Just Baking

School is in the air! What a great time to learn something new about our favorite activity in the kitchen, apart from eating. With this in mind, I’m putting together a new series of posts collectively titled At the Baker’s Bench. This series will feature informative posts explaining techniques, terms, recipes, and tools that will help you to […]

Okay, it’s a little embarrassing to admit it, so I’ll just get it over with now: I’m scared of the self-cleaning feature on my oven. That’s right, it gives me the willies. Just thinking of turning that thing up to “super-incinerate” and stepping away from it for, oh, four hours or so isn’t within my […]

Roasting vegetables isn’t nearly so scary, and it’s a great technique for coming up with a quick side dish or using up something that might otherwise go bad. The trick is to use a vegetable that’s not going to dry out, and has enough natural sugar to aid in the caramelization process. Following these steps […]

Gale Gand is one busy woman.  Besides being the pastry chef at Tramonto’s Steak & Seafood, Osteria di Tramonto, RT Lounge, Gale’s Coffee Bar and Tru (all luckily located in the same town of Wheeling, IL), she is also a popular cookbook author and host of Sweet Dreams on the Food Network.  To say she […]