Friday Faves
Hi friends! Happy Friday and Happy Halloweekend! What do you have going on this weekend? I’m looking forward to catching an Amanda Kloots workout, filming another video for you guys, and seeing the crew all dressed up in their costumes. I’d love to hear what you have going on.
Dia de los Muertos is also just around the corner, and to honor the holiday, Kyle did a special virtual cooking show with my mom and nana through Flying Aprons. The girls and I were so excited to tune in and make some recipes that have been in my family for multiple generations: bizcochuelos (a circular anise shortbread-esque cookie), champurrado (Mexican hot chocolate) and my nana’s Arroz con Pasas (like a sweet rice pudding. I used to eat giant cold spoonfuls of it out of her fridge.).
With my family, I feel like so many recipes are accidental secrets because the chefs make them without saying a word to anyone about what they’re doing. I watched my nana Flores (my nana’s mom) make hundreds of tortillas and she always had a pot of the BEST beans on the stove, but I had no clue how she did it. When I asked her how to make tortillas, it was hilarious.
“Well you use the masa and the water.”
“ Ok nana, do you add any salt or anything like that?”
“Well salt, YES.” (Like “Obviously.”)
“What about lime juice?”
“Oh yes, lime juice.”
“How much do I add?”
“You know, until it’s right.”
These are how we get all of our recipes on my mom’s side of the family haha. The fact that my mom and Kyle were about to track these down and get details was a miracle, let me tell ya. Of course, everything was amazing.
Kyle has such a great energy on camera – get this guy a cooking show already!- and my madre was his sous chef, while nana watched and chimed in with her tips. It was absolutely perfect.
(Pic from their Facebook page)
Besides the virtual cookie lesson, it was a pretty *normal* week around here. Liv crushed her distance learning this week – no homework left this weekend! – I caught a hot yoga class, and the Pilot was gone on a trip. He’s back today and I’m so excited that he’ll be here for Halloween! He’s missed the past few Halloweens so this is a huge deal.
It’s time for the weekly Friday Faves party! These are some of my fave finds from the week and around the web. As always, I love to hear about the things you’re lovin,’ so please shout out any faves in the comments section below.
Read, watch, listen:
New Food Babe Kitchen! Vani was one of the first people who inspired me to dig more into ingredients and sources of the foods we were eating. I’ve been following her forever and have learned so much from her. (Her protein powder, Truvani, is my very favorite right now!) She sent me a copy of her new book and it’s packed with beautiful whole foods recipes. I’m so excited to use this for meal planning next week.
Do you like scary movies?? Pre-kids, I didn’t love them but was ok watching them. Now, especially with the Pilot’s travel schedule, I can’t do it. Give me all of the happy, lighthearted fluff I can take.
Fashion + beauty:
Tarte create your own kit through tonight! This is one of the few makeup brands I love besides Beautycounter. I especially love their eyeshadow primer, their mascara (the bast), highlighter and eyeliner. You can build a full 7-piece kit for only $63 here! I always order backups of my fave products when they have this promo.
Current uniform: a Madewell tee with a long cardigan, jeans, and my low-top sneakers.
Fitness + good eats:
A pumpkin workout for Halloween weekend!
This Nightmare Before Christmas pumpkin pie is so cute!!
Dynamic stretches to do before every run.
Try this barre and dumbbell combo if you haven’t already. It’s a burner, for sure.
Just for fun, a Halloween pic of Bella in her skeleton dress. I still reach down on the bed every morning to pet her, hoping she’d still be there.
This delicious on-the-fly lasagna soup. I sautéed onion, garlic, and turkey sausage in the instant pot, and then added chopped carrots, a container of chicken bone broth, 1/2 a jar of Rao’s marinara sauce, a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas, lots of oregano, basil, salt, and pepper, and some smashed up Banza lasagna noodles. Cook on soup setting for 15 minutes and top with feta! I served it with a caesar salad and the girls loved it! It was awesome for lunch leftovers the next day, too.
Happy Friday!
xo
Gina
PS I’m extending the sneaky giveaway until Monday if you want to enter here!
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Thank you for sharing!
That soup looks amazing! Did you pressure cook at all after you added everything? Or just stir it in and enjoy?
oh shoot. YES! cook for 15 min on the soup setting!
Kyle does need a cooking show. He’s a natural!
Have a fun Halloween! Boo!
Your family recipe situation is hilarious! I’ve had similar experiences with my grandmother trying to transcribe recipes passed down from her mother that are SO vague and not much more than a list of ingredients and a sense of where to cook the stuff (stove, oven, open flames, wtf). Also, I’m so curious about the bizcochuelos you mention – I spent time in Ecuador the summer before last and tried to recreate a recipe for bizcochos (a bone-shaped shortbread cookie) when we got home, and they just weren’t the same. I wonder if they are similar pastries?
I can so relate to your story about your grandmother’s tortillas! I watched my own grandmother make this depression-era dinner roll recipe for years. Every holiday dinner, I helped her make them and asked a million questions. Every answer was “until it’s right” or “you just know”! I have tried so many cloverleaf roll recipes and they are just not the same! These rolls are my Everest.
Your lasagna soup was delicious! Made it for dinner tonight and it was a hit!
i love this family cooking show! and yes, your brother needs his own show STAT. thats how it was with my mima … she’s written down her recipes but i don’t think she had a clue of the actual measurements. none of it ever tastes *quite* the same 🙂
My husband and I *just* talked about the whole scary movie thing last night – weird! We’re getting ready to go through our DVD collection, which is pretty massive, and it includes a lot of horror movies because that’s what he loved when he was younger, and I would go along with it because I liked him. 😉 But now we have a 6 year old, and we want to get some of that out of the house. We both agree, since becoming parents, the real world is scary enough! We stick to comedies now!