I would love it if there was a thread or forum on Harlequin set apart for members to share recipes. The Everlasting Love authors shared the most wonderful recipes and family memories on their blog. Sometimes there are recipes in the Romance magazine sent out to Harlequin subscribers. I don't know if other members would like this, but I sure would.
My dad and grandfather were great cooks. My dad and step-mother make such yummy meals that no one would even want to go to a restaurant if they had that option. Part of their fun time is cooking and then inviting neighbors. One of the worst things about living in Colorado is not eating their cooking! My mom. My Aunt Jean.... everyone but me. Oh, I can cook when I have a recipe but I lack any imagination when it comes to planning meals. My mom always told me to stay out of the kitchen and study so I never really learned her tricks. Later, I spent so much time in school eating from cafeterias or lousy on the run meals... and then I was single so long the take out habit made it worse. Glenn and I do like cooking together but neither of us have a great repertoire of meal ideas.
When we moved out of an apt. and into a home, we started eating at home so much more and the savings is incredible. Less money spent at the grocery store....more for books! 
The other thing is the salt. I have never really liked salt so I never put it on food. The older I get, the more sensitive to salt I become. The less salt, the worse it feels when I do eat salt. A couple of months ago I ate something I always used to eat, processed food, and I felt like a balloon for a whole day. If my blood pressure is ok today, I know a big part of it is trying not to eat salt. I cannot believe the tons of salt in processed food. Even one package of plain frozen vegetables was loaded with salt! I would think some of the food companies with all their green and healthy marketing campaigns would get a clue that maybe healthy just might mean using oher spices and getting rid of the salt! So..one more reason I would like more recipes. Eating in is better because we can control the salt.
Plus with Glenn joining the Challenge this year (his name is Phaedrus), it would be nice to have lots of casserole or crock pot recipes so could make things ahead and read more. We have cookbooks galore but there is nothing like getting a tried, tested and loved recipe from a friend.
One thing I liked about the Everlasting Love blog is the recipes had family stories to go with them. Who knows if others would be interested or if the powers that be would even want to start a forum or something Recipes from the Heart or something...but I would love that.
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Here is a quick meal my mom used to make for me that I adored as a kid. This comes from when my parents divorced. My mom was a single working mom. money and time were short but this meal always felt home-cooked and a luxury.
First, she made tuna salad I crave. She used white tuna in water, not oil, and chopped up a skinnned red delicious apple together and mixed it together with the tiniest bit of mayonnaise, and I mean tiny. I hate mayonnaise! The apple seemed to cut the mayonnaise or tuna flavor a bit. Then she would refrigerate it overnight. She made enough to last for several meals but not too much to go bad.
The next evening, she would spread the tuna salad on a piece of whole wheat toast, put a slice of cheese over the tuna salad and then put asparagus or a slice of pineapple on top of the cheese and bake it until the cheese melted.
This was a simple meal to make but one of my favorite meals when I was about middle school age.
AKA Merri
Family Challenge Team: The Spine Breakers with my dh Glenn AKA Phaedrus
I would love to have a
I would love to have a cooking thread. I really enjoy cooking, but since my kids don't like any of their food mixed together, I have gotten into the habit of fixing easy processed stuff too often. I would love some crock-pot recipes as my hubby is now coming home for lunch occasionally and could put them on.
Cady
TBR--The Born Readers
a Recipe forum
Cady, I enjoy cooking but I have no creativity when it comes to cooking or planning. I would love ideas for new meals! Time saving recipes and also recipes with family stories! I would love a recipe forum.
AKA Merri
Family Challenge Team: The Spine Breakers with my dh Glenn AKA Phaedrus
I like the idea...
although I confess I am a salt NUT!! I LOVE, no, I CRAVE salt! And before anyone fusses, I have low blood pressure and no bloating from it. In fact, sometimes my blood pressure gets TOO low making me have no energy. When my mom was pregnant with me, she came out of the doctor's office crying hysterically. My grandmother wanted to know what was wrong with the baby, to which my mom replied, "He's making me quit using salt!" So I get it honestly!
The D2K Paranormal Junkies 2008 Challenge
Food...
I think it would be good to have that kind of thing. Just because its interesting.
Laughter is an instant vacation- Milton Berle
We had a recipe forum over
We had a recipe forum over in Cafe Social for years. It did really well at first, and then it kind of petered out. The thread was still there, but there was little to no activity there anymore. I always kinda of missed it, since i'm a bit of a recipe finatic...so i would love to see another recipe thread start up.
I used to love cooking, but with such a picky family, i kinda got away from it as well and went to the more simpler meals that they all prefered.
Now that they are older, two of them are becoming nowhere near as picky anymore...and the urge to cook with a few more ingredients and have them all for dinner is getting more fun....although i am alot lazier in that department nowadays....but i am getting more cooking cravings again.
Like Cady, i'd love some tried and true slowcooker recipes as well.
With this new set-up, and so many more people seeing it...it may do alot better and stay more active.
Kathy D
recipes
I think the new format of the website might help, especially since things are easier to find. Especially if it is set up in a central place for all like a forum.
I really need some good slow cooker recipes! THe cookbooks just don't really do it like things I know others have tried.
I do crave salt once in a rare while. It is so easy to lose moisture at altitude. For me the salt thing is not a health thingbut a taste thing...I am not a health and fitness person by any stretch of the imagination! I just never ate it as a child so I think I notice the effect more. Sometimes it feels like salt burns my mouth just because I never eat it. One night we had some frozen veggiesand I could not imagine where in the world I had gotten salt...I felt like I couldn't move! I looked at the package and freaked...more salt in one bag of those frozen veggies than in 3 entire big family size bags of potato chips!! It's always been a taste thing first...but getting salt in those unexpected places drives me nuts.
AKA Merri
Family Challenge Team: The Spine Breakers with my dh Glenn AKA Phaedrus
I'm all for it...
It seems my kids don't like anything I make. i'd love to get more ideas. Slow cooker recipes would be great for me, too. Those I tried in the book were never to my liking.
Kel (scoobie)
Quiet Canadians ~ 2008 Challenge Blog
Recipes
A recipe forum sounds like a good idea to me.
During the Christmas 2007 open house someone posted a recipe for microwave fudge. I wish I'd written it down because I love fudge - even more than chocolate. I know I shouldn't, but if anyone has the recipe I'd love to see it again. Please?
Claire
Pregnant: Father Wanted, Harlequin Romance, Dec 08
http://www.clairebaxter.com
I have a really easy recipe
I have a really easy recipe for fudge...infact my dh makes it...and he's not a baker at all. So if he can make it and it turns out everytime, anyone can. He makes it at Christmas and everyone loves it.
Kathy D
kalhua cheesecake
What I want is a recipe for kalhua cheesecake that is not cool whip but real cream cheese. It doesn't haver to be Kalhua just as long as it is coffee flavor and is the kind that is cooked. I don't even like cheesecake but these nuns at New Skete monastery in NY make it soooo yummy. It costs a small fortune to get it shipped so I would really like a recipe for that too.
AKA Merri
Family Challenge Team: The Spine Breakers with my dh Glenn AKA Phaedrus
fudge
Ooh, Kathleen, if it's not too much trouble, can you find that recipe for me?
I used to bake but now I just don't have time so easy recipes are great.
Claire
Pregnant: Father Wanted, Harlequin Romance, Dec 08
http://www.clairebaxter.com
RE: RECIPIES
I can dig it! I'd try a few and perhaps add some of my family's. Sometimes a gal I date will ask me if I can cook. My response?
"Sure. I make it just like the directions on the box tell me to!"
"I went to a FIGHT the other night...and a HOCKEY GAME broke out!! "
HockeyDET@comcast.net
Sure Claire, This fudge
Sure Claire, This fudge recipe is from a wonderfull candy book i bought years ago. Do let me know how you and your family liked it once you make it. Copied directly from the book:
Prize Winning Fudge (Rich chocolate flavor is one reason this candy wins blue ribbons)
1 (12 oz.) pkg. chocolate chips (2 cups)
3 (4 oz.) bars sweet cooking chocolate
1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow creme (about 2 cups)
4 1/2 c. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
2 tblsp. butter or margarine
1 (14 1/2 oz.) can evaporated milk (1 2/3 c.)
2 c. chopped walnuts (we make without the nuts)
Put chocolate chips, cooking chocolate and marshmallow creme in bowl. (i use stainless steel due to really hot ingredients soon to go in there)
Combine sugar, salt, butter, and evaporated milk in 3-quart heavy saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Boil steadily over medium heat 6 minutes (keep boiling all the time). Stir constantly to prevent scorching.
Pour boiling syrup over chocolate and marshmallow creme in bowl; beat until chocolate is melted. Stir in walnuts.
Pour into lightly buttered 13"x9" pan. Let cool until firm. Cut into 77 or the desired number of pieces.(We cut them alot smaller cause they're rich)
When cold, pack in airtight containers and store in cold place. Makes about 5 pounds.
Enjoy!
Kathy D
Paisley
Go to Café Social and find the "Ask Sapphire" thread. She will probably be OK with putting that in as a permanent forum topic. In any case, it can't hurt to ask.
"Perhaps what the average member of a group is capable of doesn't limit what a given individual can accomplish." -- Boston Globe, letter to the editor
March's Member of the Month!
thanks Kathy
Well, that sounds absolutely wonderful! Thank you so much for going to the trouble of typing it out. I'm writing my grocery shopping list now...
Claire
Pregnant: Father Wanted, Harlequin Romance, Dec 08
http://www.clairebaxter.com
recipe forum
I'm all for a recipe forum. A lot of times I don't follow a recipe and just throw things together. I really like crock pot recipes.
Kahlua cheesecake- when I was working at the retirement home we used to have a birthday party at the end of the month for all residents who had birthdays that month. They would get a special birthday cake but for the diabetics we would need to order special too and sometimes we would order these indivicual diabetic cheesecakes and we could get them in like 50 flavours. half the time they were so much better than the regular cheesecakes.
Vikki- I tried your chicken and salsa in the crock pot recipe from last year, definitely a monthly meal.
Christa ~ Quiet Canadians ~ 2008 Challenge Blog
My Shelfari Page
July's MEMBER OF THE MONTH
cheesecake without all the
cheesecake without all the sugar...yum yum! I love soda pop but I can't stand all that sugar. Once I switched to diet soda, I can't even drink the sugar kind unless there is nothing else at all to drink.
AKA Merri
Family Challenge Team: The Spine Breakers with my dh Glenn AKA Phaedrus
Recipes
I have a copy of the recipes from the Harvest Festival. There are several fudge recipes among them. I don't know if the recipes are still on line but the address is: www.alliepleiter.com/recipes.htm
ELLEN TOO
A true teacher is a person who, at the end of the school day, still likes children!
Recipes
Ellen, thank you. I followed the link and the recipes were still there. I'm really spoilt for choice now
. Might have to make them all and compare results. So much for losing weight!
Thanks again,
Claire
Pregnant: Father Wanted, Harlequin Romance, Dec 08
http://www.clairebaxter.com
Glad they were still
Glad they were still there. Yep you do have to be careful not to fix too many of them too close together or you'll definately gain weight.
ELLEN TOO
A true teacher is a person who, at the end of the school day, still likes children!
Your welcome Claire. Looks
Your welcome Claire. Looks like you've aquired lots of new fudge recipes since i was here last. Tried and true recipes are my favorite.
Kathy D
I'm going to build a new Recipes folder
Hey everyone, I was just reading Shirley Jump's blog about recipes and folks over there are asking for a recipe thread on the boards too. I was thinking we could put it over on the Cafe Social board and create a folder with different threads inside to capture different kinds of recipes eg desserts, main dishes, vegetarian etc. I'll go and build it and come back and post the link here...what do you think?
Jayne
Community Manager
"We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh"—Agnes Repplier
Sounds like a fun idea. Not
Sounds like a fun idea.
Not that I do much cooking.
ELLEN TOO
A true teacher is a person who, at the end of the school day, still likes children!
Sounds good.
Sounds good.
"Perhaps what the average member of a group is capable of doesn't limit what a given individual can accomplish." -- Boston Globe, letter to the editor
March's Member of the Month!
Your wish is my command
You ladies made me so hungry that I had to go and build a Recipe folder on the Cafe Social board to house all the wonderful recipes you're posting here. Check it out!
Jayne
Community Manager
"We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh"—Agnes Repplier
Looks good. Now I'll have to
Looks good. Now I'll have to hunt up some of my mother's recipes and post them. They were always good.
ELLEN TOO
A true teacher is a person who, at the end of the school day, still likes children!
Wow Jayne, You reeeally
Wow Jayne, You reeeally were hungry!
I didn't know the recipe thread could be built so fast. 
Thanx muchly for the link,
Kathy D
Wow! Thanks Jayne! I did
Wow! Thanks Jayne! I did not even notice this until today when I was going through back pages of my blog. I am psyched!
AKA Merri
Family Challenge Team: The Spine Breakers with my dh Glenn AKA Phaedrus