Time for some Friday Things:
1. Bon Appetit’s Food Trends for 2013
They say that blondies are the new brownies in item 23. I love brownies, but I have quite the extensive blondie and light-colored bars collection, and it’s growing. Weekly.
2. A few favorites are Peanut Butter and Jelly Blondies
Coconut White Chocolate Chip Blondies
3. I am in love with MacKenzie-Childs – I could get lost for hours and hours on their site. And spend thousands of dollars in like five minutes. It just goes on and on and on, from kitchen to home to garden.
Farmhouse Loaf Pan $135 and Baking Dish $160 are both gorgeous.
As is every single thing on their site and one thing just is more lovely than the next.
4. Not-Too-Sweet Wok-Popped Coconut Kettle Corn – No popcorn maker? No wok?
Me neither but I make popcorn almost every day.
I put two tablespoons kernels in a brown paper lunch sack, fold the top down, and microwave for 90 seconds. No added oil, nothing except just the kernels, and it works like a charm every time, every day for the past five years. And I can probably use the same brown bag at least ten times before grabbing a fresh one. How’s that for saving money. I sprinkle anything from cinnamon-and-sugar to nutritional yeast over the popcorn, sometimes with melted coconut oil, butter, or whatever I’m in the mood for.
I made the popcorn in the Parmesan Ranch Snack Mix with the brown bag method. Between the popcorn trick and the easy recipe, this party mix comes together in five minutes. A little too easy.
I also love putting coconut oil on popcorn. Chocolate Coconut Oil Protein Popcorn is an oldie but a goodie that uses chocolate protein powder.
5. The 20 Best Beauty Products Under $50 – A few items like a tub of Vaseline and yellow Clinique lotion made the list, and there are many products I’ve never heard of. My Sephora and adventuresome days of trying as many new products as possible are long gone. I’m about tried and true now.
I did a post a couple years ago Top 10 Drugstore Finds Under $10 with my personal favorites, like Carmex for my lips. I have a tube in every room, purse, bag, and car. I can’t live without it and nothing else works the same for me.
6. I thoroughly enjoyed Amanda’s post about Why You Should Never Start a Food Blog. For those who are bloggers, I’m sure you’ll be able to relate to some, if not all, of the post. Although there are negatives to it, and everything she said I can relate to, all the positives I relate to and it’s what blogging is about for me.
I truly appreciate my readers and am grateful that people read my blog. I get to create recipes, make food, take thousands of pictures of it, write about, people make it, and tell me about it. How cool is that? To me, it’s the coolest and the best.
I said it recently in my December 2012 Recipes post, but I’ll say it again, thank you for reading my blog, commenting, emails, tweeting, making my recipes, or just reading in stealth and stopping by whenever you have a chance. I am grateful. Thank you.
7. How to Make Maple Cream – from Cooks Illustrated. That would be worth breaking out my candy thermometer for. I want to just turn my DVR on, get a spoon, and that’s my idea of a party on the couch on Friday night.
8. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, but do have a microwave and seven minutes, make Seven Minute Microwave Caramels
I made another batch, dipped them in melted chocolate and they were the best thing I’ve eaten this year.
9. I just got my monthly iHerb order. Right now they’re offering $10 dollars off all orders over $40, and $5 dollars off smaller orders.
Their prices are already hands down the cheapest on my daily probiotics, the nutritional yeast I sprinkle on everything from popcorn (item 4 above) to salads to kale chips. I get all my vitamins and supplements, bulk cinnamon, liquid vanilla stevia drops, bulk white stevia powder, and so many other things I use every day there.
With free shipping and a discount on top of already discounted prices, I always feel like I hit the jackpot. Enter code AVE630 at checkout to save your $5 or $10 bucks and go shopping.
10. Jazz Era Jewelry Box, $68 Anthro – I love the pink beading and vintage flair. My jewelry box just recently broke and this one is so pretty and girlie.
What are your Friday Things?
What do you think of the food trends for 2013? Any trends you’re sick of and want to see less of or more of? Any favorite beauty products? Kitchen tips or tricks? Popcorn fan?
If you’ve made anything, done, seen, or bought anything fabulous recently, feel free to link it up in the comments.
I’ve read that salted desserts and the salted caramel craze is going to continue. Although I do love my caramels and salty-and-sweet treats from time to time, salted caramel is definitely everywhere. I’ve read that people are sick of cake pops and cake balls. Is that true? I could never get sick of cake.
Have a great weekend and check back for giveaways!
Blast from the past with the Clinique lotion. My mom used to buy that for us girls all growing up and my older sister still uses that on her face to this day. It is good stuff.
I love that you make popcorn every single day. That is something that I didn’t know about you! How fun is that??! I wish I could eat popcorn!! I remember growing up we would eat it all buttered up in a huge tupperware bowl while we watched movies! Who knew that all the strange reactions I had were because I had an allergy or intolerance…not us!
I am a Burts Bees girl. I don’t go a single day without using it. My favorite is the mango one, but I love the plain old peppermint and the Pomegranate as well.
And as for that Anthro jewelry box…who could NOT love that?! ;-)
Need to check out the Burt’s Mango. Thanks for the tip!
Hey Avery!
Quick question about popcorn here. I don’t know if you will have an answer per say, but would love your insight. I LOVE air-popped popcorn but have not eaten it for quite some time as it seems that every time I eat it I start to feel really ‘off’ as in I feel shaky inside even though I am not really shaking, and I get really bad anxiety. Do you think this might be a result of an intolerance to corn, or do you think it might just be psychological, since I struggle with an eating disorder and my mind always tries to convince me that if it is not plain fruits and vegetables, it is bad :( I need to start eating more, and really want to try eating popcorn again (working hard on changing the thoughts that eating too much grains is bad – especially when the only grains I eat are home-prepared whole grains!).
Thanks for any thoughts! (And as always, thanks for this amazing blog!)
Nikki.
Hi Nikki this isn’t something I feel qualified to answer and you should probably bring it up with a trusted medical professional as well as keep trialing and testing things on your own, keeping track of the little nuances, until you crack the code. Good luck!
Well, I guess I’ll just play self-science-experiment and see what happens. I’ve seen MANY professionals and none of them have been able to help me, so I guess I play Dr. on myself now!
I love that easy microwave popcorn too! It’s so simple!!!
I also love carmex :D
Ready & armed with mixing bowls and brown sugar to make those en vogue blondies!
As always, Averie, your site provides plenty of food for thought and great recipes.
Mille fois merci & bon appetit :)
Love Clinique’s dramatically different lotion, and MacKenzie-Childs- some of their stuff looks like it came out of the Mad Hatter’s tea party!
Yay for blondies, and the Paloma…I could go for both right now. :D
I love your Friday things!! And dam those blondies! I literally had my face pressed up against my computer screen, I could practically taste the PB&J blondie! OMG!!!
They’re crazy good girl – probably my fave blondies of all the ones I make!
I’m sick of gluten-free food items that aren’t also almond-free. Every Paleo recipe I see boasts “grain-free!” and I get sooo excited until I see it is completely almond-based. But that’s just because I’m totally selfish and even though I love almonds, my stomach/intestines don’t. Boo!
Hi Averie!
I just stumbled across a pin of yours in Pinterest the raw chocolate chip cookie balls. I showed my wife and she said let’s try them. We had all the ingredients and threw them in the “Vita-cookie maker” (we laughed so hard about that one) and they turned out great. My they are good. Thank you for sharing the recipie with us. We can’t wait to try more of your great treats.
We are going to be in Aruba the end of April, are you going to be there then? We all could have rum runners! I agree with you about being in a sailboat is the greatest thing ever. We have one that we sail in Lake Michigan.
Thanks again, and have a great weekend!!
So glad you tried to cookie dough balls and that you got a chuckle out of my Vita-cookie maker lingo. I wrote that post almost 4 years ago and although I may not write it today, at least I wasn’t afraid to be corny. haha!
I am so glad that you enjoyed them, too! And had everything on hand! Love it when that happens.
I won’t be in Aruba in April (my daughter is in 1st grade) so probably won’t be back there til the summer and schools out. I hope you have TONS of rum runners and have a blast down there! I grew up in MN and then Chicago…where everyone either had a lake cabin and boat in Northern MN, or boat on Lake Mich, and the boats in San Diego & Aruba are a little different but I have FOND memories of cruising the lakes! Keep in touch!
Girl, you make everything look so freakin’ good! Thanks for sharing such great ideas, too. (Love Blondies, anything salty & sweet, and probiotics rule! Have used Clinique products for years.) Following at Twitter and pinning at Pinterest. Love your blog! xoxo
Thanks for stopping by and I’ve been on your site in stealth! Love your goodies and those cookie butter cookies – I need one. Here’s the link to my homemade cookie butter.
https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2013/01/homemade-cookie-butter-peanut-butter.html
I’ve never had a blondie… I guess I should get on that. Totally with you on the popcorn, I do the very same thing! Although I never can resist addin a bit of coconut oil and salt or a touch of cocoa powder to it. Best snack ever!
Oh dear, I do really need to move in with you, no, not with you, but close to you so I can have some popcorn too: I love it but haven’t had it in ages! I always forget to buy corn kernels when I do shopping. When I have it on my shopping list, store is out of it (most of the time). When I go out of town to natural stores somewhere in Dallas or Tulsa, I just forget all about it after hours of driving. One of those days I’ll buy it, or move closer to you! :)
Thanks for doing what you are doing (blogging), we love it here!
I made some salad and you may like it, come see it. :)
A grocery store out of popcorn? Now that’s crazy! Such a basic dry good but stranger things have happened!
They are out of kernels, not the one they have in bags and microwave. I don’t buy that one as we don’t have a microwave: quite modern family we are, ha?! :)
I never buy the popcorn that’s loaded up with all that fake cheese and oil. I just buy the plain old fashioned kernels too.
I’m a blondie girl too, so bring them on! I also liked Amanda’s post – so much truth there!
Glad you saw that post as well :)
I literally JUST ordered the pure stevia and kal nutritional yeast from Amazon! DANG. The nooch was out of stock when I tried to order, so I paid a couple bucks more, but no big deal. The stevia, on the other hand….grrrr.
I want these bookends from Anthro: http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/product/home-new/24917692.jsp?cm_mmc=PJN-_-Affiliates-_-Placement=73861-_-ShopAnthropologie
Friday and blondies, could life be any better :)
Loving this list Averie! I’m totally trying that Ranch snack mix, sounds so good!
And it takes like 5 mins to make, Amber! So easy!
Great list! I want to pin all the things. And I have the smoker on the BA list, and it really is great. Less than $50 and it store in the cabinet.
I could smoke some tofu or tempeh in it. I wonder if I could smoke some cookies? :)