Lace Dress

Dress: Target, boots: Botkier, cardigan: Kersh, bag: Candies, necklace: ? (old), earrings: AG 925.

On Saturday night I headed out to my friend's wedding social. If you've never heard of a social before, don't worry, because apparently it is an event that is unique to Manitoba. I wore this little lace dress with opaque tights and a cardigan because it was -30 degrees celcius this weekend. I added a sparkly necklace, a studded bag and flat riding boots to complete the look.

Dreaming of Spring

While the temperatures dropped again this week, I decided that I've officially had enough of winter. I was out this weekend browsing for home decor items and I noticed that most stores had a large selection of spring pieces out. I picked up this pretty flowered wreath and decided to hang it up yesterday despite it still being February. Spring won't arrive here for a few more weeks, but I can dream, right?

Lemon, Poppy seed and Almond Muffins

Yesterday was a holiday in my neck of the woods so I spent the day relaxing, cleaning my house and practicing yoga. I also whipped up a batch of lemon, poppy seed and almond muffins. The recipe I used comes from the Bon Appetit cookbook, as seen below. The store I went to this weekend didn't have almond extract so I substituted lemon extract and the muffins turned out to be amazing! I love how the almonds add a little more 'crunch' to the traditional lemon-poppy seed recipe.

Homemade Pizza

Here are some photos of the two pizzas I made last night.

Pizza #1
This is my spin on the classic margherita. I use pesto instead of tomato sauce and add sliced dates and caramelized onions to the traditional tomato, basil and bocconcini cheese.

Pizza #2
This pizza was more of a classic- I covered it in tomato sauce, pepperoni, salami, ham, mushrooms, orange and yellow peppers, onions and mozzarella.

What's your favourite kind of pizza? I love to try new recipes so I'd love to hear yours!

Best Pizza Dough Ever (in my opinion)

One of my favourite things to do is to make pizza from scratch with friends and family. I really enjoy the experience of making the pizza as much as I do eating it. Tonight I'm having a few friends over for pizza, so last night I whipped up a batch of dough in my breadmaker. Over the years I've tried numerous recipes, and I thought I would share with you my own personal recipe that I've perfected through trial and error.

Chas' Pizza Dough
41/2 cups flour
11/3 tsp. salt
1 tsp. instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
13/4 water (ice cold)
2 tbsp. honey
rosemary (or any other dried herb you want to add)


Some recipes tell you to add these ingredients in a specific order but truthfully I just throw everything in the breadmaker in the order it's listed, put it on the dough setting, and let it do it's thing. It turns out perfectly every time, and I've even used three different breadmakers.

After the cycle on the breadmaker is finished, I let the dough rise in the machine for a while longer, then take it out and form it into two balls which I place on a large cookie sheet, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate overnight. I take the dough out of the fridge about 2 hours before I want to start working with it so it gets to room temperature. Once I am ready to start cooking I dust cornmeal onto my pizza pans to keep the dough from sticking. I then roll the dough around in my hands with a bit of flour to remove any air bubbles and press it out onto the pizza pans. This recipe makes two large retangular cookie sheet sized pizzas with relatively thin crust.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the pizzas and share the recipes for the types I made!

Yet Another Skirt

Tee: Alternative Apparel, skirt: Forever 21, tights: Urban Outfitters, booties: Madden girl, bag: Coach, pendant: homemade.

It would be an understatement to say that I've been practically living in skirts this winter. The skirts that I'm too shy to wear in the summer for fear of the wind causing an accidental wardrobe malfunction have now become my go to pieces to wear with tights this winter. I dressed this little F21 number down with a basic tee and minimal jewellery on this particular occasion. It was perfect for meeting the girls for a couple of drinks earlier this week.

Florals in the Winter

Tank: Forever 21, skirt: Forever 21, blazer: Urban Outfitters, tights: Urban Outfitters, booties: Urban outfitters, riding boots: Frye, necklace: ? (old).

I just realized that I'm wearing a lot of pieces from Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters in this post. I guess this makes sense since they are two of my favourite stores. I picked up this cute floral skirt last week to wear out for drinks on my birthday. I couldn't decide which boots to wear, so I've posted photos of both pairs. I always thought the rule was the shorter the skirt, the taller your boots should be, but I decided to break the rules and went with the booties. What do you think?