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Quick Recipe: Avocado Breakfast Toast

Most mornings I’m satisfied having a bagel, cereal, or oatmeal for breakfast. But some mornings I just wake up wanting more. When that happens I usually turn to eggs. They’re yummy, full of protein, and fast to make. But eating just scrambled or over easy eggs with buttered toast can get boring. That means it’s time to mix things up! On the particular morning that I came up with this I happened to have half of an avocado lying around that I wanted to use before it went bad, so I proceeded from there.

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Cheat Codes: Helping Bread Last Longer

When you live with a bunch of other people, food tends to disappear rather quickly, and you don’t usually have to worry about it going bad before it gets eaten. But when you’re living on your own or with one other person, the food doesn’t fly out of the cupboard as fast anymore. Things that used to be gone in days can now take weeks to finish. And that can be a problem for perishable food items.  You don’t want to end up throwing away food you spent good money on. Luckily there are ways to help a lot of foods last longer. Today we’ll focus on bread.

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Test the Recipe: Glazed Pineapple Cookies

“Test the Recipe” is a recurring column on PCFG where we test vintage (anything published before 1990) recipes and see if they stand the test of time or need updating. In this post we test the recipe as exactly as possible for the most accurate outcomes. Those recipes that need updating will be featured later in a “We Can Do It Better” post.

I knew when I started the “Test the Recipe” column that I had to do at least one cookie recipe around Christmas-time. I didn’t want to take on any family favorite Christmas cookie recipes though, mainly because I already know that they’re good. To find a new old cookie recipe I turned to a book from Erik’s mom, McCall’s Cookie Collection from 1974.

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There are a lot of interesting cookie recipes in here, but I wanted one that was definitely different from the cookies I knew me, Erik, and our moms would be making. I ultimately decided on this one because it was different from the usual Christmas cookies but also still had a bit of a Christmas call-back since it sounded like it could be a bit fruitcake-esque (without being a food no one wants to eat). So I set to work testing this glazed pineapple cookie recipe.

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Quick Recipe: Sesame Chicken

Sesame chicken is a Chinese food restaurant staple. And even though each place usually makes it slightly differently, it’s almost always good and a safe bet to order if you’re unsure what to get. Well there’s good news! You can easily make sesame chicken yourself at home. It’s important to note though, that Chinese food restaurants’ sesame chicken usually has chicken that has been coated and fried. Ours does not. Honestly though, that kind of makes it even better since it makes it a bit lighter than the fried version. This sesame chicken is so good you’re going to want to eat it every day. You could also just make the sauce and use it on another meat like pork or on a ton of veggies (substituting vegetable broth if you want a vegetarian dish) if you wish.  This is one of our favorite quick stir-fry recipes to make for dinner.

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Thanksgiving Leftover Recipe: Cranberry Pancakes

It’s the day after Thanksgiving. You open your fridge and remember that it’s stuffed to the gills with leftovers. What do you do with it all? There are only so many sandwiches, burritos, and pizzas you can make. Never fear, we’re here to find even more ways for you to use up your Thanksgiving leftovers! This recipe features cranberry sauce. And by cranberry sauce I mean cranberry sauce that has whole cranberries in it. Not the pure jellied stuff. I’m not dissing the canned, jelly cranberry sauce, I have a soft spot for it in my heart, but it won’t work for this recipe.   You could also just toss in some smashed up cranberries if you want, but you’ll need to add extra sugar.

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