I love Allrecipes.com. I have been a member there since Feb 2000! Gosh, I can't believe it has been almost 10 years since I discovered this wonderful site. Some people may not know this or remember this but originally it was Cookierecipes.com. The way I found them was that is was close to Christmas and I was looking for a particular cookie recipe (I don't remember which one) and found this site.

They were the FIRST ones that I recall that started sending the 12 Days of Cookies recipes. I remember you would get the e-mail, then get directed to the web-site to click on a picture (Christmas icon of some type, like a gingerbread house) to reveal the cookie that day.

Then they started adding other food items - cakerecipes.com, chickenrecipes.com, etc until the name finally became Allrecipes.com.

It is such a great resource for the average cook. They continue to evolve and change their website. You can leave reviews, post photos, rate the recipe, save them in a recipe box, etc.

I often get such a laugh out of reading some of the reviews. For example:

I followed the recipe exactly, except I used sour cream instead of mayo and I used imitation crab instead of real crab. Also I didn't have dry mustard so I used regular mustard. I didn't have Swiss cheese so I used Parmesan. It was just o.k.

Come on people, you didn't follow it exactly if you changed practically everything about it. You said it was just o.k. but you didn't really make it as was written so you really don't know how it the original recipe really is.

I do find the reviews helpful more often than not though. For example someone might suggest a "real" substitution or if all reviewers say "I had to reduce the amount of cheese" or :next time I will reduce the amount of cheese" - well if they all pretty much say that then chances are I will take their advice.

I have a few recipes posted there. It is funny I have one posted that has almost 5 stars and 116 reviews - most of which are all positive. Then I have the SAME exact recipe posted in another category with only 55 reviews, some not as positive as the other one. It is the same recipe. I didn't submit it twice, but Allrecipes posted it twice in 2 different categories. Unfortunately when they posted the second one, it was followed by a "II", if it were the "I" then I'm sure it would have more reviews. People tend to look and try "I" before "II". Both are equally delicious by the way.