Food Beauty

So I have been obsessively making a variety of food beauty products. Everyone knows that banana and honey is pretty great (actually, I've used honey as a spot treatment. It's nice) I've already posted my basil toner, but I have a few new ones I've been dying to share.

Egg/Honey Mask
- 1 egg white
-1 tsp honey

1. Mix together and put on the face for 20 mins.

Sugar and Spice Scrub

Ingredients:
-1 tablespoon granulated sugar
-1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
-1 tablespoon almond oil
-2 tsp pure vanilla extract
-1 Tbsp ground oatmeal
-1 tsp cinnamon

How to:
Combine all ingredients. Scrub face with mixture 2-3 minutes then rinse.

Olive Oil Apple Face Scrub

Ingredients:
-1 tablespoon granulated sugar
-2 tablespoon Apple sauce
-1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients. Scrub face with mixture (1 minute) then rinse.

All these scrubs can be used for body, face, and lips (try a lip scrub, it's awesome!!!!) Now go, and be Beautiful!!!!

PS- all these came from naturalfacialrecipes.homestead.com

Blue Corn is the Best Corn

So obviously I looooooove New Mexican Food (go read my green chile post). And a staple of a New Mexican Breakfast is blue corn pancakes. Now, getting a mix is like 6 or 7 bucks, which is ridiculous. But if you go the Sunflower Market (my favorite grocery store) they have blue corn flour in bulk. I die!!!! So I've been making blue corn pancakes at least once a week for about 3 weeks. Check it out.

Blue Corn Pancakes
From allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup blue corn flour (yellow corn flour from Albertson's works as well)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbs white sugar
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 beaten egg
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 tbs butter, melted
- 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder

How to:

1- In a medium bowl, mix together the blue cornmeal, salt and sugar. Stir in the boiling water until all of the ingredients are wet. Cover, and let stand for a few minutes.
2- In a measuring cup, combine the milk, egg and melted butter. Stir the milk mixture into the cornmeal mixture. Combine the flour and baking powder; stir into the cornmeal mixture until just incorporated. If the batter is stiff, add a little more milk until it flows off the spoon thickly but smoothly.
3- Heat a pan over medium heat, and grease it with a dab of oil or butter. When the entire surface of the pancakes are covered with bubbles, flip them over, and cook the other side until golden. It's hard to tell when blue food is cooked through--so give them a few extra seconds if you're in doubt.
4- Serve immediately with maple syrup or fruit preserves.

NB:
- You can add roasted pine nuts. Just sprinkle of top of each cake on the pan.
- For re-heating, get a damp paper towel and wrap around the cakes. and eat!!!!

Cart-Driver's Pasta

When I traveled to Florence a year or so ago, I ate this pasta. It was at a restaurant called Osteria l'Brincello (and it's #13 on tripadvisor.com). The dish is called Pasta alla Carrettiera or Cart Driver's Pasta. You can make it as spicy as you choose.


Pasta alla Carrettiera

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, washed and shredded fine
- 2-3 big fresh tomatoes, peeled and seed
- 4 - 5 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- red pepper flakes, chili powder, cayenne pepper, hot sauce of your choice
- apprx. 450 g of spaghetti or whatever pasta you choose
- water

How to:

1. Heat water for pasta.
2. Shred the basil by hand and keep a sprig or two for decoration.
3. Meanwhile cook the pasta.
4. For the sauce: add the garlic and sauté for 1 or 2 minutes. Do not brown.
5. Add the tomatoes,the basil, and spicy bits and continue cooking for 10 to 15 minutes stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon; make sure the sauce does not dry out. Add a tiny bit of water from the pasta cooking water if needed. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Drain pasta and place in a bowl or lay out on a large plate. Season with the tomato sauce and decorate with basil.

So since the tomatoes must be peeled and seeded, I figured I'd add that as well.

Peeled and Seeded Tomatoes:
1- Clean tomatoes. Cut out the stem, and cut a small X into the other end.
2- Blanche the tomatoes (place them in boiling water, then straight into ice water.)
3- Peel from the X.
4- Cut in half and squeeze out the seeds.

It is that easy. I like to add tofu to all my pasta! Top with Parmesan and enjoy!

Sketti Sauce

This is a basic sauce that's easy to make and is a nice change from sauce from a can. Be careful, the oil tends to fly and in fact part of my cookbook is covered in this stuff.

Tomato-Basil Sauce

Ingredients:
- 1 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 (15 oz.) can diced tomatoes, drained
- 1 Tbs chopped fresh basil (I used dried, whatevs)

How to:
1- Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
2- Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute, or until lightly brown. Season with salt and pepper.
3- Add the tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes, stirring often.
4- Add the basil and stir well. Serve over hot pasta!

Swedish Pancakes!

K, so basically these are crepes. Or English pancakes. But I'm calling them Swedish Pancakes because these aren't reeeeeeeal crepes and English pancakes sounds weird. They're easy to make and taste very good!

Swedish Pancakes

Ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 6 Tbs plain flour
- milk
- oil to fry

How To:
1- Beat the eggs and flour together in a bowl, gradually adding the milk, making sure there are no lumps. The mixture should be quite thin, but not as thin as the milk.
2- Heat the oil. Add approximately 2 tablespoons of the mix into the pan and spread over pan. Let cook for about 1 min.
3- Once one side is slightly brown, flip to the other side.
4- Serve with syrup, jam, honey or fruit. Go use my Blood Orange Marmalade!

Lemon Chicken

I've tried about three of these recipes and this is my favorite by far. The sauce is kinda sweet, so don't over do it on the chicken.

Lemon Chicken

Ingredients:
- 1 tsp oil to fry
- 1 lemon
- 1 green onions (optional)

Sauce
- 1 heaped tsp corn starch
- 3/4 cup cold water
- juice of a lemon
- 2 tsp sugar

How to:
1- Mix the sauce ingredients together until smooth. Slice part of the lemon for decoration.
2- Heat the oil in the frying pan. Add the whole chicken breasts. Cook on a high heat until each side is browned. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for a further 5 minutes. Check to see if it's cooked thru, and set aside.
3- Add the sauce ingredients again and then add to the pan. Stir until the sauce comes to the boil, it should thicken.
4- Add the slices of lemon and heat then over a gentle heat for 1 minute. Take off the heat.
5- Cut the chicken breasts into slices. Arrange decorative lemon slices and spring onions on top and pour the sauce over.

NB:
- Put slices over pasta!
- Pour sauce over fried chicken, like a Chinese restaurant.
- Add pepper and some minced garlic for variety!
- Replace lemons with oranges!

Chicken Soup for the Soul...Sorta

So this isn't a normal Chicken Soup. It's one of my favorite soup recipes and is perfect for any weather. Apparently this is considered an Chinese dish of sorts.

Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup

Ingredients:
-1 tsp butter
-1 tsp corn starch or all-purpose flour
-1 chicken stock cube in 1 cup of water(or 1 cup of chicken stock)
-1 egg
-1 tsp soy sauce
-1/4 can sweetcorn
-3 green onions or 1 large onion
-2 chicken breasts, cubed
-salt and pepper
-1 tsp chives (opt.)

How To:
1- Fry the onions in the butte until soft
2- Add the water, soy sauce and stock cube. Bring to a boil.
3- Add the chicken (you must use chicken breast or the meat won't cook properly) and sweetcorn. Cook until the chicken is no longer pink (2-3 min)
4- Mix the corn starch with a little water in a mug. Add to the soup, stirring well until it comes back to the boil and thickens. Don't let the soup boil for a long time. Add the chives.
5-Beat the egg in a mug and pour into the soup. Leave until the egg begins to set and then stir once only, this way the egg will stay together.
6-Cook until the egg goes white. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Happy V-Day!-Drinking Chocolate

So I don't know why chocolate is representative on Valentine's Day. And frankly, I don't care. I just loooooove chocolate. And last week I costumed a show and got the opening night gift of Trader Joe's Cookie Crumble Truffles. And I realized, I can make legit Drinking Chocolate!!! And I did, on Valentine's Day. Go figure.

Now, for those who don't know, Drinking Chocolate is a very rich, very ancient way to consume chocolate. Drinking Chocolate dates back to Mayans and Aztecs and whatnot. It's not for the faint of heart, but for foodies who don't mind heavy cream or calories.

Drinking Chocolate

Ingredients:
- 2 oz. of chocolate. Or a whole bag, or a whole bar. Whatever, it's how chocolatey you want it. I used probably 3.5 oz for two servings.
- 1 cup of milk.
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- sugar to taste
- if you want spices, like cinnamon, nutmeg, chilli pepper, go for it!

How to:
1- Place milk on low heat (I do this so the chocolate automatically goes into a warm pot.)
2- Add chocolate and extract and whatever else you want for flavor. I save the sugar from last because I don't want an extra sweet drink. In fact, I normally don't use sugar. Make sure to continually stir, lest the chocolate burn.
3- Pour into a mug and drink!

NB:
- I used Trader Joe's Truffles and some chocolate my mom sent me (yes, Mom, I got your package! Thank you!) . I suggest only using good quality chocolate for this drink, like Ghiradelli or try a local chocolate shop. But I wouldn't use a Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar...

Enjoy!

Muffins

So I have a juicer that I looooooove! And I've been saving the pulp and adding it to foods. So I made some muffins recently and wanted to save this basic muffin recipe.

Basic Muffins

Ingredients:
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 beaten egg
- 3/4 cup milk
-1/4 cooking oil
- salt
- pulp of whatever fruit you want (Or stick an orange, apple, etc., in a blender before adding it.

How to:
1- Grease or line muffin tin. Set aside. Set oven to 400 degrees
2- In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients. Make a well in the center.
3- In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients (including pulp). Add to well in dry ingredients. Mix together (batter should be lumpy).
4- Spoon into muffin tin.
5- Bake for 18-20 min. Cool, then eat!

NB: I added 3 TBS cocoa powder to the orange mix cos I love orange and chocolate together!
-Add apple and cinnamon (if you use apples, cut down on the oil).
-To add bananas, reduce milk to 1/2 and add 3/4 cups mashed bananas.
-Add blueberries or cranberries for fun! Hurrah!
-Add Streusel Topping from my Blueberry Streusel Muffins for added texture.

Cooking Sausage

I have a constant problem cooking sausage. I don't know why, but it's annoying! They're either undercooked or burnt or too tough. So I found that this method works best.

Ingredients:
- Sausage (I almost always freeze mine and this recipe works fine on frozen)
- Olive oil

How to:
1- Lightly coat the pan with olive oil and set to medium heat.
2- Once hot, place the sausages in the pan. Brown each side (about a minute per).
3- Reduce heat to low, add about a half cup of water and cover.
4- Let cook for 10-15 minutes or to desired tenderness, rotating the sausages half way through. The water content should go down as well.
5- I cut mine in half to see if it's done.

Boil 'em, Mash 'em, Stick 'em in a stew!

I got this recipe from HEB in Texas. And they are friggin' awesome!

Spicy Potatoes

Ingredients:
- Potatoes (I use Yukon. Red creamy,and russet are fine too. However many you want)
- 1 can of Cream of Potato Soup
- 1/3 cup of sour cream (this is a guess-timate)
- SPICES!- Cayenne Pepper, Chilli Powder, hot sauce, salt, pepper, etc. Whatever you want.

How to:

1- Turn on oven to 350 degrees.
2- Clean and slice potatoes
3- In a mixing bowl, mix sour cream, spices and soup. Make it as hot or mild as you want!
4- Place in a casserole dish.
5- Place in oven for 45 mins or until tender (I always have to leave it a little longer)