our breads and cooked our meals from scratch as I was growing up. I think I learned to appreciate doing things in the kitchen from scratch by watching her. She turned the produce of an enormous vegetable garden into canned and frozen foods that served us well until the following summer...I still love to watch the procession from seed to plant to food on the table. It's a beautiful thing!

I love to bake, and have developed an extensive list of original bread recipes. I love researching different grains, their nutritional factors and uses, creative ways to incorporate more nutrition into a finished product without sacrificing taste...you get the idea.

I have a particular interest in developing recipes of a rather specific genre these days: Meals suitable for individuals who live with the combined nutritional needs of low carbohydrate, low sodium, AND low fat. Finding recipes that embrace any one of these nutritional needs is not very difficult. So, when preparing meals for an individual who is perhaps diabetic, manages high blood pressure, or has a heart condition requiring a low fat/low cholesterol diet, one need only draw from the nutritional data available and tailor recipes around that profile. However, when one begins to prepare meals for a single individual whose nutritional needs encompass all three of these areas, preparing nutritious and appealing meals becomes more challenging.

Some time ago, I began cooking and meal planning for a family member with all three of these specific needs in their diet. As we determined which foods simply had to be mostly eradicated from the diet, added nutritional elements that had been lacking, and explored new ways to season foods without rersorting to the salt shaker, we realized that there were not many recipes already in existence that were well-suited to what I specifically needed. So, I decided to write my own. As a result, we now have an abundance of recipes that have proven to be palatable and healthy.

Not everyone will need to moniter their diet or nutritional intake quite this thoroughly, of course. Though I have to say, I believe my own health has improved as I have participated in these meals on a regular basis. Not every one of my recipes are necessarily suitable for this strict nutritional outline, either...there is no way to make fried chicken without oil, and there is no way to make macaroni and cheese truly low carb or low sodium. With these types of items, portion size is the obvious way to control the intake of carbs, fat, and sodium.

Outside of the kitchen, I enjoy spending time with my family, crocheting like a maniac, gardening, writing on various other topics, going for long walks, playing with my dogs, and reading good books.

My dream is to one day be a successful author and speaker, sharing the things I have learned and passing on what seems to be a fast-fading skill: the skill of taking raw ingredients, a bit of creativity, and a passion for good food, and blending all three into an end result of dancing taste buds, full tummies, and a circle of content and peaceful faces full of vibrant good health.

I'll get there...one meal at a time.

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”
~Laurie Colwin