Goldgirl, I generally only buy lobster and mushroom soup base because I can find all the other soup bases in stores. I can usually find lobster soup base, and I used to be able to find mushroom soup base, but not recently. Anyway, it works out to be cheaper to order it on line. I try to buy the ones without MSG, although a little MSG does not bother me. The vegetable Mire Poix base is good, but I didn't especially like the chili base - it was not much different from what I got at the Korean market. The crab base is good too, but I buy that locally at Surfas. The seafood soup bases really help boost the flavor of seafood soups that I make, and I make them fairly frequently. I haven't used them in sauces, however. Lars

My 21 month old loves mango. I just got a mango cutter as a gift. Who knew such a thing existed. Here are some other mango recipes if you're interested. The gazpacho and smoothie from recipe rewards are great. Here is a link that might be useful: mango recipes

OMG. None of those except for the Cheerios would make it in the door at my house. We get stuff like Barbara's and Kashi. The best way, IMO, to make grilled cheese: 1. bread, sliced thin cheese or shredded cheese, and butter. These are the essential ingredients. I like to jazz it up if it's just me eating it and add things like: Rosemary Sourdough bread, goat cheese, havarti cheese, tomato, arugula, prosciutto, etc... Anyway, the basic method is this: Butter both slices of bread, one side only. In a non-stick skillet on medium high place the bread butter-side down until it's melted and the bread is golden toasty and buttery. Turn the bread over, immediately add the cheese and top with the other slice. Both buttered sides are now on the inside of the sandwich (and melting the cheese). Lower the heat on your pan and get a lid that just fits over the top of the sandwich, creating a little tent. Put the lid over it for 30 seconds, flip the sandwich, repeat. Remove the lid. This helps to flash-melt the cheese. Take some more butter, pick the sandwich up with the spatula, and place the pat of butter in the pan and put the sandwich on top of the butter. Move the sandwich around, cook until that side is golden brown. Flip, repeat, serve. I like to add thin sliced tomato after when I'm cooking a basic sandwich. I don't like cooked tomato. But you can add your other ingredients at any time. The basic idea, for me, is to avoid soggy bread and have thoroughly melted cheese. The mayo, when I use it, is used on the outside of the bread in the first step, flipped to the inside. So the cheese is on the cooked mayo side when the sandwich is finished and the outside is buttered. My DH hates cooked mayo, but I think it really adds good flavor. You don't need a lot, just a very thin layer, enough to turn golden on the bread. Serve with really good mustard or ketsup or tomato soup.

All the good looking and great sounding cooking going on. I must comment that the salad 2many mentioned with the sour cream and vinegar and sugar dressing brought back memories for me also. It reminded me of a layered salad my old Grandmother used to make and which I must try to recreate and take to my brothers house one day for a good old reminiscent meal. Currently our restrictions have been lifted a little so that 2 people are allowed to visit family. We visited our son his wife and of course my little grandson who is now 9 months old. I hadn’t seen him for nearly 3 months but the visual phone calls we have done during this period managed to keep his memory of us going so our reunion went very well. So good to be able to cuddle him again. They have been in as strict lock down as us... son working from home and supplies delivered... so we all had no fears and had a great get together. I took the seafood lasagna and DIL made the grain salad and Pico de Gallo. Brownies for dessert with raspberries.Little one ate raspberries for the first time and loved them. He actually eats a little of everything we do.