1 com

A Bit of a Food Snob. . .



In most aspects of my life, I think I'm pretty simple.
I do, on occasion, venture out of the house without make-up.
My hairdo's most often go awry.
I wear mismatched socks (if I can find any in my heap of clothes).

In the food world though, I can be quite prissy.
I love throwing around fancy words like verrine & rillette.
I want to learn French solely for the purpose of understanding (and being able to quote) fancy food names.
Don't hate me. lol 
I'm probably overcompensating for my plain-jane American roots, but don't burst my bubble.
In my food-fantasies I'm a world traveling chef. . .
in real life I do sometimes rely on boxed mixes & frozen foods. 

Anyway last year I made my first escargot. I found some for purchase at Cost Plus World Market.
Garlic + Parsley + Escargot = AMAZING.
But my new obsession for this year is. Escargot Lollipops.
I got the idea from watching the Foodnetworks Food Truck Race.  Spencer on the Go!

I'm thinking a variation of Escargot en Cerceuils (Snails in Puff Pastry) might do the trick. . .

Ingredients:
36 Snails -- undrained
1/2 cup Chardonnay or dry white wine
1 medium Onion -- minced
1 Shallot -- minced
2 cloves Garlic -- minced
Salt & freshly ground pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
1 pound Puff pastry, preferably homemade
1 Egg yolk, MIXED WITH
3 tablespoons Milk
3/4 cup Butter -- well-chilled, cut into 12 pieces
1/3 cup Chopped toasted hazelnuts
3 tablespoons Minced fresh parsley

Turn this recipe into a puzzle! [click]

Directions:
Drain snail juices into small saucepan. Place snails in bowl. Add wine, onion, shallot, garlic, salt, pepper and nutmeg to juices and bring to boil. Pour marinade over snails. Let cool. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Butter baking sheets. Roll dough out on lightly floured surface to thickness of 1/4". Cut out 36 circles using 2-inch floured cutter. Arrange circles on prepared sheets.

Using knife tip, trace lid on each circle 3/4-inch from edge; do not cut through dough. Brush with glaze. Bake pastry until puffed and golden brown, about 10 minutes. Cool slightly on rack.

Using sharp knife, cut out lids. Discard any soft dough inside shells. Reduce oven to 375 degrees.

Strain marinade into large saucepan, pressing down on vegetables to extract all liquid. Boil until reduced to 1/2 cup. Remove pan from heat and whisk in 2 pieces of butter. Set pan over low heat and whisk in remaining butter 1 piece at a time. Mix in snails, hazelnuts and parsley.

Adjust seasoning. Place 1 snail and some of sauce inside each shell. Top with lid. Bake until heated through. Serve immediately.

From CDKitchen. . . 
4 com

A Little Gold Leaf Goes A Long Way. . .


One last Halloween costume post. I forgot to include one of my favorite parts of the costume!
Gold leaf. is. amazing.
I had some left over from a craft project and decided that any good Greek wino needs gold skin lol.
I used moisturizer as "glue" just a dab and then place the leaf on top.
I will say I AM NOT A DOCTOR and do not know if that was the safest thing to do lol.
I did some Google searching and decided it was safe enough for me.
I did not die. I did not have an allergic reaction. Which is actually surprising because I have sensitive skin.
Anyway I think it was pretty simple but added a lot tot he costume. Check it out! (at your own risk :)
4 com

A Greek Goddess Headpiece DIY


Ok, so this is not actually meant to be a Greek Goddess headpiece. lol
I am supposed to be a Maenad, a mythological character, follower of the Greek wine god Dionysus.
But that's a long explanation, and pretty similar.

I made this headpiece. Yay for DIY!

Rough instructions are as follows:

I bought a round "rope" of ivy @ Michael's. It is wired so you can twist & turn it as you please.

I folded the long "rope" in two & twisted it together to make the leaves appear thicker. It's also pretty long so this way you can use the whole length.

I now had a shorter rope which I curled into the shape of a crown and twisted together to make it stick. When I say twisted it sounds kind of vague but thats basically what I did, because like I said it has floral wire in it so you don't really need glue or anything.

Now that I had my crown, I used the acrylic grapes I bought at Michaels. They had ones that looked more like real grapes, but I liked these because they caught the light better ad looked more exciting. Luckily these bad boys came with wire in them as well! So I wove them into the crown of ivy and used the wires in their leaves to attach them to the crown. I also used additional floral wire I had on hand & tied it around the grapes/crown to further secure them.

Finally I added in some gold glittery leaves I bought at Michael's. Now, I could have tried to tie these in with wire, but because I wanted to use individual leaves which would be hard to tie wire around, I chose to hot glue them in. I just dabbed hot glue on the bottom of the leaf base & pressed it against the grapes. I figured they would hold glue best.

That's it! Very easy and probably only about $10 total to make. I just wore a wine colored dress my mom gave me, which looked a little too 90's to wear normally, but worked perfectly for this costume!
3 com

Sweet Bubbly Halloween Costume



So I am a Halloween zealot. I can use zealot appropriately because Halloween did used to be a religious holiday of sorts. Now it's a celebration of gorging on candy corn, drinking in excess and putting together a ridiculous (or ridiculously slutty) costume!

I am a devout follower of these practices.

Anyway my friend asked me if I would be doing a post on creative Halloween costumes and I said no yes of course! So I thought I would share my costume from last year, which I really liked and was completely homemade.

Last year I was a champagne bottle! The pictures above are the hair aspect of the costume.
I went to Michaels & bought champagne colored Christmas ornaments (bulbs)
They were very convenient because they came with little hookish wire on them that I just bent and bobby pinned into my hair.

The other thing you are seeing is clear marbles, which I hot glued in layers onto a hairclip to make it look like piles of bubbles. Warning, they look cool but were pretty heavy. I did manage to wear them all day though.
For the rest of my costume (which sadly I have no pictures of) I wore a black tank top & black pencil skirt to be the actual "bottle" I then bought metallic gold poster board from Michaels and glued an enlarged copy of a real champagne label on to.

It was relatively easy and really interesting. I just added a ton of gold glittery make-up and ta-da! Human champagne bottle.

This year I'm going to be a Maenad (crazed female follower of the wine god Dionysus), basically a Greek wino. I've made my head piece already and will post it soon.

If I have any advice about Halloween costumes it would be:
1. Do it yourself! The store bought costumes are normally very poor quality and very widely sold.  Or if you do buy a premade costume, spruce it up with personal accessories to make it look less cookie-cutter.

2. Go to a craft store! They sell anything and everything basically. Want to be Mother Nature? Go buy tons of fabric flowers & leaves (they even sell little fake birds & butterflies) Want to be a champagne bottle. . .well you know.

3. Focus on hair & make up. Most outfits for women will be similar for costumes. Lots of dresses, skirts, etc etc. The way to really create an effect on a more plain outfit is to do really elaborate hair or make up. If you want to be a lizard (I know, who would want to do that) you can just wear a green top & pants, but do really detailed scales on your face with make up.
4 com

Friday I'm in Love

It's Friday again and the bliss of Saturday afternoon is so close I can literally taste it.
I say literally because I'm hoping my Saturday afternoon will be filled with delicious fresh picked apples.
Have I mentioned I'm becoming obsessed with picking my own produce?
It's scary.
Soon you might find me peddling my goods at roadside stands. But that's another story.

Anyway today I'm concentrating my obsession on a long-time dream of mine.
A furry vest.
Can I commit to it? Can I pull it off? I don't know. But Olivia Palermo sure can.

I think the key is to keep it simple, & use one color scheme to where the fur stands out, but also blends in, so you don't look like some tacky Peta nightmare. . .

Thanks Brunch at Saks !
Have I mentioned I love her glasses? Ugh. Swooon.
6 com

First Ever Little Girl Shiny World Freebie Printable!


This bad boy is free for personal use! No commercial use please. (not like it's that good, but still had to say it)
Download Here

So friends, remember when I mentioned I was taking that graphic design course?
Well it's about halfway over and we have worked on a lot of really lame great projects.
Ok, the projects aren't lame per say, but they are beginner at best. Which is perfectly appropriate for me since I am a complete beginner--except for one little problem.  My eyes are bigger than my stomach!

In non-foodie metaphors that is to say that I want to create things beyond my current skill set! I want to build Rome in a day and sit on top of it sipping a nice Syrah I bottled myself. But then I breathe, and I remind myself that all comes in time. For now I am super excited that I get to share my first FREEBIE PRINTABLE CREATED BY ME for YOU.

Well actually, it was created by me for my most recent and most exciting homework assignment, which was to create a postcard design.  So in reality you are getting sloppy seconds. But you don't mind that at all do you?

I'm new to this whole uploading freebies thing, so I apologize if something goes wrong.

It's a 4 x 6.25 which is apparently the standard postcard size.
It was designed according to US Postal Service Regulations, which means there is no design element that should make it un-mailable and it shouldn't get returned to you!
Just slap a stamp on the back upper right corner where my fake indicia (stamp-thing) is!

And I wouldn't mind feedback at all! I am learning so I only have room to grow. Also any ideas for printables you might like to see would be welcomed. I need some fun practice!
Email me:
littlegirlshinyworld@yahoo.com