Lora's Beauty Website


For handcrafted soap visit the online store or the Etsy Store!

Lora's artisan soaps, an affordable luxury.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Grab Your Mobile Devices We're Having A Celebration SALE!

According to the latest statistics, people are accessing the internet by mobile devices over 70% of the time. Having a website that doesn't look perfect on a mobile device today means you could be missing a lot of sales!

Do me a favor, pick up your phone (if you're not on it already) and go to www.lorasbeauty.com. This week I worked on bringing the Lora's Beauty website into the mobile world! You could always access it via a mobile device however it wasn't pretty. You might have needed to scroll or zoom in. That is all fixed now though!

Not only that, I tested it using Google's Test My Site application. It should load under 5 seconds if connected via a 3G connection. Those areas with faster networks should load quicker.

I know, this is all pretty geeky-boring stuff, but it was on my to-do list for a couple years so I'm thrilled to have it done and working so nicely. In fact, I'm so thrilled of this accomplishment that Lora's Beauty is having a SALE!

Now through Labor Day (September 5) order $25 or more from Lora's Beauty and receive $5 off (discount will be taken automatically)! That's a free bar of fresh-from-the-goat goats' milk soap! We've restocked the store and are ready to celebrate so grab your phone, tablet, or even your laptop and place an order today.

Don't forget, Lora's Beauty offers Free Shipping in the US on orders $30 or more!

Friday, August 11, 2017

Grilled Pizza

What's a person to do when it's hot out, you don't have air conditioning, and it's PIZZA NIGHT!? It's like the perfect storm, right? Lucky for you, I have a workaround to this vexing issue: grilled pizza.

Although I had heard of people grilling pizza before, it still wasn't an easy decision to grill our homemade pizza. If it didn't work pizza night would be ruined and there's no coming back from a ruined pizza night. Disappointment would be lasting.

None the less, I maintained a positive-can-do attitude and did not show any doubts as I boldly laid our homemade pizza on the George Foreman grill confidently reassuring everyone that it would work; no problem, the internet never lies!

As it turns out, at least in this case, the internet didn't lie! You can grill a pizza, although oven cooking it is still our preferred method.

To grill our pizza, I set my George Foreman grill to the highest setting (5) and let it heat up for about 3 minutes.  I then placed the pie on parchment paper directly on the grill.

I cooked it covered on the grill for about 30 - 40 minutes until the toppings were well done and the dough was fully cooked.

The bottom of the pie looked beautiful and had a nice crunch to it, as though it was cooked on an open fire.

Grill cooking doesn't get the pepperoni crispy and oily which, let's face it, if you're putting pepperoni on your pizza, you want it crispy and oily!  However, if the choice is heating up an oven on a hot day or non-crispy pepperoni, I'll take the latter (notice forgoing pizza altogether was not an option!)

Click here for my pizza dough recipe.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Another Kitchen Gadget: Ice Cream Maker!

Last weekend was the Home and Patio Sale! I sold all the furniture except the two coffee tables which I'll list on craigslist. Best of all, a lot of furniture was saved from the landfill and (hopefully) will still be used for years to come.

I also sold quite a bit of soap and once the weather cools down I'll need to replenish my stock of Peppermint Ice and Cinnamon and Honey goats' milk soap!

Now, on to more important things, like ice cream!

Fourth of July came and went this year with little fan-fare around our home. Since the holiday fell on a Tuesday it meant work on Monday, holiday Tuesday, and work on Wednesday.

None the less, I thought I should do something for the holiday, after all, I did have the day off! Well that something led me to searching ice cream makers which in turn led me to this attachment for my KitchenAid mixer.



I'm always amazed at the versatility of the KitchenAid mixer and this attachment did not disappoint. The most important thing about this attachment and how it's different from the many other KitchenAid attachments, is the bowl HAS TO be put in the freezer for AT LEAST 15 hours.

Notice, I capitalized and italicized those key words? That's because I bought my attachment July 4th afternoon with hopes of having homemade ice cream for Fourth of July night. I went so far as to read the instructions and felt they were obviously written for someone else so I only froze my bowl for about six hours. Let's just say, we topped our ice cream with some chocolate wine and drank it that night (still yummy and would have been good with our homemade nocino as well!)

Since that night we've made plenty of homemade ice cream that came out great. I've experimented with several recipes to find one that's awesome tasting but still not completely laden with high-fat cream and I think I've finally landed on one.

So here it is, my first ORIGINAL (you won't find this anywhere else) recipe!

Low Fat Homemade Ice Cream

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups plain non-fat yogurt (not Greek just the original kind)
  • 1 cup low-fat coconut milk (I used the kind in a can)
  • 1 cup non-fat evaporated milk
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • Any and all kind of toppings you can think of!
Directions:
  • Mix sugar, yogurt, evaporated milk, and coconut milk together in separate bowl.
  • Chop up toppings.  I've used fresh mint, chocolate chips, walnuts, blueberries, mango, coconut, and yes, even Fruity Dino Bytes cereal.
  • Add ingredients to ice cream maker and immediately start churning for 15-30 minutes until preferred ice cream consistency.
Makes about 1 - 1 1/2 quarts. 

After making ice cream, clean the bowl and store it in your freezer so it will always be ready for the next batch! Also, if your ice cream tends to get super hard in your freezer and you end up bending spoons to get it out of the container, an easy hack is to store the container in a plastic bag, remove all the air from the bag, then place it in the freezer. 

This attachment works good on all versions of KitchenAid mixers; the kind where the head lifts back and the kind where the bowl lifts up.

Summer won't last forever so start making ice cream today!