PopSugar

Super Easy Chocolate Covered Strawberries

books and shoes — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:48:30 -0800

INGREDIENTS
16 oz chocolate chips
2 tablespoons shortening
1 lb fresh strawberries

DIRECTIONS
1. Insert toothpicks into the top of strawberries. (I don't even really bother with this step anymore.)
2. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and shortening, stirring occasionally until smooth. Holding them by the toothpicks, dip the strawberries into the chocolate mixture. (I don't have a double boiler, so I just use a bowl in a pot of water. I dip the strawberries straight in without the toothpicks.)
3. Turn the strawberries upside down and insert the toothpick into styrofoam for the chocolate to cool. (The styrofoam didn't really work that well for me so instead I just lay the strawberries on foil or wax paper.)

I've been using this recipe for years. So easy! I typically pop them in fridge until later. The recipe is easily adaptable to whatever chocolate you like, and you can garnish the strawberries with nuts or chocolate shavings/drizzles if you want some extra pizazz. Always a hit and simple enough for even the amateur chef. Enjoy!

Welcome to Chocolate Health!

bethschocolate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:33:13 -0800

Wow! I just checked out this site a few minutes ago, check out one of the blogs on "giving up chocolate" and was HORRIFIED!! This lady was going to give up chocolate for Lent!!! And then I calmed down...and I realized that so many women do not know the HEALTH aspects of REAL healthy chocolate!!
Yes, there is such a thing. And it tastes good. And it saved my life. That's right...totally guilt free.
Interested? Taste buds watering a bit? I'll be right back...I think I will go get a piece of this truly healthy chocolate melt in my mouth while I finish...
No...I'm not one of those Euell Gibbons "many parts of the tree are edible" types. I like junk food. But when I eat this chocolate, soda doesn't taste good, other chocolate tastes horrible, and I am not hungry.
Throughout the next posts I will cover women's health issues like weight loss, improved skin, cholesterol, energy, improved brain function, improved mood,
(...oh yeah, like women have to have THAT one explained...! Okay, I will skip that one, other than maybe explaining all the theobromine & epicathecin issues...)
I welcome the strongest comments! Bring it on! You will be SO GLAD THAT YOU DID!
To your chocolate health, Beth

Chocolate-Covered OREO Cookie Cake

xmeghanx — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:57:36 -0700

1 pkg. (2-layer size) devil's food chocolate cake mix

4 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, cut up

1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping

12 OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, coarsely crushed

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Prepare and bake cake mix in two (9-inch) round cake pans as directed on package. Cool in pans 5 min. Invert onto wire racks; remove pans. Cool layers completely.

PLACE chocolate and butter in small microwaveable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Cool 5 min.

BEAT cream cheese and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add the whipped topping and cookie crumbs; mix lightly. Place 1 of the cake layers, top-side down, on serving plate; spread with the cream cheese mixture. Cover with the remaining cake layer, top-side up. Spoon glaze over top of cake. Let stand until set. Store in refrigerator.

Rob's Details Interview

athena4rob — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:34:10 -0800

COFFEEIt's the unseasonably cold November of 2008 when I go to New York's Bowery Hotel. There's a young man sitting in the garden, wrapped in about nine black sweaters and wearing a wool hat, smoking cigarettes, sipping a latte the size of his head, and furiously making notes on a script in the bitter cold. I have read about teenage girls lighting themselves on fire in front of his hotel, but at the moment Robert Pattinson is warming his hands on a coffee cup.
Hello, I'm Jenny. I think I'm here so you can check me out."Okay. I'm Rob. Um . . . would you like some fries? With gravy?"
Allen Coulter, the director of Hollywoodland and a creative force behind The Sopranos, has sent me. He was thinking about doing this movie-it wasn't quite there yet, but I should "come meet Rob."
Rob. When he came to the United States, he slept on his agent's sofa and then got a small part in a movie called Harry Potter and the Something of Something, which grossed nearly $900 million worldwide. And then he made another one, called Twilight, which grossed $385 million in theaters and almost another $200 million in U.S. DVD sales. Box-office riches, like so much of the female population of this planet, follow him from continent to continent, nursing a raging crush.
Coulter suggested I do some rewrite work on Remember Me (for the record, there is only one credited writer, Will Fetters), the first American release in which Rob will portray a mortal, nonmagical, carbon-based life form of the earthly realm-Salvador Dalí, whom he played in Little Ashes, surely doesn't qualify. As Rob scribbles away on the script's pages, it's clear he is starting his own revision process.
Rob's face is constantly busy-especially his kaleidoscopic eyes, which are continually rolling and dilating, because he is always thinking. Over the course of that latte, he contemplates Jimi Hendrix, French fries, girls, art, beer, his cousin the philosopher, girls, truth, God, his dog, girls, and whether this week's stalker has followed him from L.A. I don't think he could turn his brain off if he wanted to.
Despite the legion of fans trailing him from hotel to hotel, laying siege to each like the Roman army, he is neither fearful nor cocky-he's hungry, curious, forever reaching intellectually. That may not sound like a big deal, but think of the context: Complete strangers want to f*ck you, shoot you, be you, buy you, sell you, run their fingers through your hair, watch you have sex, hear you pee, eat chips with you, and kidnap you and stuff you in the trunk of their car. And you? You must know more, more, more about exotic tropical diseases.
Rob and I discover we share a mutual fascination with afflictions that maim and disfigure and disgust: He brings up cancrum oris, in which bacteria eat away at your face until you get kind of a window in the side of your head and the entire world sees your teeth; I mention cyclic vomiting syndrome, a condition in which you puke literally all the goddamn time; he delights in lymphatic filariasis, where parasitic worms burrow into your lymph nodes and can make your balls swell to the size of watermelons, forcing you to tote them around in a wheelbarrow.
We come up with a blockbuster hit movie, entitled Candiru Infestation, about a tiny fish that swims up your urethra and into your urinary tract and lodges in your cock with backward-facing umbrella spikes it shoots from its spine.

"f*cking brilliant! It could be like Finding Nemo!" says Rob. "And the little candiru is lost in the balls! Think of the soundtrack!"

BEER NO. 1Fourteen months later we're in London. New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight saga, has set box-office records for largest midnight opening and biggest opening-day gross. Remember Me, Rob's young-man-in-crisis drama, has wrapped. He has 24 hours before he has to start rehearsals for Bel Ami, based on the Guy de Maupassant novel, in which he plays a bed-hopping social climber.
He is waiting to pick me up in the bar of my hotel. He has ordered himself a pint of beer and, remembering my beverage of choice, a Diet Coke for me. He has the lovely manners of the good son of a good mum.
He says he wants to take me to a particular restaurant nearby, "just a little out-of-the-way place." So out of the way, it turns out, that after wandering around nearly all of Covent Garden, we can't find it. He doesn't seem too surprised, really. Of late he's been getting lost a lot in his own hometown. But then it's been a couple of years since he's actually lived here, and London is confusing as hell anyway.
Considering alternatives, we peek into a crowded café full of the young and beautiful, but he recoils. A few minutes later, when we come to a tiny Mexican place, his hackles go up a bit. Hmm. I ask him whether, at this point, he's able to sniff out crazed fans lurking under the tables.
"Yes. Sure. But last time I was here, the guacamole was bad."
Rob has made no sartorial concessions to Britain's ugliest winter weather in 30 years. A button-down, light Carhartt-like jacket, no gloves. He does have a hat, perhaps the same one he wore in New York. I'm swaddled like the Michelin Man and I'm f*cking freezing. He's cheery, unfazed, giggling away. It occurs to me that London seems to afford him a freedom he doesn't have in New York or Los Angeles. And a London night with deserted, snow-piled streets, after an epic storm that paralyzed Heathrow and shut down the Eurostar trains, is like an unbridled romp while going commando.
Without trying, we arrive back where we started, in front of the Covent Garden Hotel. Across the street there's a high-end sex-toy-and-bondage shop called Coco de Mer. I mention that I popped in there earlier (before the National Gallery, thank you), and I tell him about this insane S&M body-harness contraption they have that allows you to dress up like a horse and have a long tail.
"That's so English. I want to do this entire interview wearing it, from an equine point of view," he says, stomping the sidewalk with make-believe hooves. "Seriously. As an experiment in public perceptions. Is the place still open?"
BEER NO. 2We're inside, at a warm corner of the hotel's Brasserie Max, and Rob is having another beer. We're talking about how he copes. "When I was 17 until, I don't know, 20, I had this massive, baseless confidence. This very clear idea of myself and how I would achieve success, which involved making decisions. I saw myself picking up the phone and saying 'Absolutely not' or 'Definitely yes.' Having control. Except you have to figure out whether the way you think at 19 or 20 has any value. And eventually I understood, with all that control, which was probably illusory, I wasn't progressing. So now I'm relinquishing a bit. I'll be a tiny bit naked. Except tonight I won't, because it's f*cking freezing and my balls will shrivel up."

He may keep his balls covered in winter, but Allen Coulter says that during the shooting of Remember Me, Rob did bare himself: "It was about control, for him, in the beginning. But he wanted forward motion more than he wanted to protect himself. Really brave-especially for a young guy with a big target on his back."
Rob does seem eager to shed some clothing, to give up the reins.
"Shall we go see about that harness? Seriously, you eventually realize you can't make every single decision. I was always building, always protecting something. At the same time, I seemed to be losing the ability to move. I'd protected myself into checkmate. Even mentally." In that moment, he has a realization: "I can barely remember the last two years. Not like a haze of partying or anything like that. Just . . . it's been crazy."
There's been surreal stuff. Like the time at a charity event in Cannes when two attendees bid nearly $60,000 combined to have Rob give their daughters a kiss on the cheek. There's been scary stuff, though the idea he might truly be at risk strikes him as absurd: "I find it really funny-if I got shot, I would literally be in hysterics. I would be like, 'Are you serious? Jesus Christ, get Zac Efron! He's got more social relevance than I do.'" He's pretty sure there was some good stuff, too. "There was this one time with some elephants on a golf course in Barcelona . . ."
He drifts into a reverie. He gets amazed easily, and at the moment he's fixated on the mysterious green bar snacks. They're sort of like wasabi peas, but not. They're covered in chili powder and look like tiny tumors. He's eating every single one.
"f*ck, these are good. What are they? I want to snort them-they'd clear up my sinuses."
BEER NO. 3Rob's hunger is more than merely metaphorical. He orders two entrees-the mini beef burgers with tomato-and-onion relish and the mini chicken burgers with mango chutney-along with another pint. "I eat so much, I'm like a compulsive eater. I've been eating room service, and I'm always really worried about it, so I choose like six things on the menu and eat them all."
He doesn't want to miss anything, which implies a hint of regret. He didn't always want to be an actor. He modeled. He's a talented guitarist and keyboard player who has toyed with following his older sister Lizzy into pop music. But he's a serious type, and his most serious aspirations involved political speech writing. "It's fascinating. You'd have two or three minutes to affect someone. Make them hear you. Get the message out and maybe it will echo. I quite enjoyed doing press for the first Twilight, because there was a similarity. But after a bit I was ladling it out. If you want people to listen to you, you'd better have something to say. I felt a responsibility to be fascinating. You're bargaining with the audience. Is this enough for them? And that affects the way you look at art."
Art. It's illogical to think he's not allowed to have ideas about it merely because he has helped a lot of people make a lot of money.
"Before, I felt like I couldn't break through anything, including myself. And now it feels a bit as though I've climbed along the side of my brain and am at least looking in. But I know it will take me at least another 10 years before I'm remotely satisfied with anything I do. But with acting you keep trying in the hopes you might be . . . great. But then I think, does wanting to be good or even great, or even just wanting to make art, cheapen the experience?"

I worry his head is going to explode. He answers questions with questions. Doors open onto more doors. This sometimes leads to trouble with scripts: Since he sees every character's point of view, he often needs some sort of distillation. The catch is that unless the distillation somehow encompasses every character's essence, it only causes his imagination to fire more wildly. It's the kaleidoscope-vision thing.
Some people can have the ocean in front of them and just put their big toe in. Rob wants to swim until he drowns, and he's going to try to drink it all up before he goes under. His striving is a source of worry because he can't really tell anybody he wants more: "Please don't make this about me complaining. Please. I'm the luckiest bastard on the planet." He worries he might be selfish. He worries maybe he's a nonhumanist-separatist-weirdo because his most profound moments have been with his dog. And he worries about whether he can be an actor who can reach the masses and still ask for anything.
"If it exists out there-this invisible-creative-spirit-idea thing-then you're the medium through which it travels so everybody can touch it. But . . . what gives you the right to be the medium? What gives you the right to claim it? And then get an agent and say I want $20 million and a fruit basket to be the medium, thank you very much.
"As an actor, you can elevate the human condition or cheapen it. I would assume it's the same with anything you do-you try to elevate and maybe someday you will." An actor may indeed have the ability to raise us, but Rob unconsciously starts speaking sotto voce each time he utters the word actor or any variation of it.
Rob, did you know that every time you say actor or acting you lower your voice to a whisper?He's genuinely startled. "I do?"Yes, so quietly it's like you're saying Negro.He laughs, lightens up. "What if we were 'acting' like 'Negroes'? Then we'd be f*cked-we couldn't hear anything. . . ."
BEER NO. 4Rob asks the waiter for another beer. He's talking about an uncle who worked in a steel mill in the Yorkshire town his dad grew up in. Rob's father and his other uncles moved away as soon as they were old enough, but the eldest brother stayed there his whole life.
"They're bulldozing houses, whole streets of houses. And my dad asked him, 'Why stay?' He said, 'Who's going to look after our mom?' And I was just thinking, Jesus f*cking Christ, there might be something wrong with my emotional sight, because I'm not sure if I could make that kind of sacrifice. The only emotional connection of relevance is with my dog. My relationship with my dog, it's ridiculous.
"I think you need to be able to break through what you think about yourself to try to make any sort of art. I used to play music all the time, and the most amazing part was the freedom that came with kicking myself in the ass, letting go, and surprising myself."
He tried to let go a little bit with the photo shoot accompanying this interview-it wasn't easy.
"I really hate vaginas. I'm allergic to vagina. But I can't say I had no idea, because it was a 12-hour shoot, so you kind of get the picture that these women are going to stay naked after, like, five or six hours. But I wasn't exactly prepared. I had no idea what to say to these girls. Thank God I was hungover."

Is your mom going to have something to say about it?"Oh, God." He puts his head in his hands, shrugs. "Well, she quite enjoyed when I got her cable." It's not that Rob's mother now spends all night watching Skinemax in her London home. "No, no! God, no! It's just that there's nakedness all over the place now. But this shoot, it's kind of eighties nakedness, you know? If you look at porn in, like, the eighties, there was something kind of quaint about it, quite sweet-like this little naked community. The people who made it liked it, they had respect for it. Not remotely like the porn that's available now. No community in it at all. It's just everything, everywhere."
CANDYIn the U.K., Smarties are made of chocolate and are kind of like M&M's in weird colors like mauve and teal but somehow more delicious. Rob's not really a dessert guy, yet he's rapidly hoovering my last packet of Smarties. "Amazing. I've eaten like 5,000 of these already. See what you have to deal with?"
In Remember Me he plays a guy whose issues are eerily like his own. Tyler is a young man who has retreated into himself, but then he meets a woman, becomes conflicted, and has to choose whether to remain in lockdown or step into life and the world.
"Tyler is so aware of his actions. But he has no idea whether they're of any value at all. Can you be a person if you live in the bubble? He's stuck in the middle. At the same time, he's lucky to have the choice. Conflict is innate in a lucky person."
What attracted you to the role?"I'm a lucky person. Thank God. And I'm conflicted. Thank God."
He tells me about a book he read called Eat the Rich, by P.J. O'Rourke (full disclosure: P.J. was married briefly to my sister, though Rob had no idea). He was drawn to a part that says something like: One man's wealth does not mean another man's poverty-and vice versa. Rob's slightly embarrassed to voice this idea.
He is unsure whether to feel guilty, to bask in it all, or both. Thing is, there aren't any rules for a life as extraordinary as his is right now. He tells me an elephant story. Not the one about Barcelona elephants-one about some he'd met recently in California.
"Did you know elephants purr? It's completely scary if you don't know what it is. They purr like cats, but their heads are so deep they sound like velociraptors. You feel it in the ground under your feet. So this big female started sniffing my foot-big female elephant, that is. She sniffed it so hard it came up off the pavement like her trunk was a vacuum cleaner. Then she took my entire body in her mouth. I was holding on to her head, and as I slowly let go she tightened her grip really carefully until I'm just upside down in her mouth and she's going through my pockets with her trunk, looking for peppermints. It was the best day of my life."
So you gave up control to an elephant, got groped, mugged, had your candy tugged at-and it was glorious? "Yeah. So beautiful you can't imagine. And the baby elephant was so excited that it sprinted out and did its routine in five seconds and then curtsied to everybody. It was actually laughing. Brilliant. Did you know they can also do imitations of other animals? A horse, a chicken, a monkey-these elephants could, anyway. They were movie elephants. One had written a screenplay, and one really wants to direct."

He laughs. He was in Los Angeles, in discussions to star with Sean Penn in Water for Elephants, an adaptation of Sara Gruen's novel. The elephants are actors like him, and he wonders if he might, on some cosmic level, be a bit like them.
"Do you know how they die? The elephant guy told me their molars get ground down from eating wood but regenerate like six times. And after that they slowly starve to death. Which is poignant, but that must also be what gives them time to get to the elephant graveyard. They're incredibly designed creatures. I mean, people hang on way too f*cking long. If I knew that when my teeth fell out, that was it . . . Wow. The best day of my life. Beautiful, beautiful day."
A few moments later, Rob announces he's going to get a cab home and excuses himself.
Can I walk you? I don't like you going out there all by yourself."I'll be okay."

Cupcakes While We Wait for Sweet Spring

finn — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:53:44 -0800

Are you excited about the spring planting and dreaming of flowers, birds and butterflies? While you wait and wait and peer out at the snowy scape outside your window, try making these beautiful little cakes.

Nest Cupcakes Keep Us Planning for Spring

Ingredients

1 cupcake
Chocolate frosting
Chow mein noodles, dipped in chocolate

Jelly beans
1 plastic bird

Instructions

Frost the cupcake, then build a nest with the chocolate-covered chow mein noodles.
Place the jelly-bean eggs inside and perch the bird nearby.

http://Gardengreenangels.blogspot.com

Get the Bod: Sandra Bullock

FitSugar — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:50:07 -0800

At this year's Golden Globe Awards, Sandra Bullock was looking lovely in a purple evening gown and glowing from her win for Best Actress for The Blind Side. When I saw the red carpet pics of Sandra that night I was impressed by how toned her arms and upper body look - her fitness routine must be paying off!

To stay in shape, it's all about variety for Sandra, and though she also tries to work out every day, she doesn't beat herself up if she misses a few weeks. Besides running and biking, the star incorporates Pilates, plyometrics, weights, and kickboxing into her fitness routine - phew! Sandra must know that changing up your workout is a great way to stay motivated and not get bored with a fitness regimen. If you're not familiar with plyometrics, or jump training, I encourage you to give it a try. You can easily add it into a walking routine or when strength training. By including jumping exercises like jump roping or jumping squats into an existing workout, you use new muscle groups and burn more calories. It's also just a lot of fun!

To learn what Sandra's diet is like, read more.

Sandra keeps her diet healthy by making meal plans for the week and giving herself one cheat day to eat whatever she wants. A healthy meal for her might include brown rice, black beans, and steamed veggies. When cheat day rolls around, she doesn't hold back! Viennese pastries, cookie dough, and bacon-covered chocolate are on her list of indulgent snacks.

Congrats Sandra! We're all anxiously awaiting to find out if your name will be on the Oscars list.

NYE Doughnuts

FitSugar — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:46:10 -0800

I am about to blow my healthy cover, but after a large sushi dinner and after the kids we in bed - we made lots and lots of yeast doughnuts. A fun project for 8 adults. The sugar and chocolate helped all the tired parents make it until midnight.

View Slideshow ›

AROMAS FROM HEAVEN

Monique Marie — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:30:41 -0800

Want to buy some candles that actually smell up a room and tired of paying over $20 for just one candle? Even though these candles are a little more than I would pay for on a daily basis, I really LOVE these candles. They are all home made and they really smell up a room and last forever. Plus, I guess I am a little bias because the candles that I bought were from an elderly gentleman trying to make some money. He was at the only booth out of the whole entire fair that did not have a fan or an awning and it was at least 80 degrees out. I could tell that he used most of his money to buy himself a spot. This company not only produces high quality, good smelling candles, but they are one of the nicest companies I have dealt with. So, if you are looking for some candles as presents or just would like to buy some candles, check this site out.

www.aromasfromheaven.org

16 oz candle is $14.00 Below are the scents they come in.

Almond / Amaretto / Amber Romance / Ambrosia / Angel Whisper's / Angel Wing's / Apple / Apple Blossom / Apple Cinnamon / Apple Fritter / Apple Pie / Apples & Berries / Apples & Clove / Apples & Oak / Apricot / Apricot Freesia / Aroma Therapy / Autumn Afternoon / Autumn Leaves / Baby Magic / Baby Powder / Banana / Banana Nut Bread / Bayberry / Bedazzled / Bergamont / Berries Jubilee / Berry Cobbler / Beulah Land / Birthday Cake / Blackberry / Blackberry Cheesecake / Blackberry Tea / Black Cherry / Black Raspberry Vanilla / Blue Lagoon / Blueberry / Blueberry Cheesecake / Blueberry Cream / Blueberry Muffin / Bounce / Brown Sugar / Brown Sugar & Fig / Brown Sugar & Spice / Bubble Gum / Buttercream Frosting / Butterfly Kisses / Buttermilk Pancakes / Butternut Cookies / Butterscotch / Butterscotch Candy / Buttery Toffee / Buttery Vanilla / Calm / Candy Cane / Candy Corn / Cantaloupe / Cappuccino / Caribbean Cool / Carmel Apple / Carmel Toffee / Carnation / Carrot Cake / Cedar / Chamomile / Chamomile & Lavender / Chanel #5 / Cherry / Cherry Almond / Cherry Blossom / Cherry Cheesecake / Cherry Cream / Cherry Jubilee / Cherry Vanilla / China Rain / Chocolate / Chocolate Cake / Chocolate Chip Cookie / Chocolate Covered Cherry / Chocolate Mint / Chocolate Mint Cookie / Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup / Christmas Clove / Christmas Cookie / Christmas Essence / Christmas Eve / Christmas Spice / Christmas Splendor / Christmas Tree / Christmas Wreath / Cinnamon / Cinnamon Bun / Cinnamon Candy / Cinnamon & Cedar / Cinnamon & Clove / Cinnamon Crunch / Cinnamon Pear / Cinnamon Rose / Cinnamon Spice / Cinnamon Styx / Citrus Blast / Clean Cotton / Clove / Coconut / Coconut Cream / Coconut Lime / Coconut Lime Verbina / Coffee / Coffee Cake / Concord Grape / Cookie Jar / Cool Water / Cotton Blossom / Cotton Candy Red / Cotton Candy Blue / Cotton Cany Vanilla / Country Berry Hot Cakes / Country Clothesline / Country Fresh / Country Spice / Cranberry / Cranberry Ice / Cranberry Orange / Cranberry Plum Cranberry Spice / Creme Brulee / Cucumber & Cantaloupe / Cucumber Melon / Daddodil / Diane's Garden / Dogwood / Downy / Dragon's Blood (Flower) / Drakkar / Dream Angel / Deaamsickle / Dutch Apple Crunch / Egg Nog / Egyptian Musk / Elf Toots / Emerald Pear / English Lavender / Eucalyptus / Eucalyptus Leaf / Euphoria / Exotica / FaBreeze / Fall Fruit / Fantasy Fruit / Field of Dreams / Fireside / Fireside Apple Pie / Fireside Embers / Fireside Pumpkin / First Snow / Frankincense / Frankincense & Myrhh / Freesia / French Toast / French Vanilla / French Vanilla Coffee / Fresh & Clean / Fresh Baked Bread / Fresh Clover / Fresh Cut Grass / Fresh Cut Roses / Fresh Linen / Fresh Rain / Fresh Squeezed Orange / Fried Ice Cream / Fruit Slices / Fuzzy Navel / Gardenia / Georgia Peach / Gingerbread / Gingerbread Spice / God's Love / Golden Delicious Apple / Grandma's Kitchen / Grapefruit / Green Apple / Green Clover & Aloe / Green Tea / Green Tea & Ginger / Green Tea & Cucumber / Harvest / Harvest Berries / Harvest Spice / Hawaiian Delight / Hawaiian Ginger / Hawaiian Paradiese / Hawthorne / Hawthorne & Dogwood / Hazelnut / Hazelnut Coffee / Heart's Song / Heather / Heaven / Heavenly Angel / Holly Berry / Home For The Holidays / Home Sweet Home / Honeydew Melon / Honeysuckle / Hot Apple Cider / Hot Baked Apple Pie / Hot Buttered Rum / Hot Cider & Cinnamon / Hot Cinnamon Apples / Hot Cocoa / Hot Fudge Brownies / Hot Maple Toddy / Hyacinth / Hydrangia / Irish Cream / Island Paradise / Issey Miyake / Jade / Jasmine / Jelly Bean / Juniper Breeze / Kahlua & Cream / Kitchen Spices / Kiss Me All Over / Kiwi / Lady Bug / Lavender / Lavender & Violet / Leather Black / Leather Brown / Lemon / Lemon Cake / Lemon Lime / Lemon Lime Verbina / Lemongrass / Lilac / Lilly of The Valley / Lime / Love / Love Spell vs type / Macintosh Apple / Magnolia / Mango / Mango & Mandarin / Mango & Papaya / Maple Brown Sugar / Maple Pecan / Maraschino Cherry / Meditation / Mid Night Musk / Mid Summer Night / Mint Chocolate / Mintolyptus / Mistletoe / Mixes Berries / Mocha Cream / Mountain Berries / Mount Laurel / Mountain Lodge / Mountain Mist / Mulberry / Mulberry Spice / Mulled Cider / Mulled Wine / Muscadine / Musk / Myrhh / Natures Embrace / Nilla Scotchy / Noble Fir / Nutmeg / Oatmeal Raisin Cookie / Obsession / Obession & Patchouli / Ocean Breeze / Odor Eliminator / Old Fashion Christmas / Orange / Orange Blossom / Orange Clove / Orange Dreamsickle / Orange Sherbert / Passion Fruit / Patchouli / Peach / Peaches & Cream / Peanut Butter Cookie / Peanut Butter CUp / Pear / Pears & Berries / Pecan Pie / Peony / Peony & Tulip / Peppermint / Pina Colada / Pine Forest / Pine Mountain / Pine Needles / Pineapple / Pineapple Upside Down Cake / Pineapple Paradise / Pineapple Verbina / Pink Grapefruit / Pink Grapefruit & Jasmine / Pink Lemonade / Pleasures / Plum Pudding / Plumeria / Pomegranite / Potpouri / Primrose / Pumpkin Harvest / Pumpkin Pie / Pumpkin Pie Spice / Pumpkin Spice / Rain Tree / Red Currant / Red Hots Candy / Relaxations / Roodbeer / Rose / Rose & Sweet Pea / Rudolph's Kisses / Sage / Sage & Citrus / Sandalwood / Sassafrass / Sea Breeze / Serintiy / Sleighbells / Smoke Eliminator / Snickerdoodle / Spearmint / Spice / Spice Cake / Spiced Apples / Spiced Cider / Spiced Mulberry / Spiced Orange / Spiced Patchouli / Spiced Pear / Spiced Raspberry / Spicy Apple Pie / Storm Watch / Spring Flowers / Spring Rain / Spring Showeres / Strawberry / Strawberry Champagne / Strawberry Kiwi / Strawberry Margarita / Strawberry Patchouli / Strawberry Shortcake / Sugar Bear / Sugar Cookie / Summer Rain / Sun Ripened Raspberry / Sunflower / Sweet Almond / Sweet Cinnamon / Sweet Cream / Sweet Dreams / Sweet Pea / Sweet Pea & Lilly / Sweet Pea & Patchouli / Tangerine Dreams / Tea Rose / Toasted Marshmellow / Tootsie Roll / Tropical Fruit / Tulips / Vanilla / Vanilla Bean / Vanilla Cinnamon / Vanilla Clove / Vanilla Cookie / Vanilla Jasmine / Vanilla Hazelnut / Vanilla Heather / Vanilla Ice / Vanilla Lace / Vanilla Lavender / Vanilla Patchouli / Vanilla Pumpkin / Vanilla Sandalwood / Vanilla Spice / Verbina / Very Sexy / Violets / Warm Summer Day / Warm Vanilla Sugar / Watermelon / Wedding Cake / White Eucalyptus / White Diamonds / White Linen / White Tea / White Tea & Ginger / Wild Berries / Winter Pear / Wisteria

There are other sizes and soy candles available, plus oil for oil burners. Check the site out, they have some awesome stuff.

Holiday Goodies

starangel82 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:26:02 -0800

What kind of holiday goodies will you be making this Christmas?

Chocolate covered peanut butter balls, gingerbread, spice cake, chocolate covered pretzels, haystacks, sugar cookies, and peppermint bark are on my list.

Chicken Not Pie

Monique Marie — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:45:59 -0800

Chicken Not-Pie

If your kids are fans of April Fools' Day, they'll love digging into this surprise dessert version of a traditional comfort food. Our convincing potpie is easy to make and has a flaky pastry top crust, just like the classic dish. But while the real deal is filled with chicken and vegetables in savory sauce, ours features candy and fruit look-alikes in sweet, creamy pudding. It's the perfect unexpected treat for this most mischievous of holidays.

Ingredients

1 (4 1/2-inch) aluminum foil potpie tin
1 refrigerated piecrust (most 15-ounce packages contain 2 crusts, enough for 6 of our pies)
Aluminum foil
1 egg (makes enough for 6 pies)
2 tablespoons water

1 (3.4-ounce) box instant vanilla or white-chocolate pudding (1 box makes enough for 3 pies)
1 yellow and 2 orange Starburst candies
1 green Chewy Jolly Rancher candy or green Tootsie Roll candy (we found the green Starburst candies to be too pale)
1 banana (makes enough for 6 pies)
1 to 2 dried apple rings or a 4-ounce bar of white chocolate (1 bar is enough for 6 pies)

Instructions

Bake the crust:Heat the oven to 450°. Unroll or unfold a piecrust on your work surface. Using the upside-down potpie tin as a guide, cut a circle of dough about 1/2 inch larger than the tin. (If you're making more than one potpie, simply cut another circle from the dough. Reroll the scraps to cut out a third.) Crumple a piece of aluminum foil into a 1 1/2-inch ball and set it in the potpie tin. Cover it with a layer of foil to create a smooth mound, then lay the circle of dough on top. (A)
Now press the tines of a fork around the edge of the dough to crimp it, then use the fork to gently poke a few holes in the crust. (B)
Beat the egg with the water, then brush the mixture over the dough.
Set the pie tin on a baking sheet and bake the crust for about 10 minutes. Let it cool completely.
Make the filling:Prepare the pudding according to the package directions and refrigerate until serving time.
Create the faux chicken and vegetables:To make the Starburst or Tootsie Roll candies easier to work with, place them unwrapped on a paper plate and warm them in the microwave just until they're slightly softened, about 12 to 15 seconds. (The Jolly Rancher candies will soften from the warmth of your hands.) Once you've shaped them, lay the candies on waxed paper or a paper plate, set apart from each other so they won't stick together.
Corn kernels: Roll the yellow candy between your hands or on a clean work surface to create a 4-inch-long rope, then use kitchen shears or a sharp knife to cut the rope into 1/4-inch pieces. With your fingers, form each piece into a kernel by flattening one end and pinching the other.
Chicken: Use kitchen shears or a knife to cut the apple rings into 1/2-inch-wide pieces. If you're using white chocolate, chop or break it into roughly 1/2-inch-wide pieces.
Peas: Roll the green candy into a 5-inch-long rope. Cut the rope into 1/4-inch pieces, then roll each piece into a ball.
Potatoes: Peel the banana, slice off three 1/4-inch-thick pieces, then cut each piece into small cubes.
Cubed carrots: Cut each orange candy into 4 squares.
Assemble the pie:Just before serving time, spoon about 2/3 cup of the pudding into the pie tin.
Add the candies and the fruit to the pudding, then set the piecrust on top.