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A French chef created the Peach Melba dessert in London for an Australian singer named Nellie Melba. It's peaches in a raspberry sauce over vanilla ice cream. I paired two of the flavors in iced tea and it is so sweet you don't have to add sugar! It's really quite good and tastes like summer! PEACH MELBA ICED TEA 2 regular-size bags peach tea such as Celestial Seasonings Peach Passion 1family-size bag raspberry tea such as Lipton Specially Blended for Iced Tea Raspberry 8 cups of water to start plus 6-8 more later Place the tea bags and 8 cups of cold water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off heat and steep for 15 minutes or so (sometimes I lose track of time and it still turns out OK.) Remove the tea bags and discard. Mix the tea with 6-8 cups of water ... taste as you add the water to get it to the strength you like. You can add sugar if you really want to, but it's so naturally sweet you really shouldn't. Definitely taste before you add sugar.

Evidence that we are in a second Great Depression: I made homemade laundry detergent. I used this recipe from The Family Homestead: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/laundrysoap.htm. I'll print it briefly below in case the link goes bad in the future. Homemade Laundry Soap 1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap, as listed above 1/2 cup washing soda(sold in the cleaners a isle, the Arm & Hammer brand is in a yellow box) 1 /2 cup B orax powder  2 gallon bucket Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan.  (I used the lidded stockpot I wanted to keep my detergent in.) Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts.  Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket -- I put it in the pot with t he soap mixture. If you're using a separate bucket, add soap mixture to the 4 cups of hot water in your bucket and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water...

I like this recipe for General Tso's Chicken way better than anything I've ever had in a Chinese restaurant. It is easy to prepare at home with easy-to-find ingredients and it has half the calories and one-fifth the fat of the take-out version. America's Test Kitchen, the folks who deconstruct recipes and show us how to make them step-by-step in Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country, made over this recipe for General Tso's. They swapped white chicken breast for the dark meat and a crunchy breading of corn flakes for deep-frying. My husband does not like Chinese food but he loved this recipe when I made it for dinner. The option to omit red pepper makes it a winner with our 9-year-old as well. I hope to add photos, but in the interest of sharing this fabulous recipe, I'm posting without. GENERAL TSO'S CHICKEN by America's Test Kitchen BEFORE: 910 calories, 45g fat, 5g sat fat AFTER: 490 calories, 8g fat, 1.5g sat fat   WHY THIS...

I enjoy Indian food when I get to the nearest city that has an Indian restaurant, Morgantown, WV, and Mother India. Because I can't afford to eat out or drive much, I am always looking for ways to make what I crave at home. I found a passable way to make one of my two favorite Indian dishes, Chicken Tikka Masala . And I blogged about it last summer so click the link in the last sentence to find the recipe. About the same time I was intrigued by this recipe for "Bread Machine Naan." Now, my understanding of naan is a chewy flat bread that's stretched thin and baked in a Tandoor clay oven. This recipe is so delicious I don't care what it calls itself! My family loves it any time we get a craving for fried dough ... you know, like vendors serve at carnivals. Sometimes it's called Elephant Ears. Or Johnny Cakes. Or fry bread. Eat these plain or with butter and powdered sugar, or cinnamon sugar, or spread with your favorite jam. I recently enjoyed them d...

Who needs Helper when this is just as easy to make? I make this when we want lasagna but I don't want to dirty more than one pan and bowl and spend a couple of hours assembling and baking it. This is a Cook's Illustrated recipe from a few years back.   SKILLET LASAGNA Serves 4 to 6 Meatloaf mix is a combination of ground beef, pork, and veal, sold pre-packaged in many supermarkets. If it's unavailable, use ground beef or Italian sausage removed from its casings and crumbled. Use a 12-inch nonstick skillet with a tight-fitting lid for this recipe. 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes Water 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 medium onion , minced Table salt 3 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 tablespoon) 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 pound meatloaf mix or Italian sausage or ground beef 10 curly-edged lasagna noodles , broken into 2-inch lengths 1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce 1/2 cup grated Parmesan che...

Soon after we moved into our house in 1999, my mother-in-law gave me a battered copy of "The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook" that she found at a yard sale. I learned to make Beef Stroganoff from it. But that version is decidedly not healthful at 580 calories per 1/6th of the recipe. I'm including it here to preserve it but also because a little splurge now and then on "the real thing" is not bad. But recently, thanks to Pinterest, I found a lighter version with the same flavors of Beef Stroganoff. It's calculated for Weight Watchers and streamlined for quick preparation as a casserole. I have http://www.laaloosh.com/ to thank for it. BEEF STROGANOFF 1 1/2 pounds beef tenderloin butter or margarine 1 large onion, minced 1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced 2 teaspoons dry mustard 1 teaspoon salt beef broth 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sour cream I wrote a note in the cookbook: Stir-fry the steak, chop and measure ingredients and cook noodles before you ...

I wrote this story in December 2002 for The Dominion Post. Chocolate-covered cherries are not only a Christmastime treat. They are perfect to give at Valentine's Day. And they are not hard to make at all. BY CYNTHIA McCLOUD The Dominion Post Crafting a holiday confection -- juicy cherries wrapped in sweet, creamy fondant and swathed with semisweet chocolate -- isn't as complicated as it tastes. Sue Carpenter of Morgantown easily makes chocolate-covered cherries from a recipe she found in McCall's magazine in 1987. "It said 'easy candy' and they are real simple to make," Carpenter said as she wrapped a thin layer of white fondant around a maraschino cherry at the dining room table in her South Park home. As a member of the Morgantown Service League, Carpenter makes the cherries as refreshments for the group's annual holiday open house at the Old Stone House Gift Shop. She said she would like to sell them at Valentine's Day to b...