I absolutely love doing faves & life lately posts (here are past ones) and this one is no different, today I’m doubling up and also doing a Five Ingredient Friday’s post. I’m excited to share with you my favorite toast recipe and faves and life lately!

If you don’t know already, I’m pregnant (you can read the announcement post here)!! I’m currently 24 weeks along. It’s crazy and so exciting. We found out it’s a boy!! At the beginning of my pregnancy I had dreams it was a baby boy, my mom said she had a dream that I had a boy too, how cool is that? It all just feels so special, and we are beyond excited.

Food wise it was really tough at the beginning, but now it’s a lot easier. I couldn’t even be in the vicinity of a banana without having to run to the bathroom to throw up, fun stuff. BUT, the big exciting news is that last weekend when we were making the waffle bar I had my first taste of a banana in 6 months…and it was delicious!!

Food Faves:

• When I was little we’d have toast with farmers cheese (if you’re not familiar with it, it’s pressed cottage cheese that is spreadable – kind of tastes like cream cheese, Wikipedia definition of it here) on it and then we’d add cucumbers with a little salt or pickle slices. I literally have not had that toast-cheese-pickle combination since I was a kid. One night for dinner the only thing I felt like was toast. My hubby brought home the best crusty bread from the grocery store and said for dinner he had also gotten ham and was going to have a ham, cream cheese, pickles sandwich. At first I thought ‘weird’ in my head, and then I was like omg I used to love cream cheese and pickles. I decided to have a piece of toast like that, and it was SO GOOD! I ate cream cheese pickle toasts for dinner/breakfast for like a week straight. I’m still not sick of it, it’s good. Have you ever tried that flavor combination? I totally urge you to (recipe at the bottom of the post.) Loving this toast recipe faves and life lately already!

• Mornings are really tough, I have to be out of the house no later than 6:20am to make it to work on time. Starbucks has this thing called ‘mobile order’ where you can order on your phone via their app and then just go and pick it up, you don’t have to wait in line. Whenever I do it, I feel like I’m getting away with something just passing people in line and going to pick up my order. What am I ordering? Well, they have this bacon gouda sandwich that is basically the best thing ever. In terms of drinks, I love that Starbucks is one of the few places I’ve found that has decent tasting decaf espresso (decaf just tastes different than coffee, it does, it’s not as bold or delicious) so I get a decaf latte – their Cascara latte is amazing, it just has a hint of sweetness and is great, you should try it.

• Another thing I’ve started doing and am loving as a way to eat more fruits and veggies has been bringing my Hamilton Beach single serve blender to work. I’ll make up little sandwich bags full of smoothie ingredients and then freeze them. Then in the morning I’ll grab a little baggie out of the freezer and bring it to work, then around 10am I’ll add the frozen fruit/veggies to the blender, add in some water and voila, I have an awesome fresh smoothie at work. LOVE this little blender (and psssst., it’s on sale on Amazon right now for $17.99!)
• In terms of other food faves, meal prepping has really been a life saver, and this post about how to meal prep is truly one of my favorites I’ve ever done.

Entertainment Faves:

{Nick and Clover watching TV, totally love this picture of them!}

• The movie Arrival – we saw this one in the theaters and I cried like I’ve never cried before in a movie. It’s a beautiful movie, and I really think it should have been all over the Oscars. Have you seen it? Prepare your tissues.
• In terms of TV – I’m so excited Billions is back, I love the show. I watched the final season of The Fall on Netflix and OMG is all I have to say. So good, have you seen it? Normally I’m a baby and wouldn’t watch something like that, but my bestie Lynn got me hooked because of the hot serial killer, I just couldn’t not finish the show. My hubby is really liking Legion on FX, I watched the first episode with him, it was good but just a tad bit too scary/suspenseful for me. Back in 2014 I read Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and remembered loving it, so now I’m watching the series with the same title (Big Little Lies) on HBO go, I am loving it so far!! What are you watching and loving?
• This commercial has me cracking up every time!!!!!!
• Books – I love books! I  listen to so many books on Audible on my way to and from work…I’m talking something like 2 books a week, so I listen and read A LOT! Lately the best of the ones I’ve listened to have been: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (super cute romance with a little steaminess, best romance I’ve read since The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty a few years ago!) On a more serious note, Lilac Girls and Small Great Things were two books that were hard listen to at times, but wowza were the stories interesting!

Other posts you might enjoy:

• Faves and Life Lately – 5
• Faves & Life Lately – 4
• Faves And Life Lately – 7

Yield: 1 serving

Cream cheese and pickles toast

Print

Prep Time 5 minutes

Total Time 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 slice of bread
• 1 tablespoon cream cheese
• 1 baby kosher dill pickle, finely sliced

Instructions

Toast the bread, spread cream cheese on the toast, place pickle slices on the toast and enjoy!!

This was my toast recipe faves and life lately…I’d love to hear from you – what are your faves – fave foods, fave movies/tv shows, and BOOKS? I’m always looking for recommendations and would LOVE to hear what your faves are at the moment – and I’d also love to know- what is your favorite book you’ve ever read? Comment below or tag me on Instagram, @philiakelnhofer!