If you look on the upper right hand side of my site you will find a photo –and link– to my forthcoming book, The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook.  You can pre-order order it by clicking on the book cover image in the sidebar to the right, which takes you over to amazon.com.

I have been working on the book for the past 8 months, well, actually the past 10 years, that’s when I really began cooking and writing down my recipes after making them, at the urging of a friend who seemed to like my food.

I signed with 10 Speed Press last summer and pumped this thing out, working literally night and day.  My children are so happy to see it done.  There have been quite a few nights when I bounced up from snuggling one of my boys and went back to work for several hours.  Now, we can go back to unlimited, endless snuggles!

The book is a labor of love and I had a fantastic time writing it.  I’m a bit bewildered now that it’s done, though happy to have some of the RAM in my brain back for other purposes.

The most challenging part of writing the book has been getting healthy food on the table each night while creating new recipes and endlessly testing old.  These quick and easy chili fixins’ became a go to dish during the writing of the book.

Turkey Bean Chili
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 cup water
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 lb ground turkey (dark or light meat, your choice)
1 cup beans (white, black or pinto -your choice), soaked overnight and cooked

1. In a large skillet, heat olive oil
2. Add onion and saute until soft, about 10 minutes
3. Add cherry tomatoes, water, garlic, oregano, chili and salt
4. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes over medium heat until tomatoes are soft and beginning to fall apart
5. Add turkey meat and cook for 10 minutes, until turkey is cooked through, yet still tender, stirring to break up turkey meat
6. Add beans and their cooking juices (not too much or dish will get too watery)
7. Serve

I have a new model in the “action photo” above where I capture the portrait of “child eating chili.”  This would be my older son’s friend Aiden.

They are on the same baseball team again this year –though they have now graduated to majors.  Aiden is a wicked lefty hitter and amazing pitcher and shortstop.  He is one of the best baseball players of his age that I have ever seen (though I’m not sure how much that’s saying given my ultra-limited baseball experience of one season as a coach in AAA little league).

And he loves my Turkey Bean Chili.  A big eater, I so enjoy having him over to our house. The boys often sit together at the table for 40 minutes or more, devouring everything I put in front of them.  Which makes me one satisfied cookbook author.

Update: here’s a nice little article on beans that I found in the New York Times.  Per the questions about what type of beans I used here, they are super soft mystery beans that I received in our farm share (CSA) last year from Shannon of Abbodanza.