Easy baked pasta

I got this recipe many moons ago from a magazine. I've changed it a little to make it easier to make. Originally it was called Cavatelli but I think that is a certain type of pasta and I don't use that type so I will just call it baked pasta.

Easy Baked Pasta

2 cups (dry) rotini or other interesting shape pasta
1 lb ground beef or pork sausage
1 chopped onion
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can (about 14 oz I think) diced tomato
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley
1 cup shredded mozarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350°. Boil pasta as directed on package. While pasta is boiling, brown meat (and drain it), then add onion and garlic and cook until they're done (or do what I do and use 2 tbs dried minced onion and 1/2 to 1 tsp garlic powder). Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and spices. When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the meat mixture. Mix well. Add 1/2 of the cheese and mix. Put in a 2 qt baking dish (I line mine with foil because I hate soaking it for days to get all that stuck on food to come off). Cover with foil and bake at 350° for 25 minutes. Remove from oven, remove foil, and sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.

The search for sunblock

Well the summer weather has been here a while but it's just now getting really hot. I'm on my annual quest for the best sunblock again. We have to find something that won't bother sensitive skin, has no nut oils in it, won't stain our clothes, yet will protect the kids' skin. If they, God forbid, get skin cancer someday, I will at least know I did my best to protect them.

So we tried Coppertone Sport Spray spf 50, now with Avobenzone (parsol 1789 or something like that) and oxybenzone, which is supposed to be broad spectrum. It stained horribly, and I found out all sunscreens with avobenzone will stain if you have iron in your water. We have well water and even though we do have a water softener, it is not a miracle worker and iron is still in our water. So we are going to avoid anything with avobenzone in it. So that means we had to find one with a physical block like zinc oxide or titanium dioxide (both of which hopefully don't stain). Apparently avobenzone/oxybenzone, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are the only things that protect against pesky UVA rays.

I read about Rocky Mountain sunscreen on the peanutallergy.com board. I ordered samples for patch tests and everyone tolerated it well. I went ahead and bought a bunch of the spf-50 which has titanium dioxide. It's hard to apply-not nearly as easy a spray-but it will have to do (the kids can do most of their bodies by themselves). I refuse to ruin any more clothes with sunscreen stains (like I did 3 yrs or so back with Loreal Ombrelle) and I want my kids skin to be well protected. Especially since Sammy has freckles and fair skin and burns easily, and Jake has a few moles. Jenny has a couple too. The other advantage to this sunscreen (which I think is technically a sunblock) is that you don't have to wait 30 minutes before going out or in the water, plus it is very waterproof and doesn't need to be reapplied as often. They cited tests on their website where they applied once, did not reapply, and sent people out in the sun all day. No one burned. It was originally formulated for skiers who are in intense sun in the mountains.

The Rocky Mountain sunscreen has to be ordered online so I might try Blue Lizard too, if I can find it locally.

Sad week

We lost our dog this past week. :( She would have been 14 in August. She still tried to act like a puppy but was slowing down so much. Sometimes her legs would just give out, poor girl. We'd had her since she was a puppy and the kids have had her for their entire lives-she was definitely a member of the family. She was so good with the kids, always gentle. We miss her so much. Steve buried her in the yard and we are going to make a little cross and plant lots of flowers on her grave. There have been a LOT of tears this week and I'm sure there will be more.

Nothing at all

That's what I've been doing. Nothing. Well maybe something but nothing creative. I've been doing a lot of thinking about creating something. But no action.

I am going to share a couple more recipes since I've not been sharing much of anything else.

This recipe is directly from the Kraft website (is that legal? I hope so). I changed it just a little. I used the deluxe mac & cheese (with the squeezy cheese) instead of the regular. Partly because all of our regular mac & cheese are cartoon characters and just didn't seem dinner-like. The mac & cheese was the 2% variety. I also didn't put the cheese and sour cream on at the end and I left out the kidney beans because I didn't have any. My kids liked it a lot-even my picky one. And it is incredibly easy to make.

Chuckwagon Chili Mac

1 pkg. (7-1/4 oz.) KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Dinner
1 lb. extra lean ground beef
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 can (14-1/2 oz.) stewed tomatoes, undrained
1 can (16 oz.) kidney beans, drained
1/3 cup BREAKSTONE'S Reduced Fat or KNUDSEN Light Sour Cream
1/3 cup KRAFT 2% Milk Reduced Fat Sharp Cheddar Cheese

PREPARE Dinner as directed on package, using Light Preparation directions.
MEANWHILE, brown meat with chili powder and cumin in large nonstick skillet on medium heat. tomatoes with their liquid and the beans; simmer 3 min., stirring occasionally.
STIR in prepared dinner; cook 3 to 5 min. or until heated through, stirring occasionally. Top with sour cream and cheese.

The next one is a low fat bread pudding. I think you're supposed to eat sauce or something over bread pudding but this one doesn't include any sauce. I have so much bread in my freezer because no one seems to want to eat the ends (bread machine bread). I had to do something with them so I found this online and changed it a bit. It didn't use up much of my bread stash but it was good.

Low Fat Bread Pudding

4 cups bread cubes (I probably used more. I filled up my 2 qt round casserole somewhat level with large (1" or so) cubes, not pressed down).
1.5 cups applesauce
2 eggs or use 1/2 cup egg beaters
2 cups 1% milk (I didn't have 1% so I used half skim and half 2%. That averages to 1%)
1/3 cup sugar (it could have used more sugar, in my opinion)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg (I buy whole ones from penzeys and grate only the amt I need)

Heat oven to 350°. Mix bread cubes with applesauce. Put in greased casserole dish. In a bowl, mix remaining ingredients with a whisk. Pour over bread cubes. Let sit 10 minutes. Bake at 350° for 40-50 minutes. If you don't want the top crispy you can put foil on it and then take it off the last 10-15 min. It still stuck to the dish so next time I might line it with foil first.

more ribbon-ack!

I was looking for something today and found 26 more rolls and 4 more loose lengths of ribbon. I hope I don't find anymore or I won't be able to fit it all in the basket!

On another note I have been cleaning out my craft room and hopefully can get some pictures taken soon. I still need to paint my desks (stamping and sewing) but that might take a while. I have decided that I have to make at least 2 cards from every new set I've bought this year so far so I'll be busy with that. I'm also going to go through my older sets and get rid of a lot of them. I have a hard time parting with older sets but they have to go!

Stampin Up demos got to see the new demo magazine today. There are going to be some amazing things in the new catalog! Some sneak peeks are...(don't read further if you don't want to know)...




scalloped punches
other new punches
chipboard clipboards
paper flowers (in a kit)
and of course, new ribbon (which I am NOT buying! I'm NOT!!)
and more!!

Ribbon storage

I've been working on a top secret project, so that's why I haven't been doing much else. I'll post about that eventually but not for a while. I did almost finish one curtain top so I'll post that when it's done. The last couple of days I've been working on getting all of my ribbon stored in one place. Before, I had it stored in no less than 4 different places. I didn't even remember all the ribbon I had because I couldn't look at all of it at once. I tried several different methods but none worked. Either it didn't all fit, or it wasn't practical (aka easy to get at). I saw this idea on the 2peas message board so I thought I'd give it a try. ALL of my ribbon (except for my doodlebug ric rac and all of the pieces of ribbon shorter than 15" or so) is on these cards. The cards are made from foam core board and the ribbon is wrapped around and then pinned to the card. I bought a pack of 300 pins to do this project and it wasn't enough. I have too much ribbon. My only beef with this method is that my ribbon might get more creases in it due to being around the foam core. If that happens I can use my chi (straight iron) to smooth it or if it's sensitive to heat I can use a warm-ish iron or my little mini iron (that I had to have but never even use). Here's a pic of it. I sorted it all according to the rainbow with the brown/black/gray/metallic/white/cream in the back along with the multicolor stuff. I put it in a cute basket I bought at Alco.

So...anyone have any ideas for using up lots of ribbon?

New blog to share

Since I have nothing else to share I'll share this site I found. I have been working on my stuff, but only sporadically. We had a pretty busy week. We did go shopping yesterday which was nice-the kids all behaved pretty well, considering. We went to find dance shoes for Sammy. We didn't find any-the store didn't have the right color ballet shoes and they didn't have the right size tap shoes. Suprisingly Sammy didn't cry-she was really looking forward to getting those shoes. Maybe it was because she got a brand new Arielle swimsuit from the disney store, complete with matching towel. She's been wearing that suit since we got home yesterday and no, we don't have a pool set up. She has barely even been outside. She just simply loves the suit. I also got a new swivel sweeper, which works great.

Anyway I wanted to share this blog. I found it a long time ago through an email or something, and downloaded one of the free patterns. I never really explored it much and never went back to it until tonight, when I was looking for the address for someone else. After looking through the tutorials and a few of the posts I bookmarked it. The lady who owns this blog designs fabric for Free Spirit Fabrics. She has some really cute pincushion patterns in the current issue of Quilts and More that I'm going to try to make. Here is the site: Heather Bailey Designs. Once I'm allowed to buy fabric again, I think I'm going to get some of her Fresh Cut line.