I’m known in my friend group as the trendy one: I’ve mixed Mason jar cocktails while wearing dropped-crotch pants (and looked great in them, thank you), and I’ve made homemade apple cider donuts while sporting a Ray Charles-esque undercut hairstyle. But, as cool as I think I am, sometimes I completely miss a trend until it’s on its way out. That’s why, when I heard 2018 was the year of the chicken coop, I was taken aback — especially when I heard about the problem it’s causing for animal shelters across the country.

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The best parts about spending the holidays with your family are the long evenings sipping cocoa, catching up on each other’s lives, and also getting to mess with the people you know best. Sure, the occasional prank on a friend is good for a few laughs, but playing a prank on your family means you know exactly how to really get to them — and you’re pretty much assured forgiveness. (Unless you cross the line. Don’t cross the line.)

This Christmas, Twitter user Judy Brown told the story of what might just be the best holiday prank of the year — or, rather, years, since it was not a single instance, but quite the long con.

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We know what food trends to look out for in the fast-approaching new year, which will likely determine what you’ll be eating. But in 2019, where will you want to eat? Celebrity chef David Chang, host of the hit Netflix show Ugly Delicious, recently revealed his top three picks for the best food cities of 2019 — and one of them might surprise you.

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Of all the joys associated with the Great British Bake Off — the lovable cast of bakers, the chemistry between new hosts Noel and Sandi — it’s the actual bakes that trump the rest.

Watching the bakers’ creations unfold is somehow both therapeutic and suspenseful. There’s only one downside: As beautiful as their baked goods might look, and while I completely trust Paul and Prue to be honest about the taste, I always end up wishing more than anything that I could try one of those beautiful cakes, and I mourn the loss of all the leftovers that must get wasted once the judging is over. Thanks to former contestant (and runner-up) Kim-Joy, we now know that all the baked goods that aren’t sampled by the judges do find a loving home.

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In cooking there are few dishes that lend themselves to what cooks wistfully wish after, which is cooking without a recipe. The romantic cook in us all wishes to cook like a grandma or a trained chef — by sense and feel and grasping after a taste you know you can achieve through instinct alone.

But cooking like that doesn’t come out of thin air. You learn it like jazz, memorizing a pile of old standards to then riff and play and tinker in your own voice until making something old feels so new that it is yours.

Soup and stew are like this; learn a few formulas and you can soup on forever without cracking a book. But there are so many other dishes as well, and pasta casserole is perhaps my favorite of all.

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Here’s the plan: On those nights you really don’t want to cook (you know the ones where all you want to do in sink into the couch with Netflix, after that horrendous commute home), put down the takeout menu and reach for your Instant Pot. I can tell you from experience that this appliance is the secret to low-effort, big-reward dinners you can pull off anytime. These 10 easy Instant Pot recipes were made for moments like these.

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We’re big believers in the fact that you can never have too many 30-minute meals in your kitchen arsenal. At the end of a long day at work or school, we often want delicious food fast — and that’s where these recipes come in. The thing they all have in common is that none of them take long to make, but they all still deliver on flavor. Basically, they’re the perfect thing to reach for when you don’t want to spend forever in the kitchen — but you still want to eat well. These 10 recipes are our most popular 30-minute meals from the year.

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Were you the lucky recipient of a shiny new stand mixer over the holidays? Or maybe you bit the bullet and invested in one so you can finally make bread, cookies, and meringues with ease? No matter how you finally got one, a stand mixer is a great kitchen investment that, with proper care, will last for years (if not decades).

Stand mixers are heavy-duty machines and, like all machines, tend to need a little tweaking and adjusting in order to run properly. Here are some things you should know about your stand mixer to ensure you run and maintain it like a pro!

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If I’m drinking hot chocolate, I’m going all in — a packet of hot cocoa mix stirred into hot water certainly won’t cut it. No, I want something rich and over-the-top, with an intense chocolate flavor from both cocoa powder and chopped chocolate. My mug should be overflowing with mini marshmallows and drizzles of chocolate syrup. And that’s exactly what this brownie batter hot chocolate delivers.

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