Month: July 2012

Magazine Party Balls

Remember Mark Montano from TLC? Well, now he has some great, easy DIY tutorials on youtube!  I had a friend over and we tore apart a bunch of my magazines to make some party balls.  (I have mine hanging up even without a party. lol)

Check out the video below!

I tried to find magazine pages that were similar in color.

Hot glue every other notch on alternating pages.  I didn’t listen to this at first, and the ball was not a ball at all.

Leftover scraps from cutting out the notches. Save for homemade confetti?

Mine is the orange one, and the blue one is my friend’s. I need to make more of these.

Creamy Tomato Pasta

Sorry for the hiatus! I was out of town June 25th-July 4th, and had no way of uploading anything to the blog! (And by out of town I mean, driving from the west coast all the way to the east coast!)

I have been trying to mix up my meal plan, so I’m not always eating tacos and homemade pizza. I tried a tomato-cream sauce via allrecipes.com. I changed my version slightly, because I am a lover of garlic.

Here is the recipe (with my modifications in bold):

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced 
  • 1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 2 tablespoon fresh basil leaves
  • 3/4 teaspoon white sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar (if you don’t want it too sweet.)

In a saucepan, saute onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat. Make sure it doesn’t burn. Add tomatoes, basil, sugar, oregano, salt and pepper into a blender and blend until consistency is slightly chunky. Pour blender mixture into saucepan. Bring to boil and continue to boil 5 minutes or until most of the liquid evaporates. Remove from heat; stir in whipping cream and butter. Reduce heat and simmer 5 more minutes. Add red wine vinegar, to neutralize sweetness if desired.

Pour over or toss with cooked pasta. Grade plenty of parmesan cheese and dress it up with a fresh basil leaf on top.

If you want to try the original instead click: HERE.