This is a mish-mash of sites I like, that my friends have recommended and others that are just easy to use:

Dana got me hooked on The Pioneer Woman by Ree Drummond. She cooks with real butter but her photography is amazing and this site was inspired by her blog format. PW’s friend Kay has a site (KayoticKitchen) with some amazing photos as well.

Grandma gets us all a subscription to Taste of Home for Christmas every year. I have a lot of them in magazine racks … the photos are awesome, it has very few ads and they have features like cooking for two and $2 per meal, which are full of great ideas. Most meals tend to be home-style or for pot-lucks (such a brilliant concept. I highly encourage guests to contribute with a wine, appetizer or dessert - many hands makes light work and less dishes - heehee).

My best friend, Allie, while on a hard-core vegetarian kick a few years back, found a lot of great recipes on AllRecipes.com. She developed a flavour for international dishes after living in Italy (pun fully intended) and found this site had real variety. It’s had a facelift recently and the entries are posted by normal people so you sometimes find typos but overall it’s a good resource.

Kraft Canada is where Steve found some great “easy to assemble” recipes. Their instructions are literally step-by-step and all the ingredients are brand name (aka easy to recognize) - great for university students who’ve never cooked but realized eating campus food for all your meals is too expensive. The search is well implemented and right up their alley rather than flipping through The Joy of Cooking. I used to subscribe to the What’s Cooking? magazine as well but it has too many Cool Whip/Jello recipes and I’ve started to see repeats.

I am now a dedicated (if not raving) fan of SparkPeople.com and their recipe site has a free caloric calculator for recipes.

I inherited a tonne of Cooking Light magazines from Beth at Grace Notes Press. I don’t go to the site often but I do pick up the occasional issue for my parents (wrapped around a bottle of wine - good gift!). Now that I’m poking around, they have some great how-to’s on technique »

One of the girls at work, Karen (who first introduced me to the flavour of butternut squash) recommends Epicurious.com

Chef Michael Smith is Elaine’s favourite. He’s got an East-Coast flare mixed with simplicity. She doesn’t like things to be fussy and if it’s not an ingredient she normally keeps in the house “forget about it!” Her favourite recipe for guests is potato crusted salmon from Food TV’s Chef at Home served with a side of green beans! There is also Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger on The Food Network. As a nutritionist, she has created fast, simple and healthy recipes for the real world. She’ll show you how easy it can be to stay on a healthy track, no matter how busy and stressful your life is.

I also found an interesting site for cooking substitutes and vegetable growing tips.

If you have a favourite that’s not listed, let me know what it is and why you like it »