What I ate in Italy

Hi friends,

As most of you know, I was recently in Italy for 2 weeks visiting my family and as you do when you're in Italy, we ate our hearts out! Italian food is my all time favorite food of course, seeing as I'm Italian and my family's cooking is the best in the world (in my opinion of course) so I figured it would be fun to share some of the recipes with you that I have videos on so you can recreate them. 

If you follow my volg channel you will see in our Italy vlogs that my favorite beach lunch is a plain ole' Prosciutto and sandwich. Nothing beats the best quality crunchy Italian bread stuffed with salty thinly sliced prosciutto, seriously unbeatable! Here is a version I make when I can get my hands on some buffalo mozzarella.

Another Faaavorite lunch my nonna made for us when we weren't at the beach one day is her rice and tuna salad. This dish is definitely on my top ten favorite dishes of all time and it's beyond easy to make.

My arrival to Italy would not be the same without walking into my nonna's kitchen and smelling her AMAZING chicken and pastina cooking on the stove. This soup is my all time favorite soup and even when we go to Italy in the super hot summer months, this is the very first meal I eat. The whole time on the plane I think about my nonna's chicken soup waiting for me as soon as I get there! 

And the last recipe I will leave you with is her Jam Tart or as we call it, Crostata di Marmmellata. Something would be seriously wrong if I opened the fridge and there wasn't one of these tarts in the fridge waiting to be eaten by people at anytime weather its for dessert after our meal, a small slice for a snack with coffee or breakfast, there is always one in the fridge. I wouldn't suggest eating pies and tarts for breakfast or even snacks unless it's a special event but seeing as I only get to see and spend time with my family once a year, I go a little wild and eat everything in sight! 

Stay sweet my loves! 

What's new? Where have I been and what's going on?!

Hi my fabulous friends!

It really frustrates me to no end the fact that I haven't posted here in a while but the good news is, I'M BACK and I'm not going anywhere! So let me fill you in on what's been going on and why I've been MIA from my blog. If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, you would know that several weeks ago I was in an accident and therefore was totally out of commission for a couple weeks from pretty much everything.

I won't go into too much detail but basically I got hit in the head with a very heavy piece of wood that left me in pain and totally out of it for a while. Thankfully, we had pre-recorded some videos for Laura in the Kitchen so that's why we were still able to upload somewhat regularly. I know some people might say that writing a blog isn't hard work and therefore I should have kept writing it in that time but honestly, I was in so much pain that I slept most of the time and really didn't have anything going on whatsoever to talk about and didn't want to force a post that probably wouldn't have been any good. As soon as I felt better from that we had to go to CA to attend VidCon and so at that point it was all about work work work since I had been out of the loop for so long it felt like I got hit all at once with so much that I not only felt overwhelmed but super stressed out.

As soon as we came back from VidCon, we had one week where we were home before we left for Italy for 2 weeks so that whole week home I was a lean mean filming machine! We had lots of videos to film for LITK plus other projects I was working on so thinking about doing anything else besides that was not even an option. I have been back from Italy for 3 days now and I'm feeling caught up, refreshed, inspired and excited to get back to blogging and share with you what else I've been working on. My cooking channel is doing amazing, we just reached 650k subbies (I'm still jumping up and down with excitement) and since fall season is right around the corner, I've been a busy bee creating and writing some delicious and cozy recipes, it's going to be an amazing season especially with the Holidays!

My other channel LaurasTopics has gotten a new identity, we changed the name of that channel to TheVitales since we are now (wait for it) VLOGGERS!!! after years of hearing from all of you that you wanted to get a sneak peak into our everyday life (and therefore vlogs), we have decided to just do it! We have been uploading our Italy vlogs and after those are all caught up, we will be daily vlogging, I'm excited to share a bit more of my life with you and hopefully you enjoy them. Something else I'm absolutely THRILLED to share with you is my third channel we have recently started. Just like vlogging, I have been asked by soooo many of you for so long to start a beauty channel. I have debated this for a super long time mainly because I didn't want anyone to think I was going to quit my cooking channel or get a bad rap about my love for beauty or anything like that, but after a long debate I thought you know what, this my life and if my viewers want to see that other side of me, the girly playful side then, why not give it to them?! I love and adore cooking but I'm also a total beauty and fashion enthusiast, so much so that I have an entire room dedicated to it. The channel name is VitaleStyle, I will be doing a formal announcement video for it in the next couple days so keep an eye out for that.

What you can expect from this channel is anything and everything! From makeup tutorials to reviews, hauls, LookBooks, pretty much everything! I've already filmed a few videos for this channel and they will be going up in the next few days, we are still trying to perfect the lighting situation so If things don't look perfect right away, please bare with me as this is all new to me and learning as I go. So this is what's been going on. For those of who have been asking me everyday how I'm doing I just want to thank you so much for your love and support! I'm feeling better everyday, I'm still experiencing some pain and I still have a terrible scar on the side of my forehead so if you see that in the videos I'm sorry but I can't really do anything about it, since the skin hasn't grown back yet no makeup will stick to it. 

I hope you're excited to be seeing more of me and my love bug and in the meantime, if you haven't checked out our Italy vlogs, make sure you do so you can feel like you were there with us, we didn't do anything super crazy we mainly just go so I can spend some time with my family and it's amazing beyond words when I get the chance to do that.

Italy Vlog Part 1:

Italy Vlog part 2:

And here is my latest LITK episode in case you missed it (these are dangerously good)

Stay positive!! :)

Hair Coloring

Hi friends,

First off, I want to start this post thanking you all for the well wishes, love and support. As most of you know, I was in a little accident about a week ago. I'm healing and getting better each day, I still have a lot of head pain but I'm trying my best to heal and get back to my normal routine. Now, on to what this post is about. A couple weeks ago I dyed my hair and posted a picture on Instagram after I was done and had a ton of people ask me what I used, so that's what we're going to talk about today. I have been dying my hair for years (not the best thing to do, I know) and I must say that my hair is really healthy, shiny and strong, I don't bleach my hair so that's probably why I don't have any hair damage. I go to a professional hair salon every 3 months to get my hair professionally dyed, cut and styled, but as some of you know, that can be a bit pricey. I usually need my hair colored every 4 weeks since my roots come in pretty fast and they start to show and since I work on camera, I have to make sure I keep up with it. Since I have to dye my roots every few weeks, I do it myself because I'm doing mostly just the top half of my head so it's easy and cost effective.

 I have been using the same hair dye for about 7 years now (since I first started dying my hair black) and It's the only one I will ever use (if it ain't broke don't fix it). It's box dye and I know most people will tell me how awful it is for my hair but honestly, it works for me so I will continue to use it. The great thing about this particular color and brand is that it matches the color that my hair stylist uses perfectly so my hair doesn't look all wacky. 

This is the hair dye I use, It's by L'Oreal Paris and the color is number 20, Black Natural.

As with most hair dyes, it comes with developer, the color, shimmer serum (for a lovely shine) and deep conditioner which to be honest, I don't use.

This is usually how I look when I have hair dye on my head, an old t-shirt, I use one of my husband's old tees since it's nice and large it makes it easier to take off without getting stuck on my head. Try to refrain yourself from being jealous of how glamorous I look in this shot (I kid of course).

This is what my hair looks when It's done. I should mention the shampoo and conditioner I've been using for the past couple months, it's the Bain De Terre Color Preserving Shampoo and Conditioner. I have really been loving how shiny and strong it makes my hair feel.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this post and don't forget to leave requests to leave any request for reviews or anything else! 

Love always! 

Favorite Summer Clutches

Hi friends,

Today I wanted to share with you my favorite summer clutches that I have been carrying on a daily basis that really add a fun touch to my outfit. When It comes to buying a new bag for the season, I like to invest a bit and buy a good quality one that's pretty neutral and can go with my wardrobe for the season. I carry the same main bag all spring, summer fall or winter and I like to get a good quality one that wont break on me. But that said, when it comes to accessories and fun colored bags and clutches, I like to find good bargains because they aren't my main bag and I change them up so much that it's not worth spending hundreds of dollars on a mint clutch. Here are my favorites for this season and I can't wait to rock them in Italy! 

This off-white one is from Daily Look, I own a few clutches from there (they were having a 40 percent off your order deal one day so I took advantage of it) It's not really white, it's actually off-white. I love that it comes with a long chain so you can wear it as a little bag if I want to, I have to admit that this is a little bigger than I thought, actually, all the Daily look clutches I got are pretty large, I don't mind though, but keep it in mind. This one goes great with pretty much everything, it's a nice staple piece.

This little brown one is probably my number one favorite. It actually came with a makeup brush set from Sonia Kashuk at Target, I got the set specifically because it came with this little gem. I got it last spring though so they no longer carry it. For 20 dollars I got a set of brushes (not the best in the world, but oh well) and this adorable clutch! I wear this one constantly and I like that it's small enough to not bother me but big enough to hold my phone, keys, and small little pouch for my money and ID. 

This coral envelope style clutch is from Target, I actually got it a couple of months ago so they might still have it in stock. I manly like this and wear it often because of the color, since its very thin, I can't really put much it in it otherwise it looks bulky and I don't like that. I like wearing this one with white dresses, it's so feminine.

This last one I will leave you with is also from Daily Look, it's actually the green version of the first one I showed you. I thought this was an unusual color and love the way it really jazzez up any outfit. I wear this with black, brown, white, you name it! 

Hope this post has helped you if you were thinking of getting a couple of clutches for this season. Remember,  since it's more of an accessory and not your main bag, don't spend more than about 30 dollars for each one. If a specific place is having a big sale and they have some that you like, that's the place to get them! 

Happy shopping!