Lisa Shock

Use mashed avocado instead of cream in sauces, like hot pan sauces.

As an experiment for one of the senior citizens I occasionally volunteer to cook for, last year, as I brined the usual huge full-sized brisket, I also 'corned' a pork shoulder that I cut in half to fit in a 6" half-hotel pan and some boneless skinless chicken breasts. (the fellow had found a reference to corning pork in an old book on Google) The breasts were only brined for 4 days, the other items were brined for 2.5 weeks. Consensus was that the pork tasted almost identical to the beef. The chicken was 'not bad', 'hearty', and 'beef like'. One person said, "If I hadn't been told I was eating chicken, I'm not sure I'd know what it was. It's like what I expected the corned pork to taste like." I had wanted to try this partly because of some odd ways of cooking chicken mentioned in an old New Mexico cookbook I have. (like boiling a whole bird for 3 hours in water with allspice, cinnamon, and cloves) And, I had heard of corning other meats. Might try some corned fish this year.

They might have soldered the feet on themselves. Every pastry chef instructor I know has some equipment they customized themselves.

I'd try adding some to apricot jam, plus some water, then heating and straining it to make bakery glaze. It would be delicious on a fresh fruit tart, or shining up certain flavors of danish (pear, apple, peach), or as a finishing touch to a tart. There's always pastry cream, just reduce or eliminate the sugar. And, adding it to fruit compote or a pie filling would also be delicious. On the savory side, it would be a good addition to soups, gravies and some sauces. (think of a gastrique, for example, or, a Japanese style curry)

or, find a #1 mold and pour in hot almond brittle.

A cookie will stay crisp if it's enrobed in chocolate.

You can make an almond cookie by using a peanut butter cookie recipe. Make the following changes: Make sure to use real butter for crispness. Use toasted almond butter instead of peanut butter, or toast some almonds and grind your own fresh almond butter. (raw isn't as flavorful) Add a little almond extract to amp up the flavor. Leave out any baking powder or baking soda, you don't want rising to affect your shape. I have done this and used the cookie for a lot of applications, from a fat cookie, to wafer-thin disks used inside an entremet for crunch.

How about pancakes or crepes? Just use a vegan 'milk' substitute, and skip the butter. Turkey is pretty low fat, you could make lowfat gravy for it as well. Many recipes could be converted to use tofu instead of a fattier meat. Check out some vegetarian websites. How about Japanese ramen with lots of stuff on top? Chinese congee can be fun, too. There's also the world of rice noodles which are popular across Asia. You could take the shrimp, pork and veggies out of Singapore noodles and still have a fun side dish. -Or use marinated/baked tofu for a main dish. Veganaise is available in a low fat version, with half the calories. Maybe this could be used sparingly on tuna sandwiches. That said, people who hate mayo somehow manage to eat tuna sandwiches, so there must be some sort of tasty low-fat method for making them -even if it's just putting tuna and a little salt on toast.

Yes, especially with a big factory setup, the crumbs in the crumb topping are made with the base cake. A small mom&pop place might use a variety of crumbs. You don't tend to see the crumbs because they are ground down to a fine consistency, like oat flour, and, the crumb topping has quite a bit of fat in it which moistens them. -Plus, they start out with a goodly amount of fat already in them. I have old commercial baking books and they all have sections on using crumbs for all sorts of things like: rum balls, toppings, fillings (bear claws), swirls (cinnamon bread), pie fillings, pie crusts, pastries and cakes. Chocolate ones are also often seen pressed into the sides of cakes after being frosted with a white frosting. The crumbs add a small measure of gluten, which helps bind some products, as well as add flavor and texture. They don't appear on ingredients lists as they are comprised of a bunch of ingredients which are the same as the main cake. They also help the bakery save money by recycling broken/oddball/day-old product. You can try this at home. Save a piece of your current crumb cake without the topping, or a slice of cake, a cupcake bottom, an old fashioned cake doughnut (not a yeasted one), slice thinly and dry in a low oven. You can often do this with no energy costs by putting the tray in after making something else and using the residual heat in the oven. Then, break the chunks down by whirling for a few seconds in a food processor or blender. (you can freeze the crumbs until needed) Use these crumbs instead of most of the flour in a crumb topping recipe and you will get a better, tastier, result. (a tiny amount of bread flour is still useful)

The part most people ignore is the clue in the name of the cake. The topping is made from crumbs, that is: leftover broken cake, bloom, badly formed cake, etc. all crumbled then dried out in the oven to be used in later recipes. Crumbs are an important ingredient in professional bakeries, I have cookbooks with a lot of formulas for their use. HERE is an existing thread on the topic.

The margarine is creating softness. Use 100% real butter foir crispness.

I can understand Pèpin's point, especially with with an ingredient like fruit which can vary a lot. And, I understand that people's tastes vary. Here's why I generally do not share recipes with people I know in RL: Years ago, I catered an event and made some oatmeal cookies. I used a recipe from the Quaker old fashioned oats package. (one that is no longer printed on those packages) I used butter, the recipe called for butter or margarine, and added an 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg -my only alteration to the formula. A woman asked me for the recipe, so I hand-wrote it on a 3x5 card and gave it to her. In doing so, I listed butter as the only fat, and made sure to add the nutmeg. A few days later, I get a phone call, and the woman is shrieking at me that she tried making the cookies, and all she got was a soupy mess, and that I owed her a bunch of money for ingredients. I asked if she had followed the recipe exactly, and she said that yes, she had. So, I started asking, step by step, about each sentence of the instructions. So, I asked how long she creamed the butter and sugar. Well, she told me that she hadn't used butter. She had used vegetable oil. I asked about the sugar. Oh no, she said, she never touched the stuff. She had used brown rice syrup. I asked about the eggs, and she admitted to using applesauce instead. On a whim, not believing what was happening, I asked about the flour. (AP was called for in the recipe) She had use rice flour. I asked about the baking soda. She had left that out because she didn't feel it was healthy to eat. And, finally, I got to the oats. She had used oat flour. So, of course she got a soupy mess. I had to explain cookie theory to her and how every substitution acted against the formation of the structure of a cookie. Research, information, education -all critical to making decisions about using a recipe. We often see issues when trying to use really old recipes when we don't have the proper context (wineglasses were tiny in the 1700s) or definitions (nipping sugar) at hand.

How old is your daughter? If she is 4+, why don't you try several ideas on different days and have her help you with the cooking? It would be a fun cooking lesson and something of a lesson in scientific method.

You could take a blue potato, peel it, puree it raw in a food processor, then add it to the broth. That, or thicken with blue cornmeal.

Too bad no one asked him about his arrogant cultural appropriation and why he is so hated by Santa Fe locals.

I forgot to mention trashcans. Put some out, people will use them -and inebriated people might need help finding them, so make them obvious. I'd put a little one on the stairs, a big one on the porch (to catch people leaving and people going out for air), one near the door to the powder room area, one inside the master bedroom (it might get used to store coats, or people wanting to have a serious conversation may go in there), and a big one in the kitchen. I'd also make sure that some cleaning supplies are handy for when accidents happen. Bar mop towels, paper towels, extra trash bags, a broom and dustpan, and a mop should all be fairly handy. Looking at your layout, I would avoid having these in the laundry room, as they would be inaccessible if someone is using the powder room. Maybe set up a discrete supplies station on the side porch or at the top of the stairs.

For small events, you try to limit the types of drinks so that you don't need so much equipment. If you offer, say, Manhattans you simply designate one shaker as the Manhattan one and keep using it. (it will always be clean inside if handled properly) This theory allows one to more efficiently use the alcohol as well. There's no need to get gin, rum, rye, bourbon, vodka, tequila, cognac, etc. if you focus the event on just a few key drinks (Manhattan, Martini, Martinez, for example) you can get away with buying a 1.75L of 2-3 types. Then, you figure out how to batch certain ingredients, alone or in groups, to prevent having to hand make every drink. For example, showing up with a carafe of lime juice means no one has to squeeze limes. If you make a pitcher-full of blackcurrant Daisies (or a pitcher each of those Manhattans, Martinis, Martinezes) and keep it sitting in an ice-bucket, you won't have to shake anything. Some drinks can be assembled up to the point of the float, which can be added as each glass is poured. I would like to remind you that punch, real punch, is a wonderful category of drink and is designed to serve at this sort of event. Wondrich wrote a great book about it. Having some bottles of beer and a couple big bottles of wine helps take pressure off the mixed drinks, as will offering a simple highball or two (gin&tonic, rum&tonic, rum&cola, etc.) The most important thing is having a bartender who can control the crowd with good cheer. Letting some people pour their own drinks can be disaster. Generally, we would hide bus tubs under the bar table and toss all the dirty barware in them, and take it all back to home base to be washed. The other trick is to set up a non-alcoholic drink station as far away from the bar as possible. Even if it's just a bucket of ice filled with water bottles and a few sodas, the traffic for non-alcoholic drinks won't slow the bar down. (If no one will really be using the stairs at your place, I'd set up some buckets of water and sodas on the stairs. -Not completely block them, just use a few halfway.)

One benefit of the older cast iron, in addition to being very smooth, is that it is a bit thinner-walled and therefore a little lighter. The Wagner-Ware I have is also more ergonomically designed than the Lodge pieces. I feel more confident flipping food or slipping a fritatta out of the classic stuff.

You might have to push the petals together a bit to prevent rapid melting. It's cute, but would be better if executed as part of a plated dessert.

I like to add a tart apple, like Granny Smith, in small dice to the stuffing for stuffed mushrooms.

I usually make my own, but, my local supermercado sells some pretty good stuff in the deli. My current favorite is their black salsa. They just label it as 'salsa' but, it's really quite black. They char all the vegetables on their wood-fired grill before tossing them in a food processor. (it's a thin, non-chunky style)

Actually, I was taught to wash hands without water. You take a small amount of flour between your hands and rub them together -generally while standing over the food scraps bin or trash. The dough will roll off quickly, no time is needed to dry the hands, and you can keep working faster -all without getting the sink clogged.

chicken hash for breakfast, start with brown butter and add plenty of shallots

Check professional cookware sites, like the Webstaurant store has several -the handles are slightly different, but the size matches. (I think, hard to tell from the photo, a full size sheet pan will hold two big dinner plates, but if the photo is of 12" plates, those muffins are enormous. If the muffins are regular size, then the plates are salad plates and the sheet pans are half-pans.) Many of these come with lids, too. fits on a full size pan: HERE fits on top a half-pan: HERE HERE (almost, it is one inch longer on one side) HERE sits on top a quarter pan: HERE I understand if you wish to find exactly that pan with those handles, you'll have to search through all the manufacturers of professional pans. Where is the photo from? If it's a restaurant local to you, you could just call and ask them the brand name...

I also use Cambro containers for many things. For small amounts, I use wide mouth canning jars and vacuum seal them. The vacuum helps keep things fresh and bug-free. The jars may not be the most efficient, but they look good and can be reused for a long time.