Who says nobody cooks anymore? I like to eat a balanced diet of foods prepared from scratch, using fresh vegetables and whole grains wherever possible.  My family has been following the DASH eating plan for the last couple of years, which has made meal planning easy.  We eat more and weigh less!  I am hoping that, some day, BigOven will support exchanges,  and allow individuals to create and share various exchange systems (ADA, Weight Watchers, DASH, USDA, etc.)

 

I've been reworking some of my favorite recipes to follow the DASH guidelines.  I've also been working on making some of my recipes diabetic-friendly, since two of my favorite people are now watching their blood glucose.

 

I have also been working on printing cookbooks from exports of my BigOven recipe boxes.  To speed things up, I created a tool that can automatically format an entire recipe-box of BigOven recipe text (ctrl-t) into a cookbook.  I started the Printing Recipes and Cookbooks discussion group here, and created the Recipe PrintingTools group at Google Groups to store files.  Please share your questions, tips, your favorite customized BigOven recipe themes and other tools.

 

I have finally learned to make a cheese sauce.  Following Steve's advice , I allowed more time for the white sauce to thicken up, then turned off the heat and allowed time for the cheese to melt.  No curdling.  No separating.  Do I graduate to Expert Home Cook now?

Simple foods prepared from scratch, with fresh flavors and plenty of garlic. Lots of vegetables.  Almost anything from "The Frugal Gourmet". Decent bread.  Hearty one-pot meals.

 

I like Barilla Plus pasta, but hate boxed whole-wheat pasta.