Good Press

I might be using my bread machine a lot more. The August/September issue of Country Woman magazine has a feature on bread machine recipes. I pulled out my Magic Chef, dusted it off and tried two recipes so far. Here is one, by request of my Tweep Meghan: Cherry-Pecan Cocoa Bread. Yes, I made it on a day that had a heat advisory, but a bread machine doesn't create as much heat as the oven. And I did it in early morning. The flavor is really good. My only gripe about Cherry-Pecan Cocoa Bread is that when I added the cherries and nuts before the final kneading, the dough ball was so solid that it just sorta chased them around the pan (I watched) and never incorporated them evenly throughout the dough. So the baked loaf has cherries and pecans around the bottom and sides and not in the middle or near the top. Next time, I will add them earlier ... if not at the beginning, then after the ingredients are moistened and starting to come together. CHERRY-PECAN COCOA BREAD  2/3 c...

Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr Pepper Thank goodness it's only a limited edition. Dr Pepper debuted a cherry chocolate version of its diet cola for the holidays. It's supposed to tasted like chocolate-covered cherries, which is why I keep typing the chocolate before the cherry. I tried one bottle of Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr Pepper and I don't care to have more. I didn't think it was disgusting, like the checker who rang me out did. I just couldn't taste any chocolate flavor. All I could taste was fakey, mothbally flavor characteristic of all diet sodas. My husband, however, had the best description of Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr Pepper after just one drink. He said Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr Pepper tastes like a stale Tootsie Roll. To which I add only: Avoid. Pizza Hut's Pizza Mia I'll be sad when Pizza Hut's limited-edition Pizza Mia reaches the end of its run. It is really yummy. The Pizza Mia crust is hand-tossed and lightly topped with a sweeter, less herby tom...

It's cooler now in north-central West Virginia than this time last week when record-setting heat made my clothes feel like they were plastic shrink-wrapped to my body. This summer we discovered some low-calorie fruit slushes I make to keep cool. It's also a good and easy way to get in an extra serving of fruit. I'll be honest -- I use real sugar, cane sugar specifically, instead of Splenda. A little bit of natural sugar beats anything artificial, modified or engineered any day. Our favorites are the cherry limeade, peach and watermelon lemonade. I love that they're all made with frozen fruits so I don't have to buy and keep fresh fruit onhand worrying if it's going to spoil before we use it up. The most labor-intensive part is de-seeding the watermelon -- don't be fooled, there ARE seeds in seedless watermelon. But one watermelon, once de-seeded and chunked, has lasted me all summer in the freezer. Whipping up the drinks is so easy I can even let 4-year-old...