These Wired, Open-Back Sennheiser Headphones Are Nearly Half Off Right Now

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If you’ve been holding out for a good deal on wired headphones, the Sennheiser HD 660S2 is currently sitting at $349.99 on Woot, down from its original $679.95. That’s a serious cut for a set of headphones that usually don’t dip below the $400 mark elsewhere—for reference, they're $415.90 on Amazon right now. Plus, Prime members get free standard shipping (non-Prime buyers pay $6 for delivery), and it comes with a two-year Sennheiser manufacturer warranty. That said, Woot doesn’t ship this item to Alaska, Hawaii, or P.O. boxes.

Thanks to the open-back build of the HD 660S2, you get a wide, natural soundstage that makes instruments and vocals feel more spacious. And with 300 ohms of impedance, they do their best work when paired with a good amp or DAC, delivering deep bass without being muddy; even at louder volumes, the sound stays clean and detailed. Comfort is handled well too—the velour ear pads are soft, and the headband has precise notches for a snug, repeatable fit. Long sessions are fine for most, though you might notice some fatigue after several hours, depending on how sensitive you are.

You do have a couple of small trade-offs. There’s some audio leakage, as with any open-back design, so they’re not ideal for shared spaces. Also, while they include two cables (one with a quarter-inch connector and one with a 4.4mm balanced plug), both are just under six feet—fine for casual setups, but maybe a bit short for studio rigs or larger rooms, notes this PCMag review. Still, for those who want clear, balanced sound without artificial tuning and don’t mind being tethered to a wire, the HD 660S2 offers a lot of value at this price. For more options, here are our picks for best over-ear headphones.

I’m a Professional Cake Decorator and I Never Bake Without Cake Strips

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Putting together a cake might seem straightforward, but it’s so much harder than it looks. Making the “bones” of the cake sturdy is just as important as making the outside look good, and having layers that are domed or topsy-turvy can mess up your cake from the jump. I’ve been a professional cake decorator for 14 years and there’s one tool that makes cake baking so much easier that I no longer bake without them: cake strips. 

Wilton Bake Even Cake Strips

$9.87 at Amazon

$9.87 at Amazon

One thing that used to drive me crazy in commercial kitchens and bakeries is food waste. Some waste is to be expected, but it can become rather extreme. Working as a cake decorator, I would chop off pounds of domed cake tops a day to make flat cake layers. As you might guess, if the layers aren’t flat, the cake won’t be straight. Those tops went straight into the trash.

Cake strips ensure your cakes rise and cook evenly. They reduce irregular humps in your cakes, which means you don’t have to cut anything off and waste it. At roughly five dollars each and with (potentially) years of use, cake strips can save you money and put more cake in your belly. 

Why cakes dome on top

If you’ve ever baked cake, muffins, or even cookies, you’ve witnessed the phenomenon of a domed center and browned, short edges. This is to be expected. The batter or dough on the edges, directly in contact with the metal cake pan, heats up and cooks first. With cake, these areas cook and solidify before the leavening agent reaches its maximum potential—thus, shorter edges. The center of the cake takes longer to heat up and so the baking powder or baking soda has a chance to fully activate, rising fully. There’s nothing wrong with this most of the time—muffins get beautiful cracks and pointy tops, and cookies get soft, chewy centers. Cakes, however, with a tall domed top and shorter edges, can complicate things.

Cake strips make better cakes

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Cake strips are genius in their simplicity. They’re long pieces of sturdy cotton fabric—sometimes they'll be shiny with a metallic fabric—and they're multiple layers thick. On one end there are two small cotton loops. You use cake strips by soaking them in water and then wrapping them around the outside of round cake pans, securing one end into the cotton loops on the other end, like a belt. This damp cotton strip essentially insulates the edges of the cake pan so they don’t cook as fast, giving the leavening agent plenty of time to fully activate. The cake batter bakes evenly, cooking in the center at the same rate as the outside edges and resulting in a flat cake. 

How to use cake strips

I usually drop my cake strips into a bowl of water in the sink and let them soak while I’m preparing the cake batter. Once everything is in the pan and the oven is preheated, I’ll wring out the cake strips (they should be wet but not dripping everywhere) and wrap the cake pans. I take a moment to ensure the strip is pushed all the way up toward the top of the rim. If the cotton touches the oven racks under the pan then you can get a little toasty spot on the cotton. (Light browning over time is to be expected, but rest assured, these cake strips are perfectly safe to use inside of gas or electric ovens.)

I buy these Wilton brand cake strips for about $5 each (they sometimes come in a two-pack for $10). Wilton is a cake brand I’ve used for years and I find them to make consistently reliable products. Most cake strips are built for nine-inch cakes, but there are no rules against piggy-backing your cake strips. I link two strips together to cover 12-inch cake rounds all the time. 

While cake strips aren't efficient for large-scale cake operations—wrapping hundreds of cake pans would be too much of a time-suck—they’re excellent for home use or small independent bakery situations. Yes, I’ve replaced working in production bakeries for writing food hacks for you fine folks, but I do make wedding cakes and celebration cakes on a low-production scale. I can honestly say that there’s not one cake that goes in my oven without a cake strip around it. 

I Used AI-Powered Calorie Counting Apps, and They Were Even Worse Than I Expected

The promise is seductive: Snap a photo of your meal, and artificial intelligence will instantly tell you exactly how many calories you're consuming. No more tedious manual logging, no more guessing at portion sizes, no more human error. Apps like Cal AI, Lose It!, and MyFitnessPal's new photo features claim to revolutionize calorie tracking by letting your smartphone's camera do the heavy lifting.

But as someone with a long, complicated history with calorie counting—and admittedly, a somewhat cursed expertise in it—I can tell you that counting calories with a photo is exactly as stupid as it sounds.

How AI-powered calorie counting is supposed to work

Calorie counting apps promise to solve what developers claim is the biggest problem with calorie tracking: human error. The pitch is compelling—why spend time searching databases and measuring portions when your phone can instantly analyze your plate?

Apps like Cal AI or SnapCalorie AI use visual cues like color, texture, and relative size to make educated guesses about what you're eating and how much of it there is.

They claim that AI methods can solve the pesky problem of human accuracy in calorie estimation—which, to be fair, is easy to get wrong. Cal AI markets itself as one of the more sophisticated options in this space, so I decided to see for myself. The app was free for the first three days, then $29.99/year.

The setup process is straightforward: Download the app, create an account, input basic demographic information, and set your goals. Here's where I encountered my first red flag. The app cheerfully informed me that "losing 10 lbs is a realistic target"—except that losing 10 pounds would actually push me into underweight BMI territory. This kind of blanket statement reveals a concerning lack of nuance about individual health needs.

Cal AI's photo logging process follows these steps:

1. Take a clear photo of your food, ideally against a plain background.

2. Make sure all ingredients are visible and well-lit.

3. Include a reference object (like a coin or your hand) for scale.

4. Upload the image and wait for AI analysis.

5. Review and correct the app's identifications and portion estimates.

6. Save the entry to your daily log.

The app provides detailed tips for getting better results: Use natural lighting, avoid shadows, keep the camera parallel to the plate, and ensure no ingredients are hidden. These guidelines sound reasonable in theory, but they hint at the fundamental challenge these apps face—the complexity of real-world eating.

The reality is wildly disappointing

I started my testing with something simple: a Pink Lady apple weighing 222 grams. Surely this would be an easy win for the AI—apples are among the most photographed foods on earth, with a distinctive shape and color that should be instantly recognizable.

Cal AI confidently identified my apple as tikka masala.

Gorgeous tikka masala, yes? Credit: Meredith Dietz

I gave it another chance, this time photographing the apple alongside its barcode and sitting on a kitchen scale displaying its exact weight. The app did recognize it as an apple this time, but estimated it at 80 calories when the actual count should have been closer to 120. That's a 33% underestimation—not exactly the precision you'd want if you're trying to track intake accurately.

The real test came with a more complex meal: my current meal-prepped lunch of fried tofu, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta cheese, and chickpeas, all generously dressed with an oil-based homemade vinaigrette. This is the kind of mixed dish that presumably showcases AI's advantage over manual logging—no need to search for individual ingredients or estimate their quantities.

The results were a masterclass in algorithmic overconfidence. The app identified the golden-brown fried tofu as croutons, which I had to manually correct. It did a reasonably good job recognizing the vegetables and feta, but completely whiffed on the oil content. Despite the salad being visibly glistening with dressing, the app estimated the entire dish at 450 calories.

This estimate was laughably low. A single can of chickpeas contains about 400 calories, and my portion included roughly that amount plus significant quantities of feta cheese and several tablespoons of olive-oil-based dressing. A realistic calorie count for this meal would have been closer to 800 to 900 calories.

The app's portion estimation proved even more problematic than its ingredient identification. When I photographed a smaller serving—less than a quarter of the original salad—Cal AI estimated it at 250 calories. According to the app's own logic, less than 25% of the meal somehow contained more than 55% of its calories. The math simply doesn't work.

Cal AI was way, way off. Credit: Meredith Dietz

This highlights a fundamental limitation of photo-based calorie counting: Cameras capture two-dimensional images of three-dimensional objects. Without consistent reference points or sophisticated depth analysis, estimating volume from photos remains largely guesswork. Even humans struggle with this task, which is why nutrition professionals typically recommend weighing foods for accuracy.

To get a fuller picture of the AI calorie counting landscape, I also tested two other popular apps: SnapCalorie and Calorie Mama.

SnapCalorie: better numbers, same problems

SnapCalorie did immediately assuage some skepticism by suggesting a much more reasonable daily calorie target of 1,900 calories, compared to Cal AI's problematic weight loss messaging. However, this accuracy comes at a steep price—$79.99 per year after just a one-week free trial, making it the most expensive option I tested.

The app does offer one interesting feature: an "add note" function that lets you provide additional context about ingredients the camera can't see. In theory, this addresses one of the fundamental limitations of photo-based tracking.

SnapCalorie has a useful "add note" feature and more accurate results. Credit: Meredith Dietz

When I tested SnapCalorie with the same Pink Lady apple, it performed much better than Cal AI, estimating 115 calories. But the Greek salad test revealed familiar problems. SnapCalorie's initial estimate was an absurdly low 257 calories. When I photographed a smaller portion—the same sub-quarter serving that had stumped Cal AI—SnapCalorie estimated 184 calories. The math still didn't work; this smaller portion should have been roughly 25% of the larger serving, not 70%.

Determined to give the app a fair shot, I used the note feature to manually specify "full container of tofu, feta, chickpeas and olive oil." With this human intervention, SnapCalorie bumped its estimate to 761 calories—much more reasonable and accurate, though still on the low side.

But this raises the obvious question: If I need to manually input detailed ingredient information to get accurate results, what exactly is the photo accomplishing? I'm essentially doing the work of traditional calorie counting while going through the motions of taking pictures.

Calorie Mama: when AI doesn't even try

Calorie Mama provided the most frustrating and laughable experience of the three apps. The interface feels rudimentary, and the AI's performance is so poor that the app essentially abandons the premise of automated photo analysis.

After uploading a photo, Calorie Mama requires you to manually confirm not just the food items but also their portion sizes. This defeats the entire purpose of photo-based logging—you're doing all the work that manual entry would require anyway.

When I uploaded my Greek salad photo, Calorie Mama identified it simply as "tofu"—ignoring the vegetables, feta cheese, chickpeas, and dressing entirely. The app then asked me to manually adjust the portion size and seemed to consider the logging complete, as if a complex mixed dish contained nothing but plain tofu.

This wasn't just inaccurate; it was useless. At least Cal AI and SnapCalorie attempted to recognize multiple ingredients, even if their calorie estimates were off. Calorie Mama appeared to give up on the core challenge entirely, relegating the AI to little more than a gimmicky photo storage system.

AI-powered calorie counting wasted my time

The promise of AI-powered calorie counting is efficiency—snap and go, no manual entry required. But my experience revealed a different reality. I spent considerable time correcting ingredient identifications, adjusting portion sizes, and second-guessing the app's estimates. In many cases, I would have been faster using traditional manual logging with a food scale and database search.

This creates a frustrating conundrum: If you don't scrutinize the AI's results, you'll get wildly inaccurate data. But if you do verify every entry, you lose the time-saving benefit that justified using the technology in the first place. It's the worst of both worlds—the effort of manual tracking combined with the uncertainty of automated guessing.

Perhaps most concerning is what happens when users don't have the background to recognize inaccurate estimates. My years of calorie counting experience—problematic as that history may be—gave me the knowledge to spot when Cal AI's numbers were off. But what about users who trust the technology?

Systematic underestimation of calories could be particularly harmful for people trying to lose weight, as it might lead them to believe they're eating less than they actually are. Conversely, overestimation could cause unnecessary restriction or anxiety around food. Either way, inaccurate data undermines the entire purpose of tracking.

The fundamental issue with AI calorie counting apps isn't just technical—it's philosophical. These tools emerge from and reinforce the idea that precise calorie tracking is both necessary and beneficial for health. But research suggests that obsessive calorie counting may do more harm than good for many people.

Intuitive eating, which focuses on internal hunger and satiety cues rather than external metrics, has shown promise as a more sustainable and psychologically healthy approach to nutrition. This framework emphasizes developing a healthy relationship with food based on how it makes you feel rather than hitting specific numerical targets.

For most people, understanding general principles of balanced nutrition—eating plenty of vegetables, choosing whole grains over refined ones, including adequate protein—provides better long-term outcomes than meticulous calorie tracking.

The bottom line

AI-powered calorie counting apps promise to solve human error in dietary tracking, but they introduce new forms of inaccuracy while maintaining many of the old problems. If your goal is simply to get a rough estimate of how many calories are in generic foods, these apps might provide some value. But for anyone seeking precision in their intake tracking, traditional methods combined with food scales remain more reliable.

More importantly, I'd question whether precise calorie counting serves your health goals at all. For many people, developing a more intuitive relationship with food—one based on satisfaction, energy levels, and overall well-being rather than numerical targets—leads to better physical and mental health. Maybe the old-fashioned approach of listening to our bodies works better than any algorithm.

The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: What Is Fambushing?

If you’re a grown-ass person confused by the un-grown-ass among us, I hope this week's trip down the rabbit hole of Gen Z and Gen Alpha culture brings you a step closer to enlightenment. Allow me to tell you why man-on-man phone calls are so popular and hilarious right now, the meaning of the word "fambush," and why you're seeing so many disturbing videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti.

Calling your friend and saying “goodnight” is a wholesome, hilarious prank somehow

A couple weeks ago, TikToker Miranda Faye posted this video of her boyfriend calling his friends to say "goodnight." (I love the guy who answers, "What's up, bitch boy?" immediately. So dude.)

Overall, it's a poignant video that really says something about how men relate to one another. It's also hilarious, and exactly the kind of thing that kicks off a trend. It didn't take long for dudes all over to start calling their friends for no reason other than to say "good night" and/or "sweet dreams," resulting in videos like this one:

I love the guy who responds, "The fuck are you talking about?" and how all of his friends seem ready to call the police; this is how unusual it is for men to call each other at bedtime to say "good night."

Here's my absolute favorite example:

The dude trying to keep from laughing, paired with his friends' reactions, is gold. If you want to enjoy an endless stream of these videos, waste some time on the #goodnight hashtag.

A lot of commenters on TikTok connect this to the "male loneliness epidemic" or view friends calling friends as something men should do. But I think that's looking into it too deeply. For the most part, the friends in these videos immediately ask the callers "are you ok?" with real concern—I'm not seeing a lot of male loneliness here. And there's something great about the trait of not talking to your friends about personal things unless it's really important. The real male loneliness sufferers are the many guys out there who don't have any pals they can gently prank on video.

What is fambushing?

Since I'm covering wholesome trends this week, let's talk about fambushing. The word combines "family" and "ambush" and refers to young people checking where their parents are on location-sharing apps so they can get some free food—you see mom at Chipotle, you're gonna ask for a burrito. Starbucks too:

According to a rep from family-location-sharing app Life360, teenagers who use the app are more likely to check what their parents are doing than parents are to check their kids' locations. This seems wholesome and encouraging at first, but if I project back to my own youth (long before cell phones) I'd probably be using to check where my parents were so I wouldn't get caught doing whatever I was doing.

Forgotten Cher and Future collaboration disgusts nation

Sometimes Gens Z and A dig up a delightful piece of popular culture from the past to highlight how awesome it is. That is not the case with Cher and Future's cover of Sly's "Everyday People." Nine years ago, these two very different artists collaborated with producer Zatoven on a Gap-sponsored ad featuring hilariously awkward chemistry, a total lack of effort from all involved, with an entirely cynical vibe. It's so terrible that it quickly becomes fascinating. The more times you watch it, the more cringe details you notice, and before long you've fallen into a rabbit hole of awful from which you cannot escape.

Anyway, the video made no ripple when it was produced and quietly slept on YouTube for nearly a decade. But a few weeks ago, the kids noticed. And they started tearing it apart.

"I love the way future sings in lower case and she’s just yelling in his face," posted TikToker Maliha Zahid. "Why does future sound dehydrated 😭" asks @jae._m1ll1y. "He looks like he’s listening to granny tell a story," posted @vvs.lizvrd. Ouch.

The song so captured the imaginations of young people that they started re-enacting it in videos like this:

and this:

Even the Zaytoven's son started clowning on it:

What does it mean? Nothing, really, but it reminds me of a show business saying: "Behind every bad movie there's a good mortgage."

The "Outfits I wore in high school" trend will make you feel even more ancient

There comes a time in people’s lives, usually around when they turn 30, when they stop noticing changes in fashion. Concerns like “I have to work all the time” and “is this mole cancer?” take over that brain-space. So for everyone who’s ever been advised by a clerk at the Gap (Cher and Future’s favorite store!) to “try a looser fit,” the "Outfits I Wore in High School" trend on TikTok will make you feel as old as the Cryptkeeper. Or even as old as Cher.

In these videos, twentysomethings reveal their younger, more misguided selves by showing pics of outfits that I (and probably you) find indistinguishable from what anyone is wearing today. It’s partly a symptom of the nostalgia cycle collapsing in on itself—kids are getting misty-eyed over the “good old days” of 2017—and partly the first blush of generational panic: “Wait… am I getting older too?”

It’s all very cute until you realize the joke is on you. Your fashion mistakes aren’t nostalgic, they’re prehistoric—not even worthy of parody. You’ve aged out of relevance. It's comforting in a way.

Viral video of the week: Will smith eating spaghetti, revisited

Back in 2023, Reddit user u/chaindrop created an AI video made with Stable Diffusion featuring Will Smith eating spaghetti. It went viral for being a grotesque, surreal nightmare that frightened everyone who saw it. A year later, Will Smith himself posted an actual video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. A few weeks ago, Google released Veo 3, an AI video generation tool that creates realistic clips, complete with dialogue and sound. So of course it was used to make a video of Will Smith eating pasta. Check out how far AI has come:

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It's not perfect visually—it still has traces of the unnatural sheen and rubberiness of AI videos—but it's getting there. The audio, though, needs work. I've heard of pasta al dente, but AI Will Smith's spaghetti is crunchy.

It sounds absurd that "Will Smith Eating Spaghetti" is the baseline test for AI video generation, but it's actually a worthy challenge for artificial intelligence: humans eating and pasta are both hard things to "generalize" in an AI way. I also can't deny that's it's technically amazing, but I'm not looking forward to the "we can't tell real from fake" future that will probably be here in about six weeks.

Export Your Microsoft Authenticator Passwords Before They Get Deleted

If you use Microsoft Authenticator as your password manager, you need to find an alternative in the next few weeks. Microsoft is ending password storage and autofill in its Authenticator app, and users have until July to export saved data before it becomes unavailable. This comes amidst Microsoft's transition to a "passwordless by default" approach to its own accounts.

Microsoft Authenticator is a mobile app that supports secure sign-on via various multi-factor authentication methods like time-based one-time passwords and biometrics, though users could also set it up as a password manager.

What's happening to Microsoft Authenticator

As Bleeping Computer reports, Authenticator's autofill feature is being deprecated, and Microsoft is now notifying users of the impending deadlines to transition either to Microsoft Edge or another password storage option. Starting in June, users will be unable to save passwords in Authenticator. Microsoft will shut down autofill in July, and saved passwords and stored payment information will no longer be accessible in the app in August.

Authenticator will continue to support passkeys.

According to a Microsoft support page detailing the change, saved passwords are synced to your Microsoft account and can be autofilled with Microsoft Edge, so users who have Edge enabled as their autofill provider on mobile will have easy access to their data.

To do this, you'll have to download the Microsoft Edge browser on your device and then select it as the default autofill option (Settings > General > Autofill & Passwords > Autofill from > Edge on iOS or Settings > Autofill > Preferred Service > Change > Edge on Android). You can access passwords when you're signed into Edge by tapping the three vertical lines to open Settings > Passwords.

How to export your passwords from Authenticator

If you don't want to continue with Edge, you can export your data and transition it to a secure third-party password manager, such as Bitwarden or 1Password. Open Authenticator and go to Settings > Export Passwords (under the Autofill section) and select Export. Choose a folder and hit Save. This creates a CSV for upload into a different password management tool. Note that your data is no longer encrypted in this format, and you should delete the export file as soon as you've uploaded it elsewhere.

You can also copy and paste addresses by tapping and holding, but you cannot copy or export saved payment information—that will have to be recreated manually for security reasons.

Microsoft's dates for each step of deprecation are vague, so your best bet is to export your passwords as soon as possible, and definitely by July 1.

How I Make Café-Worthy Almond Milk With the Vitamix Ascent X5

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I stepped off the cow milk train ages ago and I haven’t looked back. I dabble in oat milk at cafés, but at home, I exclusively use almond milk. While I don’t make my own almond milk on a regular basis, the power of the Vitamix Ascent X5 (which I recently reviewed) and the ease of using the plant milk preset does encourage me to do so more often.

I’ve had great success cooking hot soups in my Vitamix Ascent, making peanut butter and walnut butter, and just recently I made an ice cream that rivaled the likes of any single-duty ice cream maker. It's no surprise, then, that making almond, cashew, macadamia, and oat milk with this beast of a blender is pretty quick and easy.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

How to use the plant milk function on the Vitamix Ascent X5

1. Soak the nuts or oats

The amount of time for soaking depends on what kind of milk you’re making. The goal is to soften the ingredient which allows it to blend easier and distribute its delicious plant qualities to the water in the blender. Oats don’t need to soften for very long but nuts do, for example. Most almond milk recipes ask you to soak the nuts in cold water overnight or for 24 hours. I cheated and steeped my almonds in just-boiled water for 15 minutes. You live your best life and I will live mine.

2. Fill the blender container

Once your ingredient is softened, drain and rinse it. You don’t want any of that dusty old soaking water in with your finished plant milk. (I’ve tried it, and it’s not good.) Add the nuts or oats to the Vitamix container. You don’t have to do this, but I pop the almond skins off before adding them to the container. It’s a little annoying but they release easily. I find that the flavor of the finished milk is more pure, and I save the remaining almond meal for baking. Taking the skins off is nice for that product too. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Add cold, filtered water to the container. I used one cup of almonds and I added three and a half cups of water to the container. If you like flavored milk, now is the time to experiment with additional ingredients. Add cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla extract, or sweetener if you like.

3. Select the correct Vitamix setting

Plug in the blender and flip the power switch on. The digital display will show a number 1 as its default speed. Press the three-line “burger menu” button for the presets. Use the rotating knob to click over to the preset that looks like a carton with a little almond in the center. Once you’ve navigated to it, take one last glance to make sure the lid is on, then press the start button. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

This setting starts on a medium-low speed for a few seconds and then ramps up quickly to speed 10 for about 50 seconds. Et voilà. Plant milk in less than a minute. 

Models aside from the Ascent X5 may not have a preset for plant milks. Don’t worry, you can mimic the timing and speed. Start with the speed dial down on level two or three for about five seconds, then turn up the speed dial all the way to the highest speed and leave it there for about 50 seconds. The liquid should look opaque white and be a little frothy on top. There should not be any visible pieces of nuts or oats. Turn off the blender. 

4. Strain the milk

After the machine is off, set up your straining station. Many recipes mention using a mesh strainer or cheesecloth, but I think nut milk bags are absolutely superior. Other blenders might not do this, but the Vitamix will nearly powderize the almonds or oats you’re using. The other two straining options won’t catch the fine particles like a nut milk bag will. They’re really affordable and worth it if you’re making milks or even for cold brew. Here’s the one that I use.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

I set the nut milk bag into a wide mesh strainer (more for support than for straining) on top of a large measuring cup. Pour the liquid into the bag and let the liquid run through into the measuring cup. Squeeze the pulp in the bag to get all of the moisture out. You can discard the pulp or freeze it to use later in muffins, cakes, cookies, or biscuits. 

From here, pour the plant milk into a container that has a tight-fitting lid. I poured my almond milk into a mason jar, and I’ll use it in smoothies and coffee. Homemade almond milk should be kept in the fridge and used within five days, but I’ve heard that oat milk might be best used within three.

Explore adding different extracts and flavors for more interesting coffee, or an amazing batch of overnight oats.

This aloSIM Mobile Data Plan Is 50% Off Right Now

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Anyone who’s traveled internationally knows the deal: either you cough up $10–$20 a day for roaming or go hunting for café wifi like it’s oxygen. Neither option is ideal. That’s where aloSIM makes a convincing case. Right now, you can get $50 in eSIM credit for $24.97—basically half off. If your phone supports eSIM (most modern ones do), this lets you download a local data plan before you even leave the airport. No SIM card swapping, no surprise fees, just straight-up mobile internet that doesn’t drain your bank account.

Here’s how it works. You pick a plan—some start as low as $4.50 for seven days—download the eSIM onto your phone, and activate it when you land. It connects you to a local 4G or 5G network in over 200 countries, so your phone behaves like a local one, minus the local contract. The credit itself is good for a year after you redeem it, and the eSIM doesn’t expire, so you can keep it on your device for future trips. You even get a temporary phone number during your data plan’s active window, which is useful if you’re making bookings, messaging hosts, or just want to avoid giving out your personal number.

That said, there are a few caveats to note. This deal’s for new aloSIM users only, and it won’t stack with other offers. Also, once you activate a data plan, it runs on a timer, so if you buy a seven-day plan and barely use it, it still expires in seven days. If you’re planning to travel (or just don’t want to pay your carrier’s roaming fees again), this is an easy fix to have in your back pocket. No contracts, no stress, and no awkward moments spent begging hotel wifi to load your Google Maps.