For 30-Minute Meals, Make Sure These Things Are in Your Pantry — The 30-Minute Meal

Do you strive to get weeknight dinners on the table in 30 minutes or less? I know I do, and I have a hunch I’m not alone. Choosing the best recipes for the job is one step in the right direction, but there’s an even more important tool to achieve this dinner victory: The real key to mastering 30-minute meals is your pantry.

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Want to Extend the Shelf Life of Fruits and Vegetables? This New Product Can Help. — Food News

How many times have you purchased produce from the grocery store or farmers market, only to have it go bad a couple days later? It’s a huge waste of money and time, not to mention the environmental impact. It’s no wonder our readers love tricks and tips for extending the shelf life of fruits and vegetables! We’ve shared our advice in the past, but a new product wants to make it even easier for you.

It’s Fresh!, a food tech company, is working on preserving produce with the help of filter papers. These special papers hit the pause button on the ripening process of fruits and veggies and, in turn, extend their shelf life.

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This Is How Much You Should Spend on Food and Groceries — Our Food Budgets, Ourselves

It’s interesting to me how financial experts, mothers-in-law, and total strangers on a Facebook page all have distinct opinions on how much you should spend on groceries. The thing is, while food costs certainly shouldn’t be complex, they can vary from person to person and household to household — even region to region.

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An Unbelievably Quick Cheesy Pasta Bake — Quick Tortellini Dinners

Keep a bag of frozen tortellini tucked away in your freezer and you can rest easy knowing that a quick meal is always at the ready. This series on fast tortellini dinners will show you how to transform frozen tortellini into dinner using pantry staples and a few surprising techniques. Pasta sauce is just the beginning!

When you want something for dinner that doesn’t require an extra trip to the grocery store, you can lean on that bag of frozen tortellini you always keep stashed in the freezer. Along with your favorited jarred pasta sauce and a bit of shredded cheese, frozen tortellini is the key to a quick meal. Here’s what you need to know to make this three-ingredient dinner tonight!

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7 Strategies to Get Your Landlord to Buy You New Appliances — The Smart Appliance Shopper

Lofted ceilings, bay windows, and a bathroom that you can actually fit inside — you finally found the perfect apartment! The only problem? The appliances look like they’re straight out of Don Draper’s house. And if you have big plans to actually, you know, use them, that can be kind of a deal-breaker.

The good news is that just because those appliances are currently there, it doesn’t mean they have to stay there! Whether you’re just about to move in or you’ve been in the apartment for years, you have some sway to get your landlord to splurge on something a bit more current.

Here are seven ways to get newer stuff — without footing the entire bill yourself.

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Recipe: One-Skillet Cheesy Beef and Macaroni — Recipes from The Kitchn

(Image credit: Todd Coleman)

This isn’t a very sophisticated recipe, but it’s also the recipe my husband eats as if he will be fasting for the following week. His eyes get kind of teary whenever I make this; he’ll show up for dinner early when he knows it’s on the menu.

It’s nothing new under the sun, but once you try this delightful stovetop dish, you will understand the deepest meaning of the word crowd-pleaser. And it all cooks in one skillet. Even the pasta, which cooks right in the sauce! I know, I know — it’s the little things.

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7 Ways to Add Gold to Any Birthday Party — Birthday of the Month

Maybe we’ve been watching too many red-carpet specials (to be fair, it is awards show season), but we can’t get enough sparkly, shiny gold stuff. Gold salad servers? Sure! A gold crock to hold those salad servers? Duh! Gold lettuce? Why isn’t there gold lettuce?

Gold is always fun — and it’s especially fun for birthday festivities. You could show a little restraint with a touch of gold here and touch of gold there. Or you could add all the gold. You can’t really lose either way.

Luckily, there’s no shortage of glitzy party supplies and decorations available. Is your birthday coming up? Go for the gold with these ideas.

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18 Sheet Pan Suppers Ready in 30 Minutes — Recipes From The Kitchn

When it comes to getting dinner on the table with minimal effort and just 30 minutes on the clock, I firmly believe that the sheet pan is your number-one ally to make it happen. This workhorse is one of the keys to miracle meals — that dinner you manage to pull off against all odds — with the added bonus of easy cleanup. Because they’re so reliable, it’s worth adding a sheet pan dinner to your meal plan at least once a week. If you’re looking for some good ideas, we’ve got 18 for you. From colorful chicken fajitas and crispy chicken thighs to steak and pizza, there’s a recipe here to save you some time.

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A Bite-Sized Guide to New Orleans — Bite-Sized Guide: New Orleans

Even if you’ve never been to New Orleans, you probably have a picture of it in your mind: brass bands marching through narrow streets, brightly colored Creole cottages, Mardi Gras beads raining down from the sky, and of course the food: roast beef po’ boys, gleaming platters of oysters, bowls of steaming gumbo, and fat muffuletta sandwiches.

That was the picture in my mind anyway when I moved to New Orleans in 2014, having never visited before. I found that New Orleans, to be sure — it’s the one most visitors come here to see — but as a local I also came to know a less raucous (but no less delicious) side of the city, full of neighborly warmth and relaxed charm.

In our Bite-Sized Guide to New Orleans, we’ll offer a glimpse of the city everyone knows and loves — but it’s in this other, less travelled New Orleans that we will be spending most of our time, strolling slowly under the oak trees, sipping strong iced coffee, and chatting with some New Orleanians about what they love about this place. It’s going to be fun, y’all.

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