Sunday Summary - 3.12.23
There was no Sunday Summary last week, because we spent the entire weekend in Austin visiting its newest residents, Ashley and Jordan, and the lovely Jerome who flew in from Seattle to watch a tennis tournament and visit his favorite Texas residents!
Reading and Watching
What Happens in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
Alright, onto book #2 in this Paradise series! It’s hard to put my feelings about book #1 into words. Before I confuse you — I liked it well enough to start the second in the series, just hear me out! It was a super interesting plot line, but I found myself constantly waiting for answers or action, and I now see that was the author’s intent. She leaves you on a major cliffhanger with the last few sentences of book #1, and then delivers the answers and action I was looking for in in her second book. If you’re into "easy-to-digest” murder mysteries/missing person/family drama type plotlines set in a tropical location — add this series to your list!
Shrinking on Apple TV+
We saw approximately 1,000,000 commercials about this show before we decided to give it a shot. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt like the previews were misleading! They made it seem like this was a rather serious show, but it’s actually laugh-out-loud funny, emotional, and ultimately just a feel-good show that I feel we need more of these days! I love the setting and the relatability of the show, and it gets a 10/10 from both Bryan and me. Brett Goldstein, one of the writers and main characters of Ted Lasso, is one of the creators if that gives you an idea of what to expect from this one.
Cooking
OKAY LISTEN — this pizza I featured in Sunday Summary 35 is getting a second feature, because 1) we’ve made it twice already, and 2) we fully believe this is the best homemade pizza we’ve ever tried.
Calabrian Chili Roasted Red Pepper Pizza - The recipe is fabulous as is, but here are the tweaks we made and loved:
Exclude the fish sauce if you want — We were out, but we didn’t feel like this was lacking flavor without it.
Use just enough roasted red peppers to almost cover the sauce — she calls for a full 16 oz jar, and we felt like that was a little much! One jar could make 3 pizzas with the quantity we use, if that’s helpful.
Don’t skip the drizzled honey — The two tablespoons of calabrian chili paste make this thing SPICY, and the honey is delish and helps balance out the spice. Decrease the calabrian chili paste to 1 tablespoon if you’re sensitive to spice.
We put ours on the bottom rack of our oven for 15 minutes and then transfer it to the middle or top rack to get the cheese all bubbly for the last 3-5 minutes.
2. One Pot Mexican Chicken and Rice - Super easy weeknight dinner that dirties very few dishes and delivers a lot of flavor! The link takes you directly through a step-by-step video of how to make this recipe from the original The Defined Dish cookbook.
3. Eamon and Bec’s Buffalo Cauliflower Tacos— These are our favorite version of buffalo cauliflower tacos, because they’re so simple and don’t fall apart when you eat them. The recipe comes from their Weekly Whip Ups electronic cookbook, but this one is similar. Use greek yogurt instead of mayo, skip the sugar, and add dill to your sauce and it’s pretty much the same.
4. Turkey and Roasted Red Pepper Brick Paninis — I’ve been VERY into the Magnolia Table cookbooks lately (especially for breakfast recipes, sides, and desserts), and we’re excited to make these fancy lil sandwiches for a fun dinner one night. This recipe comes from her original Magnolia Table Cookbook, but the full recipe (plus a pimento and bacon one!) is available for free on her blog. Enjoy!
Spring Cleaning
The official first day of Spring is just around the corner (March 20th, in case you were curious), and I’ve decided to really participate in Spring Cleaning this year. I’m a very tidy person in general. I wipe down kitchen counters almost nightly, I regularly clean our stainless steel appliances, and I vacuum at least weekly; however, I’m the WORST about avoiding the more labor intensive chores like cleaning bathrooms, mopping, dusting the baseboards…you get the picture.
This year I’m going all in (using this checklist), but I’m going to spread it out over a few weeks to really make sure I’m doing a good job on everything and not making myself miserable in the process! Today was all about bathrooms. I cleaned them from top to bottom, and it makes such a huge difference seeing a super clean shower floor instead of nasty grout, clear shower doors with no soap buildup, and non-dusty toilet paper holders and baseboards. Also, shout out to Bryan who cleaned the half bath to help me out. If you’re looking for a mood boost — maybe get to cleaning! We also got a new shower organizer so our bottles wouldn’t collect soap scum on the floor anymore. Very handy!
I also got crazy and threw our living room curtains in the washing machine for their maiden voyage. I purchased those in June 2020, so…safe to say it was time. (See what I mean about avoiding laborious house chores?)
Looking for ways to get cleaned and organized? Here’s some steps I’m taking!
Our shower is just one big square. There are no inset shelves or built in benches to hold shampoo and conditioner, so we tried a suction cup mounted holder that worked for a little while. That is, until it fell off the wall in the middle of the night and scared us half to death. We tried several alternatives, and all of them were returned because they either weren’t the right height or couldn’t hold enough weight to be effective…until this one! Unlike the pic, ours actually goes from floor to ceiling and has ample storage space for both mine and Bryan’s products (and Nash’s shampoo!) Having all our products on shelves and off the floor will hopefully keep our shower floors cleaner, too!
Dish Soap + Vinegar
If you’re looking for an incredibly effective grout/shower door cleaner, mix a little dish soap with distilled white vinegar and hot water. It works WONDERS! I hate the strong smells of a lot of shower cleaners, so once I discovered this little concoction it made the whole experience a lot better. If your floors are really bad, I recommend using a little of this super scrubby Oxygen Boost with the mixture.
I don’t get too scientific with proportions. I pour a teaspoon or so of vinegar over really bad areas of the shower floor and then squeeze a little dish soap on top. Wet a scrub brush with warm water and watch the magic happen! You can mix a little vinegar into a spray bottle filled with water and spray shower doors. Add a little soap to your rag or scrub brush and tackle the gunk.
These are annoyingly expensive for what they are, but my gosh have they changed the dusting game for me. You don’t need to spray anything, you don’t need to wet and constantly rinse a rag, you just pop one of these dusters on the little wand and go! One duster lasts me abooouuuttt 2 rooms from top to bottom. Are they pricey? Yes. Will I keep buying them? Absolutely.
Spring Refresh
Once you’re done cleaning your house, reward yourself with a spring wardrobe refresh courtesy of Nuuly. Y’all know I’ve loved this clothing rental service for years, and I just recently ordered a box for some upcoming events. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out a review on the website or watch my review on YouTube.