Regarding the photography, I was wondering if you’d considered hiring someone to help you with the photography. I know you have a group of people who are friends of the Simple Dollar, and maybe some of them would be willing to do food photos for you, if you don’t have a good camera.

PW’s post has some very good ideas in it, and probably the best advice is to skip your flash. I always take my food photos in daylight, in somewhat close proximity to a window (sometimes I have to take a pot off the stove and put it on a potholder somewhere else in my kitchen to take a photo, but it’s so worth it). Natural light makes food look SO much more appetizing.

Trent — please elaborate on using kale as a substitute for potato chips! Do you just put chopped kale in the oven and bake until crisp, or do you toss it with oil first? I’m really interested in trying this, because it sounds so unlikely!

With just diced potatoes, skim milk and bacon (a few tablespoons of the drippings to fry the potatoes), you can make a mean cheesey potato soup. Great on a warm day. I opt to just avoid the ridiculous heavy cream-based recipes in the first place. You just don’t need it to have a great meal.

And although I agree that in general margarine is not healthier than butter, it’s good to know that food labeling laws allow anything with less than .5g trans fat to claim 0g. So you might be looking at a butter substitute option that has .49g trans fat and not know it.

Say it with me, Trent, margarine is EVIL. Partially hydrogenated fats are EVIL. My favorite TV chef (Alton Brown) puts it this way, if your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, you probably shouldn’t eat it.

Anyway, back to the roux. Butter is going to be the best because it tastes good plus it’s healthier. If you’re that concerned about butter, olive oil is a better choice.

Also, the longer you cook the roux, the more thickening power you lose. Cook it until it’s the consistency of wet sand at the shoreline and only until it gives off a slightly nutty smell. The browner you let it get, the less thick your resulting sauce will be.

And pre-grated cheese has additives to keep it from clumping in the bag. Keep additives out of your family by grating your own cheese.

For the topping, skip the potato chips and use corn flakes.

Excess processed carbohydrates in addition to inflammatory oils (margarine is poison) are causing obesity. It’s very disheartening for me to hear the myth of a low fat, low calorie diet repeated as if it’s fact by so many unhealthy Americans.

If you want to be healthy then don’t eat processed foods. Simple as that. As Jack Lelaine, the 94 badass says, “If man made it, don’t eat it. If it tastes good, spit it out.”

For example, pie crusts need fat because that’s part of what makes good ones light and flaky. Eliminating fat or making the wrong substitute will give you a yucky pie crust. Sometimes, with sauces they could get runny and separate and not be very good, either. You would have to experiment with how much fat you reduce, cut out, or substitute to get the result you want.

Yes, I watch a lot of Good Eats. :) Cooking and baking are both one big, fat science experiment.

The only thing is that you can’t use SB or olive oil as a butter substitute when you bake (cakes, pies, etc). That kind of fat won’t stand up to baking.

We do need some fat in our diet. This is something I personally struggle with in my quest to eat healthier. When I cut out too much fat from my diet, then I crave it and then I “fall off the wagon”. I don’t eliminate butter completely; rather I choose when I use it. A tablespoon or two here and there isn’t going to hurt. I will use real butter for baking, because I don’t do a lot of baking (except for during the holidays). If I did a lot of baking, then I’d probably look at ways to lighten things up and use the butter once in awhile.

It’s so sad that so many people still believe the lipid hypothesis! Healthy fats come from real food: butter, meat (lard and tallow), olives, and coconuts. If everyone ate full fat, real food in moderation, a lot of this country’s health problems would be gone.

I never buy pre-grated cheese. How hard is it to grate some cheese when needed? If a recipe calls for several cups of grated cheese, you can always do it in the food processor. For this recipe, the cheese used for the sauce doesn’t have to be grated, it will melt quickly if cut in small pieces. Only the cheese for the topping needs to be grated.

As others have noted, hard cheeses freeze well. I keep a hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano in the freezer and cut off a chunk to grate as needed.

The softer cheeses with higher moisture content (e.g. monterey jack) freeze ok but lose some texture if you’re planning on using them for a sandwich. They are fine for melting and cooking.

alfredo sauce = heavy cream + butter + parmagian cheese

yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.