New (food) Obsession: Cinnamon Toasted Almonds

It is a widely known fact that I am obsessed with almonds and all almond products, so when I started experimenting with toasting almonds, I went into almond heaven.

I toasted almonds in cinnamon and honey and I've already eaten a ton of them, as seen in the almost half empty jar above.  They aren't as sugary and heavy as the candied almonds you might buy, yet they pack some great flavor and sweetness, and it's a super easy recipe to top it all off!  The hardest part by far was waiting for them to cool down before I ate all of them. ;)

 Here's what I used:

2 c. raw almonds
2 T. honey or agave nectar
1 T. olive oil (make sure it's regular, not extra virgin, or just use canola oil, or even coconut oil)
1 T. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 F.  In a large bowl, pour honey, oil, and cinnamon.  Mix well, then add almonds.  Mix until all the almonds are evenly coated, and then pour into either a cooking ceramic/glass dish, or straight onto a flat baking pan.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  After 6 minutes, toss the almonds to make sure they are evenly toasted.  At this time, I usually add more cinnamon to add on some extra flavor, but if you want your almonds to be more mild tasting, feel free to skip this step!  Let the almonds cool about 20 minutes since they will be soft initially after baking.  Enjoy.  Try not to eat the whole batch.

The perfect breakfast, snack, or topping on salads and yogurts! 

Excuse me while I go grab another handful, and think of new ingredients to toast my almonds in....

Some More Food to Show Off! Smoothies, Stir-fry, breads, and Spaghetti Squash Galore

 Although I seem to be cooking all the time now, I now need to work on taking actual, aesthetically pleasing pictures before I devour all of it.  This seems to be a serious issue for me, but it just shows my impatience to eat all the time.  For now, you'll have to deal with some hastily snapped pictures, but now my new goal is to improve my food photos!

 Keep reading to follow my food adventures!

It's Empties Time Again...

It's that time again! 

I've finished another round of products so of course I have to share everything I used up and what I though of them.

Read on to see what I thought of these products!

Shop Your Stash: August Edition and some FOTD

With a new month comes a whole new round of the Shop Your Stash project with new rediscovered products to try!  As I've mentioned before, I like doing this to really go through items in my collection I might have not used in awhile and to find new ways to use them.  After two months of doing this, I can say that it's going well and I'm definitely finding new products in my collection that I've forgotten about.

For those new to my blog, the Shop Your Stash project has a couple guidelines:

• I pick 20 - 25 face, eye, and lip products that I want to use more often in the month

• I have to use each product at least two times in the month

Without further ado, here are this month's selections!

Keep reading to see more details and swatches of all of the products!

Product Favorites: July

Being in a cold climate for the better part of the year had me totally unprepared for this summer.  When it hit 90 and above, I was seriously pulling out all the stops to make sure my makeup lasted throughout the day.

However, one benefit of having such hot weather is that I also want to wear colorful makeup to match the gorgeous weather.  

Keep reading to see my favorite products of the month!

Some Recent Food Love

If any of you follow me on Instagram at steph_peng, then you would see all my food posts.  And there are a lot of them.

First up is this green smoothie I made last week or so.  I don't remember the exact proportions I used, but the ingredients were  almond milk, spinach, mango, banana, half a cucumber, and hemp seeds with a sprinkle of cinnamon over the top.  It's wonderfully delicious and refreshing that satisfies my sweet cravings without being too sweet!

Keep reading to see a whole explosion of food posts!

More new pretties to love....

Does is always seem like when your life gets busy, everything happens at once, and nothing seems to be evenly spread out?  That's what happened recently - for the better part of this summer I've been feeling like nothing much has been happening, and recently, I've been so busy I haven't even been able to properly sit down and relax until today.

This haul is long overdue as I bought some of these things over a month ago, but..better late than never, right?

I was a bad girl and went shopping. again. As much as I tell myself that I don't need more makeup, I always fall for just one more lipstick..or eyeliner.  Since my lipstick collection is now pretty complete, I went into Sephora to fill any holes I had in my eyeliner collection..and walked out with this:

I've wanted to try the Stila eyeliners since they came out, and I just had to have this set.  I have never seen the Kat von D eyeliner, but once I swatched it, I was in complete love.  I've never really been interested in eyeliner, but something about that day just had me thinking I need more eyeliners.  No, I really don't.


Read on to see some swatches and more products I couldn't resist!