Fall pie crust cutters. Photo courtesy
William-Sonoma.

These pie crust cutters are an easy way to create a dazzling crust.

Just press the spring-loaded cutters into dough and release delicate shapes—acorn, leaf, pumpkin and turkey—embossed with fine detail.

Layer the shapes on top of a pie, as shown in the photo, or use the cutters to make cutout patterns in a pie’s top crust. You can even add sugar to the dough to turn the cutouts into cookies.

They’re a Williams-Sonoma exclusive. Get them now at Williams-Sonoma.com.
Then, make your favorite holiday pie recipe or use one of ours:

Find more of our favorite pie recipes in our Pie & Pastry Section.

How many types of pie have you had? Browse through our beautiful Pie Glossary.

Now that she’s a mom, says the cook in the video, she’s become “notorious for sneaking vegetables into everything.”

But we don’t think butternut squash needs to be “sneaked” into the recipe. We love the idea of this seasonal mac and cheese.

For added flourishes to the recipe in the video, how about:

 
More Mac & Cheese
After you’ve watched the video below, check out:

Image: Sautéeing the thyme and grated onion in butter and olive oil to make the squash sauce.

We’ve tried a lot of wine travel bags. We like VinniBag the best for car and bus trunks, airline travel and anytime a good bottle of wine can be jolted. It’s not just leakproof: It’s so robustly padded that nothing should break in the first place.

Like an inflatable bath pillow, VinniBag has inflatable air chambers that protect and insulate wine bottles and other liquids (olive oil, for example). The air pockets provide superior protection against impact and leakage.

Easy to inflate, VinniBag deflates and stores flat when not in use.

One VinniBag is $28.00; two or more are $25.00 each. It’s a welcome gift for friends who buy good wine and like to travel with it.

Get yours at VinniBag.com.

Instead of hours of cooking, enjoy a bowl
of steaming Vietnamese phö soup in
minutes. Photo by Simon Gurney |
Dreamstime.

Instead of making stock for hours, though, you can enjoy the 10-minute version with Pacific Organic Soup Starters. Not bad, given that a bowl of phö can have up to 30 ingredients (including all the seasonings in the broth).

It’s the best commercial phö we’ve had, and an easy way for you to treat yourself (and your family) to something special.

Phö, pronounced fuh, is also high in protein and low in calories when you enjoy the delicious broth without the traditional rice noodles.

While Vietnamese pho is a beef-based stock, Pacific Organic makes chicken and vegetarian soup bases as well as beef.
You can find them at natural food stores nationwide and online.

It takes extra effort, but brining a turkey produces a moister, more tender bird.

Brining is the process of soaking the turkey, for an extended period of time, in a liquid that contains salt and other flavorings. The salt in a brine draws the natural moisture out of a turkey and allows it to be replaced with the moisture of the liquid in which you are soaking it. Therefore, the flavorings and seasonings you add to your brine will become infused in your turkey.

Brining a turkey helps to tenderize it, which not only improves the eating experience, but also slightly cuts down on cooking time.

Brining is not to be confused with marinating: While they have similar functions, a marinade’s key components are acid and salt, whereas a brine in its simplest form can be nothing more than water, salt and sugar. But we have much more interesting brine ideas.

It takes time to brine a turkey,
but the results are worth it. Photo
courtesy Butterball.

Check out the full article, with easy-to-follow steps for brining your turkey.