If you’ve been following along, you know I love a good puzzle or board game. But here’s the reality: puzzles are expensive, they take up a ton of shelf space, and once you’ve put that final piece in, you’re usually ready for the next challenge.

I realized I had quite a collection of puzzles that were just wasting space in the house, and I wanted to free up some room for new ones while finding a way to share them with the community. Beyond Buy Nothing groups or swapping with friends, there aren’t many steady exchange options in our area. I decided to launch a branch of the Puzzle Republic right in our front yard.

Vegan steaks! How does that work?

Just cut some thick slices of red cabbage, roast and season them, and you have yourself a delicious vegetable main dish.

Appetizing photos of cauliflower steaks have been popping up all over my Pinterest feed lately. So, why not try out the same method on another favorite vegetable like red cabbage?

For these red cabbage “steaks”, I topped them off with an Asian-inspired chili miso sauce that is a balanced mix between spicy, sour, sweet, salty, and umami. I’ll definitely be making this combination again for dressings and more.

As usual, the best part about this meal was that it took less than 20 minutes from inception to consumption.

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I was driving home from work this week and craving a sweet frozen treat. I knew I wanted something light and quick when the idea to make a five-minute nice cream hit me.

With a half opened carton of almond milk in the fridge and a bag of mango chunks in the freezer, I had all of the ingredients I needed.

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I made my own blood orange syrup and you can too! All you need to make your own flavored syrup are two ingredients: sugar and flavoring, and you can make any custom syrup you want.

Creating your own syrup is simple and fun. The base of simple syrup is just sugar and water boiled together on a stovetop until the mixture reaches the desired syrup consistency.

Though it may seem more difficult, the process of making flavored syrup is just as easy as making simple syrup: boil together the flavoring, sugar, and water together, and voila! Flavored syrup!

This is where it gets fun.

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