It’s time for me to come clean: spring is not my favorite season. Summer is my favorite and I wait all year for the warm evenings when I can watch the fireflies, sit outside watching the sun go down at 8 PM, and everything feels like it is holding a magical, promise-filled potential. And I don’t even have allergies to complain about! Still, this week has been so lovely near me. No rain in sight (a bit of a loss since I threw down some grass seed on my backyard’s bald patches), warm during the day, but still cool enough at night to cozy up. Spring, you may be winning me over yet.
I’ve got some seasonal recommendations for your weekend; though truly, cooking hacks, flowers, and sun safety are evergreen to me.
Eat: I had a craving for egg salad this week and came across a great time-saver for hard-boiled eggs. They’re easy enough to make, peeling them is such a pain. Enter an Instagram video by @KaleJunkie that offers the following alternative:
Take eight eggs and crack them into a greased loaf pan. Then put the loaf pan in a larger baking dish and fill the larger one with water, making sure that the level of the water in the larger pan is at least level with the eggs in the loaf pan. Your loaf pan with cracked eggs will now be a tiny island in a sea of water, contained by the baking dish. Pop it in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. When it’s done, take everything out – water included – and then remove the loaf pan from the baking dish with water. Let it cool completely. Once cooled, flip the loaf pan over a cutting board and chop chop chop. Bam! Hard-boiled eggs aplenty! As mentioned, I used this for the egg salad recipe @KaleJunkie posted following the baking dish hack. You can also save it to top off salads with or use any other place you use hard-boiled eggs.
See: There is a tulip farm in my state that is in peak bloom right now and I am giddy with excitement to go see it this weekend. I went last year and it truly took my breath away – there were literal millions blooming – 8 million to be exact! They offer U-Pick stems for $1 each, and I was seriously in the dark about how many tulip variants are out there. There are some that look more like lilies or roses, others that are much more like the tulips you imagine learning how to draw in elementary school. Even if you don’t have a tulip farm near you, take a moment to see what is in season near you. Maybe there’s another charming local festival near you that is worth checking out this weekend. Or if you’re hoping for some unique tulips, pop into a local florist and see what they’ve got.
Do: Check your sunscreen supplies now and buy up what you can for your Spring and Summer ahead. This goes for all of your household inhabitants from head to toe! From what I’ve heard from dermatologists when they are asked about lotion vs. spray-on sunscreen, the answer is that the best kind of sunscreen is the kind you use. My favorite is Alba Botanica Hawaiian Coconut SPF 50 Spray (try saying that 10 times fast!) It’s easy for me to find at Target, but I buy it up in larger quantities this time of year. For my face, I was introduced to Supergoop products, which I love because it doesn’t have a greasy sunscreen feeling. If you have a Trader Joe’s nearby, there’s a great product dupe for their Unseen Sunscreen SPF 40 called their Daily Facial Sunscreen SPF 40. And last time I checked, it was around $10 – truly can’t be beat. If you wear makeup, then you can get easy spray-on sunscreen for your face which acts as a makeup setting spray. Supergoop makes a good one that I like (that you can stock up on now for a discount during the Sephora Beauty Insider sale). There are other brands like Coola and Glossier that make setting sprays with SPF that are slightly cheaper and also available during the Sephora sale. Remember, if you don’t reapply, you’re missing out on a lot of sun protection that you need.
Have an egg-celent, full bloom, sunshiny weekend,
Christina
