Elizabeth Licata

And probably costing you so much money.

Have random beans, vegetables, or meat that you don't know what to do with? This sauce can help.

It turns out that Trader Joe's biggest secret is completely adorable.

Ina's pantry is an accessible version of organized.

The Costco food court is a magical place with giant hot dogs and churros as long as your arm. It’s even a great place to take a first date. But it can be a little chaotic when it’s crowded, and nobody seems to be able to figure out the best way to form a line. Over at the Costco forum on Reddit (yes, that exists), several employees and members have been bemoaning the state of their food court lines and trying to figure out how to get people to queue up properly.

Spend enough time looking at kitchen designs, and things start to look familiar. You start to see the same trends and products—KitchenAid stand mixers, pot rails from IKEA, and bright-pink rugs, for example—over and again. Sometimes things become popular because of a dedicated marketing team with a lot of ad dollars, but sometimes it happens on its own because a product is just that useful.

The Instant Pot is one of the biggest food trends of the past few years, and it is only getting bigger. People are obsessed with it because it does the work of seven other appliances and takes up less space in the kitchen. It can pressure cook, slow cook, cook rice, steam food, make yogurt, warm food, and sauté food. And now it looks like the Instant Pot is actually an eight-in-one machine, because you can even use it to make wine. Yes, wine! It sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.

I’ve been cooking for most of my adult life, and I’ve never actually been completely sure just what that drawer under the oven is for. It seems like a good enough place to store baking pans, but that also feels like wasted space, or that it should actually be for something besides storage. I’ve never really used that drawer for anything.

It finally happened—I am obsessed with my Instant Pot. In the past four days I’ve made six dishes in it, and I can’t stop. I’m about to pressure cook everything in the house that isn’t nailed down. I admit that I was a late adopter to the Instant Pot. I got one a few months ago and made rice and lentil soup. Honestly, it just wasn’t super exciting (dear reader, is lentil soup ever that exciting?).

Jell-O is already one of the most fun foods. It’s just so jiggly! No matter how old you are, that wiggle is amusing. That’s why we have things like Jell-O shapes, Jell-O shots, and Jell-O wrestling. Now Jell-O has just come out with the coolest new idea: Jell-O molds that let kids make edible blocks they can stack into cars, buildings, and animals, and still eat afterwards. Technically it’s designed for kids, but I am definitely going to need to play with these.

Costco is like a magical fantasyland full of oversized surprises. A lot of the time, you don’t know what you will find there. Sure, there are some classics. Kirkland-brand olive oil and apple pies are beloved standards that you can count on seeing virtually every time you walk through those warehouse doors. Not everything at Costco sticks around, however, and a great deal found one day might be gone the next.

Every grocery store has its own strengths and weaknesses: Whole Foods is fancy, Aldi is super inexpensive, and Costco will sell you four-and-a-half pounds of its Kirkland-branded version of Nutella for $7.99. But according to a report on customer satisfaction in the U.S., the highest-ranked grocery store in the country is Publix. Publix is a Southern supermarket chain.

Trader Joe’s is a magical, cutesy wonderland full of great products that are really good at making people say, “I’ve never had that before, but now that I see it, I absolutely must try it.” Last time I was there, I went in for Brussels sprouts and left with camel milk soap, lavender dryer sachets, and four different kinds of dried fruit.

On the face of it, shopping at Costco seems like it should be a very straightforward experience. With any luck, you avoid impulse-buying a handful of diamonds on the way in (yes, Costco sells diamonds), and then you check out and stop for a $4.99 rotisserie chicken and a $1.50 hot dog at the food court on the way out. But some of Costco’s deals are better than others, and nobody knows that as well as Costco’s own employees.

It’s hard to believe Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding is just two months away. The amount of work that goes into preparing for a royal wedding is staggering, and people around the world are working frantically right now to make sure their parts of the big day go off without a hitch. Just one of the many jobs that someone needed to do was to design and produce the official royal commemorative china.

Costco is like a magical fantasyland full of oversized surprises. A lot of the time, you don’t know what you will find there. Sure, there are some classics. Kirkland-brand olive oil and apple pies are beloved standards that you can count on seeing virtually every time you walk through those warehouse doors. Not everything at Costco sticks around, however, and a great deal found one day might be gone the next.

Warning! This post contains massive spoilers for the most recent episode of This Is Us, so proceed at your own risk. This Is Us has been breaking hearts and making fans cry since it premiered two years ago on NBC, and this week fans finally got the answer to one of the show’s biggest mysteries: How did Jack die?

I am an absolute sucker for a fancy-looking oven. I know, I know, ovens are tools and what really matters is how well they perform, not what they look like. But I can’t help myself; I just adore a beautiful range. Give me brass knobs, bars on the doors, and a range of colors that include options like “Provence blue.” Basically, give me Ina Garten’s kitchen, complete with her brand-new French range from Lacanche.

For anyone who sews, a good table for cutting fabric is the Holy Grail of craft supplies. But it often seems basically impossible to find something tall enough to stand at and cut fabric that is not wildly expensive and fits in an apartment or sewing room. Ikea’s Norden dining table is almost a perfect sewing table right out of the box. The table is 31.

A well-timed compliment can make a person’s morning and set them up with a positive outlook for the whole day. Now Ikea has taken the randomness out of the equation and created a mirror that delivers personalized compliments just when you need them most. According to The Gloss, Ikea launched a new “Motivational Mirror” in a London store in response to a survey that said half of all the people in Britain received no compliments in a normal week.

There’s always room for LEGO, and over at Ikea Hackers, user Sooze made her BRAN lamp a lot more fun, just by popping the top off the lamp and filling it with flame-colored orange and yellow LEGO pieces. There’s always room for LEGO, and over at Ikea Hackers, user Sooze made her BRAN lamp a lot more fun, just by popping the top off the lamp and filling it with flame-colored orange and yellow LEGO pieces.

I’ve been having a bear of a time finding a set of side tables that fit next to my couch and don’t look terrible. I also love a good DIY project — especially one that can be finished over a weekend — so I was pretty excited to see this cool set of DIY side tables made from IKEA cutting boards and plumbing pipes.

I live in Germany, and while I happened to be working during the World Cup match last night between Germany and Brazil, I was able to keep up with what was going on, thanks to the honking and cheering from the street outside. While that particular street noise was fun and helpful, other outside noises can be terribly annoying, but there are some things you can do about it. Nothing absorbs noise like a fat wall of books.

If there’s anything worse than having a noisy neighbor, it’s realizing that you are the noisy neighbor. Nobody goes around intending to be overheard by strangers, but then one day a neighbor knocks on your door and complains about the sound of your footsteps on his ceiling or says he can hear you singing to your cat, and then there’s nothing to do but tiptoe around in socks and worry that all your neighbors hate you.

As a rule, I am fully in favor of designing one’s living space around the pets, especially if they’re cats. That’s why I loved this ridiculously easy IKEA hack that turns a neat corner table into a comfortable, two-tiered cat bed. The IKEA Trendig tray table has two convenient, cat-sized baskets. Just by adding some comfortable cushions, Pinterest user Hanna transformed the baskets into perfect little cat beds.

Some IKEA hacks go so far above and beyond the standard “coat of paint and new handles” that they somehow become whole new pieces of furniture. This one, for example, started out as the ubiquitous Rast dresser and a salad bowl, and was transformed into an elegant, modern bathroom vanity with plumbing and everything. I for one am impressed.

Changing one’s workspace from a regular desk to a standing desk can be a big challenge, but I made the switch over a year ago and haven’t looked back. Attractive and affordable standing desks can be hard to find, but this DIY version from IKEA fits the bill nicely.

I’m a bit of a fabric junkie. Which, unfortunately means that I know how expensive it can be. But just because one’s budget isn’t big doesn’t mean it’s necessary to settle for vinyl or burlap, unless that’s what you’re going for. With a little digging, it is possible to find great, affordable fabric for any project.

Nobody is ever too old for LEGO. Everyone’s favorite building toy is still fun to play with as an adult, and it can even add a pop of color and nostalgia to your home decor. Over at IKEA Hackers, user Aurelien Metral was looking for a way to bring some bright colors into an all-white room, and this modern chrome table from IKEA made a perfect hack, though any glass-topped table would work.

The first time I saw a top-entry litter box, I wondered where it had been all my life. That top-oriented entrance hole looked like it would cut down dramatically on my cat tracking litter out of the box on her paws and eliminate accidental out-of-the-box spraying. Unfortunately, that kind of litter box can be expensive. But now someone has figured out a way to make one with a simple IKEA hack.

A well-stocked bar is a lovely thing to have in the house, but is it a beautiful thing to have out on display where everyone can see it? Opinion appears to be divided. Many of my friends keep attractive vintage bar carts with a few cocktail glasses and the requisite bottle of Hendricks gin on display. The lucky ones have full bars, with plenty of liquor lined up to choose from.

I’ve never been exactly clear on when one is supposed to take down a Christmas tree. There’s a fine line between keeping the festivity going as long as possible, and trying to sell the Christmas tree as a Valentine’s Day decoration. Some of my friends take their trees down on December 26 exactly, but that’s way too early for me. Christmas isn’t over until one has finished buying all the other presents one wanted and did not receive.

Some IKEA hacks go so far beyond a simple IKEA transformation that they should be considered custom furniture with IKEA elements. In some of those cases (like this one!) the results are exceptional. IKEA Hackers user colsey blew my fragile little mind with this custom writing desk inspired by the Cavour desk by Carlo Mollino. It took some work, but considering that the original desk would cost $14,000, the work was well worth it.

There are a lot of projects in my house that could use my attention. There’s the China hutch in the hallway that needs to be turned into a small armoire. There are three chairs that need to be reupholstered. Or I could finally figure out a decent storage solution for my sewing supplies. But for my Cure project this year, I’m going to focus on the design of the room that gets the most use and that is seen by the most people: The living room.

Last year I did the January Cure for the first time, and it was a little bit intimidating. I’m not the most naturally organized person, and my apartment, while largely empty, was not exactly showroom ready. But it was easier than I thought, and by the time February rolled around it had made such a difference I was all ready to sign up again next year. This year I’m approaching the January Cure from a pretty different place. In 2013 I had just moved to Germany.

After a solid year of having to wear pants at all times in my house, for Christmas I am finally getting myself the gift of curtains. Even if you do want to wear pants all the time and don’t worry about the neighbors judging your TV-watching choices, curtains are an excellent way to pull a room together and make everything look elegant and finished. Unfortunately, they can be very expensive. Enter this budget solution.