I keep seeing this on Pinterest and Facebook again and again and I can no longer stay silent. The idea is that you cut a watermelon into the shape of a cake and then ice it with whipped cream or whipped coconut milk. Then you present it as a real cake. Here is an example.

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I love a rich, warm, beefy stew that’s been cooked all day. Wouldn’t it be great to spend the day recreating Julia Child’s famous Boeuf Bourgignon recipe? Sadly, I have neither the time nor the interest in taking that on at the moment. So here, I’ve done some experimentation to make a beef burgundy stew in the crockpot.

Somehow it feels unfair to be able to make such a fantastic dinner with so little effort.

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Once again I found myself with a bunch of rotten bananas and a serious hankering for something sweet. But I just couldn’t face another banana bread yet, and plus I felt I needed an excuse to have something in the house that would make it reasonable to put a whole bunch of ice cream on.

And lo, this wonderful cake was born.

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I am going to come out and say this right up front: blueberries are probably my least favorite of all the berries. And yet, when they are properly baked into a scone, they are just terrific. How to explain it? Who really cares? All I know is that I made a double batch of these scones recently and they were gone a lot faster than I care to admit.

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Two abhorrent “tacos” (and I use the term lightly and with a slight vomit taste in my mouth) have recently come to my attention, and I can’t decide which is more gross. First up, we have this “ramen taco”, because really, who doesn’t want to eat the entire packet of ramen noodles rendered even drier than they normally are, with no (secretly delicious) MSG-laden seasoning in sight, filled with standard taco toppings?

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I am one of those people who always buys 5 bananas and then only eats one, and watches the remaining 4 turn browner and smellier by the day. I mean, hey, you have to admit it can be pretty magical to see an entire colony of fruit flies spontaneously take over your counter top! No?

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The other day one of my sisters foisted a big bag of radishes on me. “I love getting the CSA box delivered,” she said. “But what am I supposed to do with all these radishes?” Apparently, they send them every week. So she challenged me to create something delicious using radishes. Challenge: accepted, and in fact, totally rocked. These are terrific.

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Yesterday I wrote about how to make heart-shaped bacon for your valentine. While not exactly an advanced-level craft, it will take you about 20 minutes from start to finish (although most of that time is spent waiting for the bacon to cook in the oven and trying to figure out how NOT to eat the bacon when it comes out of the oven.) But behold: the good people of the internets have come up with some ideas that are so incredibly easy and fast that you can probably hit up a 7-11 and use a post-it note and the marker that’s weirdly in your glove compartment to make one of these for your sweetheart. Pretty much every single one relies on a pun which is A-OK with me because I LOVE PUNS.

Here are the Pinterest links and rough ideas for you! Or just click through to my Valentine’s Day Pinterest board and check them all out.

10 Extremely Easy and Clever Valentine’s Day Gifts for the Truly Lazy and Last-Minute Among Us

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Valentine’s Day is coming, which means it’s time to think about our loved ones. Candy? Flowers? Romantic poetry? Is that the best you can do?! This year, show your love with everyone’s favorite meat by making bacon hearts for your valentine!

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It’s finally raining steadily here in California, which is great news because we are in a terrible drought! The silver lining of the drought is that no one is complaining about the rain; in fact, most people are openly celebrating it. Still, with the deep freeze in the rest of the country and the gray gloom here in San Francisco, I find my mind wandering to the impossibly beautiful turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea and dreaming a little bit of some sun and sand.

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