That's wild. So, admittedly, I'm not a bread maker... how long do I let the dough hook knead? And then how much by hand?

But surely a bread machine would knead enough, right?
BTW, would you mind sharing your recipe?!

We frequently have family pizza night where we make our own pizzas. I usually buy the dough at either the grocery store or a pizza shop, but I've been trying to make it at home using my bread machine. The stuff I make at home tastes great, but it doesn't have the elasticity of the store bought or pizza shop dough. I often have to roll out the homemade stuff, because it tends to tear, whereas I can stretch out the store bought stuff by hand. Any idea why??

We went to this restaurant after it was recommended to us by friends and it was AMAZING:

http://www.loiefullers.com/

I had the Pistachio Ravioli and it was out of this world. Prices are fantastic, too. It's not in the nicest section, but you're pretty close to Federal Hill, so you could always pop over there afterwards for dessert.

So sorry - I completely missed your question! ... I got overwhelmed by all of the back and forth "banter" (read: arguing! ) on this thread ;)

So I honestly don't remember what I bought, since I originally posted this in June of last year, but I would assume:
-$10 on lunch meats (I generally buy nitrate free Boar's Head options)
- and the rest $35 on fruits and maybe some lettuce.

I live in the North East and the only grocery stores close to us are Shaw's, which I find to be really expensive, and Stop & Shop, which we refer to as Stop & Rip Off. I find the latter to be cheaper than the former, but I still feel like produce is a rip-off, even on sale.

The other thing that I should have mentioned is that I try my best to feed my family "real" food, i.e. as little processed food as possible. I can't afford grass fed meats and organic produce, but I still try to stick to the outside perimeter of the store.

Good question - I guess I feel as though we rotate through the same meals... that's partly because I have picky kids to consider, partly because I have a really hard time finding time to do any sort of meal planning, and partly because I feel restricted from a budget perspective.

Funny you should ask because that is the reason :). I'm nursing and my LO has a food protein intolerance to the protein in cows milk... So slightly Different than an allergy, but still a bummer that I can't eat my favorite cheeses, yogurt, or have good ol cream in my coffee!

Beautiful! Guess we're having carbonara for dinner tomorrow night.

I know, I know... part of the deliciousness of this dish is the butter and parmesan cheese! But can I substitute anything for the butter and cheese?

I LOVE this dish, but for the time being, I can't have anything made from cow's milk. What if I substituted some kind of oil for the butter an omitted the cheese? Blasphemy? I am really craving this dish....

I usually make this recipe and it's DIVINE:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/20...

That's exactly what I was hoping to hear! Thank you :)

I came across a CI recipe for Potato Casserole with Bacon and Caramelized Onion. It looks amazing. I'd like to make it for Christmas Day, but I won't have time to do the prep the day of. Is there any way I can make this ahead of time and reheat? Ideally I'd make the day before... just not sure how this would turn out as a reheated casserole...

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recip...

Wow... So I guess we're not as bad off as I thought we were. Still just seems like a lot of money to spend. How I wish we could eat all organic produce and high quality meat :(. For those of you living the high life for two - I am envious!! In our pre-child days, i remember my husband and I spending $800 on just dining out every month! How things change :)

BTW I didn't mention that we are in the US and while the grocery spending does include paper towels, toilet paper and things like aluminum foil, it doesn't include any toiletries or pet food... That stuff is all budgeted separately.

Do any of you have any favorite low budget yet really delicious dinner recipes?

I am SHOCKED by the amount of money we spend at the grocery store and I'm wondering how this amount compares to the rest of you??

On average, our family of four spends $800/month!!! Is this a lot compared to everyone else?!
A few things to note:
-Our family of 4 includes 2 kids under 5 years old....SO, while they are good eaters and breakfast and lunch, they don't eat a whole lot at dinner.
-We are mostly eating at home... we dine out maybe once or twice a month.
-I generally buy meat that is on sale. I can't really stockpile since we don't have the freezer space, but I will try to buy larger cuts of meat that can be used for several meals
-I do clip coupons (I use couponmom.com) but we don't eat any frozen meals or store bought cookies, etc.
-I generally buy frozen veggies with the exception of salad, sweet potatoes, white potatoes
-my kids & i LOVE fruit, so I do buy quite a bit of fruit, but generally not out of season. We've been eating a lot of strawberries and blueberries lately because they are on sale. I recently went to the store to buy lunchmeats and produce and left spending $45 with barely nothing to show for it
-We eat a pasta dish at least once a week (and sometimes more)
-As much as my husband hates it, we eat "breakfast for dinner" maybe once every other week

So... all in all, as much as I LOVE to cook and peruse all the great chowhound recipes and ideas, I know that we can't afford to be real foodies. I feel like we're spending all of this money, yet have nothing to show for it and, in general, eat pretty boring :-(

Thanks, everyone, for the quick replies. I'll forge ahead and see how everything turns out.

What a relief! Thank you. So I went ahead and browned the beef with the leathery skin on - should I shave it off and re-brown?

As an aside - I'm following a CI recipe... I'm surprised there's no mention of this in the recipe - I usually find their instructions so thorough.

I am preparing beef wellington for only the second time (had a previous post about assembling in advance) ...

I dry aged the tenderloin in the fridge for 48 hours before browning and it's developed this leathery exterior - is this normal?! I don't remember this happening the last time, but maybe my memory is just bad.

needless to say, I know relatively little - ok, nothing - about preparing meats.

I think I'll go ahead and just assemble early in the morning. thanks!
So one last question - the recipe I followed instructed to cook the wellington on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 450. Well, last year I did this and had a smoky mess in my kitchen. The parchment paper blackened and disintegrated and the wellington was burnt on the bottom - 1/2 way thru cooking I actually had to transfer to a baking dish. Thankfully, everything tasted so fantastic that no one cared about the burnt bottom, but why did this happen? Did I do something wrong?

So, I was just re-reading the recipe, and it says to refrigerate the wrapped tenderloin for 30 mins. I'm wondering if I could assemble the wellington and refrigerate at 8:30am, then remove from the fridge and cook at 1:30pm when I get home?

Thank you! - I think that approach would work well with the small amount of time I'll have to Christmas day.

Hi everyone -
Last year for Christmas dinner I attempted my first Beef Wellington (Cooks Illustrated recipe) and it was out of this world. I'd like to serve Beef Wellington again this year, but I'm not going to have the time to assemble it the day of. Would it be ok to assemble it the day before, leave it in the fridge, and just toss it in the oven on Christmas day? It may spend up to 24 hrs in the fridge before being cooked.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I personally like potatoes with lamb. What about goat cheese mashed potatoes? You can even make ahead if you like. I make Emeril's goat cheese mashed potatoes every Thanksgiving and they are a huge hit: http://www.emerils.com/recipe/3080/go...

It IS wonderful! I'm usually a chocolate person, but I truly love this cake. It's not quite the texture of flourless chocolate cake, but it is definitely a dense, moist cake.

I know that you posted this 4 years ago... but I just had to tell you that this is truly a great cookie recipe! I literally just made this recipe and the cookies are perfect! Perfect height - not too flat but not too puffy, either. Crispy edges, chewy center, and perfect taste!! This is the recipe I've been looking for!
My mom always made the Toll House recipe but substituted shortening. I try to avoid shortening as much as possible and if you use butter in the TH recipe, they come out too flat for my liking. I've been searching for the perfect CCC for 4 years... this is it!
Will try the JT recipe next... just didn't have pastry flour in the house.

I'm also on the don't-like-foury-cake bandwagon. If your friend is a chocolate lover, then a flourless chocolate cake is always a big hit. You could serve with a raspberry sauce. I also recently discovered a new favorite cake recipe from Food & Wine, Vanilla Bean cake: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/va...

It's divine. Both the flourless choc cake and vanilla bean cake are simple, yet elegant. You could even serve one of each!

Thanks everyone for the tips. The last time I baked this cake was Christmas, so I honestly can't remember exactly how the bottom layer came out of the oven, i.e. whether it was cracked, but it's entirely possible that I overbaked. I'll pay more attention to that. Will also make sure I spread the batter to the edge of the pan.

I do have another flourless choc cake recipe that calls for a water bath. I think I'll try this one more time without the bain marie and see how that goes.

And i LOVE the idea of pressing choc shavings to the outside edge. Great idea! Hopefully, I won't need it... but great idea if I do.

I've been asked to bring this cake for Easter (I know, not a very Easter-like recipe!) and the last time I made this, I had a problem with the execution. The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated and is absolutely divine. It starts with a layer of flourless chocolate, which is cooled and topped with chocolate mousse. The cake is chilled again and topped with a final layer of white chocolate mouse. The recipe suggests baking and assembling in a springform pan. The cake is chilled in the springform pan and the sides of the pan are removed before serving. Here's my problem -

I baked the first layer and the flourless cake pulled away quite a bit from the sides of the pan. So the second layer, chocolate mousse, was at risk of "dripping" over the sides of the 1st layer. I had to jury rig some parchment paper around the bottom layer (inside the springform pan) to prevent the 2nd and 3rd layers from falling over the sides of the cake. This turned out to be a pain because when I removed the parchment before serving, the sides of the cake were still a mess, so I had to clean up the cake by cutting off some of the sides. Hope this is making sense to everyone...

Any tips on how to prevent the flourless cake layer from pulling away from the sides of the pan?

Thanks!