.Crafty Crafty.

This was A LOT of fun.

The concept is that you take and hot glue crayons onto a white canvas and then with a blow dryer you melt them and they drip. I like the messy look of the colorful wax dripping down the canvas.

Here is what I did wrong:

I peeled the paper of the crayons thinking it would look better but not realizing that with a blow dryer there isn't direct heat so the wax was spraying everywhere when I started to try and melt the crayons. If I had left the paper on, the paper would have funneled the wax down as it melted.

That's why in the picture above you see me using a blow torch thingy. It's my father-in-law's. He has lots of cool little things like that.

Second, I used a lot of dark colors. It would have looked a lot cooler if I had used brighter colors. I am going to do it again on a smaller canvas with brighter colors.

bottom line...it was fun. I'm sure you can get crazy with it but for the most part....well it was just fun.

I'm not sure if I should post the finished product....I wasn't a huge fan of what it looked like because the dark colors just sort of ran together.

Let me know how yours turns out if you make one!

.dinner LAST night.

Yum. I was in charge of dinner last night because mama helton was workin late. Here's what was on the menu...

Stuffed Shells with meat sauce
Caesar salad
Rosemary rolls
Home made brownies and ice cream


Want the recipe's? I took some pictures. Mind you, they were awful because my good camera is in storage and the lighting in the kitchen is no bueno. But that's just an excuse.

The meat sauce came from the lovely Pioneer woman. I changed nothin' about it. Its great.

The shells I adapted from a basic stuffed shells recipe. I personally do not like ricotta cheese. I think its bland and has a gritty texture. So I added a twist to mine that gives it some flava flave and really makes them POP!

 So we have here, fresh basil, onion, garlic, canned fire roasted tomato's, goat cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, ricotta cheese, parm cheese, italian sausage, red wine...must have....and jumbo pasta shells.

Get your sauce going first...the longer it cooks, the better it will taste.

*tip, use canola oil to saute with instead of olive. Chef Robert, in a coking class I took awhile back explained that olive oil burns at a lower temperature then canola oil, so you end up having to use more of it and well frankly its expensive. Food network uses olive oil all day long.( probably because they are getting paid to) But most likely in a real restaurant, they are sauteing your food with canola oil. You can't taste either one in the finished product.(and if you think you can I would like to challenge you.) Its one thing to finish off your dish with a dash of olive oil another to cook with it...do what you want with it (:

Saute - means to jump in french. So you want your pan hot when you drop in the goods.

Get a tablespoon or two of oil heating up in your pan. while that's going chop your onion( I have a tutorial on chopping later. Trust me its worth it. When I was shown how to properly chop an onion it was revolutionary.)

when the oil first starts to smoke, its ready for your onion. Drop it in and hear it sizzle.

Then chop up your garlic. I like to use a garlic twist when I want the garlic really fine and keep all the juices with it, but it's in storage.

Add the garlic once the onion is translucent and fragrant. All the garlic needs is a minute. You will start to smell it, that's when you add your sausage.

I didn't get a picture of every step, sorry. Basically you want to cook this till its nice and brown. No need to drain the fat. After about 10 minutes or so it'll be time to add the red wine and this is what really brings the flavor.

(So blurry, please forgive me.)

Let that cook down a little bit, then pour in your tomatoes. Add salt, pepper, and sugar to taste and then leave it alone for 30+ minutes. 

I guess you should stir it every once in awhile.

oh it smells so good....

.lets move on to the shells.

Get your water boilin' and the oven preheating to 350....hopefully by the time you finish all this stuffing, your sauce will be ready.

Its time to chop up some basil. Use fresh, its worth it. I have tried growing basil 3 times and I kill it. A green thumb is something I did not inherit from my mother.

This is how you chop it. Roll up as much as you can and slice away. I used the whole package. Because its so dang good I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't.

Now we gotta make the filling. I left out up top that I used an egg. Don't forget cause you need it.

I added the goat cheese because it adds a really great level of flavor. Using the whole brick does not over power the flavor at all, but i'm sure that has to do with using a whole brick of cream cheese as well. I add almost but not all of a container of ricotta as a filler. The other cheese's cover it up enough that you don't really taste it. The cottage cheese was a fluke. I bought it forgetting that I use it in lasagna not stuffed shells. Oops. I added some anyway(:

(yum)

Add salt and pepper, I added some red pepper but the papa helton didn't like it. I also added "Italian seasoning" because its yummy and I use it a lot in everything.

You want to only boil your shells for HALF the cooking time. Like 6 mins. Because its going to bake in the oven for 30 mins. 

Cook em'. Drain em'. Cool em'.

Its time to stuff! I filled up 2 9x13 baking dishes. If you want, after you stuff them and cover them in sauce you could probably seal it up pretty good and stuff one in the freezer. Or maybe take it to your sick neighbor. yum. Wouldn't that be a good neighbor to have? Some one who brought you food when they made to much?

I like having left overs so I made them both.

(big heaping spoon. over stuff it. it's worth it.)

By now your sauce should be done. USE IT ALL. cover up those puppies. Then, cover them in freshly shredded parmesan cheese and pop them in the oven for 25-30 until nice and bubbly!

(bottom rack so they don't burn)

I made caesar salad and rolls to go with. The caesar salad was from a "salad kit' at the grocery store. it included the dressing, croutons, and cheese (: and the rolls were frozen in a tray. I put pats of butter, rosemary and a little sea salt on them...delish. Don't hate, who has time to make caesar salad and rolls fresh?

(this is as good as it gets. I had hungry people to feed.)

oh and here is a treat for later. I'll post this recipe sometime later today.

Recipes and References:

Meat Sauce:

 (I doubled Pioneer Womans)

1lbs of Italian Sausage

1 medium white onion, diced

4 large garlic cloves, diced

2 C of red wine ( you can buy cooking wine in the dressing isle for 3 bucks)

4 14.5 cans of fire roasted tomatoes

1 tbls. brown sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Heat a few tbs. of oil in a large frying or saute pan. When its smoking drop in your diced onion and saute until translucent and fragrant.Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add sausage and cook until brown, about 10 minutes. When sausage is done, pour in the red wine and allow it to simmer and bubble for a few minutes. Then add tomatoes and seasoning and simmer for 30 minutes or more.

Shells

1 package of jumbo shells (11 0z? it was the only package at walmart)

12 oz cream cheese

10 oz goat cheese( maybe 12? there are two different sizes at the store. I bought the largest. Sam's Club has it cheaper.)

12 oz ricotta 

1 cup of grated parmesan

1 cup of chopped basil

1 egg

seasoning to taste

Boil water. Add shells and cook for half the cooking time that the package directs.( usually 6 minutes). Drain and cool until ready to stuff.

Mix all the cheese's, chopped basil, spice's, and egg and mix to completed blended. 

Spread a little sauce done on your baking dish so they don't stick. Stuff the shells and place them open side down into the pan. Cover with sauce and top with grated parmesan. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes until hot and bubbly all the way through.

Stuffed Shells 

Jumbo package of shells (11 or 12 oz. there was only one size at walmart)

.this is the first post.

I have no followers. Maybe someday, but I am ok with that. This is an attempt to record and document recipes. I got tired of handwriting recipes down for people  when ever they wanted it. Now, i can simply refer them to my blog, unless of course its grandma and then I will write it on paper in the prettiest form I can.

First I must give credit for the blog name to Rebecca Gray, childhood friend. She was always the clever and wittiest of us kids. Now she is going to be a lawyer and a great one at that I am sure. I had no doubts she would achieve her dream. Super hot lawyer wife, bringing in the big dough, and someday juggling kids straight out of a j crew magazine. I can not wait (:

Now, let's get this straight. Don't expect perfect punctuation. I am not here to write and publish a book. I am here to share with the world my ideas about cooking, and sometimes art. I was an art major in college not an English major.( Blythe can attest to how awful I was at "Words" last night.)

Anyway, I am here to give credit where credit is due. I am not one of those people who posts a recipe as my own when really I got the idea from a friend or fellow blogger. Nay nay. Cooking is about sharing ideas and enjoying the food you put on the table. If no one gave the knowledge that they had about cooking, where would we be?

My recipes and the modifications that I make to my cooking are geared towards my family and myself. I rarely measure, however I will do my best to give you an idea of how much. I love photography, and will take pictures whenever possible. But lets be honest, the reason I have not started a blog in the first place is because I don't like taking them time to do it. Soooooo we will see how detailed these posts get.

I realize that I am not the first person to do this. I also realize that there are people out there looking to make tasty things in the kitchen and I would like to contribute to helping them. Anyone that can read can cook following a recipe, and anyone that can smell can cook with their nose. It just takes patience. Something I didn't really have till college, which is when I first started being creative in the kitchen. I realized like everything else, cooking can be a blank canvas waiting to be painted on. So cut yourself some slack, stock up on the goods and try try again. You might burn, over salt, and down right ruin some things. But if you never attempt to do that, then you will never experience the joy when it finally comes out just the way you want it to.

Good luck(: now lets get down to the good stuff.

steph