Hi Everybody, welcome to issue 5 of Recipes Mania News. During the past month there has been a rush of new sibscribers to our ezine and a very special welcome to all of you who are receiving your first ezine.

During the past month our website www.recipesmania.com has seen a consolidation in visitors. This keeps us up with the top sites in our field and as the new kid on the block that is very satisfying. We are now confident that the site has successfully passed the risk of being another flash in the pan website. For this we owe a massive thank you to our regular readers for speaking of the site and sending ezines and recipes from the site to your friends and relatives. - This is a sign that we are trusted as a site that rigidly protects the privacy of our readers.

Recipe of the Month

This issue's recipe of the month is a flourless almond chocolate cake.

Flourless almond-chocolate cake Total time: 1 1/2 hours, plus cooling time Yield: 10 to 12 servings Ingredients:

8 ounces (2 1/2 cups) blanched, sliced almonds

8 ounces high-quality semisweet chocolate (Use a chocolate graded 70%)

1 cup sugar, divided

1/2 cup high-quality cocoa powder.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp. fine sea salt

1/2 tsp. almond extract (or 1 tsp. vanilla)

7 large eggs, room temperature, separated

Powdered sugar for dusting (optional) Method:

Heat the oven to 300 degrees (160 C). Spread the almonds into a shallow baking dish and toast, shaking the pan occasionally, until the almonds are light brown, about 15 minutes. Cool completely. Raise the heat to 350 degrees. (175C)

Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Cool slightly. (Note: Never melt chocolate over direct heat.)

Grind the almonds with one-half cup sugar in a blender or food processor to make a fine meal. Combine with the cocoa powder, mixing well. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter until light. Beat in the remaining sugar, add the salt and extract, scraping down the sides as needed.

Beat the egg yolks in one at a time. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in the melted chocolate, then the almond-cocoa mixture, mixing well.

In a clean bowl with clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Stir about a third of the whites into the chocolate mixture, then gently but thoroughly fold in the remainder. Spread into the prepared pan. Gently bang the cake pan on the counter once to release air bubbles.

Bake 1 hour. Transfer to a rack and cool 20 minutes. Unmold onto a serving plate so the bottom faces up and cool completely.

Serve the cake plain or with a dusting of powdered sugar.

Not the most cholesterol friendly recipe I agree, but hey! Anything is acceptable providing it is in moderation.

Health Tip

There is a very frightening diet situation among children in developed countries at the moment and it affects a great number of school students from primary to all levels of high school. It involves poor diet both at home and in school. Many experts are predicting that this is the generation who will die before their parents. Although I think that is probably going overboard I am still very worried about their poor health prospects and fear the cost of taking care of their health along with that of an aging population.

A great number of children are being fed diets that are based upon "fast food" and soft drinks. They will purchase a serving of fries for their lunch and be served much the same at home in the evening due to the perceived lack of time available to working parents. Also the trend of parents to give in to demands made by children rather than guiding them to what is safe and healthy is unhelpful.

The problem is throughout the developed world and the countries I quote are the countries that are prepared to publish statistics rather than hide them. This is to their credit because they are acting responsibly. In certain parts of Britain hospitals are opening special clinics for children who sometimes goes weeks between passing faeces (poo). It may already be too late to prevent these children from contracting colon cancer in their twenties. In extreme cases children are vomiting poo because this is the only way they can expel body waste.

Australia has started a campaign to include seven servings of fresh fruit or vegatables each day. Basically they are advising two servings of fresh fruit and five of vegetables. Sounds a lot? A serving can be a few slices of cucumber, tomato, lettuce or avocado in a sandwich. Then cooked vegetables with dinner. NOT pizza or hamburgers and fries. We all know that kid's enjoy what is not good for them and may need guidance; but isn't that the responsibility of the parent? They sure ain't gonna love you when they're diagnosed with colon cancer at a young age.

Although this article is about re-introducing healthier diets to children the same goes for the rest of us. When you read an article like this it is easy to understand why colon cancer is the biggest growing threat to humanity.

There is an old saying that states: "You are what you eat." It is a human version of the computer saying that states: "Rubbish in, rubbish out." Only in many cases with our childrens diet the rubbish isn't coming out.

Sometimes it isn't enough to put an apple or pear in front of a child. It may appear too big and difficult to eat. When they are cut it for them and they'll eat it more readily. Also give favorite fruits as a treat rather than a lolly or a meal at a fast food restaurant. Habits are created from a very early age and they're never too young to start learning good eating habits.

The British chef Jamie Oliver has recently made a TV series about feeding children in school. If it comes to a TV channel that you can tune to it is worth watching even though it is frightening.

Many children that refuse to eat cooked vegetables will eat raw vegatables if they are presented nicely. Carrot is a big favorite and grated carrot is rarely refused. I can remember grating carrot, apple and mixing in diced dried apricots when my daughter was going through an "I don't eat that phase."

This article is a reminder to examine the eating habits within your household. My guess is that because you have an interest in food you don't fall into the category of people with bad eating habits. Just be aware.

Planning For Success

I came across this article written by world famous motivational speaker Jim Rohn a few weeks ago and think it worth including in the ezine.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day.

Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day? The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters.

On their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour generally doesn't result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, we escape from any immediate consequences of our deeds.

If we have not bothered to read a single book in the past ninety days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on our lives. And since nothing drastic happened to us after the first ninety days, we repeat this error in judgment for another ninety days, and on and on it goes. Why? Because it doesn't seem to matter. And herein lies the great danger. Far worse than not reading the books is not even realizing that it matters!

Those who eat too many of the wrong foods are contributing to a future health problem, but the joy of the moment overshadows the consequence of the future. It does not seem to matter. Those who smoke too much or drink too much go on making these poor choices year after year after year... because it doesn't seem to matter. But the pain and regret of these errors in judgment have only been delayed for a future time. Consequences are seldom instant; instead, they accumulate until the inevitable day of reckoning finally arrives and the price must be paid for our poor choices - choices that didn't seem to matter.

Failure's most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term those little errors don't seem to make any difference. We do not seem to be failing. In fact, sometimes these accumulated errors in judgment occur throughout a period of great joy and prosperity in our lives. Since nothing terrible happens to us, since there are no instant consequences to capture our attention, we simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors, thinking the wrong thoughts, listening to the wrong voices and making the wrong choices. The sky did not fall in on us yesterday; therefore the act was probably harmless. Since it seemed to have no measurable consequence, it is probably safe to repeat.

But we must become better educated than that!

If at the end of the day when we made our first error in judgment the sky had fallen in on us, we undoubtedly would have taken immediate steps to ensure that the act would never be repeated again. Like the child who places his hand on a hot burner despite his parents' warnings, we would have had an instantaneous experience accompanying our error in judgment.

Unfortunately, failure does not shout out its warnings as our parents once did. This is why it is imperative to refine our philosophy in order to be able to make better choices. With a powerful, personal philosophy guiding our every step, we become more aware of our errors in judgment and more aware that each error really does matter.

Now here is the great news! Just like the formula for failure, the formula for success is easy to follow... It's a few simple disciplines practiced every day!

Now here is an interesting question worth pondering: How can we change the errors in the formula for failure into the disciplines required in the formula for success? The answer is by making the future an important part of our current philosophy.

Both success and failure involve future consequences, namely the inevitable rewards or unavoidable regrets resulting from past activities. If this is true, why don't more people take time to ponder the future? The answer is simple: They are so caught up in the current moment that it doesn't seem to matter. The problems and the rewards of today are so absorbing to some human beings that they never pause long enough to think about tomorrow.

But what if we did develop a new discipline to take just a few minutes every day to look a little further down the road? We would then be able to foresee the impending consequences of our current conduct. Armed with that valuable information, we would be able to take the necessary action to change our errors into new success-oriented disciplines. In other words, by disciplining ourselves to see the future in advance, we would be able to change our thinking, amend our errors and develop new habits to replace the old.

One of the exciting things about the formula for success - a few simple disciplines practiced every day - is that the results are almost immediate. As we voluntarily change daily errors into daily disciplines, we experience positive results in a very short period of time. When we change our diet, our health improves noticeably in just a few weeks. When we start exercising, we feel a new vitality almost immediately. When we begin reading, we experience a growing awareness and a new level of self-confidence. Whatever new discipline we begin to practice daily will produce exciting results that will drive us to become even better at developing new disciplines.

The real magic of new disciplines is that they will cause us to amend our thinking. If we were to start today to read the books, keep a journal, attend the classes, listen more and observe more, then today would be the first day of a new life leading to a better future. If we were to start today to try harder, and in every way make a conscious and consistent effort to change subtle and deadly errors into constructive and rewarding disciplines, we would never again settle for a life of existence... ...not once we have tasted the fruits of a life of substance!

I think the main thing Jim Rohn refers to in this article is that we are often guilty of planning for failure by deferring tasks that need doing. Hope you enjoyed that, I saw myself depicted in a couple of things he mentions.

Home Safety

If you have a loose handle on a saucepan or other cooking utensil please take a few minutes to tighten it before using it again. A loose handle is an early warning of a pan that is about to part from its handle. Just think about the damage it could do to you or a loved one if it parts between the stove and the sink when you are about to strain hot vegetables.

Safety isn't about cash its about common sense and pre-judging potential accidents situations.

Do you have a friend who would like to receive our free ezine? Follow this link to fill out their details or forward this ezine to them and they can decide if they wish to subscribe.

Thank you to all who emailed since the last edition of Recipes Mania News. It is only by receiving your feedback that I am able to amend the site to your requirements.

Also I had a couple of pleasing emails about last issues health tip: Taking a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water to stimulate your stomach juices into doing the job they are designed to do. I am amazed at how well this little trick helps my digestive system too.

All emails are replied to individually and you can send any comments, tips or ideas to me at recipesmania@hotmail.com