I love web sites that make your life easier, and Tastebook.com is one of those sites. I enjoy cooking. I’m no chef, just someone who enjoys preparing food for friends and family. I have a couple of recipes I’ve honed over the years to be “near perfect” and those are the ones people frequently request. With Tastebook.com, I can now simply share the recipes through my online cookbook. It’s genius!

You can create as many online cookbooks as you want, and even have them printed and bound to store in your kitchen (offline). I love that you can add recipes from several online recipe sites (although I’d like to see them create relationships with even more recipe sites to make the whole process even better). You can even upload photos to further enhance your personal recipes. It’s a great replacement for my (offline) notebook of collected recipes (especially since many of those sheets are faded, torn, and stained).

Check it out when you get a chance. If fact, I’ll even share a favorite family recipe for Monkey Bread (or Monkey Ball Cake as the kids usually call it). Enjoy!

One of the few things my husband and I can easily agree on watching is cooking shows. It never fails… when we both end up in the living room after the kids have gone to sleepy land, we each strive to pick up the remote first. (Because we all know that she who holds the remote, controls the evening.) Will it be more boring WWII stories on the History channel, ridiculous comedy like Family Guy (I really just can’t comprehend why that woman is with the dog?), completely sappy movies on Lifetime, or something we can both agree on: shows that make us hungry on the Food Network.

Are we the only ones who search our cabinets for crazy ingredients like clam juice and saffron threads just because Emeril tells us too? Me thinks not It’s all about branding baby! And being in the business I am, I gotta love it.

So when Alton Brown pretended to be stuck on a deserted island last night, playing in his kitchen with mounds of mango and pineapple, it’s really not surprising that I immediately went to the store to purchase several of these items, right? And I already had some pork thawing for dinner anyway, so of course it was easy to switch gears and make Alton’s Sweet and Sour Pork for dinner (which, by the way, was absolutely fabulous! Much better than the chinese buffet serves down the street - and definitely something I will serve guests!). Thanks Food Network!

So this year I received a digital meat thermometer from my sister-in-law. Some people might think this sounds like a ridiculous idea for a Christmas gift (unless you hate your sister-in-law) but I am totally in love with this meat thermometer! It has a probe that goes into the meat, inside your oven, then a timer that stays outside your oven and beeps when your meat is ready! Wow! Meat that is actually juicy, not overcooked! Dinner at my house just got a whole lot better… I wish I had one of these a long time ago.