I made food: ratatouille

Hey folks! Before I get to the food, you may have noticed that my blog looks a little different! I wrestled with Blogger for a few hours today and ended up with a new banner and buttons. I made those images with PicMonkey. I also got some new social media buttons--this site has a bunch of sets to choose from. Finally, I set up a Facebook page to complement the blog. Give me a like if you want!

OK, on to the good stuff. I have to get back on the wagon after last week, food-wise (mostly thanks to a lot of leftover bridal shower cake!). In my opinion, the easiest way to eat healthy is to cook up a bunch of vegetables with good, hearty flavors--it's more enjoyable than a piece of steamed broccoli, and it can really make you feel satisfied.

So I whipped up a Dutch oven full of ratatouille! I basically followed this recipe, except I omitted the mushrooms (yes, I'm a cretin), used canned tomatoes instead of fresh, added some white wine, and threw some mozzarella on top.

Ohhh yeah. The veggies are nice and soft, and the mozzarella and Parmesan give them just a bit of savoriness. I made some quinoa to add some protein and soak up the juice.

This is a very simple recipe, and you could spice it up any way you like--by adding different herbs, for example, or maybe some lemon juice.

I've got a month and a half before my wedding, so let's hope I can keep eating healthy!

Today's mani: interlocking dots

I have some super fun nails right now! In my ongoing effort to perfect my dotting technique, I followed this tutorial and really love the result!

I started with two coats of Revlon Sunshine Sparkle, and then added two coats of Essie Lapiz of Luxury on half the nail. (If you try this mani, don't worry about getting that diagonal line perfectly straight, as it will be covered by dots.) I used a large dotting tool to add the dots. Both polishes were a little more watery than I would have liked, especially the Revlon, which led to some fuzzy dots, but on the whole I really like how this turned out!

I sealed this mani with Out the Door quick-dry topcoat. I've used quick-dry topcoat in the past (specifically Seche Vite), but it made my polish peel off in sheets after a day or two. I'm hoping Out the Door doesn't have the same effect!

By the way, my camera once again got confused about colors--the Essie is a blue-leaning purple to my eye.

What's your favorite kind of dotticure?

Swatch: L.A. Girl Teal Dimension

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

I stumbled across this polish in Rite Aid while on my quest for the L'Oreal jellies. Teal Dimension is from the L.A. Girl 3D Effects collection. It's my first L.A. Girl polish and now I want more!

L.A. Girl Teal Dimension, two coats. No top coat.

This polish has a blackened teal jelly base with lots of holographic shards of glitter. The holographic effect isn't as intense as with a linear holo, but it's still pretty loud! In direct sunlight my nails looked freaking amazing, but it's all cloudy and rainy today, so I can't get a pic.

Despite being a jelly, it's dark enough that two coats were plenty. The formula is nice, no complaints. I was afraid that cleanup would be hard because a) it's a blue polish and b) it's full of glitter, but it was actually pleasantly easy.

Since my camera wouldn't pick up the holo effect unless it was an inch away from my nails, here's a blurry closeup:

Edit: Here's a slightly less blurry picture I took while lying in bed and then forgot to post:

 

So pretty! I'm in love with holo polishes,  and I'm really tempted to grab some more of this collection! It's only $5 for 14 ml on L.A. Girl's website, and you can also find it in stores like Rite Aid.

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

I made food: Mexican melange

I LOVE Mexican food. I could probably eat it every day. My favorite is anything covered in cheese. Unfortunately for me, if I ate cheesy Mexican food every day, I'd weigh...a lot more than I do now. So this week I decided to make a somewhat healthier dish that still satisfies my craving for Mexican. This was vaguely inspired by the adobo chicken bowl I had at Cosi last weekend.

Looks good, no? Here's what I did:

First, I left some chicken breast to marinate in grapeseed oil, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Meanwhile, I cooked some Spanish rice (I confess, it was a boxed mix!) and made some fresh pico de gallo (tomato, onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper).

Then I cooked the chicken in a pan with some oil. When it was almost done, I added a can of black beans to get them heated up. I threw a bit of everything on a plate, added some avocado chunks and sprinkled some lime juice, and voila!

Super tasty and pretty good for you! Next time I think I'll add some corn too!

Are you a cilantro lover or hater?

Today's mani: bright brushstrokes

The weather's been pretty summery lately here in upstate NY. I thought I would encourage it with this mani!

I love the brushstroke method because it's foolproof, even for the artistically impaired such as myself. (Here's a tutorial.) I didn't bother to do a base color for this; I just used 8 colors, cycling through them twice, and was able to get enough coverage.

Here are the colors I used (in order, red to blue):

• Essie Come Here!
• L'Oreal Orange You Jealous?
• Julep Parker
• Julep Abbie
• L'Oreal New Money
• Color Club Twiggie
• Color Club Age of Aquarius
• Zoya Robyn

Have you ever tried a brushstroke mani? What color scheme did you use?

Polish Days: The number 5

I'm excited--this is my first time participating in the Polish Days blogger event! The theme for this month is "the number 5". This is a pretty broad prompt, so I thought for a while about what I should do. Then it hit me: the five wizards!

If you're at all familiar with The Lord of the Rings, you know about the wizards Gandalf and Saruman. But did you know there were actually five wizards? They were angelic beings incarnated in mortal bodies, sent to help the people of Middle-Earth fight Sauron.

Gandalf the Grey/White gets place of honor on my thumb. (Did you know his real name is Olorin?) The base is Maybelline Porcelain Party, and I painted his G rune in acrylic paint. (I love acrylic! So great for nail art!)

Saruman is on my index finger. I used Revlon Carbonite as the base because it reminds me of the war machines he built at Isengard. Then I painted the White Hand (the symbol his orc soldiers wear) with acrylic paint.

On my middle finger is Radagast the Brown. He's mentioned a few times in Lord of the Rings. He was the one who sent the Eagle to rescue Gandalf from the top of Orthanc (no magic moths in the book!). He was mostly interested in animals and plants, and didn't do much to help fight Sauron. Radagast's real name is Aiwendil, 'bird-friend', so I gave him a blackbird.  The base color is Sephora by OPI Leotard Optional, and the bird is done in acrylic (I think it turned out really well!).

Finally, we don't know much about the last two wizards, except that they were friends and wore blue. They traveled far to the east, off the known maps of Middle-Earth, to fight Sauron's influence there, and were never heard from again. Their names were Alatar and Pallando, or Morinehtar and Romestamo ('darkness-slayer' and 'East-helper').

Since we don't really know about their personalities, I chose to give them a kind of wizardly-looking sweep of dots. :-D The base color is China Glaze Hanging in the Balance, and the dots are Julep Millie, Orly Royal Navy, Wet 'n' Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint, and Wet 'n' Wild Shameless. I'm a little mad that I blurred the dots on my ring finger, even though I waited an hour before putting on topcoat!

Well, am I a geek or what? How did I do? I had fun doing this mani, and I'm hoping to participate in future Polish Days!

Today's mani: bridal shower chevrons

What's up all? This weekend my lovely future mother- and sister-in-law are throwing me a bridal shower, which means one thing: NAIL TIME! I wanted a mani to match the dress I'm wearing, which is here. I decided to do a chevron pattern using some of the colors in the dress:

This is the usual tape mani. I started yesterday by painting my nails in Maybelline Porcelain Party (the white) and letting it dry overnight. Today I stuck on pieces of tape to get the outline of the chevrons and painted my tips (Sephora by OPI Thyme for a Mani and Zoya Ziv).

Then the black stripes...I originally intended to use a Sally Hansen nail art pen to do the stripes, but it ended up bleeding a lot and making blotches everywhere. :-/ Kinda disappointed about that purchase. So I resorted to using acrylic paint and a striper brush. The lines came out a little wiggly but they look good from a distance anyway!

I also painted my toes to match the dress, using L'Oreal Orange You Jealous? Now I'm all set for the weekend!

What's your weekend mani going to be ?