Lisa Shock

eggplant caponata, red pesto, tapenade

Get a scale and a good baking cookbook with the dry ingredients measured by weight, not volume (cups). These are hard to come by in the US, but, common in other parts of the world. Start with simple things, but things your family likes, maybe muffins or scones or cookies. Then move on to more difficult items. Yeasted breads involve a different set of skills, but can be very rewarding to bake.

Bone-in, skin-on is perfect for oven roasting. If you switch to thighs, you can rub with salt and some herbs (maybe lemon zest) and oven roast (start oven at 425° and reduce to 350° after 10 minutes, cook until thermometer reads 165° at the bone) to get good results pretty quickly without much fuss. This will get you juicy roasted chicken with crispy skin. If you're just making a couple pieces, you can toss some root vegetables or thick cut cauliflower or brussels sprouts, etc. on the same pan about halfway through -just toss them in a little oil and salt first.

Cook as much as you can. Ignore celebrity cookbooks. Get some good basic technique books and work your way through them. Feed others your food, ask for honest feedback. (but, don't get too bogged down by one person's tastes, either)

You could use it instead of cream in a sauce.

I have to agree with the Turkish Delight. I tried it for the first time in 2007, it was from a specialty boutique and had been made someplace in the middle east. I recall paying a fairly hefty price, but, thinking of C.S. Lewis: 'wow, I finally get to try this exotic treat'! It was just some bland soft squares with bits of rubbery nuts. Guess I need to find a better brand or make some myself... Talk of things changing reminds me that I tried a strawberry Pop Tart about 5 years ago after not having any since maybe the early 1970s. (not that we had them very often in my childhood) It was horrible! The crust recipe has to be different now, and the filling seemed more like a candy product than a fruit jam.

I never liked hot dogs, too greasy. As an adult I discovered Smart Dogs (fat free, not greasy) and I like them with mustard (Woeber's Sandwich Pal, Sweet and Spicy), sweet relish (Cascadian Farms), and chopped onion. Or, if I have some at hand, I'll just use a thick green chile sauce and make chile dogs. That said, I rarely eat the meat analog foods so, I do this maybe once a year.

Tonic water and some lime juice should cut the sweetness. I'd do that or try some classic daiquiris, or punch (like from the Wondrich book).

There's a whole world of oil-based flavors designed to be added to chocolate, check out Amoretti, they have hundreds and hundreds of them.

You can cut cucumbers into several shapes lengthwise (planks, squares). Same with large carrots, the carrots can also be blanched to soften. Those mini bell peppers are colorful and tasty. Fresh mushroom caps are good, once again, you need uniformity in size. You can bake bacon into cups or drape it over forms and bake it. Parmesan tuiles are good but can get soggy if filled too early. Choux can also be formed into mini-eclairs and filled with savory or sweet cold fillings like flavored cream cheese or mousses. Choux is nice because it can be made a few days in advance and re-crisped briefly in the oven. Baked, unfilled shapes can also be frozen for later, so, you can produce a bunch during down time for the future. We used to use the roasted new potatoes all the time, toss in oil before roasting to avoid a weird white starch from forming on the outside. You can cut bread with a cookie cutter (think flowers, ovals, or diamonds) then drizzle with oil, salt, and herbs for fancy croutons. You can take pound cake, slice it then cut with a shaped cutter and bake til crisp for a sweet base. Ultimately, as mentioned above endive is very versatile and very inexpensive.

I forgot to mention my windows. When I purchased my house it had the original cheap, single-paned, aluminum-framed windows. I upgraded all the windows before moving in to modern dual-pane, gas filled, light filtering, vinyl framed models. I could tell immediately that they did not transfer heat like the old windows. As an added bonus, they really made the house much quieter. I am very certain that I save at least $400/year in electricity because of the windows.

It's essentially 50% seasoned mashed potatoes, 50% pate a choux. We learned this in the starches portion of 'Basics' in culinary school. The mixture can also be piped out into shapes (think large rosettes, stacked rosettes, a solid base with an edge ring for retaining gravy) and baked. You used to see the baked version at French restaurants or fancy banquets. They keep nicely and are a great way to manage portion control. The batter can be kept for several days in the fridge and piped as needed. Obviously, they can be flavored all sorts of ways.

You know, you can get cheap, B-grade (short, oddly shaped but tasty) beans on eBay and use them to make gallons of your own extract. I've still got a large (several half-pounds of various types) stash of beans (vacuum sealed, in a cool dark cupboard) from a couple of years ago and several quart jars of extract. -Even after giving away many fancy pint jars of it as gifts.

It's the beer. No beer belly. Pastry chefs don't have a lot of time to hang around drinking beer. We arrive at work at the crack of midnight or so, and work hard with lots of heavy lifting and running around multi-tasking. If we're very lucky, we have another person or two to work with, many work alone. Social isolation can be the norm for many, and beer is seen as a social drink. We're off kilter with the rest of the world's schedule when we're off work (can't go out to eat a real dinner at 9am unless we live in the heart of a big city), and are simply out of step with beer drinking culture for the most part. It's difficult to find drinking buddies who wanna go paint the town at, say, 10am. Not to say that we don't drink, we generally are in charge of an arsenal of great bottles of spirits and liqueurs at work, although it's usually carefully measured and monitored, and we don't have time to drink on the job. (it also might be dangerous, we use a lot of heavy equipment, and do a lot of precision work) BBQ guys seem to have free-flowing beer on hand for on-the-job imbibing, and they don't have to do much fine detail work.

I'm also contemplating getting an electric hybrid heat pump (no gas in my neighborhood) water heater. Looks to be advantageous for living in the SW as it releases cold air, which is a desirable feature here for 9 months of the year or so.

All of my lightbulbs (except for the one inside the oven, which must be incandescent) are LEDs. I switched over, at my old house in 2007, and when I bought my current house in 2010 I set it up entirely LED. (except the oven) The LEDs use a LOT less energy, and have the added benefit of not giving off much heat, so I don't run the air conditioning so much, which, in AZ is a pretty big deal. At my old house, we had halogen track lights in the kitchen and when you turned them on, they would really heat up the kitchen. I used my TempGun and discovered that they were running at 430°. I went around the house and temped my various compact fluorescents (18-30 watts) and they ranged from 212° to 260°. I had just read about LEDs and bought one to run tests on, 8 watts to replace a 50 watt halogen, it temped at 108°, so I bought more. After changing all the lightbulbs, we saw about a $20/month reduction in the electric bill. You can find calculators online which will demonstrate LED cost savings. Most bulbs pay for themselves within 3 years, and, since they last 15-20 years, save a lot of time and hassle of replacement. I have solar panels, so, I produce most of the energy I use -at least in the daytime. I conserve energy by planning out my oven use. For example: if I make a pizza for dinner, I also prepare some sheet pans of veggies to roast afterwards in the residual heat of the turned-off oven. This way, I have pre-cooked ingredients like roasted garlic bulbs, or eggplant slices ready in my fridge which really speeds up dinner on workdays. I load my dishwasher carefully, and plan when to run it. I also make sure to use lids when I cook. They really do make a difference that adds up over time.

A 'cup' of flour can range in weight from 3.9 oz to 5.6 oz or so. (115-160g give or take) If your original recipe's author gets about 5oz per cup and you get 4.2, by the time you measure out 8 cups you are off by 6.4 oz which is a huge variation. There's an excellent chance that you actually did not make any mistake counting your 'cups' your error is probably inherent in your formula. Get a scale. Any baking recipe that doesn't measure dry ingredients by weight is not reliable and definitely not professional. This is a basic taught in the first hour of P&B in culinary school. Also, the US is the only developed country in the world which publishes recipes using volumetric measurements for dry ingredients. Get a cookbook from India, Mexico, China, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia, Europe, etc. and they will all have weight-based measurement. So, get a real formula for the product and follow it. It would also do you well to study bread making a bit, and perfect making the classic standard before adding a 'twist' to it. IMO, you need to know the standards, follow the rubric, and be able to make the classic before stepping in to crown yourself a culinary iconoclast. (wet hands are another basic technique, along with dry handwashing which will serve you well)

Andi, your recipe blog is perfect, I am just curious to see a picture of your mustard plants growing.

The age of the seeds themselves is a big factor. Try to find a shop like Penzey's that rotates stock and has fresh seeds, you'll get more consistent results. Seeds that someone had in a cupboard for two years won't be as hot or flavorful. Acidity strips fats off your tongue, making hot things hit with full force. So balancing the vinegar or wine content is important. Other than that, I just adjust things as I go. I've only made mustard for home use and one-shot catering, never had to make it consistently in a commercial setting.

Thanks!

My favorite thing to make with beer is ice cream. I use the basic ice cream base formula from Professional Baking (no vanilla) and add a classic lager, like Corona, and the juice of a lime. The beer and lime cut some of the richness of the ice cream.

I would re-think your 'base'. Think of the cake structure as the base and the veg as the flavoring. -Similar to making a strawberry sponge cake, but, since it's minus sugar, it's more of a savory quick bread. Check out some savory muffin recipes, or beer bread then build on that. I'd look into using freeze dried vegetables (available in pint tubs at some natural supermarkets) just grind them into powder and add to the mix -amounts will vary because some of these dried veggies are very flavorful, some not as much. You could also dehydrate, even partially, your own vegetables (cooked or raw) then puree them and add to the batter. I have had good luck with partially drying vegetables sliced thinly, cooked in a low temp convection oven for 10-20 minutes. Eggplant is the one veg I am not too sure about, its flavor is subtle and may get lost along the way. Good luck!

Oil and sugar shouldn't be in baguettes. Your crust should have a blistered appearance, and your slashes should open up. This is all really basic stuff, a good pastry or bread book should cover it, with photos of the ideal crust and crumb.

Sounds like it was a proofing or slashing issue. The bread flour, having more gluten, can support more and larger holes without collapse. A good baguette should have random large holes. If it's dense and even like sandwich bread (like grocery store baguettes) inside, it's not really a baguette. You really should be using a formula based upon weight, not volume, for dry ingredients. On the first day of pastry class, I have each student measure out a cup of flour, however they like to do it, then weigh it. Then I have them do it again. No one gets the same number as anyone else, and, no one in the room ever gets the same number twice.

Looks great! I suggest picking up a few extra oven racks, so that when you do bake, you can maximize the space. Makes cooking for parties and batching cookies a lot easier.