Links: Simply Recipes

The Web has proven to be an incredible resource for home cooks; you can find instructions for cooking nearly anything these days. Unfortunately, most recipes out there come from big commercial kitchens (e.g. Food Network) and are thus unnecessarily complicated. They call for exotic ingredients, use special appliances (not everyone has a stand mixer), or require too much work to be practical.

Simply Recipes, a blog run by Elise Bauer, is sort of an indie food recipe site. Elise and her family and friends post recipes to the site that they've tried and had success with. Because of this homebrew effort, you'll rarely encounter a recipe that's too difficult for the average cook.

This recipe for banana bread, for instance, can be made from cheap staple ingredients you're likely to find in any kitchen, even the stripped-down college student's kitchen. It can be thrown together in about ten minutes, bakes up in about an hour, and tastes better than the $2 banana bread at Starbucks (try tossing in 1/3 cup of chopped walnuts for a crunchy kick). It wasn't dreamed up by some culinary consultants, it was created by a lady named Mrs. Hockmeyer. But thanks to Simply Recipes, it's now being shared by folks around the world.