Simple Homemade Pasta Sauce

So today I want to show you how to make the EASIEST homemade pasta sauce-hands down! It is so simple & so yummy!! Plus it is cheap to make....sounds too good to be true huh?

Well it's not. Here we go:

You need:

A blender or immersion blender
A stock pot with lid
4-6 (28oz.) Cans of whole tomatoes (or the equivalent in fresh from your garden/farm stand)
6-10 cloves of garlic
Olive oil

That's it.





Promise.

To make:

Open all your tomato cans and either use the immersion blender or put them in the blender and purée.

Pssst. There are those pesky DIY Painted countertops again!


Finely chop garlic. In stock pot heat about a 1/4-1/2 cup of olive oil over medium heat. After about a minute or so you will want to add your garlic. Stir and don't burn the garlic!! Only a minute at the most!

Then add just a 1/2 cup or so of your tomato purée. Stir it around for a couple minutes.

Next you'll just dump all your purée in the stock pot (as much as will fit- mine holds 5 cans) and simmer on medium-low or low heat for at least 4 hours. Stir it whenever you think of it.

Then we get to the part I love the best: take a big thick slice of homemade bread (if I'm really on my game I make them the same day so I have fresh-from-the-oven-homemade-bread)and dunk it in the sauce without anyone seeing.

Place it on a plate and smother in warm homemade-y goodness. Devour before your family catches you.

You're welcome for that secret.

Now back to the recipe. Take the pot off the burner after 4-6 hours of simmering (and who knows how many dunks of bread) and let cool completely. I usually make this starting at noon and remove it from the burner around 5pm let it stand on the stove until after supper then I place it in the fridge- pot & all- overnight. In the morning (or when it's completely cool) divide it up into large freezer ziploc bags and lay flat until frozen. Then you can stand them up like little files in your freezer. Cute, eh? If ziplocs filled with sauce were cute I mean. But anyway if you do it like that you will fit more in less space and they will thaw faster than if you put them in containers.

What I do is divide them into the exact quantities my recipes call for. So if I do my menu plan every two weeks and there are 4 dinners that need sauce- I make it, divide into those amounts, label it the recipe name & freeze. It's SO easy for Military Man to pull the one he needs and there is no measuring or leftover sauce that needs to be used up.

Yum yum yum!!
Also feel free to add your spices or a bay leaf or what have you. I don't only because we add those to the dish we are making with the sauce and we also use this as a pizza sauce for our homemade pizza night!

Thank you so much for stopping by, please leave me a comment so I know you were here! I comment back, I swear!!

Have A Happy Day,



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Pro-CRAFT-ination. Do you have it?

I tweeted earlier today that I had 'pro-CRAFT-ination' and it really got me thinking. I have a LOT of projects 'in process' right now and I can't seem to finish them before starting a new one.

I once heard that procrastination is the worst form of perfectionism- it's the paralyzing fear that if it's not going to be perfect why even start? Or you are too nervous it won't turnout perfect you can't even start. I believe I have pro-CRAFT-ination because I'm not afraid to start a new craft project but once it is underway I can't finish it because of this underlying fear that it won't turn out exactly as I envisioned it- aka: perfectly.

Yeah totally realized all that from a tweet.

SO I've decided to list all my unfinished projects here in a post and I hope to check in with you all weekly and be able to cross a project off! I need motivation to get 'er done! (ok that was totally lame and cheesy but I'm leaving it in!)

Here is my monstrous list:

1. Bathroom floor to be painted & sealed
2. Completely empty old craft room & put it into windowless room.
3. Move Lil Man into old craft room
4. Strip & repaint nursery room door & frame (lead paint detected)
5. Paint nursery walls.
6. Lay nursery floor. (currently plywood)
7. Try to reconfigure crib.
8. Make curtains for nursery
9. Make mobile.
10. Make Lil Man curtains
11. Finish lining living room curtains
12. Make playroom curtains
13. Finish fabric storage for playroom
14. Sew Velcro to play kitchen curtains to hang them.
15. Tank top refashion
16. Maxi dress refashion
17. Doggie door painting & install
18. Train table
19. Old window into craft room storage
20. Paint new countertop to match my painted laminate counters.
21. Finish sanding & sealing kitchen floor.
22. Paint trim, stair risers, & railings in dining room
23. Paint kitchen
24. Paint new light for dining room & hang
25. Make Miss E some dresses
26. Strip wallpaper & paint on hallway.
27. Type up & digi-scrap my recipes.

Ok there is more than that but I can't make you read forever. Just a note- most of the curtain projects & paint projects I haven't started yet so maybe I don't have pro-craft-ination on those.
Do you ever have pro-craft-ination? What one project have you been putting off just finishing??

Alright that's all I can type out on my iPhone right now lol! Sorry for the lack of photo- it wouldn't let me add one because I'm using a phone. Hopefully I'll remember to log onto my computer tomorrow to add links & pictures!


Oh and in case you noticed the slow down of posts: I took an unofficial and unplanned bloggy break & rested up while enjoying my babies!!

Have a happy Day,

How to Make Hummus

Ok we’re going to completely gloss over the fact that I didn’t do a WIDTW (What I Did This Weekend) post yet again this week. Why? Because I really didn’t do much that I can blog about (since I don’t share pics of the kiddos on here and all that jazz).
Ok moving on. Today I have a photo tutorial for how to make your own homemade hummus!
Making Hummus is actually very easy & I do it about once every two weeks! It saves a lot of money because the size container I fill cost me at least $4 in the store!

Ready to make your own homemade hummus?(Psst: you will also find close ups of my painted countertops in these pictures! Just in case you wanted to see more detail!)

Here is the picture tutorial:
You will need:
1 can of Chick Peas
Lemon Juice
Olive Oil
3-5 cloves of garlic (or some garlic powder if you want)
Red Pepper Flakes (or whatever ingredient you need to make the flavor of your choice.
Food processor or blender or good old fashioned muscle/potato masher (notice I am using the worlds tiniest food processor-its for making baby food actually)
Note: If you have tahini on hand put some in too but if you don’t no big deal! You can also substitute sesame oil for the olive oil if you want.

Ok lets get started:
1. Open, drain & rinse your chick peas. Place in your food processor.

2. Add a little bit of lemon juice. I always eyeball this but its like 1/8 of a cup.

3. Add your cloves of garlic...more if you want a stronger garlic flavor- less if you want less. If you are using garlic powder I don't know the conversions so you'll have to either go for it & see how much you like or Google the conversions lol

4. Run your food processor a little to mix it all and start creaming the chick peas. Add your flavoring.

5. Run your food processor & stream in your olive oil until you get the texture/creaminess you want. I can't stream in while my food processor is running so I add a little, process, add a little, process etc. until I get there. You may have to stop a few times and scrape the sides of the food processor bowl to make sure it’s all getting mixed/creamed evenly.

6. Place your hummus in a container and refrigerate. I washed out an old hummus container and my homemade fits perfectly in it!


That's it for homemade hummus!
Other Flavorings you can add are:

• Roasted Red Peppers
• Feta Cheese
• Jalapeños
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Parsley
• Ground Cumin
• Plain black pepper

Have fun with it and enjoy!
Have a Happy Day,

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None of the brands featured in this post have paid me or provided me with product to review. All opinions are my own and I bought all the ingredients/supplies myself.

Happy Friday!!

Just a little quick pop-in today to let you know that my 'granite' countertops were spotlighted over at another great blog (Saving the Family Money) that is ALL about saving YOU money! 

I do hope you go on over to read the post but also stay and snoop around awhile- Karen has some great ideas, tips, tricks & deals to save you money!! 

Thanks for the little 'shout out' about my countertops, Karen! :) I am loving the looks of your cabinets & mine are on my 'to-do something about' list!

Painting Laminate Countertops- Part Two

So I've been getting a lot of requests lately for more detail on my countertops that I painted last summer. Some wanted close-ups, some wanted the specific paint colors I used and still others wanted just more detail in the process of it. You can read the original post here if you have no clue as to what I'm talking about...it's ok go read it....I'll wait.......


All caught up? Good. Now here are the product basics:
Needed:
1. One U-G-L-Y laminate countertop (mine was blue)
2. A cleaner of some type and a rag (I used a 50/50 mixture of vinegar to water- as I do to clean most surfaces in my house)
3. 1 Quart of Kiltz primer (this is what I used, feel free to use whatever you like or if you want ask the employee at the paint desk- just a warning they will look at you like you have 8 heads and probably try to get you to go to the countertop section to buy new countertops...just ignore them. You know what you are doing!)
4. Acrylic Paint in colors to match a print out of granite you like. (Just google granite countertops and find an online store that has close ups of the granite...find one you like, print the picture and head off to the craft store!)
         Here is where people wanted to know the EXACT colors I used so:
               I used FolkArt brand (made by Plaid) and the colors I used are: 938-Licorice, 425-Medium Grey, 2381-Battleship Grey (I did one section of my countertop in this and didn't like it so used it very very sparingly after that), 450-Parchment, 602- Country Twill, and applied with an old toothbrush to just lightly mist the countertop: 660-Metallic Pure Gold.
5. An old toothbrush
6. paper towels
7. a piece of cardboard or something to squirt your paint onto.
8. Foam brushes (for clear coat application)
9. Some form of high gloss clear coat (The name of mine was Polycritic or something similar-I didn't write it down Sorry! and I'm not sure I still have it but I only bought a quart of it and didn't use even half)

Here is about the only 'before' shot I got of the countertops. That is Mr. Hubby sanding our floor which we found out was orginal hardwood under 3 layers of vinyl! Woot!

Ok so you cleaned your countertops really well and you can lightly sand them if you like, I didn't because that would've been an extra step and I'm just lazy like that. Pull out your stove & fridge, tape off your sink, cabinets below the countertop and walls before you start painting!
After cleaning/sanding/wiping down you can use a roller and/or a brush to put your primer on. I did two coats letting each dry at least overnight before reapplying. This is the part where you are rolling on the primer and in your head you are going "I can't believe I am painting my countertop?! who DOES this?! This is NUTS!" or if you are like me...you call your hubby at work and say that while nervously laughing. I preferred to roll my primer on and only brush the edges of the countertop because I didn't want any brush strokes to show.

Primer. Exciting stuff huh?  

(I didn't tape my walls at this point because I was going to paint them later & the only time I taped them was before the clear coat)

Next you take a piece of cardboard and squirt all of your colors (except your metallic) into little puddles in separate corners, rip off a piece of paper towel (I tried sponges but it looked too 'uniform' for me)- scrunch it up in your hand until you can grasp the whole thing just with your fingers (not like balling it up in the palm of your hand but just your fingers so you can 'pounce' the paint on) and dip it into whatever color is the 'main' or 'base' color in your sample. I started with the grey because the sample I chose had either grey or tan as the base color (more of that then any other color in the sample). So I dabbed on the grey all over the countertop leaving a lot of white space in between. Here's how awful that looked:

Then I just proceeded with the tans, blacks and more grey until I got the look I was going for. It takes a bit of time and a lot of stepping back and looking at it (You know how when you pluck your eyebrows if you don't lean back and look at the whole picture you can end up overplucking? This is kind of like that). I asked my hubby a LOT what he thought of it because I wanted 'fresh eyes' to see if part of it looked more blotchy.
I went over and over the countertop re-scrunching the paper to get a different "pattern" so that it didn't look like one big blob of color. I also had to replace the paper quite frequently because the paint would soak into it and it would start ripping. I didn't think I would leave any white spots when I was finished but I actually did leave little peeks of it here and there and it lightens up the look a lot. I also made sure that there were only little spots of black and layered tans or greys over it because the black looked too harsh if there was a lot of it in one spot. Keep in mind that your paint is matte & the colors will POP when you gloss coat over it.

Ok so now you have the look you want- you can stop here and just start clear coating it or you can do what I did and squirt a little bit of your metallic paint onto your cardboard (we should call it an artists palette or something to sound more professional don't you think?? You could even cut a hole for your thumb if you wanted haha) anyway, dip the bristles of an old toothbrush into the metallic paint and then hold it over your counters and run your thumb along the bristles to get the paint to "spray" onto the counters in tiny droplets. I only did this here and there not all over but again it's personal preference.

Now you can use your foam brushes to put on thin coats of clear high gloss sealer. Make sure you allow it to dry the recommended time in between coats and if you want you can lightly sand. I did this once and then decided to not do that in between coats (again...I'm lazy). I did 7 coats letting each dry 2 hours and the last coat I pretty much globbed it on. Your acrylic paints will POP when the clear coat is dry so if you think it looks a little dull before the clear coat- trust me it will look like someone buffed it to a high shine once that clear coat is on.

This is after 2 coats of clear gloss and in the high shine spot you can see that the sanding in between caused some 'lines' which I hated so I stopped sanding.

You can see above that I mixed grey and tan acrylic paint together and painted myself a little 'seam' where the 'backsplash' and countertop meet. The laminate actually curves from the backsplash to the countertop but real granite doesn't do that so I made it look like a seperate piece that they 'caulked' the seam with like colored caulk. Sneaky sneaky!

Now here's the hard part: don't touch your counters (keep cats away from the room & keep dogs from jumping up) for at least 3 days and don't put heavy objects like your microwave, stand mixer or that HUGE crock of cooking utensils back on it for at least a week. We had our coffee maker, microwave & toaster on the dining room table lol

This is halfway through- I did the little countertop to the left of the stove completely first before moving on to the rest of the countertop. But you get the idea that this is what your house will look like while you do this right? MESSY! Out of place! Disheveled! If you can't handle that for a week + then this is NOT the project for you! :)

Your kids may even eat like this for a week. Or maybe you'll just have PB &J.....personal choice!

I had a minor heart attack one day when I walked in and saw that some water had been left puddling on the countertop and when I wiped it away the clear coat had become cloudy.....then it just dried up nice and clear! This kept happening whenever water got on it until about mid-Sept. when the temps outside cooled and the humidity dropped. I think this was caused by the top coats not 'curing' properly until the humidity dropped. If you have A/C in your house good for you...I don't. But if you attempted this in the winter, it would probably work out fine. Just open windows when priming and clear coating!! I don't recommend putting anything hot directly on your painted countertops or cutting directly on them and since I only use vinegar/water mixture to clean with I can't say for sure if a chemical will harm them but everything I've read online doesn't seem to suggest it would unless you use a really abrasive cleaner like Softscub or something.

So there you go. The step-by-step to paint your countertops, fool your vistors & give your hubby a heart attack when you announce you are going to 'paint over the ugly countertops and yes you are serious!'

Have fun and please send me pictures if you try this yourself! I'd love to see!!

-Kristi




ETA: You could always get a piece of poster board in white and 'try out' the acrylic paints first to see if you like the pattern you are getting or to show hubby that YES you can do this & YES it will look good ;) I did that but it ended up not looking a thing like my countertops...my counters looked BETTER :) Happy painting!

Linking Up to The Frugal Friday Linky Party at The Shabby Nest!

'New' Counters on a budget

*Warning: kinda a long blog post! lol*

My husband is the sole provider money-wise for our family. This comes with a set of challenges when you live in an older home. When we do our budget each month I consistently come out with $0.64 left over for 'home repairs that are not immediate' can you imagine how long it would take me to save up for a kitchen re-do?? We live in a house built in 1932. Let me tell you about some of it's charms: LOVELY trim everywhere you look- really it's amazing- none of that 3" wide trim that is in every. single. house. built today. Here let me share some pictures of it:

Now those are views from my dining room table taken just now with my iphone. I also have about 9" tall baseboards (yes BASEBOARDS) throughout my home. All that door trim is repeated on every window and door in my house. I LOVE IT! These will be painted white in the future because I don't love the almost 70's looking varnish/clear coat but the trim itself: LOVE.


Another charm of our little abode is hardwood floors. Original hardwood floors, my guess is they laid it as a 'sub-floor' and covered it with wall to wall carpeting because I can see the holes from tack strips and it's in unimaginably great condition for being so old. We thought we didn't have it in the kitchen under not one, not two but THREE layers of laminate/vinyl flooring but we pulled them all up and voila! There they were!


Ok I also pretty much like the layout & size of rooms (would like more size in the bathroom and bedrooms but downstairs suits our needs). My husband and I both say we love the house- hate the location. I am seriously looking into moving the house. really. That way we can keep the house, get a flatter piece of land not on a busy busy road and add on the back part of the house.
Whew! Ok now onto the point of this whole post. We live in a older home. Things need to be updated and repaired. We have $0.64 a month to do so. Our kitchen was updated in 1980 I'm guessing by the um, lovely, white laminate office type cabinets, baby blue laminate countertops with matching wall paint, and vinyl flooring (which as we've established is now GONE!).
We can not afford to rip out and start over. We can't even afford a new faucet. But those darn baby blue counters were haunting me. I HATED them and I can usually live with things for awhile until the money is saved. But oh those countertops. UGH. So I started searching the internet for green, affordable ideas. Love the idea of cement counters with a built in farmhouse sink (all made from cement you pour yourself then polish- they are gorgeous trust me) but still- expensive. Love recycled glass countertops- but still out of our price range. And I kept coming back to my mantra "the greenest item is one that already exists" (because no more energy has to be expended to make it) but those blue countertops already existed and while I think I'm fairly green, I'm not about to live the rest of my days with blue counters. Sorry mother nature- I love ya but not unconditionally.
Let's take a look at those counters & cabinets shall we?


oh yeah- and not a single knob or handle on any of the cabinets. Go figure.
Anyway lovely aren't they?
Ok so the greenest item is the one that already exists (hence why I want to move the house not build new) Well here's what resulted from that mantra:

Oh hey! New counters! Granite? oh heck no! Not on $0.64 a month (I'd have been like 175 before I could afford that!) So what is it? It is blue laminate countertops...that I painted. YES painted. Oh I can't tell you how excited I was to find that info on the internet that laminate can be painted and many people had painted their countertops! So it took me a bit to 'talk' my hubby into it but I did it and I love it!
It's just Kiltz primer rolled on like you are painting a wall (tape off your cabs & wall with painter's tape) then I took craft paint (yes those tiny little bottles) to match a picture of granite I found online that I liked (search for granite images and find one you like) So there are 4 colors here: grey, brown, black & ivory plus I used a toothbrush to add some gold to look like the metallic you see a lot in granite. Then I added 7 coats of a clear high gloss sealer. Yes, 7. BUT you are able to put another coat on after only 2 hours drying time so I could do 3 or 4 coats in a day.
I just ripped up pieces of paper towel, dipped them into the craft paint and 'sponged' them on the counters. I tried a real sponge but hate the fake look it gave. This way I could re-scrunch the paper towel and get a different 'image' so it looks more random and like natural granite.
After all the topcoats were on (I did a really thick one as the last coat) I let it 'cure' for a week before putting anything back on it. I think it is still curing 3 weeks later because it's so darn humid out but after some cool breezes this fall I'm sure I'll be all set- a lot of people I've talked to about topcoats like this say it's common for items to stick a little bit to it if it was applied during the summer because it takes so long to cure.
Anyway that is step two in the kitchen remodel (step one was finding those hardwood floors- they must be stained because they are unfinished but they are there!) & it only cost me with paint and supplies: $60 and no I didn't save those extra $0.64 each month- my husband had quit smoking for two months so I took that money to pay for it. He has since resumed so I'm back to the $0.64 lol!
Tell me what you think! Would you ever do this to your counters?



Linking up to: A Soft Place to Land's DIY Day