​Some women at a Texas prison have compiled their culinary wisdom into a cookbook for those on the outside. The volume, titled From the Big House to Your House, is a collection of 200 recipes written by six women of the Mountain View Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Gatesville, Texas. All except one of the authors -- Celeste Johnson, Ceyma Bina, Barbara Holder, Tina Cornelius, Trenda Kemmerer and Louanne Larson -- are serving prison sentences of at least 50 years for murder convictions.

The women pooled their resources to seek alternatives to prison chow, which eventually led to the cookbook. The recipes are easy-to-prepare meals, snacks, and desserts. They have to be easy because in prison there are no toaster ovens or microwaves; all they had to cook with was a hot pot and an empty potato chip bag -- which works well for trapping heat.
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Anaïs Alexandre

Make a tasty shanty town full of these

​For many the thought of making a gingerbread house is daunting. You gotta bake and make 10 things before you can even get close to the fun assembly (i.e. finger lickin' icing and eating gum drops) part.

Forget that. All you really need are a few ingredients, which will run you about $10 and include: marshmallows, graham crackers, gummy decorations (I used worms and bears) and cake icing. Follow these five easy steps and you'll have a Ginger-Hooverville in ten minutes.
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Let someone else cook this Thanksgiving.

​The last time we cooked Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, it cost more than $300 for four people. Plus the bird was so dry even the poodle wouldn't eat it.

This year, we're thinking we'll let someone else cook. We've compiled a list of places that will prepare a delicious traditional Thanksgiving dinner. All you have to do is order in advance, pick up, and reheat.
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Lesley Elliott

This year, trade up your bird for the holidays.

​Sephardic cuisine has Middle Eastern roots, so there's lots of spice and flavor in these holiday foods (often influenced by Jewish roots everywhere from Turkey to Spain and, naturally, Israel). A Sephardic spread actually tastes amazing, but if you are a Euro-jew, it's a completely different story. That usually means brisket (dry pot roast, always very exciting), bland roasted chicken (brine it, rub garlic on it, anything!) and maybe some sort of glazed carrot and roasted potato combo. Not exactly the stuff holiday food dreams are made out of.

So this year, why not serve Thomas Keller's infamous roast chicken? We bet that Wolfgang Puck's matzoh ball soup won't have giant chunks of barely cooked carrot floating around. Rosh Hashanah begins tonight at sundown, and we've secretly replaced Bubbi's recipes with those of celebrity chefs. Let's see what happens.
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By Anais Alexandre

Honey sage pretzels with grainy mustard

​Why do shopping malls hide Auntie Anne's Pretzels in the midst of chaos when all we want is that salty, and sometimes sweet, twisted treat? No, we don't want to endure an obstacle course of kiosks and getting spritzed in the eye by aggressive perfume saleswomen, or have our feet stepped on by annoying youngsters off their leashes. There has to be an easier way to lay our hands on that snack while avoiding the mall madness. And now there is.
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Ditch the pizza and get in the kitchen!

​This one's for the college kids, the moms of college kids and, well, the ones who don't know how to cook. The problem? You're 18, you're going to college, and you've never cooked a day in your life. Do you even know how to boil water? Is plastic-covered cheese the only cheese you know?

We're pretty sure that mom would be a lot happier if your diet consisted of something more than beer, bagel bites, and burritos. Here are your cooking tips from a local college student who had never even eaten a sandwich before leaving for college. Now, he's a grill master and trier of all things, even the obscure, like pate and sweetbreads. No culinary training needed, just common sense and a little bit of patience.
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Photo by Anais Alexandre

The marvelous things we can do with this baby

​Think an avocado is just for humdrum guac? Well, think again. Here are three simple recipes you never knew you could do with avocado. All recipes have been tried and tested.

Note: To test an avocado for ripeness, give it a loving squeeze. If it's rock-hard or too mushy, it's either not ripe at all or overripe. Also, on the outside it should also be dark green, not bright emerald.

Try your hand at the recipes below and become an avocado master.
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Photos by Alex Broadwell

​Lido's Mark Zeitouni, executive chef at the Standard Hotel's restaurant, adds his Egyptian background and the farm-to-table aesthetic he learned in San Francisco to his Mediterranean dishes. That includes his handcrafted pickles.

According to Zeitouni, it's a long process, but one that's easy enough to do at home.

"It is something where you really can have fun with it and make your own combinations, nothing is really set in stone," he says. "You can make your own little spice blend and it's fun that way."

Now that Zeitouni has taught us the theory of pickling, it's time to put it into practice.

Lido's sous chef Vanessa Lane shows us how it's done, using Zeitouni's spicy dill pickle recipe (with pictures!). She makes about 20 pickles at a time, using Kirby cucumbers, but you can customize the recipe however you want.

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Ever since we had our first taste of smoked ice cream last week, we've had smoke on the brain. Sure, we could take the easy road and hit our local barbecue joint, but there's nothing like the feeling you get from smoking your own meat.

If you've never tried smoking (food) at home, you may think it's too difficult/time-consuming/expensive/impossible to do in an apartment, but we're here to show you there is more than one way to skin a cat. Just don't smoke it.

1. Trash Can Smoker (around $50)

​The DIY choice of the bunch, this method is also relatively easy and sure to impress. Head to the hardware store, grab a can, hot plate, metal grate, wood chip box, and a temperature gauge, and consult the guide to put it all together. The space between the meat and the heat will ensure slow cooking and even smoking, and the rig will pay for itself after the second smoke.More >>

Mayan munchies: death and destruction make us hungry.

​As you already are well aware, the end of the world is coming very soon. The Mayan calendar kinda just ends on December 12, 2012, which is not tomorrow, but you know, it's hovering frighteningly close in time. Psychic Edgar Cayce saw us entering into a "New Age" around now, with shifting poles and massive earthquakes. Recently birds were dropping on people's heads and fish were flinging their dying bodies ashore, not just in Arkansas where, you know, it makes sense that birds and fish would want out, but all over the world.

The horsemen are coming, so we might as well greet them with some snacks. In order to ease our anxiety about The End, we decorated some sugar cookies in the forms of our fears to help us make productive the signs of a nearing apocalypse.
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