This appliance is your friend--say hello to the slow cooker!

There’s probably nothing worse about winter than days when you miss out on seeing the sun completely. You leave for work when it’s still dark, and by the time you head home the sun has already set. This does weird things to your circadian rhythm, and is the first cause of Seasonal Affective Disorder. For me, it kicks me into hibernation mode, and if it’s dark at 5 pm I’m going to want to be in pajamas and enjoying a warm, cozy meal pretty much as soon as I’m home for the evening. This is why crock pots are THE BEST thing to have in the colder months. You can prep your meal hours in advance and just allow it to slow cook all day long, creating a huge variety of delicious, warm, slow simmered meals that welcomes you with a sumptuous smelling hug as soon as you make your way in from the cold and unforgiving darkness. You can even make desserts in the crock pot: brownies and cobblers that cook themselves! If you don’t have a crock pot, they are not terribly expensive to invest in, and will save you so much time and energy! You can set your cook times to anywhere from 4-10 hours, so you don’t have to worry about it overcooking and burning down your house while you’re out.

I saw these uber-adorable 2.5 QT slow cookers from Crock Pot and for the first time I wished I didn't already have one! Only $23!

Here are a couple of classic crock pot recipes I will be using heavily this fall while Liam and I are both in school—sometimes we’re not home until 9:30, and it is such a godsend to have dinner already waiting for us. Otherwise I’m pretty sure we’d be surviving on pop tarts and pizza.

My crock-pot is huge—we got it as a wedding present and it can make a meal to serve a dozen or so people, so I will make big batches of things and have lots of leftovers. These meals tend to freeze pretty well, so you can make meals for days with one morning’s effort!

Crock pot turkey chili

(This is a recipe for 10-12 servings...if you’re making a smaller batch, adjust accordingly.)

FYI, this can just as easily be a vegetarian chili if you substitute a package of Morningstar Farms ground crumble instead of turkey meat. Fabulous!

Goodness, how delicious!

1 lb ground turkey meat

2 16 oz. cans dark red kidney beans

1 24 oz can of tomato sauce

1 16 oz can diced tomatoes

1 4 oz can of tomato paste

1 box Carroll Shelby’s Original Texas Chili kit (or any kind, but I like this one.) <pic>

1 large yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large green bell pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, diced-- if you’d like!

Just dump it all in. Seriously, just go for it! I don’t add any oil because the fat in the turkey will cook out and mix with all the other ingredients, and there are enough liquid ingredients that you won’t risk it drying out. The Carroll Shelby’s mix comes with an additional packet of cayenne spice, which I add unequivocally. Even with the jalapeno, I feel like it can use an extra kick. It also includes a packet of masa flour to help thicken the chili up if it’s a little watery, but I would hold on to that until closer to the end to see if you actually need it. Most of the time I don’t, especially when using the slow cooker.

I always make a loaf of Jiffy’s cornbread to go with it, and another fun addition if you have the time is to bake the cornbread right in the crock-pot with the chili. About 40 minutes before serving, mix up the cornbread mix, egg and milk and drop spoonfuls of dough atop the chili mix, interspersed like dumplings. It may help to place a paper towel on top to absorb some of the condensation, then return the lid and cook until firm.

Now all you need to do is chop up a red onion or some chives, grate a little cheese on top and you’ve got a low-fat, wholesome, cozy meal barely an hour after you got home!

Crock pot beef stew

(Serves 10-12)

The chunkier the better. Baby carrots make it even easier!

2 tbs olive oil (or vegetable oil, I won’t judge you.)

1 lb stewing beef chunks

1 large yellow onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, diced

3 medium potatoes, scrubbed and chopped

1 large parsnip, scrubbed and chopped

1 ½ cups baby carrots

4 stalks celery, chopped into biggish chunks

1 cp button or baby bella mushrooms

2 cps beef broth

¼ cp flour

1 packet McCormick’s stew seasoning

1 yam, peeled and chopped

Fresh rosemary or thyme, if you have it. I like to steal it from my neighbor across the street.

This takes one extra step before you can get started, but it helps set the meat in chunks and will be worth it by the time you get a whiff of this hearty, nourishing stew.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan on the stovetop. Find a good plastic bag, like an old bread bag or grocery bag, and dump the flour and beef chunks in together. Twist it up and the top and give it a good shake, to thoroughly coat the beef in the flour. Once the oil is hot, add the floury beef chunks and stir, keeping the meat moving. The flour will absorb most of the oil, but keep stirring it around on medium heat until the meat is browned on all sides. Then dump in into the crock pot, along with the rest of your ingredients! Give it a good stir, and cook for at least six hours.

Just before eating, heat up a loaf of hearty bread in the oven for about 12-15 minutes, then serve! Soooo rewarding and delicious. I recommend pairing it with a pumpkin beer because, come on. You can’t beat that for a fally dish.

Crock pot brownies

This recipe came from Martha Stewarts Everyday Foods collection. Note: unlike most things you'll find here, this recipe is NOT low fat. I have yet to try my fat-free brownie recipe in the crock pot...I'll try it out soon and let you know how it goes. 

Completely, unbelieveably moist! Photo from smashpeasandcarrots.blogspot.com

8 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

1 cup chocolate chips

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Coat the inside of your crock-pot with cooking spray.  Line the bottom with parchment paper and coat the top of the paper with cooking spray.  Melt chocolate and butter together in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl, stirring after 30 second intervals, until chocolate is melted.  Add in sugar and mix well.  Then add in eggs and mix well.  Set aside.  

In another bowl, mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.  Add in walnuts and chocolate chips and mix well.  Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Pour into crock-pot and smooth top.  

Cover and cook on low for 3 hours.  Uncover and cook for 30 minutes.  Insert a knife edge around brownies to loosen and place the crock (out of the pot) on a cooling rack to cool for 20-30 minutes.  Turn out brownies and re-invert on cooling rack to continue the cooling process.  

Cheese can make you skinny! Deceptively obvious diet secrets, part one

I suspect most people who don’t spend a lot of time researching nutrition and food make the same kinds of assumptions—too much sugar is bad, whole wheat is healthier, and dairy is full of fat. Sometimes our assumptions are just common sense—water is always better than diet soda, for instance—but sometimes we agree to believe things just because we’ve heard it out there in the world, even though our information may be outdated, or even straight up wrong.

Before I started my weight loss process I thought of dairy as a treat and would limit it mostly to just ice cream. No kidding! I thought that was the healthier way around the high fat content I’d assumed was in cheese, yogurt, and sour cream. Here’s the thing, though: dairy also contains many of the vitamins and minerals, namely calcium and vitamin D, that help keep your body functioning at its highest levels, therefore making weight loss much more efficient. Not to mention—they make dairy products without the fat these days. Who’d have known, right?

Seriously, nom.

Seriously, nom.

I was surprised when I started Weight Watchers that there was such a high minimum for daily dairy intake. I am not a milk drinker, so the idea of needing to drink two whole glasses a day to satisfy my quota was really gross. But I started eating cottage cheese for breakfast, and it gave me a new perspective on how to work it into my daily nutrition. I would often pair my half cup of fat free cottage cheese with whatever fruit was seasonable, strawberries or mangoes, peaches or apples, topped with a bit of cinnamon. It was surprisingly satisfying, mostly because the protein in the cheese kept me going well into the morning. 

Come snack time, I would grab a Light and Fit yogurt from the fridge and sprinkle in some granola, or eat it plain. Only 80 calories and really actually delicious (I won’t normally recommend products with aspertame in them, but these are too good to pass up) my second dairy helping for the day would only put me back 1 point, and hold me over until lunch time.

Dairy suddenly showed its helpful face after work outs, as well. As you exercise your muscles, they heat up and burn off the excess fat you’re trying to lose, and it also helps raise your metabolism to make burning off calories go even faster. But that wears your muscles out and depletes them of important nutrients like protein, so I discovered soon after starting an exercise program that eating a small piece of cheese right after a work out (string cheese is my favorite—very portable, and usually low-fat) would help my muscles heal faster, would satisfy my hunger and exhaustion, and would help keep off the calories my new, faster metabolism was hard at work burning off. All of a sudden, I was really about dairy!

My most successful dairy revelation came however, when I realized the versatility of plain, non-fat yogurt. It’s practically points-free (not really, its about 2 points per cup, but you won’t need to eat that much) and can fill in as a substitution for just about anything. Seriously, anything! I used it in baking recipes, in place of sour cream on potatoes and Mexican food, as a vegetable dip, or as a base for creamy soups and sauces. You can buy it in big tubs for about $2, and I promise, you’ll use it all up before it’s expiration date! Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to 1 cup of plain NF yogurt, then mix in a boxed brownie mix—voila, you’ve just circumvented all the eggs and oil that make brownies such a sinful treat! Mix in half a Hidden Valley ranch seasoning packet and you’ve got a light and refreshing dip for baby carrots, celery sticks and zucchini, which I like even more than regular ranch dips now.

I'd like to say I keep my plain yogurt in wholesome jars like these, because it looks so homey and pretty. Storebrand plastic tubs it is for me, though.

My weight loss success has been all about little changes like this one—breaking through the assumptions I’d made about food and using the knowledge I’d learned strategically to both nourish myself, and continue to enjoy the food and flavors I love. And that’s what La Vie Celebre is about—treat yourself well, keep yourself healthy, and celebrate the small moments of your life.

Girls Emergency Kits--the day you save may be your own!

Imagine a scenario where you've been stuck out in the world with an ill-fitting shoe, a loose hem, chapped lips or a surprising visit from Aunt Flo. Oh wait, never mind--no woman needs to imagine such a thing, because it's happened to everyone! But now imagine this: what if you had a solution to every common hang nail, allergy attack and gaping button tucked away in an adorable little clutch that fits easily into your purse, but is cute and convenient enough to be the only bag you need?

The days of "Oh, if only I had a....!" are over! You can be the most prepared and put together chick in the room with your very own Girl's Emergency Kit, available now at stitchvixen.etsy.com.

Great as gifts, but totally indispensable for yourself too, the Emergency Kits come fully stocked with four bobby pins, four safety pins in two sizes, two band aids, two tampons, lip balm, an emery board, tissues, a pen, and even an emergency piece of chocolate! All this in a variety of hip, cute and funny designs. Buy one today for only $22.95!

All this could be in your possession..imagine the possibilities!

1,001 Craft NIghts

For while back in the mid aughts, I hosted a series of parties that served a number of fantastic purposes for me: I'd invite great friends over for hang outs, I'd get to teach people about art and crafts, and I'd get to make stuff, which was what I'd be doing otherwise anyway. I hosted a bi-weekly Craft Night, and we alternated between learning and making a new craft, and an "open craft" format so people could bring knitting projects, sketch books, whatever they wanted, and just hang out and make things.

The best part about it though was that people came for the crafts, but they stayed for the great parties that came about when friends got together. Sometimes our crafts would be a great hit and people would stay for hours inspired to finish whatever they were working on. Sometimes we'd mess around with an idea for a while, and then spend the rest of the night watching weird stuff on the internet or making fun of each other. Not everyone who came wanted to do an activity, but everyone felt comfortable.

Friends would bring drinks and snacks, and I would provide the materials for each new craft we learned. I had fun planning ahead and researching our new projects, and loved to tie them into the seasons. We made yarn creatures for Easter, carved pumpkins for Halloween, and made Christmas cards in December.

Since we would usually have a broad range of experience among our participants, I would try to keep it simple and open to artistic expression. Planning a craft that was too time or labor-intensive would often mean people who weren't confident wouldn't try, and most people who did wouldn't finish their project by the end of the night, and that's kind of a bummer. You also want to make sure you have enough critical tools for everyone to share--if your project requires exacto knives or glue sticks, you'll definitely need more than one so people don't get hung up waiting their turn.

We made things like Artist Trading Cards, small, tradeable collages that represent the maker. We Started out with cardstock cards cut into rectangles of 4" by 3". Using magazines, old art books, small sketches and even photocopies from other sources, we'd select images that represent our personalities or a particular idea. You practice laying them out in a way that makes a shape or tells a story that you like before glueing anything down, then once you have the design you like, use a glue stick to secure your pictures. Once it's all assembled, I'd recommend sealing your collage with a clear lacquer like Mod Podge to keep everything down and looking shiny.

I was in the middle of a baby-crazy phase at the time. Don't ask.

Space was sometimes an issue, since I was living in a small two-bedroom duplex with my sister and boyfriend for most of our Craft Nights. We luckily had a lot of counter space, and it was just as likely that some people were just there to hang out anyway, so didn't necessarily have to account for everybody.

Sometimes though, we did have to get pretty creative with space. One fall we'd planned to have a pumpkin carving party on our back patio, but as it so often happens in Oregon, it rained. Friends still showed up, toting their pumpkins, so we laid tarps out on the living room floor held down with all manners of soup pots, buckets and garbage bags to collect pumpkin guts. We managed to carve eight or nine pumpkins inside and didn't stain the carpet!

Another fun and easy craft is the Potato Self. Everyone brings their own potato, and I would provide a selection of fabric scraps for clothes, yarn for hair, colored markers for facial details, Popsicle sticks for arms, buttons or other little craft items for eyes and details, and a hot glue gun for adhesiveness.A measuring tape is also helpful to make sure you cut out clothes that will fit your potato. In the next couple of weeks I'll publish a tutorial on how to make these adorable potato people!

Spitting image, I dare say.

Craft Night was a big hit for a good couple of years, but after I while I got busy, or lazy or something, and they sort of tapered off. I've thought about the idea of hosting Craft Nights again, or shaking it up a bit and hosting a Saturday Crafternoon one of these days. It's a great way to get people together in the darker months, and as the calendar is insisting on reminding us, nearly over. What an awesome occasion to gather your friends together for beers, hot glue, pliers, glitter and good times!

Rescue Post!

Holy crap, I'm a terrible blogger. Well, that's not fair--I bet you I could be an A#1 blogger if I wasn't also working full time/going to school part time/trying to start a business from home--but as it is, I am letting the blog go neglected, and that bums me out! I apologize for being inconsistent with this blogging project, and I want you to know it is definitely still a priority to me, but I can't keep up with a commitment to make regular posts and contributions until some changes take place in the next month and my time opens up. In the meantime, however, I am compiling stories, crafts, photos, recipes, and even jotting down a few draft posts to go FULL LAUNCH with the La Vie Celebre! blog in early fall. I'll have so much to share with you, you guys! It's gonna be awesome.

In the meantime: I want to share with you one of my favorite low-fat substitution desserts that is easy as pie (or in this case, cake) to make, and gives you the satisfaction of the original with like, 10% of the fat. (all math listed here is somewhere between an estimation and an exaggeration, fyi.)

Graham cracker cheesecake snacks

I love cheesecake. Who doesn't love cheesecake? I used to work at a Barnes and Noble bookstore that had a full cafe in it, and featured big slabs of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, and I would inevitably use my employee discount to purchase far more creamy, sugary, fatty deliciousness than one should really eat on a regular basis. Once I started my weight loss journey that obviously had to be a big change for me, but I knew I'd still WANT the cheesecake--and if there was nothing else readily available and comparatively tasty, I'd end up eating it, feeling guilty, discouraged etc, and stay fat.

I think the reason why a lot of people don't succeed at weight loss (and then feel bad about it) is that on the surface we're just asked to give up certain foods that any logical person could tell you prohibits weight loss, but what we are actually required to give up is everything that goes along with the food--the emotional connections, the memory triggers, the textures and sensations of the food, and the social interactions, let alone the taste. So what I've tried to do as I worked off the weight, and have worked to keep off the weight, is think about substitutions not just in terms of ingredients and nutrition, but about textures, tastes and experiences as well.

Think about biting into a classic cherry cheesecake with a graham cracker crust: the sensations are cool, creamy, a little bit crumbly; the tastes are sweet, tangy, and rich. THAT's really what you're going for when you set in to eat a cheesecake, so if we can find a way to cut out the fat from all the cream cheese and all the added sugar, you can still feel like you're eating food you like, and enjoy all the happy feelings that go with that! And also: it's so, so simple and cheap!

Obviously, if you were entertaining or hoping to have a cheesecake substitute for a holiday or celebration, we would want to look for another solution that had a better presentation factor, but as far as a personal snack or dessert goes, this one is a winner:

Two full-size graham crackers (reduced fat if you're will to pay extra, which I am not)

two tablespoons (one serving size) of Weight Watchers whipped cream cheese

one tablespoon of your choice of jam--I like cherry, but blueberry, strawberry and raspberry all work great too

1/8 tsp sugar

a dash of cinnamon

You can probably see where I'm going with thism but the first step is sort of a weird one: put the graham crackers in the microwave for about 10 seconds. This will help reduce the obvious "cracker"ness of them, and make them more like a pie crust.

Then I break the graham crackers up into quarters along the perforation, and spread the cream cheese evenly over each of the segments. You'll be surprised by how far 2 tablespoons can stretch!

Then I sprinkle each one with a dusting of the sugar and cinnamon, and add a dollop of jam to each cracker. Voila! Instant, affordable, and very low fat dessert option! I still go by the old weight watchers system (they've revamped their points plan and since I'm not a member I don't have access to their new formula) and the original calculation for this snack would only be 3 points!

This particular recipe is great as a late night snack with hot tea or cocoa. Enjoy! And stay tuned, La Vie Celebre! will continue..it'll just be a pleasant surprise when I update, until my schedule gets regulated. Thanks for reading!

Fashion Fridays--Monday edition!

Right, it's Monday. This is supposed to be a wellness day, but I didn't have the time, and since I missed Friday's post all together, I will share with you what I would have posted, which is actually just a reposting of a livejournal entry I made a couple of years ago, discussing the philosophies of art vs. fashion, and why they've started to diverge. I wrote this two years ago, and as I've started to learn more about the fashion industry, as well as the actual process of fashion design and production, some of my opinions have changed--or are at least better informed. But I still think this is an interesting piece, and a good place to start a conversation. Enjoy!

From livejournal.com/users/violet_light, August 26, 2008

I'm researching famous designers and I'm learning something that I'd already had a sense of but couldn't quite pinpoint. I was actually pretty surprised with myself when I'd decided I wanted to go into fashion design because really, up to this point I've always kind of hated the fashion industry. Things that have been hailed as haute couture in the last 30 years have been elaborate, intentionally provoking, often comical. And the models are so often the poorest examples of human beauty in my opinion, but I think I get it now. Classic fashion, in the era of Chanel, Christian Dior, Katherine and Audrey Hepburn, was all about elevating a woman's natural beauty through the manipulation of color, tailoring, and accents, and the responsibility of the design was to bring unexpected elements or details to make it unique.

Modern fashion is only about the art. These days clothing design is no less an artistic medium than sculpture or painting, but many designers create the kind of art I hate the most--things that are overtly ugly or shocking, with the presumption that the true beauty lies in the manipulation of the senses, not the stimulation of them. If the idea of of pairing huge swags of plaid with a delicate tulle pointed hat and a leather corset doesn't thrill you, then you're not enlightened enough to see whats really happening. It's theatrical. Practicality is not the issue here.

It explains why the ideal fashion model won't ruin the creation by adding her own body's dimensions to the piece, but instead is a blank shapeless canvas for it to hang on. Even their hair and makeup is specifically designed to be something other than pretty. I wouldn't necessarily want my art pieces to be "pretty" either. Like with this one, it's almost as if they don't want you to look at the model, only the dress.

But the issue is: fashion is two things. It really has to be both things in order to be affective. It has to be original, well made, observant of the culture, and challenging to our expectations. But it also has to be clothing. Clothing that people can, and will wear. People of different heights, weights, proportion, complexion and aesthetics. And it has to make those people look their best. This is the reason fashion exists and we don't all wear standard issue potato sacks everyday, because people seek out fashion to improve their appearance and express their own creativity, and I think most "haute couture" designers these days are ignoring that facet of the industry. It's all about what boundries you can break, the persuit of challenging what society will accept as beauty, what surprising twists they can make to something terrible and make it something else that is incredible. And that has a place, I do respect that. But as an art form, it's not the same thing as "clothing design." In fact, outside of the specific genre of "Haute Couture" which is only applicable to like, 12 designers, this art form does exist in another form known as "fiber arts." Which is accurate, and doesn't try to confuse things by turning apparel design into something its not.

Another thing, the designers of the mid-20th century who really set the bar as far as meaningful, original fashion weren't caught up on the idea of practicality either, and were often known for being quite decadent and elaborate, but never without the important principle of flattering a woman's form. That's why so many celebrities wear Chanel and Dior to events because they can be unusual, unexpected, but also beautiful, which I feel is a prerequisite in fashion.

So it's not such a big surprise then that I developed a love of fine couture from the perspective of the classics, but that I've always been unimpressed, and sometimes even contemptful, of modern designers like Gauthier and Versace. It's a totally different philosophy as to what the purpose of the creation is. For me, it's creating something beautiful that doesn't distract the observer from seeing the wearer, but instead elevates her beyond what neither she nor the dress could do on their own.

Crafternoon Delight--embellished bobby pins!

Ack! I missed Tuesday Crafternoon! So, ok: it seems having a hectic full time job and managing a daily blog is probably going to prove to be too much, so instead of just being a flake about it, I believe I need to adjust my posting schedule. I think we can all be satisfied with three posts a week, with Mondays still dedicated to health, Wednesdays being a combined craft/entertainment day (since the two so often go hand in hand for me anyway) and Friday's being dedicated to both style musings AND postings of my own designs, since hey--they're pretty much the same thing anyway.

So today, I'm going to show you just about the easiest way to add a whole lot of personality and color to your look with practically zero effort--embellished bobby pins!

These are pretty popular and all over the place in stores these days, but there is absolutely no reason why you need to spend upwards of $10 on these. This is so easy, it's practically not even a "craft." It's practically cheating. But the outcome is so fun and cute, I can't help but share it with you. And the ornateness of your decoration is entirely up to you, and just depends on what kind of little bobbles and items you can find that match your mood, your outfit, and are small and light enough for the pin to support it. Here's how we get started:

Supplies

3-6 store bought bobby pins

hot glue gun and glue stick

felt circles with a 1/2 inch circumference

3-6 small, lightweight decorations like buttons, little crocheted flowers, plastic bugs or animals or fruit, small brooches or cameos, rhinestone clusters, ribbon clusters, feathers, whatever looks pretty to you, and is about the size of a quarter

Step one

Plug in your glue gun and get your glue nice and gluey

Step two

Slip a felt circle into the bobby pin and move it up to the top

Step three

While still clasped by the bobby pin, glue the felt circle to the back of your decoration, and press until the glue is firm

Step four

There is no step four! Except to wear your delightful new accessory around the town, and proudly tell people they are laboriously hand crafted when they compliment you on your awesome little clips.

these ones are available for purchase at lovemagpie.com for only $4 for 3 if you just don't wanna.