Let's get cooking

Creative Life A thru Z

Jean Hart Artwork 

Cooking is always a good idea. ...

Let's get cooking

www.zazzle.com/jeanhar1* 

Part of my creative life journey is cooking in the kitchen. 

Last Christmas Kerry gave me a cookbook, 

The Soup Bible, 

more than 100 recipes for delicious and satisfying soups. 

Now that Fall is here I think it's time to crack the spine and see what's cooking in this book. 

Hearty beefy beer soup

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3/4 pound round steak, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 large onion, chopped

2 medium carrots, sliced

2 stalks celery, diced

5 cups beef broth

1 bottle 12 ounces stout or dark ale 

3/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 small zucchini, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

4 ounces mushrooms, sliced 

1. Heat oil in Dutch over or large saucepan over medium heat, add beef, onion, carrots and celery. Cook and stir until meat is no longer pink and carrots and celery are crisp tender. 

2. Stir in broth, stout, oregano, salt and pepper, bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, simmer 45 minutes or until beef is fork tender. 

3. stir beans, zucchini and mushrooms into soup. bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, simmer 5 minutes or until zucchini is tender. 

makes 6 servings

Dinner the second night was the hearty beef beer soup and a caramelized onion and mushroom with paperjack grill cheese sandwich. 

This soup was amazing, we just couldn't get enough!!

Winner, winner for cold winter nights for sure. 

And the grill cheese sandwich, out of this world. 

5 stars and no left overs. 

Be Inspired, 

~jean 

The Creative Life A thru Z week four

The Creative Life A thru Z

 week Four

Jean Hart Artwork

https://www.zazzle.com/mbr/238392465965343686/collections

What's cooking 

C is for Cooking

Recently, I had a visit with my brother and his daughter.

She had just graduated from high school and

 was on a summer vacation with her dad to visit us,

 and see our grandson.

 We were planning our meals for the week,

 when the conversation lead to our favorite childhood foods. 

We settled on Mom's potatoes salad. 

A truly wonderful dish that says summer. 

We made our grocery list

 and came home

to prepare the potato salad for the next days barbecue.

Mom never wrote down her recipes, to our frustration,  

she just added a little of this and a little of that. 

Isn't is funny how we all remember things differently? 

Between the both of us we managed to make this family favorite 

and come up with a close enough recipe of Mom's potato salad that it inspired family stories.  

Memories in the kitchen are a great way to share your life stories with others. 

This weeks assignment :

C is for Cooking 

1. Sit quietly and remember a time when you were enjoying your favorite childhood food. 

2. Look at your weeks menu and see if you can make it this week. 

3. Share in the actual cooking with family and friends. 

4. Enjoy the meal, and share the history of this favorite childhood food with family and friends. 

Journal Work

CIRCLES

Better Together, by artist  Jean Hart 

1. In your journal start to draw circles. Circles of all sizes,  fill up the page with circles.

The circles can be touching, inside each other, or separate.  

2.Now, with your art supplies, pens, marker, paints. 

Fill in the circles with color.

3. Note which colors you used most, or which color is the most pleasing to you. 

How are you responding to particularity colors? 

Do you have a favorite color?

COLOR Therapy 

Color therapy is an interesting subject. 

I have read many books on this and studied the color wheel for painting. 

I came across this website about the Psychology of Color.

Since, I'm doing a sampling of my curriculum here with you  online,

 I thought I would share this website with you here. 

https://www.colorpsychology.org/

Cook Books
Do you have a favorite cookbook?
Reading recipes makes me feel like a chemist. 
I'm a very good cook! Why? 
Because I follow the recipes. 
Break out your favorite cookbook, 
or good to a second hand store and find an old time cookbook that's
been very well used. 
Here is a cookbook from a restaurant I'm hoping to visit in my travels. 
jeanhartartists.blogspot.com/2016/08/eating-at-the.html

Two Minutes in Nature, bubbling stream 
Take two minutes to simply breathe deeply and imagine putting your feet in a cool stream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-bU5fP96nA&t=45s

As always, be inspired, and  have fun with the assignments. 

~jean 

It's a sure thing

Jean Hart Artwork 

www.zazzle.com/jeanhar1*

"If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live."
 Lin Yutang.

Brownies.....the thing I love about cooking in the kitchen,  is that after its made I find everyone in the kitchen with me. It's a sure thing when I find nothing in life to be that sure. 
Picnic's are not always a sure thing...but when they happen they are magical. So, when I find myself away from home doing the unusual things I have to remember how special the day is. 
What will you be doing today?
Be Inspired,
~jean 
www.zazzle.com/jeanhar1*