Category Archives: yummy treats

Clementine Cosmos

I’ve been looking for a new cocktail to make for the holidays and I think I found it! Food Network’s host Claire Robinson prepares beautiful dishes with a French influence-all with 5 ingredients or less. This is her recipe for clementine cosmos…

Ingredients

3 clementines, plus 1 very thinly sliced, for garnish

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2/3 cup cranberry juice

1/3 cup lime juice

1 1/2 cups vanilla flavored vodka {recommend: Grey Goose}

Cut the clementines into quarters and squeeze their juice into a saucepan. Add the sugar, water and clementine flesh and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes. Pour into a strainer set over a measuring cup, pressing on the solids to remove as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids, cool the liquid to room temperature and pour into a pitcher. Add the cranberry juice, lime juice and vodka and stir well. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Put 6 or 8 martini glasses in the freezer.

To serve, pour the mixture into an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake until very cold. Pour into the chilled martini glasses and garnish each with a clementine slice. Drink up and enjoy!

vintage clementine

{Image from here}

Posted by Angelaon December 23, 2009 · Tags: , , , , · Comments (2)

Organic Root Alcohol

Art in the Age’s new organic Root alcohol is perfect for the holiday season!  It’s made with birch bark, smoked black tea, surgarcane, essence of sassafras, orange and lemon peel, and delicious winter spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.  It’s based on the 19th century recipe for the alcoholic precursor to today’s root beer, but be assured, this is not “root beer flavored vodka or a sickly sweet liqueur”, as they say on their website.

I haven’t tried it yet but I was thinking of making some “Root Nog“… For now, you can only purchase it online, but I’m hoping to find it in San Francisco soon!

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{Image from here}

Posted by Terraon December 21, 2009 · Tags: , , · Comments (4)

Making French Macaroons…

I can’t believe that I came across this post on Mowielicious about making French macaroons by hand…  I was just at home visiting my parents and my mom has been craving macaroons ever since she got back from Paris and had her first taste at Laduree.  {And what a place to have your first macaroon!}  They live in Northern Virginia and it’s surprisingly difficult to find them in their area.  We did end up finding some at an unexpected spot {and they were imported from France, but not as light and airy as we would have liked}, so I started thinking that maybe we should try and make our own!  Have any of you taken the leap and tried to make them at home?  I consider myself a pretty good baker, and was thinking about making them over the holidays, but after reading this post must admit I’m a tad scared!

macaroons

Posted by Melissaon December 17, 2009 · Tags: , , , , · Comments (12)

Daiso

Over the holiday weekend, on the recommendation of a friend, I trekked over to Daiso, a Japanese dollar store {okay, $1.50 store}, that sells everything from kitchenware, to hair accessories, to candy.  I kind of lost track of time while I was in the store- there were so many cute- and often hilarious- finds.  Perfect Christmas stocking stuffers, for sure.  And almost everything is $1.50 so you can load up your cart without any guilt!

{Click here to see if there’s a store near you.}

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{clips from Daiso, image from here}

Posted by Melissaon December 1, 2009 · Tags: , , · Comments (6)

Mexican breakfast

When it gets to be that time of year when I have to turn on the heater as soon as I get out of bed, my boyfriend likes to make chilaquiles in the mornings and melt Ibarra Mexican chocolate into our coffees. This last Sunday was definitely that kind of morning, so I pulled up a chair to observe and take notes. Now that I know how easy it is to achieve something so heavenly, I feel compelled to spread the word. Make this. You won’t regret it.

Chilaquiles (serves 4)

-Halve 2 tomatoes, 4 tomatillos and 1 jalepeno (leave the seeds if you like the heat) and stick them in a pot with just enough water to cover the vegetables

-Boil until the vegetables start to lose their color and their skin begins to peel off a bit

-Drain the water and stick the vegetables into a blender, blend together until it becomes a sauce and add salt to taste

-Chop up 8 corn tortillas (the fresher the better!) into bite size pieces, place them in a pan coated with oil over medium heat, and cook them until they brown lightly

-Add enough of the sauce from the blender to coat the tortillas and the bottom of the pan

-Simmer until the sauce is reduced and thickened and the tortillas begin to soak up the sauce (about 10 minutes)

-Garnish with grated parmesan and enjoy!

Picture 3

{Photo from here}

Posted by Angelaon November 18, 2009 · Tags: , , , , · Comments (7)

Viv&Ingrid’s “Carnival of Sweets”

As you know, we produced an event for our client Viv&Ingrid this week to help celebrate their ten year anniversary.  We chose the incredibly charming Miette as the venue and created a “carnival of sweets”, complete with raffles every 30 minutes {we gave away over $1,000 worth of jewelry!}.  Here’s to another ten years ladies!!  xx

{Next week: a little post with behind-the-scenes photos!}

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{Graphic designer Liz Siverts created the carnival-style invite of our dreams  and Cherries‘ floral arrangements made us squeal with delight.}

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{Our candy table complete with lollipops, organic lavender cotton candy, old fashioned cupcakes, multi-colored malt balls, rock candy and cinnamon balls.}

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{And yes, they were yummy indeed!}

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{Gorgeous detail of an arrangement from Cherries.}

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{Candy table detail.}

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{The malt balls…}

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{The homemade ‘cracker jack’ was the first to go!}

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{Party-goers guessed how many malt balls in the jar.}

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{Who doesn’t like to wave a flag in the air?}

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{Our bar wasn’t just for serving pink champagne, Dry Soda, and Pellegrino, but also for giving guests a sneak peek at Viv&Ingrid’s spring 2010 collection.  And isn’t it hard to distinguish the Viv&Ingrid lacquer ‘bon bon’ cupcake boxes from the Miette old fashioned cupcakes?}

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{The sweets weren’t the only thing making guests’ mouths water!}

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{A peek inside the jewelry case.}

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{Candy-colored lanterns were hung from the ceiling and the space was packed with stylish fans of Viv&Ingrid!}

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{At the end of the night, everyone got a balloon, which when popped revealed your ‘fashion fortune’!}

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{And of course a goody bag filled with treats!}

And all photos from the fabulous Kristen Loken!

Posted by Melissaon November 14, 2009 · Tags: , , , , · Comments (14)

One quick shot…

My full post-event post from tonight’s Viv&Ingrid Ten Year Anniversary Party at Miette will happen on Friday, but until then here’s a teaser….  Thanks so much to everyone who joined us and congratulations again to Vivian and Ingrid, who I could not adore more.  xx

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{photo by the lovely and talented Kristen Loken}

Posted by Melissaon November 12, 2009 · Tags: , · Comments (10)

Make your own candy bars!

I was just making a baking date with one of my favorite 4 year olds today, but now I’m thinking maybe we’ll make candy bars?  Chow features four classics and they range in difficulty from easy to hard.  But these, my friend, will not be wasted on trick-or-treaters!

chocolate

{image from here}

Posted by Melissaon October 30, 2009 · Tags: , , · Comments (0)