Anjolee Jewelry Review...and Wedding Week.

I was invited to review a piece of jewelry from the online retailer, Anjolee Jewelry.  I chose the Art Deco Pendant Necklace.  When it arrived, I was impressed with the lovely and careful packaging in a pretty wooden box. 



Anjolee is a company based in California that has been in the jewelry business for 35 years.  Over the years, Anjolee’s product line has expanded and includes an extensive collection of diamond engagement rings, wedding sets, diamond bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and diamond pendants.

Their site has a neat customization feature, where you can choose a piece of jewelry, then click on lots of different options to make your piece of jewelry unique and special.  You can change the metal, carat weight, stones, size and clarity.  I had some fun playing around with these features and customizing one of their beautiful engagement rings.




I love the detail of the Art Deco Diamond Pendant Necklace that I chose.  It is dainty and different enough to be noticed.  It looks lovely with a black dress and I plan to wear it to a couple of weddings we have coming up this summer!  My piece was sterling silver and set with CZ's, and is still very sparkly and pretty.
It's nice to have an elegant piece of "grown up" jewelry to accent my dressier outfits.

And speaking of weddings, I would like to mention that the last week of June will be Wedding Week on my blog!  I just love to look at wedding themes and decor, and I thought it would be fun to dedicate a week to that on the blog. 




If you would like to participate by sharing a post about your wedding, or if you have a shop and would like to participate with a giveaway, or even if you have a wedding related tutorial to share, please contact me!  I would love to involve other bloggers and my readers as well.  Email me at theprettybee[at!]gmail.com.


**********Also, if you like jewelry, Meeling is hosting a fun summer jewelry swap on her blog!  Hop over and sign up!***********

Disclosure:  I was given this necklace as free of charge from Anjolee Jewelry prior to writing this review.  All opinions are my own. 

Best Guacamole Ever.

I found this recipe via Alicia at La Famille last month, and we've been making it this way ever since!  She uses limes, I prefer lemon juice in ours.  You could add tomato if you wanted, but I think the star here is the cilantro...it makes it taste like restaurant guacamole. Yum!

Best Guacamole

2 avocados
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 T. lemon juice
handful of cilantro
sea salt
pepper

Put everything in a bowl and smash it up!  Eat immediately.

Enjoy!

Crunchy Spiced Chickpeas...and a winner.

This is another snack that I've been making a lot lately.  It's high in protein, and it's yummy, so win/win.

Crunchy Chickpea Snack

from Everyday Food

Ingredients


1 can (19 ounces) chickpeas

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1 pinch of freshly ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon garam masala, dried oregano, or ground cumin  (I use garam masala, but I also think a sweet salty spicy combo may be good as well...cayenne, sugar and sea salt?)




Directions


1.Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Drain, rinse, and pat dry chickpeas. Toss chickpeas in a bowl with olive oil, salt, pepper, and either garam masala (an Indian blend), dried oregano, or ground cumin.

2.Arrange them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned and just beginning to crisp, about 50 minutes. (For my oven it takes a little longer, about 65 minutes.  Do not overcook, though, they can get rock hard).

Serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!




The winner of the Enjoy Life Foods giveaway is commenter #3, Gypsy Mama!  Congrats!  Email me at theprettybee[at!]gmail.com to claim your prize!

Delicate Blooms.

Darryl brought two perfect peonies in yesterday after mowing the lawn.  I took five minutes this morning to photograph them...they are so pretty, but so delicate.  I wanted to capture them before they lose any of their dainty inner petals.  I feel like peonies are my favorite right now...what about you?

Earring of the Week.

You can find these earrings right HERE.

Cuckoo for Coconut.

I have been a little bored with my food choices lately, so I've been trying new recipes.  These coconut muffins have a rich coconut flavor and a yummy streusel like top.




Coconut Muffins

adapted from Taste of Home


Ingredients
•2 cups all-purpose flour or gluten-free flour blend

•1/2 cup sugar

•3 teaspoons baking powder

•1/2 teaspoon salt

•2/3 cup rice milk

•1 egg

•1/3 cup coconut oil

•1/4 cup unsweetened flaked coconut



TOPPING:

•1/4 cup sugar

•1/4 cup flaked coconut

•1 tablespoon butter, softened


Directions

•In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, combine the milk, egg and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until combined. Fold in coconut. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.

•Combine the topping ingredients; sprinkle over batter. Bake at 400° for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm. Yield: 8 muffins.



Don't forget to enter the Enjoy Life Chewy Bars Giveaway!!

Enjoy Life Foods: Chewy Bar Giveaway!

Happy Friday!  Thank you for all the sweet comments on my home tour!  Reading them made my day!



I was recently given the opportunity to try another Enjoy Life Foods product, the Oven Baked Chewy Bars.  Although we eat a lot of different Enjoy Life products, we had never tried the chewy bars. 

These bars come in four flavors: Sunbutter Crunch, Coco Loco, Very Berry and Caramel Apple.  My son LOVED the Coco Loco and the Caramel Apple.  I love that these bars come in a one ounce portion controlled size, and are relatively low in sugar.  They are a nice snack to take along when we go for a walk in our neighborhood.  So many of the traditional granola bars have wheat as an ingredient, or are loaded with sugar, so it's hard to find a portable snack that my son can eat.  Plus they are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals.



Now for the fun part:

Enjoy Life Foods is generously giving away two boxes of the Oven Baked Chewy Bars to one of my readers!  To enter, simply leave a comment below!

For extra entries:

1. Visit Enjoy Life Foods and tell me what product you'd like to try.

2. Tweet, Facebook or blog about this giveaway!  You can use this:

Win 2 boxes of Enjoy Life Foods Chewy Bars on @theprettybee's blog:
http://www.theprettybee.blogspot.com/2012/05/enjoy-life-foods-chewy-bar-giveaway.html
@elfceo

You have three ways to enter!  Please leave a separate comment for each entry.  Giveaway ends Tuesday, May 22.  Winner will be chosen randomly and will be announced on Wednesday, May 23.


I was not compensated for this review, but I did receive the chewy bars to try for free.  All opinions are my own.