I've done the pre-holiday friend Thanksgiving dinners for a few years now. It's pretty fun to choose new recipes using the familiar staples, open some wine, dress up (we're corny and decided to go ...

The espresso-chocolate-marbled (I forget exactly) bundt cake in Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours. It's so good, and I'm not really a bundt cake person.

Oh heck yeah, look and judge! I think everyone has a little bit of an urge to peek into other people's lives in small ways. It's the same thing that makes me look into people's windows if they're o...

Yeah the few times my mom and I just did Thanksgiving by ourselves we had either turkey breast or just chicken. Then mashed potatoes cause obviously you can make as much or as little as you need, s...

What Astur and porktato said. A water bath doesn't seem very cumbersome to me; the only extra step is wrapping the bottom of the pan in foil and sticking it into a slightly larger pan ...

Yeah, it's always important to cut straight down and up too, regardless of whether you're using a knife or some kind of shape cutter, to keep the layers aligned so it'll puff up correctly. A...

Love hard cider. Fairway and some beer distributors have a larger assortment brands, including English and French ones, and I always like to try new ones. It was interesting to see how in Ireland i...

Thanks syrupandhoney, that sounds like a yummy solution!

Last year I did the roasted sweet potato rounds in garlic oil with fried sage from a magazine that I think was Gourmet, and they were really good and actually a hit. And my family doesn't branch ou...

This post makes me sad...I have tupperware coming out of my eyeballs, falling all over the one closet in my apartment...and most of them are big pieces...but I actually use them all, cause I carry ...

Damn those are just sad pictures, no matter how attached to the magazine you were.

Do you think the defrosting process would create even more liquid than normal and result in a soggier pie? (particularly apples)

Yeah I was gonna say some of the farmers markets stalls offer turkeys.

i love christinalouise's idea, and in my opinioon it's better if you don't have the space to store more boxed things. Mine are strung on sting and hung on my wire kitchen racks.

Ha, I wouldn't call this method unusual- it's the exact way they taught us on Day 1 of pastry school!

Trial #1 of pirate cate.

Oops, sorry, heartmignardise already said corn syrup works too!

We made nougat in pastry school literally last week! It is pretty easy, as long as you have a candy thermometer. I'd say a silpat is pretty useful too. We did two rounds of sugar syrup though- I th...

They're absolutely essential, especially, as eprewitt mentions, in professional kitchens. It's the best way, short of weighing everything, to get standardized products. I've used them for everythin...

@LauraJane- I did consider that and I agree it would definitely be more in keeping with the Mexican theme but from what I understand cajeta takes a long time to make- simmering for at least an hour...