February 14th in Paris

This St. Valentine's Day I will find myself going on quite a romantic date.  My date and I have grown quite fond of each other over the past five months.  But surprise!  It won't be with a real person.

This Thursday I will be going on a date with the city of Paris.

Because I, unfortunately, find myself without a Valentine this year.  And that's okay.  I like to believe St. Valentine's Day is (apart from being the day of the Saint) not only about celebrating the romantic love you may have in your life, but also about celebrating the love that you see around you all the time.  Just take a walk down the street.  You'll see young couples and old couples and families holding hands and being happy that they have each other.  Go call your mom, or your dad.  Your sister or your brother.  Your best friend (or best friends!), and tell them that you love them so much.

Sure, St. Valentine's Day has been marketed as this giant holiday defined by expensive bouquets of roses and a box of chocolates and generic teddy bears, but I think it's really so much more than that.

I think it's safe to say I was lucky beyond belief at finding a passionate, mad love when I first arrived in Paris, and this time I'm taking about a real actual person.  Due to circumstances far beyond our reach (distance, blegh!), we have parted ways but I will still walk the streets of Paris on this St. Valentine's Day and be thankful and know I was so very fortunate to have found a love like that and in such a beautiful city like Paris.

So here's to you Paris! See you this Thursday and be sure to dress up nice, as I'm sure you will.

Miss you always,

Afsy

Food, food, food!

Hello lovelies!
   Before I reveal my food themed post, I just wanted to say that it's so awesome to have weekly contact with each of you. I love the idea of knowing what's going on in your lives through this really neat blog. I know that I am terrible at keeping contact with the people in my life I truly cherish and this is a genius way of making it a habit to touch base. So, hooray blogging!


And after that side note, food theme will now commence!


As we all know, Valentine's Day is approaching....


I'm not sure how all of you feel about this never-fun-awkward-burden of a holiday but I've never been a fan. When you don't have a valentine, it seems everyone else does. Even when you do have a Valentine to share it with, there's too much pressure on the both of you to prove how much love you share that it somehow always gets twisted into a guilty unfulfilled time.

But alas! I have found the answer that solves all Valentines day blues:

Rice crispy treats!

Last year I made this awesome mound of glorious valentines day themed rice crispy treats for my boyfriend and roommate.

He loved it, she loved it and since it was so easy to make and visually pleasing, I loved it!

Here's what you need:

-4 cups miniature marshmallows ( I like the miniature ones because they melt easier)
-6 cups rice crispy treat cereal
-3 Tablespoons butter
-Pink or red food coloring
-wax paper


-To make the treats you start off with a saucepan and melt down the butter. Then add your marshmallows. Stir until all the lumps are out.

-Then measure your cereal out into a large pot (big enough to hold all of your rice crispy goodness with room to mix) and add the marshmallow goop in small portions. Continue to stir until everything is well mixed.

-Now, this is usually where you would place all the crispys into a pan and then cut them into squares but I wanted to form the lovely heart pictured above.

 -Tear yourself off  a large sheet of wax paper. You'll be using the wax paper to keep your heart from sticking to anything (if only this applied in particular real life situations :) Now, if you want to do the gradient change in color like I did above, you'll need to separate portions of the rice crispy batch into sections. Of course the largest section being your main color and the smaller batches being your top colors.

-Since I kept one of the sections plain, you can either leave a portion untouched or dye it a color of your choosing.  Then for the lighter color I added a really small amount of food coloring and just kept mixing it around the rice crispy section (3-5 drops). When it came to the darkest color I added a ton of food coloring but in small amounts to play with the color and test how I wanted it to come out. It ended up being somewhere around 15 drops.

-Once all the sections were colored I prepared to build my heart mound. I actually just free formed the heart shape until I was satisfied with how it looked. Occasionally I smooshed the rice crispys together to get a section right. I also just built each section on the base of the first section to keep the symmetry accurate.

-Viola! A happy Valentine for the giver and receiver!

If rice crispys aren't your cup of tea, you could also go the classic chocolate covered strawberries with a cute little hand piped message:

Thanks for reading!

Miss you always,

xoxo
Shanna!