It seems that when the heat is high outside, my kitchen becomes the hottest room in the house. I will do anything to avoid having to spend an hour in the kitchen cooking with the hot stove and oven making the room heat up. So I’ve become a great fan of cold summer salads.

Do you have a favorite salad?

In a couple of weeks I will be attending a Red Hatter club meeting, where we are all to bring a contribution of a dish prepared from one of the Red Hat Society cookbooks. Yesterday I went over to our “queen’s” house and borrowed her Red Hat Society cookbooks to look through.

I love to browse through cookbooks, and dream of having the time to try so many yummy dishes, and dream of having a family that is willing to try them all! I found several recipes that I would like to try on my own for my family. I’ve invited my younger sis to join us for the Red Hatter event, and emailed her one of the recipes for her to fix and bring. It sounds really yummy and easy to whip up. I hope she comes, and brings it!

This is the recipe I sent her to try:

“Pink Stuff”

From the Red Hat Society cookbook pg 276

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 (12oz) container whipped topping, thawed

1 (20 oz) can cherry pie filling

1 (15 oz) can crushed pineapple, well drained

1 (15 oz) can mandarin oranges, drained

Red food coloring – a few drops, optional

Stir together the condensed milk and whipped topping. Fold in the cherry pie filling. Fold in the pineapple and oranges. If you want a deeper pink color, add a few drops of red food coloring. Refrigerate at least 4 hours prior to serving.

I’m looking forward to the event!

I was reading on the Yahoo news that a settlement was reached in a legal case of the state of California vs four major snack food companies, H.J. Heinz Co., Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods Incand Lance Inc. The suit was brought forth in 2005, and it was regarding the fact that these companies had unacceptable levels of carcinogens in their potato chips, and had failed to indicate that fact on their product labels.

The state also sued McDonald’s Corp, Wendy’s International Inc., Burger King Corp, KFC, and Procter & Gamble Co for essentailly the same situation with their french fries.

These companies were fined a lot of money and they agreed to either lower the levels of carcinogens or change their labels, so the consumers are aware of the carcinogens. How do you change the labels on french fries?

Why are these carcinogens being allowed in our food in the first place?

Well, today is Valentine’s Day, and I hope everyone has a good one.  I bought little boxes of chocolates and Valentine’s day cards for my kids and my hubby and put them by their breakfast bowls for them to see when they came to the kitchen to eat.  I hope to eat dinner out tonight!  We’ll have to leave early to beat the dinner rush because it’s a Saturday!

I’ve always had a sweet-tooth.  I much prefer sweet tasting foods and beverages over spicy-hot or bitter or sour.  So it would stand to reason that I prefer Pepsi-Cola over Coca-Cola; the taste is much sweeter.  I can remember quite a few years ago that Coca-Cola changed its recipe to be sweeter in order to compete better with Pepsi.  What an uproar it caused among loyal Coca-Cola drinkers!  I remember that for a time, to try to keep the consumers happy Coca-Cola then started selling both recipes, the original AND the new one; they marketed the original as “Coke Classic.”  To be honest, I DID like the new recipe better because it WAS sweeter and tasted much like Pepsi.  However, I now tend to drink the Pepsi-Free soda because it is caffeine free and I try to reduce my caffeine intake as much as possible.  That being said, when I drink a diet soda, (and I avoid diet sodas because they have a nasty aftertaste) I think that the diet Coke tastes better than the diet Pepsi!  The aftertaste is not as nasty.