Some of my favorite pages in my family cookbook are the ones showing family members either cooking together or just having fun together. These photos capture happy family memories that can stick with you for a lifetime. Hopefully your family cookbook will help other family members enjoy their heritage, too.

Whenever I grab the camera to take family cookbook photos, I try to remember some of the following ideas to help me shoot better pictures: Read the rest of this entry »

With Mardi Gras festivities officially underway in New Orleans on Feb. 24, it seems only fitting that we let the good times roll with a better understanding of Creole and Cajun food. The spicy delights of both cuisines are finding their way into my current cookbook project, which is creating a family cookbook collection of regional American foods.

The last time I was in New Orleans (or Nawlins, Nola, N’orluns, if you prefer), I attended a wedding. It was some time ago, and I managed to sneak away from the pre-nuptial activities one morning to have breakfast at Brennan’s. It is still the most expensive single off-the-menu breakfast I have ever eaten, and it was glorious. 

While dining in New Orleans, it never really bothered me that various dishes I ate while there mostly came from two very different French-speaking cultures: Creole and Cajun. While I’m not going to discuss the history of the region, suffice to say that Creoles are considered descendants of immigrant colonials from Spain and France, while Cajuns are descended from French Canadian exiles. Read the rest of this entry »

My subject this time is slowing down. Taking time to smell the pot roast (and including a recipe for pot roast in your family cookbook) is as important as making it to the next appointment on time.

These days, families rush around and barely have time to sit down and enjoy one another’s company at the dinner table.  Everyone is on a schedule! Rushing here and there, making sure the kids are “involved.” Seems to me that most kids (and their parents) are just plain “exhausted,” instead of stimulated. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Oscar:

It is that time of year again. Your star-studded gala known as the Academy Awards is about to be launched. Come Sunday, February 22, 2009, millions of eyes with a fascination for Hollywood glitz and glamour will tune in to see which of their favorite celebrities walk away with your little golden statue.

In many homes across the nation, families plan to stop everything (including work on their family cookbooks with my fantastic cookbook-making software) to watch the ceremony on television. Viewers will certainly have to eat during the four-hour extravaganza, so what is Wolfgang Puck serving at the Governor’s Ball Dinner after-party that I can make at home? (Fair warning: If his recipes are inspiration enough, I may even include them in my own family cookbook.) Read the rest of this entry »

When the really cold weather hits at this time of year, my favorite comfort food is not the soups and stews of family recipe books, but the flavorful warmth of curried dishes from India. The delectable combinations of spices in Indian food (one of the great cuisines of the world) are compelling and most enjoyable.

Aside what some may think, Indian curry recipes are not necessarily hot or spicy. In fact, since I generally do not like hot spicy food (hot to me being painful without flavor), I am always cautious about ordering in Indian restaurants. I often ask the cooks to make my dishes “tourist grade,” so I can eat them. The cooks are most happy to accommodate as they are amazed at my enthusiasm.

I’ll tell you a little story that was a little embarrassing, but was educational for me at the time: Read the rest of this entry »

The following biscuit recipe appeared a little photocopied newspaper called the Troy (Texas) Country Sun that inspired me to write today’s column about homemade biscuits. The biscuit recipe was attributed to George Patterson.  We don’t know if George has made a family cookbook yet, but this would be a great homemade biscuit recipe to include in any family cookbook:

Read the rest of this entry »

The recent scare about salmonella in our food products reinforces my simple idea that controlling my own food using my own recipes is one of the safest practices around.

I don’t know about you, but I have never gotten sick from preparing food from family recipes in my own kitchen. (I have been very sick from restaurant food and such, but never once have I had a bout with salmonella or E. coli from fixing food and family recipes at home.)

Having an ultra clean kitchen (not!), or having hand-sanitizers everywhere in the house is not the main reason I have avoided salmonella or E. coli contamination. I think it is my clean-as-you-go-with-hot water procedure that has most likely saved me from unpleasant illnesses, especially on my cutting boards. (I always have a hot kettle, even though my instant hot is used obsessively, too.) Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite chocolate cherry cake bars are the best chocolate cherry dessert treat you can make for St. Valentine’s Day. No kidding. I have yet to get a complaint from anyone eating this richly flavorful chocolate cherry dessert treat.

Although this recipe for chocolate cherry cake bars is contained within my Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software, I thought I would offer it here on my blog to those of you who haven’t seen all my wonderful recipes that come with the cookbook software. (You always have the option to delete any or all of my recipes, of course, but that would really hurt my feelings…sob!)

Anyway, if you want to impress, serve these delicious chocolate cherry cake bars to whomever is your heart’s desire: Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s look at why collecting and saving family recipes in a family recipe book really matters.

In the scheme of things, young people may think collecting and saving family recipes might not matter as much as the results of the local youth soccer game, or the latest Wii release. 

In reality, collecting family recipes and making a family cookbook are important ways to connect the generations and get to know people you never knew. Family cookbooks are a great way to understand why you have a sweet tooth, or favor pickles instead of salty, crunchy foods. Like it or not, your eating habits are passed down, and passed forward, because eating is not a Web “experience.” Read the rest of this entry »

Do dog biscuit recipes belong in your family cookbook?  Good question! I guess it depends upon how you think of your dog, and if you have ever used recipes for such things as dog biscuits.

Below are some ways you can tell if a dog biscuit recipe or other dog food recipes are likely candidates to put in your family cookbook. 

Do you think of your dog as:

A Member of the Family
Your dog is inside with his human pack more than outside chasing the birds or snapping at bees. You have to clean up dog hair off the floor and furniture constantly. Your dog sleeps in the house, perhaps in a family members’ bedroom. Chances are your dog ranks high on the love scale in your family, and probably gets home-cooked treats now and then, perhaps even scraps from the table. Dog biscuit and dog food recipes probably could have a section in the family cookbook without anyone raising an eyebrow at the notion. Read the rest of this entry »

Although I’ve eaten beans all my life from many family recipes, I don’t really know a hill about them. Recently, I experimented with cooking small portions of different kinds of dried beans just to see which ones I like the best (and to prepare myself for eating more beans and rice during this extended recession).

Beans have been a food staple since ancient times (just check your family cookbook for some bean recipes). The economically-challenged have always liked beans because they are filling as well as nutritious. The health conscious seek beans because of their nutritional value and fiber content. (I haven’t verified this, but somewhere I heard that eating beans and rice together creates the perfect protein of essential amino acids, the building block of cell rejuvenation.)  So, they really are beneficial for you as well as taste good. Read the rest of this entry »

A competitor we’ve always respected and admired, TheSecretIngredients.com, has closed up shop. I don’t post this to gloat–I take no joy in seeing a fellow family business go under in these trying times.

However, we’ve had a number of new customers come to us lately in a panic to copy and paste all their recipes from off their site and into our software before that site goes down.

I think it’s an incredibly wise move to do this, not with just this site, but with any site where you might have your cherished family recipes. The truth is that, although we all hope for the best, when you type your family recipes into a website, you are giving up control over what may happen to them. Businesses fail, servers crash, backup systems don’t work, or sometime just “stuff happens”, and your cherished family recipes can be gone forever.

The only way to be sure your recipes are secure is to have them on your local computer (and make a backup!)

I wish the great folks who ran TheSecretIngredients.com nothing but the best. TheSecretIngredients.com had a fine blog, and a wonderfully designed site. And they may come back in some new form that allows all their customers to access their recipes online just like they used to be able to. (I’ve spoken to one of the current owners, and it seems that’s their hope.)

But please remember that the only way to be sure all the work you’ve put into typing up your family recipes isn’t lost is to keep it stored on your own computer. Our cookbook software can help you do that.

Best

Matilda