Winter Holiday nails

Getting into the spirit early as we still don't have a tree yet but atleast I have these to express my winter cheer for the coming Christmas Holidays! 

The right hand features a little snowman on a glittery silver and light blue french tip. The rest of the nails are just glittery gold french tips. The left hand features a stripy candy cane on the same glittery tip as the snowman.

You will need french tip white polish for the ring fingers and a metallic gold polish for the other fingers. Silver, light blue and gold glitters. A base and top coat and gold glitter top coat.
Paint your french tips first and let them dry thoroughly, use a dotting tool or the back of a small paint brush to make the snowman and a couple dots for snowflakes, paint the candy cane in white on the other hand. Go back to the gold tips and do a coat of gold glitter top coat on your tip then dip a make up sponge into the gold glitter and sponge on to your tip. do this several times then let it dry thoroughly before brushing excess off the nails and applying top coat. The blue and silver glitter tips are done in the same way but using only the clear top coat instead of glitter top coat. paint the details on to the snowman and the candy cane, let it dry then apply your top coat.


To complete my christmassy nails I painted candy cane stripes on my tootsies!

The help and That Chocolate Pie...Minnie's Chocolate Pie.

This year I celebrated my first thanksgiving...I had no idea what the heck to make besides a Shepherd's Pie and a chocolate pie but not just any chocolate pie! - Minnie's chocolate pie. So I googled and I found this Minny's Chocolate Pie...is this really THE recipe? who the hell knows! but I googled the recipe after I bought what I thought the recipe would use - which sadly was nothing I bought except the frozen dough pie crust. So naturally I was like this BIG FROWNY FACE...then I rant about why we have to live out in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully the great thing about baking is you can always substitute ingredients and still get a pretty amazing result!

So here is my easy as pie not fancy but what you would find in your fridge/pantry recipe for Chocolate pie.

1 frozen short crust pie crust (FYI I don't know what it is about the stater bros pie crust but I dislike it greatly! its kinda too salty...)

about 3oz mini semi sweet chocolate chips

3 tablespoons of salted butter 

2 cups of french vanilla half and half

2 large eggs beaten

preheat your oven to 350F centre rack. * as you make the filling its a good idea to pre bake or "dry out" your pie crust. Do whatever you want to prevent a soggy bottom!

In a bowl over a pot of boiling water, place the choc chips and the butter, using a hand whisk mix it as it melts. Then add a dash of the half and half, mix well and continue to slowly add the half and half mixture into the chocolate while whisking ( don't just dump it in all at once or too fast as the chocolate will start to solidify!) til it is combined and silky. Beat your eggs in a separate bowl then slowly whisk in your chocolate mixture. Place crust onto a baking tray that can hold a bit of water. then fill your crust, place in oven then pour hot water into the baking tray. bake til firm but wobbly in the centre at about 25mins you will want to check. the last thing you want is a souffled custard pie! Be careful removing the tray from the oven, the gently remove the pie from the tray and cool thoroughly before chilling.

 Ant and I don't really have anyone out here so we invited a couple of his marine buddies who like us were stranded and our closest neighbours. We got the biggest turkey we could find 24lbs of birdy goodness to be exact. Seriously I didn't think we would have enough food besides the turkey but damn we were so stuffed, we didn't even get to dessert. But damn that pie was delicious when we finally got to taste it!

Best ever no fail chocolate chip cookies!

My personal recipe which I adapted from Martha Steward's Chocolate Chunk Cookies
makes appox. 3 dozen cookies
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup self raising flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
16 tablespoons (1 cup) of salted butter/unsalted plus 1 tablespoon of salt
Half a bag each of mini semi sweet choc chips and heath toffee bits
Preheat your oven to 350F,
Whisk or sift your flours together in a bowl. In a seperate bowl cream butter and the sugars til pale and fluffy, whisk in egg and vanilla extract til combined on low then mix in the flour in two parts til just combined (do not over mix!) Lastly mix in the choc chips and toffee.
Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter on to a non stick or greased tray. 1.5inches apart so bout 6 cookies on your standard size baking tray. Flatten them a bit in rounds then pop into your oven for about 10-13 mins til the edges turn golden brown. Left sit about a min or two on tray before removing on to cooling rack. Its ok if the cookies seem to stick a bit as the toffee bits make the bottom a little sticker when hot.
I use salted butter spread cos thats what my hubby prefers to buy, which is ok cos you wont need to add extra salt to your mix. Also using both plain and self raising flours minuses the need for baking soda or baking powder which is handy if you have neither!
Another handy trick for perfectl evenly sized cookies is to use a measuring spoon and leveling it off. Its quick and easy!