The recipe doesn't say to brown the beef first, but I wouldn't try it any other way. I browned the beef and then added the beans and spices. I also added some minced green chiles for a little more kick. I used 2 cups of salsa instead of picante and left out the olives. The dish was ready in an hour, but maybe that's because I used 9 lasagna noodles instead of 12. For the cheese, I bought a package of shredded Mexican cheese. It's good, but next time I'll use less water because it was a little runny.

My husband isn't a big vegetable eater. He's out of town, so I took the opportunity to try out this recipe. The sweet potatoes were my favorite. I could have eaten an entire bowl of the roasted sweet potatoes. I kept the veggies in the oven for the full 40 minutes and that was a tad too long. I'll have to try and come up with some ingredients that I think I can get my husband to eat and try this again when he's home.

This salad was excellent. I added cranberries as someone suggested, but I think it gave a little odd flavor. Instead next time I am going to add roasted red & yellow peppers and bacon. The dressing is excellent. I used the rice vinegar as the recipe called for. Thanks so much.

These are Tennessee pork ribs and they're slap your mama good! I used 7 pounds of baby back ribs. They stayed in the oven for 4 hours and then went to the grill, but we didn't use the wood chips. They were so tender they fell right off the bone. The whole recipe is good, but I would consider using a bottle of store bought bbq sauce next time.

I prefer a creamy cole slaw, so this was perfect. It had a nice sweetness. The only change I made to the recipe was leaving out the onions because my husband doesn't like raw onions.

The pork tenderloin couldn't have been easier to make and it tasted pretty good too. I used low sodium soy sauce because of the other reviews and that was a good move. I think regular soy sauce would have made it way too salty. I added a cup of sliced portobello mushrooms for the last 30 minutes and thought that was a good add. I'm not a big fan of pork tenderloin, but I'll make this recipe again.

Baking soda! Who knew? Because of the calories, I don't drink a lot of sweet tea. For some reason, I decided I wanted to make a pitcher today and couldn't remember how much sugar to use. Luckily, I found this recipe and learned that baking soda cuts down on the bitterness. I followed the directions on the box of tea bags to determine the number of tea bags to use and the time frame to steep. I used the amount of sugar and baking soda listed in this recipe. Being a Southerner, I like my tea sweet and would probably add even a little more sugar next time. I'll have to try Splenda so I can indulge in sweet tea more often. Enjoy y'all!

This cake is so very delicious! If you're expecting the same loft that you get from a boxed cake then you'll be disappointed as this cake is more dense. But I prefer it for it's simple ingredients (no fake stuff in this one) and wonderful taste. Plus it's much easier to decorate a cake that's more dense- I made it into a bunny cake for Easter. I did substitute butter for the shortening because I never have that in the house and it turned out just fine.

My husband is half Cuban and said that as far as taste and texture goes, this is as good as he remembers from his Grandfather or Abuela. I, too, really liked the taste and texture. It was very smooth and creamy and was the best flan I've had by far. The issue that I had though was with the directions being incomplete. The recipe didn't indicate at what point or how you got the flan onto another dish or if it should be cooled first. And when I poured the hot sugar into a cold dish it quickly became hard and stuck in the bottom of the pan. So I would follow the advice of another reviewer and carmelize the sugar in the pan you plan to use or make sure you're swirling the dish you're baking it in while you're pouring the sugar. After you cook it let it cool completely before you transfer it to a serving plate. Which you can do by putting your serving plate on top of the cooking dish and then turn it over. Maybe those instructions aren't there because it is assumed that everyone knows that but I'm sure there are some that don't. Having said that, the instructions for carmelizing the sugar were very helpful and I didn't have a bit of problem with that. I would give this recipe 5 stars for taste and 3 stars for incomplete instructions.

This cheescake was so awesome. The only thing that took me offguard was the fact that the cheesecake was not very thick. If anyone is used to "Chantal's Cheesecake recipe" on this site. I would probably put it in a smaller springform pan. The cooking time was perfect and the cheesecake was delicious. I used 1.5 ounces of high quality brandy and I wouldn't change a thing about the sauce. The picture is misleading as the sauce is definitely made with white chocolate and therefore is white. I wouldn't change a thing.

My husband has been looking for a good meatball recipe and we both enjoyed this one. I pretty much followed the recipe exactly except that I increased the garlic powder in the meatballs to 1/4 t and I increased the sugar in the sauce to 2 t. The only problem I had was that I forgot to make the spaghetti. Oh well, the sauce just had a little more time to simmer while I waited for the noodles to cook.