All Natural DIY Anti-Acne Facial Mask

My skin hasn't been the best lately.  I think it's largely due to my undisciplined diet with too much chocolate and coffee.  I also haven't been sleeping well, so little bumps have found their way on my face.  I searched around to find a good DIY natural facial mask to battle the tiny zits and discovered this recipe from Danielle Beauty Bliss' YouTube channel.  I'll have the video linked below.

Things you'll need:
1. Apple Cider Vinegar
2. Baking soda
3. Lemon
4. Cotton balls
5. Measuring spoons

Step 1: Measure out 2 teaspoons of Apple cider vinegar

Step 2: Squeeze in a little bit of lemon droplets (4-5 drops)

Step 3: Add in 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

It'll star to bubble b/c of the acidity in the bowl

Make sure everything is mixed well...

Step 4: Get some cotton balls and dip them in your mixture.  Then apply gently all over your face.

WARNING: Please avoid the area around your eyes.  It'll sting.  The mixture is rather liquidy, so I usually apply it on my face while I'm standing by a sink.  I leave the mixture on my face for about 10-12 minutes.  After it dries, I wash it off with warm water.

After you wash off your mask, your face should feel very clean.  However, my personal experience is that the mixture does make my face feel pretty dry.  So, I usually apply aloe (which I have in a pot...100% natural) and moisturizer right after I wash off the mask and dry my face.

Here's my aloe plant.  I normally just cut off one small strand and it's enough for my face.  

This all natural DIY mask has worked really well for me, especially in getting rid of pimples and zits.  I am not a dermatologist or a physician, so please make sure that you test out all the ingredients on your hands first to make sure that you don't have any allergic reactions, before you put the mixture on your face.  

Lastly, if you would like to see a YouTube video on this, here is Danielle.  I got the recipe from her channel:

Take care! Happy Holidays!!

Raspberry Cheesecakes

Feeling the afternoon lull? We are way past hump day! The weekend is almost here and then CHRISTMAS IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER!!

Hope these raspberry cheesecakes will cheer you up! :)

Happy Thursday, everyone! Follow me on Twitter @bumbeepicks

Come Make Cake & Brownie Pops with Me!!!

Happy Wednesday!  It's that time of the year where everyone has tons of Christmas parties to attend-- with friends, family, and co-workers.  Sometimes it's nice to bring a little cheerful treat.  So, I will show you today how I made my cake & brownie pops.

I got the recipe from divascancook.com.  You can find more detailed directions from her website: Divas Can Cook .  I love all her recipes and I watch her on YouTube, so I definitely want to give credits where they are due.  This took me a little over an hour to make, a little longer than expected, because I was tying up the ribbons and trying to make them look nice.

Ingredients:
- Chocolate cake (box cakes are fine)
- Brownie from a box
- Chocolate frosting
- 2 Boxes of Baker's white and dark chocolate, the kind that you can use to dip and cover strawberries
- Cake pop sticks (I got these at Party City)
- Sprinkles

Instructions:

Make your cake according to the instructions on the box

I had way too much cake, so I made the excess batter into cupcakes

Crumble up your cake batter until they look like bread crumbs.  Then add in chocolate frosting a little bit at a time just to "glue" the crumbs together.  The point is to make the batter moist and easy to roll into tiny balls.  You don't want the balls to be too big, otherwise they will slide off the sticks later. (Sorry I forgot to take a picture here).

After the batter has been divided up and rolled into balls, put them in the fridge to let them harden a little while you melt the white chocolate.

After the white chocolate has been melted, dip the tips of the cake pop sticks into the white chocolate.  The dipped white chocolate will act as the "glue" to make sure that the cake will stay on the cake pops and not slide off.

Once the cake pop sticks have been dipped, take out the cake balls from the fridge and immediately insert the sticks into the cake balls about half way to secure them.

Put the cake pops into the freezer for about half an hour.

Melt more white chocolate in a cup while the cake pops freeze.

Take the cake pops out from the freezer after 30 minutes. Now submerge and dip the cake balls entirely into your cup with the melted white chocolate.

Make sure that the cake ball is completely covered.  If not, REDIP!

Now that the cake balls are entirely covered, you can decorate them with sprinkles!  Please do this step relatively quickly because the white chocolate will start to harden and the sprinkles won't stick on as well.

Stick the finished cake pops in a box.  I just pop some holes on top of an old shoe box.

Put the finished cake pops back into the freezer for at least another half hour.  I think I actually left them inside for a full hour.

While the cake pops are in the freezer, we can now move on to the brownie pops!  Bake your brownie according to the direction on the box.  When finished, roll the brownie into little balls like the cake balls earlier.  This time, I am using the dark chocolate from Baker's instead.  Repeat the same steps from above regarding dipping your sticks and inserting them into the brownie balls.

Now cover your brownie in MELTED DARK CHOCOLATE before drizzling meted white chocolate to decorate them.

Ta da!!

Now put the brownie pops on a shoe box and trade with the cake pops from the freezer.
Take them out after you are done freezing them and wrap them individually!

There you have it!  Cute and pretty brownie & cake pops.  Don't forget to follow me on twitter @bumbeepicks.  Until then, merry Christmas everybody!!

~ Bumbee

Burger Dinner!!

This is an interim post, because I did want to have a whole entry on my cake pops. :)  However, yesterday, hubby pulled a spontaneous burger dinner.  Since he rarely cooks during the week, I thought it was blog worthy!

I'm not a huge meat person, so we only had 1lb of ground beef.  He added two eggs, some scallion that I grew in our living room (see previous post here: http://bumbeepicks.blogspot.com/2012/07/regrowth-revisited-scallion-pancakes.html), and some leftover white mushrooms that I was going to use for spaghetti.

They looked quite disgusting to me, but I was told that for people who love meat, they'd find these succulent patties delicious. 

It's quite colorful!

He added a lot of seasoning and spices...

Since we don't store up burger buns in this Asian household, we had to eat them on regular bread.  See the mini one on the right? That was mine! :)  It was actually VERY VERY yummy!!  Just like how they looked, the meat was very juicy, even though mine was very well-done.

For the "health conscious" readers:

Health content: Well, it wasn't the healthiest meal we've ever had, but for a burger, it wasn't too bad.  When he cooked the patties, he didn't use any extra oil.  The Green Wise ground beef was 93% lean and everything else added was organically grown.  The bread on the bottom was whole grain.  So, it wasn't TOOOOOOOO bad per se.  I did actually bother to count the calories for each patty.  I had two of the little ones in the back and those added up to be about 600 calories.  I also had one buffalo chicken drumstick as well, so my dinner came out to be about 800 calories altogether, which was originally shocking, but luckily I had already burned off 650 calories earlier in the day walking 5 miles and doing an hour of BodyCombat cardio kickoxing.  So, overall, it was a fabulous eating/exercising day!

Regrowth Revisited & Scallion Pancakes!

A little over a week ago, I tried (for the first time) to grow my own green onion / scallion.  I wanted to do an experiment to see which environment would be best for my scallion.  I put some roots in just plain water & a jar, and the rest in a clay pot with Miracle Growth that hubby bought from Home Depot.

To my amazement, the ones in water are doing SO MUCH better!

Picture above: This was a little bit over a week ago.  And now...

Isn't that amazing??  I hardly did anything to care for them.  Reminds me of Matthew 6:28-30 where Jesus said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ...But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you..."  It's so true!  I didn't do anything to cause the growth, but to just throw the roots in water.  Look how they grew!!

Now, let's take a look at the ones in SOIL.  It's quite ironic...

They definitely did not grow as tall or as quickly as the ones in water.  Now, let's see them together...

The ones in water are clearly doing better.  I started several other little jars.  So excited this experiment worked!!

You may be wondering, what should I do with all that scallion even if it really is that easy to grow? Let me show you an easy scallion pancake recipe!!


MAKING MINI SCALLION PANCAKES 葱油饼 FROM DUMPLING WRAPPERS


Scallion pancake is a very common Chinese dish that can be eaten for any meal.  Some are doughy and some are flaky.  I usually prefer the flaky type, but those are typically very unhealthy because they are deep fried.

My mini scallion pancakes are actually made from dumpling wrappers.  I was making dumplings the other day, but didn't end up using all the wrappers that came in the package.  Throwing them away felt too wasteful to me, and it was too hot to throw them into a soup.  So, instead, I made them into scallion pancakes!

Step #1: You will need two dumpling wrappers for each scallion pancake.  So, make sure you have enough wrappers.  I happened to have 8 left. :) Yay!

Step #2: Chop up some green onion / scallion.

Step #3: (optional) You can put the scallion between the dumpling wrappers first.

Step #4 (optional) Then use a rolling pin to flatten and expand the sealed wrappers.

Step #5: If you are lazy and short on time, you can skip steps 3 and 4 and go straight here.  Heat up your pan and oil.  The interesting caveat about Chinese cooking is that there is no recipe.  Real good Chinese chefs don't use recipes, or so I was told.  Therefore, I am not really sure how much oil you should use.  I kind of just drizzled it in the pan. :)

Step #6: If you want to skip steps #3 and #4, then just put down the wrappers one at a time without the scallion.

The problem I found was that I had to work quickly before the sides started curling up.  

Step #7: Add in some eggs and scallions on top of the wrappers that are in the pan.

Step #8: Then seal the egg & scallion by putting another wrapper on.  I forgot to take a picture; still not very good at cooking while taking pictures.  Basically you want to drizzle the egg on and scatter the scallion before adding the top wrapper.

Step #9: And... ta da!! Here it is!

And now you can grow your own scallion & make scallion pancakes with leftover dumpling wrappers. :)

Next Post: CAKE POPS!!