Creative Output and Creative Input

Creative Output 

followed by Creative Input

I live in a small cottage and I like to switch out my living room seasonally.  This is spring in my house

 starting always with a quilt on the wall as our main focus.

When a quilt is my design - or my color theory as quilt block designs can date back the 1800's - I will give myself credit where credit is due.  Same goes for when I make a "fabrication" using someone else's design.  This mariner's compass star quilt was a kit by a fabulous designer, Jinny Beyer.  She even included recipes in the pattern!  As you can probably guess, I still have yet to make them!

She called the kit a Trip Around the World

I call it the hardest thing I've ever made.

The rest of the living room falls into place after the quilt is created and hung.

It's the last day of July - and I haven't gotten my new summer quilt done!  Quilts take a loooong time to make!

Red, white and blue theme, but I've only gotten halfway on the quilt with some pillow covers done.  I started the Ohio Star blocks for my son's blue and white quilt - but these four are now part of the force of summer that might make it up before school starts!

I did manage to get this cute fabrication done

while traveling this summer.  It first came out as a "block of the month club" item but I only bought two - never was going to make a whole quilt out of them.  Good thing - the patterns and kits seem to be off the market!  Where was I traveling this summer?  Here's a hint!

My rising senior high school daughter wants to go to fashion school for college!  Fashion degree programs are not as common in the USA as say, engineering degree programs - so we needed to branch out across the pond.  The quilt can wait - Paris baby!

please visit my earlier blog "Buttoning Up a Fashion School with Mimi" for more information on that adventure!

Now for Creative Input Cookbook Challenge

FRESH PEACH CAKE 

created by Ina Garten - The Barefoot Contessa

via Food network e-mail clogging up my inbox

I had 3 peaches in my fruit bowl that needed to be eaten up or they were going to melt down by themselves, and we can't have that!

It was easy to make and I only made two changes.  The recipe calls for pecans, but we have a tree nut allergy so I omitted them.  It also calls for more sugar than I thought we needed, so I cut back on that.

Oh - we recently broke our 9 inch square baking pan, so I used a 9 inch pie plate instead!

The cake is a four star hit with the family, so out 

from my e-mail it goes to print and will earn a place in my new cookbook.  I really got to get out and buy a new binder...

Here is the recipe for the cake

FRESH PEACH CAKE by Ina Garten - the Barefoot Contessa

prep time:  20 min    cook time:  55 min    yields:  8 servings    level: easy  (I agree)

INGREDIENTS

1/4 lb (1 stick) unsalted butter - room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar (divided) 

2 extra large eggs - room temperature

1 cup sour cream - room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract 

2 cups all purpose flour 

1 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 large ripe peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9 inch square baking pan.

In a bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment (I used a hand mixer, just fine) beat the butter and one cup of the sugar for 3-5 mins on medium high speed, until light and fluffy.  With the mixer on low, add the eggs, one at a time, then the sour cream and vanilla, mix until the batter is smooth.  In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  With the mixer on low (I just used my hand powered spoon) slowly add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix just until combined.  In a small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and the cinnamon.

Spread half of the batter evenly in the pan and top with half of the peaches.  Sprinkle with 2/3's of the sugar mixture and spread the remaining batter on top.  Arrange remaining peaches on top and sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture and the pecans (if using).

Bake the cake for 45-55 mins, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Now I am off to dig out my previous summer quilt and I'll post that next.  It's one of my favorites!

Because I  put my dog in the quilt!

Try to do something you like to do everyday!
Pam

Pinterest Boards!

One More Thing!

I forgot to add Pinterest foodie boards to my overstuffed recipe collection!  I've got the usual Favorite Foods board, but also Crock Pot Love, Save Room for Dessert, and Wings are my Thing! How many recipes does one family need?? I even went so far as to try to organize it with a board called Whats on the Menu?  That just got confusing, I like my paper menus better.

Pam 

Creative Input - tackling a overgrown cookbook

Take a little time to do something creative everyday - your day is that much fuller.

Sometimes it makes my home a better place.

Sometimes it just puts me inn a better place

I am the mother of four beautiful children but I found if I did something creative for me, them, my husband, I felt the day (me!) was a little more complete.  Something that didn't get eaten up, used up, messed up.

I love to sew, paint, needle art, but I also think cooking is a creative out put.  One dinner time when the children were young, I looked at our "if it's Monday, it must be meatloaf" kind of dinner right out of the 1950's - and I said out loud "I can't do this anymore" - so boring. 

I decided to cook something different every night!  I got a subscription to Cooking Light magazine, copied recipes off of TV shows like "Mad Hungry" with Lucinda Scala Quinn, guests on the "Nate Berkus Show" and Martha Stewart

 I bought a note book binder, page protectors, and a three hole punch and started keeping what we gave a thumbs up to after dinner and toss the not so great for us recipes. .Now, I was on the start of the culinary wave that has swept the country.  When I started this "there has to something better than a tater tot" quest there wasn't a food network on TV, magazines were the way to find a new recipe.  I love going into the grocery store with what little energy I had left and buy and issue of Everyday Food match a recipe to the store sale flyer - boom!  Dinner was in the bag!  But soon Rachael Ray would have her ground breaking show with celebrity quests and a recipe for dinner. 

Now we have The Chew there would be the new word

"foodie" which didn't mean you ate too much!  Pretty soon, my kids got older - which meant they/we got busier!  Soccer, ice skating lessons, school plays, baseball games that run for two hours, carpools and the high school football team - we all do it!

 I needed to create menus 

on the weekend and get myself a bunch of casserole recipes and a crock pot fast!  But then it got worse,  I went back to work!

I love my job as a nursery school teacher, I love my happy healthy family but the result came down to this:

I've got recipes jammed in there that not only haven't been tried yet, but loose ones, even a whole Cooking Light issue stuffed in there!  What a mess, it keeps popping open so it's not in order anymore!  The first question that needs to be answered when I look at this cookbook cover is "What was I thinking?!" It was probably just as ugly when it was new!

Time has marched on, my children are older and college bound

so it's time to cook through this book, the Food Network and Sarah Carey's Everyday Food e-mails and the printed off recipes from cooking shows.  With only four of us home right now, I am going to give each recipe a four star rating to see if it will make it into my new binder - which I haven't purchased yet!  But when I do, I am going to buy one that has a plastic cover pocket and today I am going to paint a 'still life with lemons' or something like that - my creative input for the day!

Pam