Creativity Revisted

Creativity. As you know, this is a trait that I highly value; I admire it in others and I strive for it in myself. I think about it alot and recognize and comment on it when I see it. I write about it often.

Sometimes creativity can be well thought out like a perfect advertising campaign. Other times it can be spontaneous like when a fabulous comedian shoots down a heckler right there on the spot.

Well we had some spontaneous creativity last weekend. My daughter's 11th birthday slumber party really didn't have a theme. The homemade invites had multi-colored squiggly lines and crazy designs. We weren't totally sure of the activities, but one thing we knew for sure was that we were going to have an after dark silly string fight. So the only thing left was to come with a birthday cake to go along with the ill-defined theme.

At the back of the cupboard I found a cake mold that makes cakes in the shape of a sphere. So I figured we would start with this unique cake shape. We would use white frosting and then perhaps make "paint squiggles" and "paint splatters" out of cookie decorating gel and then throw some confetti-like sprinkles. Maybe we could top it off with some crazy squiggly candles. I guess we were sort of going for a 1980s HAPPY BOMB.

So once the cake was baked, I asked my (super talented) husband to frost the cake and take over the creative work. As he began working, my kids heard that "dad was frosting the cake" and came running to have the chance to lick the spatula. As he frosted, it began to take on the appearance of a bandaged head.....something like a mummy! So while he worked we called it the mummy cake. Once it was frosted, my husband asked the birthday girl what to do next and she said to "put eyes on the mummy". After the eyes were put on the cake, my husband took creative direction from the birthday girl. We ended up with a 1980's Punk Mummy!

Definitely creative!

Who'd 'Uv Thunk - Pumpkin Ice Cream

Well we tried something new this year - Pumpkin Ice Cream.

My daughter had her tonsils removed 6 days before Thanksgiving. So I was not able to make my traditional ice cream pumpkin pie (see previous blog) because the pie crust would have been too scratchy for her healing throat. So I decided to make pumpkin ice cream.

I found a good and very easy recipe (see end of post for recipe). Basically you blend everything in a an old-fashioned blender. All ingredients can be mixed ahead of time except for the liquor. When you are ready to make the ice cream, just add the liquor before adding to the ice cream machine.

I then prepared some toppings for the rest of us with healthy throats. We had spicy candied pecans (we made ours, but you can buy some superb ones at Trader Joe's) and Nestle's morsels. For the final topping, I took several ingredients that would normally be mixed together for the pie crust....crushed ginger snaps and powdered sugar.


Dessert was served and everyone was able to choose their toppings. Grandma opted for candied pecans only, I chose the ginger snap mixture and chocolate chips. "YUM-O" as Rachel Ray would say.

I am definitely planning to add the recipe to my family recipe book.

Recipe found on www.elise.com Simply Recipes

Easy Pumpkin Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups canned pumpkin (1 15-ounce can)
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 2 Tablespoons brandy (optional)

Directions

1. In blender place pumpkin puree, sugar, spices and salt. Puree until smooth.
2. Slowly add the cream a tablespoon or two at a time, pulsing after each addition.
3. Chill for 15 minutes or longer, this part you can make ahead.
4. If you are using brandy, mix into the cream mixture right before churning.
5. Churn in your ice cream maker for 20-25 minutes.
6. Keep in freezer until ready to serve.
7. Makes about 1 quart.

The Pot Luck Dinner - Not your usual article about hosting a potluck.

This article about enjoying great food and friends without spending too much money. It is beautifully written, inspiring and uplifting particularly in these uncertain times. It happens to be written by one of my oldest and dearest friends Susan Buchanan. But the fact that she is my friend does not negate the validity of the thoughts or the beauty of the writing. She does a great job of writing about food and painting a vivid mental picture while inspiring and informing you.

To read the rest more articles like this, please go to www.VenusRisingMagazine.com

Food for Soul: Spread a Sense of Abundance by Hosting a Potluck Supper By Susan Buchanan of Venus Rising: A Companion for Living

This year we are entering the tunnel of winter during one of the darkest economic moments in recent history. Feeling insecure about the future, many of us are beginning to tighten our belts and think of ways to cut corners. However, in the midst of this economic stress, it is more important than ever to eat well and find ways to feed the soul. In order to do this, we need to remind ourselves where there is abundance in friends, family, and food.

A potluck is an easy and affordable way to enjoy good food and spend quality time with others. A potluck may remind us of an odd mixture of foods that don’t complement each other. In fact, the term potluck was coined to represent the luck a guest would have when she showed up at a neighbor’s house around dinner time. The visitor ate whatever her host happened to be cooking, whatever she had in the “pot” on the stove. There were no special preparations made for the visitor. As such, one may get lucky and have a feast, or one may be stuck eating less than exciting leftovers.

The potluck expanded to its more modern concept – a gathering with everyone bringing food to share – through churches in the late 19th century, when potluck became “potluck supper.” Potluck suppers were also formats for community dinners put on to fund raise. With this newer meaning, the “luck” part may still represent how good the food is that comes to the table, but it is also the recognition of the friends and people we have to share it with.

With a little more control than the church sign up sheet, you can designate a certain number of salads, main dishes, and desserts and create a potluck supper that truly makes everyone feel rich and lucky. You can also make it more interesting by designing a theme that everyone works into their dish such as southern comfort, Italian, Thai, or California fusion. Here are some ideas to give you and your guests inspiration.

Salads - Reinvigorate the potluck salad. Use lettuces that are bright green or red and add additional color with dried berries and red and yellow peppers. Give it an Italian flair with shaved Parmesan or a Greek tone with Feta. Toss with toasted nuts and a simple vinaigrette when ready to put it on the table. Change the traditional cold broccoli salad to an Asian inspired salad by lightly pan frying fresh broccoli until crisp and tender and drizzling with a blend of sunflower oil, a touch of sesame oil, and soy sauce. Toss with sesame seeds and sprinkle some of those seeds on top when you put it out to serve.

Main Dishes - Refresh the dreaded overcooked pasta goulash to a real Italian staple. Serve fresh spaghetti in a large bowl, coated with just a little high-quality olive oil and sea salt. Along side the pasta, have a bowl of freshly-grated Parmesan cheese with a small serving spoon and a peppermill for guests to adorn their spaghetti themselves. Potluck goers will feel like they are in an Italian restaurant rather than a church basement. Alternatively, challenge yourself to redo the dreaded tuna casserole. Add the best quality Italian canned tuna, fresh peas, chopped sautéed spinach, cremini mushrooms, and a homemade sauce, avoiding the canned cream of mushroom soup. A simple cream sauce can be made with butter or oil, flour, and broth or milk. Just Google or look up béchamel sauce and search for a method that seems simple to you. Skip the rice casserole and opt for risotto instead, adding seasonal veggies and using a touch of wine in the cooking. Certainly a good beef stew is still great potluck fare but try chicken instead of beef. Boneless is easiest to serve and eat at a potluck so choose boneless chicken breasts and thighs and stew with sweet potatoes, onions, and rosemary. Serve with crusty bread and you may have found a new potluck staple.

Desserts - For dessert, revive the ambrosia salad. Surprise the potluck crowd with fresh pineapple, fresh clementines, toasted coconut, and almonds and a mixture of strained Greek yogurt and honey as the dressing. If you can’t imagine this grandmother’s recipe without marshmallows, go ahead and put them in too. I doubt anyone will object. Or, on a large plate, display bite-sized pieces of star fruit, mango, Asian pears, and kiwi. Place a small bowl or two of canned lychees or pomegranate seeds on the plate. Aside from fruit, the potluck dessert could entail any matter of bar or brownie. Of course, people will always love brownies but try to optimize your opportunity to make decadent bars, something you might not do for your family. Fancy blondies, with macadamia nuts and white chocolate, would be a not-so-everyday bar exceptional for a potluck. Or, be like the smart lady coveted by the church crowd with her layers of chocolate and butterscotch chips, nuts, coconut, graham crackers and sweetened condensed milk. The seven layer bar may become your signature creation.

With everyone contributing something, prepare your table for the riches that will adorn it. Make it special with a pretty table cloth; use your good table ware and cloth napkins. Make sure you have a centerpiece, whether it is fresh greenery, varying sizes of candles, a plant or a carved pumpkin. Once the people you care about show up and the food is displayed all together, you have a recipe for thumbing your nose at these ominous times, defying them by your mere act of gathering to enjoy a meal together to celebrate your good fortune.

Traditions

Mid October, just about when the leaves are at their peak of screaming fall colors, I start thinking about what I call the “End-of-the-Year Slide”. This is the time when we get pummeled with holiday after holiday after holiday. At times it can make us feel exhausted, overrun and not very festive and cheerful. But just remember, while we are driving to yet another holiday obligation or errand, we are doing all these things for a reason: We are trying to making memories for ourselves and our families.

Holidays and festivities are often deeply-rooted in traditions; things we always do every year on certain occasions that make our lives and holidays richer. The constant errands, projects, and parties are all ways of creating, adding to or maintaining traditions that, in the end, add to our family's mental memory books.

Now Halloween is almost upon us and one of my personal traditions is to procrastinate with the kids’ Halloween costumes. What makes my procrastination particularly bad is our family's tradition that we make homemade costumes. This tradition allows us to spend quality time with each child discussing what they want to dress up as and why. It also affords us the opportunity to get creative with the kids in discussing how we will make the costume with the clothes and supplies we have on hand. Since my daughter is a hockey fanatic and a hockey player, many years her costumes are hockey related. This year, we added a little gore to the hockey gear costume and made her into Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks. My son is a Star Wars character so we took some old black adult t-shirts and cut them up into capes and hoods and stapled them all together.

Once Halloween is over it seems Thanksgiving comes rushing at us like a defensive lineman! It is only about three weeks, but it feels like one week. I often rush and scurry to get things just right so that our Thanksgiving is just perfect: groceries, cleaning, setting up the guest room, etc.

Our Thanksgiving traditions:

• Dad & Grandpa Make the Meal – isn’t that a great twist on tradition! This year we are going to add a new Thanksgiving tradition; the main chef will be wearing my Thanksgiving apron, which you can view on www.fineline-antiques.com under holidays.

• Mom (me) Makes the Traditional Dessert – the same ice cream pumpkin pie I have made since I started having my own thanksgiving. Another interesting twist on traditional Thanksgiving rituals. My family requests it each year. See below for recipe

• The Fight About the Meal TIME – since the men are making the meal, the timing of the meal is always built around the football game.

• Dress Comfortably – No dressing up this day. We have a casual relaxed day wearing just jeans or whatever we are comfortable wearing.

• Dog Thanksgiving – The dog gets a delicious plate full of do-friendly scraps after the meal. The best part is we get a stopwatch and time how long it takes him to eat it.

• Never Shop on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving shopping frenzy) - But I do get out the gift-giving list I have been creating all year and start to edit it. I also check my wrapping paper, ribbon and gift tags.

Check out www.fineline-antiques for some darling, vintage-inspired gift tags for your holiday hostess gifts or your Christmas gifts. While you are there take a look at our Holiday category for Thanksgiving decorations and supplies.



If Thanksgiving came at me like a defensive lineman, Christmas comes at me like a linebacker!

Shortly after Thanksgiving, we get our family Christmas Tree. We like to go to the one of the local farms and cut down a fresh tree. This way the cut on the trunk is fresh when we come home and we can set it up right away and we don't need to bring the chainsaw into the living room to make a fresh cut. (That was a childhood tradition for me - my parents would always fight about my dad bringing the chainsaw in the living room in order to make sure the cut was fresh on our lot-purchased tree). We have cut down our own tree for many years and it is now a solid family tradition. Every year there is something memorable about our tradition.

• One year we had a baby in a backpack on our backs.
• Another year my daughter was sick but insisted we go so she was wrapped in many blankets and miserable but happy.
• Every year dad has to lie down in the snow and crawl under the prickly branches to cut down our tree…our hero!
• We ride out to the grove of trees on trailer attached to a tractor. We are wrapped in blankets and can see our breath in the air as we chatter about what kind of tree we are gonna get.
• Last year was truly picture perfect. There was a nice covering of snow and the section of the farm we went to had many mature trees. Many trees had their boughs dusted with snow. It was so beautiful and quite, I felt like we were in a make believe world.

Although the last quarter of the year is crazy busy and, quite frankly, exhausting for me, I also love this time of year. I love the spirit and ritual of it all and look forward to each and every one of our traditions. But more importantly, our traditions help to give our children very vivid memories of their childhood. And that END is worth all the headache and exhaustion.

Frosty Pumpkin Pie Recipe
I think this recipe is from Southern Living, but I cannot recall.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• ½-cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/8-teaspoon salt
• 1-teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼-teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8-teaspoon ground cloves
• 1-quart vanilla ice cream softened
• 1 ½-cups gingersnap cookies finely crushed
• ¼-cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 1/3-cup melted butter

First make the gingersnap crust.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a 9-inch pie plate, combine gingersnap crumbs, powdered sugar and butter.
3. Stir well and firmly press mixture along bottom and up the sides of the pie plate.
4. Bake for 4-5 minutes.
5. Let cool for at least an hour.

Then make the filling.

1. In a very large bowl, combine pumpkin, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir well.
2. Fold in the ice cream and combine gently.
3. Spoon filling into prepared pie crust.
4. Cover and freeze 8 hours or overnight.

Then eat the deliciousness.

1. Remove from freezer and let stand at room temp for 10 minutes.
2. Add slices to plates with a generous topping of fresh whipped cream.

Special Addition.
Our special touch on this pie is to add whip cream with a special flavor. When making our whipped cream, instead of using vanilla as the flavoring, we add Bailey’s Irish Cream. Give it a try, you will be wowed!