Sunday Summary - 1.29.23
It is officially King Cake season! As most of you know, my good friend Rebecca currently lives in New Orleans, and she flew her favorite king cake to Dallas as a surprise for my birthday last year! Since that isn’t in the cards this year, I set out to find highly rated king cakes in Dallas. The kind from grocery stores are very “okay,” but they tend to dry out quickly and have crunchy icing. I ended up pre-ordering one from a tiny bakeshop in Dallas called Bon Temps Bakeshop, and I think it’s the best King Cake I’ve ever had (…and I’ve had A LOT.) We got a normal sized Classic Cinnamon that comes with a fluffy cream cheese icing and a mini sized Strawberry Cream Cheese. They both got an 11/10 from us!
Reading and Watching
Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan
After several non-fiction books, I was excited to get a notification that this book was ready for me to rent through Libby. It follows Nora, a writer of Hallmark-type movies, who unexpectedly writes a huge hit based on her own life. The cast of the movie arrives at her house to film, and one member of the cast stays longer than expected and changes her life in an unexpected way. I couldn’t put this book down yesterday and have full intentions of finishing it tonight. I have a hunch this is going to be as well-loved as Book Lovers from my 2022 reading list. Add it to your list!
Inheritance by Katharine McGee
This book was also made available to me this week, and I was able to read it in a couple of hours. Nothing about this book was necessary, but if you loved the first book and the relationships among all the characters at that stage of the series, then I think you’d enjoy this one. It gives you more background into events that unfold in Books 2 and 3, but there was nothing revealed that you didn’t already know about. It was cute and I’m glad I read it, but you’re not missing out on anything if you choose to skip it. If I’m not mistaken, the prequel is only available on Kindle.
Kaleidoscope: A Netflix Drama Miniseries
This is that crazy miniseries you’ve probably heard about that says you can watch the episodes in any order and still understand what’s going on. After a little bit of reading about the “best” way to watch the show, people largely agreed that watching it chronologically is the optimal way to go about it. Bryan and I followed that advice, but I will say, we kind of regret not watching it randomly and trying to put all the pieces together. We both wonder if it would have been a totally different experience or just really confusing…I guess we’ll never know!
Without giving too much away, the show is centered around one big heist with a few smaller heists from the past sprinkled in. The one caveat to the chronological order approach is that you save the actual heist for the last episode, even though it’s not last chronologically. Here was the order we watched the episodes: Violet > Green > Yellow > Orange > Blue > Red > Pink > White (The Heist)
Cooking
Recipes
Classic Spaghetti - All I do is brown 1 pound of ground turkey, pour in 1 full jar of Rao’s Arrabbiata sauce once the meat is cooked, and let it simmer for an hour or so on the stove. If I plan well in advance, I’ll let it simmer in the crockpot on low for a few hours and then serve it over whatever noodles we have on hand.
Crispy Rice Bowl with Browned Butter Sweet Potatoes and Herby Green Tahini - One of our all time favorite HBH recipes that we can’t stop making. This is a great, cozy winter meal that doesn’t sit heavily after you’ve finished! We leave off the eggs and cucumbers.
Candied Rosemary Bacon BLTs - This recipe comes from the Half Baked Harvest Everyday cookbook and is out-of-this-world good with just a few tweaks to the traditional BLT. Since I can’t link the recipe, I’ll give you the deets on dressing up the bacon, because that’s where this recipe shines.
Line up your bacon on a foil lined cookie sheet
Drizzle with a little maple syrup, sprinkle on some chopped, fresh rosemary, and hit it with a little cayenne. Let it cook in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. (Start with the oven cold! I promise it makes a difference.)
We make a little tabasco mayo instead of her more labor intensive brown butter aioli and eat it all on freshly toasted sourdough. SO GOOD!
Weekly Favorites: Skincare
This sunscreen is all over the internet right now, so I’m willing to bet this isn’t the first time you’re hearing about it. The Suntouchable! Whoa Glow sunscreen has SPF 50 and is supposed to be a dupe for the Supergoop Glow Screen. It’s said to be a little less glowly on the Supergoop, but not by much! Considering you’ll save $24 by opting for the Elf version, I’d say it’s probably worth the sacrifice. It blends in easily, it layers well under makeup, and it has a classic sunscreen smell that isn’t overpowering. I’ve really enjoyed using this on my dull winter skin.
Since I haven’t been filming much lately thanks to the holidays, a crazy work schedule, and generally taking some time away from the “extras",” I realized that I’ve repurchased this 3 times and have yet to share it! This has been a well loved daytime moisturizer that sinks so nicely into the skin, doesn’t have any sort of frills or fragrance…it just does its moisturizing job really well! You can get it at Ulta or Target, and while it’s on the expensive side of drugstore moisturizers ($20.99), I find it well worth the price for how much my skin loves it and how effective it is.
I haven’t used these in ages, but I decided to give them another shot when I wanted to incorporate a toner back into my routine that also provided light exfoliation. This container comes with 60 pads pre soaked in an AHA solution that is supposed to exfoliate, tone, and brighten. I’m using a Tula cleanser that I don’t love right now, and these also help remove any lingering makeup from my face that the cleanser left behind. If you’re looking for very gentle exfoliation - look no further!