Baking muffins directly in apples looks amazing and will win you all kinds of kitchen credibility. No one needs to know just how easy it is. For this recipe you'll need 6-8 apples (feel free to either buy a bag or mix and match at your grocery store) and a .99 cent box of your favorite muffin mix. In the video, she demonstrates how to core an apple using your choice of spoon, melon baller, or ice cream scoop. Mix up your muffin batter to package directions, stuff it in the apple, and bake it to package directions. The apple bakes nicely around the muffins while keeping them deliciously moist…

Last week Susan Maddox ended the show with an easy way to reuse leftover mashed potatoes - put them back in the mixer, add more heavy cream, then pour them into a baking dish and top with breadcrumbs to make a twice baked potato casserole.This week she shows us how to do something even easier but just as tasty - namely add canned pumpkin. You can use up two leftovers at once - any canned pumpkin you have left from making pies and any mashed potatoes you have left from holiday dinners. In addition to eating them straight, you can always turn your mashed pumpkin potatoes into morning potato …

Chef Maddox is all about reusing items in the kitchen. When she tells us to use fresh herbs, she always recommends saving the stems. They may be tough, but they can add surprising flavor when combined with apple cores to make an organic, disposable roasting rack. In this case, she recommends boiling your leftover herb stems in the same water as the potatoes before making mashed potatoes. You can add a lot of flavor without adding any calories.That said, she's not afraid of delicious caloric contents, either. Chef Maddox absolves you of all your diet sins and says to go ahead and use heavy …

Chef Susan Maddox shows you how to use both your Thanksgiving leftovers and items you already have in the pantry in order to make something fresh and new. You don't even need special baking dishes for her individual pot pies. Just mix your favorite prepared cream based soup with your leftover turkey, put the mix in a coffee cup, and top it with crescent roll dough.  Maddox serves this to her own children at home.  Mix it up however you like. Cream of broccoli, cream of mushroom, cream of chicken - mix your leftover meat into whatever you like best. It's better for you than a frozen pot pie, …

With the holiday season approaching there are a lot of recipes calling for citrus zest. Chef Susan Maddox shows you how to get the tasty, aromatic, colorful part of the zest off your oranges, lemons and limes without any of those stringy, bitter white parts. Best yet, when you're done you can pop what's left back in the fridge and still use the fruit. With the holiday season approaching there are a lot of recipes calling for citrus zest. Chef Susan Maddox shows you how to get the tasty, aromatic, colorful part of the zest off your oranges, lemons and limes without any of the bitter white …

Baby Pumpkins are under $1 each at the grocery store. A lot of crafters use them to spruce up Thanksgiving and Christmas tables. If you've had one on your table since you first started buying Halloween decorations, don't worry. Pumpkins last for months. You can buy one today and eat it in January.Susan recommends cooking your baby pumpkins before stuffing them wtih butternut squash, yams, or soup. You'll have a dramatic presentation with super easy cleanup. Once you hollow out your baby pumpkins simply bake them at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until tender. Instead of serving your soup …

Now, you may be wondering what a Mirepoix is and why the heck you'd want one in your home. "Mirepoix" is a French word that just means a mix of onions, carrots, and celery. That may sound simple enough, but those three things are sometimes called the Holy Trinity of Cooking. You'll find them as the base in nearly all Creole cooking as well as the start of most French recipes. Those three roasted vegetables are what give all French recipes a distinct, earthy flavor - the secret is that it's really easy. All you do to create a Mirepoix is cut up your raw, unpeeled vegetables, dump them on a …

Autumn is apple season. Whether you're eating apples raw or baking them into pies, you're likely to have some leftover skins. Instead of throwing those skins away, Susan Maddox recommends ways to use them in your kitchen including:* Stuff under chicken skin before baking to add flavor* Add to a Mirepoix (don't worry - next week we tackle Mirepoix!)* Use the apple cores as disposable roasting racks if you don't want meat to touch    a pan* Compost the skins