Welcome to Friday Favourites, where I share a list of the shows, products, books, activities and food I’ve been loving recently. I’ll pop any helpful links in here as well where I can – they’re not paid links or ads, so I don’t earn any commission or income for sharing them. But if that ever changes I’ll always let you know out of full transparency on my page.
Shows I’m Watching:
- I didn’t start any of the shows I had listed last week, and instead chose a random show called Tell Me Lies, which I had planned to just have playing in the background while I cleaned around the house over the weekend…. And then I found myself sitting down on the couch and bingeing episode after episode. It is what I would definitely call “trash tv” – college kids, overdramatic story lines, raunchy scenes, love triangles, half the characters annoy me… and YET, I can’t stop watching. And despite the amount of times I’ve said out loud, “you’ve got to be joking me!” I still press play on the next episode.
Books I’m Reading:
- I have FINALLY finished Tower of Dawn. It was a solid 4/5 in my opinion, which I believe is an unpopular opinion based on what I’ve seen on social media (it seems to get a lot of hate, or otherwise doesn’t get mentioned at all when people share their favourite books in the series). But I really enjoyed the character development, redemption and growth in this book. Empire of Storms is still the only 5/5 book in the series in my eyes, and this one definitely didn’t have as much action or “shock factor” but I enjoyed it so much more than I expected to in the beginning. I also found out this week through TikTok that it can be read IN TANDOM with Empire of Storms, because both books are happening at the same time just with different characters. Had I known this, I definitely would have done this because I think it would have been an amazing reading experience. I can’t believe I’m now up to the final book in the series, it has been such a long read and now that I’m getting to the end I am actually a bit sad already. One more book to wrap up absolutely everything that has happened so far in the last 7 books. I’m starting it tonight and I feel like I’m going to be in for one hell of a ride!
Foods I’m Eating:
- A lot of good food! With my extra long weekend, I had a lot of time to get creative in the kitchen.
- Braised lamb shanks (Jamie was able to come home for the night which was a lovely surprise, and this was a great excuse to finally cook up those shanks we had sitting in the freezer).
- Leftover potatoes and sauce from the lamb shanks repurposed into an incredible brunch dish for me the following day. I re-heated it in a large saucepan, cracked in two eggs and cooked them right in the sauce like a shakshuka. So much flavour!
- Jeow Mak Len, which is a Lao dipping sauce made with charred tomatoes, shallots, chillies and garlic. I have been missing my family recently and whenever I do, I like to cook the food I grew up with because cooking and eating together is such a big part of our culture. This “jeow” is one of my favourite condiments that my mum would make and serve with our meals and I thoroughly enjoyed having it over the weekend. (Recipe coming soon!)
- Chocolate peanut butter pretzel slice, oh my! This was so delicious, and the recipe and video tutorial of it can be found on my Instagram page HERE. (Update – recipe is also now live on the blog now right now too! – LINK HERE)
Things I’m Planning:
- More relaxing this weekend. Jamie is home for the weekend and I’m excited to spend some quality time with him. We bought a small inflatable pool for the backyard to combat this heat a little, and I plan to do a lot of lazying about in it, drinking cocktails, listening to music and hopefully we can also get our hands on a BBQ so we can have an afternoon grill session too!
What have you got planned for the weekend? Let me know!
Laura x