I hear ya. You've been given some great tips by previous posters. As one who travels by car and then visits family (all of which are hard on the weight control part), I've learned to do the following: Read all the tips you can at http://www.hungry-girl.com. There's a whole section about eating out there, including articles geared to specific fast-food and regular restaurants. There's an inexpensive book series out there called "Eat This, Not That". One in the series is specifically geared towards eating out. When in doubt, order a salad (not the loaded Cobb type, though) with low-fat dressing. Most places, I've found, have some sort of low-fat ranch or vinaigrette. Then use your own "secret snack sack" to dive into, making sure to control that. If there's a supermarket near the convention hotel, go buy a couple of frozen Lean Cuisine (pretty decent, IMHO) and put them in the hotel room freezer. (I've found that most motels and hotels, even the lower-end motels, are putting little fridges in rooms. Even if your fridge doesn't have a freezer, a meal will be okay for a day or two.) Hotel continental breakfasts: I usually find packets of oatmeal, bananas, apples, and of course, coffee, at these. I tend to stay away from the juices unless they are prepackaged, since I can't tell if they are 100% juice or not. For car trips, we pack a cooler that contains individual servings of juice. My husband loves juice, but it is SO expensive at restaurants ($4 for one small glass of OJ at one place). We also pack bottled water for me and soda for him. In another container, this past summer, we packed our own coffeemaker, coffee, and filters. We are picky about what coffee we drink, and some hotels have the WORST coffee. Going to the 7-11 every morning is a pain, so it's easier for us to bring our own on car trips. Donna

One more idea. Here is a link to a finished kitchen with a similar layout in case it's hard to picture: http://www.thekitchn.com/maureens-maximized-upgraded-kitchen-small-cool-kitchens-2012-174024 1) This puts the sink is almost exactly where your plumbing already is. 2) There would be a decent amount of natural light in both key parts of the kitchen -- the pass through would let in some where the sink is, and the garden door would light up where the cook top is since that area is pretty close to that door. 3) No stretch of counter is less than 24", your main prep area is over 5 feet wide (and 30" deep), and you have a bonus 9 feet of counter space at the buffet. For me the main failing of a lot of other plans being considered is how the counter space is so chopped up, and this addresses that. 4) I'm envisioning the buffet as an uninterrupted stretch of uppers, lowers, and counter -- like this: The buffet counter is a bit far away from the major kitchen work zones, so I envision its being used more for large cooling racks or setting out a buffet for people eating in the formal dining room to use. You might consider adding a bar sink to the buffet (you have plenty of room) for drinks when entertaining and so the buffet can act as an extra prep area when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Or maybe it could be good a baking station? It's nice to roll out pie crust far away from the heat of the ovens. 5) I widened the doorway to the dining room. It's a vertical piece of the original portion of the house, and it's my understanding from other parts of the thread that that should mean it's not structural? A widened doorway does two things: a) It makes it possible for people to walk by the cooks easily. b) It makes the kitchen more open to the dining room, which means it would be natural to eat informal meals at the dining room table instead of needing a kitchen table. 6) This plan also has a lot of flexibility. a) You can add a bar sink to the buffet to make it a work zone. b) You could add an overhang at the pass through and put bar seating there. c) You can leave the sun room as a sun room and just use the dining table for eating (since now it's a bit more open to the kitchen). d) You can add a free-standing kitchen table in the center of the sunroom -- the kitchen is open enough/near enough to that area that I think a kitchen table there wouldn't seem odd. e) As a compromise between keeping the sun room vs. having a kitchen table, you could put a banquette in the bay window like this: This should leave you some room in between the banquette and the pass through for you to put some of your original sun room furniture (I'm guessing it's just comfy chairs?) and retain some of that sun room function you wanted to keep while still having the banquette as your kitchen table. Here is a link that might be useful: Similar kitchen This post was edited by Jillius on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 5:13

I think in the past year I have made 6 to 7 cheesecakes and never had a failure. As for the water drops on top, you can cover the pan with some foil. Here is my basic recipe. CheesecakeThis recipe looks long but it’s really 3 simple steps: make the crust, make the filling and make the topping. The instructions are just detailed so that even a first-timer can have a perfect result. Crust:1 cup graham, chocolate or vanilla waferscrumbs 2 tsp sugar 3 Tbsp melted butter Filling:2 8-oz pkg cream cheese, (low-fat works, too) 3/4 cup sugar (sugar substitutes work, too) 2 eggs (warm 5 minutes in a bowl of warmwater) 1/2 tsp vanilla 1/8 tsp salt (1-2 tsp grated lemon zest - optional) Topping:1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt 2 Tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla. The recipe and cook times are for a 7” cheesecake pan. Adjusted times for other pans are included below. It is not necessary to line the side of the pan with parchment paper. It buckles and mars the edge. My favourite is the Fat Daddio 7” push pan but any pan will do. No need to cover it with foil before cooking, either. This is a very simple recipe. **Important: Warm the cream cheese. Trust me on this. I've been making these for 45years. It's MUCH easier to blend if it's warmer than room temperature and it only takes a few minutes. Put the wrapped cream cheese in a ziplock bag, but don't seal it. Push it into a sink or bowl full of hot tap water to force the air out and THEN seal it. Weight it down with a plate for about 15 minutes. It will be very soft and easy to blend.Lining the bottom with parchment is optional. Spray it with baking spray if you prefer. And don't press the crust in too firmly. It will be easier to serve if you use a gentle touch. CRUST: Mix ingredients with a fork and gently press it in the bottom of the pan and up the sides a bit if you like. Put it in the freezer or if you prefer, bake it at 350 for 9 minutes, then cool completely. FILLING: Mix all ingredients except the eggs until completely smooth. Add the eggs and beat until just incorporated. (Don't fret too much about overbeating. This recipe is practically bulletproof.) Pour the filling into the crust.Put 1 1/2 cups water and the trivet into the IP. Place the cheesecake on the trivet, close the lid and set the valve to Sealing. Hit Pressure Cook (or Manual) and use the + and – buttons to get to 26 minutes for a 7-inch pan. This will produce a perfect, creamy filling. If you prefer a denser texture, cook it for 28 minutes.- - -PAN SIZE AND COOK TIMES:6-inch pan --- 29 minutes (31 for dense texture)7-inch pan --- 26 minutes (28 for dense texture)8-inch pan --- 24 minutes (26 for dense texture) **see below Individual ramekins or mason jars --- 10 minutes For 1 1/2 times the recipe:7–inch pan --- 29 minutes (32 for a dense texture)8-inch pan --- 27 minutes (30 for a dense texture)For 2 times the recipe:8-inch pan --- 33 minutes (35 for a dense texture)- - -When it beeps that it's done, leave it for a 15-minutes Natural Release. Then flip the valve to Venting for a Quick Release. When the pin drops, take out the cheesecake.It will appear "jiggly." That's GOOD. It will firm up as it cools. It may have some condensation on the surface. If so, gently blot it with a paper towel.Leave it to cool on the counter for an hour. It will settle down and flatten out. Then cover the cheesecake and refrigerate it in the pan for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. In my opinion,this is the hardest part of the whole recipe... the waiting

I am one that uses the heck out of my microwave. I've cooked many a potato in the mw and have never had it crack my plate! I will be more careful to always use a mw plate under it though! I agree that an oven baked potato is a million times better BUT it's so fast and it's acceptable in the mw. If we are doing baked potatoes for dinner, I will do the oven but if it's just me eating lunch, I will do it in the mw. I remember when the mw first came out, I had a cookbook that gave the method to make pretty much everything in the mw. I tried a bunch of things but some things just don't taste good in the mw, like chicken for example. I've also, never been able to cook rice in the mw no matter what I've tried, it always always boils out all over the place. I finally gave up and just cook it the traditional, stove top method.