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Jacques Pepin has a wonderful recipe for a tartar sauce style sauce that has sun dried tomatoes in it that is delicious with salmon as well. I don't even like tartar sauce and his version is pretty tasty.

Depending on what your health reasons are that caused you to stop eating meat, you'll want to carefully choose which seafood you eat. I'll be honest, I hadn't thought of it myself until I became pregnant and of course the things I have to watch are a bit different.

I like my seafood pretty plainly cooked - seasoning and butter and a little broiling or searing is usually enough for me, with some sort of citrus to add to it. Salmon is good because you can cook it so many different ways - poach, grill, sear, broil, bake - and it takes well to many different styles of marinades and seasoning.

Open Pit currently has some BBQ sauce recipes posted on their website from a contest they run I think every year with different types of sauces using one of theirs as a base. You could probably adapt them to any base sauces

Depending on where you live, there may be community education classes to help you with the basics. See if they offer any cooking classes. I know in the various areas I lived in, these types of classes were offered from places such as senior centers (that anyone could take) to culinary schools that had night time "non-culinary school" classes to chefs at restaurants teaching at Farmer's Markets.

Also, to take you in a different direction, you may want to get your hands on some cookbooks designed for kids. These often have some of the most basic of cooking instruction to help kids learn cooking techniques from boiling water upwards. I looked over at Amazon, where on some of the books you could look in the pages to see the type of information (which you could do instead of buying the books). Some of the books at glossaries of cooking terms, some had pictures of appliances with what you use them for, others had food prep/kitchen "rules" to follow and how to read/interpret recipes.

I actually enjoy both drinks. I'm not a huge mint fan but somehow find it delicious in a mojito, particularly if I get another fruit mixed in.

When I get home, I'll find the recipe and post it. I promise!

The first time I made coq au vin I asked my boyfriend at the time to bring wine, cause I didn't have any. He brought Manischewitz, which I used (I was young, and stupid, and it seemed red....and it was "wine"). He wouldn't even taste the "gross looking purple chicken" and it didn't taste like it was supposed to, that's for sure.

And this cooking disaster isn't mine, but worth sharing. My cousin tried to make Captain Crunch chicken like they have at Planet Hollywood. For a long time, his house didn't have a working oven, and he didn't miss it. He guessed at how they were made. He cut up chicken, and since he didn't have Captain Crunch, he used the cereal he happened to have on hand.

Fruit Loops.

He coated the chicken in Fruit Loops and baked it in the oven, and god only knows what temperature for however long he baked them. They were apparently purple and rock hard. He comes to my parents house for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year and we always ask if he's bringing his world famous Fruit Loop chicken. :)

Eggplant "meat"balls work really well. They freeze well, they reheat well, and they are delicious. You can eat them alone, or as you would regular meatballs on pasta, or you can put them on a sandwich like falafel balls and eat them that way (or like a meatball sub).

I DVR Chopped and Iron Chef America.

I also DVR Brian Boitano's show. Yes, it's campy, it's silly....I can't help it. I like it.

I remember eating lemon drops at my great-grandparents farm. They had the bigger ones in a candy dish and we were each allowed one. We'd suck off the sugar on the outside then go share them with the cows.

I also remember my parents' garden from when I was very young. Eating radishes fresh from the ground. I'm not a big radish eater, but whenever I taste one, it reminds me of their garden.

And perhaps my fondest food memories involves the little ice cream store near my house while growing up - Sage's in Indiana. They had the most delicious home made ice cream. And even though they no longer exist, every time I eat ice cream, particularly extremely good home made ice cream, it makes me remember getting a dollar from my grandmother to walk down and pick out our ice cream cones and walking back home eating them, taking extreme care to not let even a little drip of ice cream get off the cone so we could savor every bite.

Almonds. I don't always have a reaction, and it's usually just hives. But they are so delicious, hives are worth it.

I have to agree with dashoginger. I love my tiny 2 cup one, but I also have a larger one. I use them both liberally.

I usually have a vanilla iced coffee, with a touch of milk, or an Earl Grey latte. I love milk in my tea. I guess it's a remnant of childhood I cling to.

These are delicious. I've had them in other flavors too, so I wonder if you can use other flavors of drink powders.