5 Things to Leave Until Monday So You Can Enjoy the Weekend — Master Your Monday

If you’re like us, your work week is insanely busy; your to-do lists are overloaded and your inboxes are out of control. And then, the weekend arrives with the promise of redemption: This will be the weekend you do all the things that have been preventing your ascension to greatness. You will answer your emails. You will deep-clean the bathroom. You will make lasagna and freeze it for later, in practical, single-serving squares.

Or, you know, you could not. You could do none of those things, and your life will still be fine. Better, even. I know, it’s hard to accept for me, too. But hear me out.

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5 Classic Ina Garten Recipes You Can Make in the Slow Cooker — Kitchen Heroes

When it comes to entertaining, the Barefoot Contessa is a bonafide queen. Between wowing a crowd and making lovey-dovey meals for her man, Jeffrey, Ina Garten runs the world of classic cooking. When you want to take a page from her book but have less than half the time, you need to get creative. That’s why we asked our trusted food editor Christine to adapt a few of Ina’s classic recipes to the slow cooker. Three cheers for saving time, energy, and sanity!

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Next Week’s Meal Plan: 5 Weeknight-Friendly Comfort Food Classics — Next Week’s Meal Plan

My husband is finally home after a few weeks of traveling for work, and I am taking full advantage of him being home to help with dinner and kid wrangling. We’re celebrating him being home, his belated birthday, and a new home with a week of our family’s favorite dinner.

There’s nothing fancy in the meal plan this week — just five classic family favorites, from lasagna to enchiladas, that are all quick and easy to put together. Some use shopping shortcuts, while others make the best use of a single pan. Here are the five comfort food classics we are eating this week.

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Kristen Bell Made a Sloth Spatula and the World Rejoiced — Shopping News

(Image credit: Williams-Sonoma)

There aren’t many that are unaware of the truly passionate love that actress Kristen Bell has for a certain long-armed animal. A large portion of America eagerly watched (thank you, viral videos) as her husband Dax Shepard filmed her in bed being overjoyed at the idea of a sloth surprise and then again when she appeared on Ellen with her favorite furry creature.

And now you can share her same love for the beloved sloth with this spatula from Williams-Sonoma.

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The 7 Cooking Tools Real College Students Say They Couldn’t Live Without — Shopping

As anyone who has been a college student (or has shopped for a college student) knows, collegiate life requires a lot of stuff. Decking out a dorm room can be a blast (hello, new school supplies and decor!) but also a bit of a puzzle. What should you leave at home? What’s going to help you live most effectively in a snug room with a stranger for the next year? How will you fuel up when you’re too busy — or tired — to get to the dining hall?

To answer the last question, we asked real college students to weigh in. Here’s what they said help them the most while living that dorm life.

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How I Get Dinner on the Table When Culture Is Key — Dinner With Kids

I grew up with the ethos that rice is life. Rice holds such an exalted place in the Chinese culture as a staple food and life force that the word itself represents an entire meal and conveys hospitality; it’s our custom to greet another person by asking whether he or she has eaten rice yet.

My husband, an all-American guy who grew up in a Seattle suburb on pot roast and boxed mac-and-cheese, did not.

Thankfully, our 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son have grown to like tofu and rice as much as they like pepperoni pizza and burgers, and they understand that mealtimes are important to me.

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An Honest Review of 3 Meal Kits: Boneless, Skinless Chicken Edition — Shopping

Looking to ease the dinnertime dilemma with a meal kit sent right to your door? You’re in luck, because you’ve now got more than a dozen companies to choose from — and counting. Deciding which one to choose is the hard part. They’ve all got the packaging and delivery down pat, but it’s what’s inside the box that counts. The big question is: Do the contents satisfy your cravings or leave you wishing you had ordered takeout? That’s why each month we’ll put a few meal kit services through their paces in order to see which ones deliver more than just efficiency.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are the tofu of the meat world: high in protein, low in fat, and bland enough to be versatile. But just like tofu, they can be a delight or a drag, depending on how you treat them. They need flavor, lots of it, and preferably without relying on a ton of high-cholesterol ingredients that negate the point of eating them in the first place.

So this month we’re reviewing three meal kits to see which one can make a plain hunk of white meat actually taste delicious.

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chocolate tahini challah buns

Challah, that stretchy, rich, lightly sweet, braided glossy bread that’s brushed with egg and baked to an burnished burnt umber shine, like many great traditional foods, does not exist in a vacuum. While challah is a Jewish ceremonial bread, eating on Sabbath and major Jewish holidays, and is usually paerve (dairy product-free, so it’s Kosher regardless of what is being served), pulled away from the Judaic lens, it’s a close cousin to brioche and other enriched breads.

whisk wet ingredientsknead in flourready to risedoubled

And it is from this jump — challah is brioche-like; breakfast buns are brioche-like… — that I began making challah-ish breakfast buns last year. We adore them. They’re less rich and more fluffy than the usual gooey, rich and very sweet cinnamon rolls (which, of course, there is always a time and place for), they go well with afternoon coffee or tea, should you find yourself in the kind of civilized life where this is your norm (and please teach me your ways) but hardly abstemious. My two favorite fillings I auditioned were a sweetened cream cheese with jam (basically tastes like cheesecake) and a chocolate-tahini swirl. For a Food Network episode, we featured the cream cheese buns; they liked the story about my dad growing up in the Bronx and having cream cheese and jelly sandwiches from a local deli (as do I, less so that ridiculous face I’m making in the video still).

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Air France’s New Low-Cost Carrier Is Made for Millennials — Travel Bites

Have you ever considered booking a flight but then stopped, your cursor hovering over the “Confirm Reservation” button, as you realized that the airline probably caters to, like, people who are older than 24? Maybe you’ve thought, “I’d love to go to one of four European destinations, but I’m terrified that I won’t be able to buy organic food mid-flight!” Well, start piecing together an elaborate playlist, order a unicorn frosé, or do whatever millennials do before they leave town, because your airline is finally here.

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