The Little Things Newsletter #533 – Life, laughter, and lots of great food!

Welcome to the weekend, my friends! It is a sauna outdoors right now after yesterday’s off and on again hot and muggy rainy day and I am grateful for every cool and air-conditioned minute I’m spending indoors today! Phew, this August humidity is not for the faint of heart.

IN MY KITCHEN THIS WEEK: In case you missed them earlier this week, these Easy 3 Minute Mocktails are getting us through the summer! And if you happen to stop by our house, the odds are very good that I’m going to hand you one. With just a handful of berries and mint, a splash of pineapple juice, and enough seltzer to make them perfectly fizzy, you’ll find yourself wondering how often is too often to stir one together. They’re wonderfully sippable all day long.

Tender bites of chicken, salty bacon, and crisp bell peppers are tossed in a fantastic sweet and spicy sauce to make our all-time favorite Spicy Chicken and Bacon Stir Fry. This was dinner last night and my boys are currently heating up the leftovers for breakfast, I kid you not.

Air Fryer French Bread Pizza has become one of my favorite lunches and easy dinners over the past few years. It legitimately scratches the pizza-craving itch and I LOVE it. This air fryer method creates a perfectly toasted crust with melting cheese quickly and with no fuss. It’s pizza day or night, as easy as it gets.

These BBQ Chicken Zucchini Boats are a saucy, cheesy, deliciously hearty meal that is a refreshing change from the typical sandwiches we usually make with leftover chicken. To make these Zucchini Boats with Chicken, you’ll just add BBQ sauce and cheese to some leftover chicken and layer it into fresh zucchini. It’s an easy and delicious way to use up (and enjoy!) an abundance of summer zucchini.

I probably shouldn’t even admit how many times I’ve made these Balsamic Glazed Roasted Broccoli and Sweet Potatoes just over the past month. It’s getting ridiculous. I’m not sure what’s up with this particular craving, but I’m happily eating it on repeat lately.

Same goes for this Burrata Peach Fruit Salad. Sean picked up more burrata for me at Kroger last night, just so I wouldn’t have to miss a day of this lovely salad while the peaches are so sweet. (Yes, I’m spoiled and I know it.)

This Coffee Lover’s Cake with Coffee Frosting is truly for coffee lovers. The coffee flavors both the cake and the frosting, cutting the sweetness without detracting from the flavor. But you gotta like coffee. A lot. Luckily, we do, so this is a very popular cake in our house. I made it not once, but twice, this week for a video shoot and oh man, I fell in love with it all over again. So much so, I’m debating making it again tonight for tomorrow’s family dinner. I mean, we all do love coffee…

What I’m CRAVING: One of my boys reminded me about my friend Lynne’s Banana Tres Leches Cake a few days ago and now I can’t stop thinking about it! (Apparently, my sweet tooth is alive and kicking this week.) Maybe it’s a good weekend to bake a couple of different cakes. That’s never a bad idea, right? 

My FAVORITE THINGS this week are my dishwashing gloves. They have a cuff that helps prevent water from splashing and getting inside the gloves. I have the medium size and they’re the PERFECT not-too-tight, not-too-loose fit, super easy both to put on and take off. I’ve been using them for almost three years now and still love them as much as the day I first tried them. (And after all those years, they finally developed a tear, so I’ve just ordered a replacement pair – and a backup pair!) 

What I’m Watching: My son and I had a great time rewatching all three of Tom Holland’s Spiderman movies this week and finished with No Way Home yesterday. We’re planning to go see Brand New Day with the rest of the family (as soon as I can find it in IMAX – YAY!) and I can hardly wait.

What I’m READING: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Whoa. I’m halfway through this one and I’ll admit that it’s my first time reading it. It wasn’t required reading in my HS or college classes (though now I’m questioning that strongly) and I’m deeply engrossed in it. 

I’ve always enjoyed movies like Gattaca and Equilibrium and kind of assumed this would be similar. And while it is certainly dystopian, it’s also a whole lot darker as both a book and written from the perspective of the world builders and the people in the world.

What I’m LISTENING to: The Wonderlands: Dawn by Jon Foreman. His song, “Mercy’s War,” gets me every time. The first time I heard it, it stopped me in my tracks. It’s so good. 

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.” Psalm 23:1-2 ESV

Wishing you a beautiful week filled with little things that make you smile!

Mary