Birthday Treats!

Tomorrow is my dads birthday and we are having a few friends over tonight to celebrate since the rest of our week is jam packed! I made strawberry cupcakes and chocolate dipped strawberries

Since the chocolate dipped strawberries are pretty self explanatory and I don't think anyone needs a recipe for those here is a picture of them:

Here are the cupcakes all done I will post the recipe after (I added some extra chocolate on top that I had left from the strawberries)

Strawberry Puree

(this goes in the batter and the icing)

 Ingredients

• 5 cups fresh strawberries
  
• 2 teasppons lemon juice
  
• 1/4 cup sugar

1. Cut off stems and clean strawberries.
2. Place in blender or food processor.
3. Add lemon juice, and puree.
4. Add in sugar gradually for desired sweetness.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
  
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 3 egg whites
  
• 2 teaspoons strawberry extract
  
• 2 cups fresh strawberrt pureed
  
• 1/4 cup plain or strawberry yogurt
  
• 1 1/2 cups flour
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
  Directions
  
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake tins with foil or paper liners.
  2. In a large bowl beat sugar and butter until fluffy. Add egg whites one at a time, and continue beating  until fluffy.
  3. Add strawberry puree and yogurt.
  4. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
  5. Gradually add batter to flour mixture. and beat until well blended.
  6. Pour batter into cupcake tins until 2/3rds fulls.
  7. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
  8. Cool completely.
    
  Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
  (you will not be able to pipe this icing it will not get thick enough)
  
  Ingredients
  
• 1/4 cup butter softened to room temperature
• 1 8 ounce package of cream cheese softened to room temperature
• 1/2 cup strawberry puree
• 6 cups confectioners sugar
• pink or red food tint or food coloring ( I didn't use any the puree made it a pretty color on its own

Directions

1. Using a large bowl, beat butter and cream cheese until well blended.

2. Add food coloring to make the tint pink or red.
3. Gradually add confectioners sugar, beating until smooth, and obtaining desired frosting consistency.

They taste AMAZING and if you have any extra of the puree it tastes delish over ice cream. The cake part is a litrle more on the muffin side then cupcake side so if you would prefer more of a cupcake flavour use a plain store bought cupcake mix and substitute the water in it with the strawberry puree. Lemme know if anyone of you make them what you think!

Here is a picture of them all set up and pretty for the table (don't mins the other random shit lol)

Alright time to go clean the kitchen and get the rest of dinner ready hope you guys have a great week ahead of you and to all my Canadian followers happy early Canada day!

Busy Week...

Alright so I move within the week and I won't be blogging much till after the 4th.

I've got so much packing, paper work and errands to run before I leave the west coast next Friday. Then I will be hanging with my little sis for the weekend and picking the hubby up from the airport. After all that I should have some fun photo updates for you guys <3

Try not to miss me too much!!!

Rhys Makes Magic!

The amazingly talented comic artist Rhys McDonald has made me feel lucky over the years and has drawn me a few times! His most recent peice of me is pretty awesome and I wanted to share it with you guys!

Here are some pieces he has drawn of me over the years:

The last one is actually a skateboard design which can be purchased HERE. You can find Rhys on this Twitter or on his Website.

Also you guys may have noticed my rad new blog signature! I am super lucky to have a friend who does graphic design and makes all my layouts, banners and such things for me for a very reasonable price! He just made a Twitter account so be sure to add him on there and check out his Facebook by searching Blue Sunset Design!

Hope everyones week is off to a good start and that you're all enjoying the first days of summer!

ATTENTION LURKERS

Alright so I get about 150 views a day on here and 300 on days when I blog. Yet there are maybe only about 3 or 4 of you who comment on a regular basis!

I figured a lot of this might be due to some of you not having google accounts since I recieve lots of emails in response to my blogs. So I made it so that ANYONE can comment on my blogs. I really love the feed back and love to hear what you guys would like to see more of in my blogs and just like the general love!

So please comment on my blogs you that enjoy!

I am thinking in August I will run a contest for my readers. Every time you comment on a blog over the summer you will get a ballot entered into the draw and come August long weekend I will pull a winner from the ballots!

So keep up the lurking and get to commenting!

My Raw Food Experience

Alright so any of you who know me, and even those who just follow me are sure to know I love meat, fur, and antlers. So I for sure didn't go to this Raw Food Preparation class with the intentions of going vegan.I just really love cooking and am always open to add new things to my cook book! Now only bummer about this is I fully forgot my camera so I have no pictures to show you what everything looks like. SORRY!! But I know a few of you were super keen to see the recipes so this post is for you!

The theme of the class was a Raw-B-Q so typical things you would imagine at a B-B-Q but all uncooked and vegan. We had Sunburgers, with Sweet Potato "fries", corn on the cobb, with home made Raw-B-Q Sauce as well as Better Than Mayo to go on the burger. You will need a food processor for all but one of the recipes.

SUN BURGERS

Ingredients:
-1cup of soaked sunflower seeds
-1 tsp sea salt
-1/8 tsp cayenne
-1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
-2 tbsp soya sauce
-3 cups carrots
-1/2 cup celery
-1/2 cup onion
-1/4 cup rep pepper
-1 tsp fresh pasley
-1/4 ground flax seeds

Soak sunflower seeds for 6 hours then drain. In a food processor, mix sunflower seed, sea salt, cayenne, poultry seasoning and soya sauce until well processed. Put in a large bowl. Now process carrots a bit, then add celery, onion, red pepper and parsley until finely chopped. Add to bowl containing other mixture. Grind flax seeds, add to mixture and combine well.

This should make about 12 patties. They can be eaten this way or if you have a dehydrator set at 105 degrees for 4 to 6 hours. This will make them a little easier to handle but does not effect the taste. They can be eaten on their own with sauces to follow or you can take large romain lettuce leaves and wrap them in those with all your fixings like tomatoes cucumbers and onions and the sauces.

BETTER THAN MAYO

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 cups raw cashews
-3/4 cup water
-3 tbsp ovlive oil or hemp oil
-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
-1 tsp italian spice mix or oregano if you can't find mix
-1/2 tsp sea salt
-Dash of cayenne

Blend all ingredients in processor until smooth. The mixtrue must sit for a few minutes to thicken. Store in fridge for upto a week. This can be used as a raw salad dressing, veggie dip, or as a sauce for the burgers we are making today.

RAW-B-Q SAUCE

Ingredients:
-1 green onion
-4 pitted datesor 1/2 cup raisins
-1 tbsp olive oil
-1 garlic clove
-1 tsp sea salt
-1 tsp chili powder
-1 tsp italian spice mix or oregano
-1 1/2 cup tomatoes

Process everything except tomatoes. Add tomatoes and process slightly leaving small lumps depending on the texture you would like. This also can we used as a dip.

LIVE SWEET POTATO FRIES

Ingredients:
-2 large sweet potatoes peeled and sliced to desired thickness
-2 tbsp onion powder
-6 tbsp olive oil
-1 1/2 tbsp paprika
-2 tsp cumin
-Sea salt to taste

Mix onion powder, olive oil, paprika, cumin and salt together. Put chopped sweet potattooes in a flat shallow dish, drizzle mixture over them and toss. Marinate for a couple hours tossing every hour then they are ready to serve!

Lastly we had corn on the cob. Just husk the corn, soak, dry off break into 3 and serve!

I really like the Raw-B-Q sauce, Fries(they tastes amazing), and oddly enough the corn tasted pretty amazing uncooked! The sunburgers weren't bad but being a meat eater I would much rather have had a real burger along with everything we made. But if you are a veggie or a vegan I think you will really like them.

Onto other cooking news. I used to store all my recipes on my computer. Along with bookmarking all my fave recipes I had found online. Then my computer crashed and along with losing lots of other shit I lost ALL of my recipes and pretty much wanted to curl up and DIE!

This week at walmart I found this awesome cook book:

It has tabs for everything under the sun from seafood to poulty to appatizers to desserts to baked goods to drinks. It also has awesome pre templated two sided cards and plastic divider sheets to store it all. yes I am a complete house wife and cooking nerd but I am WAY stoked on this. I am about halfway through writing out all my recipes in here!

Alright I'm off to light the BBQ for some delishous ribs I have been marinating since yesterday along with cucumber salad and raw corn on the cob! YUMM! Have a rad night guys!

Oh you know...

 Just the most epic wedding portraits EVER thanks to Jesses Bodas aka Destroy Inc.

And then I was a Cover Girl!

Pretty stoked the cover I shot for Tattoo Life came out this week in Europe! It will be in North America by the end of the month. I have a two page feature with more pictures and an interview inside if you guys want to check it out. I will also be selling a limited amount of signed copies through my Big Cartel shop once I get my hands on some. Here's the cover image...

Shot by Dale May

I also found out this week I got a really great job back East in my home town so I can finally make plans for my move and I start the job towards the end of next month! 2010 finally looks like it's turning my way!

As far as my crafting side goes, I made a rosary by hand this week using pearls off two old necklaces my great grandmother had left me when she passed away.

 A few of you had asked how to make one so HERE is a video on how to turn eye pins and beads into chain links to create the necklace. And HERE is  diagram on traditional rosary spacing aka where to put the beads and how many.

 I also took a raw foods cooking class earlier this week, the theme was RawBQ so raw foods resembling typical summer BBQ foods! I will have a blog up by the end of the weekend with recipes for everything since a few of you had asked for them!

Hope everyone has a great fathers day weekend!

Weaves and Mustache Rides

Hey guys! Alright so I ordered me some hair online so that I could do my extentions for the summer. Pretty stoked about the results!

 A lot of you email me about what I use for extensions so here is what goes into fusion extentions:

 Basically it's a heat gun and keratin bonded extentions. Though unless you are a stylist or have a friend who is a hairdresser who will do them for you I would not recommed trying them on your own. They will run you anywhere from $500 to $1000 in a salon and last about 3-4 months if you take care of them and have maintenance sessions halfway through.

If you are going to have a stylist friend do them at home you can get the gun on Ebay for $15 to $45 depending on the brand. And you can buy the hair on Ebay as well but don't buy the cheap stuff aka if there is a listing for 200 bonds for $45 I can pretty much garuntee the hair quality will be shit. You can expect to spend about $100 - $200 on the hair online for decent quality. I use about 200 bonds on my head and have medium thickness hair. 

Hope that helped answer some of your questions! If you have anymore feel free to ask.

If you guys read my blog a lot you know I LOVE Etsy! So I thought I would share my latest fave find on there with you guys! I bought this for my husband last week cause hes on a mustache kick at the moment.

 After I posted this on twitter the seller sold out of them. But she was super sweet and emailed me this morning to tell me she had mad a new batch (yes she makes them all by hand) and they are now listed for you guys to go buy!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/41131256/geek-chic-mr-mint-mustache-all-natural

Today I am starting day one of my new work out plan to get my body back after 3 months of bed rest from before and after surgery. Wish me luck!

I'm cooking dinner tonight too, fruit and seafood! Expect a food blog about it at some point this week!

Hope everyones week is off to a rad start