Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Cocoa and buttered toast. I don't know how it started but when ever my siblings and I came in from playing in the winter my Mum would give us cocoa and buttered toast. You won't believe how great the toast tastes if you dunk it in the hot cocoa... I wish it would snow here, it's not the same unless its snowing out.

To be perfectly honest I buy all of my flours at my local bulk food store, I have no idea what the brand is, I don't have much belief in 'brand power'.

I really don't think there is much of a difference between brands. In order to be marked as pastry flour it must have a protein content between 7.5-9.5%. And it is the protein content that makes the difference, so as long as it is marked pastry flour you'll get pretty much the same result with all brands.

As long you sift it before using (flours always settle in the bag and become more compact) and if you are going to use the WW pastry flour mix it 1/2 WW and 1/2 white pastry you'll be okay.

The WW pastry flour has a higher starch and lower gluten content than regular WW flour. It offers less structure for your product, but will give you a more tender result.

You can use it the same way you would use regular Pastry flour (for cookies, pie doughs, etc) although its best to mix it with regular pastry flour, it can be hard to work with.

I personally adore pumpkin pie. I love the texture of it, I love the spice combination, and I love the flavor of the pumpkin. As a kid I had pumpkin pie only once or twice, no one else in my family liked it so for Thanksgiving we usually had apple pie. Maybe it was the absence of it that made me love it so?

too funny, now I've got to check if I have a dominos in my town so I can order up some none pizza with left beef.

It makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

When my boyfriend went last year he brought back a few bottles of genuine French wine and Champagne. It doesn't have to be expensive kinds either, and they are EASY to get a hold of. He actually just bought them from the hotel restaurant.

My mum always did this too. It was great we could have 'left over' thanksgiving turkey for months.

Love New England Clam Chowder, simply love it. It's one of my favorite soups to make too. Although I do usually end up throwing in a variety of other seafood, but the thought is still there.

For the holidays I would be turned away at my families door if I didn't come with some shortbread cookies in hand. The key to shortbread cookies-use really good butter, the more expensive the better. And chill as often as necessary, especially after cutting into shapes before you put them in the oven. It'll stop them from melting as soon as the heat of the oven hits.

A recent cookie concoction: enhancing roasted walnuts with some dried mint then baking them into a double chocolate batter. The recipe is on my blog if anyone's interested: http://blogcheyanne.blogspot.com/

cheyanne