If I Can't Have Paris - At Least Give Me Truffles

I'm a Cocker Spaniel kinda gal, but these little guys spoke to me -

"Le Woof! Le Woof! Le Woof!"

My daughter took me to a really neat antique store and there they were!

Not together, but tucked away in separate little nooks. And I found 'em!

I named the baby, Lu Lu, the mom, Fi Fi,

and the dad, Snaggletooth.

Why "Snaggletooth"?

Need I say more?

As it turns out, Snaggletooth is actually -

A pen! How cool is that?!

But I digress -

I'm always looking for new raw-food books, especially desserts!

I discovered the latest awesome book by Jennifer Cornbleet -

"Raw For Dessert" - and I love it!

I decided to make her "Dark Chocolate Truffles".

Here are the ingredients I used - adding some that weren't in her recipe.

So don't look at them and get all overwhelmed!

As I rushed around to gather ingredients to make the truffle-mixture, wash my hands, take pictures, grind the nuts, wash my hands, gather stuff for the toppings, wash my hands, take pictures...

I reached down in the fridge, grabbed the Vanilla Extract bottle with the black cap,

uncapped it and began to pour it into the food-processor, on top of the other ingredients.

But at the very last second, I turned it around and looked at the label...

Note to self: Not all bottles with a black cap are Vanilla Extract.

After I gathered what senses I had left, I followed Jennifer's recipe,

added my own toppings to some, and came up with a wonderful array of

seriously-tasty Truffles!!

I left the scrumptious chocolate-mixture out of the fridge too long, so it was a little tricky trying to get it rolled into pretty round shapes.

But did they still 'taste' unbelievably delicious?

Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle?!

I got carried away and made one of them the size of a huge meatball -

so I cut it in half.

Then I ate both pieces.

*

This part I loved.

That part - not so much.

In the near future, I'll be showing some dishes from Jennifer Cornbleet's

other wonderful book, and her fantastic DVD.

Here is the link to her website, where you'll find her books, DVD, classes,

recipes - and a ton of great information:

"Learn Raw Food"

I had fun making these and I hope you'll give them a try yourself.

Deee-licious!!

Signing off for now,

gabriele and Snaggletooth

* Why I drink hot water.

Origami And Our Funny Girl

Origami: the art of folding paper into shapes representing flowers, birds, etc.

This tiny crane was created by her -

Our funny girl!

This photo was taken a few years ago, at her birthday-bash,

in a restaurant filled with people.

She is not shy.

She is quite unique and stylish.

And has an aversion to wool.

While sitting at a table with her, I saw that she had a stack of tiny squares of paper.

They were for Origami - something she'd learned from a favorite teacher of hers.

She offered to make a crane for me - which took about one minute!

The girl is fast.

Folding...

A little bit of moisture...

The wings...

More folding...

A little bit of of air...

A pinch on the beak...

And heeeere he is!!

I asked what his name was and without hesitation, she said, "Armstrong".

Alrighty then.

I love her hands.

Speaking of hands -

When she, our 13 yr. old granddaughter and her older sister, our 17 yr. old granddaughter and I were having our hands photographed for my blogs banner,

we all turned our hands over for a quick, fun shot -

This is what was on her palm.

While Mel-Mel was checking out Armstrong for the first time,

I wanted to take her picture, but she wouldn't turn around -

Because she didn't "have her face on" yet.

Speaking of faces -

Here's one that we LOVE!

Our extraordinary, talented, cool and very -

Funny girl!

Signing off for now,

gabriele

Clay: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

In my last post I showed you the two polymer clay characters our granddaughters made for me.

Our seventeen year old made "Dee-Dee", with the purple hair.

And our thirteen year old made the French, "Mi-Mi", with the blue hair.

It was my job to bake them, since the girls had to leave that night.

A couple of years ago, our now thirteen year old granddaughter, gave me this foot that she'd made out of clay. I thought I'd stick it in there too, since it had never been baked.

It looked so cool - like marble!

I baked them at 250 degrees for thirty minutes.

(Along with Black Dog, which the oldest girl made, and a face which the youngest made.)

Then I left them in the pan to cool, before touching them. They're very breakable when they're hot.

Apparently, not all clay can be baked!!

I'm so sad. I loved that foot! :(

I finally got my supplies together and began a practice-version of my pal,

"Mel-Mel" and "Ga-Ga". (That would be me.)

I wanted them as tiny as the original Mel-Mel.

New tools! Yay!!

I began by kneading the clay to make it soft.

At this point, Ga-Ga is looking a lot like Charlie Brown to me. Yikes!

Looking better!

My idea was to leave the faces blank, so that I could paint expressions on them, depending on what they were doing. I was going to use erasable pens, but they didn't 'erase'. Dangit!

My new idea is to paint the faces using Acrylic Paints.

I know they'll have the same expressions forever... like Botox Babes.

Oh well.

Ta Da! It's Ga-Ga!!

And here comes Mel-Mel!!

Her first hair-cut.

And here they are!! Best buddies!

I baked them and introduced them to the other characters.

They hit it off immediately!

I made a couple of hand-bags and a doggie blanket with some of the left-over clay.

(I love reverting back to kid-hood!:)

To stand Dee-Dee and Mi-Mi up and keep them from falling over, because their hair makes them top-heavy, (I can relate) I stuck Museum Putty under their feet.

Keeping this in mind, before I baked Mel-Mel and Ga-Ga, I really pushed the clay down hard, trying to make their feet flat (I can relate).

It worked great on Mel-Mel, but I had to squish Ga-Ga down a couple more times.

Note to self:

Always take a good close look at the rear of a character, before baking it!!

This is either a really ugly butt in need of some major squats, or they're saggy panty-hose!

Maybe I'll just photograph her from the front.

Here they are with the "Star", the original and petite Mel-Mel.

My big paws just couldn't make them any smaller.

It should be interesting trying to paint their faces! Yikes!!

Our granddaughters promised to make their version of Mel-Mel and Ga-Ga, for me!

And I can't wait!!

Let's get this party started!!

Signing off for now,

gabriele