Recipe + Review: Behind Her Eyes + Braised Thai Curry Chicken Recipe!

Welcome back to the table readers and happy Friday! Today I'm bringing y'all a review for Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough along with a recipe for a braised chicken Thai curry. A few recipes ago I featured a lightened up Indian curry that we love in our house and this one is another family favorite! It makes great left overs and it's a super easy one-pan dish to whip up that takes little prep work and kind of just does it's own thing so it's perfect for a weeknight meal. This book was suggested to me by a friend of mine while we were discussing bat-shit crazy endings to books and she mentioned this one as being the cream of the crop for surprise twists so it took no time at all for me to hop on this gravy train and get my hands on a copy!

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Thoughtful Thursday’s: The Binge Watch!

Happy almost Friday readers! I know *most* of my content is either book or cooking related but a few months ago I did a cheesy Christmas movie post and it was super fun. I thought I'd change things up a little bit today and give y'all something you haven't asked for - great TV shows to binge watch! With the weekend looming and spring cleaning in full swing, what's a better way to get all that laundry out of the way than to pop on a great binge-watchable TV show and mow through those chores.

First things first, I'm not going to go over some of the all-time best, and well known shows that generally, the entire world and their moms have seen. So, no The Office, Parks and Recreation or Game of Thrones will be found on this list. While all of these are fan-freakin'-tastic shows, they're also some of the most popular shows and you've likely either already seen them, or decided you wont watch them (but I highly suggest giving them all a real shot)! I've got another Recipe and a Read post coming at y'all tomorrow so keep an eye out!

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Top 5 Wednesday: Books You Thought You’d Hate, but Ended Up Loving!

I swear that the week after a vacation is the slowest dang thing that has ever existed. I need to start making sure that when I go on vacation it bleeds into two separate weeks so I can prolong the amount of time it takes me to have to complete a full week of work. This has been bruuuutal y'all. However, it's always nice to get back into a routine and I've been doing a bunch of reading so I'm not too upset about it. As I mentioned earlier this week I'm making a Thai Curry dish to pair with my Behind Her Eyes review which I'll be posting on Friday, so keep an eye out! For today, I wanted to participate in Top 5 Wednesday!

Top 5 Wednesday, like all the other memes I do is actually a Goodreads group rather than a blog! Different "top 5" topics are discussed every week and it's a super fun way to revisit and share books you've already read with readers. I definitely suggest checking out the group if you're into these kinds of posts! This week the topic is "books you thought you'd hate but ended up loving"! This one is actually pretty hard for me (but IDKKK I feel like I say that all the time) because I generally don't read books I think I'll hate. So I'm going for more of a "books I was less enthusiastic about reading but ended up loving" vibe.

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Recipe + ARC Review: Recursion + Huevos Rancheros Recipe!

Welcome back to the table readers! My blog has really given me the ability to not only share my love of cooking and reading but also to broaden my scope in both areas. I've read all different types of books I probably wouldn't have otherwise and I've been able to try my hand at different dishes that are outside my comfort zone. Recipe and a Read has taken me all over the globe trying out different recipes from different cultures and countries. It's always a neat little surprise when I'm reading and BAM there's the recipe I'm going to make. Whether it's something I'm familiar with, or that I've never had, and even when I have to get a little creative to make it work these are always my favorite posts. So tickle me pink when I see huevos rancheros show up not once, but multiple times in Blake Crouch's new book Recursion! As a born and bred Texan, huevos rancheros are right up my alley and one of my all-time favorite dishes. So without further ado, off we go!

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80’s Movie Book Tag!

Mondays, and more specifically, Mondays after a vacation are the literal, actual and factual worst. Vacations are amazing and I love the time off but honestly, getting back into the groove of working is such a pain. However, I can't complain too much because I didn't think with the transplant surgery we'd get in any real skiing and we were able to fit in a ton of that and it was *magical* so I'm mostly just bitter that I can't go skiing right now. I was tagged in this little quiz a few weeks ago but I've just really dove back in with reading more consistently following my massive book slump so I'm just now getting around to it! Thank you to Eternity Books for the tag!! If y'all haven't checked out this blog I definitely suggest it!

So full disclosure, I'm *barely* an 80s baby and I don't really think I can call myself that since I was born in 89. So when I say "80s baby" I don't mean that in the sense that i grew up in the 80s, I just happened to breathe the last bit of 80s air after I was born. So while I've seen some of these, I haven't seen them all. However, why not - lets get to gettin'!

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ARC Review: No Exit by Taylor Adams!

Darby Thorne is an average college student attending CU in Boulder, Colorado when she receives devastating news that her estranged mother has end stage pancreatic cancer and is undergoing life threatening surgery in a matter of hours. As Darby hastily packs up her car and attempts to beat a serious winter storm to make it to Utah in time to not just see her mother, but apologize to her for their estrangement she unwittingly sets herself on a path that will change her life forever.

As Darby attempts to outrace the raging snow storm in her Honda civic (a car that’s 100% not ideal for snow conditions) things go from bad to worse until she’s forced to pull over at a rest stop. When Darby enters the warm embrace of a rest stop that’s still hours from where she needs to be she meets Sandi and her cousin Ed, well meaning if not a little low-class. She also meets Ashley, a young and charming if not arrogant man and Lars, a creep ball and mouth breather. As Darby grapples with the snow storm and tries to find signal to contact her family about her current condition she stumbles upon literally, a nightmare of a situation.

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Down The TBR Hole #3!

It's officially t-minus 3 days until I'm loaded up in the truck and on my way to ColoRADo to go skiing and celebrate my good friends dirty 30! I'm super amped and I'm working on picking some good reads for the car ride and some snow side reading. I thought today would be a great day to do another round of Down The TBR Hole and clean up my TBR pile because I'm constantly adding new things to it and not revisiting old reads. Down the TBR Hole was originally created by Lost in a Story and this is how it works:

- Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.

- Order on ascending date added.

- Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books

- Read the synopses of the books

- Decide: keep it or should it go?

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Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid!

That's right, we're almost halfway done with the week (technically not half way yet, since it's still the morning) and I couldn't be more ready for Friyay! So as I've made it abundantly clear, I've been in a pretty extreme reading slump for the last month or so. Everything I started I just immediately wasn't interested in. It's been terrible my dudes, truly terrible. It's not that I haven't wanted to want to read, it's just that nothing was striking my fancy. So tickle me pink when Taylor Jenkins Reid's new book that I pre-ordered 86 years ago shows up on my front porch. I sent a hallelujah on up to the book gods and this baby couldn't have come soon enough. So, without further ado a review for Daisy Jones & The Six!

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Top 10 Tuesday: Stand Alone Books That Need a Sequel!

Happy not Monday, my dudes! I for one, am already ready for this week to be over. Both because I feel like garbage and also because I'm going to skiing next week for one of my best friends 30th birthdays! I may not be feeling too hot this week but that's never going to stop me from being freakin' AMPED to go skiing. I actually just finished Daisy Jones & The Six (TJR, you're a master) but I'm going to post that review tomorrow (I swear I'm not full of lies this time). I've got a few books from my library but they aren't really *speaking* to me so I may jump into a few old ARCs that I have instead.

Today I wanted to participate in my second round of Top 10 Tuesday! Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Artsy Reader and this weeks topic is stand alone books that need a sequel! I used to be super into series and had a hard time sinking my teeth into stand alones. Well, my how the tables have turned y'all because now I have a hard time getting into series and have been loving the stand alones!

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Top 3 Thursday: Books That Taught Me Something New!

Hello! Welcome to another episode of "Christina is Full of Lies"!! In a surprise twist, it turns out our host Christina is actually, totally full of lies! The reading slump that has completely infected my life for all of February has been a real freakin' drag y'all. Honestly, I was kind of avoiding my blog and GR account because it was making me feel guilty. Been then I realized that was totally self-inflicted and if the worst part of my month was that I wasn't in the mood to read, well that aint so bad. ANYWHO, while I've been on a reading hiatus I've had some really great time to focus on myself, my self-care and preparing for the whirlwind that is going to be the next few months of my life. My husband has scheduled his PhD proposal for early April, his soon-to-be-boss is coming to Dallas next week and we're headed to Colorado for my friends 30th birthday the week after. Things are going to start moving very quickly for us and I've been spending too much time on Zillow and rapid fire adding things to my Amazon wish list and not enough time reading.

Today felt like a great day to get back on the blogging train also with another round of Top 3 Thursday! Top 3 Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by A Cosy Reader where different topics are explored each week. This week, it's books that taught you something new! As someone who is always trying to learn new things, view the world through new lenses and broaden my perspective I couldn't be more tickled with this topic.

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