Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

You guys sound like a bunch a kids that got their toys taken away on the playground. The Bake Off Rules simply state - bring a recipe to the table and bake it! Your baked goods will be judged and the prize awarded. It doesn't say you have to "FORK & TINES” or that you can not use "premade shortcuts" or any of the other horrible things you guys have said. Shame on all of you!

I bake cookies with the kids across the street all of the time. When you are bake with 4 to 6 kids under the age of 7 they don't want to "FORK & TINES" they just want QUICK cookies and into the oven. Of course they want them to taste yummy at the end. As for the person that said "My only problem is the recipe didn't specify salted or unsalted peanuts; I made them with salt and the sweet/salty" maybe you should enter it next year who knows you might win. The gal or guy who wrote ... Off the top of my head I got: Listerine strips, Junior Mints, Sour patch kids, Andes mints (the free ones at Luby's), MSG, Flintstone vitamins, Grape Dimetapp, the same dough that you're wrapping it in, sunflower seeds, granola bar, assorted starbursts, maybe an air cookie, Rolos, sweet and sour duck sauce, and a tryptophan cookie...well that is just sick. I guess you think all of that was funny, but the funny was the "hiding a ball of peanut butter in a peanut butter cookie" But it DID WIN!

Where has our joy for the winner gone - the celebration of the ideas of the cooks? Regardless of how simple they might be. If you don't like the "hiding a ball of peanut butter in a peanut butter cookie" enter something yourself. Frankly for me - I'm to busy having fun baking cookies with the neighbors kids. Why not send a note simply saying have fun spending your $1,000,000.

I just had to tell all of you that I was very disappointed in your comments!

Remember all of us cooks have to stick together isn’t that what it is all about?

A recipe, according to Webster's, is a set of instructions for making something from various ingredients. That makes this and other recipes calling for the use of convenience food ingredients "real." The contest is clearly designed to generate recipes using specific brand-name products. If that's not your thing, look elsewhere for your recipes.

When I buy a bag of lemons I zest them and then juice them all. I freeze the zest in little baggies and the juice I freeze in ice cube trays and then place in baggies in the freezer. It's very convenient for baking and cooking.

We always make extra - doubling every recipe - to have leftovers and save cooking time.

If you eat plenty of salads, cut everything up and put into plastic storage containers as soon as you get home from the store.

making several days worth of meals ahead of time, always having fresh sauce frozen and also have veggies prepped ahead of time.

For boiling water--just put a lid on to bring it to the boil faster.

it's best to cook in large batches so you can freeze several meals for later.

I clean as I go.
:-)

I usually make dinner ahead in the crockpot and just drop it in to warm it up...

assemble your ingredients together ahead of time

...I prep a week's worth of fresh vegetables (i.e. washed, chopped, etc.) for cooking each weekend after my trip to the local farmer's market.

I line baking pans and/or cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Not only is cleanup a snap but almost nothing sticks so no need for cookiing sprays.