Creativity Tuesday – Macaroni and Kale

Food, is one of my favorite ways to be creative.  Especially when I have a chance to feed people.  Cooking for myself is ok, but having people over to sit at the table, to catch up on life, to eat and to laugh is one of the holiest experiences on earth for me.

Last night, Richard had a workshop, but Maria, Roy and Isaac stopped by for dinner.  I loved meeting Isaac who is almost 4 weeks old.

I was craving Macaroni and Cheese on Sunday, but decided that the calorie count wasn’t worth it.  When I stopped at the St. Paul Library to pick up a book that I had on reserve I noticed that on the cover of one of the “Cooking Light” magazines there was the creamiest, yummiest looking macaroni and cheese I had ever seen.  The secret was that instead of using butter, cream and flour to make a roux, or a bechamel, the creaminess came from a squash, boiled in milk and stock with garlic and then blended before adding the cheese and the pasta.  It was so so good.

I didn’t have the butternut squash that was called for, but we had received an acorn squash in our CSA, so that did the trick.

We also had a Kale Salad that was loosely based on this one from Aarti’s Party.  But I didn’t have a lemon, so I used orange juice, I didn’t have a mango so I used apples and raisins.  So like I said, loosely.

That’s part of what’s fun about cooking, you can follow the instructions exactly or you can substitute sometime similar or incredibly different.  And when you’re done, you have something that brings people together.

One of the significant aspects of communion or the Eucharist in the early church was that it brought rich and poor, Jew and Gentile together.  It was a time to remember Christ and what he had done, but it also served as a reminder of our unity and solidarity with one another in Christ.