Fifteen-Minute Fix #12: The Art of the Simple Syrup

Sometimes it helps to stretch my art-making muscle by being creative in another area of my life – cooking.  For this blog post I get three creative practices for the price of one – cooking, taking the picture and writing about it all.

It all started when I went to my garden this morning and noticed that the lemon verbena had grown five feet tall.  A very good friend recently gifted me with a giant bag of lemons and presto! It’s lemonade time.

Lemon Verbena Simple Syrup
Photo by Anne LaBrie ©2013

INGREDIENTS

1 cup lemon verbena leaves

1.5 cups water

1.25 cups sugar (approx)

A heat-proof Pyrex measuring cup

Wash the leaves, bunch them up in your fist and break into (roughly) thirds.  This helps release the oils from the plants.  Put leaves in a small saucepan and cover with the water.  Boil for 2 minutes.

Pour the water into the heatproof measuring cup.  Discard the leaves. How much water is in the cup at this point?  With a dry measuring cup, measure out that same amount of sugar and place into the pot.  Pour the hot water back into the pot on top of the sugar and stir to combine.  Boil for 2 minutes.

Pour syrup back into the heatproof cup and let cool.

When cool, pour syrup into a container and store in fridge.

LEMONADE for One

Cut one large lemon in quarters and squeeze each quarter into a small colander that’s been placed over a tall drinking glass.  Remove colander and add 1.5 tablespoons Lemon Verbena Syrup.  Fill the glass 2/3 full of water and stir.  You can now add more syrup based on your own preference of sweet to tart!  Add ice and you’re ready to go. This Lemon Verbena Simple Syrup also tastes great in iced tea, mojitos, or drizzled lightly over fruit! 

Fifteen-Minute Fix #11: Pinky Print Pot Painting

This past weekend was so beautiful.  It was sunny and just warm enough to not need a coat.  The bees and birds were buzzing and singing, the clouds were fluffy – the perfect time to do a little (just a little) gardening.  Too bad for me that I had loads of other stuff to do, but I promised myself that I would get outside today.  This morning I woke up to a fog bank that is miles long.  Luckily for me, I’ve got just the fix – painting a pot! 

Purple Pinky Pot by Anne LaBrie

INGREDIENTS

1 terra cotta 6” clay pot

3 small bottles of craft acrylic paint

   i.e. pale blue, pale violet and dark purple

1 paper grocery-store bag

1/2” flat brush, #3 round brush

1 small paper cup with water

2 paper towels

Your pinky finger

1.   Start with your first color – I used pale blue.  Paint around the inner rim of the pot and up around the lip, then continue down the outside of the pot to the halfway point. Make sure the paint is layered on thick enough so you don’t see any of the terra-cotta pot.  Right away, put a few drops of your second color (pale violet) on your brush and stroke over the wet blue paint – blending in some places and not in others until you get the look you want.  For this example, I left the rim in just the pale blue. Set the pot aside and let dry – usually just a few minutes. Wipe your brush with a paper towel and put in the water to clean the brush.

2.         Turn the pot over and paint from the bottom of the pot up to and including the bottom part that is already painted with your base color.  Once again, while that is wet, work in your second color until you like the look of it.  Let dry again.

3.         Keep the pot rim side down.  With your small brush and a much darker color, paint a few curved lines that go down the side about halfway in 2” intervals around the bottom.  Then, make some tiny ‘grass’ lines along the bottom.  Pour a small amount of the darker paint on your paper bag and dip your pinky finger in just enough to get paint, but not enough that the paint is dripping. Make a few practice flowers on the paper bag.  When you like how your flowers look, take more paint and place your fingerprint around the top of each stem in a circular pattern 5 times like a flower.  Just before you lift your finger, put a second of extra pressure in the middle of the petal.  This forms edges around the petal. Make your pinky finger petals around each curved line. When done, wipe your hands on a paper towel and wash with water.

4.         Place the top of an unused pencil erasure into the paint and create dots along the top rim of the pot.   Let the whole thing dry.  Take a picture – impress your friends!

This small project really helped to wake up my foggy creativity and cheered me up.  Not only that, but now I actually have a place to put my new purple primrose plant.  That means I Painted a Pinky Print Pot for my Purple Primrose Plant and if that doesn’t make you smile – it might be time to go back to bed!

Fifteen-Minute Fix #10: Mirror, Mirror

Reflected Love by Anne LaBrie

It’s that February-special time of year – no, not the Superbowl, the other one.  It’s the Valentine tell-someone-you-love-them time of year.  The time of year to eat chocolate hearts, hug stuffed bears, and send/receive cards (or anything) with hearts on them.  The holiday some people embrace and others ignore – or try to.  

This year, I made the decision to actually spend a few minutes just appreciating my own Self.   To let myself get in touch with that squishy, inner part that usually stays well hidden. When this ‘inner’ place gets some attention, the ‘outer’ part of my life just flows better.  Try it – if you dare!

INGREDIENTS

Mirror

Comfortable seat

Device to play some music

Songs that make you feel good

         (For this fix, I’m using Karen Drucker’s “Songs of the Soul III”) 

                               http://www.karendrucker.com

1.         Spend the first five minutes just dancing around a little to your favorite song.  Get loose & get happy.  I like to listen to Karen’s “Relax and Let  Go”, because, well, I do.

2.         For the next five minutes, sit in front of the mirror and look deeply into your eyes.  No, really.  Listen to a song where you can feel appreciation –  or use Karen’s “Beauty in You”.  As you listen, let yourself appreciate the parts of yourself that you really like – and no, we’re not talking about physically, although that’s useful, too.  If thoughts about yourself come in that are not helpful – let them pass and then go back to just being with          yourself.

3.         For the last five minutes, listen to a song that helps you feel supported and expanded and satisfied.  I know, it’s a lot for a song, but it helps.  My favorite is Karen’s “Song in my Soul”.  Dance a little to this one too, if you feel like it!

There is something profoundly wonderful is just giving yourself the gift of appreciating who you are – through your own eyes – that will connect you to yourself.  From that place, the world feels better and more importantly, you feel better in the world!

Fifteen-Minute Fix #9: Carrot-Orange Power Gel-oh!

What a wonderful holiday season I just had – full of friends and family and way too much fun!  And while I did a better than usual job of making healthy choices for my body this past season, I’m still feeling a little on the sluggish side.  Luckily, I’m also feeling optimistic about changing that with a few fixes – starting with this one.

Carrot Love by Anne LaBrie

Did you know that eating carrots is a great way to help your liver? Carrot juice is a rich source of Vitamin A and will help cleanse the liver and improve the quality of the blood.  The orange juice contains Vitamin C, the ginger protects the liver and adds a little zing.  In addition, gelatin has been shown to break down into collagen which lubricates and assists your joints!

INGREDIENTS:

2.5 c fresh carrot juice (I used Odwalla)

1.5 c fresh orange juice

1 small box Knox gelatin (containing 4 envelopes – use all of them)

2 tea fresh ginger root (about 1 inch of root)

1 medium carrot

Measure the cold carrot juice and pour into an 8 x 8” glass Pyrex baking dish. Empty all packages of Knox gelatin into the dish and mix to dissolve the gelatin. Place orange juice in a quart saucepan and begin to heat.  While you are waiting, grate the carrot and the fresh ginger root and mix into the cold juice right in the dish. When the orange juice comes to a full boil, turn off the heat and pour into the cold juice. Mix gently.  Place the dish into the refrigerator until set, at least 4 hours.  Cut into cubes and serve.

Next time you make it, experiment by adjusting the amounts of each type of juice for your own personal taste.  The trick is to have great taste while keeping the added sugar content down – your liver doesn’t really like much sugar.  For your next party, you can double the recipe and use a large 13x9” pan.

Before you know it, you and your liver will be smiling!

Fifteen-Minute Fix #8: Happy New Year!

Hats Off! by Anne LaBrie

By the time each new year comes around, I find myself feeling glad the old year is leaving.  After all, it has been quite a journey ­– the ups, the downs, the transitions in-between.  There have been things that I am glad happened, and things that I regret happening.  For me, I love to hang out on New Year’s Day and use the cosmic energy of the new year to set my intentions for the new year. This feels like I’m sort of calibrating my intentions with the energy that will help me realize my goals.  If that concept doesn’t resonate with you, just know that after trying this experience for yourself, you’ll feel better about moving forward into the new year.

Ingredients:         Journal and/or 5x7 mat card, colored pens/pencils/markers

For the first five minutes, think about your favorite moments of the past year.  The times that made you smile, or gave you a feeling of accomplishment.  You can either write a few down – the big ones – or just use your pens and doodle your good feelings in your journal or on your mat card.

In the next five minutes, thing about the things that didn’t go quite the way you would have wanted.  The things that didn’t get done or that you were hoping you would have had more time for.  Using your pens, draw a doodle that expresses that disappointment. Don’t think about what you’re doodling, just let the pen take you for a little walk. What is great about the doodle is that you don’t need to spend much time in the regret part, but can just get the energy of the disappointment down quickly.  After all, we’re trying to do this in only five minutes.

Take another minute and feel compassion for yourself and your experiences for the year.  Know that you did your best with what you had for the time and the knowledge you had!

The last four minutes for this experience are for what you’re looking forward to.  How would you like to feel in the next year? What do you think would help you get there? Write or doodle those few things down and as you do, imagine the feeling of relief you will have as these few things get accomplished.  Let your body take a nice big sigh of it. Whew!

As you can probably imagine, this process can easily be expanded into taking much longer than fifteen minutes.  And you know what?  That’s okay.  The important thing is that you can measurably feel differently about your year and your Self in only fifteen minutes.  Anything longer is a bonus!