Shrimp Tomato and Basil Pasta

A delicious Every Day Food recipe I found via my culinary genius friend Vanessa. I made this last week when it was a million degrees outside and it made a nice, light ending to a very hot and hazy day. All the better if you grow tomatoes and/or basil in your backyard! Recipe here.


My notes: The recipe says to add two cups of water along with the diced tomatoes to make the sauce. I made it that way in the past but found the sauce was too watery. This time I made it using one cup of water and that was plenty. (I actually added a couple tablespoons of cornstarch to thicken it up a bit. So really, you could probably omit the water altogether and just use the juice from the tomatoes. You live and you learn.) I also used 1 pound of bow tie pasta instead of angel hair.

Mr & Mrs

Celebrating eight years as Mr & Mrs today.

Happy Anniversary Jared!

(photo taken in Michigan City, Indiana shortly after our first anniversary.)

Time Out Book

Mitchell and Spencer play together really well the majority of the time. Really. They are like two peas in a pod. However, certain days they have a little more trouble getting along. Just recently, I remembered an idea I got from my sister-in-law way back before I had any kids. She said when her girls would argue, she would have them sit in time out where she had pictures them being nice to one another displayed on the wall. I thought that was a great idea so I decided to do something similar for Mitchell and Spencer. I just used a cheap-o photo album from the dollar store and filled it with lots of pictures of them sharing, playing and laughing. Now when they are arguing, they go to time out and look through the book together. When they are ready to say sorry and act like the pictures in the book, they get to come out. This is really the first day I've tried the book and so far so good. They love looking at pictures of themselves so they forget whatever dumb toy they were fighting over to begin with. Don't worry. I'm sure the bloom will where off by tomorrow and I'll have to think of something new but if it works for one day, I'll consider it a success!

Sweet Peach

Photo by Elizabeth Messina

Caroline is as soft and sweet as a little peach so it only makes sense that I make this cake for her belated birthday celebration this weekend. (It also helps that her birthday falls smack dab in the middle of peach season.) My mouth is watering thinking about it. I just hope I can make it taste as good as it looks in this picture! (Recipe here.)

Update: This turned out to be a very yummy cake with a mild peach flavor. Spooning the cooked fresh peaches over the cake is a definite must. (I did this over each individual slice after the cake was cut.) It was maybe not as delicious as it looks in the picture but also, the peaches I used were just so-so. If you make this, half the frosting recipe. It makes a TON!

Stripes!

I just couldn't pass up this striped t-shirt dress (with pockets!) on a recent trip to Goodwill. It is originally from Land's End so the knit was substantial and high quality. I had originally planned to transform it into a little boat neck shift dress but my sewing skills weren't quite up to par so I settled on a skirt. Working with stripes was a minor hassle as well as reattaching the pockets but all in all, it wasn't too bad and I'm pleased with the results. Hooray for stripes and hooray for $4 skirts!