Do you have a dog biscuit recipe in your family cookbook? After the last dog food scare, I started making homemade dog treats for my dog. Not only are they easy to make once a week, they are very economical, and I know what my dog is eating!
Father’s Day Grillin’ & Chillin’ Menu Favorites + Muhammarah Recipe
Time to dust off the grill and pull the patio cushions from storage so that Dad can have his special moments enjoying some Father’s Day grillin’ & chillin’ favorites.
I thumbed through my family cookbook to devise the menu below. Most of the tastes are strong and guy-oriented, so they are sure to please most anyone who likes bold flavors.
As a special bonus, I’ve included our particular family favorite: a recipe from a Lebanese friend for a delicious, tangy walnut & red pepper spread called Muhammarah.Continue reading
Help Your Grad Get Started with a Family Recipe Binder!
A recipe binder will be an invaluable aid to your grad as he or she heads out into the world!
After all the anxiety over your child’s education – worrying about whether they were getting enough to eat, enough sleep and how well they would do in their finals, you daughter or son has graduated and is heading off into the big wide world.
But there you are, back home, still worrying,
“Are they getting enough to eat?”
In the past mothers’ might have carefully hand-written the cherished family recipes onto elegant cards in a recipe box as an heirloom gift for their departing daughters, but times have changed. Today a family recipe binder is a highly appropriate gift for any graduate. Here’s why:
A family recipe binder – home away from home.
Your kids may have to move far away from you to college, or to where the work is, but family recipes will remind them that they’ll always have the strong family support they need to move forward in life. Cooking up a favourite dish is a way of connecting back to their roots and feeling the comfort of home away from home.
Everyone needs to cook for themselves.
Dining out is going to be beyond many a graduate’s budget and this maybe the first time they need to know how to prepare a nutritious meal for themselves. With the onset of popular TV shows, guys are just as likely to be in the kitchen showing off their culinary skills as girls. Whether they’re eating alone or making a meal for friends, those family recipes will come in really handy!
Easily add new printed recipes to the recipe binder.
Even when you’ve given your kid all their favourite recipes, they’re going to develop a taste for some new ones. With so many great online recipe sites, they can easily find new recipes to try, print them out and add them to their recipe binder, or quickly pop it into that recipe accordion file!
So why not go ahead and choose the perfect gift for your departing graduate from our wide range of recipe binders and recipe organizers!
Tips for Printing Your Family Cookbook at the Print Shop
We often get questions from our lovely Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software users about printing family cookbooks at the neighborhood quick print shop, or one of the national chains, instead of printing it at home.
We’ve gathered a few tips to make the process easier for you.Continue reading
Gorgeous spice rack in our latest contest winner
2 doctors + 4 spice racks = Lots of organizing! We love the latest winner in our video contest. This spice rack is available here.
Forget Potluck! Always Have Enough Food to Feed a Crowd
Once I had a potluck dinner party and no one brought anything! I was mortified when there wasn’t enough food to go round and, as a result, I developed a reliable system to make sure I always have enough food to feed a crowd.
Greek Salad Makes Catering for a Crowd Easy
With ripe tomatoes and cucumbers hitting supermarkets just about now, the fresh taste of my easy Greek Salad recipe is a great choice for a crowd.
Known in Greece mainly as country salad, or horiatiki, the Greek Salad we know here is a combination of tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, feta cheese, and Kalamata olives, all dressed up with an olive oil and vinegar blend.
Why Not Make (And Sell) a Bed & Breakfast Recipe Cookbook?
Last time I visited a Bed and Breakfast, I asked for a copy of a recipe for a particularly delicious morning pastry. The hostess obliged by hand-copying the recipe for me on a sheet of guesthouse stationery.
But wouldn’t it have been nice if I could have bought a copy of the Bed & Breakfast’s recipe cookbook?Continue reading
How to Create Great Family Cookbooks with Our Easy-To-Use Templates
When we started designing Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software, I began to understand why easy-to-use recipe templates are the key to creating great family cookbooks.
We borrowed the idea of using a template from the crafting world. Sewing hobbyists use patterns. Interior decorators use stencils. Painters and muralists use outlines. So, using a recipe template to automatically produce a professional-looking family recipe cookbook makes total sense. Continue reading
Green Goddess Salad Dressing Recipe
Before there was Caesar, before there was Ranch, before there was Balsamic Vinaigrette, there was Green Goddess salad dressing.
Green Goddess salad dressing was one of the most popular salad dressings in the United States at one time. The story goes that Green Goddess salad dressing originated at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1923.Continue reading
Delightful Flower Flavored Foods
Have you noticed that some of the most delightfully unusual foods nowadays have slight flower flavors? You can find these flower flavored foods in everything from entrees to desserts.
And there’s such a wide range of choices that even the picky American palate will find something to love.
Here are some of my favourite flower flavored foods:Continue reading
Writing Biographies for Your Family Cookbook: 5 Simple Strategies
How can you capture the essence of someone’s story when you’re writing biographies for your family cookbook? This can be really hard to do, especially when your subject rambles or hopscotches through years of a life well-lived!
Through my experience of interviewing members of our clan for our family cookbook, I’ve developed some simple strategies to keep my interviewee on topic.Continue reading
How to Create a True Custom Cookbook
On one of my internet surfing expeditions to spy on my competition (yes, I do that regularly), I was happy to see that Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software still leads the pack in helping you create a custom cookbook at home.Continue reading
Easy, Crisp, Crunchy, Summer-Fresh Freezer Pickles
You wouldn’t think a medium-sized Tupperware container of pickles made in the freezer could cause a stir. But it did.
The Tupperware in question was the one that my friend Kim brought a to a social potluck at the local church many years ago.
Garlic Toast – Twice Broiled for Extra Flavor
Garlic toast – twice broiled? It might sound complicated, but this simple, standby recipe is sure to tickle the tastebuds!
Don’t Plan a Cookbook For Your Wedding. Plan a Wedding Cookbook.
Sarah Whinnaker had the stressed out look of an engaged bride-to-be who suddenly feels like six months wasn’t nearly enough time to plan.
“I’m giving up on the wedding cookbook, Erin. It just isn’t going to happen. There’s no way I’m getting it together with everything else going on.”
“Your mistake,” I replied, “is in trying to get your wedding cookbook done in time for your wedding.”
She stared at me like too many young people stare at too many old people. “You just don’t understand. There’s so much to do.”
“So why not let your guests do some of the work?”
“What?”
“Have you sent out invitations yet?”
She sighed. “Not until next week.”
“Print up a card to go with your invitations. Just a business card size will do. On it, write (in the same style as your invite, if you like): ‘The Bride And Groom wish to make a Jefferson Family Wedding Cookbook after the wedding. Please write on the attached recipe card your own favorite recipe that you think they would enjoy. Also, please mention if you’d like a copy of the finished Jefferson Family Wedding Cookbook mailed to you as a memento.”
She stared at me for a moment. “Wow. What a great way to get everyone involved! I could put your cards out on the plates at the reception, and people could fill them out then too. It’d be a great way to get people talking to each other. My aunt will be sitting next to Jeff’s sister, and they could share casserole recipes.”
“And,” I continued, “a few months after the wedding, people would be getting a keepsake in the mail that they never got at a wedding before.”
She looked positively gleeful. “I’ll take photos from the disposable cameras at the wedding and use them to decorate pages! Maybe use a formal wedding pose for the front cover!”
Her eyes fell. “Oh god! The disposable cameras! I need to get them too!”
And just like that she marched away, mumbling about Kodak and Polaroid. I guess there’s only so time you can give a bride with just six months left to get ready.
Here’s a nice story from a customer about their own wedding cookbook. Just scroll down a bit.
If you are thinking about making a wedding cookbook, please look at my cookbook software. Also, here’s the engraved wedding recipe binder shown above.
3 Hints to Know You’ve Achieved Professional Quality Cookbook Making at Home
Just about everyone interested in cookbook making at home wants to achieve a professional quality recipe book.
But how do you know you’ve achieved professional quality cookbook? Continue reading
Bring Back Traditional Tea Parties!
When I think of traditional tea parties, I think of a somewhat formal, yet comfortingly familiar routine that brings sanity to the crazy world.
But, oh my, tea parties have a whole new meaning these days, don’t they?
Taking the ‘Tech’ out of Recipe Software so It’s Easy to Use
Recipe software, recipe book software, cookbook software, whatever you want to call it to make your own cookbook, the key to your success is how easy it is to use.
Nothing is more frustrating that knowing you need to accomplish something with your recipe software but don’t understand how to do it. Add a deadline, and waah! You can be in tears in no time. Continue reading
Last Minute Hostess Gift? Make a Cookbook!
You are going to be late for a dinner party this evening, and you forgot to pick up a hostess gift, too. What do you do? Solution: Notify the hostess you’re going to be late and quickly make a gift cookbook!Continue reading