Welcome to The Wellness Kitchen

Welcome! I am so glad you are here. My name is Carmen and I live in Colorado with my husband, two daughters and our sweet dogs. The Wellness Kitchen is a project that was born out of my love for creating delicious food and my passion for health and wellness.

In 2004, I was diagnosed with Celiac disease. Before my diagnosis, I had never heard the word gluten. Twenty years ago there wasn’t the awareness around celiac disease and gluten sensitivities as there is now. The only place you could find gluten free products was a health food store and they were overpriced and underwhelming in flavor and texture. I'm talking about mushy, wet bread made from rice flour and dates and rock hard cookies. However, the results I experienced from cutting out gluten were life changing. My extreme fatigue, anxiety, headaches, constant stomach pains and indigestion went away after only a few days of eliminating gluten.

I have experimented with a few healing diets over the years including the Gaps Diet, the Candida Diet and Specific Carbohydrate Diet when I've experienced bouts of gut inflammation. I have a family history of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), so this is something I take seriously. I find that eating lower grain is helpful for me so many of recipes are low or no grain. I also try to limit processed sugar and use less processed, natural sweeteners.

Several years ago I had a little gluten free farmer’s market stand. I learned so much through that experience and developed a lot of my bread, muffin and cookie recipes for the bakery. I quickly realized that food service is a hard business and I preferred to create and share recipes. I also worked as a birth and postpartum doula and holistic practitioner for many years and cooked for all of my postpartum clients. I love cooking nourishing, healing foods and I will be sharing many of those recipes here.

Over the years I have perfected my gluten free cooking and baking and I focus on an anti-inflammatory, nutrient dense whole foods diet that still tastes delicious.

I hope you will join me here and try out some of my recipes!