I'm going to Easter brunch and I'm bringing...

The Muses decided to make Sticky Lemon Rolls with Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze, by the folks at The Kitchn, for brunches this weekend. These golden goodies are absolutely delectable. A trial run on the East Coast earlier this week rendered full-mouthed groans of delight from colleagues at the office. It's such a beautiful recipe - and the golden hue and light flavor are just perfect for Easter.

Do you have any special breakfasts, brunches, lunches or dinners planned for this weekend? What are you preparing? Do tell!

"Anything But Old-Fashioned" Housewarming Party

Dear Muses --

I love your blog. It's adorable.

We are under contract for a house. Maybe ya'll could give me some advice about house-warming party ideas? We'll be hosting it ourselves but don't expect gifts. I'd love some cute but not-cheesy ideas.

Love,

New Homeowner in GA


Dear Georgia Gal,

First of all, thanks for the praise. We aim to inspire and are pleased as punch to be helping lovely ladies like yourself!

Secondly, congrats on the new house! We are still in the renting phase...could we live in places more expensive than DC and Silicon Valley?!?! Well, London, but who's keeping tabs, really? Anyway, congrats from the Muses on owning your own place. Maybe some decorating inspiration will be next ... did you see the nursery inspiration...eh? eh?

When you think of a classy party, the first thing that comes to mind is usually wine and cheese. Trust us, we don’t think it gets much better than a glass of Chianti and some Roquefort but this is fairly typical. And typical is something that describes neither you nor us!

Here are the bones of a great Anything But Old-Fashioned housewarming party.

Fruit Cubes from fotobank, Old Fashioned from Epicurious, Red Toile Apron from Anthropologie, Deviled Eggs from The Kitchn, Life of the Tupperware Party from Anne Taintor

Signature Drink: Old-Fashioned

Menu: Highlight Retro Foods. This should be a guide to delicious items. It would be easy to get carried away and make your guests eat your grandma's favorites that would may notx be cocktail party friendly. Take some old-school items and make them with your own savory twist.

Appetizer: Deviled Eggs

Dinner: How about a casserole? We love The Casserole Queens and suggest you get some inspiration from them! Macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, chicken pot pie - you can't go wrong!

Dessert: Gourmet Jello Mold! (PS - at least one half of the Muse team thinks it's a great idea to SPIKE that Jello Mold)

4 oz lemon juice
7 oz sparkling water
2 oz simple syrup*
3 1/2 (1/4 oz) packets of gelatin powder

40-50 fresh raspberries

Combine the lemon juice and simple syrup in a small saucepan. Add gelatin powder.

Stir over low heat until the gelatin has dissolved and is fully incorporated, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in sparkling water.

Place a few raspberries in the bottom of ice cube trays, carefully pour the gelatin mixture over the fruit. Refrigerate the ice cube tray until set, preferably overnight.

*To make simple syrup, combine equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan, and stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Details: Please grab some Anne Taintor napkins. You can usually find these at any girly boutique house wares store. Or get them here. Other 50's era motifs to consider: cherries, Hawaiian print, checkerboard.

Attire: Suggest your guests wear 50's clothes. Guys in white short-sleeved button-ups with skinny ties, girls in A-Line dresses with pearls. And you better get yourself into a lovely apron!

We hope that we've been able to provide you with some inspiration. Have a blast, and take photos - we can't wait to see!

Love,

Your Muses

P.S. We just saw this on one of our favorite sites, The Kitchn. It's a completely different style and element than what we suggest here, but maybe it's right up your alley. Take a peek!

Hungry? Why Wait?

And no, we are certainly NOT touting the benefits of the popular sugar-laden, peanut-y pile of goo.

Instead, act like the goddess that you are and grab a Lemon Zest Luna Bar. Delish!!



Consider this the perfect way to stave off hunger without too many calories and plenty of fiber. Note that this pairs so well with a cup of “Sip for the Cure - Pink Rose Green Tea." It's quite unfortunate they don’t make that soul-soothing tea anymore. When the last tea bag leaves the container, I have no idea what will happen.

OK, so maybe I do. I'll instead try these other rose teas:

Rose Petal Full Leaf

Cherry Rose Green Tea

Rosey Chai

Rooibos Rose Garden

Don't leave your boss hanging while you have a hypoglycemic melt-down. Energize and revive yourself with good-for-you ingredients (that come in pretty packaging).

Sleepover!

Alternate Title: Celebrate even if there's no inherent reason to celebrate!

One half of the Freelance Muses team (the Pretty West Coast Muse) is on spring break with her adoring husband this week. Spring break incidentally falls during said Muse and her adoring husband’s two year wedding anniversary (it’s this Monday, if you’d like to extend your congratulations, best wishes and warm feelings to them!) So it’s a week of celebration and a break from blogging for her.

The other half of this team is going to take the reins and blog about something that happened about two weeks ago – while Adoring Husband was busy cramming for finals and spending time into the wee hours of the night in the library and whatever else it is that law students do, Pretty West Coast Muse decided to have some girls whose husbands were also in the law library over on a Saturday morning. They decided to have a sleepover, but without the sleep. Which I suppose makes it just an “over,” but let’s not split hairs. It was the perfect time to invite over all the other law school widows.

Allow the Muses to encourage you to invite guests to help with the party-planning efforts. The bones of this party were fairly simple, and guests were a key collaborative component.

PWCM picked a pretty and feminine blue, pink and red color palette - store-bought pink and berry lemonade along with some fresh berries to garnish the granola kept the look cohesive.

Other friends brought cinnamon rolls and delicious strawberry apple crisp (coincidentally in a lovely pink dish).

Homemade granola (we'll post the recipe another day), yogurt flavored with vanilla bean and fresh fruit kept the do-ahead work to a minimum.

Every party needs activities, but keeping things simple can be best and allows guests the freedom to entertain themselves how they wish. The "over" included 2.5 hours of Wedded to Perfection, schmutty magazines, nail polish, and facial masks/scrubs.

photos courtesy of CMP

Don’t wait for a special occasion to host a party of your own. As spring approaches and the season beckons celebration in and of itself, consider having an “over” of your own with your lady friends. Brunches are always fun and festive of course, but a late afternoon tea party or an evening cocktail party would both be fun as well. Put the men out (or send them to a bar to drink beer and throw darts and do manly man things) and enjoy your time with your girlfriends. And don’t feel like you have to be the hostess with the mostess – ask each lady to bring an activity and a food item. This way you are relieved of doing all the work yourself and the party truly embodies the personalities of the collective group.

Happy Spring, Happy Celebration and Happy Times!

Love,
The Muses

vegan pizza

My husband gave up cheese for Lent.

You can imagine how well that's gone over with his very, very Italian wife.

Regardless - I support him. After an outdoor run and a city-wide bike ride (thanks to the sudden spring weather here in DC), we were both seriously hungry and craving some carbs. Pizza seemed like the ticket.

I'm going to show you here through a series of photos how to make pizza. Homemade pizza really isn't the arduous, labor-intensive task that most think that it is. With a Kitchen Aid mixer or a food processor, all the hard work is taken care of for you.

I use a recipe loosely adapted from the Joy Of Cooking cookbook.

Flip to page 607. Remember, my recipe is loosely based off of this one.

Start with 1 tsp granulated sugar. Place it in the bowl of your mixer outfitted with a dough hook, or the bowl of your food processor. [Note: it doesn't matter which; I probably would prefer the food processor, however mine isn't big enough to accommodate the liquid.]

Add one packet of yeast to the sugar. I use the old-fashioned kind, not the quick-rise kind. I don't really have a reason, other than the same reason why I prefer slow-cooking oats to instant oats - it's what my mom used and it seems right.

Add 1 1/2 c. of very warm water. PLEASE NOTE! You can kill the yeast if the water is too hot. I've done this a number of times because it is a very easy mistake to make. Joy Of Cooking recommends water that is 105 - 115 degrees Fahrenheit. My general rule of thumb? Make sure the stuff isn't boiling and that you can cup your hands around the measuring cup holding the water without wincing or squealing.

Gently stir the ingredients together - if in the food processor, give it a few quick pulses; if in the mixer, mix it on 2 for no more than 30 seconds.

Add to the water mixture 2 3/4 c bread flour,

1/2 c semolina flour (you can find it at Whole Foods or Publix, or any other speciality grocery store),

and 1 tsp salt.

Mix together for a few minutes - be sure not to over mix the dough. You basically just want to incorporate the ingredients and allow the machine to do the majority of the kneading for you.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. It kind of reminds me of an old person's skin at this point. Dry, wrinkly, very soft.

Now here's where you think I may be kooky, but I swear this works. Put about two cups of water in a measuring cup and stick it in the microwave for about three minutes, or until it starts to boil. Then place the dough in a large-ish bowl with some extra virgin olive oil and cover it with a towel. Stick the covered bowl of dough in the microwave with the recently boiled water, shut the door and leave it for at least an hour. The water creates a warm, slightly humid environment for the dough and encourages the yeast to work its magic. I know, weird. But I promise you - it works.

While you allow the dough to rise, prepare your ingredients. Since this was a cheese-less pizza, I didn't have to work about slicing chevre or shredding mozzarella. I decided that we wanted an eggplant-mushroom pizza - good texture, sort of meaty. First, peel the eggplant and slice it into rounds. Lay the sliced rounds of eggplant onto paper towels, sprinkle with salt and leave them there to "sweat" - the salt brings out the bitter agents in the eggplant, resulting in a much more tender, savory flavor.

For seasoning, I added chopped fresh garlic, sliced shallots and fresh minced rosemary.

After about 3o minutes, when the eggplant has had sufficient time to "sweat," slice the eggplant into little sticks, and slice your mushrooms.

Prepare your baking sheet with a little corn meal - this allows the pizza to slide off the pan easily after you cook it. The amount shown here is sufficient for two pans. You really don't need this much on one pan, otherwise it burns in the oven.

After removing the dough from the microwave, I rolled it out, placed it on the baking sheet and then layered my ingredients in the following order - olive oil directly on the dough; some kosher salt; sauce; the rosemary, garlic and shallots; and then the vegetables.

Bake in a preheated oven at about 475 degrees F for about 10-15 minutes, or until toasty on the bottom, golden on the top with bubbling sauce.

Now let me give you a little word of advice - this pizza would have been ROCKIN with some fresh chevre (goat cheese). Unfortunately, as mentioned before, my husband gave up cheese for Lent so we didn't have any of that. But take it from me - it would have been stellar with a little bit of cheese. The rosemary and eggplant would have been the perfect accompaniment.

Hopefully the task of making pizza is no longer daunting. It's actually quite easy. And you get to find something else to do while waiting for the dough to rise, whether it be checking this blog (ahem) or snuggling with your cheese-less husband.

Now, pour yourself a glass of wine and enjoy! Bon appetit!

All-Call: Beauty Secrets

We have all fallen prey to beauty "secrets" that don't really work -gel insoles that still make your feet ache at the end of the day; beauty tools that stretch, poke, pluck, and scrub you raw; the BumpIt (admit it - we were all intrigued by that one!); shampoo that will make your hair look blonder, redder, brunetter, shinier, less shiny, straighter, curlier, etc!; the Shake Weight (well, we hope no one actually fell victim to that nonsense); stickies that supposedly keep the most scanty of clothing items in place (hel-LO, Janet Jackson!).

Let's put an end to wasting our money and save it for quality products that make being gorgeous easier. After all, we want to wear 5" heels and not hurt at the end of the day - can we get an 'Amen!?'

We Muses love the thrill of the hunt and we do it weekly to find the best information out there for you. We're doing the same thing this week for beauty secrets, using the best resource we've got...YOU!

If you have tips about hair products, tools, make-up, fashion accessories or anything else you love to use, we want to hear about it! We'll compile a list so we all know when to spend those hard-earned bucks and when to keep it in the bank. Send your suggestions to freelancemuses [at] gmail [dot] com

Ask a Muse: How to Cook Plantains

Dear Muses,

I recently discovered plantains. I've only had them fried. How else can I prepare them besides drowning them in hot oil?

-Scrapbook C

Dear Scrapbook C --

Ah, the plantain - that African/Caribbean delight of a food. It may look like a green banana, but it's actually a starchier and more savory version of its cousin. I think of a plantain as the potato of the tropical world. Anything you can do with a potato, you can pretty much do with a plantain - you can mash it, bake it, roast it, boil it, grill it or, as you mentioned, fry it. Fried plantains are pretty typical in Caribbean/Latin establishments, and most people have experienced the plantain in this way.

Included below are two different (and new to you!) preparations for the plantain. Granted, these are the result of a quick Google search, so we cannot endorse these recipes as tried and true. However, that's what the Muses are here for: we are hunters and gatherers of the information you need. Aren't we just the prettiest hunters you ever did see?

It got quiet in here. Ahem. On to the recipes.

Mashed Plantains -- Mangu in the Dominican Republic, Fufu in Cuba - this is a slightly modified (and slightly snootier) version of the mashed plantain. Thanks, Epicurious.com!

2 green plantains (1 1/2 pound total)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 lb bacon, chopped (6 slices)
1 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

Using a sharp large heavy knife, cut ends off plantains and slit through peel lengthwise from end to end. Soak in a large bowl filled with 4 cups water and 1 teaspoon salt 5 minutes. (This makes peel easier to remove.) Remove tough outer peel, using a paring knife if necessary, and cut plantains into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Cook, covered, in a 2- to 3-quart saucepan of boiling, salted water until tender, about 20 minutes.

While plantains cook, cook bacon in a 10-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp, about 4 minutes. Add onion and cook, stirring, until softened and browned, about 10 minutes. Reserve 1 tablespoon of mixture for garnish, then add milk, pepper, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt (mixture may appear curdled). Remove from heat and keep warm, covered.

Drain plantains in a colander and return to saucepan.

Reheat milk mixture and mash plantains with a potato masher, adding hot milk mixture and butter.

Sprinkle reserved bacon and onion on top.

Muse Suggestion: try pancetta rather than bacon; same effect without that hickory-smoked flavor.

Grilled Plantains -- because the two feet of snow outside have us dreaming of grilling out on a deck in bare feet with a cold beer and warm weather. Who else to turn to but the grill master, Bobby Flay!

2 cups dark rum
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
Pinch salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
6 very ripe plantains (should be almost black), peeled and sliced on the bias into 1/2-inch thick slices
1/4 cup canola oil

Heat grill to high. Place rum, brown sugar, and salt in a small saucepan and cook until the sugar has melted and the mixture reduces and thickens slightly. Stir in butter until melted. Remove from the heat.

Brush plantains with oil on both sides and grill until golden brown and caramelized, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Brush with the glaze during the last few minutes of grilling. Remove from the grill and brush with more of the glaze before serving.

Muse Suggestion: try sticking the plantains on skewers, like seen below. Such a pretty presentation, and one would think it allows the plantains to cook more consistently.

What are you waiting for? Get to cooking - and let us know how it turns out!

Love,

The Muses