Day in the Life of The Witch: Neewollah Day 1

Today is the first day of Neewollah, our annual Halloween festival (and the only one in the country!) Last night they crowned Queen Neelah (our version of the Corn Queen or Butter Queen or what have you) and tonight the rides open and the food vendors are touting their wares.

My mom and I decided to go and see what they had to offer. So we bundled up and headed downtown.

We happened to park right next to a vendor selling pecan rolls. That was torture.

They had these super cute little pots in the window with bread dough in them. I think the flower pot loaves were about $5? If they weren’t jalapeno bread, I woulda jumped all over it.

The Neewollah flags were flying everywhere.

This gal was making cotton candy, but for $4 a bag I wasn’t going to bite.

Caramel apples *drool*

More Neewollah flags, and my favorite cheese-on-a-stick joint. Go there every year!

They also sell corndogs and nachos. But I can get corndogs from sonic and nachos from the gas station, so I wasn’t interested.

They batter and deep fry your cheese of choice right in front of you. I picked American.

And then you get this… An ooey gooey stick-o-yumminess that starts sliding down the stick after the first bite.

*drool*

Oh look… More caramel apples…

And grater taters covered in cheese.

You have to indulge in the prerequisite funnel cake.

Oh and get a caramel apple after they taunt you.

My mom begged and made me get her a pecan roll.

And I enjoyed my caramel apple.

Keep an eye out tomorrow for pictures from our Doodah Parade, the parade the adults in town get to be a part of

Recipe: Pecan Pie Mini Muffins

To a person that doesn’t care for pumpkin much (except right now that’s all I can think of), this time of the year is indicative of few things. But one in particularly comes to mind. One of my mom’s most requested Fall/Winter treats… Pecan Pie Mini Muffins.

With all the richness and gooeyness of a real pecan pie in a way more transportable container, these mini muffins are what kick started my love affair with pecan pie in general. I fell in love with these, and fell in love with it’s namesake as well.

Start out with your melted butter and vanilla in your mixer bowl.

Set aside a bowl containing the flour, brown sugar and pecans.

Make sure your eggs are all whipped together and add it to the mixing bowl.

While it’s mixing, line a mini muffin tin with liners. You want to double up on liners. Why, you might ask? Because there’s very little flour in this super-rich recipe and so the butter will soak right through the muffin liners and create a huge mess when you eat them. It’s better to use two liners than not.

Oh… And eat some pecans. You have to do quality checks, right???

Combine all ingredients and let mix for a few minutes and let your mouth water.

THIS is the end result. *drool*

Using a cookie scoop, fill the muffin cups pretty full, as the muffins won’t rise a lot. You should be able to get 2 1/2 dozen out of one batch of mix.

Nice little uniformed soldiers of yumminess.

Then you need to bake, then wait to cool… Which is really hard, but believe me if you don’t wait just a little bit you’ll be missing the first two layers of skin on your tongue and the roof of your mouth.

And the end result is well worth the wait!

Yummmmm. Now onto the recipe! If y’all try this, let me know!

1 c. Brown Sugar

1/2 c. flour

1 c. Chopped Pecans

2/3 c. Butter (NO substitutes!), melted

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line mini muffin pan with two liners each.

In a bowl, combine brown sugar, flour and pecans; set aside. In another bowl, combine melted butter and beaten eggs; mix well. Stir into flour mixture just until moistened. Fill greased and floured mini muffin cups 2/3 full.

Bake for 15-16 (usually around 16) minutes. Do not over bake. Remove immediately to wire rack to cool.

Polish Reviews: Literary Lacquers

I have a weird fascination with anything macabre. I love it. And I love old books. One of my favorite is Dracula by Bram Stoker. And I love polish. So when I found out that my good friend Amy over at Literary Lacquers was coming out with a Dracula inspired polish trio I was like… WHAT?! Seriously, if she keeps making polishes like these I am going to go broke.

First up is Mina. It’s a gorgeous black jelly polish full of flecks and shards and squares and hexes in purple.

I seriously love this polish, but do not like the way it photographed, so I will be re-doing the swatch pictures for this and Lucy on Thursday when I can take advantage of the sunlight. It has some seriously awesome shimmer to it. (The amended pictures are at the end of this post!)

Next up of course, is The Count. A shimmery black/gunmetal grey polish, it is a true stunner. Amy says it’s opaque at two coats, but can be worn over a lighter polish to give that polish a vampy look.

It truly reminds me of bat or crow wings and moonlight.

Here I wore it over Chanel’s Rouge Flamboyant. It really does lend it a slightly funky, very vampy look to it.

Lastly I have Lucy for you. It’s kind of hard to explain Lucy. It’s a blackish/brownish base with a whole ton of different colored glitter.

It is very vampy, very almost demure with a hint of something other-worldly.

You can find Amy’s polishes at Literary Lacquer’s Etsy shop. Right now she’s on a much needed vacation, but will be back in the swing of things in a few short days. If you haven’t tried out her polishes, you must. They’re some of the best out there!

Here’s Mina over Orly’s Purple Velvet.

Here’s Lucy over Zoya Raven.

Thank goodness for sunshine!!!!

Polish Review: The Lady Varnishes

Hello all! Only a few short days until Halloween! What all are you going to be? Keep an eye out for Halloween nail art tutorials, pictures from Neewollah and of course, my kids’ Halloween pictures! (Oh and recipes for some awesomely good baked yummies just in time for fall!)

Today I have for you a review of a few of the pretties available over at The Lady Varnishes. Her polishes are midpriced at $9 and she offers awesome customer service and the cutest little bottle perks ever.

First up is Bigger on the Inside. If you’re an avid Whoovian like I am, you’ll definitely get the reference.

BOTI is a blue jelly base with large shimmer flex and tons of holographic glitter.

Unfortunately, this bottle shot doesn’t do the polish justice. But then again, I’m a sucker for an awesome blue.

Bigger on the Inside is opaque in just two coats. This is wear after 5 days on!

Next up is a gorgeous red shimmer crelly. It has red and gold glitters of varying shapes and sizes.

This little gem is opaque in two coats and I really love how she added just a hint of orange to warm it up.

This is a red that looks terrific on us pale brunettes!

Lastly I have Fantastic! Fantastic! is a black jelly full of black, blue, green and maroon glitters in all different shapes and sizes.

The maroon looks a little more purple to me, but it’s still well… fantastic! LOL

I’m not 101% in love with my swatches of this polish. I didn’t use any undies and I had to use artificial lighting, so I don’t think I do it justice. It looks like our first chance of sunshine is on Thursday, so I’m going to be reswatching it. It’s not that it isn’t pretty, because it really is, but I don’t like the way my camera caught it.

All in all though? The polishes I got were stunning. I seriously did not want to take Bigger on the Inside off and got tons of compliments on it. If you haven’t tried her polishes, you should. You can find most of her shades at her Etsy shop or at her new website. She’s not restocking polishes on her Etsy page and will be fully stocked on her website by the end of this month. Don’t forget to go by her Facebook page and show her some love!

**Amended post**

Like I said, I had to re-do the swatch photos of Fantastic! I couldn’t abide by the way they looked, so here’s the new ones!

This is two coats of Fantastic! over Orly Lollipop. And it never fails that as soon as you finish a mani you have to go do something that puts a huge gouge in your nail polish but don’t have the time to fix it properly. Go figure. But it still looks fabulous and sparkles like a diamond.