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Tips for Making Neon Pasta.. or Why You Should Make Neon Pasta

Neon Pasta

I first posted these photos in 2012 as a fun tribute to the opening of Disney’s the Lorax. This answers the question of why I originally wanted to make neon pasta. Yes, the broccoli was meant to represent the trees from the movie and the blue alfredo sauce- the river.  But after my neon pasta photo was listed as a Pinterest favorite photo of the day and has been shared thousands of times, I figured that maybe more than Lorax fans would want to cook up some neon pasta of their own.  Here’s my tips to making your pasta pop (we’ll answer the “why” later):

The Lorax Pasta

Toni’s Tips for Making Neon Pasta

Tip #1:  Choose A Fun Shape

Bowtie, penne, elbow, or my favorite- cavatappi pasta…. the purpose behind making neon pasta should undoubtedly determine its shape. Having a rainbow-themed party? Elbow. Want to bring the 80’s to dinner? Linguine.  And, for a formal affair, use bowtie, of course.

Tip #2:  Use Premium Food Dye

You can use an entire bottle of a cheap grocery store food dye and it still won’t give you the bright colors a professional food dye can (can you say “Pinterest fail”?). My favorite dyes are Wilton and Duff, which can both be found in Michaels or Walmart. In fact, Duff has a special line of neon colors like “Electric Pink” and “Electric Purple”.

Tip 3:  Don’t Toss Your Gold (your pasta water, that is)

If you follow any of my tips, you’ll want to follow this one. I call my pasta water liquid gold because I save it to the side for when my pasta gets dry and dehydrated, I simply splash some pasta water over the pasta to get it shiny again.  Take a glass measuring cup and scoop out the water before draining the pasta, one cup for every half pound of pasta.

scoop out pasta water

Tip #4:  Don’t Mix Your Water

Yes, you will have to boil each color individually (I know, duh). I start with my lightest color first and work my way up to the darkest colors. This makes saving your pasta water to rehydrate the pasta even more critical. The alternative is to get out three or four pots and boil them at the same time in separate pots, but personally, I only like to wash one pot.

 

Why You Want to Make Neon Pasta (come on, you know you want to)

I know you’re probably searching your brain for a reason to make neon pasta by now, right? The truth is that it’s just a fun touch to a party. Here are my reasons:

Reason #1:  80’s Themed Party

A few years ago I threw an 80’s themed party for my niece and thought a nice addition to some pizza would be a big bowl of neon spaghetti with their choice of marinara or alfredo sauce to top. It turned out to be one of the biggest hits of the party when I only thought it would be just a nice added touch. The girls talked about it all night.  You can read more about it here:

80s party

Reason #2:  Beach Themed Party

Okay, I might have gone a bit too far with this one. A friend was having beach-themed party for her daughter and needed some help so I made some “Surf’s Up Pasta” (blue cavatappi pasta for the waves) with a choice of Shark Attack Sauce (marinara) or “Sunset Sauce” (alfredo).  Yep.  Big hit.

Surfs Up Pasta

 

Reason 3#:  Because It’s Fun

Do you really need a reason to make neon pasta?  If you do, please refer to reasons 2 & 3 above.

Share Your Neon Pasta Photo #OrganizedCook

If you decide that neon pasta should be served at your next party and decide to take a photo, please tag me at @OrganizedCook on Instagram or Twitter, or post a photo to my Facebook.  Would love to share it with the rest of our readers!

 

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Toni Spilsbury on FOX Phoenix Morning Show

A Lesson in Leftovers

Thanks Rick D’Amico and Andrea Robinson at FOX 10 Phoenix for letting us teach you how to reincarnate those leftovers!

 

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Organization Is The Ingredient.

Many of us can agree that family mealtime is important.  If you’re like me, you want to get it done as efficiently as possible while creating healthy, delicious meals for your family.  You want to make it simple, make it quick and spend less time at the grocery store, less time in the kitchen and more time at the dinner table with your family.  

 

Organization is the ingredient.
I love to cook.  But, I didn’t want to spend all of my time cooking- I wanted to maintain balance in my life.  I quickly learned that careful planning and organization of my family dinners were the key ingredients that allowed me to prepare home cooked meals for my family each night and still have time in my schedule to do things I love.  My Weekly Meal Plan system is available in The Organized Cook™.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sign up now to receive The Organized Cook Weekly Meal Plan in your email in-box each week and receive:

  • weekly family dinner menu
  • grocery shopping list
  • easy-to-follow recipes
  • cooking instructions
  • time and money saving tips
  • seasonal special party and menu planning guides

 

 

 

 

Let The Organized Cook™ do the planning and organization for you; and show you how to make the task of cooking family dinner easy and affordable.

 

 

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Sorry, Julia. We Moms Don’t Have the Time.

Did you have a chance to see the movie Julie and Julia?  It is a great movie about a modern-day girl, Julie, cooking her way through Julia Child’s famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I have cooked many recipes from this book and it’s an all-day event.  The dinners are fabulous, but this type of cooking is just not practical for us modern-day busy moms.  For many of us, gone are the Julia Child days when stay-at-home moms had all day to prepare a fabulous French dinner while sipping highballs, smoking a cigarette and watching Days of Our Lives in our pearls.  Today, our lives are busier than ever. What Julia Child did in the mid-1900s by bringing fabulous French cooking to the housewife, I aim to do by bringing clarity, simplicity and organization to the busy modern-day mom in The Organized Cook™.

 

 

Rat-a-tooow-eee

Ratatouille.  I made this vegetable dish and loved it.  Unfortunately, incorporating this gourmet recipe into my weekly meal planning as a side dish wasn’t practical because it took up too much of my time.  So, I figured if there were a way to combine a ratatouille into a main dish with a steak or chicken- and add a few short-cuts- it may work.  What I got from my culinary  experiment was one of my family’s favorite dinners: Toni’s Ratatouille Pan-Simmered Steak.  I didn’t even use seasoning with this dish because after it has simmered for an hour with eggplant, zucchini, peppers and tomatoes, it has such a fresh flavor.

I’ll keep experimenting in the kitchen on new family dinner favorites while finding new ways on how to save my valuable time and money at the  grocery store.  Learn more about how The Organized Cook™ can help you.

 

 

 

 

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