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More Make and Freeze Recipes Review

More Make and Freeze Recipes by Mara Michaels

This is the second recipe guide in this series and helped me get even more out of my freezer than before. In response to a lot of reader questions, they give not just recipes, but a very thorough guide as to all the important considerations when buying a new freezer. PLUS they also teach you how to get the most out of your freezer space for maximum efficiency. I’ve been cooking my way through both books and everything has turned out great. We might almost worry about gaining weight but I am portioning things out really carefully and stretching the whole meal with lots of vegetables. Putting together special meals for the different tastes in my family is really easy now-I followed their suggestions about the containers and it works great. No more picky eaters. The proof of the pudding in any cookbook is to make the recipes and these are clear, well-organized and perfect for beginner cooks who want to learn how to make their favorite dishes without having to buy pre-prepared meals or eat out. I’ve saved a lot of money cooking the way they suggest so I highly recommend this guide to every beginner cook.

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April 4, 2013By admin ReviewsLeave a Comment

Make and Freeze Recipes Review

Make and Freeze Recipes: Great Foods You Can Cook, Freeze, and Use Quickly and Easily by Carolyn Stone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was impressed with how clear and well-written this book is and how well all the recipes I tried came out, right after being cooked, and also after being frozen. I can make my own ‘TV dinners’ from scratch now using all fresh ingredients and know exactly what is in them. GREAT for people with any food allergies. Busy people can live better for less and feed their whole family well. The recipes were written very clearly for even a beginner cook, so they can get good results.

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March 31, 2013By admin Reviews book reviews, recipesLeave a Comment

Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant Review

Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant: Ethnic and Regional Recipes from the Cooks at the Legendary Restaurant by Carolyn B. Mitchell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I remember eating in the restaurant and being so impressed I immediately wanted to learn how to cook like that myself. I have cooked my way through this book from cover to cover with my husband and the African peanut stew and empanadas are a family favorite we make often. These recipes are a bit more complicated than in some of the other books they have produced, but the results are impressive and well worth the extra effort.

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March 29, 2013By admin ReviewsLeave a Comment

Wedding Weekend Activities

Weekend weddings are becoming more popular, particularly as families are spread further apart. They usually begin on Friday night, continue with the wedding Saturday and conclude with a post-wedding breakfast on Sunday before everyone returns home.

Planning activities for these weekend-long celebrations doesn’t have to be difficult; in fact, it can be quite a bit of fun if you keep everyone’s needs in mind.

First, consider the wedding. Will this be a formal wedding with a sit-down dinner at its center? If so, you might want to avoid a formal rehearsal dinner and replace it instead with an informal barbecue or picnic.

How will you keep people occupied during the long weekend? There are many activities to consider. Will the wedding be near a lake? How about planning a day at the lake on Saturday, filled with pre-wedding activities like swimming races and beach volleyball?

One popular pre-wedding activity is a scavenger hunt. Prior to the wedding weekend, a list of items can be gathered, and guests placed in two teams. The list should include things like “get a brochure from the jewelry store where (groom) bought (bride)’s ring” or “take a picture of the group at the location where the couple got engaged”.

You will have to tailor the scavenger hunt list to the location of the wedding and the age and energy of the guests who will be participating.

You can even offer lavish prizes for the team that wins the scavenger hunt, such as gift certificates or gourmet food and wine baskets. It might seem an obvious choice to divide the teams into groups who know or are related to the bride and teams who know or are related to the groom, but it might be a little more fun to mix it up a bit. You can create teams of friends versus family, or men versus women (always a popular choice).

Another activity that’s popular during wedding weekends is a competitive sport activity, such as soccer, baseball, softball, or tag football. Again, you can add a special twist to your game.

Offer prizes for performance (first home run gets a kiss from the bride). Or you can make silly rules, like members of the bridal party have to wear tiaras while running bases or members of the groom’s family should always have their shirts on backwards.

It’s important that during the wedding weekend, planners keep in mind that the weekend itself might be expensive for some guests, particularly those who had to fly in for the occasion, and do many of the activities should be free, or inexpensive. If they are more expensive, and planned for the entire group, they should be paid for by either the bride and groom, or by their families.

There are plenty of activities that don’t have to be expensive, but can provide big bang for a little money, such as the scavenger hunt suggested above. If the wedding weekend guests will mostly be family, you can schedule a home movie-viewing event, including home movies from both the bride and groom’s families.

For even more fun, consider an activity where the movies are mixed up and the guests have to guess which family’s videos they are watching. This might sound easy, but depending on the contents, it could be hard, particularly if the bride and groom are babies in the photos.

You can also plan video rentals, a hike in the woods, a board games evening, anything to make sure people are not just sitting in their hotel rooms or guest rooms just waiting for the big day to arrive and be over.

Fun Activities Before the Wedding

Planning pre-wedding activities are a little something extra that’s not required, but certainly fun and entertaining for the guests.

If the bride and groom keep in mind the distance some guests have traveled and keep activities relevant to that level of fatigue, they’re sure to hit on some winning activities.

As you go about planning activities for the wedding, keep in mind other factors as well. Do many people have children with them? Will you provide childcare or will the children be participants in the activities? If you have several guests who are older, or have a disability, perhaps activities can be tailored in a way so that they can participate as well.

Some of the more popular pre-wedding activities include things like a group manicure. All the women in the wedding party or who are close to the bride (and certainly this could include men if they like manicures and want to hang out with the ladies) can head to a nail salon and get their nails done.

This can be relaxing for many women and provide a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of the wedding weekend.

If the men don’t want to go, they might choose to golf or play a game of tennis.

Many brides and grooms choose to provide structured activities for their guests prior to the wedding. If the wedding is on a Saturday night, for example, they might choose to provide a Friday activity, especially if most guests are local to the wedding. You might have a wedding luau. Many times pre-wedding activities center around bachelor and bachelorette parties, but what about a stag party that includes all the members of the brides and grooms families?

You could plan some fun (and appropriate) games and head out to a restaurant for a night of fun and games. Be sure to limit the drinking and carousing as this might not sit well with some family members, and everyone will be way too tired (and hungover?) to really enjoy the wedding the next day.

Here is a fun activity that can be done right before the wedding. Have someone begin a gift basket. The theme of the basket is “advice for the couple” and could be started by the best man or maid of honor. They take the basket to someone else’s house, perhaps an aunt or cousin and leave it on the doorstep. That person adds an item (a book on how to end spousal arguments? Or a CD of romantic music?) and brings the basket to someone else’s house. This activity can begin a week or two before the wedding and everyone should know it is coming around.

The basket can also be circulated the weekend of the wedding, but this will only work if everyone is local and if they know the basket is coming. In this case, it also might be helpful to have someone bring the basket to a house, collect the item and the take the basket to the next location, reducing the need to have each person take the basket to its next location.

Once it’s full, someone can be in charge of putting the basket items together, wrapping it all up to make it look nice and bringing it to the bride and groom. It can be delivered right to the wedding as a gift in and of itself.

You can also have an evening of share home movies, a trivia quiz in which all of the teams are mixed between the two families, or a board game evening.

Whatever activities you choose, be sure to keep in mind the needs of your guests and the limitations of those guests. If some have travelled far, or don’t have a lot of money, you will need to pace yourselves and pay for your guests.

If you want to plan an activity that includes everyone, and you choose golf, but a relative is in a wheelchair or uses a walker, that might not be the best activity to plan.

Nice Bachelorette Party Games Part 2

continued from part 1

Bachelorette party games are not only designed to bring fun to the party, but sometimes to help people get to know one another. This might be a good opportunity for the bride’s best friend to get to know the sister of the groom, or for the bride to get close to the groom’s cousin or niece. So an icebreaker game isn’t a bad idea.

This isn’t perhaps the most intellectual icebreaker game, but it will likely help thaw things out early in the evening before you head off to other events.

Play a game called “I never…” and see who takes the most drinks. So the first woman says, “I never…” and completes the sentence. The women who have done the thing the first woman says she’s never done take a drink, or get a point. Then the next woman claims to have “never” done something.

Some suggestions for this game are: “I never …”

*Lied about my age

*Lied about my weight

*Shoplifted

*Got a speeding ticket

*Ran naked through my house

The one with the most points at the end of the game is the winner. If you are playing for drinks, then the one who has the most points will definitely need a designated driver! Or the bathroom. Always be sensible about drinking at your bachelorette party, and make sure if it is taking place the evening before your wedding, that no one gets too exhausted and that it does not spoil the festivities for anyone the following day.

Nice Bachelorette Party Games Part 1

Planning a bachelorette party is one of the easiest parts of a wedding to plan. There are literally hundreds of ideas for things to do, and a myriad of options for games. Many of those ideas are a bit on the racy side, but there are plenty that that are just plain clean fun which you can use if you are not sure of your guests, or if you don’t want to be too embarrassed in front of friends and work colleagues.

For example, one popular bachelorette game involves asking the guests to become poets. Ahead of the party, take 50 index cards and on half, write romantic things, like “roses”, “cuddly”, etc. On the other 25 cards, write very non-romantic words or phrases, like “nose hairs” or “ironing”. Then have each guest draw one card from each pile. They should then create a silly poem based on the two very different words or phrases they have chosen, for example, “Roses are red, your nose hairs are ewwwww.”

One fun game that is sure to engender at least a few laughs is “name that item”. Take a paper bag (a fabric bag is better if you have one) and fill the bag with typical “male items”. The items might include a razor, a money clip, a tie, shoe polish, etc. Seal the bag, or fold it over really well.

Then have each guest feel the bag and try to guess the contents. Have them write their guesses on a piece of paper. After everyone has had a chance to feel the bag, the contents are shown and the person with the most number of correct guesses gets the bag of male-oriented items.

Here’s a fun idea. This game might take the whole of the bachelorette party, but it’s a fun one that involves all the guests, helps them get to know one another and provides video proof you all had a good time. You need video cameras for this game, so if the host only has one camera, be sure to ask guests to bring more video cameras. Make sure you also have enough blank tapes for this game.

Depending on the number of guests at the party, you’ll divide the party into two or more groups. It’s best to divide the group into teams small enough so that the whole team can get into one car. So you’ll have maybe five women on each team. You’ll give each team a video camera, blank videotapes and a list of “scavenger hunt” type activities they must perform and tape.

Some video scavenger hunt ideas include having a complete stranger sing the national anthem, having a member of the team sing “I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner” in the meat section of the grocery store, or taping a stranger who can do a good impersonation of John Wayne.

The teams should be given a specific amount of time in which to complete their assigned tasks, and then return to the party location (ideally, a home, in this case). The videos are viewed and the teams vote on the team that did the best. Bonus points are given for the team that creates their own stunts.

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