It's Halloween time! Remember to add fun tricks and treats to your family cookbook.

It's Halloween time! Remember to add fun tricks and treats to your family cookbook.

As we prepare for the holiday season, many family cookbook editors are working to finalize their projects in order to give as gifts this year. Cookbooks must be submitted for printing before the deadline of Thursday, November 4th to receive your cookbooks by Thanksgiving. Tuesday, November 30th is the deadline to guarantee delivery without expedited shipping before the Christmas holiday.

So now is the time to contact all of your contributors with your reminder tool and tell them to enter their recipes now before it is too late. We recommend using a recipe submission deadline of November 15th in order to give you time to review the recipes, make sure all of the extra spaces are removed and words are spelled correctly, and still have time to place your order before the printing deadline.

Family cookbooks make wonderful gifts for family and friends alike. The effort you put into your cookbook now will pay off for your entire family for years to come.


Family Cookbook Showcase: OurCookbooks.com
Our new website to help our editors sell their cookbooks online, Family Cookbook Showcase at OurCookbooks.com, is ready to go. Whether you are using your cookbook as a fundraiser or just have a few extra copies that are taking up space, we will make it easy for you to make them available.

If you already have had you cookbook printed, please go to your editor account and click on the “Publishing Tools>Sell Your Cookbook Settings” link. Here you can enter some basic information and have visitors order cookbooks directly from you. When all of your cookbooks are sold, simply come back and turn off the free listing. It’s our way of helping you to get the most for your cookbook dollar.

If you have not yet printed your cookbook, it will be made available to you after your order has been sent to print.

The Family Cookbook Showcase is part of a more comprehensive cookbook marketing package that is being put together to help editors sell their cookbooks.

Featured recipe from the database

The Great Family Cookbook Project has a huge amount of public recipes in the system thanks to you! If you need a fun recipe idea that’s not in your own cookbook, go to our home page and use the search function to see what’s available – lots of good eats!

Here is a recipe we tried recently for a fun party:

This recipe for Halloween Party Punch, by Micki Clark, is from The Clark Family Cookbook. Search for more great recipes here from over 250,000 in our family cookbooks!

Halloween Party Punch Recipe

Contributor:

Micki Clark

Category:

Appetizers & Beverages

Ingredients:

1 3oz. pkg orange gelatin
2 c. boiling water
1 6oz can orange juice concentrate
1 46 oz. can unsweetened pineapple juice
1 qrt. ginger ale

Directions:

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water.

Mix orange juice with three cans of water and add to gelatin mixture.

Add pineapple juice and chill.

Add ginger ale just before serving. Makes 30 1/2 cup servings


Tips to Ease the Holiday Hustle

(NewsUSA) – The holidays are supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, but they may also be the busiest. As the guest list grows, so does the grocery list, not to mention the piles of laundry and dirty dishes.

But there’s no need to be a Grinch. Turn on the holiday cheer by taking advantage of some simple tips from the experts in Whirlpool brand’s test kitchens:
·         Prepare ahead. Over-estimate the number of guests expected to attend, and bring full recipes to the grocery store to make sure every ingredient makes it home. This can help you avoid being a plate short or having to dig out old frosting for the last batch of cookies.
·         Make sure the refrigerator can handle the shopping list. French-door refrigerators offer wide shelf space to keep large cakes and deli trays fresh leading up to the big holiday meal. A side-by-side refrigerator may fit the bill if fresh ingredients typically fill the shopping cart.
·         Make it a team effort. Kids can help wash potatoes or arrange platters, and everyone can help clean up. Also, keeping recipes handy in plastic sleeves ensures everyone is on the same page.
·         Put appliances to work for you. Convection cooking allows you to bake potatoes and roast turkeys much faster than a traditional oven, while a double oven range can cook two different meals at once, toast crusty breads or keep one dish warm.
“Holiday cooks no longer have to play musical pans when trying to broil steaks and warm rolls at the same time, thanks to new double-oven ranges,” said Monica Teague, senior manager, brand experience, Whirlpool. “In addition, knowing how to properly load the dishwasher can ease clean-up once everyone is stuffed. Greasy pots and pans go on the bottom rack face-down or at a slight angle for optimal cleaning, and delicate stemware stay up top, where water pressure is not as strong.” 
·         Don’t overlook laundry as guests shuffle in and out. Pre-sorting clothes into designated baskets for lights, darks and whites can streamline the process, while some of latest features enable consumers to do laundry at times that fit their hectic holiday schedule.
Fit in a quick nap — and a load of laundry — before the guests arrive. The holiday season will feel more “Hava Nagila” than “Bah, Humbug.”
For more information, visit www.whirlpool.com
Editors Ideas – how to keep your contributors motivated

The holidays are here. Remember, it may take a full 3 weeks to get your cookbooks at this time of year – so start today! When you do get together in the coming weeks, bring a printed recipe or two from your cookbook and hand them out. Let folks know that you plan to print the book in November or December – and get all their email addresses so you can add them to your book. Have fun!

What they are saying

“I LOVE the website…it is so easy to use and the e-blast feature has made managing this project a breeze!”
–Susie Dvorak, The Kadavy Family Cookbook

Famous Quotation

“Non-cooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes’ enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.”
Julia Child (1912 – 2004)