For Hayley Mason and Bill Staley, cooking together was an important part of their relationship from early on. Hayley introduced Bill to the paleo diet, and although he was willing to support her eating choices when they were together, he didn’t follow the diet strictly at first. However, the new way of eating made him feel great, and it wasn’t long before the couple was cooking and eating paleo all the time.
They began sharing their paleo creations on Facebook, and soon came up with the idea of writing a cookbook together. But on the path to this ambitious goal, Make it Paleo was first a blog, The Food Lover’s Primal Palate. “We cooked a recipe every week, and shared it with our friends,” says Hayley. “For fun, we started working on a blog together, it was something that we were doing together as a couple and we wanted to inspire other people to stay on track with healthy eating.”
As the title suggests, many of the recipes in the book are grain and dairy-free adaptations of standard American recipes, often drawing inspiration from family recipes. Many of the dishes in Make it Paleo were created with special occasions in mind like weekend brunch and birthdays, something the authors feel fills a need in the paleo community. “I think one of the things that people struggle with when following paleo is not so much the everyday food,” says Bill. “It’s pretty simple to cook meat and vegetables for dinner, everyone can find their way.” On the other hand, holidays are a time when many people find it hard to stick to a paleo diet–or any diet for that matter.
(more…)
