Power in Heels

How do you feel in heels? Do you feel elegant, feminin, sexy, or maybe even wobbly? Does wearing heels make you feel empowered? No? Maybe it's time to rethink that.

White Chocolate Chip Cookies

I myself don't nessecarily consider myself a huge fan of chocolate. Sure, I'll eat it every now and then when I have the opportunity. But I hardly ever buy some for myself. My husband however loves anything chocolate. Lucky for him I love baking. And that's the way I will actually enjoy chocolate, if I bake with it myself. Like brownies, or chocolate chip cookies.

Working with a little girl who doesn't like chocolate has lead me to broaden my horizon when it comes to baking. And when I say she doesn't like it, I mean won't eat it. At all. Can you imagine that? I might not be a big fan, but I won't say no to it when it stares me right in the face... No chocolate ice cream, brownies, hot cocoa, nothing. 

Except white chocolate... Makes sense, since white chocolate consists more of butter and sugar than anything else. Anyway, she's the reason I decided to change up my winning milk chocolate chip cookie recipe to a white chocolate chip batch. And to really bring out the flavor I added some cinnamon. Let me tell you, I like these better than my normal chocolate chip cookies! Let me share the recipe with you so you can taste for yourself. 

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks) 
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon. Combine the butter with both sugars in a different bowl, mix on medium speed until the the consistency becomes light and fluffy. After that add the salt, vanilla, and eggs and mix on low speed until smooth. Add in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. 

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Use a tablespoon to drop perfectly sized dough balls about 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies until their get a soft golden color on the edges, between 8 and 10 minutes. Keep a close eye on the cookies to make sure they come out soft in the center. After removing sheet from the over leave cookies to cool for 5 minutes before moving to a rack. 

Seven Sins of Social Media

Let me start by saying that I am not writing this post because I am against social media. In fact I am fervent user of Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest and won't hesitate to admit that. I love how easy social media it makes these days to get and stay in touch with other people. Friends, (foes ;), family, acquaintances, prospect clients, business partners or prospect employers etc. 

For me personally, it's how I keep in touch with some of the most important people in my life, amongst which are my mother and my best friend of all best friends who both live in the Netherlands. Even though we're on different sides of the world, these social media allow us to keep in touch and follow what goes on in each other's lives. 

Classic Tomato Frito sauce

How spoiled I am by having grown up in a country where you can buy this amazing sauce base readily made by Heinz in any given grocery store. However, after I moved to California I had to come up with a plan. Because Heinz Tomato Frito isn't sold here anywhere. Imagine my disappointment when I found out I couldn't just get my go to sauce base for many of my favorite recipes... I use this sauce for making home made pizza, Mac n Cheese, mini lasagna cups, and the list just goes on! So I started experimenting. And after many tries, I've come up with a recipe that might not be perfect, but pretty darn satisfying to my tastebuds!

• 1 lbs tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• Basil
• Salt and pepper to season

Dice up the tomatoes, onion, bell pepper and garlic. Toss all ingredients in a slow cooker (or crockpot) and turn on low for four hours. After cooking time is over, spoon the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth. Let cool before putting sauce in a jar. Can be frozen. 

How well can you read people?

Can you tell these emotions apart from each other?

Or how about these? 

As you are probably realizing right about now, it is not as easy to read faces as we like to think. Certain expressions can look a lot alike, and most of these expressions often don't show very long. It is hard to read the truth off of someone's face. And even more difficult to determine whether we are indeed being told the truth or not.