#FrostyVoxBox Reviews

The awesome folks over at Influenster sent me this free Frosty Vox Box full of winter goodies that I've been using for the past month. It was such a variety of products, I was impressed that they were exactly what I needed this winter!

Boot's No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Serum: This product was actually reviewed on the Doctors Show and already has a very loyal following for such an inexpensive product. I used it alongside my morning and evening moisturizer and immediately noticed results though I have heard that dramatic anti-aging results are seen closer to the 4 week mark. Highly recommend.

NYC Expert Last Lipcolor - Sugar Plum: I don't tend to like lip products that claim to be long lasting because they tend to be drying or result in an unflattering matte finish  but this lip color was actually moisturizing with a slight sheen. Very nice.

Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane: Since I'm still nursing my baby, this decaf green tea was perfect. The flavor is a perfect Christmasy replacement to my typical peppermint mocha.


Ecotools Styler and Smoother Agility Hairbrush: This was my favorite item in the entire Vox Box. I have used this everyday to simply brush or style my hair with a blow dryer. It is so well made and eco friendly to boot. Highly recommend.

McCormick Gourmet Collection Thyme: This thyme is extremely fragrant and perfect in soups, stews and spice rubs. This actually came in perfect time for a few dinner parties. Keeping new dried herbs is so important as the effectiveness of the herbs weakens over time but the McCormick containers definitely keep dried herbs fresh longer.

Fruit Vines Bites: I'm not the big candy eater in our family but my husband really loved the flavor and texture of this candy. It's the perfect texture for licorice, soft but with a good bite, and the flavor is intense instead of waxy.

Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal Liner: This is an amazing waterproof liner. It doesn't smudge, applies creamy smooth, great staying power with a dark saturated color. Highly recommend.

Rimmel Gentle Eye Makeup Remover: Goodness, you need this remover if using the Scandaleyes waterproof liners! The product is not gentle on skin, however, and doesn't remove all makeup brands equally.

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FlavFusion Infuser Water Bottle Review

In an effort to #getfitordietrying, I have been upping my hydration game. Before, I used glass bottles in silicon sleeves, cycling bottles and even disposable plastic bottles. When I received the FlavFusion Infuser Water Bottle, I was thrilled with the design.

1. Light weight and durable. Lugging around the glass bottles is fine but they tend to be heavy and I worry about dropping it, even with the silicon sleeve at the gym.

2. Wide mouth opening. The most frustrating thing about many water bottles is the inability to add large ice cubes to it. I had to buy these ice cube trays that froze the ice into sticks that melted very quickly. This takes my large ice cubes that are long lasting.

3. Easy open and close spout.  The spout as easy to use and more secure than a cycling bottle. It opens with the pull of a finger and closes up tight so it doesn't leak.

4. Easy to clean. It comes apart in 4 different pieces so it's easy to clean all the nooks and crannies that might gather up food bits from the infusing process.

5. Infuses water efficiently. The aforementioned 4 part system infuses water but keeps the particles contained so they don't make their way up the spout. The reservoir holds just the right amount fruit and herbs to infuse the quantity of water in the bottle.

6. Great for kids. My toddler loves to drink out of this thing. I've used it to infuse water with various flavors that I'm trying to teach him to enjoy and he'll happily drink the water.


The foodie in me also likes coming up with different flavors to add. A few of my favorite combinations are mint and lime which was refreshing like a mojito, strawberry and basil, and spinach and pineapple.

I highly recommend this bottle which can be purchased on Amazon. Use this discount code to get $2 off: 9WMNBVTM.


I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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Red Leaf Eggnog Matcha Green Tea Review + Giveaway

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

Green tea is a lot like wine. You take in the aroma, you look at the color, you enjoy the tannins and complexity of flavor.  There's a ritual that engages the senses.

When Red Leaf Tea sent me a sample of their eggnog matcha to try, I was intrigued. Because along with my love of wine, I also love some boozy eggnog.

Now that I think about it, this review might have been better recieved before the holidays.  No worry, turns out this eggnog flavored green tea has more uses than just spreading some Eastern style holiday cheer.

Upon first opening the package, I was overwhelmed with the smell of vanilla cupcakes.  This makes sense as that's what eggnog often smells like to me.  But, that smell isn't characteristic to green tea.  I was worried that it might be too sweet.

The color, however, was a gorgeous shade of green.  Matcha is ground up green tea leaves so when the tea is consumed, the antioxidant power of the tea is superior to regular brewed and strained tea leaves.  The vibrant green color is a good indication that this wouldn't be some artificially manufactured powder with  green tea flavoring.

I went about my green tea ritual of scooping the powder into a bowl and whisking it with below boiling water to create bubbles and introduce the air into the tea.

Though the whisked tea maintained the vanilla based aroma, there was no sweetener or overwhelming vanilla flavor.  There was a smoothness on the tongue that contrasted with the tannins in the tea well but this was definitely no artificial powder.

Truth be told, I didn't like this as a tea.  I like the green tea aroma and covering it up with the vanilla scent simply detracted from my experience.  Though the smooth aspect on the tongue was interesting, it isn't worth the trade in aroma.

BUT not all is lost.  This particular matcha would be amazing in a green tea macaron shells just in time for the Lunar New Year!

Lemons & Anchovies has a great recipe for Green Tea Macaron Shells on her blog.

She uses a classic matcha powder but I think the vanilla scent of this green tea would kick up the flavor of a macaron to the next level.

Lucky for you, my small but wonderful group of readers, Red Tea is going to give one of you a package of green tea perfectly sized to try out this recipe on your own with enough leftover to sample a cup of tea for yourself.

Just enter the giveaway below. It closes January 22nd.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck friends!
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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Red Leaf Caramel Matchaccino Recipe and Review

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

Red Leaf Tea sent me two of their varieties of matcha green tea to try.  I was excited to try the Caramel Matchaccino as green tea frappucinos are very popular around my neck of the woods since  coffee based frappuccinos are so passé. We're never really comfortable leaving well enough alone in Southern California. 

Many conversations go like this:

"I'm having a Starbucks frappucino," says someone who proudly frequents Starbucks.

"Don't you know green tea is better for you?  I'm having a green tea frappucino from my local independent coffee shop," says someone who thinks they're better than someone who regularly spends $5 on a blended coffee beverage from a *chain* everyday.

Now I can come in and say, "I make my own vegan green tea frappucinos at home with all natural ingredients and organic coconut milk."

I assume this conversation devolves into someone coming in and saying that they grow their own green tea leaves in their home composted garden.

It's really a battle to see who can make getting the exact same amazing frappucino the most unobtainable to someone else.

And I'm currently a caramel fiend.  I've made sea salt caramels, caramel sauce, caramel apple cider caramel puffcorn.  Yes, I will post recipes one day soon when I get the chance. You know, once I'm done making everything in my life as difficultly unobtainable as possible.

Back to the caramel green tea.  Upon first opening, the package smelled of caramel. As in so caramel scented that I ended up whipping up a chocolate caramel brownie in a mug.  Delicious.

And when classically prepared, the green tea is slightly sweet with this mouth feel that actually mimics the mouth feel of silky caramel. 

Now, I prepared this two ways.  One, straight up as a matcha green tea and as a blended drink. 

As a matcha green tea, this is fantastic.  I really enjoyed the caramel scent layered over the smell of green tea leaves.  The tea that results is lightly sweet while keeping with a robust green tea flavor.  This is fantastic for an all natural product as many of these Frappe/Latte based products tend to be artificial. 

The Matchaccino is only 58 calories so if you're looking for a drink that gives you a healthy energy boost with a dose of antioxidants while staying away from high calorie sugary coffee drinks, this is a good option.

I made the cold latte based on Red Leaf's instructions with the aforementioned vegan twist: coconut milk instead of cow's milk. You can use whatever milk you want but obviously if you're in Southern California, it needs to be as unobtainable as possible.  Next time, I might try some homemade organic hazelnut milk. 

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
1 tablespoon of latte mix
8 oz of organic coconut milk
1 cup of ice cubes

Instructions
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend.  Pour into a cup and dollop with whipped cream if desired.

Again, this is only lightly sweet so adding some actual caramel would up the sweetness to a more classic caramel frappuccino flavor. But only homemade Hawaiian pink sea salt caramel sauce of course.

I enjoy it lightly sweet because in my family the greatest compliment you can give a dessert is "it's not too sweet" but for the average palate, you will need to add some additional sugar using whatever sweetener you prefer. Like blue agave nectar grown in the backyard of Brad Pitt's desert home.

I think where this would really shine, however, is in a green tea ice cream with chocolate fudge.  Because I really want some ice cream. Made from the finest valrhona noir of course. Or something harder to pronounce.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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2009 Clos Pepe Vineyard Prodigal Pinot Noir

Did you ever watch the movie Sideways?  One of the women describes how she enjoys wine by thinking about what was happening when the wine was made from the picking of the grapes to the lives of the people making it.

Me?  When I find a wine I love, I remember the first place I had it.  In the case of this 2009 Clos Pepe Vineyard Prodigal Pinot Noir, I was on the first outing with my husband, sans baby, since we became parents.  It was meant to be a quick trip to Vinhus, my favorite cheese shop in Solvang where we were weekending a few days ago with our family, that turned into a short tasting at a nearby wine lounge with a decidedly date like feel.  I felt like myself again!

But if you are interested in what was happening when this particular bottle was made, Wes Hagen the winemaker, actually made a blog post about it on Winemaker.  It includes a recipe for Pinot Noir the Clos Pepe way.

"Growing perfect pinot noir is the real challenge, and then the focus in the winery is to allow that perfect fruit to express itself." -- Wes Hagan  

On to the tasting notes!  This Pinot has a ripe strawberry, cherry and honey nose, the embodiment of the Central Coast farmland, with perfectly balanced spice and acidity with just the right amount of complexity and silky texture to make this infinitely drinkable.  We liked it so much we bought 4 bottles to gift to the enophiles in our lives.

The Prodigal line of wines, interestingly, is dedicated to making amazing Pinot Noirs.  In fact, the slogan is "a wine fifty years in the making." Prodigal is named for the prodigal son, Stephen Russell, who studied Enology in the 60s only to leave the industry to pursue cancer research and return in 2001 to found Quinta Santa Rosa Vineyard and Prodigal Wines where he pursued his love of Pinot from the vines to the barrel.

The wine lounge serving this flight, Viking Garden Cellars, put the Prodigal up front in the tasting which could be either dumb or brilliant.  Dumb because all the other offerings in the flight paled in comparison.  Brilliant because a tipsy palate would likely not be able to appreciate the perfect little nuances of this fantastic Pinot Noir.

Bottles can be purchased at Viking Garden Cellars in Solvang, CA or Inside The Cellar in Santa Fe Springs, CA. 

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Painting and Pimm's

The weather in southern California has been erratic.  As in random thunderstorms interspersing weeks of perfect summer weather and sweltering days of hell like heat. When the weather gets particularly devilish, my favorite beverage is Pimm's Cup.

Now, Pimm's the liqueur was made long ago by some guy who owned an oyster bar in London, which I can only assume was the man's English alternative to bitters. So obviously it's good for you.  Specifically Pimm's No. 1, (they made others that didn't do so well at market) is a tonic made of gin, herbs and quinine. I've never had a shot of it before so I don't know what it tastes like outside of a Pimm's cup, which adds a whole lot of deliciousness covering up any unpleasantness in the Pimm's flavor. 


Pimm's cup is  the official drink of Wimbledon tennis tournament, the Henley Royal Regatta and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, according to Wikipedia, the other being champagne.  Champagne being my first favorite drink makes me think I should be going to a lot more of these Royal events and Operas.
But one cannot drink a pitcher of Pimm's cup alone.  Well, one can but one would then have consumer far too much goodness for one day.  So, during my recent painting meetup with a group of Martha Stewart like ladies, I whipped up a few batches.

Pimm's Cup


Now, there are a lot of ways to make Pimm's Cup. Before everyone gets up to protest my Pimm's Cup's authenticity and add their recipe, note that 90% of the recipes out there don't agree.  We don't have Schweppes lemonade over in the States, for instance.  Ginger ale, though delicious, is a contentious point.  And if strawberries aren't available because some people like to enjoy Pimm's Cup in the off season, it's ok. Plus, who knows where you can find borage anyway?  There's a huge mint plant in my garden, that's what's going in mine.

That being said, substitutions are ok but here are the core ingredients: Pimm's, a citrus fruit, carbonated lemon beverage or ginger ale, cucumber, fresh herbs.

Ingredients


1 bottle of Pimm's No. 1
1 bottle of Trader Joe's Sparkling Lemonade (Or Sprite or 7up or Squirt if it's not available.)
1 small cucumber
1/2 a small basket of fresh strawberries
1 orange
1 large sprig (or branch, whatever you want to call it) of mint

Directions

1. Hull the strawberries and slice in half. Slice cucumber into thin slices. Slice oranges the same way. Place it all in the pitcher.

2. Crush some fresh mint leaves reserving the top on the branch for garnish.  Place in the pitcher.

3. Fill the pitcher half way with Pimm's and the other half with Sparkling Lemonade.

4. Use the branch of mint or long spoon to mix the ingredients in the pitcher. Lease the mint branch in the pitcher.

5. Pour over ice. Optional: garnish with mint, cucumber, strawberry and orange in each cup.

Other Pimm's Cup Recipes
Bon Appetit - The Pimm's Cup
NPR - Refreshingly Old School: Pimm's Cup
CHOW - Pimm's Cup Recipe

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