about

Hey, my name is Lyne (like L-inn). I know it looks weird, I blame my dad because he can’t spell. I live with my wonderful boyfriend (I’ll call him MG in this blog), along with our little tortoise Dorian, and our cat Daisy and kitten Jacque (AKA Jack when he’s being naughty). MG and I love to try new recipes and restaurants whenever we can and he loves to eat anything I make (except for the great Jack fruit debacle of 2021…). If I try a new dish at a restaurant, I try to recreate my own version of it at least once (usually, I find that enjoying the dish at the restaurant outweighs the clean-up after making it myself…).

This blog is 1/3 Cup me needing a digital place to store my recipes; 1/3 Cup me trying out web design because I get bored easily; and 1/3 Cup me and my friends needing a better way of sharing our recipes than texting a picture of an old piece of paper from a broken 3 ring binder which may or may not have food smudges on it…

None of us have any educational background in food, nutrition, or photography- this blog will likely reflect that. All of my photos are taken using my phone and I don’t have one of those fancy diffusing photography lights (maybe one day I will, but today is not that day). I will try to take the pictures near a window for the natural light, but sometimes (like, every evening) there is no natural light, meaning some pictures might not be as nice as others. I hope you all can see the yumminess of these dishes despite my photography skills!

Most of my recipes are SUPER adaptable for different dietary needs or flavor preferences; specifically low or alternative sugar diets. Diabetes runs in my family, and I’m trying to outrun diabetes.

My personal ingredient choices

Below, I’ll list the alternatives to popular ingredients that I use in my own recipes and explain why I use them. At this time, I am not a sponsor, so if I reference a specific ingredient brand or a store name, please know that I am not being reimbursed in anyway for naming it. With any alternatives, I will always recommend people do their own research using reputable sources because not everyone is the same – what works best for me, may not work for you at all.

SUGAR

I haven’t really used cane sugar in a long time. Sometimes, I use traditional brown or powdered sugar when a recipe calls for it (and almost always use less than the recipe calls for), but otherwise, I always use Lancanto Monkfruit Sugar in my cooking and baking. It’s a 1:1 ratio with regular sugar, and (to me) has zero strange flavors or weird after tastes. I use Monkfruit sugar for my coffee, tea, or other sweetened drinks too. I will say, using Monkfruit sugar these past few years, not one person has ever mentioned noticing any strange or different flavors in any of my baked goods.

BUTTER

I used to always use whatever unsalted stick butter I had on hand, but have recently swapped to using a vegetarian butter spread (olive oil based) with general success.

WHEN BAKING (such as scones or biscuits or anything where you need small pea sized chunks of butter rather than butter creamed into your mixture): I will note that with spreadable butters the trick (for me) is to freeze them totally solid as half inch thick flats that you can very quickly cut into pea sized pieces, then work with them very quickly in your mixture so that they don’t melt too much before getting into the oven. If they melt too much in the mixture, the texture of the biscuit or scones or whatever comes out a little odd.

MILK

In the past few years I’ve mostly phased out cow milk because I’m becoming lactose sensitive (THE WORST! But, also not the worst?). In recipes such as biscuits or mashed potatoes where I don’t want any added flavors, I use a non-flavored oat or almond milk. In recipes for sweet pastries or smoothies, where added flavors are OK, I use vanilla oat or almond milk. I haven’t noticed too much of a taste difference in most recipes, and in the ones where I DO notice a difference, it’s not a bad thing.

DRIED FRUITS

I always try my best to make sure that the dried fruit I use does not contain added sugars, preservatives, or ingredients in general to the best of my shopping abilities. Sometimes, I have to make do with what I can find in the stores though.

NUTS

I try to control the amount of salt in my food in general, and will usually add less than what is called for. In most recipes, such as my Cashew Salad Dressing, I use roasted UN-salted nuts. Sometimes this is harder to find but Aldi usually has roasted UN-salted cashews and peanuts for the most reasonable price.

SOY SAUCE (and other sauces that have salt)

Like I said, I try to control the amount of salt in my food. I will always try to find a low sodium version of any sauce I need. For soy sauce, I have also used Liquid Aminos instead, and found the flavor to be almost the same just a bit less salty.