As much as I adore meal planning, I’m a very reluctant meal prepper. Preparing our dinners for the week over the weekend feels a little too much like locking our meal plan in place forever without flexibility. But we have a big family change on the horizon — my husband is going back to school full-time next month — and we need to figure out a better system for prepping breakfasts and lunches.

This week’s five dinners all require very little prep work — although they are still easy family favorites. Win-win!

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The recipe that I am about to describe might not sound (or look) very delicious, but if Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman (aka general business genius) says that it is, who are we to question it? It is called 7-can soup and, other than seven cans of literally anything you want — plus a hunk of Velveeta — there’s not much more to it.

CAN we cook it? Yes we CAN.

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Nothing quite encapsulates everything we love about comfort food more than smooth, creamy, buttery garlic mashed potatoes. Oh, and to make it easy on you, we made this in the slow cooker, which means you can make these rich, satisfying potatoes a regular occurrence at your dinner table. Here’s how to do it.

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Don’t sleep on canned fruit. Yes, the thought of canned fruit likely brings to mind something mushy or overcooked, or swimming in sugary syrup. But not all canned fruit is bad canned fruit — I promise! In fact, I always have the following three canned fruits on hand for baking, cooking, and making cocktails.

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I’ve often thought that Ina Garten could read the phone book and I would think it was fascinating, and this week she proved this with a fun new Instagram video in which she literally just shows people how to put food in bowls. That’s it! No cutting, no stirring. She just puts some store-bought snacks in bowls, and suddenly it looks like a nice cocktail party.

“Once in a while, I make something simple to serve with drinks, like figs wrapped in prosciutto,” she writes in her latest Instagram video. “But mostly, I like to find delicious little appetizers that need no cooking at all.”

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You know that saying “everything but the kitchen sink?” While we totally get what it means (Target sells everything but the kitchen sink!), we can’t help but laugh at a possible other meaning: “I updated everything but the kitchen sink.” Because kitchen sinks are expensive! You can easily spend four figures — or close to it! — on a sink! Luckily you don’t have to.

We’ve rounded up 10 of the coolest sinks out there that’ll only cost you $500 or less.

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It’s still another week until fall officially begins, but most of us are already sweating through a blanket scarf, staring at the trees trying to wish their leaves orange, and wondering how to add an Instagram story when both hands are wrapped around a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

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Getting dinner on the table during the week can be a feat even in the best of times. Making that happen when you’re juggling a busy schedule can feel almost impossible. To avoid ordering takeout, eating a bowl of cereal, or grazing through the pantry, I lean on a roster of reliably quick and easy recipes.

From a one-pot taco soup to brown butter Parmesan pasta, these 22 recipes are just what you need in your back pocket when you want a satisfying dinner but are short on time and energy.

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How do you create a food budget that works? I mean, you could just buy what you want and let the chips fall where they may. You could buy only what you need, but sometimes, uh, you really need a gallon of high-end ice cream.

As boring as it sounds, having a food budget — a distinct allowance for grocery shopping — really is important. In fact, it’s key to living within your means and achieving your financial goals. Without a food budget, it’s very easy to let spending get out of control without a lot to show for it.

Here is my food budget 101 — start from scratch to achieve a budget that really works for you.

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When I was a child I thought Disney was the happiest place on Earth, but now that I’m an adult, I’m pretty sure it’s Costco. Disney has Space Mountain, but Costco has avocados that stay ripe twice as long, and really good Prosecco for just $6.99 a bottle. There’s no contest.

The only problem is that for a place that really wants to sell us everything from hot dogs to diamonds, Costco’s arcane policy of only accepting certain credit cards has not always made it easy to actually pay for them. But now checking out has gotten a lot easier, because Costco has started accepting mobile payments at all of its U.S. stores.

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