Food Facials

I have been experimenting with food facials lately. I like the idea of having everything that you need in the fridge. I have tried three diffrent masks and loved them all.

Honey mask:
Warm some honey and apply to your face let it sit for 20-30 min then rinse. When heating the honey make sure that it is not too hot, it heats quickly and can give you a nasty burn.

Fruit Mask
 1/2 apple
1 avacado
1 T almond oil
1 tomatoe
Blend ingredients then apply to face let sit for a half hour.

Yogurt Mask
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1T pure vanilla extract
1T honey
Mix and apply to face for thirty minutes

With all of these I put cucumbers on my eyes, it makes them less puffy, they smell good and they help you to relax.

You can make up your own facial recipe at home if you want to here is a list of good ingredients to use:

Apples
Peaches
Oatmeal
Avacado
Tomatoe
Lemon
Vanilla
Egg whites
Greek Yogurt
Basil
Cucumber

Make your own mask with whatever you have, its a great way to relax at home and use up some almost overly ripe produce.

Food Facial Trails Introduction

So lately something that I have been thinking about is skincare, probably because I have really broken out as of like yesterday, I hate when that happens. I have heard of a couple different skin remedies using food and that that it would be kind of interesting to check them out. So what I am going to do over the next couple of days is find some recipes that are good for skin care. My skin care regimen will remain the same, I want to see what foods really do make your skin look better. I will have before and after photos posted either here or on Facebook  (depends on how my computer wants to behave.)

So here is what I need from all of you guys. I want your food facial recipes. The ingredients need to be something that anyone can buy in the grocery store. I will do some research and find a few different recipes I will post the recipe and then say what I thought about it after I try it out.  I know that everyone has different skin types. I will try to find something for everyone. Lately I have been going from oily to dry back and forth.

Anyway,  I think that this will be a fun was to use food. Plus, I am starting cosmetology school on Tuesday so its a great kick off for that also ha ha.

Auntie Annes pretzels

I was at the store and saw this pretzel mix and had to get it. Auntie Annes pretzels are my favorite but they closed the ones here in Salt Lake. So I was so excited to find this mix.

The mix is really easy to make you just have to make sure that you follow the instructions. Be careful to follow them exactly cause you are working with yeast and it is kind of tricky to work with. If the water is too hot or too cold the yeast wont activate. I have a trick, I heat up some water and let it sit for about a minute and it has always worked for me. You can also get a thermomiter and look at the tempiture, the water should be about 115 F.

Here is a picture of the box.

 The picture below is the pretzels for some reason it didnt turn out the way that it was supposed to. I will upload a picture on my facebook and you can look at it there. But you can kind of see how nice they turned out. I would recommend letting the dough rest on top of the oven and keep it in a bowl I covered it with tinfoil but you can use plastic wrap.

After you let the dough rise you shape it and then but it in baking soda water. The water needs to be hot, mix the baking soda till its dissovled, put the dough in the water let it soak then take it right out and put it on the baking sheets, make sure you spray the sheet with cooking spray cause they will stick once they are baked.
You can put salt on them, the kit comes with salt and cinnamon sugar.

Sorry again about the picture I really dont know why it didnt turn out right. Anyway, if you want to find out more about Auntie Annes pretzles, buy a baking kit or just find a store nearby and buy one you can find it on the website:  here

I just uploaded the full picture on my facebook so you can see it there.

pumpkin day! special pumpkin bisque recipe!

Tera Lea and I had been talking about buying a pumpkin for a while and baking it together and using all of it for cooking and baking.

We went to the store and picked out the perfect size pumpkin then took it home and cut it in half. We saved the seeds to roast them which is on of by favorite snacks now. They are crunchy and really tasty.

We cut the pumpkin into fourths roasted two in the oven and boiled two. Personally I like the roasted pumpkin better, it has more of a richer flavor opposed to boiled pumpkin which has been soaking in water, to me the flavor seems slightly diluted.

I never had plain straight up pumpkin but to me it tasted just like butternut squash.

Tera Lea and I made pumpkin puree just by blending it in the food processor, we also used the food processor to make the pumpkin bisque. Here is the recipe:

2 cups of pumpkin
1/4 cup cream
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1/4 chicken broth ( you can use less)
Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender then heat on stove till warm.

The bisque is really delicious to me it almost tastes like a cheese soup, its really rich and absolutely decadent. If pumpkin is not in season you can buy it in a can just make sure that you get canned pumpkin and not the pumpkin pie stuff. You would want pure pumpkin.

 We also made pumpkin bread, neither of us had a recipe for it so what we did was we went to www.foodnetwork.com then searched for a recipe. We found one by Alton Brown that we used. I loved the way it turned out because the outside was crusty but the inside was light and delicious. I really like to use the food network website when I am in doubt because people rate the recipes according to skill so if you want something easy or difficult you can find it.

Lastly here is my recipe for pumpkin seeds

2 cups of pumpkin seeds
dash of salt
dash of pepper
spritz of cooking spray.

Bake at 450 till golden brown.Make sure that you check on them pretty frequently and stir them so that they end up golden brown on both sides. I use an 8x8 pan instead of a baking sheet cause its easier to stir. Also make sure that the seeds are as dry as you can get them before you bake them otherwise they stick to the pan.

Pumpkins should be in season for a few more weeks. I definitely recommend buying one and roasting it or boiling it. I roast mine at 350 till the pumpkin is soft.  Then I let it cool and take off the skin. To boil to put it in a pot of water let it sit till its soft.  We had tons of left overs, and just pureed them and froze them use can substitute it in recipes for oil just like apple sauce.

New Recipe Buffalo Chicken dip

Do buffalos have wings?  LOL just kidding! You cannot milk them either, (Tera Lea haha inside joke.)
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Anyway I have been dieting for a few weeks now and have been trying to come up ways to eat healthy but have the flavors that I love. I have been dying for some buffalo wings. But there is so much butter and they are fried in grease and it just isnt healthy. Plus, I am not a fan of meat on the bone. So I created a little recipe.

4 oz of low fat cream cheese (half a block, I use weightwatchers)
one can of white chicken meat ( I used tyson)
1T of Ranch or Blue Cheese dressing ( I use low fat ranch)
1/4 cup Hot Sauce ( You can do this to taste some people like hot others dont. I used Red Hot brand.)

Warm the cream cheese either on the stove or in the microwave, it only needs to melt enough to incorporate the other ingredients. Add the chicken salad dressing and hot sauce, mix well.

You can serve this hot or cold. I serve it with trisciuts, carrots and celeory sticks. It is always a hit and you can make it as healthy or unhealth as you want. It would be really great with bacon mixed in.

This also makes a GREAT wrap if you have any tortillas, I just add some lettuce and wrap it up.

The Sweet Toothfairy

For months I have been hearing about the Sweet Tooth Fairy down in Orem/Provo area. My friend Britt, has sent me a text a few weeks ago saying that they were opening one in the Valley Fair Mall area, which is right by my house. So I though that I would check it out.

Here is a picture of the store front, The store is set up kind of like an old fashion candy shop I loved it.

Theses are some of the cupcakes that they make. They have a whole big list of fun flavors including Fairy Fetti.

I got a pumpkin cheesecake cupcake it was good. They swirled pumpkin and a creamcheese batter together. I took a picture but it didnt turn out.

They also have cakebites which looked like square cakeballs, lemonbars, cookies and maccaroons.

It would be easy to spend too much money there everything looks really good. Here is the website they have a full llist of all their cookies and cupcake flavors. Check it out.

www.thesweettoothfairy.com/

NYPD Pizza

Sorry it has been so long since I have updated. I was broke and that made it difficult. I still should have put up som recipes and stuff but I spent most of my time looking for a job. I finally found one and started last Friday, so I have been busy. I also start school next week so my life will be busy. I apologize for not having any apostraphies, that key has been broken on my laptop.

I have been looking for a great pizza place in Utah for a long time and I have finally found one. NYPD Pizza.

I went there today for lunch and it was only 4.99 for a ten inch pizza. Growing up in NJ you get spoiled by all the Ma and Pop pizza places everyone has their favorite, yes we have Dominos and Pizza hut but we hardly ever order from there. I guess that we are pizza snobs haha.

 I have a picture of the pizza but it was too big and it wouldnt let me up load it, here is a picture of the box and the pizza in it. It was still warm.

Anyway definately check out NYPD Pizza there are more then one location here is their website. http://www.nypdpizzeria.com/

They have TONS of speciaty pizzas, with these guys I think that the plain cheese is my favorite. Try it out and tell me what your favorite it.