Lifehacker • 19th December 2018

Get Over Yourself and Start Writing in Comic Sans

Everyone who writes for fun or profit dreads sitting down to work only to end up staring at a blank document for hours on end. Writer’s block comes for us all eventually, but the solution could have been lurking in your font menu this entire time.

Skillet • 18th December 2018

Make Every Component of This Croquembouche in the Microwave

Holiday entertaining is all about wringing maximum impact from minimal effort. It’s pretty hard to beat a towering pile of caramel-drizzled profiteroles for drama alone, but the mighty croquembouche isn’t a low-effort joint—unless you use your microwave.

Skillet • 14th December 2018

The Best Christmas Party Is Russian New Year's

Holiday parties are often more trouble than they’re worth. By the time December’s half over and you’ve survived a sloppy open bar or three, the idea of leaving the house ever again can be pretty unappetizing. This year, take a cue from the Russians: stay in and throw a banging dinner party.

Skillet • 13th December 2018

Make and Give Bread Instead of Cookies This Holiday Season

Even if you’ve got a serious sweet tooth, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of sugary snacks that get distributed this time of year. If cookie fatigue has set in, there’s a better way: people lose their fucking minds for homemade bread, and it’s so much easier than you’d think.

Skillet • 11th December 2018

You Can Make Most Cookies with Cold, Hard Butter

At this very moment, seasonal bakers around the world are bookmarking cookie recipes, tracking down special ingredients, and panicking when they realize they forgot to leave the butter out to soften. Welcome to cookie swap season.

Lifehacker • 5th December 2018

It's Even Easier to Participate in Operation Santa This Year

Every single year since 1912, the United States Postal Service has been doing their part to give kids all across the country the best Christmas ever. In 2017, Operation Santa went digital, testing out an online system in New York City—and it was so wildly successful that this season, they’ve expanded the program to five more cities.

Skillet • 3rd December 2018

You Should Serve Leftovers at Your Next Dinner Party

Make-ahead entrées are a godsend during holiday entertaining season, but for some reason, it’s not the default technique for special-occasion meals. It really should be: not only is a day-old hearty braise easier on the host, but it actually tastes better than it does fresh from the oven.

Skillet • 23rd November 2018

Turn Your Thanksgiving Leftovers into Dumplings

When you’re staring down the barrel of days-old Thanksgiving leftovers, it’s almost impossible to summon up the creativity to do something, anything, besides shovel them into your mouth in front of an open fridge. There’s no shame in the fridge-shovel game, but breathing new life into the last dregs of your feast is as easy as picking up a pack of dumpling skins or wonton wrappers. I’ll cop to a bias here: I could eat stuffed pasta of any kind, from any culinary tradition in the world, for ever

Skillet • 21st November 2018

Everything You Can and Cannot Microwave on Thanksgiving

Choreographing a lavish meal is a high-pressure project to say the least, and when you’re juggling a dozen-odd dishes, every square inch of stove and oven space is precious real estate. A microwave oven can streamline even the most ambitious prep schedule, as long as you make good choices—some foods just aren’t meant to be zapped.

Skillet • 20th November 2018

Brighten Up Your Thanksgiving Dessert Spread with a Cranberry Pavlova

After a long day of eating mountains of gravy-drenched carbs, a little brightness is a welcome sight indeed. Sadly, Thanksgiving dessert is usually anything but light and refreshing; it’s another carb parade, with whipped cream standing in for gravy.

Skillet • 19th November 2018

Smear Your Entire Turkey with Butter

Most turkey prep is designed to compensate for its lack of fat, and therefore, flavor. Dry brining is the best way to season your bird from the inside out, but for the juiciest, most delicious meat, you’ve gotta add some fat—and there’s no better fat than butter.

Skillet • 16th November 2018

Common Custard Pie Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Baked custards are everywhere on the Thanksgiving dessert table. Apart from apple pie, just about every other holiday classic calls for baking a sugar-and-egg slurry until perfectly set. It seems simple enough, but custard pies are notoriously tricky—especially when canned pumpkin gets involved.

Lifehacker • 16th November 2018

Stop Hand Washing Your Dishes

Great news for people who hate doing dishes: if you have a dishwasher, washing your dishes by hand is a colossal waste of water, energy, time, and money, and you can prove it with math.

Skillet • 14th November 2018

You Don't Need to Truss a Turkey

Cooking a perfect Thanksgiving turkey is a pretty tall order, and every cook has their own tricks for crispy skin and juicy meat. However you wrangle your bird this year, there’s one universal turkey truth that’ll save you time and effort: Trussing is a scam.

Skillet • 9th November 2018

How to Make a Vegan Roast You'll Actually Want to Eat

Buying a vegan holiday roast is very much like playing Seitan Roulette. A classic Tofurky log is inoffensive at best, but the various competitors that pop up in Whole Foods this time of year ping-pong between “legitimately tasty” and “old boots with a whiff of sage.” If you’re sick of the usual faux-meat options, I have great news: you can totally make your own.

Skillet • 5th November 2018

Weigh Down Your Pie Crusts With Sugar

Blind baking pie crusts should be so simple: line crimped, chilled pastry with parchment or foil, fill with dried beans to weigh it down, and bake until crisp. This works out okay most of the time, but for truly crisp crusts with no puffy spots, reach for the sugar.

Skillet • 1st November 2018

Improve Your Favorite Thanksgiving Pies by Adding a Little Miso

Thanksgiving menus aren’t exactly cradles of innovation. Some people refuse to mess with tradition, and tweaking the classics can be a real gamble—especially when it comes to pie. But if you’re sick of the same old pumpkin and pecan, slip in a little miso paste and watch as hardline traditionalists and radical pie anarchists alike fight over the last slice.

Skillet • 26th October 2018

Indulge Your Inner Bitter Betty with a Classic Negroni

Happy weekend, everyone, and welcome back to 3-Ingredient Happy Hour, the weekly drink column featuring super simple yet delicious libations. Claire is busily filming exciting Thanksgiving video content, so this week is a guest post—written by me, A.A. Newton—dedicated to a true classic: the Negroni.

Skillet • 24th October 2018

This Miso-Glazed Hasselback Delicata Squash is A Real Stunner

In my book, no food is truly ugly. The difference between gorgeous, magazine-spread ready food photography and Martha Stewart’s forays into the genre is a food stylist and professional lighting. Still, even I have to admit that some dishes are natural lookers.

Skillet • 22nd October 2018

Clean Your Stove While the Oven Is On

I develop recipes for a living, which means my stovetop is basically always a disaster. Cleaning sucks, and even though I know it creates more work in the long run, I’ll find any excuse to avoid wiping oil spatters off my stove.