Meet Annie
Hi, I’m Annie Holmes, the recipe developer and Southern home cook behind Maebells.
I’ve been creating recipes here since 2014, and what started as a small corner of the internet for easy gluten free cooking has grown into a library of over 1,000 recipes built around one simple idea: real food that actually works for real life.
My Background
I hold a bachelor of Science with a minor in nutrition. I’ve been cooking gluten free and low carb in my own kitchen since 2006. That’s nearly two decades of learning what actually works: which substitutions hold up, which shortcuts don’t, and how to build dishes with real flavor inside real dietary constraints.
That foundation isn’t incidental to what I do here. It’s the reason I can tell you with confidence why a recipe works, not just that it does.
What you’ll find here
Every recipe on Maebells is gluten free – always.
My husband, Clayton, who also works on Maebells, was diagnosed with Celiac disease and Type 1 diabetes, and our kitchen has been built around both since the beginning. Gluten free and low carb aren’t filters I apply to my cooking. They’re simply how we eat, and have been for a long time.
Over more than a decade of recipe development, I’ve learned that cooking within these parameters doesn’t mean cooking without. It means cooking smarter and finding the techniques, ingredients, and combinations to make food genuinely satisfying.
What I make here isn’t diet food. It’s comfort food, Southern food, weeknight food – developed with a nutritional understanding of why ingredients behave the way they do and testing until they are worth sharing.
The Name
Mabells comes from combining part of my maiden name (Mae) and part of my mom’s maiden name (bell). Everything I know about cooking started with the women in my family, and it felt right to honor that.
Why I do this
I started Maebells because I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Simple, everyday recipes built for the way we actually eat without specialty ingredients or complicated workarounds that made gluten free cooking feel like a burden. After years of figuring it out in my own kitchen, I started writing it down.
More than a thousand recipes later, that’s still exactly what I am doing.
I’m so glad you’re here.
– Annie
More from Annie
Maebells is my home base, but it’s not the only place I cook. I also develop recipes and run content for several other food websites:
- Sweet Peas and Saffron – meal prep recipes and practical weeknight cooking.
- The Best Keto Recipes – a dedicated resource for keto and low carb cooking across every meal occasion.
- It Starts with Good Food – wholesome, approachable recipes built around real ingredients.
Each site has its own focus and community, but the same standard runs through all of them: tested recipes, honest instructions, and food worth making.
