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:
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!
Agness of Run Agness Run says
I love the cream cheese toast, Philia! Especially because of the pickles-delicious!
Sweetphi says
Isn’t it just the best flavor combo? Love that I’m not the only one that loves cream cheese/pickle toast lol 🙂
jess larson | plays well with butter says
congratulations on your pregnancy! how exciting! i loved reading this post & learning a little more about you…turns out we’re both lovers of those darn bacon, egg & gouda sandwiches at starbucks…they’re what got me through college! =) loving big little lies, and also homeland & this is us (of course!). xx
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much for the congratulations Jess! And omg, aren’t those bacon, egg and gouda sandwiches the best? I just had one for breakfast this morning lol. I finally started watching This is Us last week…um…I binge watched it over the weekend and now i’m SO ready to watch the finale tonight…or I’m not ready because I don’t want the season to be over lol.
Jess says
Love your favs a great picks and yes, I DO love your meal prep post! Genius!
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much Jess, just writing that meal prep post has motivated me to keep prepping and has made the difference between us having a homemade dinner 🙂
Sammy says
Hi Phi,
Glad you are feeling better! And congratulations on news that you have a little man on the way 🙂 so exciting!
I wrote to you awhile back about how I had all day nausea up until week 17 etc etc and we had a girl etc etc, well turns out we were probably pregnant again when I was writing to you about it! Crazy! I am now 17wks and as per last time the sickness kicked in as soon as we found out lol (around 7wks) and was pretty constant up until the last few weeks and now it’s just really random. I am hoping it stops altogether very soon but yeah a bit diff to last time that’s for sure!
This time I want salt and cheese and struggle to eat the smallest piece of banana or any fruit :/ which is opposite to last time as I just wanted sweet stuff.
We aren’t finding out this time either 🙂
I am due 11th August so our babies will be 2yrs apart to the month, eeek! Hope it’s a good age gap haha!
Anyway enough about me, just wanted to let you know as it was uncanny!
Sweetphi says
Hi Sammy,
Thank you so much for your sweet comment. I definitely do remember the email you sent, it was very helpful and reassuring to me that I wasn’t alone!! OMG, that’s so exciting you’re pregnant again, congrats to you!!
Isn’t it interesting what we can/cannot eat and what sounds/doesn’t sound good? I used to have the biggest sweet tooth, eating a little something sweet almost every afternoon, and throughout this whole pregnancy I’ve barely had any sweets at all. They can just sit there and I won’t touch them. Bananas were my no-no food, they would make me so sick, just the slightest smell of them was definitely a no go and would have me running to the throw up lol, but I had my first little banana piece the other day and it was delicious again, so I’m starting to incorporate more and more of them in again 🙂
Thank you again for your awesome comment!
Jennifer @ Show Me the Yummy says
Glad you’re feeling better, Phi! Ummm that toast sounds SUPER delicious…anything with carbs and cream cheese is good with me! <3
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much girl! The pickle cream cheese toast is so delicious to me and it makes me so happy to hear that someone else thinks it sounds good too, now I know I’m not alone in my toast love 🙂