I always struggle to remember what my favorites for the previous month were and try to do everything that I’m loving right now and then have nothing for the next favorites. It’s a vicious cycle and a month is such a long time (Derek says I run on Molly time which is slower than everyone else’s). But this month, I came prepared and tried my hardest to write things down when I found myself raving about them to friends and family.
Now, if you’re new here, welcome aboard. I would like to let you know that this is not a normal favorites post but really anything I liked during the month goes up, so don’t think this post will be about makeup or fashion. Let’s get started.
Food
Glutino’s Gluten-Free Foods
My first favorite is the whole darn Glutino brand. They are one of the cheaper gluten free (GF) brands that don’t offer only healthy GF alternatives. They recognize that sometimes I want to eat cookies and not spend the next few days trying to muffle the war zone happening in my lower intestines (or eat cookies that aren’t blander than a cardboard box, if that’s possible). They make amazing GF snacks and guilty pleasures. They have bread, baking mixes, cookies, crackers, toaster pastries and a whole lot more. How about I just link you to their list of products and you can go drool over there.
Glutino’s chocolate covered pretzels are amazing. They aren’t like traditional hard pretzels. These pretzels are light and crispy (crunchy?) instead of dense like a normal hard pretzel (it’s kinda hard to describe, but they are good regardless). We have tried both the chocolate and yogurt covered pretzels and love them (to be honest we haven’t tried anything from them we haven’t liked).
Glutino also has lemon and chocolate wafers. If you miss Kit-Kats, try the chocolate covered wafers. These are the closest thing you can get to a Kit-Kat without adding gluten. Glutino’s lemon wafers are good but VERY sweet. I can only eat one or two. They remind me of a lemony fruit loop (or the vodka that’s fruit loop flavored). They are a bit of a sugar bomb, but still very good.
Glutino’s Garlic Parmesan Bagle chips are amazing as well. We eat them with honey covered camembert/brie and it’s my favorite cracker with most things. They also have table crackers that are pretty good too.
I love Chips Ahoy, and have been pretty sad I couldn’t eat them. When I was in high school I would have two warmed up in the microwave for ten seconds every day after school with a small glass of milk. Glutino’s chocolate chip cookies are very similar to Chips Ahoy but with a hint of almond and maybe a bit softer. They are great and by far my favorite Glutino find so far. We also really like Glutino’s bread. We got the multigrain sandwich bread and it is by far the softest GF bread we have found. If you grew up on wonder bread sandwiches (and liked them) you got to try this bread. What I love most about Glutino is they are cheap and they don’t try to make only healthy GF alternatives, they give you great alternatives for all the snack foods you used to love but can no longer have and it is glorious.
Private Selection’s Spinach, Artichoke, and Parmesan Dip
We kinda binged this stuff for a few days. I was really craving appetizers like mozzarella sticks, wings, potato skins, etc. I love appetizers because you get a huge variety of crappy food all in one meal. I would love to get a bunch of appetizers at every restaurant (Derek doesn’t like sharing or appetizers for the matter). I was struggling to come up with appetizers we could buy at the store that would be GF, then I remembered about Spinach and Artichoke Dip. I grabbed this brand at my local King Soopers and was pleasantly surprised. There is a great balance between spinach, artichoke, and cheese. Plus, you get large chunks of artichokes every couple of bites. I prefer mine heated up with some tortilla chips. **This brand isn’t certified GF, so if you are celiac, I would not recommend eating it without speaking to the manufacturer first.**
Drink
Iced or Hot Turtle Lattes (copycat McDonald’s recipe)
I did a blog post about these already, but I am in love with Turtle Lattes. If those words mean nothing to you, it’s basically chocolate, caramel, and hazelnut coffee goodness. This is very sweet and I don’t recommend drinking it every morning, but it is a yummy treat. Pop on over here to get the recipe and to read more about why I love this drink.
Music
Hippocampus
I have been obsessed with all things Hippocampus. I have heard some of their stuff before (like in a friends car) but never really paid attention. I fell in love with their song “buttercup” through a friend and started listening to it while I worked. I listened on YouTube and would use the autoplay function so I didn’t have to worry about finding more songs. Well, YouTube auto-played more of their stuff, and I fell in love with all of it. So listen to this amazing Hippocampus Playlist and relax.
Share with me some of your favorite music below (please, I’m desperate).
Video Games
Little Big Planet 3
Now, if you haven’t heard of this game before, I’m very surprised. Even the sheltered, living-under-a-rock Derek had heard of the game. This last Spring Break, Derek took the whole week off work and was ecstatic to get away from his Accounting degree for a bit. I had lined up a bunch of movies for us to watch (Derek is very sheltered and hasn’t watched much outside of Marvel, so I am working through a list of movies I love with him. If you would like to see what I recommend, check out my Movie Recommendation #1). Anyways, after watching movies all day and night over the first weekend, we got pretty bored. We are still poor college kids and couldn’t travel anywhere. I thought maybe we should play some games.
We had been playing Overcooked (a great game I recommend for couples and friends) but had just completed it. I realized there was a third Little Big Planet that had come out for the PlayStation 4 that I had no idea about. I had played the first two with my family and loved them. So we downloaded it and started playing. We finished the game after 3 days of staying up until 4 am and never stopping except to eat. Derek and I loved it. After we finished the game we were both disappointed it was over so soon. So what did we do? Went out and bought a PlayStation 3 so we could play the first two Little Big Planets. We finished all the games during spring break, and I miss that time together. We did prefer Little Big Planet 1 & 2 more, but they are all good and worth a try. I highly recommend this game to ANYONE, even someone who doesn’t like video games. It’s cute, doesn’t take an immense amount of skill, but isn’t boring either. Here, just check out the trailer for yourself.
If you know other games that would be great for us to play together, please let me know!
Cat Supplies
Corner Litter Boxes
Image Courtesy of Nature’s Miracle – https://bit.ly/2FVMrus
I know this will sound silly to most other people, but I am loving these Nature’s Miracle Corner Litter Boxes. We replaced two of our litter boxes with these and not only have more room where the old litter box was, but our cats have been loving them too. One of our cats, Theo, is a little weird and has been odd since the day we adopted him, but that’s another story. Theo likes to do his business with one foot in the litter and the other on the rim effectively doing the splits in mid-air (so limber). With the new litter boxes, he has been able to achieve this positioning easier and without making a mess. These also, in my opinion, look less sloppy than regular ones and fit certain spaces better. They also have high sides which helps with our other cat that likes to flick litter everywhere. I really recommend these to any cat parents who are looking for a better, sleeker litterbox option. You can purchase these from Chewy here (for some reason the hooded corner litter boxes are cheaper than the non-hooded ones, but we don’t use the hood). I’m sure there are other places to buy these too.
That’s all I have for this month. I hope you enjoyed the read, and please share with me in the comments below if there is anything you’re just loving right now!
Kitten Around the Kitchen 