Fondue Part 2 - Chocolate Covered Dried Cranberries

Hi Lovelies! It's Wednesday, the most painful day (in my opinion) of the week! Seriously, I can't stand Wednesdays - I would rather do Monday all over again. Yup, it's a pretty big aversion.

In light of my dislike of this day, I thought I would sweeten it up a few notches. As I wrote about on Monday, I made Chocolate Fondue on Valentine's Day. We only used about half of what the recipe made, and I had a tub of leftover Chocolate Fondue in my fridge. I wasn't really sure what to do with it, and then it hit me like a lightening rod - CHOCOLATE COVERED DRIED CRANBERRIES! Yes, it was that loud in my mind.

I wasn't really sure how well this would work, but I thought I would give it a shot.

Dried, sweetened cranberries and reheated Chocolate Fondue

Clusters of dried cranberries

Cranberry clusters with a dollop of Chocolate Fondue on top

I know, you're questioning whether or not these look appetizing... they don't, but bear with me. I threw them in the fridge until they were cold and here's what they looked like:

Yes, even less appetizing - and messy! The Chocolate Fondue didn't really solidify as well as it seemed to when it was in a tub in the fridge. These little guys were VERY messy and difficult to get off of the parchment paper. However, they tasted amazing!

I tried another little mini experiment with these guys: I popped them in the freezer. They were much less messy and still tasted really good.

I'm not really sure if I should give this whole experiment a pass of a fail... definitely a pass on the taste, but a fail on the execution. Oh well, next time we will just have to eat more of the fondue the first time around!

Valentine's Day Nails

Valentine's Day was a great day for me - I had a somewhat uneventful work day (that's a good thing!), I managed to get my nails painted the night before so I could be in the Valentine's Day spirit with my whole look that day, and I came home to flowers and a Kate Spade gift bag waiting for me on the counter. My man is so thoughtful!

I am totally in love with this nail colour right now: 'Macbeth' by Butter London. It is the perfect pink with orange undertones. It really compliments my skin tone and is making me crave springtime and peep toe shoes so I can show the colour off on my toes!

The above photo shows a great colour pairing of 'Macbeth' and 'Trout Pout' by Butter London. Check out this post for another fun Love Day manicure option.

Gluten Free and Dairy Free Chocolate Fondue

Hello Friends! I am back from my week long hiatus. It has been a couple of very busy weeks, and we are finally feeling caught up again after a nice, relaxing weekend.

On Valentine's Day, I made the most amazing chocolate fondue I've ever tried. I adapted Kate's recipe at The Small Things Blog to ensure we were dining gluten and dairy free.

Chocolate Fondue
1/2 cup of Earth Balance Vegan Margarine (or butter if you're not dairy free)
6 oz. (170g or 177mL) semi sweet chocolate. (approx. 3 Purdy's Dark Chocolate Bars)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup vanilla soy ice cream. (I like the So Good brand)

Melt butter in a saucepan over low/medium heat. Add chocolate and sugar, and simmer until chocolate is melted and the sugar has dissolved (just a few minutes). Add vanilla and ice cream. Stir until well combined and warmed through. Be careful not to burn.

This recipe is very sweet. For a less sweet version, try using only 1/2 cup of sugar. I think I will try that next time.

Serve in a chocolate fondue bowl with different sides. I used mostly fruit to balance out the sweetness of the chocolate fondue: pineapple, kiwi, mango, banana and blueberries.

I also served homemade gluten and dairy free doughnuts (more on that another time) as a dipping option. I had bought a few other things for dipping like dried cranberries and honey vanilla graham cookies (GF-DF, of course), but forgot to put them out! We had enough options as it was.

This was a very successful and easy dessert to make, and I will definitely make it again. Aside from a date night, it would be great for a dinner party or a girls' night.

Special Visitors

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a great weekend. It was a long weekend here in BC for Family Day, and we sure enjoyed ourselves. As I mentioned in Friday's post here, we had some very special visitors staying with us for a few days.

Unfortunately, due to an extremely busy week this week, LSC will be a little light on the posts. However, if you would like to check out some of the adventures we had with Andrea, Amelia and Lachlan, head over to the Cavendish Chronicles. The stories and photos never disappoint! The kiddos sure wore us out, but we had so much fun!

Have a fabulous week - I'll work on getting a new post up ASAP!

High Five for Friday!

Happy Friday - the most joyous day of the week! I've been lucky this week, I only worked Monday - Wednesday because we have some very special visitors here in Victoria.

As always, I'm linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk for High Five for Friday. Here are the happenings from the week:

1. Short work week. Enough said.
2. Andrea, Amelia and Lachlan from the Cavendish Chronicles arrived in Victoria on Wednesday night for a five day visit. As you can see in the top left photo, Amelia raced over to Uncle Tim to give him a great big hug as soon as she laid eyes on him.
3. First thing Thursday morning we all went on an adventure to "touch" the ocean. The kids were pretty jazzed seeing the Pacific for the first time. We let the waves wash over our boots, collected rocks and shells, and looked at the mountains.
4. Feeding the ducks in Beacon Hill Park! There were ducks everywhere - the kids had a great time. Lachlan even found the one and only mud puddle and splashed around in there with his new boots.
5. We still have 3 more full days with the gang, and so many more adventures planned!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. We'll be playing with trucks and Barbies if anyone needs us!

To BB Or Not To BB...

Beauty Balm. I'm pretty sure I was one of the last people on earth to learn about beauty balm. I started noticing ads for it in magazines this past fall and was curious to see if it could do what it claims.

I have a total foundation phobia. I don't like the way it looks on my skin. I think that it's because my skin is so fair you really notice foundation when I wear it, no matter how well matched it is. Keeping this in mind, I went to my local drug store to test my options. I wanted to get something as sheer as possible. Some brands claimed that their product would be able to match my skin tone perfectly - they were the creams that come out of the tubes white and magically change colour. No deal. Even the 'light' colour cream ended up looking like I had a terrible fake tan. I finally settled on the Maybelline Beauty Balm.

I've been using this product now for about four months and really like it. It does everything it promises: blurs imperfections, brightens, evens skin tone, smoothes, hydrates, enhances, SPF 30, and non-oily.

While I am really happy with the Maybelline BB Cream, I started wondering what else was available. I read about many of the higher end brands and then stumbled upon a review of the Tarte BB Cream. It got fairly good reviews, so I thought I would give it a try. Here's what the Tarte website has to say about it: "This powerfully pure formula not only works as a skin-soothing treatment, but as a moisturizer, sunscreen, primer and foundation that visibly improves skin’s overall appearance for a youthful-looking glow. This 12-hour longwear, anti-aging, oil-free tinted treatment primer offers light-to-medium buildable coverage that helps even skin tone and conceals discoloration, acne and other skin imperfections."

I was a little underwhelmed with this product. It is definitely very smooth feeling and a great primer, but it did not provide an overall glow as it claims. I can see using this as a primer and building on it, but on it's own it's just kind of bland. I was surprised to see that it only comes in 4 shades. I purchased the lightest shade, fair, as the next one was far too dark, but the fair is a bit too light for me which means applying it very sparingly. Ideally, I would be a shade in between the two. I am going to try it a few more times before I totally banish it from my makeup bag, however, overall I was disappointed.

Here's the side by side comparison. This is the BB creams applied, one on each side of my face, with a translucent powder over top. No blush, no photoshop (but I oh, so badly wanted to photoshop!). I think it is a fairly big difference, but maybe you don't.

Left: Tarte BB Cream, Right: Maybelline BB Cream

I tried to get the light as best I could to be equal on each side. I think my skin looks washed out and flat on the left hand side. On the right hand side, I think my skin looks brighter and healthier. What do you think? Do you have a favourite BB cream?

So, to answer my own question, definitely BB - you just have to find the right one.

A Valentine's Manicure

It wasn't too long ago that I was totally anti-Valentine's Day. I would go on and on about how it was just a Hallmark holiday, stemming from religious roots, that was built up for retailers to make money. And even though that is true, I'm totally okay with it now.

I love love, and I love celebrating it. I don't go totally overboard with gifts or decorations, but it's a great excuse for a date night with my man.

In keeping with the Valentine's Day theme, I thought I would test drive a cute love inspired manicure.

Butter London Nail Laquer in 'Macbeth' and 'Trout Pout'

Pink is my favourite colour, and I totally fell in love with these two pinks with orange undertones. I applied two coats of 'Trout Pout' over a base coat and let it dry overnight.

The following morning I used a heart shaped hole-punch (which I forgot to take a photo of) to make a heart shaped hole in a piece of painters tape. I placed the tape on my nail and applied one coat of 'Macbeth' to fill the hole, and immediately removed the tape. Once dry, I applied top coat. Et voila: a love inspired manicure!
 

What is your favourite part of Valentine's Day?