Lisa Shock

Sorry to hear that you're indisposed, as it were. Hopefully, you'll manage to get enough food each day! If you could get them to serve the milk cold, that might not be a bad option, nutrition-wise. Has anyone brought you ice?

I'm thinking that you should approach the situation by looking at the lemonade ingredients and see how well they align with existing cocktails. Obviously, there's lemon juice, some sugar of some sort, and water. So, look for a formula that has an ounce or so of lemon juice, some simple syrup, and is shaken (ice adds water). Instead of shaking, use the lemonade cold. I could see a very passable Bramble, or Gin Fix being made from it.

I find it worthwhile here's a list of basics I buy with significant savings: gasoline butter (HUGE savings on this! 4lbs for $8! I freeze it and pull out a stick at a time as needed) ibuprophen bread flour sugar cinnamon (I make a lot of cinnamon rolls) jasmine rice (I split a 20lb bag with a friend) dry cat food plain Benefiber for my cats dry cat food (good stuff, almost half the price of pet stores) TP nuts for baking nuts for snacking cheese Having a vacuum sealer helps me process items and keep them fresh. I use bags and I also use wide mouth canning jars, there is a FoodSaver attachment for both types of jars. I also got myself some Cambro containers as well. I guess it helps that I cook for a crowd of dissatisfied senior citizens about once a month, though. Honestly, I dropped my membership for a year a little while back and was surprised at how much some things cost at regular stores. For example, Costco has 1,000 ibuprophen (200mg) for $8.69 here. The cheapest discount store in the area charges about $12 for the same number of tablets. The one liquor purchase that I know I save $ on is the Kirkland brand spiced rum for $14.99 for a 1.75L. It's actually Sailor Jerry's with about a $7 savings per bottle. (sure it's not the classiest booze, but, it's popular at parties) I was getting 1.75L bottles of Hendricks' Gin for $49, but, they have disappeared.

A time clock will definitely pay for itself within a few weeks. Even in well-managed places, there are dishonest employees who want to take advantage. That said, so many people get into the biz without any training or experience. HERE's an article you may enjoy.

I know from experience that it can go rancid (takes about six months) but, you don't really know how long the store had it in stock. I vacuum seal then store in the freezer, mostly to make sure the size is as small as possible.

Well, she was talking about having burgers and a bunch of condiments on the same table, so, we aren't talking about just scooping casseroles, we're talking about people putting their plate down, opening up the burger, grabbing a slice of cheese with serving tongs and placing it on the burger carefully, squirting some condiments, grabbing pickles with a fork and placing them, grabbing tomatoes and then lettuce with utensils, maybe applying relish with a spoon, then re-assembling the bun and moving on to her salad bar, where people would assemble salads from components.

Calibrate your thermometer and lower your temps. Dry meat only happens when it is overheated during cooking.

You know, you can make croissant dough and freeze it for up to about 6 months. If you are up to the task, this would be more impressive (and tastier) than the canned rolls. Croissants, btw, are pretty simple to make, with few ingredients, you just need to be around the house for most of the day to do the 'turns' (folding the dough). You could freeze the dough as rolled and cut triangles and they would thaw out in about 15 minutes in a warm spot.

I too avoid transfat at all costs -and I have clean arteries to show for it! While I prefer the classic biscuit where butter is cut in to the flour, salt, and baking powder, then buttermilk is added, James Beards' mother's cook, Jue-Let's, cream biscuit recipe is just easy and tasty. (I doctor it a tiny bit by adding a ¼ tsp of onion powder, it adds a savoriness and reduces the raw flour taste.) You can lightly press them into molds, like flan rings, if you need special sizes or shapes. Back to breakfast pizza... In the long run, it's best to not try to hold onto an idea that isn't working, especially if it's based on a structural concept you're enamored of rather than helping the food shine and be its best.

don't use dried onion, use fresh onion, just a little, sliced paper-thin and placed on the very top. I agree that the temp was too hot for the cooked dough A lower temp may help, but, the amount of heat needed to just warm the bread is clearly different from the amount needed to cook an egg. Starting with room temp eggs is a good idea, I think you should also try smaller eggs. But, raw dough may be the best bet. You can roll it out the night before and keep it on sheet pans wrapped in cling wrap. I find that docking dough early on, right after it's flattened, helps keep it from springing back. That, and try not to stretch it much. Just flatten it and put in the fridge, no matter that maybe it's a half inch thick. In the morning the cold, flat dough will stretch a little better than fresh dough. -It's tougher and more resistant, but, less likely to shrink. Remember, it does not have to be paper thin. 3oz of dough should make a good 6" round. This all said, we can talk you through biscuit making. Cream biscuits, the drop kind, are pretty easy and quick to make.

Honestly, I only suggested the mozzarella as a way to block wetter items from soaking the crust. Almost any cheese will do. Grated smoked gouda would probably be great. Wet pizza is a pet peeve of mine. I really hate being in a group situation and saying I am vegetarian and then some other people deciding to share my pizza and thusly try to order with/for me. It's one thing to think, ok, we should eat some vegetables for lunch, it's quite another to pile raw tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, basil, etc. on top of a pizza. -All you get is soup with a wan crust that resembles a paper-thin noodle. Anyway, back to breakfast pizza.... I am not advocating a lot of mild cheese per se, I just want to make sure there is some kind of moisture barrier to keep the eggs and perhaps other things from soaking the crust. Also, beware of too much cheese. I have made the mistake in the past (starting with raw dough, not pre-baked) of using too much cheese; so much that steam had trouble escaping from the crust. The top was overdone, while the crust, particularly just under the cheese, was wet, uncooked and doughy with overtones of slime.

How well do they freeze? Maybe mince and freeze in ice cube trays for later?

This is probably not what you want, but, just in case, I will mention waxed sugar crystals. They will stay intact over time, and they stand up to being baked. (they can be used as a muffin-topping, they stay sparkly) Bakery wholesalers sell it much more cheaply than Amazon. My thinking is, you could make a cocoa butter based icing with white color and flavor -just no sugar. Drizzle the icing, then sprinkle with the sugar.

IMO, the steak seasoning will be fine. The biggest issue I have had with some non-tomato sauce pizzas has been blandness. (Made a cheese ravioli pizza with bechamel sauce once and it was pretty boring.) Obviously, some experiments will be warranted -practice making perfect and all that jazz. Although, for me, practice makes me think of even more complicated foods to prepare.... Might I also suggest serving a Neapolitan classic, especially classic amongst the pizzaioli -Eggs In Purgatory. It's really good, and super easy to make if you make the sauce in advance. When I worked at a pizza place, we often made this for employee breakfast. (I was a prep cook who came in hours before most anyone else.)

I think I will hold off, at least @lindag's proof box has lower temps. Generally, the wisdom is that yeast performs best when it's in temperature zones that us humans like. Here's a chart on performance as related to temperature.

Looks like a foodie paradise! I will guess dried day lily roots.

OK, I understand.

I am reading this thread with the idea in mind of primarily using the machine as a home proofbox. I have a few basic answers for @Anna N - the yeast shouldn't matter as long as you handle it as intended, that is, active dry needs blooming, instant is just tossed in the with flour. Bread flour has a higher gluten content, which means it should be able to hold more air bubbles, and they can be larger, too. AP flour can vary by region. In some places, it's very close to being bread flour, in the US South it's much closer to being cake flour as so many people use it for biscuits. It's kind of a guessing game for a while. That said, having a little more starch and less gluten can mean that you get better fermentation with breads that have long fermentation times or get handled a lot over time -like croissants. Proofing on the counter obviously has challenges, keep the crust from drying is obvious, and there are temperature variations to consider. Can you give room temperature readings and steam-proof temperature readings for future experiments?

It's difficult to untangle cause and effect here. On the one hand, low income people are more likely to live in situations where they cannot cook, like hotels or overcrowded efficiency apartments. They can't just brew some coffee, so a caffeinated soft drink looks very appealing in the morning. They can't cook cheaper healthy foods, like, say, a three bean chili, the best they can do is buy it in a can. Incentives to buy more fruit and vegetables, especially those which can be eaten without cooking, are great. Incentives to get the poor to cook more often penalize those who are the poorest.

I cannot help you with sourcing, but, I know from experience from my employers that you MUST be super-cautious about purchasing any sort of cold case. They are often being sold because they have bad gaskets and leak, and for whatever reason cannot be fixed -or cannot be fixed for much less than the cost of a new unit. Before you buy, get a refrigeration person to inspect the unit for you. You don't need to buy someone else's problems.

Ok, I admit I have never made an actual breakfast pizza, so the following is based upon making a variety of dinner pizzas.... I find that the crust cooks better if it is not totally covered in a sauce -especially a fatty sauce like alfredo. I have made pizza with korma on it and found that a swirl worked better than total coverage. IMO, Alfredo is too much. I would put down a thin even base of shredded low moisture mozzarella, add minced fresh parsley evenly, then small dollops of bacon jam and 1cm cubes of cream cheese while leaving oval spots for the eggs, and the raw eggs. (personally, I'd add roasted diced green chiles, too) I like adding cream cheese to omelettes, it melts a little but doesn't go too far and it has a good taste -plus people recognize it as breakfast food. If you want to really amp it up a bit, shaved Romano would be good. IMO, Alfredo is already full of parm, it wouldn't need extra -but, I don't like real Alfredo on pizza, it tends to 'break'.

You need to be super-careful when re-heating, so as to not get the meat too hot and overcook it. I'd avoid microwaving, and I would put it on the stove at a very low, if not THE lowest setting and let it gradually warm up. It just needs to get to 165°. That said, warmed-over is never as good as fresh.

Right now, you really have no ratio, as you are using volumetric measure for dry items like flour. You won't begin to have a handle on anything until you start using a scale.

I do, both work and home kitchens are/were small and cleaning as I go (especially the counters and cutting boards) help prevent cross contamination. I have always enjoyed knowing that the pots and pans were clean by the time it was time to eat. I gained more expertise when I attended culinary school -I used to pretend that I was in a competition and being watched or on camera and just trained myself to clean efficiently while cooking.

Yeah, that's why I had been holding onto hope for the grill inserts