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The Fantasy Lover’s Book List

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Hi guys! It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve done a book post, so I’m back with one today. I’m SUPER excited because fantasy is my absolute favourite book genre. There are so many great fantasy series out there, and these are definitely at the top of the list of books I’ve loved reading the most. They’re full of adventure and really allow you to escape into them! Summer is a great time to lie outside in the sunshine with a good read, so stock up on some of these novels and enjoy!

Throne of Glass Series

This is my second all-time favourite series, just a smidgen beneath Harry Potter. It has pretty much all I want in adventure novels; a great heroine, lots of action, twists and turns, and some royalty. I would give a LOT to read these books for the first time again! They feature Celeana Sardothien, who is an ex-assassin brought to compete in a series of challenges to become the king’s champion. (The king is a bad dude, by the way). But there’s a bigger evil force at play and she needs to delve into her past (queue a MAJOR plot twist- I won’t spoil it though) and she gathers a whole bunch of interesting characters to help fight it. This is a lengthy series but it’s so well done, and there’s so many little side stories and pieces of background information that come together beautifully at the end. These books are definitely must-reads!

Red Queen Series

I read these books a while back but I really enjoyed them. They have a bit of a futuristic/sci-fi spin, which is pretty cool. They take place in a world where some humans have evolved to have awesome powers and silver blood. I wish. Everyone else with ordinary red blood are ruled by those with silver. A red-blooded girl named Mare is revealed to have powers too, and the king is like, not cool man, so he betroths her to his son and calls her a long lost silver princess to cover it up. Mare has to survive in the world of silvers and, as the series goes on, a crazy war that’s started after some twists. Be sure to check these out!

A Court of Thorns and Roses Series

These books are by the same author as Throne of Glass, and I have to say I like Throne of Glass a bit better. This series of four books is still pretty good though. It starts off as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but then it gets a bit darker and features betrayal and some shocking reveals, as well as some magical lands (which are always awesome). I enjoyed the adventure and plot line of these books a lot, but there was a little too much romance for me.

Six of Crows Duology

This is a set of two books that I want to read again soon because I remember really loving them! They’re about a group of criminals who get offered a crazy amount of money to pull off a heist. These books are great because the characters are developed so well and they each have their own kind of backstory, which adds so much. And it’s still set in a magical destination with magical stuff going on, so you get your fantasy fix. 10/10 recommend!

Three Dark Crowns Series

Finally, we have the Three Dark Crowns series, which is the one I finished the most recently. I really enjoyed all of the folklore and magic and mystery in this series! It’s about three sisters that are destined to fight to the death to become the Queen of the island of Fennbirn. There’s people with magic powers, rebellion, plot twists, and so much more in these books! You should for sure check them out.

Hope you got some great summer reading ideas! I love all of these books so much and this made me want to revisit some of them;) See you on Friday!

Yours Truly,

Olivia

Creamy Avocado Balsamic Dressing

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Hi there! Today I have a delicious and creamy dressing recipe for you guys. It may not be a looker but it’s sure packed with flavour and goes great with any salad combo! I used some delicious fresh basil from my plant (throwback to last year when I did Herb Month) and it adds so much!

This dressing takes five minutes to whip up, and has all of the taste of a balsamic dressing, but is much creamier and has that extra basil in there. It’s the consistency of a good ranch dressing. I like it because oftentimes I’ll make vinaigrettes, and it’s nice to have something more unctuous. Isn’t that a great word? When something is unctuous you know you want to eat it.

For lunch lately I’ve just been roasting a bunch of veggies (including sweet potatoes, of course) and tossing them with some lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and a sick dressing like this one. It just ties everything together and still tastes so light and fresh! Some other things you could slap this on would be sandwiches, wraps, and bowls. It’s so good! Here’s the recipe;))

Creamy Avocado and Balsamic Dressing

Serves: 4

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 a ripe avocado
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 4 small leaves of fresh basil, chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 2 tbsp water
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Mash the avocado very well in a small bowl. You want as few lumps as possible.
  2. Whisk in the rest of the ingredients, then serves in salads, wraps, bowls or sandwiches.

Hope you like this dressing! It’s great for summer;))

Yours Truly,

MyDayIsBooked

2 Summer Smoothie Bowls

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Smoothie bowls are my ABSOLUTE favourite breakfast! They’re so refreshing, and make me feel like I’m having a treat on vacation somewhere. You can pack a bunch of veggies in there without even noticing, and the topping combos are endless. ENDLESS!

It took me a while to get the perfect smoothie bowl thickness, but I think I’ve finally cracked the code. You want to have the ingredients as cold as possible, and limit the amount of watery fruits that you put in your smoothie. The base of all of my smoothies is a frozen banana, because that’s what makes them thick and creamy. If you don’t like banana you can try using mango, because I’ve found it has a similar effect. The ingredients might take a little while to come together in the blender, but eventually they’ll form a mixture that’s almost like soft serve in texture. Using a tamper is critical here, because you can continually push the ingredients towards the blender blades.

In this post, I’ve included two different recipes for summer smoothie bowls, because I couldn’t decide which one to pick! One has banana, berries, and spinach, and the other has banana, spinach, kale, and watermelon. Yum! My watermelon didn’t get completely frozen, and so the result was a slightly more watery smoothie bowl. Make sure that you leave it in the freezer at least overnight! These recipes are definitely some of my favourites though, because they TASTE LIKE SUMMER and allow you to get some greens in!

Lets talk toppings. Really anything goes when you’re topping your smoothie bowl, but some ideas are more fruit, granola, dates, nut, seeds, and nut butters. I like a few different toppings on my bowl because it keeps things interesting. Some granola recipes that go GREAT on smoothie bowls are my Nutty Granola and Chocolate Coconut Granola. I’ve also been known to top my bowls with a Seedy Energy Square or two….. it’s so good!

I hope that these recipes get you hooked on smoothie bowls!

Berry and Spinach Smoothie Bowl

Serves: 1

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Bowl:

  • 1 frozen banana (sliced)
  • 3/4 cup frozen blueberries
  • 3/4 cup spinach (not packed)
  • 2 tbsp water

For the Toppings:

Directions:

  1. Add all of the smoothie ingredients to a powerful blender and blend on low, using the tamper to push the ingredients down.
  2. Once the ingredients are starting to come together, turn the speed to medium and continue using the tamper. It may seem like you need to add more water, but continue until a thick, soft-serve like mixture forms. This can take a few minutes.
  3. Scoop the smoothie into a bowl and top with the strawberries, granola, and peanut butter.
  4. Enjoy!

Greens and Watermelon Smoothie Bowl

Serves: 1

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Bowl:

  • 1 frozen banana (sliced)
  • 3/4 cup frozen water melon chunks
  • 1/2 cup kale leaves (loosely packed)
  • 1/2 cup spinach (loosely packed)
  • 1 tbsp water

For the Toppings:

Directions:

  1. Add all of the smoothie ingredients to a powerful blender and blend on low, using the tamper to push the ingredients down.
  2. Once the ingredients are starting to come together, turn the speed to medium and continue using the tamper. It may seem like you need to add more water, but continue until a thick, soft-serve like mixture forms. This can take a few minutes.
  3. Scoop the smoothie into a bowl and top with the chopped dates, granola, and peanut butter.
  4. Enjoy!

I know I’ll be enjoying these bowls all summer long! Thanks for reading and I’ll see you Wednesday:))

Yours Truly,

Olivia

June 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Hey guys! I had a bit of a delay but I’m now here with my June 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up. We’re almost halfway through the year which is crazy! This month I went with a Nancy Drew theme, which is kind of near and dear to my heart. A couple of years ago I read all of my mom’s classic copies, and so I thought it would be a cute theme.

I used yellows and blacks through this month, and also my white gel pen, which I really love. I had some ribbon with keys on it that I was going to use, but it didn’t really fit in anywhere so I left it out. To be honest, when I starting designing the title page I had a but of bullet-journaler’s block, because there are just so many directions that I could’ve gone in, and I couldn’t decide on one! But I finally settled on some cute magnifying glass, flashlight, footprint, and key doodles, as well as some Nancy Drew silhouettes that I traced (because I can’t draw people to save my life).

In the end, I think this theme turned out really well and it was super fun to make! I got to use some card stock and get creative with my trackers, and I put together a weekly spread in a that I’ve never done before. Here it is!

My title page is a little busier than I would’ve liked, but I still think it’s cute. I traced a Nancy Drew silhouette and drew some footprints in black, and then I surrounded the whole thing with doodles. This whole month I’m doing a typewriter font, which fits the theme well and looks great! I could’t resist doing a little cursive on the quote page though. On the opposite page I have a quote from Nancy Drew;))

I went with the same sort of calendar layout that I used in May, because I don’t have a whole lot going on in June either (surprise surprise), so this spread is more efficient. Here I included some more doodles and broke out my white gel pen! I love the card stock that says “Nancy Drew Mystery Stories” in the corner.

Here we have The Case of Olivia’s Habits and Mood! Aka my habit and mood trackers. Again, I used the same layout as last month. I find that these trackers are just really easy to read and look super nice;)) This month I’m tracking some habits, productivity, sleep, and my workouts with the footprints on the side. I used some card stock again cause I love it.

I used some more Nancy-Drew-title-sounding phrases in my next couple pages, because I think it’s super cute. These are my gratitude log and brain dump. I decided to include a brain dump because sometimes I feel like I have things on my mind that I just need to get on paper, especially during this weird time. Anyways, here I can write lists, my thoughts, or anything that I need to articulate.

This weekly spread turned out kind of cool! I love the big letters that spell June in the middle, as well as all of the doodles and the cursive. I left space to write a to-do list and things I have to do for school here as well.

Hopefully these spreads give you some ideas for your own journal! I’ll see you guys on Monday;))

Yours Truly,

Olivia;))

Tuna and Avocado Poke Bowls

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I’m so excited about this recipe! You don’t even know. Obviously with the pandemic going on I haven’t been eating out as much, and yesterday I was just craving something different. Something that made me feel like I’m at a restaurant somewhere. The ingredients that I had on hand didn’t seem very restaurant-quality (canned tuna isn’t exactly a star protein), but I came up with something that HIT. THE. SPOT.

I love tuna poke- I love raw fish of any kind, really, but getting a big chunk of tuna steak is kind of expensive and it’s not the kind of thing that I just have lying around in my fridge. HOWEVER, I do have a large quantity of canned tuna. I mixed it with mashed avocado, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and ginger to make an amazing mixture that definitely reminds me of delicious poke! Plus I formed it into little balls to serve, which really brought the restaurant vibe!

For the other components of this bowl, I tried to get creative and really have fun. We have some HOMEMADE pickled veggies people! Homemade!! They’re so simple to make and sooooooo tasty! Plus you have some wild rice, which contains tons of good-for-you vitamins, spinach, thinly sliced cucumbers, and a sprinkle of hemp hearts. Delish!

I really hope you give this bowl a try! It’s so fun to make and eat, and makes for a slightly-fancy at home dinner for when you can’t go out. Enjoy!

Tuna and Avocado Poke Bowls

Serves: 2

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Tuna:

  • 1 can of light chunk tuna, drained (I used yellowfin)
  • 1/2 a ripe avocado
  • 1/2 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 rice vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger

For the Pickled Veggies:

  • 1/2 a large carrot, cut in half width-wise and shaved into thin strips with a veggie peeler (see Thai Ribbon Salad)
  • 1/4 of a red onion, sliced very thinly
  • 1 cup white vinegar
  • 1 tsp chilli flakes
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced

For the Bowl:

  • 1/2 cup wild rice
  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar
  • A couple of handfuls of spinach
  • 1/2 a cucumber, sliced thinly
  • Hemp hearts or sesame seeds for topping

Directions:

  1. Combine the wild rice with 1 cup of water in a pot. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes, until all of the water has evaporated. Then remove from the heat, fluff with a fork, and let stand for 5-10 minutes.
  2. After the rice starts cooking, mix the vinegar, garlic, and chilli flakes in a small bowl. Add in the shaved carrot and thinly sliced red onion, trying to make sure that most of the veggies are covered by the pickling liquid. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for a least 35 minutes to pickle.
  3. In a medium sized bowl, mash the half avocado and stir in the soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, sesame oil and tuna.
  4. Once the rice is cooked, stir in the rice vinegar. Split the rice up into two serving bowls, and top with the pickled veggies, cucumber, a handful of spinach, half of the tuna mixture each, and some hemp hearts or sesame seeds.
  5. Enjoy!

Hope you’re all having a great week! See you Friday;))

Yours Truly,

Olivia