More than excellent. I actually won a baking competition at work using this recipe!

There's not much to say about this besides YUM. It's easy to make- I made two at the same time. Delicious with summer blueberries. I did cover the blueberries with some flour before adding them to the batter so they wouldn't all sink to the bottom of the cake. Looks pretty and tastes even better! And I used slightly more berries than the recipe called for.

This is the same recipe as in the Family Style Cookbook.

This is the recipe I always use for stock and soup. It does take a while to cook- 4 hours- but it is definitely worth it and the house smells so good while it is cooking. It makes a lot of stock which can be frozen to use later. I don't have a 16- to 20 quart stock pot, so I divide the recipe in half and make it in two smaller stock pots. The recipe calls for 3 5-pound chickens. This seems like a waste to me since most of the chicken ends up getting thrown out. Instead, I often make this with one whole chicken and lots of chicken bones which I have saved up in the freezer over time. I have also purchased the bones from the market in the past. This way you still get the rich flavor and color of the broth but don't spend as much money and waste so much chicken.

If you want to use the chicken in soup- follow the recipe in the Parties! book. That has you removing the breast meat after an hour so you can serve it in soup later. This is a lot less wasteful to me.

This is easy and delicious. Serve it with the lamb kebabs.

This is a really nice alternative to plain old rice. I use brown basmati rice instead of white and it is delicious. I especially like serving this with the Indonesian Ginger Chicken from the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.

I love lemon. Between the cake, the lemon syrup and the glaze, this is very lemony. I even added a little bit of lemon zest to the glaze for color and flavor. The consistency of the cake, though, is a little odd- maybe because it is drenched in syrup and has oil in it.

Don't let Ina try to fool you. In the descriptive paragraph she comments about how this recipe doesn't have a pound of butter like most of her recipes so it's 'healthier' than many of her cakes. Well, it does have tons of sugar, whole fat yogurt and a 1/2 cup of oil. Let's agree that this is 100% a dessert and not at all healthy! It is yummy, though.

If I could give this a rating higher than 5, I would! It is really, really good and easy to make.

I love this recipe and have made it a number of times. I don't know why, then, I always forget just how much this makes! So much more than the servings suggested. Luckily it freezes well.

The first few times I made this, I made it as directed- with uncooked white rice. Both times, the rice didn't cook all the way through despite cooking for over an hour. I made it again and substituted cooked barley. That was really good. This time I used cooked brown rice, which I liked, but not as much as the barley.

Almost every time I make this, I use half beef and half pork. I like that more than all beef.

These are moist and chewy cookies. They are really good! I suggest doubling the recipe since it only makes 16-20 cookies and you'll probably want more. As Ina suggests, you can also freeze the dough and bake them later.

I'll be serving these with peach ice cream as an ice cream sandwich.