Tausi Insider

Photo : LightField Studios ( Shutterstock ) The holiday season is the perfect time to lie to your family. Whether it’s “no presents this year,” or giving everyone an extra slice of the “low-fat” cheesecake, I know you have your reasons. Now we’ve got a whopper to lay on your annoying pastry chef cousin: “This crust is from scratch.” Here’s how to manipulate a store bought pie crust so that you can effectively fool your family into thinking you’ve got pastry skills. The best liars believe their lies, but to enjoy a good hoodwink, you have to invest in your deception by going all in. That means a good story, and the appropriate details in the right places. We’re talking taste, bakeware, and shape. A store bought pie shell is a great way to lighten the load on baking days, but it’s a near necessity for folks who struggle with pastry. There are many big name brands out there and a handful of them are terrible. Luckily, I did the hard work for you and tested out some store bought pie...

Image : Mega Pixel ( Shutterstock ) While power tools maybe be the most exciting components in your tool collection, basic hand tools can be every bit as enticing, and perhaps even more essential. There isn’t always a powered solution for every problem you’ll run into over every job that needs doing in the shop, and keeping the low-tech essentials on hand will make your home improvement projects go easier and get done faster. Here are six of my favorites to get you started. A spring-loaded nail set It’s not exactly sophisticated, but a spring-loaded nail set can really come in handy when you need to take care of nails that are popping out on molding or to finish off a project that has some protruding nails. You place the tip of the nail set on the head of the nail, pull back on the end, and release. This efficient little thing will help keep your nails flush without a hammer, and it won’t mark the surface of your wood. You can get one for about $14, and it fits in your pocket. F...

Photo : Timolina ( Shutterstock ) Protein is great. Our bodies are largely made of protein, and if you lift weights, I bet you already know that eating enough protein is important for building muscle. But what if you just want to be healthy in general? What if you don’t even care that much about being healthy, but want to avoid overeating? Protein is important for you too. A new study has put the spotlight on a lack of protein as a potential driver of overeating. Its findings give more support to an existing concept called the “protein leverage hypothesis.” This is the idea that we will eat until we get enough protein, and so if our diet is made of low-protein foods , we may end up eating a lot of food, and thus a lot of calories, just to get our fill of protein. Sometimes people call this “protein hunger.” Why protein is important Our bodies don’t just need protein to build new muscle tissue. We also need protein to heal and repair damage. Our bodies continually break tissue...

Photo : Allie Chanthorn Reinmann There’s something to be said about pre-portioned appetizers. They’re easy for your guests to chow down on, low on mess, and really rather attractive. With a little extra preparation from the host (or any helpers milling about), this meat and cheese wreath can be a winning party nosh before the big meal that doesn’t obliterate the appetite of your guests. This charcuterie wreath takes a cue from bite-sized salad preparations, like this hand-held endive salad . Essentially you’re pre-assembling your guest’s tasty snack, so they merely have to reach out and shuttle it over to their face. No miniature cheese knives; all easy eating, and easy clean- up. There’s also a bit of strategy involved. Portioning out appetizers makes you less likely to throw four wheels of cheese on a cutting board and call it a day. This seems lavish, but with no end in sight, your hungry guests are likely to fill themselves up before dinner. Building small bites for your guests...

Photo : The Image Party ( Shutterstock ) T he best part of hosting Thanksgiving is serving an impressive meal. The worst part is finding a way to store everything in the fridge and freezer beforehand. Between pies, casseroles, five pounds of cooked potatoes, and, oh, that massive 15-pound bird dry-brining on the entire bottom shelf, how do you find space, short of renting a second fridge? Raid your cardboard recycling stash and start stacking . I first u sed this storage tactic to store semi-finished pies. Let’s say I had two or three pudding or curd pies that were already filled, and awaiting party time. Instead of laying them next to each other and wasting all the vertical space above them, I put a cardboard cake circle slightly larger than the circumference of the edge of the pie plate right on top of it , and stacked the next pie on top . Not only did this save space, but it kept my fridge more organized. ( If you’re not a cake decorating dweeb and you don’t have cake c...

Sorry about the stained tea towel. I am only human. Photo : Claire Lower Yams and sweet potatoes are sweet. No one can dispute this. There’s a reason they’re just as at home in a pie as they are as a side dish. Even so, a lot of people insist on adding brown sugar, candied nuts, and marshmallows to the orange tubers, because sugar tastes good. Marshmallows are a bit too cloying for me, however . In the past, I’ve made my own marshmallow fluff to cut down on the sugar and add a little spicy ginger , but I should have just made a Swiss meringue. It’s easier to make and work with than marshmallow fluff , and it browns and crisps in a way that marshmallows simply cannot . If you’ve never made a Swiss meringue before, it’s just like making any other meringue, with one extra step: Instead of whipping raw egg whites with super fine or powdered sugar, you combine the whites with table sugar, then heat the mixture over a double boiler until the sugar dissolves . (Rub a bit between you...

Photo : Brent Hofacker ( Shutterstock ) Dry brining is the simple act of sprinkling a food (usually meat) with a solute (usually salt, but sometimes a mixture of salt and sugar) to flavor it. The salt draws moisture out of the meat, then the moisture dissolves the salt, allowing it to penetrate into the flesh, seasoning it and keeping it juicy. It is, however, hard to find clear guidelines for how much salt your should use. According to Serious Eats , which recommends preparing a mixture of half a cup of Diamond Crystal kosher salt (or six tablespoons Morton’s kosher salt) and two tablespoons of baking powder, the application should be “generous,” but generosity can be hard to measure: Generously sprinkle the salt mixture on all surfaces by picking up the mixture between your thumb and fingers, holding it six to 10 inches above the bird, and letting the mixture shower down over the surface of the turkey for even coverage. The turkey should be well coated with salt, though not c...

Photo : Lost_in_the_Midwest ( Shutterstock ) Knowing when the turkey is “done” is the most anxiety-inducing part of cooking a turkey. You don’t want to food poison anyone, but you don’t want to serve dry, stringy meat (and shame) to you friends and family. A thermometer is imperative, but the little plastic “turkey timer” that comes stuck in your bird should be tossed directly into the trash. If you’ve been cooking turkeys for a while, you probably already know this, but first- time bird roasters might be tempted to lean on the built-in temperature indicator. The problem is that it sucks. It’s garbage. It’s not your friend. It is, however, a nifty little piece of technology; it’s just calibrated wrong. According to Cook’s Illustrated , it’s not that it doesn’t work, it just works at far too high of a temperature: A harmless compound with a known melting temperature is liquefied in the bottom of the timer device. A spring is compressed into the molten material as it cools and hard...