This marks the start of a new series at little Indiana: Indiana Blogs! If you are an Indiana Blogger, please use the contact form and send me an email. You may be featured right here on little Indiana.

Indiana Blogs: GOODEnes Gracious

Indiana Blogs: GOODEnes Gracious


GOODEness Gracious is an Indiana blog that gets busy in the kitchen! Believe me when I say: She’s a very busy lady! She’s a big fan of freezer friendly meals–something I’ve always wanted to try.

Yes, this Indiana blogger is also a contributing author to the popular Gooseberry Patch Cookbooks! On her blog, you can find plenty of cooking GOODEness from Banana Ice Cream to 5 Minute Strawberry Pie. Yum!

Indiana Blogs: GOODEness Gracious

Why did you start GOODEness Gracious? (and how long have you been blogging?)
I started GOODEness Gracious back in the fall of 2009 after a girlfriend of mine shared with me a link to The Pioneer Woman and I was hooked. Ree or PW as we call her had found a way to take all the things I really enjoyed—journaling, social media, photography, cooking, farm/rural life, parenting, etc.—and combined it into this beautiful place for all to enjoy. I knew instantly that I wanted to create my own space, do something similar my own way and a few clicks of a mouse later GOODEness Gracious was born.

What about that name? Why GOODEness Gracious?
GOODEness Gracious is a play off of my family’s last name- Goode. The other day I realized that Gracious is technically a play off of my daughter’s middle name, but we didn’t plan it that way. I hope the title conveys that it is a place where we like to keep things light, fun and even a little punny.

GOODEness Gracious is a place where we say we are “Cooking up all kinds of GOODe things with a side of life” and that about sums it up. We do lots of recipes—including freezer cooking recipes and share readers’ Super Mommy Secrets –all while laughing it up about the GOODe life.

What are three of your most favorite posts?
I can’t say that they are my favorites… because it is so hard to choose. But these three should give you a taste of what you will find…

Pionerella Whoopie Cookie Pies

Spinach Tomato-Basil Pizza

For Gibert’s Sake

What keeps you ready and raring to post? Why do you blog?
I blog because I love it. I love to learn and share with my readers and the GOODEness Gracious Facebook Community. There is an amazing creative and resourceful blogosphere out there and it is so much fun to take part in it. I also blog because I love the living, breathing record it keeps for my family. The blog has become our family cookbook, scrapbook and memory keepsake. Something that I hope my daughter will treasure someday.

You are one busy lady. I see that you have been published in The Gooseberry Patch cookbooks and are part of The Real Farmwives of America–anything you’d like to tell little Indiana readers about that?
Sure! When I first started blogging, I read Gooseberry Patch’s blog and as a long-time fan of their cookbooks, I just loved how they interacted with their fans of Facebook and reached out to bloggers. Before long they noticed my little old blog and featured me. That was the beginning of a fantastic relationship with them.

Since that time, I launched a project on my blog where I am cooking all the way through one of their books and I signed on to be one of their Early Bird Reviewers—reviewing and giving away their brand new cookbooks before they hit store shelves. It was actually in the midst of one of these reviews that I discovered that one of my recipes had been published. You will find Super Easy Puddin’ Cake in Gooseberry Patch’s cookbook Homestyle in a Hurry.

As for The Real Farmwives of America & Friends, it is a great site– owned by my friend Heather– that helps people connect with the folks involved with growing our nation’s food. RFOA & Friends is a growing group of women across the nation who blog about life on and off the farm. Our members either currently live on family farms, grew up on the farm and/ or work in the farming community. Our blogs focus on many different topics from humor to life to recipes to DIY projects to our families.

One unique feature of the group is that we have a facebook page that shares all of the blog post feeds from all of the RFOA girls’ different blogs.  As a former farmgirl myself and someone who works with farmers in my professional life, I contribute to the RFOA blog that features about 25 different bloggers—many of whom are Hoosier bloggers themselves.

Right now on the RFOA blog, I am hosting a cookbook project called In the Kitchen with Gooseberry Patch on Tuesdays and then providing a Recipe Recap on Thursdays.

If you could have a super power, what would it be?
The ability to stop the clock and create more time! I really think days should be more like 28 hrs—don’t you?

Busy Bee

I certainly agree–but only if those hours are guaranteed for sleeping! A big thanks to Cris Goode for popping on over to little Indiana and sharing her (busy) world with all of us.

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