What I'm Loving Right Now - sweetest kitchen

While I don’t have a new recipe for you today, I thought I might share some things that I’m currently loving. I’ve seen some other bloggers do the same style of post so I’m going to give it a go as well!

To get started, I’ll share some of the things that have been going on in my kitchen.

My husband loved this dish I served him recently. It’s pesto chicken with spaghetti, recipe from Curtis Stone. He’s already asked me to make it again, which is a big thing! He’s the kind of guy that thinks of food as only something to fill the hole and doesn’t really care what it tastes like. So if he asks me make something again, it’s an obvious sign that it’s really, really good!

I am so embarrassed to have broken down and made a cookie in a mug. In a microwave. I hate microwave cakes with an almighty passion, so it is really unlike me to have gave in to this recipe. It looked so enticing though that I had to try it. This single-serving chocolate chip cookie (recipe here) is quick to throw together, uses staple ingredients and promises a fresh, hot, gooey texture. I have to say, it was actually quite good. I may or may not have made the recipe a few more times.

Actually, I did make it a few more times and once I added 1/2 tablespoon of peanut butter to the butter before melting. Another time I added 1/2 tablespoon of Greek yoghurt along with the egg yolk (which requires a bit more flour).

In the end, I decided this is a dangerous recipe to have on hand because it’s so quick and easy, yet so unhealthy! It’s so tempting to whip up a cookie in the microwave if you’re craving something sweet, but you have to remember, it’d be even quicker to grab a piece of sweet fruit. 😉

To make up for that deplorable cookie in a microwave recipe, I turned to one of my favorite food blogs, Minimalist Baker, and made a batch of these wonderful, healthy granola bars. These beauties use 5 simple ingredients, and to those you can mix in whatever you like. I just chose some Callebaut dark chocolate chips to mix in. They’re delicious, healthy and perfect for an on-the-go snack.

Out of the kitchen now, what I really like is spending time with my children, individually. This is a very rare occurrence when you have four children! Last week, my daughter and I took a walk around the neighborhood and took lots of pictures. This is definitely something we need to do again!

We woke up to a thick blanket of fog this morning. As I was preparing my coffee, the sun started to break through and suddenly a beautiful ethereal scene began to unfold in our backyard. Little droplets of mist were floating in the air and spiderwebs, coated in dew drops, appeared highlighted in the sunlight. I love taking photos of spiderwebs, so I left my coffee behind, grabbed my camera and ran outside. To see more of the photos I took this morning (with my real camera), view my Flickr slideshow (6 photos).

Moving on from Instagram, now. I love vintage bicycles. I haven’t owned a bicycle for over 10 years. When I was little, I practically lived on my bicycle. It was a little pink thing called “Sweet Thunder”. If you were a girl who grew up in the 1980s, you may remember these bikes. When I outgrew that bike, it was a while before I got another. When I finally did, I rode the bike to work and was very proud of that! I was the only person there to ride a bike to work, and my boss was kind enough to let me bring it inside to keep it safe. I no longer have any bike at all, but I dream of owning a vintage bicycle, like the one above! $499 from Papillionaire.

When it comes to keeping clean, there’s no better way to do so than with LUSH. This ethical handmade cosmetics brand has been the apple of my eye for 10 years. I’m currently really into their new hair conditioner, Happy Happy Joy Joy. The gorgeous smell lasts for ages on my hair; I just can’t get enough of it! $24.95 from LUSH Australia.

(photo above is a scanned photograph of me on our family’s boat in the late 1980s)

Last, but certainly not least, my friend, Kell, has became increasingly worried about the lack of printed photographs in this digital age, and that we might lose generations of printed momentos. We all take photos, but we rarely have them printed out; instead, they go straight to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. Personally, I enjoy looking at old photographs. I couldn’t imagine my children growing to my age and not having anything to look back on to remember what things were like when they were children.

Kell has been inspired to create a different sort of photo challenge to keep our place in time forever. She’s written a list of prompts on her blog post to take photos of. Use any sort of camera you like. Here’s where the real challenge comes in – print all the photos you take. Put the prints in an album or use an online service to create a book from them. There, done! Your place in time, your history, is now preserved.

But don’t stop there. Take the time to print your photographs, any of them, all of them. Who knows if or when you may lose your digital copies of your baby’s first day of life, first food, first steps, or whatever else is dear to you. However, if you have prints and they’re safe in an album, you have a better chance of preserving these special moments for future generations.

I think Kell’s photo challenge is fantastic, and I will definitely be participating. For all the details on how to take part and preserve your place in time, visit Kell’s blog.

What are you loving right now? Is there anything that you couldn’t possibly live without at the moment?