Friday Favorites 8.4.17

I’ve been following some bloggers for a couple years now (Shay, Erika, Sheaffer) and their Friday Favorites posts are some of MY favorite.  I've gotten some great ideas from them!  Well, as a new blogger, I’m joining the fun.  Every Friday, I’ll be sharing my favorite things from the week.

First up, the Microsoft Surface!  Where have you been all my life?  I swore myself an Apple girl but this tablet (that operates just like a laptop too) quickly became my favorite gadget even over my ipad (gasp!) and my Macbook Air.  It is so versatile (goes from tablet to laptop easily), it has a super fast Operating System, it’s lightweight and something about the touchscreen and pen to markup the screen (when surfing the web or marking up documents) just has me swooning.  Three cheers for the Surface!

 
Well, now, every tablet must have a cute carrying bag!  Am I right?  I was tired of hauling my huge purse, plus a laptop bag, plus a lunch bag to work every day.  So, my new Michael Kors bag was the perfect solution.  It’s like a tote bag in that it carries everything I usually carry in my purse, plus it has a laptop compartment.  It basically combined my two bags into one.  This photo is the bag filled with all my purse contents, my Surface with keyboard, all of my chargers and even my kindle.  It is still so slim and easy to carry.  I use it every day of the week and also took it to D.C. recently.  It was the perfect travel bag!  And, I got it 50% off.  A great sale is always a favorite!

I have been raving about this popcorn popper bowl for a few months.  Someone introduced it to me and in one pop, I was hooked.  I’ve gotten several of my girlfriends and my parents hooked too and had to share it as one of my favorite things on my blog!  You just pour about 3 – 5 tablespoons of unpopped Orville Redenbacher kernels in it, lay on the lid, throw it in the microwave for 2 minutes and you have perfectly popped popcorn every time.  Then, I top it with butter flavored popcorn oil and my favorite popcorn topping which right now is White Cheddar (I use Kernel Season’s brand).  I used to do the microwave popcorn bags which I found to be extra greasy and they burned often.  Plus, I was limited to only the flavors they sell in stores.  Now, I can make any flavor popcorn I want.  I made my little goddaughters cinnamon sugar popcorn in it.  We’ve done parmesan cheese, and even a batch where I used Chardonnay Fume olive oil (a more gourmet snack) and all were delicious.  Here’s the best part…. This magic popcorn bowl can be found at Target and get this, it’s only $7.59!  If you love a good snack, you will not be disappointed.

This next favorite I’ve been wanting to share for awhile now.  Hello Fresh meal delivery service, I praise you.  Back in May, I asked for reviews of various meal delivery services on Facebook and got great feedback (good and bad about various companies).  Then my friend gave them a rave review and sent me a week of free meals so how could I resist?  Now I’ve been having 3 Hello Fresh meals delivered each week since June and highly recommend it.  The recipes are tasty and easy to follow, the packaging is great, there’s very little waste, and it’s so convenient.  Most recipes take 30 minutes to make and that includes prep time of chopping, boiling, etc.  Totally easy after a long day at work!  My favorite recipe so far was the Plantain Tacos.  What?  A banana in a taco?  Yes.  Believe it.  So good!  That’s another reason Hello Fresh is a favorite – they’ve got me trying things I would never put together and they are delicious.

Last, this is a favorite recipe and a money saver.  Don’t you love those?  I’ve never really been into Starbucks but this summer, I got bitten by the bug.  I fell for their shaken iced teas like passion tea lemonade and also the mango black tea lemonade.  So refreshing in this miserable Las Vegas heat.  What’s better than Starbucks iced tea lemonade on a hot day?  Copycat Starbucks iced tea lemonades – that’s what!  I found the recipes from cincyshopper.com, bought the teas on Amazon and have been making them at home for a fraction of the price.  I’m basically making them for about $1 a serving (maybe less), instead of the $4 - $5 that Starbucks charges.  Yay!  Now I can’t just say that without paying forward a recipe:

Copycat Passion Tea Lemonade

INGREDIENTS
2 Tazo Passion Tea Bags
16 oz Water
4 oz Lemonade
2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp Vanilla

DIRECTIONS
Boil water.
Remove from heat add tea bags, sugar and vanilla.
Allow to sit for 15 minutes.
Remove tea bags and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Add ice to a tall closeable container. Add 8 oz tea and 2 oz of lemonade per serving. Shake well to mix.

That’s it for my first Friday Favorites post.  I invite you to share your favorites too.  I find this a great way to find out about new products! 

Happy Friday!