This truly is one of Champagnes best kept secrets. Baby, she is good, real good. As far as the tasting notes go, you get TOAST. Also, there are buttery flavors with a fine biscuity finish. To really tempt your taster, you get a mixture of 70% Pinot Noir, 20% Chardonnay, and 10% Pinot Meunier. Y.U.M. Try pairing this juice with any seafood or white meats. Ok, have this fizz with anything! Serve this at your next special event and we guarantee your guests will be buzzing like bees. If you play your cards right you can find this bottle for around $33 but be prepared to pay upwards to $50. No matter what the price, this stuff is SO worth it. Enjoy.

The potter who makes this piece has an online store called Utile Mud on Etsy. She has a variety of colorful pieces. We’re also in love with her orange and green/blue bowls. If you enjoy unique and affordable pottery, we highly recommend Utile Mud.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 cup tequila (recommended: Sauza Hornitos)
• 1/2 cup orange liquer (recommended: Grand Marnier)
• 3 cups ice
• Kosher salt

Preparation

1. Make a simple syrup by adding the water and sugar to a small sauce pan. Warm the mixture until the sugar is dissolved and set aside to completely cool.
2. Combine ice, orange juice, lime juice, tequila, orange liqueur and 3 tablespoons of simple syrup in a blender. Mix until smooth.
3. Dip the rim of each glass in simple syrup and then dip into kosher salt.
4. Fill the glasses, garnish with a wheel of orange or lime and enjoy!

Alice learned of this folk art from women she met while traveling in South Africa and now produces these votives near her home in Los Angeles. You can find Alice’s products at her Etsy shop where she sells sets of 6 for $24.

The dressing is first heated over the stove and reduced so that it thickens. The salad greens are then tossed in the warm dressing, causing them to wilt just slightly to make this a very delicate and decadent salad. Because these fresh ingredients are also inexpensive, your focus can stay on having fun with your guests and not on your wallet.

This recipe serves four. If you would like to turn it into a meal, the salad pairs nicely with our recipe for Citrus Roasted Shrimp.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound fresh spinach
• 1/2 pound fresh arugula
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 2 garlic cloves
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Pinch of kosher salt
• 3 strips of turkey bacon
• 1 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh rosemary

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly oil a baking sheet with non-fat cooking spray and place the turkey bacon on the tray. The bacon needs to get crispy so bake it for approximately 12 minutes. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn. After removing it from the oven, let it cool. In the meantime, do the following steps.
2. Over low-medium heat in a small saucepan add the balsamic vinegar and orange juice.
3. Loosen the papery skin from two garlic cloves by crushing them with the flat side of a chef’s knife using the heel of your hand (be careful!). Remove the skins and add the cloves to the saucepan. The crushed cloves will infuse the balsamic without overdoing it.
4. Bring the balsamic mixture to a simmer and allow it to reduce by half.
5. Wash the spinach and arugula. We like to drop the greens into a large bowl filled with cold water to allow all the dirt and sand drop to the bottom of the bowl. Let the greens stand in the bowl for about 5 minutes and then pat dry on a bed of paper towels. Once the leaves have dried a bit, add them to a large serving bowl. If the arugula leaves are fairly large, you may want to roughly chop them first.
6. Take a few sprigs of rosemary, remove the leaves and roughly chop. Add to the serving bowl.
7. Once the balsamic mixture has reduced, pour into a small mixing bowl. Discard the garlic cloves. Add a pinch of kosher salt and olive oil. Whisk vigorously and immediately pour over the greens.
8. Toss the greens in the dressing until all the leaves are coated.
9. Roughly chop the bacon into bite sized pieces and sprinkle over the top.

For extra credit, serve with a few sprinkles of crumbled feta cheese.

For this recipe we’re happy to save prep time by visiting the freezer section for raw deveined shrimp. We like buying them fresh as well, and if you do we recommend having the fishmonger remove the shells and devein them for you. This recipe calls for approximately 21-26 shrimp.

If you’re serving the shrimp as part of an entree, perhaps with rice or tossed salad greens, this will serve four.

Ingredients

• 21-26 shrimp (shells removed and deveined)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Zest of 1 lime
• Zest of 1/2 orange
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 garlic clove (minced or grated through a microplane)
• 1 teaspoon of kosher salt

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Pile your shrimp onto a baking sheet
3. Add olive oil through garlic to the baking sheet
4. Toss the shrimp with the ingredients
5. Position shrimp in one even layer on the baking sheet
6. Sprinkle kosher salt over the shrimp
7. Bake for approximately 5 to 7 minutes

Keep an eye on the shrimp as they tend to have a quick cook time. The shrimp should be pink and just slightly firm to the touch when they’re done cooking.

The strawberry samba is our flavour of choice, but all of the versions available for purchase are excellent. Plus, the berries come from the protected Amazon Rainforest. Feeling good about your smoothie is always an added bonus. Right? Sambazon is available at Whole Foods, Spec’s and selected Fiesta stores… Drink up !

We’re just going to say it: this is one of the best ideas we’ve ever heard of. Bookmarking recipes from websites and occasionally printing them is sort of the norm here at Glossy Luxe HQ, but there’s something really exciting about pulling all of our favorite recipes into a gorgeous cookbook. Considering the price of a Taste Book is similar to the price you might pay for a cookbook at a bookstore, we think the amount of customization available to you makes it an incredible value.

The photography and the recipes from the Taste Book partners are top notch, and you’re even given the option of adding your own dedication page (one of the reason’s why you can rock the sentimentality with a mother’s day gift). The books are actually expandable binders so that you can supplement with additional recipes as well as extract one to use while you’re cooking.

If you choose to add your own recipes, you can decide to make them public to other registered users of Taste Book. Public recipes can be added to the book you create. Of course, you could also save time by purchasing one of the cookbook themes
already filled with recipes on Taste Book. With options like Healthy Dinners, Eating Well on a Budget and Five Ingredients or Less you can’t go wrong.

If you create a Taste Book and make it public let us know and we’ll feature it on Glossy Luxe!

Anne Burrell debuted on Food Network last year with a batch of episodes that explored ways of creating restaurant caliber meals at home. Her philosophy: you don’t have to be a restaurant chef to cook like one. Anne covered a lot of territory in her first season with recipes for Wild Mushroom Risotto, Herb Roasted Chicken and a Mixed Green Salad with Parmigiano Crisps. Anne makes all of this look so easy and we discovered that not only do we love her food, we also love HER.

Here’s why:

1. Anne is a chef with impressive credentials. Her resume includes executive chef work at several New York restaurants, including Centro Vinoteca and Gusto Ristorante e Bar Americano. She taught for several years at the Culinary Institute of America (you know, the place where chefs teach people how to become chefs). And she also had a run as Mario Batali’s sous chef on Iron Chef America on Food Network.
2. If you want to improve your skills in the kitchen, Anne’s your girl. She has a relatable teaching style and effortlessly simplifies complex steps. For example, when making Herb Roasted Chicken she easily breaks down the steps necessary to truss the chicken.
3. And let’s be honest, one of the big reasons we love her is that she’s a little bit crazy. There’s dancing, there’s enthusiastic tasting of the food, you’ll often hear grunting and the occasional self-gratulatory exclamation of “Suh-pah-stah!!” when she’s really rocking her recipes. Anne is quotable, loves her cooking and is not afraid.
4. She uses great tools in the kitchen and not all of them are expensive or fancy. For example, she nimbly works potatoes through a food mill for her Garlic Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes recipe. A food mill is not an expensive tool and makes you realize you don’t have to invest in costly gadgets to cook like a restaurant chef.
5. Of course, most importantly, her food tastes great!