The Elf Files

January 15, 2013

For a Christmas present I received a frame with a few of these photos of Clark dressed as an elf in it.

I had never seen the outfit before and had no idea these pictures even existed.

It was a scheme run by my parents and sister while they were babysitting one night.

Poor Clark was probably wondering what exactly was going on.

So, you might think this is a chair with a sheet draped over it to create a nice holiday backdrop.
But, you would be wrong.
As I later found out, it’s actually my dad under a sheet holding Clark up for the photo.
Now I can not look at any of these photos and take them seriously!

He doesn’t wanna make toys.

He wants to be a dentist.

Thanksgiving its that time of year

January 14, 2013

My family spent Thanksgiving this year with my in laws!

We all went to “The Lodge” and enjoyed a wonderful home and good company.

I convinced people that we needed two turkeys though, so I finally got to try fried turkey.

It’s awesome and that should be today’s standard way!

Deep Fried Turkey

Happy Turkey Day 2012

Deep Fried Ice Cream

January 14, 2013

My family started a tradition for celebrating my mom’s birthday each December by doing a Traveling Dinner.

(You might remember last years.)

Each family member hosts a course of the meal and you go from house to house and eat at each one.

My mom decided to make this her Birthday thing because she didn’t want to cook dinner for her own Birthday ( makes sense I guess) and so that she could come to both my house and my sister’s and see all our Christmas decorations up.

This year I was assigned dessert.

Weird, huh? I am assigned dessert every where I go.

Anyway, I was going to make a peppermint Chocolate Cheesecake because what I really wanted to make was this amazing white chocolate coconut cake but my mom and I are the only ones who like coconut.

So cheesecake was the next best thing… but Dad doesn’t like cheesecake.

SO, back to the drawing board.

This is when Steve gave me a ring from Omaha where he was for work and told me he had just gone out to Sushi and for dessert they had the most delicious fried ice cream and I would have loved it.

Isn’t that sweet?

He called to tell me that I would have liked it if I had been there, but I wasn’t so he enjoyed it for me.

**Also I would like to note that he did NOT have the sushi like his coworkers.

Which I think was a very good decision considering he was in Nebraska.

I can’t image the raw fish there is nearly as fresh as Seattle.

I decided I would try and make my own and serve it for the Birthday dessert.

Since you have to fry it to order basically, I had to spend time in the kitchen doing my final prep and frying but I guess if you aren’t going to do something time consuming and tedious for a family dinner at your own house, when are you going to do it?

Here is the final Product

I started by baking a loaf of pound cake earlier that week.

When I was ready to make my sandwiches I sliced it with bread knife and layed it out flat on a cookie sheet.

Remember you will need 2 slices for each person.

Next I melted some chocolate chips to use as glue for my ice cream sandwiches.

Then I unwrapped frozen Klondike bars and cut them in half.

I took one slice of cake and smeared a little melted chocolate onto it, then laid the frozen klondike bar half on it, followed by another slice of cake with melted chocolate.

The melted chocolate instantly sets up when it comes in contact with the cold ice cream bar and holds the cake on both sides of it.

The cake will help insulate and protect the ice cream and keep it from melting in the fryer.

Then I put them back into the freezer while I heated the Oil and made my dipping batter.

You could do these the day ahead too and save yourself the trouble and also ensure they are frozen as solid as possible.

Then all you would have to do is dip and fry.

For the batter I used some Krusteaz pancake mix and added enough water to make it the consistency I wanted.

This is really trial and error and depends also on how hot your oil is.

I believe mine was at 350.

I wanted it thick enough to adhere to the sides and protect the gap but thin enough to cook quickly in the hot oil.

I also added a little sugar to sweeten the batter along with some vanilla extract, cinnamon and Panko bread crumbs for crunch.

Make sure to set them onto a paper towel for a few second to drain any excess oil when you remove from the fryer before plating. ( Like bacon)

Out of the pan and into the Fryer

( Haha , see what I did there?)

I did them one at a time so that I could plate it up immediately and hand it out.

This worked best with 2 people in an assembly line.

Steve dipped and fried.

I plated and served.

On top of the deep fried ice cream I drizzled some Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce( Trader Joes) and Birthday sprinkles!

If I do this again I would change two things.:

I would cut my cake slices thinner, so that you would get more crunchy batter and cold ice cream taste and less cake.

It took away from the unusual paring a little bit in my opinion.

I would also not add my Panko to the batter.

I would dip the sandwich in the batter and then roll or sprinkle it with the Panko so that the flakes stay on the outside.

They lost their crunch a little in the batter and didn’t serve their purpose as well as I had hoped.

All in all , it was a success, especially for brainstorming the recipe in my head and making it happen!

The Ombre’ dip

January 12, 2013

Since I am now broke I had to take hair matters into my own hands.

Sorry Angelina, I will be back for a trim soon!

Here is how I did it

First I dyed my hair all over with soft black from Feria.

I didn’t put the dye all the way down to my tips though because next I would bleach the ends.

I put some conditioner on the tips before I put the dye on, so it would keep it off the bottom half of my hair.

I also didn’t want a hard line from the dark to the pink,

So using the conditioner let the black fade down a little

After I washed and dried my hair, I mixed up my bleach and brushed it onto the bottom half of my hair.
It processed to light blond pretty quickly because under my ends I have my original blond.
Yes, I know bleaching, dying and then bleaching and dying again on the same hair is a no no, but it worked.
My hair is pretty resilient.

(Color: Virgin Rose)

Then I washed and dried again and colored the lightened hair with pink semi permanent color.

Then rinsed it out, shampooed and conditioned.

My hair right after, blow dried straight

The next day curled

Tah Dah

It turned out really good I think.

To keep the color bright, I added a few drops of the Virgin Rose to a travel bottle of conditioner and mixed it up.

I use that every couple days after I shampoo so my hair doesn’t look completely trashy.

Powder Louder

January 12, 2013

Make use of your makeup scraps!

I was about to run out and buy another compact because I was out of powder.

While I was gathering up all my empty MAC containers to turn in for my free lip stick, I realized I had a good amount of left over pressed powder in my old compacts.

I decided to get crafty and use up every last bit of it.

Here’s what I did:

First of all I finally figured out how to open this dang thing

I had an old Bare Minerals container I wanted to put the powder into.

Watch the video

Then I used the back of my makeup brush to knock the pressed powder loose from the compacts

After breaking it all up into a fine powder I transferred it into the empty Bare Minerals container and ended up with a full container of loose powder!