How do I get 'date-1' formatted as mm-dd-yyyy using PowerShell?

You can use the .tostring() method with datetime format specifiers to format to whatever you need:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx

(Get-Date).AddDays(-1).ToString('MM-dd-yyyy')
11-01-2013

I think this is only partially true. Changing the format seems to switch the date to a string object which then has no methods like AddDays to manipulate it. So to make this work, you have to switch it back to a date. For example:

Get-Date (Get-Date).AddDays(-1) -format D