Cookin' The Books: Chloe's Kitchen

Hey everyone! I know I disappeared again but I ended up getting sick last week and just didn't really feel like doing anything... except spend money apparently! I have this dangerous hobby of shopping from the comfort of my bed when I'm sick and this bout was no exception. Luckily I purchased reasonable items. Ever since I saw her on Cupcake Wars I've been a little bit of a Chef Chloe Coscarelli fangirl. I loved that she showed everyone that vegan food is not just as good but better than omni food and that you don't need eggs and butter to bake. You can imagine how ridiculous I felt that I owned exactly zero of her cookbooks! Well, I changed that and downloaded Chloe's Kitchen and Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen. I am so excited about both, they look amazing! I decided to start with Chloe's Kitchen and made a few recipes today to prep for the week. I figured I'd pop in to show you how they came out!

Included in the first batch of recipes I tried is this absolutely gorgeous Tuscan Beans and Greens Soup. She has it served over garlic toast but I skipped that. This soup is a beautiful and hearty soup packed with cannellini beans, tomato, garlic, onion and greens. Chloe uses escarole in the recipe but I decided to go with spinach. I can't wait to try this for dinner tomorrow!

This recipe was the one I was most excited about! It is the Mongolian BBQ Seitan and holy wow!! This is an absolutely gorgeous dish! It has warmth and a touch of sweetness from the spices and touch of agave along with the earthiness of mushroom, heartiness of seitan and freshness of snow peas. I am so glad I tried this one!

I added some sesame seeds as garnish and it looks so good. The sauce is thick and sticky and this is perfect to warm up on a cold, disgusting day like today.

This dish is not in Chloe's books but they were a happy mistake! I was set to make the Mini Potato Skins Stuffed with Avocado Salsa but I only noticed once it was too late that we have entered mealy, disgusting tomato season so this was not happening. I had already roasted my potatoes and wanted to do something fun with them so I decided to make baby twice baked potato bites!

I scooped out the center of each potato and took the insides and mashed them up with some daiya and fresh green onion. If I had been prepared I would have had some sour supreme to help make the filling more creamy but this recipe developed in the moment so I did the best I could. They actually came out good and look so adorable! There are a ton here so I'm wondering if they would freeze well.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to today. I'll try and photograph some meals this week to keep you posted! I hope you have all been well!

Show & Tell Sunday: e..l.f Golden Goddess Look

Hey everyone! Happy Sunday. I seriously love Sundays so much... especially now that it is my Saturday. Anyway, earlier in the week I asked if anyone would be interested in seeing some makeup looks as I play with my new products and everyone seemed to be into it so here we are! I went out for a family friend's birthday this afternoon and was really happy with the way my makeup came out so I decided to share the look with you here. I am going to show you all of the products I used, include my thoughts on them and show you how everything came out. I hope you like it!

I titled this post the e.l.f. Golden Goddess Look because I used the e.l.f. Golden Goddess eyeshadow quad for my eyes. This is by far my favorite eyeshadow that I've gotten from e.l.f... I've actually been disappointed by the other palettes I've gotten but that's for another day.

These are all of the products I used. Except the blush. I forgot to photograph that but I used e.l.f.'s baked blush.

Lipstick: e.l.f. Moisturizing Lipstick in Cheeky. This is my favorite lipstick at the moment. It is a pearly/frosty rosey bronze and it is so pretty.

Bronzer: e.l.f. Essential Bronzer in the shade "Sun Kissed." I'm kind of meh about this product.

Foundation: Tarte Amazonian Clay full coverage foundation. I LOVE this stuff. It has amazing coverage, feels super light on your skin and it is a mineral foundation and contains no chemicals which I love. Really great product! My shade is "fair beige."

Concealer: e.l.f. Maximum Coverage Concealer in the shade "Porcelain." I really like this product a lot, it does a pretty good job hiding my insanely dark circles under my eyes.

Mascara: Tarte Amazonian Clay Smart Mascara. This was a free sample with my Tarte purchase and it is AMAZING! I love the way it makes my lashes look. It does an amazing job lengthening and separating my lashes. Love this product a lot.

Eyeshadow: e.l.f. Essential Flawless Eyeshadow in Golden Goddess. This is by far my favorite eyeshadow by e.l.f. I've had problems with my Baked Eyeshadow Palette and the large palette I got because there is tons of fallout and it gets really messy but this one isn't too bad. And the colors are gorgeous. 

Setting Powder: Tarte Smooth Operator Amazonian Clay Finishing Powder. Another sample from Tarte and another great product. There is so much product in it for a sample too! It does a really great job setting my concealer and foundation.

I swatched the eyeshadows that I used so you can see what they look like. Aren't they gorgeous?! The far left is the shadow located at the top of the quad in the photo and is a beautiful shimmery champagne color. I used this as my inner corner highlight and my brow highlight. The middle shade is the second shadow from the top of the quad and I used that on the inner 2/3 of my lid. It is a gorgeous metallic gold shadow. So beautiful. The far right shadow is a beautiful metallic copper shade and I used that for my crease and outer 1/3 of my lid. 

Here is the finished look. I'm still not great at eyeliner so I didn't use any since I was going out and didn't have time to play around with it. How pretty is that lip color?!

You can tell how great the mascara is in this photo I think. It makes a huge difference in the look of my eyes. I know the Lights, Camera, Lashes Mascara is the popular Tarte Mascara but I really like this one.

Close up of my eye :X It is a little out of focus but it's kind of difficult to get this shot yourself, ha! It's a subtle look I think but I really like it. I'm going to start playing with color soon and see how that works out.

I also tried out another one of the e.l.f. Essential Nail Polish colors. This color is "Garnet" and it is GORGEOUS! This is perfect for the upcoming holiday season. It is a rich burgundy color and really stunning. There are a lot of negative reviews for these nail polishes and I don't know why. The formula is really great, the coverage is great and the five colors I got are gorgeous. They lasted about 5 days before I got my first chip in the Copper color which I think is pretty great for a $1 bottle of nail polish. The only thing I agree with is that some of the swatches for the colors are completely horrible and misleading but I was still incredibly happy with the ones I got. I expected this to be more red but I'm definitely still satisfied with what I got. I still definitely recommend this product... maybe just google image search some real swatches of the colors before you order them. From my understanding the teal color is actually a Kelly Green which would annoy me, ha!

So there you have it! I don't think I'll have one of these posts every Sunday but I will do the best I can! I hope you have all had an amazing weekend!

What I Ate Today

Hey guys! I'm on a roll with all of this posting lately! I told you I'd come back and show you what I ate today and here I am. I don't think I'll be able to post tomorrow because it is going to be a crazy day for me but I'll still photograph what I can to show you later in the week :)

I'll keep this one short and sweet and get right to the meals!

Breakfast was cold cereal with almond milk and banana. Does anyone else eat banana in their cereal? I thought it was a common thing but I never seem to see it on blogs?

Big blackberries for a morning snack.

Not a traditional lunch but kind of what I was craving. A huge honeycrisp apple, a bunch of carrots and some unpictured almond butter.

Coconut cream pie Larabar for snack.

I have been craving pizza and tried to go the healthiest route possible. This is a tortilla pizza with lots of spinach and broccoli and a sprinkle of Daiya. It was really good.

So good in fact I took two pictures of it ;)

So there you have it! Tomorrow will be a lot more green and I'll do my best to photograph it. I'll be back later in the week with more eats! Hope you have all been well so far this week. Cheers!

Weekend Wrap Up

Hey everyone. I decided not to go three weeks before my next post :) I promised to show what I did with some of those groceries and I got pictures of three of my meals that I made from my haul last week. Not a huge amount of photos but I'm working on getting back into the habit! I also made huge batches of some of these meals and they lasted most of the week. I actually have some great meals planned for the next few days so I'm going to challenge myself to photograph them all and show them to you. We'll see what happens. Of course I do this challenge after daylight savings so it is pitch black outside when I get home from work and there is zero natural light to photograph dinner. That's pretty much how my life works.

This weekend my mom and I were recruited to watch Delilah and the fur children from Saturday evening through Sunday evening. Stay tuned to the end of this post for a few pictures from that!

I made a big batch of a green tofu scramble with some tofu, spinach and roasted broccoli. It was delicious and lasted for days. Great for a quick savory breakfast!

I saw this recipe for Chickpea and Cabbage Soup on Pinterest and was really excited to make it! I love hearty, chunky soups in the fall and it has been pretty brisk here the past few days so this meal has been perfect. I'm sorry that the picture is horrible but trust me, the soup was delicious :) The only thing I did differently was I left out the oats and it was still great.

Finally, this week was the return of avocado toast! I used the delicious multi-grain bread that I got from Trader Joe's and it was really great. A simple meal that is perfect every time.

And now I know what you all really wanted to see. Or should I say who?

Can you believe how big she has gotten?! She will be 4 this month. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. She's such a beautiful kid and has so much personality. 

Here's TJ! He's been feeling a lot better since the last time I babysat for him and he is equally as adorable. I didn't get a picture of Tyler but he was as adorable and snuggly as always. At one point TJ decided to climb up on my back and go to sleep and Tyler snuggled up right next to me. 

So there you have it! With any luck I'll be back over the next few days to show you the yummy meals I've been eating (I know they will be yummy since I actually took the time to plan the next few days of meals)! 

Just out of curiosity would you guys be interested in seeing some of the makeup looks I've been coming up with since the purchase of my new products? I've been having a lot of fun with it but I don't know if it is something you are interested in? I was thinking about making it my Show and Tell Sunday posts and showing you the looks along with the products I used to achieve them. I would also review the products since I've had mixed results with the products I've purchased. Please let me know if it is something you would be interested in seeing in the comments! Keep in mind I'm not great at applying it all but I'm getting better!

Have a great night my friends!