Doin' Some Cooking... Farfalle with Roasted Red Pepper Garlic Sauce

A well stocked pantry is not something I ever have. In fact, making dinner most nights feels like an episode of Chopped. Trying to do my best Ted Allen impression here, "... open your baskets... Cap'n Crunch... canned tuna... and pickled horseradish..."

Imagine my surprise when I come across a recipe and have all of the ingredients on hand, let alone some odd ball item like, red curry paste or kale broccoli pesto. Yea, I'm a sucker for newly stocked items on the shelves of Whole Foods. 

Maybe to some roasted red peppers are a pantry staple. If I had them in my pantry of randomness I'm sure you'll have them in yours too to put together this easy weeknight dinner. 

Farfalle with Roasted Red Pepper Garlic Sauce

Adapted from: Debbi Does Dinner... Healthy & Low Calorie 

Makes 2 Servings

Stars of the Show:

• 2 cups dry pasta of choice
• 1 cup roasted red peppers, rough chopped
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• pizza seasoning or Italian seasoning
• fresh basil leaves, to taste
• 1 tbsp olive oil

And Action:

Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta cooks, heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Add roasted red peppers, garlic, and pizza seasoning. Cook until heated through then add basil leaves.

Once pasta is done cooking, drain, and serve the red pepper garlic sauce over the noodles.

Doin' Art and Gift Giving... Melted Crayon Art Canvas

Crayons affixed to a canvas and melted down. Sounds easy enough, however, I was sorely mistaken.

Let's rewind. I am NOT! artistic. My 6 year old has talents far better than mine. I am not one to dream up an idea or freehand anything. I'm a girl that needs a blueprint and a guaranteed end result.

I've seen these melted crayon art projects on the Internet for a while now but the go to rainbow of Crayolas just doesn't cut it for me. 

A couple lazy Sundays ago I was watching football and the Dallas Cowboys were playing. All of a sudden a light bulb went off and I put the two ideas together. With an important birthday coming up and this person's love of the Dallas Cowboys I envisioned a melted crayon art canvas of the football field. 

When inspiration strikes I am an all in kinda girl. I can't talk myself out of an idea when my mind is made up... but... it was Football Sunday and football after work on Monday night, priorities. The idea stirred around for two days while I racked my brain with how to execute my idea. 

Finally made it to the craft store and picked up (2) 16" x 20" canvases, 1/8" artist tape, hot glue gun, glue sticks, wooden letters/numbers, white paint, masking tape, and left without crayons. The craft store does not stock bulk crayons in a set color. I thought about taking all of the blues and greens out of the boxes and sort of create my own custom crayon box but then I thought about how evil that would be and the tears to come from the children when they couldn't color the sky blue or the grass green. Looking down at my own child and thinking about his response if he was the kid looking forward to a new box of crayons... so I went home crayon-less and feeling less evil. 

Once home I ordered 200 green crayons, 48 blue crayons, (2) boxes of metallics, and 12 silver crayons from a wholesale art supplier. After summing up my craft store purchase and the crayons it was an afterthought to search the web for Dallas Cowboys inspired melted crayon art. That would have been a bitch to find something similar for less than what I just shelled out. I say that but, that's a lie... it's the thoughtfulness of the gift and a labor of love, but really, a sigh of relief when I also discovered there wasn't anything similar on the web and this would be a one-of-a-kind art piece.

The crayons arrived mid-work week but being a working mom means little time on work nights for anything other than what needs to get done, BUT!!! this... this needed, to be done. Come Friday night I couldn't stand it any longer. The smell of wax from the crayon box on the counter when I came home from work was a daily reminder of wanting to dive head first into this project. I threw on my grungy cozy clothes, put the kid down for bed, and set up my work station. 

What a shit looking operation... After masking off my first sections of the canvases I used 4 cases of Dasani water bottles stacked 2 x 2 to prop them up and laid out garbage bags to "catch" the drip and "protect" the walls and floors, art supplies scattered around, and the hot glue gun and hair dryer close at hand. 

The hair dryer ran from 9:30pm until 1 am. I blew the hell out of those crayons to get a good saturation of color on the canvas. You can't dictate the flow of the melted wax and having masked off sections is a must if you don't want color payoff elsewhere. Remember the whole "catch" and "protect" in the last paragraph, yeah, that didn't happen. I wasn't aware of the projected blow radius and when I assessed the damage the next morning there were wax splatters a good foot or so away from the garbage bags that had been laid out. Speaking of the garbage bags, hot wax on plastic = rips and wax on the floor.

Again, the hair dryer was put to use from 9am until noon. Once I was done with the melting of crayons I let the wax harden completely before placing the painted letters and numbers. Completed the project around 3pm.

I'm probably suffering from some hearing loss, hurt ego from some unforeseen mistakes in a first attempt of melted crayon art, bruised knees from the scrubbing of wax off the floor, and a stiff neck since I hunch and my work station was on the ground but the end result was sooooo worth it. I now have a one-of-a-kind gift that I dreamt up and executed on my own without step-by-step instructions. 

How's that for thoughtfulness? 

Another afterthought... framing... okay, so I didn't think of everything... Happy Birthday! Buy your own damn frames...