The Most Important Thing to Know About Storing Your Knife — Sharpen Up

You finally took the plunge and invested in a good knife — or maybe a few good knives. Either way, you’ve spent good money and your blades deserve a storage place that will keep their edges pristine for as long as possible. Here’s what not to do, and three ways to do it right.

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Recipe: Freezer-to-Slow-Cooker Vegetable Tagine — Freezer to Table

Vegetable tagine, a North African stew of spiced vegetables, goes from freezer to table with the help of an array of frozen veggies and trades the eponymous tajine for a slow cooker set to low.

With a few extra ingredients, you’re six hours closer to turning the contents of your freezer and pantry into a rich, flavorful dinner. Here’s how you bring this colorful freezer-to-table meal to life.

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One Tip for Better Skillet Cornbread — Pan of Iron, Pan of Steel

Skillet cornbread was a delicacy of my childhood — my mother would bake up a batch for eating with chili or as a special breakfast treat — but it wasn’t until adulthood that I realized my mother had been making her from-scratch cornbread from that little blue box of Jiffy mix.

Her secret for the best cornbread — and one to adopt whether you are baking from a box mix or from scratch — is to preheat her cast iron skillet before adding the batter.

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26 Make-Ahead Lunches You Can Pack Tonight — Recipes from The Kitchn

What’s one of the easiest ways to feel like you have your life together? If you ask us, it’s prepping lunch the night before. In the grand scheme of things it’s a small accomplishment, but when all you want to do after dinner is settle in for a marathon TV session, taking the extra time to make lunch feels like a Herculean effort.

To give you a bit of a boost, we have 26 make-ahead lunches that you can pack the night before and even make in a big batch so you’ll have lunch for a few days, if not the full week.

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Recipe: Freezer-to-Pressure-Cooker Chicken Curry — Freezer to Table

The pressure cooker makes long-cooked dishes like curries possible on a weeknight. If you also want to keep the slicing and dicing to a minimum, partner with your freezer so chicken curry can be on your table in just about 30 minutes whenever that craving hits.

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Fresh Recipes to Help You Jump into the Flavors of Fall — Fresh Fall Favorites

The transition to fall flavors is usually ushered in on a nutmeg-y cloud of pumpkin spice. But if you don’t worship at the altar of fall’s most notorious drink, yet still want to feel like your cooking has shifted seasons, let this collection of fall-forward recipes be your guide.

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3 Helpful Tools Your Kitchen May Be Missing — The Kitchen Tool Jar

I believe there are two types of kitchen tools: the obvious essentials, like tongs, wooden spoons, and spatulas, and the less-obvious suspects. These are the silent helpers you might not think of, but they have the power to make a big difference when it comes to cooking.

Here are three helpful tools your kitchen just might be missing.

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The After-Bedtime Dinner Party: A One-Hour Menu and Game Plan — Crappy Dinner Parties

Entertaining at home has gotten a lot more complicated in my house lately. And while I love my sweet baby girl to pieces and would gladly snuggle her all evening long, there are times when I need a meal with friends — without toddlers or babies to wrangle — for my emotional well-being.

So I recently attempted a night when I did both and invited friends over for an after-bedtime dinner party. The result? I realized that entertaining doesn’t have to be a big deal to be fun and delicious. And prepping for a dinner party can actually be fast — as in, it takes just an hour!

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