Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone, and I have to say that the recent coverage of an impending shortage of Kellogg’s Eggo waffles due to manufacturing plant closures is enough to make me want to run out and buy a box. But instead I’m going to do what I usually do with waffles: make my own and freeze them. All you need to have is a waffle iron in order to make waffles and the batter is really no more difficult to whip up than the batter for pancakes. Most, if not all, waffle recipes can be frozen easily and will reheat in not much more time than it takes to toast that Eggo.

While you can use any style of waffle iron when making frozen waffles, it helps to have a waffle iron that makes flatter waffles, since Belgian-style waffles will not always fit easily into a standard toaster. Allow your waffles to cool completely on a wire rack after cooking, then layer them between sheets of wax paper and stick them into a large Ziploc freezer bag. Once the waffles are frozen, they can be removed one at a time and put into the toaster (or a toaster oven) to crisp up. Since Eggo waffles are very light, remember that homemade waffles may take a little extra time in the toaster to be ready. If you’re doing Belgian waffles and can’t fit them in a toaster, you can also reheat them in a preheated oven at 350F for about 10 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of the waffle.

Old Mother Mallard’s Delicious Golden Brown Waffles, a recipe I made based on a Donald Duck cartoon, freeze very well, and so do my Belgian Waffles when cooked in a flatter waffle iron. Buttermilk waffles are always a good choice, as well.

There are more ways to cook turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner then there are turkeys being eaten on the last Thursday in November. Everyone - and their mother - has a strategy and the vast majority of them involve the turkey being in the oven for at least a few hours. I don’t think that there is only one perfect way to cook a turkey and so I am very open to trying new methods when I am ready to roast a big bird. I try to aim for a crisp (or at least not soggy) skin, relatively moist breasts and moist, tender dark meat. My usual method of high heat to start followed by a slow roast at a lower temperature works pretty well, but this year I decided to try an ultra-high heat cooking method to see how the turkey would turn out.

The high heat method, which I’ve mostly heard about as a good option for roasting chicken, not turkeys, calls for cooking a turkey at a high heat the entire cooking time. In theory, this seals in the juices while producing a crispy skin - and gets the turkey done in as little as 90 minutes! I skimmed through some of my past notes on the subject and decided to go with an old New York Times article as a guideline. I popped my turkey into the oven at 500F and sat back to watch it cook.

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It’s not an ingredient that you’ll see called for too often in American cookbooks, but you’re sure to see custard powder mentioned in cookbooks published in the UK or Australia, or even in the pages of foodie magazines imported from either country. I used some recently in my recipe for Vanilla Slices. Custard powder is not dried, powdered custard. It is actually a powdered mix used to make custard, and it is very similar to the type of mix used to make instant pudding in the US. Just combine it with milk, cook to thicken, and you have custard (or pudding)!

Custard powder is primarily made up of thickeners that give the pudding its texture. Cornstarch is usally the biggest component, since it is great for thickening liquids, disolves easily and is almost foolproof. The powder also contains flavorings - vanilla is the one you’re most likely to find in a “standard” custard powder - and a hint of yellow coloring. Yellow coloring gives the custard just enough color to look as though there are plenty of eggs in it, as most basic custards are thickend with eggs instead of powder.

You can find custard powder at some specialty markets and some markets that specialize in imports from other countries. If you’re traveling abroad, you should be able to find it pretty easily. Birds’s is a big name in custard powder, but even Pillsbury produces it for other markets. If you can’t find it, instant pudding mix is a great substitute.

I am a big fan of coconut and try to use it in recipes whenever I can. Coconut milk and coconut cream are great, but really I like the taste and texture of shredded coconut and that is generally the type of coconut that I - and probably most of you bakers our there - use most. The most commonly found in grocery stores in my area and in most of the US is sweetened shredded coconut, but unsweetened shredded  coconut is also easily available and I often get asked which is better for baking for use in a certain recipe or if the two can be substituted for one another.The simple answer is that the two are pretty much identical in how they behave in recipes, mixing in easily and adding a nice, chewy texture. You can use these two types of coconut interchangeably in a recipe and get good results. That said, if a specific type is called for in a recipe, I would try to stick with it because the two coconuts taste a bit different and will give you a different result. If no specific type is called for, you can use what you have on hand or whichever type you prefer.

The sweetened coconut has sugar added to it before drying, so it tends to be a bit sweeter and more moist from the outset. The sugar actually helps to bring out the flavor of the coconut, but since most baked goods will have sugar in them anyway, this isn’t necessary to ensure a good finished result and unsweetened will still perform well. There is a small chance that sweetened might be slightly too sweet in a recipe that calls for unsweetened, but the sweetened coconut is not so sweet on its own that it should really throw off a recipe in that way.

Most recipes that call for pumpkin recommend using canned pumpkin puree. There are a variety of reasons for this, including the facts that pumpkin puree is relatively inexpensive, easy to find, convenient to use and very consistent in color, flavor and texture. Having a standard ingredient to recommend helps cookbook authors and recipe writers to help you achieve the desired results with their recipes. You can find both regular and organic pumpkin puree pretty easily these days at both regular and specialty markets. That said, it is also very possible to make your own pumpkin puree and this is a great option or those of us who like to eat squash and pumpkin on a regular basis.

First, start out with a whole pumpkin. It’s best not to have one too large, or it will be difficult to work with. Peel it, slice it open and seed it. Bring some water to a boil on the stovetop. Cut up the pumpkin flesh into chunks and drop it into the boiling water. Cool the pumpkin pieces until they’re tender, exactly the same way you would with potatoes.

Drain and cool the pumpkin pieces, then put them in the food processor. This is the only part where making your own gets tricky. Pumpkin can be fairly fibrous, and canned pumpkin puree is very smooth, so make sure that you process your pumpkin as much as possible. Sometimes, I add back a little bit of water to the puree so that I can process it more easily. I aim to get the consistency close to that of the canned puree (fairly thick, but not dry) so that I know it will work out in the recipes that call for it.

When I make it, I use pumpkin puree within a day or two of making it, storing it in the refrigerator in the meantime.

You can get creative with recipes for Christmas and decorations for Fourth of July, but no holiday is quite as fun as Halloween when it comes to looks. You can have all manner of decorations, from simple carved pumpkins to full-sized haunted house displays, and can take your holiday treats from snack sized candy bars to more elaborate, homemade treats, like Vampire Cupcakes. The food, like the decorations, should be fun and there is no real limit to how creative you can be. It’s a great time to experiment. After all, in the even that a treat doesn’t turn out looking the way you hoped, you can always say that it was just supposed to be an extra-scary zombie version of the cookie, cake or cupcake, right?

Here are some great, fun ideas for Halloween recipes. Don’t wait until the night before the holiday - some of these are too good to give away to trick-or-treaters!

• Vampire Cupcakes and Vampire Cookies are two of my absolute favorite Halloween recipes, both “bleed” fruity red fillings when you bite into them. They’re also perfect for non-Halloween occasions, like a Twilight movie viewing party.
• Speaking of vampire treats, a big batch of raspberry jam-filled Vampire Pancakes is a great way to get Halloween off on the right foot.
• Slime Filled Cupcakes from the Black Lagoon are another creepy cupcake, filled with oozing, bright green lime curd!
• Franken Berry Cereal Bars and Spooky Peanut Butter Puff Truffles are fantastic for making with kids because both are easy and start with boxed cereal. Kids can pretty much do everything themselves, with just a little adult supervision.
• The recipes for both Halloween M&M Cookies and Leftover Halloween Candy Bundt Cake incorporate regular Halloween candy. The cookies get a festive look from dark, creepily-colored seasonal M&Ms, while the cake is best made the day after Halloween when you have a bag of leftover mini chocolates that needs to be used up.
• The cookies pictured at the top are part of a batch of Skeleton Gingerbread cookies, decorated to look like carved pumpkins. Mummy Cookies with White Chocolate Wrapping are a good alternative if you prefer to start out with a chocolate, rather than spice, base.
• Candy apples are another classic recipe. Make sure to start out with some good apples, and either dip them into melted caramels or make a batch of Salted Maple Caramel Apples for a variation with a little extra fall flavor.
• Not everything needs to be themed. Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes and Pumpkin Brownies with Pecans are both good choices, getting pumpkin in to make them Halloween-appropriate, but perfectly appropriate for other fall and winter occasions, too.
• If you see a bag of Halloween Oreos, you might want to pick it up to try out some black and orange Halloween Oreo Cheesecakes