When I was growing up, my mom always had a bag of frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer. Mostly she used it for icing boo-boos and hiding the box of Popsicles behind it, although occasionally she served a long-freezer-burned (and then microwave-steamed) serving of that bright-colored corn, carrot, and green bean medley.

My own children’s childhood freezer is better stocked with frozen chicken nuggets, fruits for smoothies, and homemade (and store-bought) Popsicles that I don’t hide, but there is one bag of frozen vegetables that I rely on much the same as my own mother did and it is not the mixed vegetables of my own youth. This is the bag of frozen vegetables that is the hero of family dinners — and occasionally saves us from those childhood boo-boos too.

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Back in April, I wrote about what I found at the Bullseye’s Playground, which I still affectionately call the Dollar Spot. (See: Here’s How Target Almost Tricked Me into Spending $44 This Weekend.) The products in this section — brilliantly located right by the entrance, where customers are sure to stop and shop — are all so cute, colorful, fun, and inexpensive. Usually, nothing there costs more than $5 and most items are priced at $3 or $1. A dollar here, a dollar there — what could go wrong?

If I had bought everything I picked up, I would have spent at least $25. Luckily, I was able to show some restraint and only left with some new gingham cloth napkins.

Here’s what I was eyeing when I stopped in earlier this week.

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This week’s meal planning dilemma — there’s always at least one — is that our dishwasher is out of commission for what might be the foreseeable future. Fortunately for me, we have a “I cook, you clean” agreement, and my husband is the primary dishwasher. Still, I’m planning a week of easy one-pot dinners for us.

Here’s where one-pot dinners shine: they save everyone time, not just whoever washes the dishes! They typically mean fewer ingredients, more streamlined steps, and, yes, less time cleaning up. So whether you’re soaking up the last days of summer or are already in full-swing back-to-school mode, these one-pot meals will help you put easy dinners on the table this week.

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While we love the chance to cook in a new-to-us kitchen, the last thing we want to do on vacation is prepare a meal that creates a lot of extra work and dishes. That’s why we gravitate toward one-pot meals. Not only do they cut down on cleanup time, but they are also easier to execute — which is especially helpful when your rental kitchen isn’t the most well-equipped.

Here are 12 one-pot meals that will let you focus more on vacation than on cooking and cleanup.

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We are living in a frozen-pizza-lover’s paradise. Walk into any supermarket and you’ll be dazzled by the bevy of options with various styles of crust (thick, thin, and even cheese-stuffed!) and a bounty of meat and veggie toppings. Just picking one to toss in your cart can make your head spin.

If you’re anything like me, you have a stash of frozen pizzas in your freezer for when you’re either short on time or are too tired to deal with pots and pans. I usually stick to the same brands out of habit (Trader Joe’s and Amy’s are my favorites), but I was curious if I was missing out on a superior frozen pizza experience. So, I tried a dozen kinds to see how they measured up.

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This new Great British Bake-Off trailer is the new “Laurel or Yanny?” video, or the new dress that half the world thinks is white and gold and half says is blue and black. Because, depending on the viewer, the new Bake Off trailer is either emotional and heartwarming, or creepy as heck. Really, it’s a little bit of both, and people are loving it.

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From Memorial Day to Labor Day, basil is constantly on hand in our kitchens. It’s hard to find a summer dish that isn’t improved by a handful of this bright, fragrant herb. If you’re in need of a few new ideas to trim back an enormous pot or use up that second bunch you couldn’t resist buying, take a look through these 12 great recipes for inspiration.

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If you shop on Amazon a lot, you’ve probably seen so many ads for Amazon’s Prime Rewards Visa Signature credit card that you don’t even notice them anymore. Credit card ads are just part of the background noise of the internet, and at a certain point, we just tune them out. But now that Amazon has acquired Whole Foods and the card has started offering cash-back rewards with both retailers, it might be worth taking a second look.

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I’ve explained our big kitchen project, shown you the demolition, and shared our financing, and now it’s time to get down to business. The bones of a kitchen are the cabinets and their layout, and we knew from the beginning that we wanted to use IKEA’s cabinet system.

Here are some things we learned along the way.

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