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By Kathy McGuire, August 28, 2008 2:44 pm

It’s that harvest time of year. Simple, lo-cal treats can be found by grilling or broiling many fruits and vegetables that come our way. You can cook them on the grill or broil them in the oven. I put mine, sliced, on top of some tinfoil in a pie plate, since they get juicy.

Grilled/Broiled Tomatoes

Plum tomatoes are especially good, but you can use any. Just slice the tomatoes thinly, spread on the tin foil which has been sprayed with a little canola oil (you can skip this if sticking is not a problem), and sprinkle with a little good Parmesan cheese. Got any fresh or dried favorite herbs (parsley, oregano, summer savory, etc.)? Sprinkle some of those on, too. Place over medium coals or indirect heat of center burner turned off, outside burners on medium high in a gas grill. 10 minutes or so, until the cheese is lightly browned.

Prepare the same but place about four inches down under the broiler on High in the oven and watch closely.

Grilled/Broiled Plums, Peaches, Nectarines

Proceed just the same! A little herbs and parmesan make these fruits into a savory treat. For  a sweet dessert, grill or broil until browning and carmelizing, then remove from heat and douse with a little amaretto or other liquor or a little light whipped cream.

Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating is a movement toward learning to pay attention to your own inner signals as to what you want to eat and when you want to eat and how much you want to eat. Google “Intuitive Eating” and you’ll find references to the book of the same name and to online support groups.

Our Intuitive Focusing self-help skill provides a way into this intuitive, bodily-knowing. 

The broader purpose of Creative Edge Focusing (TM) is teaching two simple self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which, like reading and writing, can be integrated into every aspect of work and home life as a kind of “human literacy.” Our website at www.cefocusing.com gives explanations and instructions, free articles, e-newsletter, e-course of practice exercises, and a free yahoo e-support group for actual practice of Focusing and Listening. 

Listening and Focusing are a way to find our own gems inside the places that we experience as “stuck” and “limited”  and to find these gems in others, valuing our intuitions, “gut feelings,” stuckness and depression, negative feelings like jealousy, anger, our creative and spiritual “inklings” and ideas, our co-workers, family, friends, even when they irritate us.

INVITE OTHERS TO JOIN US!!!
 
Please forward this e-newsletter to any friends, family, trainees, colleagues who might benefit from either the e-course or CEF News and Goods e-newsletter. This Fall is a great time for newcomers to join. They can subscribe at  http://cefocusing.com/subscribe.php   and immediately download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual. Just hit “Forward” down near your “Send” option, then choose anyone you want from your email address book! Take this small step to help bring Listening/Focusing into the world!

FREE RESOURCES

You can get online support and answers to your questions as you try to proceed in the Creative Edge Practice e-group at http://yahoogroups.com/group/creativeedgepractice .

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-E-course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (1)

By Kathy McGuire, November 30, 2007 5:33 pm

Key Secret:

It is weak coffee that is bitter! It is exactly putting too much water through too few grounds that sucks out the bitter acids in the coffee.

So, while intuitively, you might think you have to make your coffee weaker to get rid of bitter taste, exactly the opposite is the case.

It is always better to start with too strong coffee and add water than to make weak, and therefore full of bitter acids, coffee.

Coffee making is about the only place where I measure exactly instead of intuitively. It took me over 50 years to get it right, and I’m sticking with the formula.

Basic Formula (And Julia Child in Joy of Cooking reiterates it on page 26, 1964 edition!): 2 US Tablespoons of regular or fine ground coffee to 3/4 to 1 8-ounce cup of fresh water.

Me, I use a small Mr. Coffee, fill it to the metal band (they call this “4 cups,” but it is only about 2 1/2  8-ounce cups of water), and use 2 1/8 cup (2T) scoops of fine ground coffee of the darker, stronger kind, like French Roast.

I started with Starbuck’s coffee I bought at the supermarket, to get the recipe down (“good as Starbuck’s” was my goal. Yours may be higher, like freshly ground beans, fancy extracting pots…that is not me).

And, me, I use decaf coffee only, because the real thing can keep me awake for 36 hours straight. But that is another story about “highly sensitive people” and food allergies.

It is very hard to find interesting decaf coffees. Starbuck’s has only one House Blend. Walmart has a pretty good Java Express decaf French Vanilla. Natural food stores may have some good organic ones.

But I have found the most interesting decafs and bargain prices at discount stores like Tuesday Morning and TJMax in the gourmet food sections, like, recently, Godiva decaf Special Roast and decaf Vanilla. And lots of other little-known brands, even, when lucky, decaf Chocolate Raspberry, Creme Brulee, Irish Creme. You just have to keep checking. I buy six or more if I find them. Whether kept in the freezer or on the shelf (I do put the original bag inside a ziplock bag), they taste “good as Starbuck’s” to me after several months!

So, don’t skimp on the coffee and ruin the flavor!

While Intuitive Cooking is only an off-shoot, learn the self-help skills that really matter to me, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, at my website for Creative Edge Focusing (TM). See how the skills apply to personal growth, creativity, spirituality, parenting, as well as creative, innovative problem solving and interpersonal conflict resolution in work-oriented settings. Two self-help skills as “emotional and social intelligence” for every part of life.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, November 20, 2007 5:05 pm

Okay, ’tis the season. We’ve got to have that pumpkin pie. Here are two easy alternatives to get you through:

(1) Tiny pumpkin and pecan pie tartletts (Sam’s Club), frozen: warm up one of each, top with a dollop of low-fat whipped topping or Kool Whip Free —enough to satisfy the urge many times throughout the holidays.

(2) Pumpkin pudding

Canola or other spray

1 15-ounce can plain pumpkin

1 15-ouce can part-skim ricotta cheese

1 tsp cinnamin

1/4 tsp each: cloves, nutmeg, allspice, ginger (whatever you like!)

1/8 cup Splenda or Splenda for Baking (1/2 Splenda, 1/2 sugar)

Add some pecans or walnuts if you like. 

Spray pyrex or other oven-proof container. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients together in a bowl and place in container. Bake about 50 minutes, until lightly browned on bottom and sides. Yum!!! Eat as much as you like! That ricotta is calcium/protein, that pumpkin an orange vegetable!!!!!!

Eat it warmed up. Top with a little low-fat whipped topping if you like.

Happy holiday if you are in the USA! Happy eating anywhere!

See Intuitive Focusing to learn our self-help skill for paying attention to The Creative Edge, the “intuitive feel”  of what you want to eat, what would taste great thrown together, and all other aspects of personal growth, creativity, spirituality, conflict resolution, and group decision making!

Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

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By Kathy McGuire, November 14, 2007 1:40 pm

Elegant Simple Puff Pastry Tart Using Almost Any Fruit

This is it! The one perfect, generic dessert for every party or every day occasion.

Just keep frozen Puff Pastry sheets in your freezer. Also, buy some Parchment Paper (in the Baking section of grocery store) and keep it handy.

Need a fancy dessert, or just want to enjoy fresh fruit in season or out? Take out one sheet. Defrost it on very low a few minutes, making sure not to “melt” it. Flour a wooden or pastry board lightly and roll the sheet out into a rectangle the size of a cookie baking sheet.

Preheat the oven as instructed on Puff Pastry package.

Choose a fruit. Peaches, pears, apples, plums, raspberries, blueberries, bananas, apricots, nectarines, dried apricots, or your imagination! Or mix fruits with each other.Slice the larger fruits thin as you want (1/4 inch?).

Mix the fruit with a little something for slight flavoring. I like liquors: Ameretto (great with peaches, pears, apples) Raspberry Chambord, whatever!, just a few tablespoons to moisten and let sit a few minutes.

Or use traditional spices: cinnamon (apples?), nutmeg (pears), clove, pie spice, whatever you like!

You can sprinkle in a little Splenda or Splenda-for-baking (half Splenda, half sugar) or a little sugar if you want more sweetening. But the idea is to let the flavor of the fruit on the pastry shine through. Very European! Very gourmet! Very easy!!!!!!

Put Parchment Paper on the cookie tray (prevents sticking of tart), rectangle of dough on the paper, and arrange fruit on the dough, leaving a small (1/4-1/2 inch?) margin to pinch up as a rim to keep juices in.

ONLY MAIN RULE: DON’T PUT TOO MUCH FRUIT JUICE OR OTHER JUICE ON OR YOUR PASTRY CRUST WILL GET SOGGY! Still delicious but not quite as “gourmet.”

Put in the oven and bake as directed. The pastry will puff up, especially around the edges.

If you want, when you roll out the puff pastry sheet initially, you can cut it into rectangles or circles, then make smaller tarts by spreading fruit on each. But, me, I just cut the big tart into rectangles after it cooks and cools for a few minutes, and nobody at my house complains.

See other recipes and the philosophy of Intuitive Eating and Intuitive Cooking under Categories: Intuitive Eating or Food in the sidebar.

Basic to Intuitive Cooking and Eating is checking with your “body sense,” your “intuition” of what you want to eat, what would taste great “thrown together.” You can learn the Intuitive Focusing skill and find many Free Articles about Focusing and its partner skill, Focused Listening, at our website for Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

Using the icons in the sidebar, you can subscribe to our e-newsletter and immediately download our Instant “Ahah!” Mini- Manual (Ajas Instantenous en espanol) of ten practices to try at home and work immediately.

You can also join our two e-support groups for practice and networking.

Dr. Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM

Comments (2)

By Kathy McGuire, November 2, 2007 4:08 pm

As an Intuitive Cook, I don’t want recipes. I don’t want to take the time to even open a cook book. I want “general principles” I can apply, given the time and ingredients I have in hand.

 A while ago (see Category: food to find former blogs), I wrote about grilling/roasting cauliflower and onions/peppers. Now, reading autumn food magazines (if you want only one food magazine this season, I recommend Bon Appetit, November, 2007. It is chock full of easy, delicious fall/winter/holiday recipes), I am inundated with more delicious ideas for grilling/roasting, not just veggies, but fruits, and even turning them into soup!

So, here is the basic principle:

In the oven, preheat to 420 degrees (or go to 450, and cook faster, watch more closely), spread slices on baking tray or in a sturdy casserole dish with some olive oil and spices and chunky salt, if you want) and cook around 50 minutes( 10-20 minutes at the higher heat), checking and stirring midway.

On the grill, turn side burners to medium (or pile coals to sides), and grill on a grill pan over the center burner, 10-20 minutes, stirring occasionally (cover closed).

The point: get the veggie or fruit to “caramelize,” turning sweet and roasted. Yummm!!!

Now, new veggies to try (not zero calories like cauliflower and onions/peppers, so watch portion size, but colorful veggies of autumn packed with everything good!):

Pumpkin, butternut squash, acorn squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, beets (flavor with a little honey or maple syrup or curry powder or…use your imagination!).

Turnips, parsnips, rutabaga (this one smells when cooking!), eggplant, fennel.

Baby red potatos, yukon potatoes, any potatoes (flavor with “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,” in any combination).

Leeks, red onions, sweet onions, yellow onions, shallots.

TO MAKE SOUP :

Take any roasted or grilled carmalized veggie and simply add enough low-fat chicken or vegetable broth (from a can!!) to get to desired soupy consistency. Or, blenderize this mixture!!!!! Top with a little parmesan/cheddar/blue cheese or sour cream/yogurt. Mix in some milk or cream, depending upon calories. Season to taste!!!!!

FRUITS: Same basic principle for grilling/roasting.

Pears, apples, plums, peaches, nectarines, any combination

Now, you can also mix fruits and veggies together, such as:

Butternut squash, Apple, and Onion

Pears, Parsnips, and Onion

Apples, Fennel, and Leeks

Whatever your “intuitive feel” tells you would be delicious. Always good with a little cheddar, parmesan,  or blue cheese.

STUFFING, TOO!

Or, add some cornbread or stuffing bread or rice to roasted veggies or fruits, with a little chicken stock, Voila! Stuffing. Add some nuts, dried cranberries or apricots, grapes…

If you are a Sensing instead of an iNtuitive type on the Myers-Briggs (see http://www.cefocusing.com/pdf/2f1n_Jung_MBTI_Exp_Theory.pdf to find out, and Personality Tests submenu at http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2e.php to take some actual tests), you might need recipes and measurements. Cookbooks are for you. But, me, recipes tie me down!!!!

Kathy McGuire

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

Comments (1)

By Kathy McGuire, October 22, 2007 12:27 pm

SWEET POTATO “FRIES” AND EASY EXERCISE

Oven-Baked “Fries”

Okay, so, for healthy eating, fried foods are simply out. And yellow, red, and orange vegetables are in. So, here is a great alternative:

I buy a large enough sweet potato for the three of us. Preheat oven to 420 degrees, the standard heat for roasting vegetables. Peel and slice the sweet potato in “fry” shape.

Drizzle some olive oil on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with coarse salt (I buy chunky Sea Salts at discount stores like TJ Maxx and Tuesday Morning). Spread out “fries.” Sprinkle with a seasoning of choice (I usually use Italian Seasoning, but you could try Curry or anything…). Now, toss it all together, coating the fries evenly.

Place on top rack of oven, and bake for 8 minutes. Stir and turn the fries, and bake for 8 minutes more. The goal is to start the carmelization process that turns the starch to sugar. Turn off the oven. If you want the fries softer, let sit in oven a while. Yum!!!

EASY BASIC EXERCISE

For those who have trouble sticking to an exercise routine and who don’t make it to health clubs, here is all you need to do: buy a treadmill (Nordic Trak from Sears or Vision Fitness T9200 from Your Total Fitness Store are fine for around $1000), unless you can easily walk outside. Walk (You do not need to run. It is not necessary and can lead to more injuries interrupting exercise routine) at speed of 3 miles/hour or less, more is not necessary. Aim for 45 minutes a day five days/week. Advantage of treadmill: If you like to read or watch TV, you can do either as a reward for exercising. Becomes a good excuse for an escape!

For upper body: Bowflex can be good as an at-home machine. The motion is smooth compared to most weight machines. But you can also put together a combination of yoga for flexibility and arm strength, Pilates for core (torso) strength, and arm exercises with or without small weights for upper body strength. Aim to do this routine during some TV program that you watch regularly, like the news or late night talk show, whatever. Just a likely time to fit in 20 minutes of exercise. At least three times a week.

And that is it. If you “fall off the wagon,” it is easy to get started again. Just pick up a book, turn on the TV,  or step outside!

Comments (2)

By Kathy McGuire, October 13, 2007 5:23 pm

1) Intuitive Eating: Paying attention to your inner “felt sensing” while shopping, cooking, eating.

This is the season for fresh basil and tomatoes…try this low-fat meal: Pumpernickel or other dense bread (toasted?), topped with chopped basil , then sliced tomato,  a  drizzle of olive oil, a slice of fresh (or part-skim) mozzarella…