Eclectic Living

Visual Exploration of the Elements Book on Sale (40% off!)

2012-02-14T07:03:00.000-08:00

This book is a wonderful resource for any Chemistry study, regardless of age. Thanks so much, C., for the lead! The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe

I've checked it out from the library before and it is really cool :).

What's Cookin'?

We're on schedule with the dinners I posted. For one lunch I'm making polenta and will slice, brown slightly in a pan, top with a tomato slice and sliver of cheese, and broil just until the cheese barely starts to melt. Doesn't that sound good?

I found non-gmo polenta mix at Big Lots, yes - Big Lots :). Gmo products are not allowed in Europe so I like to look through their international foods in the back grocery corner. Here is a link to the corn meal (which I used recently to make corn bread). It's not organic, but is IS non-gmo, gluten free, Kosher, and very inexpensive for non-gmo at only $1.50. I'm getting about 3 batches of corn bread from the 1-pound bag. The polenta mix is 100% corn flour.

The Young Underground by Robert Elmer

2012-02-12T22:00:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

The dc worked out the menu for this week. These are the dinners written and posted:
- Pancakes (oldest dd made these tonight)
- Taquitos (already made and in the freezer)
- Beans and Cornbread (pinto beans have already been soaked in filtered water with juice of 1/2 lemon and are now gurgling away in the crock pot)
- Chicken Tacos (we'll be trying our first organic corn tortillas from Azure Standard. The ingredients say 'trace of lime' so I'm hoping they are nixtamalized and my hands won't bleed - right now I"m suffering from eating, literally, two small handfuls of Fritos after a looong day yesterday at a sporting event PRID is the only thing that heals the lesions from eating unsoaked corn or beans)
- Chicken Nuggets (homemade) and mozzarella sticks (homemade breaded/fried cheese sticks)
- Tortilla Soup (will have to make homemade chips because I can't find organic corn chips around here)
- Quiche (using the last little bit of Amish swiss cheese I have and a little handful of pastured pork sausage.

We didn't plan any breakfasts, snacks, nor lunches (except leftover chili for one lunch) but it's a start... at least the other 2 dds got the bread dough soaking for tomorrow. We have (soaked/dehydrated) homemade peanut butter and some home-canned blueberry jam ready for sandwiches. Wow, I sound so domestic!

Dud: I don't have any yogurt or whey to make fermented lemonade, but I DO have some So Delicious Coconut Milk Yogurt (vanilla flavor 'cuz they didn't have plain). I had gotten them for an activity because I thought one family might have dairy allergies. Anyway, I tried draining it for whey to make the lemonade and maybe 2 drops of whey came out. That sure didn't work! I need to get a plain little yogurt to use as starter and make a few quarts of yogurt very, very soon.

What's Schoolin'?

It's been quite a while since I've oohed and aahed over Robert Elmer books. Youngest dd is currently reading one of his absolutely wonderful youth sci-fi books (that actually make me laugh out loud sometimes) outloud to me. She's already read it and it's below her reading level but *I* haven't read it yet and thought it would be good 'together' time for her to read it to me. Her book is: Astroball Free-4-All (AstroKids) from the AstroKids series.

The older girls are studying World War II right now and I just pulled out the series The Young Underground for them to read. It says ages 8-13 and they are older but I don't worry too much about that since technically it's for history and will be good reads. Somehow I managed to find books 1, 3, and 4 used in bookstores but am missing book 2 :(. I noticed that some are in Kindle form for $2.99 (and no shipping!). IF I had a Kindle I would probably do that but even though I have the software to read Kindle books on my computer I'll have to pass. It's tricky sharing the computer between so many of us! We'll just read the books we have since neither library I use have any of his books (both used to and have discarded them!). On the other hand... several are on Amazon (see links below) for only a penny so they are basically just the price of shipping (I think about $3.99 per book). That's a great deal!

Detective Adjective Game (or Detective Triangle Game)

2012-02-09T08:56:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

Chicken Nuggets: So far, from our home-raised broilers, I've made chicken spaghetti, chicken tacos, tortilla soup, chicken/cheese melts (chicken and cheese on homemade pitas broiled until melted), and chicken sandwiches. I also plan on chicken enchiladas and maybe even chicken lasagna. Notice they're all shredded chicken? :) I'm excited to try these chicken nuggets - hopefully ahead of time so they can just be frozen and reheated for fast meals. Your choice of ingredients is what will change up the recipe to make it more traditional or to suite family needs. We'll use our home-raised chicken, homemade bread for breadcrumbs, Amish cheese, Hain Safflower Mayonnaise, and yucky factory eggs (no layers yet!). [1 egg; 1 Tbl mayo; small onion; 2 C cooked chicken; 1/4 C cheddar cheese]
http://www.littlehouseliving.com/homemade-chicken-nuggets.html

[ Update: These were fantastic. Dh even really like them! In the photo I came at the plate with the camera in the exact same moment that dd came at the plate to swipe one. Since she had actually shaped each nugget, rolled them in breadcrumbs, and baked them I thought she was entitled to a few extra nuggets :). I plan on making them again with the chicken I just baked last night.]

What's Schoolin'?

We introduced the Detective Adjective Game to youngest dd ("we" being me and olders so it could be more interactive). Then the olders left to do their own school work and youngest and I continued. This shows her notebook page after doing several presentations from the R and D manual. She did some with just the phrase (marked with the grammar symbols) and then she did some for which she traced/cut/glued the triangle after copying and marking the phrase.

You can get printables to make it yourself here:

http://jmjpublishing.com/JMJpdfs4all/2010DetAdjTriangles.pdf
http://jmjpublishing.com/JMJpdfs4all/2010DetAdjTriangleOutline.pdf
This is a wonderful resource. I cannot even express how much help I got from Suzanne's generous printables and instructions when I was starting out with Montessori in our home school. Here is the main page for the Hope4me printables. Please visit:
http://jmjpublishing.com/hope4memembers.html

Printable for the triangles to print on colored paper(only $2.29!)
http://www.shop.montessoriprintshop.com/Detective-Adjective-Game-Outlines-MF-55b.htm
Here are their command cards - really necessary to make it independent (also $2.29)
http://www.shop.montessoriprintshop.com/Detective-Adjective-Command-Cards-MF-38.htm

I couldn't have said it better myself:
What's Wrong with our Food System? by 11-yr-old Birke Baehr

What Else is Cookin'?

I'm debating over the Junket rennet tablets for custard and ice cream - 8 Ea or the Malaka Brand Liquid Vegetarian Rennet, 0.5 Ounce Bottle (Pack of 2).

I'm reading this book right now from the library. However, after tagging some pages that I wanted to copy for my files I realized that I need to just buy the book. I can't wait to try cottage cheese again:

The Complete Guide to Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt at Home: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply

Should I just get one of these kits to start?
Cheese Making Kits

This post was linked on Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2012/02/real-food-wednesday-212012.html

Crayola Kits, Leapster I Spy, Healthy Food Stamps, Electronic Kit, Hydropower Kit, Genetic and DNA Kit, K'NEX Middle School Math and more on sale

2012-02-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

I had waaaay too much fun window shopping for good sales at Amazon!! Some of these are going on my personal wish list. These are some sales I found on Amazon that I thought some of you might like:

This is my favorite of all (67% off!): Educational Insights Healthy Foods Stamp Set

Thames & Kosmos Technology and Electronics Electronics Workshop 1 (31% off; save over $30)

Thames and Kosmos Alternative Energy and Environmental Science Hydropower (40% off)

Thames & Kosmos Biology Genetics and DNA (25% off)

K'NEX Education - Middle School Math (23% off; save over $30)

Crayola 12ct Oil Pastels Portfolio Series (34% off)

Learning Resources Totally Tut Math Operations Game (34% off)

Crayola Undersea Adventures Color Stories (58% off):

Crayola Glow Station Day & Night (42% off)

LeapFrog Leapster I Spy (52% off)

Mazin Hamster Series 1 - Sweetie (50% off)

Whac-A-Mole Card Game (60% off)

Webkinz Leopard (88% off)

Talicor Lifestories (29% off)

Wild Planet Crayola Crayon Town Large Mat Construction Set (50% off)

U-Build Sorry (45 % off)

StickaDoodle StickaDoodle Activity Pack (60% off)

Freeze Ball (55% off)

Mega Bloks Magnext Dynamix Gears and Elektronix (35% off)

Spectrangle (22% off)

I tried to have terrariums for the different biomes we studied but didn't really make it beyond the first one! I love the idea of growing cacti from seed in the DuneCraft Cactus Gardens - Wild West Cactus Roundup (39% off).

I used something similar while teaching 4th grade. We used it for ratiocination during writing workshop and each child needed the same colors. It's 47% off: Crayola Washable Marker Classpack.

MathDiction (31% off)

Maybe my poor roma tomato plants that I babied and babied would have survived with something like this. They lasted until this last week and suddenly drooped over beyond resuscitation... they only needed to last a few more weeks :(: Educational Insights GeoSafari GreenThumb Classroom Greenhouse (52% off)

Ancient Greece... again! ~ Magnesium

2012-01-30T07:38:00.000-08:00

What's Schoolin'?

I just uploaded a file with a few Ancient Greece lapbook pages. One page has 3 matchbooks for each of the main philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. The other is sort of a quiz, but don't tell dds! :) It's a lift-the-flap with the question on top and they'll have their answers underneath.

One dd is doing a traditional lapbook for the ancients and another is, I guess, notebooking it. She's using cardstock in a binder with dividers for each civilization.

http://tinyurl.com/7sf69a9

What's Cookin'?

~ We'll be doing a horticulture presentation for our 4-H club in a few weeks. We're blatantly stealing an idea that we saw at another 4-H workshop and will present different herbs along with dips using them. The one that surprised me with its flavor and fresh taste was simple fresh parsley chopped and mixed into sour cream. I'm hoping I can find freshly packed herbs in this new area. If you have a Kroger (I miss Kroger!!) you can get little packs of fresh herbs in the produce section. They usually go on clearance before they go bad so that's what I would get. Try some fresh herbs mixed into some sour cream; or better yet, mixed into some strained yogurt (to thicken it a bit) and get some probiotics; or even better yet, mixed into some homemade yogurt; or even better yet, mixed into some homemade yogurt made from fresh farm milk. :)

The timing is off since it's in the middle of winter and I don't have my herb garden set up yet. Another idea is to demonstrate different plants that represent different parts of plants that we eat.

~ Flaxseed/cottage cheese combo: This combination is suppose to help your body absorb healthy fats. I take tons (therapeutic doses) of Fermented Cod Liver Oil w/ Butter Oil (see link below) (and extra fish oil on extra bad brain days). Lately my neck and hands look like a 90+ year old woman's - all papery, dry, and thin. I look dehydrated (which I may be) and just dried out like a withered raisin. I don't think I'm absorbing all that I'm taking. Hopefully this combo will help. I eat cottage cheese almost daily anyway for lunch or snack because I feel good after eating it and because it has a precursor to a healthy brain chemical (I think it's dopamine). I like to add organic cherries, blueberries, or apples to my cottage cheese. I'm looking forward to trying this combo. It was discovered by Dr. Budwig and they use it for cancer patients. Basically it's 1:2 flaxseed oil to cottage cheese. Whip it thoroughly with an immersion blender (or maybe a food processor?). Then you add in freshly ground flaxseeds. I don't have any so I'll start with just the oil blended in. They recommend the Barlean's brand of flaxseed oil which happens to be the one I got at a health food store recently (yeah!).

Magnesium:

I'm not endorsing this product (I just saw the video and hadn't heard of them before) but I found this info quite interesting and it gives another angle to the importance of magnesium. With my leftover Lyme-induced brain issues I'm always on the alert (somewhere within the fog) for things that will benefit my brain health.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2012/jan2012_Reversing-Brain-Decay_01.htm

I've been taking magnesium for quite a while now but have been revisiting it lately. When I was about 3/4 through my initial conventional Lyme treatment (almost 5 years of nearly daily antibiotics plus a ton of other meds plus a ton of supplements) and was just racked with pain I was taking the daily max + of Advil and/or Aleve. I finally asked the naturapath that owns a local store what fibro patients take for the pain and she recommended Fibralgia I couldn't believe how effective it was. It got me off of the pain meds. Since then I rarely take Advil and that's mainly just for occasional migraines or female issues (although the magnesium is always my first line of defense for cramps also and it usually works). The other good thing about this particular product is that it doesn't mess with bowels. A few weeks ago I tried a different kind - one recommended to me in a health food store. I was only able to take it 2 days because of bowel intolerance. I wish now that I had saved my money and waited until the store carrying Fibralgia was open or had ordered through Amazon. Wasted money. Lesson learned.

I've been ruminating over trying topical magnesium since it's highly bioavailable and there are no bowel issues. While I was in the middle of this rumination 2 highly trusted foodie blogs posted about magnesium (Annemarie and Kelly). I've narrowed it down to 2 trusted products:
Ancient Minerals Ultra Pure Magnesium Oil 8 oz. and Dr. Barbara Hendel's Magnesium Oil (Swanson).

After reading about them I'm going to try the Swanson brand spray. It comes from the same place (if I understand correctly), is reputable, and is much less expensive.

I am getting the spray so I can just spray it on my feet at bedtime. I don't have any trouble at all falling asleep but many who do find that magnesium at bedtime helps them sleep. No, I wish I could stay awake longer in my little nest of books. Just when I get settled in for some fun quiet time with books I fall asleep! Okay, so starting out at 10:30 may be the reason... [Notice I said bookS not book - I think my current stack is 5 that I'm actively reading right now. Several are previews for dc; a chicken book; a crossword book to start relaxing and forget about pressing worries; and adult fiction] [I'm previewing a Tan book about St. Athanasius since we're moving into Ancient Rome and it's a really cool point of view regarding the Council of Nicaea, the Nicene Creed, and the Arian heresy. It's also an easy read. While looking for the link I noticed that there is also a book with his original writings so I'll keep my eye open for that one as well. On The Incarnation (this 99 cent Kindle has an intro by CS Lewis) ]

44% ~ 41% ~ and 54% off!!

2012-01-28T15:44:00.000-08:00

What's Schoolin'?

We have used a globe ball in our home school for YEARS. It's an all-time favorite. It has finally started to deflate a little bit but after over 10 years of homeschooling I'm getting a bit wrinkly myself! They sit on the floor and roll the ball to each other (okay, they toss it, but they are *suppose* to roll it!). The person getting the ball calls out where their right thumb is touching. It's simple, but brings awareness to geography in a fun way. Right now it's on sale for 54% off. Ours was a ball we found at Wal-Mart over 10 years ago but this one is from Learning Resources - a name I've trusted for 2 decades.

I'm passing on another sale that caught my eye. We've used Insect Lore and just love the butterfly kit but have never bought them ourselves due to the price. Well... now they're on sale at Amazon! It's so cool to see the caterpillars grow, change, and fly away. It is 44% off right now.

This Ant Farm is 41% off right now:

I hope you find these sales helpful. I appreciate any shopping you do on Amazon through my blog - thanks!

What's Cookin'?

Tortilla Soup: The other night we had tortilla soup but I didn't use a recipe. I put a quart of chicken gelatin/fat I had saved plus another quart of filtered water. I added about 2 cups of shredded cooked chicken (I cut it against the grain with my kitchen shears). I also tossed in a handful of flash-frozen tomatoes from my freezer. Then I added spices: chili powder (home-mixed), Real Salt, dash of cayenne, and some cumin (magic ingredient!). I crushed a handful of organic tortilla chips in each bowl and ladles the soup on top. We were able to serve leftovers for lunch today. Dh said he could eat tortilla soup once a week... I need to add it to my "favorite dinners" list to use in menu planning!

Chicken Stirfry concoction: Staying with the chicken theme... Last night I dug the following out of my freezer: 1 C shredded zucchini, 1 C flash frozen green beans from market season last Spring; 1 C of bagged frozen cauliflower; 1 bag of pre-cooked frozen spaghetti noodles left over from a previous meal (I wanted rice but we're plain out for now). I cut up another 2 Cups of pre-cooked chicken I still had in the refrigerator. After letting it thaw (okay, the truth is that I waited too late and stuck the pan with all above ingredients minus the chicken in a 200F oven in hopes to speed up the defrosting!) I put about 4 T butter, 4 T coconut oil, and 4 T palm shortening to melt and put all of the ingredients (including chicken) except for the noodles to heat thoroughly. Then I added about 1/2 C of sour cream plus 1-1/2 C water and mixed it well. I added the noodles last since they were already cooked and heated everything through again. Oh - I almost forgot the seasoning :). I put a few slugs of Tree of Life fermented soy sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, Real Salt, ConcenTrace (hidden trace minerals!), and paprika. Everyone seemed to like it.

Smelling Bottles

2012-01-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

What's Schoolin'?

If I were making smelling bottles right now I would dig around my kitchen cupboard first. You could use lemon extract, vanilla (although mine smells like rum because it's real from a local farm so that wouldn't work!), orange extract; or spices such as cloves, cinnamon, garlic powder, etc. I'm thinking that if you use spices you could still put it in the bottom of the bottle and put a cotton ball on top so it won't spill out. OR, maybe (thinking out loud, I haven't actually done it), simmer in some oil like you would to make garlic oil and put a few drops on a cotton ball.

Here are some bottles that could be used for Montessori Smelling Bottles:

This is my favorite because it closes to seal in the scent but flips open easily for the child to use:

I like these because they have the porous lid under the screwtop lid. I actually use these for homegrown spices and find them for the same price locally $1/bottle is not a bad price:

What's Cookin'?

I'm determined to learn to make some cheese. We already make cream cheese and I would like to learn to make Mozzarella from fresh milk at least. I've checked out a million books on cheese making which are competing for my time with the chicken books that I had already checked out!

A friend told me today that you get approximately 1 pound of cheese from 1 gallon of milk. Bummer, not a great money saver. However, with my $5/gallon milk it STILL comes out to the same price as the Wal-Mart brand cheese plus no freaky Frankenstein additives [and certainly no "mold inhibitors" - in cheese? They're kidding right? Mold is what makes cheese... cheese. Plus, if cheese (or any "food" for that matter) can't mold due to additives then I don't want to eat it. I'd rather cut off mold or have to throw some away now and then - which never happens around here! - than eat food that is so far removed from nature that it doesn't mold. Getting off of my little soapbox now!]. At least I'll have lots of whey for a boost of glutathione-building.

I've learned that it wasn't such a great idea to cook the chickens immediately after processing. They're a little tough (okay, stringy is more descriptive but it sounds much too unappetizing). We should have just packed them raw and frozen them uncooked or let them sit in the fridge for 2 days before cooking and freezing. [Thanks to those who gave me such good advice - I only wish I has asked beforehand!]

Tropical Traditions Sale (today is last day for palm shortening 42% off)

2012-01-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

Some of my favorite products are on sale right now so I thought I would post them (pictures with links are below). [If someone orders using any of my links, would you mind letting me know so I can see if the links are working correctly? Thanks, I just need one person to let me know.]

Organic Palm Shortening is on sale - one gallon for $23.59 (regular price $40.75).

We *only* use TTraditions' lip balm. I'm not kidding. Every time I decide to try something in the regular stores or even health food stores I ALWAYS regret it. I've found TTraditions lip balm in a few places locally so it seems to be getting a bit more mainstream. However, we like the unflavored best and locally they only order the peppermint (and have higher prices!) or, in my old town, they may not always have it in stock. Therefore, I usually get several at a time to keep stashed and handy. All dc and myself use this product. I wait for the buy one get one free... and here it is! They have unflavored, cinnamon/peppermint, tea tree oil, orange/cinnamon, and citrus.

They also have buy 1 get one free Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil (2 - 16 oz jars for $19.95). I am using the Expeller Pressed Coconut Oil (non-certified) and am very pleased with it. Their sale price for 1 gallon of that is $44.00.

Special Price! - 1 Gallon Organic Palm Shortening - 112 oz.

2 Lip Moisturizers - Unscented - Buy 1 Get 1 FREE!

2 Lip Moisturizers - Cinnamon/Peppermint - Buy 1 Get 1 FREE!

2 Lip Moisturizers - Tea Tree Oil - Buy 1 Get 1 FREE!

2 Lip Moisturizers - Orange/Cinnamon - Buy 1 Get 1 FREE!

2 Lip Moisturizers - Citrus - Buy 1 Get 1 FREE!

Special Price! - 2 pints - Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil 16 oz. - Buy 1 get 1 FREE!

1-gallon Expeller-Pressed Coconut Oil, Non-Certified

Yeast-Free Soaked Pizza Crust

2012-01-21T06:59:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

This is an adjusted recipe from easypizzacrusts.com.
http://easypizzacrusts.com/nypc.html

Ingredients:

2 C Flour*
1 Tbl baking powder
1/4 teaspoon Real Salt
1 Tablespoon oil**
2/3 C water
1/3 C yogurt (or kefir or whey or clabbered/soured milk)***

Directions:

The night before (or that morning - it needs an 8 - 12 hour soak) mix all EXCEPT the baking powder. The next morning, or when you are ready to bake it, mix in the baking powder and knead it just until it is fully incorporated. Slightly oil or grease a pizza pan and flatten it out from the center to the edges. Add pizza toppings. Bake at 400F for 18-20 minutes.

I baked mine ahead of time and froze it just because that's how the timing worked out. I've used the original unsoaked version of this recipe and would bake it along with the desired toppings and it worked fine. So, there's no reason why this wouldn't work out baking directly with the toppings on it as well.

* I tested it using all whole wheat and all white whole wheat. White whole wheat turned out more to our liking.

** You can use any liquid oil that you prefer. I used Hain's other brand "Hollywood" because it's what I could get at the time. Melted coconut oil should work well also.

*** Only use clabbered or soured milk if you are using fresh farm milk. Regular milk from the store will just go bad if left out to clabber or sour and isn't safe to consume.

This recipe is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2012/01/real-food-wednesday-1182012.html

It is also part of the Old Fashioned Recipe Exchange:
http://www.littlehouseliving.com/old-fashioned-recipe-exchange-131.html

Snap Circuits on sale 53%! ~ Gyros

2012-01-18T14:58:00.000-08:00

What's Schoolin'?

Snap Circuits: All dc have enjoyed this material for years.
I happened to see that the Snap Circuit 300 is on sale right now with free shipping on Amazon.

http://tinyurl.com/79l7oe2

We have used the Snap Circuit 100 for several years and the children have really, really enjoyed it. After years of being out on the shelf for free choice shelf work time I just put it up a few months ago when we moved. I will bring it back out at the end of the school year to rotate it back in because they enjoy it so much. The 300 would be nice, but this one has provided enough for our needs:

http://tinyurl.com/74luk9p

On the other hand, the 300 is on sale right now at 53% off.
That sale would be hard for me to resist if I was getting one today :).

What's Cookin'?

I had an interesting experience at a local small diner (counter take-out or tables). We're finishing up Ancient Greece and I wanted to give them some authentic Gyros. I had seen a small sign in a strip mall in town that said Gyros and Kabobs. So, in I went. There was no way I could pay $7 a piece for each of us to get a lamb gyro. Plus, germ freak that I am with my lame immune system, I was hoping to take something home where I could reheat it, etc. All that I really needed was their distinctive pita flat bread and the meat. Dd kept telling me to just find a recipe and we could make our own - great idea and I love that she has the enthusiasm for homemade food... but I wasn't sure I could replicate the flavor of the meat nor replicate the bread. Not to mention finding lamb meat! I explained my dilemma of low cash and my needs to the cashier/cook and we put together an order of "extras" that included meat, 1 pita (so they can at least taste it even though we'll make the rest ourselves), and a tiny container of tzatziki sauce. I poured out a bunch of change, pretended not to be embarrassed as I counted it out ("It all spends the same," he said to help me feel better), and took home my treasure (which I froze as soon as I got home).

I thought it was funny when I asked him what meats they used; if they only had lamb or had goat as well. He said something like, "It's lamb. It's suppose to be lamb. There may be some goat in there, I don't know (shrug). It comes already like that. Just tell them it's meat and you won't be lying." I had to laugh out loud. I said they (dc) would be fine knowing it's lamb, I just wondered if they also offered goat gyros so they could try that also.

Okay, now what? I'll make some more tzaziki sauce since the teeny tiny little cup I bought will just be for tasting. I have a TON of yogurt in the fridge - both homemade from fresh farm milk (I have some draining right now to thicken it up for adding into the tzaziki recipe) and some of Nancy's organic plain yogurt I got from Azure Standard yesterday.

After seeing this link (I saw the original Alton Brown recipe referred to here but it didn't inspire me as much as this one from someone who tried it) I think I just might get some chevre (read: ground goat meat) next time I'm near my old town which is near a wonderful organic farm with goats.
http://www.foodonthefood.com/food_on_the_food/2011/05/goat-gyros.html

I'm trying this new pita recipe but will adjust it to soak the flour overnight:
http://greekfood.about.com/od/greekbreadspitas/r/pitabread.htm

I thought the info at the end of this recipe was interesting. Let's hope our bit of meat used fats to bind it and not the gross meat glue that US food manufacturers use on meat now (withOUT labeling I might add).
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1761,131188-252199,00.html

This is the whole milk yogurt I got from Azure Standard. I'm not thrilled with the "organic nonfat dry milk" but the only other ingredients are organic whole milk and cultures.

Ancient Rome Part 1 (Links) ~ Chicken Sketty

2012-01-16T16:21:00.000-08:00

What's Schoolin'?

Here are some resource links for Ancient Rome. This is actually what I will e-mail to my 2 high schoolers so they can click on them directly. Sending them the Greek links to their e-mail worked really well so we'll try that again. I hope some of you may find them useful either now or later (in my case it will be now AND later when youngest dd gets there!). This is why I would love to have a Kindle! Any Kindle downloads that you see they read on my computer.

I will post my general plans and resource books shortly. Right now it's a scribbled mess in a notebook :). We'll study more of the early Christian martyrs/saints but it's not reflected in these links (more on that later).

LINKS:

Choose at least 5 sites from each column (kingdom; republic; empire)(can be bunny trail sites):

http://www.rome.mrdonn.org/

Hadrian's Wall Gallery:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/hadrian_gallery.shtml

Roman poet Ovid (published between 8 and 5 BC)

http://www.ancient-literature.com/rome_ovid_heroides.html

Read this one from the Ovid's Heroides:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0085:poem=1

Read this analysis of Virgil's Aeneid after reading the other Aeneid books

-The Aeneid for Boys and Girls by A. Church

-The Aeneid by Virgil (original; translated) http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.html

http://www.ancient-literature.com/rome_vergil_aeneid.html

Roman poet Horace: Read Satire 1 Book 1 "on discontent":

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceSatiresBkISatI.htm

Read this intro to dactylic hexameter

http://www.skidmore.edu/classics/courses/1998fall/cl202/resource/meter/metintro.html

Choose one Early Church Father to read original works (see small print under some of the titles)(I can help you load):

http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html

For fun:

http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/aliens/interactive/curatorCollection.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/terrible-treasures-game

http://rome.mrdonn.org/games.html

Extra

Young Folk's History of Rome (free kindle)(looks like a good overview but I have only seen the preview - see last several chapters):

http://www.amazon.com/Young-Folks-History-Rome-ebook/dp/B004TQLBSG/ref=sr_1_33?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1326665483&sr=1-33

The Martyr of the Catacombs: A Tale of Ancient Rome (free kindle):

http://www.amazon.com/Martyr-Catacombs-Tale-Ancient-ebook/dp/B002RKSGE8/ref=sr_1_18?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1326665176&sr=1-18

What's Cookin'?

Unbelievable... dh and the olders processed our 17 broilers Saturday. I just served beans and rice for dinner! Sunday was another vegetarian meal (and chocolate chip cookies) before I could actually serve the chicken. He smoked 12 and I baked 4 and one is ready to cook in the freezer. All of the cooked ones except 2 are also in the freezer. This is soooooooo out of my comfort zone!! There is no way I could've been out there with them, much less helped. I simply can't comprehend how they could but dh was grateful to have their help or he couldn't have finished. How's that for Montessori Practical Life?? Truthfully, that's real life.

I'm really looking forward to getting layers, though. THEN I'll let myself bond with them and I think the dc will really enjoy them also. Who knows, maybe one of them (the dc!) will want to enter some showmanship 4-H chicken contests if they exist around here. I have checked out one million library books on chickens! Two favorites are due back this Thursday and have holds on them:

Chicken Spaghetti: This is our first meal with our homegrown chickens. Does this mean that we're now officially homesteaders? I used only 1 breast from a baked chicken and it made 3 Cups of shredded chicken. I used the recipe below with the following changes: less butter, 1/2-1 cup frozen shredded zucchini, 1 diced carrot, and 3 garlic cloves. Instead of 2 C broth I used 1 C drippings from the original chicken baking that I saved (it was beautiful gelatin with just a tad of fat). For the cheese I used about 1/2 C cubed Swiss and about 1/2 shredded cheddar (both from the freezer) because the Swiss has such a strong taste that I mainly use it for cooking but wanted a bit of cheddar flavor also. I sprinkled a bit of cheddar on top also instead of Parmesan.

One last difference: I divided my noodles and sauce into 2 pans (9 x 12 and 8 x 8). I froze the smaller pan by lining it with parchment paper, then covering it with plastic wrap. After it's frozen I'll take it out of the glass pan that I use so much and probably bag it.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1639,147176-234194,00.html

I chose that recipe because it didn't use Velveeta (!), used real ingredients, and used ingredients that I had (no grocery shopping for a while for me so that's really important right now).

Antarctica ~ World Geography for High School

2012-01-10T05:39:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

~ This is oldest dd's recipe for the local fair's food contest. I made it recently with some organic bulk cherries that we had gotten in the summer and she loved it. I use a very simple pie crust. Poor thing even put cherry pie on her Christmas wish list. I guess she figures that she had better make one if she's going to get another any time soon! [Update: Bummer - we couldn't get cherries so she chose blueberries and made a gorgeous blueberry pie but we forgot to get the foil pie plate when we were out :(. This is the first time I really felt it living out of town. Then she made a cranberry pumpkin bread but it didn't work well (but was delicious); then tried a pumpkin raisin bread and it collapsed (probably because of my bright idea to use the new mixer). So... she made 3 foods and entered none. At least her art entries won some ribbons (bragging here!) and we enjoyed a delicious pie and hearty pumpkin craisin bread.]
http://www.food.com/recipe/cherry-pie-4861

~ Middle dd wanted to do a bundt cake for the food contest. She chose this recipe. We have everything except the orange juice and we needed more eggs anyway. It's wonderful to have what you need on-hand for from-scratch cooking! [Update: This cake came out just like it was suppose to :). I tasted a crumb and it was too sweet for me, but then I'd much rather eat potato chips... Relieved to say it got a ribbon since it was her only entry aside from cockrels (another brag!)]
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/orange-soaked_bundt_cake.aspx

~ I'm hoping youngest dd will make Laura's truffles again. Mmmm.
http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/special-valentines-day-treats-peanut-butter-truffles-and-chocolate-caramel-truffles [Update: no truffles, but brownies instead so how can I complain? (last brag - another ribbon. All entries should get ribbons for the perseverance and the effort to enter so I was glad to see that all foods got some type of ribbon)]

~ Weekly plan (sort of): I have a long list of cooking to-dos for this week, but mainly I'll be making peanut butter, soaked beans, soaked rice, soaked biscuits, soaked muffins, soaked tortillas, and soaked pita bread to be ready for meals. Meals will be: beans/rice with chicken sausage from Fran's Fryers; spaghetti; tacos; onion/apple sausage stir fry. That's 4 meals for a family of 5 with just 1 lb of ground chicken and 1 package of sausage. Yesterday we had bean/cheese quesadillas with "instant" refried beans from my gottatries list for lunch (beans didn't work so great but the Amish cheese made up for it!), and the spicy garlic prawns also from my gottatries list (which were excellent but peeling raw shrimp was an act of love for this germ freak, let me tell you! And then I forgot to save the peels to make stock, ugh). Basically, it's chicken, chicken, chicken because we've gone through all of our stashed beef and set aside pastured pork (which is a rare treat anyway), and won't have any more beef for this week at least. When I haven't had good beef for a while I start to seriously crave it so I took some soup bones out of the freezer and will make some beef broth for our rice cooking this week.

What's Schoolin'?

We're not doing Antarctica right now, but it's always a good time to add to our continent boxes. Here are some awesome free penguin 3-part cards from jojoebi. Thanks for sharing! Browse through the other available 3-part cards on the next link (and printing directions). We were planning out the rest of the school year Sunday with dc (long story for another post...) and while discussing how they like to learn Geography middle dd said that she has realized that she likes to learn Geography through books more than shelf work -gasp! - (we have Trail Guide To World Geography that she'll use) and oldest dd really likes the shelf work and she said that she particularly likes 3-part cards. See? Even high schoolers can still benefit from 3-part cards! BTW, youngest (10) especially likes the world felt map :).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojoebi/sets/72157604584183121/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojoebi/collections/72157603022772523/

Since I can't leave books out of any study, I've posted some books below that may be useful for studying Antarctica.

Update: Here are some links for Antarctica...

http://livingmontessorinow.com/2012/01/12/montessori-inspired-arctic-and-antarctic-unit/

http://pinterest.com/sandra_m/montessori-arctic-antarctica/

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/rare-white-penguin-spotted-antarctica-213152350--abc-news.html

More on Geography:

Regarding the olders' World Geography (needed for their high school transcripts)... As mentioned above, middle dd will use the book Trail Guide To World Geography while older dd will use the shelf work. However, after studying the continent of her choice thoroughly, oldest dd will then skim through the book just to make sure she didn't miss anything. We will also check out library books and scour the internet to supplement the cultural aspects of the continents. I never could get Continent Folders put together... I tried a few times but books are more our style!

Here is the book we'll be using. I know it just looks like another teacher book, but... isn't "following the child" actually listening to them and trying to implement their learning style? This is a great curriculum with 3 different "trails" for each day for different levels of ability. Quite an awesome book. I also have the Trail Guide to Bible Geography and am sad to say that it's just sat on the Geography shelf for years. I think it's amazing and there's still hope that we'll do it! Years ago I use to give the an annual pre- and post-test of Geography by having them simply draw a world map in as much detail as possible at the beginning and at the end of the year. It was very cool to see their growth. I think it's time for another one!

Antarctica Books (some I've used and recommend; others looked good and I thought would be worth looking at further):

Free Kindle Book:

Broilers (What???)

2012-01-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

What???

When dh first mentioned it, I have to admit, I burst out into guffaws and (nearly hysterical) uncontrollable laughter just imagining that someone would do that. Then I realized... he was serious. Okay, that still didn't keep me from laughing. Apparently we are taking the broilers for a little trip - 400+ miles each way!! - to join us for our Christmas holidays with my in-laws (and stopping overnight at my mom's on the way). These will probably be the most travelled broilers at the 4-H show this year!

What is the rationale for taking chickens with you on a family road trip? Just in case you too are wondering that, I'll explain. We have 17 broilers that are 4 weeks old. We don't have an ideal setup with huge feeders, waterers, etc. We have 2 small feeders and 2 waterers. We have to refill their food *3X* a day now and their water twice. That's way too much to ask of anyone for several days in a row. Even if we paid a fellow homeschooler's children to care for them or asked a neighbor, that's still a lot of work. Plus, the weather is erratic and we check on their temperature also (the door to the shed is cracked right now but I'll go out in a bit to see if they're huddled under the lamp).

Thus, the building of the "Traveling Holiday Chicken Coop" that can be used for any occasion: Christmas, Easter, Spring Break, you name it. This is not to be confused with the "M. Family Traveling Circus."

Of course, there was the time that we showed up at my in-laws with 1 dog, 2 guinea pigs, and 3 beta fish!

[Update: Phew! We just made it back home... with all of the chickens intact. The chickens had a 7 day road trip and did really well. I'll post photos in another post. We arrived just after dark at my in-laws (day 2 of the trip) so we stopped a block away and put Christmas lights around the coop. I had to laugh out loud again when I saw that dh had brought lights just for that reason. They were able to see us arrive with lights blazing.]

Mystery Dinner ~ Shopping Surprises

2011-12-25T00:08:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

My mom surprised me at Thanksgiving by 1) liking my cherry bread pudding (I didn't know she liked bread pudding!) and 2) asking for that for Christmas. So, today I'll adjust my blueberry bread pudding recipe to make it cherry - and will probably make an extra for us! I also plan on making her a pumpkin craisin bread as an extra surprise... and an extra for us if I have enough ingredients! More on those later.

[Update: bread pudding was a flop! I really hate wasting ingredients but I actually had to trash it - ouch!! We were able to pick some of it out for us and a 1/2 batch was edible but not pretty - sort of eggy in between the bread pieces - so we'll keep that one and I'll just take her the pumpkin craisin bread. Obviously not the same recipe I used at Thanksgiving. I'll toss it so I don't use it again and find my other recipe for another time. Bummer - I spent so much time on it because I had to make some bread first so I could make the bread pudding. Plus I made 2 batches so I wasted 1 C cherries for one and 1 C blueberries for the other. So sad! On the other hand: the pumpkin craisin loaves look beautiful! I can't wait to cut one open for a "taster" loaf.]

Here's a quiz photo: see if you can guess what this is!

That's the before picture and I didn't get an after picture because we were busy eating it up :). It was actually quite good, believe it or not from the above photo! I put leftover roast and rice in the casserole dish and started digging through the freezer. On top of the leftovers I put a handful of frozen tomatoes (that I flash froze during market season), about 1 cup + of frozen shredded zucchini, and 1 C of frozen white gravy. After it was thawed in the oven I stirred the zukes into the rice, smooshed the tomatoes and took out the peels, and smeared the gravy over everything. Then I let it continue in the oven until heated through. Strange? Maybe! However, it was an easy, satisfying meal with whole food ingredients. What's in your freezer? (said in my best Viking voice)

What's Schoolin'?

The thing about homeschooling is that schooling and life are sometimes hard to separate. Case in point: Is reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol school or just plain life? We're counting it as school but want to make it an annual tradition in life - so it's both. The language is definitely vocabulary building, the details are historical, the story is captivating, and the writing is such a wonderful model of exemplary writing that has withstood time and place. I was reading from the free kindle download on my laptop but ended up checking out 2 copies from the library so the olders could read it on their own. One went ahead and read it but the other is really enjoying my reading aloud so she would rather sit in on my read-alouds and then reread it herself. They will jot down examples of his writing and do a short reflective essay in their literature response logs also. I like the version we checked out because of the print size and the beautiful illustrations scattered throughout.

What's Shoppin'?

This was a surprise: I saw a nice wooden Shut the Box game at Big Lots for $10!! Then I saw another version from the same company at Target for $15. I guess it's making a comeback because a few years ago when it was mentioned on the Montessori group it was impossible to find. We ended up playing the game with just index cards with the numbers written on them and flipping them over. I'm posting links below so you can see what I mean.

Another fun surprise at Big Lots was Rumford Baking Powder. Yes, I'm weird that way - I was very excited that I didn't have to stock up on it anymore from our old town nor order it online.

Hummus ~ Broiler Chicks (Week 4)

2011-12-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

Hummus: I adapted this recipe:
http://mideastfood.about.com/od/appetizerssnacks/r/hummusbitahini.htm

I didn't have any tahini nor sesame seeds to make any so I just omitted that ingredient from the above recipe. Basically, I added the following into the food processor and whirred until it was smooth.

~ 16 oz drained garbanzo beans (chickpeas) [I soaked and cooked about a pound earlier in the week; used 1/2 for another recipe] *See directions below
~ Juice from 1 lemon (would be fine with just 1/2 lemon)
~ 2 Garlic cloves (next time I'll just use one)
~ 1/2 Teaspoon Real Salt
~ 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

I was going to make some pita bread 'real quick' and serve it for lunch but it was getting late. Instead I served it with sea salt bagel chips. I avoid msg, soy, and various other ingredients so we only get the sea salt flavor in most things. Weirdly, the bagel chips I used don't show the same ingredients on the amazon link so I didn't post them since I can't recommend them if they have what's listed at amazon (L-cystine? No way!). I double checked the bag at home and they are different.

Everyone in the family seemed to like this dish. Next time I'll try to serve it with flat bread. I hope to get my sourdough started up again soon.

*To make your own garbanzo beans/chickpeas soak them overnight in plenty of filtered water with the juice of 1/2 lemon (make sure to strain the seeds!). The next morning (or that night if you started soaking in the morning) drain, rinse, drain again. I use the crock pot so... put into crock pot with at least 2 extra inches of filtered water. My legumes take about 30 hours on low on the crock pot so don't get discouraged if it feels like they're taking forever. Garbanzos are firm yet easily mushed with a fork.

This recipe adjustment is part of Kelly's RFW:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/12/real-food-wednesday-12212011.html

Apple Tarts: Along with the hummus and bagel chips (and raisins that dc wanted) we ate a freshly made apple tart each. Mmm. So easy. I used left-over pie crust from a cherry pie, rolled it into small circles and lined a paper cup-lined muffin tin with the dough. I defrosted 2 C of frozen apples; tossed with rapadura and pumpkin spice; filled the uncooked tart shells with the apples; put a tiny bit of butter over each one. I baked in a 350F oven for 30 minutes and then loosely covered the tin with foil for another 20 minutes.

Chicken Saga:

The 17 4-H broilers are finally out of the garage and in their little shed. Dh got the shed set up inside and moved them when we were gone yesterday. What a gift! The olders surprised dh by cleaning out the garage this afternoon. It'll take forever to get the "dust" out of everything but they really did a lot of cleaning. As of this typing he hasn't discovered it yet :).

The problem I'm having with these broilers is that we plan on eating them after the fair in January but we're feeding them JUNKY regular feed that I'm sure has GE corn, soy etc in it. Ugh. I've been researching organic chicken feed and it is outrageously expensive (sigh). I found a cheap one in VA but shipping is the same cost as the 50 lb bag. My plan is to get at least one bag to feed them at the end. We give them dried meal worms for treats and they love it. I'm still trying to stay away from the chicks because... I think they're cute.

They are in a pen in a plastic shed the previous house owners left behind similar to the one below... only a bit more rickety. Dh sealed up the gaps from the inside. They seem happy although the lows this week are suppose to be in the 20s (F). They are 4 weeks old and have a heat lamp. 4 more weeks or so 'till the show.

[Update: The wind was so strong (and cold!) yesterday that it almost blew the door off and messed up dh's coverings of the cracks. He had to fix it and now we need a new latch. We had to put in a second heat lamp. Just as I was thinking that the shed could make a good permanent hen house later for our layers... If it were in better shape it would be great - they even have 2 plexiglass skylights, plenty of air ventilation and the walls are doubled so it's insulated. Otherwise they look good - I'm just cringing with the feed we're giving them.]

This post is part of Frugal Days Sustainable Ways blog hop at Frugally Sustainable:
http://frugallysustainable.blogspot.com/2011/12/frugal-days-sustainable-ways-6.html

50% off Leapster 2 and Mega Bloks

2011-12-18T05:43:00.000-08:00

This Leapster system is currently 51% off! We've never used a Leapster and are way beyond its age but I know many do and may find this useful:

Leap Frog Leapster 2

Here's another good deal. These Mega Bloks are 50% off. My dc used these a lot when they were little. My mom just got rid of her set last year. Her grandkids used them for about 14 years!

Mega Bloks

Dog Biscuits ~ Division/Multiplication

2011-12-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

Youngest dd wanted to make some dog biscuits to take to a dog-themed Christmas Party. They were taking the gifts (dog items) to a local dog shelter. Isn't that a cool idea? Anyway, we used this recipe and just made a half-batch. That was enough dough for us to take some and make some more later. She chose Christmas cookie cutter shapes. Oh, and it's such an easy recipe that we were able to mix, roll out, and cut in less than 10 minutes! This could definitely be a practical life activity for youngers :).

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,174,150182-252204,00.html

Basically, it was 2 C wheat flour; 1/2 teaspoon baking powder; 1-1/2 tablespoon oil; and 1 C water. Our dog taste-tested the first one and it was a hit. I'd like to try it again with better fat instead of the oil and some garlic powder. Maybe some DE also??

What's Schoolin'?

Youngest dd is on Presentation 3 from Lisia's long division presentations using the Stamp Game. This is going to lead perfectly into the racks and tubes because for one of her problems she was tired of counting out 10s of whatever for her exchanges. It got tedious when we had a divisor of 17 because of the higher remainders within the problem and more regrouping. We skipped presentations 1 and 2 because she was already doing 3-digit divided by 1-digit numbers to abstraction.

Regarding the Multiplication Checkerboard, dd needed it for a problem the other day, but rather than pull out the materials she drew one on a laptop chalkboard that we had been using and placed the bead bars on her drawn checkerboard. Interesting... and funny because our checkerboard is one of my best-made materials and is quilted - go figure!

Lapbook Freebie: Island of the Blue Dolphins

2011-12-15T06:41:00.000-08:00

I just noticed last night that the quarterly freebie right now from In the Hands of a Child is a complete lapbook (93 pages!) for The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. My older dds didn't really enjoy the book but it's an excellent book. I think they didn't enjoy it much because it's not light and happy and they read it years ago ["It's creepy and she never gets back to her people."]. They may have liked it better if they had been older. It's based on a true story. You may want to preview it for your dc - I chose to wait a while when I previewed it for them. Maybe I should've waited longer? Click on "freebie" at this link:

http://www.handsofachild.com/

Here is the book:

Density Blocks

2011-12-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

There was mention of some density blocks from enesco on the Montessori group so out of curiosity I did an amazon search on them. They have the regular one in which all are the same size but different weights and densities, and they also have this really cool one in which they are all the same weight but are different sizes (since they are different densities). Too cool not to post!

Density Blocks 1: Constant Volume

Density Blocks 2: Constant Mass

Here are more options:

Density Cubes 10 Pack

Equal Mass Cylinder Set

Density Identification Set

You could get two sets for matching for Montessori Sensorial work. I was thinking about the visual clues and thought that maybe if they were in little cloth drawstring bags it might work. The one in which they are different sizes might just be for demonstration and interest because I can't see how you can match them with just one attribute - but they are so cool :).

Here are some velvet 5 inch drawstring bags, but I would probably check the dollar store first:

What's Cookin'?

We made truffles, brownies, and German spice cookies this week. None are what you would call nutrient dense, lol, but at least they were all made from scratch with mostly organic ingredients. After eating all of those sweets we had chili for dinner, which WAS nutrient dense with organic, soaked, home-cooked kidney beans, organic ketchup, homemade chili powder spice mix, and grass-fed ground beef. We topped each bowl with Amish raw cheddar cheese and also garnished with organic corn chips (not sprouted but hopefully not GMO either).

Christmas Books

2011-12-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

K. recommended these books and they sound delightful (and of course I totally forgot about using the original Charles Dickens! Note the free Kindle for that one):

"The Jesse Tree" by Geraldine McCaughrean

"The Thirteen Days of Christmas" by Jenny Overton

"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

"Star of Wonder" by Pat Alexander

"The Christmas Angel" by Pirkko Vainio

What's Cookin'?

Cherry Pie: This is a total "cheat" recipe but it's at least from scratch without any frankenfood ingredients. It was a winner with the family. I use a very simple dough recipe and used this recipe for the filling:
http://www.food.com/recipe/cherry-pie-4861

Melissa and Doug 50% off today!!

2011-12-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

I just got an e-mail from Amazon that select Melissa and Doug products are the Deal of the Day today and are 50% off. Wow... just in time for Christmas! We're waaay beyond Melissa and Doug products (sniff, sniff) but I wanted to pass this along. Here is the link:

Click here for the deal!

http://tinyurl.com/6v9sj5e

What's Cookin'?

Yesterday was one of those afternoons - late getting in, no meal planned, attention diverted by a few unpacking tasks, tired, etc. At 5 PM I found myself digging through the freezer hoping for something to materialize. Lo and behold, it did! I found a bag of precooked spaghetti noodles, a bag of precooked chicken tenders, and a bag of frozen veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots). I defrosted then in the pan as I heated them (in some palm oil and coconut oil), added about 2 cups of chicken broth I found pushed to the back of the refrigerator, 2 teaspoons of pesto, and about 1/4 cup of cream (Mexican cream from Cacique that has less additives than even the organic cream in our stores - my backup when I'm out of fresh farm cream). I also found some freezer biscuits and tossed those in the oven. Phew!

Pancakes:
I guess because of last night's frantic dinner I decided to make banana pancakes for breakfast today. If my spotted bananas could talk they would say, "Hurry, eat me, make muffins, pancakes, anything!" I adjusted a traditional pancake recipe to soak it.

Last night I soaked:
2 Cups white wheat flour
1/4 Cup whey
1 Cup fresh milk

This morning I added:
4 Teaspoons baking powder
1 Teaspoon salt
1 Egg
4 Tablespoons butter (recipe called for 3, but hey )
1 mashed banana
Water to thin
[I also added a splash of sunflower oil so it wouldn't stick - no problem]

[These soaked banana pancakes are part of Real Food Wed
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/12/real-food-wednesday-12142011.html ]

What's Green?

~ Article about nanotechnology. Seriously, why would you need nanoparticles in clothing???

http://tinyurl.com/7gx4vj3

I've been avoiding titanium dioxide in sunscreen for dc unless it says "non nano" on it. We use Loving Naturals and it literally took me 2 straight weeks of research to find a product so here's the link in case you're in the same boat this summer (or live in the Southern hemisphere right now!):

http://astore.amazon.com/ecleclivin-20/detail/B002C0CZEU

http://astore.amazon.com/ecleclivin-20/detail/B003V11QJO

~ Has your dentist recommended MI paste for tooth remineralization? Mine did a few years ago but after I got home and really looked at the ingredients I couldn't use it. Then I discovered Tooth Swish and was so excited when I saw that in his office (next to the MI paste) on another visit. We use the peppermint flavor but I may try another flavor next time.

Stieler Case:

Have you been keeping up with the case against the parents of Jacob Stieler? Here is Kelly's post:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/12/shocking-details-on-the-horrific-case-against-jacob-stielers-parents.html

More Montessori Division Work ~ Christmas Ideas

2011-11-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

I totally messed up the monkey bread recipe from Heavenly Homemakers. The house was too cold for it to rise in an hour, but I didn't have time and cooked it anyway. Bleh. The dc loved it but I couldn't finish mine; it felt like a rock. I'll count it as practice for our 3 Kings Day breakfast.

I've been *trying* to plan our weekly meals out better. This week we're having baked chicken with rice and corn on the cob; leftovers of the same; bean and cheese melts on homemade tortillas (using Kelly's fermented tortilla recipe, and wonderful Amish cheese from Minerva Cheese Factory); chili (home soaked/cooked beans, 1/2 lb grass-fed beef, spices, no msg flavoring); chicken noodle soup (homemade bone broth); spaghetti (with the other 1/2 lb of ground beef). For breakfast tomorrow we're having soaked German Pancake to get them through a long day of volleyball games. Very simple, inexpensive meals that stretch the higher priced items of cheese and meat. Now I'm pausing to go make a yogurt/cherry smoothie for snack...

What's Schoolin'?

Tessellations:
I have wanted tessellation manipulatives for about 15 years, at least, I'm not kidding. We have pattern blocks like the ones below but I remember seeing tessellation kits with odd shapes in a co-worker's room when I taught 4th. They were more like the blue template in the link below. Youngest dd still likes the pattern blocks but she's soon to outgrow it. However, I think all 3 would enjoy making tessellations using these awesome (and inexpensive!) templates. Shipping is 9% with a minimum of $7, though, so that's something to keep in mind. However, they had other items of interest and some clearance items that might make the $7 shipping worth it. I saw when I was looking for shipping cost that they are based in Fort Collins, CO - I have a little affinity for them, then, because I went to CSU for my first 2 years of college :).
http://www.educatorsoutlet.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=6007

Here are some other templates (I actually think the first 2 are the same):

Division Work:
Youngest Dd is doing the Division booklet right now in which they go through using the unit division board. Here is an excellent link with the presentation of the unit division board. I simply used the blank back side of my $1 hundred board I got years ago from Mardel (see picture below - the back side is a blank grid). You could even just print out a blank hundred board grid online to use. I used a sharpie to write the numbers across the top and down the side. I quickly pulled out some glass chips for markers and units from the base ten blocks to use. Fortunately I already had a booklet printed from the olders years ago in my Math storage bank box. I'm still working on remaking the racks and tubes division boards. I have them printed and decided to use a wooden base for my little plastic tubes. Dh has been drilling a few holes at a time as he's able. I always plan on it but have only run into the garage for a few minutes at a time to check on the chicks... yes, you read correctly - we have chicks in the garage. 19 to be exact. I'm trying not to get attached because they're broilers for a 4-H show and then (gulp) we're planning on, uh... (sigh) broiling them. I'm still not sure if I can do it. I'm the one who couldn't eat a chicken I had played with from the market when I was a little girl (saga of the chicks to be continued...)

This is a blatantly selfish post as I window shop for ideas. I keep losing my lists so this way I can come back to it! Last year I got each person in our family a book for Christmas and it was so helpful to have my links on my blog to refer to as I whittled it down.

Montessori Division Work ~ Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

I need to remake my division board and racks and tubes materials. I'll paste my old photos below. However, my racks and tubes took up a lot of shelf space. This time I won't make them oversized, nor on corkboard. I may just laminate them and put them on foam board like I make the pin maps. Instead of the tubes I would love to have some stackable pill cups but will need to test that they hold exactly 10 beads. Part of the beauty of the racks is that the dc doesn't have to constantly count out their ten beads and can focus on other aspects of the work.

Intro to the Division Board (using a booklet that my dc only use once but it's very valuable):
http://www.infomontessori.com/mathematics/tables-of-arithmetic-unit-division-board.htm

My old photos of the racks and tubes:

http://family.webshots.com/photo/2005879370100452258LbWgwf

http://family.webshots.com/photo/2108203690100452258TPEfbD

http://family.webshots.com/photo/2795645360100452258UTJDaN

What's Cookin'?

Hamburger Buns: I used this recipe and they came out great (it sounds boastful, but it's the recipe I'm boasting - not my cooking!). I put the warm water and yeast in the bread maker alone for 5 minutes. Then I added the rest and let it run on the dough cycle for about 10 minutes. I checked it throughout to see if it needed more flour (I was using all white because I hadn't planned/soaked and started out with 2-1/2 C flour. I added about 1/2 C more a little at a time as I checked it.

http://www.stacymakescents.com/homemade-hamburger-buns/comment-page-1#comment-13503

Frozen Biscuits: The same blogger (Stacy) was a guest blogger on Katie's Kitchen Stewardship and we tried her frozen biscuit recipe. I made 2 batches of soaked flour because I just knew the first batch would never make it into the freezer :). Everyone loved them and they easily "fork split." The night before I soaked the flour, buttermilk (or kefir or yogurt or whey), and butter (melted and cooled). Then, after soaking, I added the baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2011/11/11/recipe-connection-freezer-biscuits-real-food-style-guest-post/#comment-185110

Thanksgiving Dinner:

Sweet Potato Casserole: I'm trying this recipe using fresh sweet potatoes and homemade marshmallows from the freezer. I'll put the homemade marshmallows on one half and store-bought minis for dh on the other half. I hope they bake well! I have melted them to make the grotto with puffed rice cereal but have never used them in a baked recipe (I switched out real butter instead of the margarine they mention).

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/sweet-potato-casserole-ii-2/detail.aspx

Cranberry Sauce: I'm using this recipe and will wing it from there. I may use 1/2 C water and 1/2 C orange juice instead of 1 C OJ. For the sugar I'll use rapadura but wonder if I could get away with slipping in some molasses. I'll start with 1/2 of the recommended sugar. [update: turned out awesome. I went ahead and used just OJ for the liquid. Dd mashed it when it was cooked and we sprinkled about 1/4 teaspoon gelatin on it and stirred it in carefully. It was fun seeing the cranberries pop :).

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1955,143162-224201,00.html

Green Bean Casserole: I made homemade french fried onions using this recipe below. Then I used the grease/bits and a bit more flour and the soaking milk (plus a bit more) to make a gravy. I'm just using the gravy instead of the "cream of mushroom soup" called for in the traditional recipe. I ended up with 2 C gravy and will use that with 2 cans (sigh) of french style green beans with the homemade french fried onions on top.

http://www.food.com/recipe/french-fried-onions-44115

Sourdough stuffing: DH wants Stove Top dressing so I got him a box of that to make. However, I'm also making stuffing from scratch with no msg, etc in it. I happen to have a loaf of California Sourdough in the freezer and will use that to use with this recipe below. I'll add 1/2 C apple and some spices. Right now I'm doing a super quick bone broth just on the stove to use in the recipe.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/basic-bread-stuffing/detail.aspx

Cocol: Today is the feast day for Blessed Miguel Pro, one of my all-time favorite heroes. Seriously, google him... wait, I'll do it for you. When you see the thousands and thousands pouring out into the streets for his funeral procession, remember that it was ILLEGAL to even be a practicing Catholic in Mexico at that time and that many were persecuted for their faith. Anyway, we somehow managed to make this sweet yeast bread for his feast day and talked about what he did and how he showed such courage, devotion, charity, and good cheer. Viva Cristo Rey! The first link is a recipe for cocol but we just used the one from the Catholic Calendar yahoo group which was almost identical:

http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/pro/pro_cocol.html

http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/pro/pro_funeral.html

http://www.thecatholictravelguide.com/MiguelPro.html

Yesterday we read about Fr. Byles who went down with the Titanic and what heroism and devotion he showed to both the people on board and to God as he served them and refused to get on a lifeboat several times. Here is a link to this other hero:

http://www.fatherbyles.com/

Texas Felt Map

2011-11-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

I took the concept of the World Felt Map and extended it to our state studies. I used the megamaps site to print out a 4x4 page map (I *think* it was 4x4... it may have been 5x5 but I don't think so). First I taped the pages together; then youngest dd roughly cut around it leaving a space of about 1-1/2 inches all around. After pinning it to a yard of felt (she chose orange - sorry Aggies! - we love A&M so it really had nothing to do with college alliances!), I cut it out in detail. She chose black for the background yard of felt. I still haven't tacky glued it to the background but it's been fine anyway.

I actually uploaded photos today on my computer (yes, all 375 of them!) so here it is in its glory:

I took pictures of her work but unfortunately I was borrowing other dd's camera for that so... those photos will come later. When they do, you'll see her layouts for Native Tribes, rivers, and cities. I have the controls in page protectors and the cards for each work in their respective sleeve (along with blue pipe cleaners for rivers and chips for cities).

What's Cookin'?

I have 40 pounds of ugly apples sitting in 2 small boxes on my kitchen table and I couldn't be happier :). I didn't process any today but we've been snacking on them. They may not be "grocery store pretty" but they are crunchy, sweet, and in danger of not making it to the freezer, stove/canner, or dehydrator! I plan on preslicing and freezing in 2 C quantities for pies/cobblers/crisps/applesauce or whatever. I also plan on dehydrating a bunch for snacks (and I have precious little freezer space). I would like to go ahead and can applesauce but I no longer have a water bath canner - I'll see what I can do with my soup pot.

Hmmm.... I think I'll go soak some yogurt dough right now for a pie tomorrow!

Ancient Greece

2011-11-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

What's Cookin'?

One of the reasons I avoid Canola Oil:
http://realfoodforager.com/2011/11/runaway-gm-canola-plants/

Green Spaghetti: I couldn't find an online link to give credit but it's basically 2 C fresh spinach steamed until just wilted blended in a blender with 1 C broth, 1/2 C milk; 1/2 C shredded cheese served over pasta. It was too much liquid for 1/2 box spaghetti noodles that I used for lunch so I froze the extra liquid for another day.

What's Schoolin'?

Texas History is not enough, 20th Century US History is not enough, we are ALSO doing World History this year (!!) and happen to be on Ancient Greece. Here are some links:

Free homeschoolshare lapbook:
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ancient_greece.php

Cool timeline (not only Greeks)(found it looking for Aesop fables):
http://aesopfables.com/timel1.html

Aesop sites:
http://aesopfables.com/

http://www.umass.edu/aesop/fables.php

http://www.storyit.com/Classics/Stories/aesop.htm

http://www.aesops-fables.org.uk/

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/aesop.php (I just printed out the pages for each fable that has the story on it for booklets instead of all of the pages. Olders will incorporate it into their huge history lapbook this year and younger will make an Aesop's Fables lapbook with just these)

Drawings for lapbook for Greece (Greek gods and heroes):

http://mysticmills.com/ghthumbs.htm#godsthumbs

Free Iliad lapbook:
http://daisiesanddominos.blogspot.com/2010/10/iliad-lapbook-download.html

Good questions (see appendices) for the Iliad [We are reading this aloud before The Odyssey; I'm using the version written by R. Sutcliff - see link/image below - but the questions in this pdf don't directly match up with her book]
http://www.coreknowledge.org/mimik/mimik_uploads/lesson_plans/151/THE%20ILIAD.pdf

We'll also be reading some of this Iliad translation at Gutenburg Press (free online books):
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1720090&pageno=1
They have kindle also (I don't have a kindle but could read it on my pc):
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2199

Odyssey story online (if using the detailed version and you scroll down under each book it has really good notes for each book)
http://www.mythweb.com/odyssey/
Here is a printable pdf:
http://www.mythweb.com/odyssey/Odyssey.pdf

Odyssey Lesson Plans
http://teacher2b.com/literature/odyssypl.htm

More Odyssey Lesson Plans (I'm just using Appendix B onward)
http://coreknowledge.org/mimik/mimik_uploads/lesson_plans/240/No%20Longer%20Greek%20to%20Us.pdf

A Trojan hidden picture page (battle scene). There are no answers but we'll see how many we can find:
http://www.mythologyteacher.com/documents/TrojanWarFindIt.pdf

These are some random links I forwarded to my dc so they could go through them (delicious wasn't working well on my computer to bookmark, I think it's google chrome giving me trouble, so it was easier to just put the links in an e-mail to my dc's account - seems odd but that's modern technology!). Just ignore if some are duplicates. I tried to put them here as I went along but since all tasks are interrupted (I'm sure you can relate to that!) I quit trying :) :

Design a pot:

http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/kids/greecepot.htm

http://www.starfall.com/n/level-c/greek-myths/load.htm?f

http://www.starfall.com/n/greek-myths/the-maze/load.htm?f

http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/perseus/perseus01.html

http://www.mythweb.com/hercules/herc01.html

http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/bellerophon/bellerophon01.html

http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/jason/jason01.html

http://www.mythweb.com/odyssey/background_s.html

http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/theseus/theseus01.html

http://www.abc.net.au/arts/wingedsandals/storytime3.htm

Go through these after seeing the Hercules slide show above:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/lion.html

http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/interactive/arcade_force.htm

http://googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/9-12/Entries/2006/9/15_The_Odyssey_by_Homer.html

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/odchoice.htm

http://www.carlos.emory.edu/ODYSSEY/GREECE/home.html

http://www.mythologyteacher.com/documents/TrojanWarFindIt.pdf

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-03-20-sarcophagus-find_x.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiQ4j-D5o4o&feature=youtu.be

Below are some resources from Amazon (note the free kindle downloads)(since Blogger quit allowing the Amazon tool these may not align or look right):

Free Online Organizer ~ All Saints Day

2011-10-31T21:10:00.000-07:00

Free online organizer:

I haven't investigated this yet but it looks promising. I use Keep and Share to track 4-H activities for Record Books so I would have to see how they compare. I can tell already though that my brain type would not get the full benefit out of this tool; however, it may prove useful to someone:
http://www.cozi.com/

What's Cookin'?

Poutine: Seriously? French fries covered in gravy and cheese? I'm there! What indulgence! Use healthy fats for frying, homemade bone broth, organic potatoes (only $2+ per bag at Wal-mart), and real cheese. Then call it a health food. Seriously! (and I happen to have all of those ingredients on hand!)
http://www.cheeseslave.com/2011/07/28/poutine/

Dinner: I had some German sausage from a local farm and some pre-cooked kidney beans in the freezer. I put the beans to heat in the crock pot and about 30 minutes before dinner I cut up the sausage and put it in the oven to plump. Then I added it to the beans. I needed something to temper the spiciness of the sausage (I'm a wimp!) so I made some polenta. I had never made polenta. I had never eaten polenta. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing :). Since I hadn't planned it ahead and therefore did not soak the corn in lime I thought I would at least soak it a few hours in water with some lemon juice to hopefully neutralize some of the mold (aflatoxin? something in corn affects me the same as aflatoxin in beans). When I poured the water off of the soaked corn I measured it so at to replace it with the same measured amount. Except for that soaking I basically followed the directions on the package of Bob's Red Mill Polenta (I made a 1/2 batch). It was a big hit.

All Saints Day

I've been a bit overwhelmed with our move (and with catching something going around) so tomorrow's celebration will be simple, simple, simple. My plans:

- Pray the Litany of the Saints together.
- Go to Mass at noon.
- Make pretzels in the shape of a figure 8 to represent saints and martyrs. What great role models they are for living out our faith! I'll make either these or these.
- Dig through a few boxes and hopefully find our saints candles. One year each child chose a saint, I printed out a picture of each chosen saint, and we put them on votive candle holders (I chose St. Faustina).
- The dc like to dress up as different saints and we guess who they are. It usually takes me several tries but I've learned a lot through this activity :).

Furoshiki ~ Crepes and Cupcakes

2011-10-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Practical Life: Cloth Gift Wrapping

I love to wrap gifts in cloth but never know what I'm doing. So, although I love it in theory, I usually use bags and tissue. Now, finally, visual directions! I didn't know that it was an official way of wrapping, didn't know it actually had a name, and didn't know that it was an ancient Japanese art called Furoshiki. Here is a link to a page you can print out. Unfortunately it has a green background. I would rather have it white with black ink - especially since I've been out of colored ink for weeks. I doubt I'll print it but will hopefully refer to it often with dc. Great idea for Practical Life shelf work: put a tray with boxes and fabrics along with this page. No, not my idea ;), it's from Heidi's link also posted below:
http://www.env.go.jp/en/focus/attach/060403-5.pdf

Have a look at the above and much more in the winter newsletter here:
http://www.amonco.org/winter1/montessori_winter1.pdf
http://www.amonco.org/montessori_winter_handson.html

More on the technique:
http://furoshiki.com/techniques/

The above one in (yeah!) black and white:
http://art-maddie.blogspot.com/2011/08/wrapping-techniques-furoshiki.html

What's Cookin'?

Crepes: I made an adjusted version of crepes yesterday morning. It was actually much faster than pancakes because everyone just had one or two. They were filling and I was actually able to eat one without it messing up my morning blood sugar. I have been reading several of Dr. Amen's books about brain health and this cookbook is by him and his wife. I am NOT endorsing this book because it includes a lot of UNfermented soy, trans fats such as margarine, and processed foods such as egg beaters. However, I enjoyed looking through it and got some really good ideas. Plus it has a great list of the top 50 brain foods.

Their recipe ingredients for the crepes: flour, egg beaters, almond milk, stevia. Their filling was yogurt mixed with ground flax seed with mixed berries and bananas.
My ingredients for the crepes: soaked flour with fresh milk, real eggs (2 eggs equaled the 1/4 C), a pinch of rapadura sugar. My filling was less fancy: a dollop of homemade yogurt and a spoonful of thawed frozen cherries. After folding it over I sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar on top.

Directions: The night before, soak 2/3 Cup whole wheat flour (or flour of your choice but no reason to soak white flour) with 1/2 C milk. The next morning mix in a pinch or 1/2 teaspoon of rapadura (more or less sugar to taste) and 2 eggs. Stir until well mixed. I added more milk to thin it further (probably about 1/4 C more). Heat oil in a pan (I used about 1 Tablespoon coconut oil in an 8" stainless steel pan). Put about 1/4 C batter in the pan and swirl it around to get it spread out. Flip when the edges are firm and the bottom starts to barely brown. Cook the other side the same.

These crepes were very pliable and this recipe worked well. A long time ago I made crepes using another recipe and they froze well so these should also.

**This adjusted crepe recipe is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/11/real-food-wednesday-11092011.html

Basic Vanilla Cupcakes: Here is a great versatile cupcake recipe from Alyss. I have a few bags of frozen cherries left so I may use those instead of the plums (no plums around here - they are a pit fruit so I try to get organic ones once in a blue moon):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/3941608828/
[Update: I used 1/2 the recommended sugar (rapadura) so it was more like a sweet bread (pan dulce) with fruit than a super sweet cupcake. I did not add any icing and everyone enjoyed them for a special snack. Definitely a repeat!]

What's Gardenin'?

I have 2 container roma tomato plants that I barely put out last month when we moved. They look great and have lots of flowers. If I get one good tomato at this late date I'll be thrilled. It will start freezing soon but I can bring them in at night.

Texas History and State Study Resources

2011-10-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

What's Cookin'?

Tortilla Soup "a la leftovers": I loosely followed a tortilla soup recipe (broth, diced cooked chicken, a handful of tomatoes from the freezer, sauteed then pureed onions, peppers, and a few tomatoes from the freezer in the puree, spices). Then I dumped in all of the leftovers from the refrigerator (yes, even the bit of spaghetti! It had grass-fed ground beef in it that I wasn't about to waste!). I put some crumbled organic tortilla chips (to avoid gmo corn although they weren't treated with lime) in a bowl, served the soup on top, and garnished with shredded low-pasteurized swiss cheese and a dallop of Daisy sour cream (not organic but only has cultured cream in its ingredients).

Tortilla Casserole: I (again) loosely followed a recipe that included making a mixture of cooked ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, shredded cheese, and a bit of milk to make it soupy. Normally I would use homemade cream of mushroom soup but I had bought the only commercial one I could find that I could eat to keep at my mom's this summer when we were in and out of her house a lot. I have to admit that it sure was convenient to grab a box! Grease the bottom of a 9x12 casserole dish (I may have used butter but I can't remember). Layer 6 tortillas on the bottom (I use either homemade tortillas or sprouted tortillas). Spoon 1/2 of the mixture over all of it; repeat. Finish off with some more shredded cheese. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. The dc really liked it. I would like to try it again with sprouted corn tortillas.

What I learned: Freezing tomatoes is easy at both freezing and cooking time! I had just quartered some farmer's market tomatoes and tossed them in a gallon bag to freeze. I made sure to lay it flat so they would not freeze together so much. At cooking time I got out what I needed and the peels just came right off by pulling it gently with my fingers - so easy!

Rice Krispie Treat Grotto for St. Bernadette: Okay... I *finally* uploaded this photo that goes with this post! It tells how I made the krispie treats, why I picked organic puffed rice, and how I made homemade marshmallows. Sequences!

What's Schoolin'?

Here are some resources that I've been using to make materials for our Texas studies:

We started with the dinosaurs :). I made 3-part cards and she uses them to place on the large felt map. I also made a paper copy of it for her to make a booklet for her lapbook. I selectively printed a few pages from this free activity/coloring book with great info:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_p4502_0094n.pdf

Outline map of ecoregions:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_mp_e0100_1070q_08.pdf

Same map in color:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_mp_e0100_1070u_08.pdf

Nice map of major cities:
http://www.tourtexas.com/texas_maps_cities.cfm

Different tribal maps (I really wanted to focus on the moment in time when Europeans first came; although things shifted and changed with some disappearing and others moving in from different directions. I thought that a pinpoint in time would help dd have a focus; then we can branch out to how it was different later as we study more):

Labeled and unlabel map of major rivers:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/texas/rivers/
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/statesbw/texas.shtml

Labeled/unlabeled and colored/uncolored maps of the regions:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/texas/naturalfeatures/

Really cool site with lots of info:
http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/

Excellent resource on different tribes:
http://texasindians.com/

More info on specific tribes and a good map:
http://www.native-languages.org/texas.htm

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept activity/coloring book:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_p4000_0016.pdf

Different maps of regions of TX (colored and uncolored):
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/texas/naturalfeatures/

Free curriculum for grades 4 and 7 that could be a stand-alone or supplement. For me it's a supplement. They are both parallel curr. so it would be easy to use for multi-age/grade groups or homeschooling. Some parts need more depth (such as distinct tribes):
http://www.tshaonline.org/tools/lessonplans/browse/index.html

Free Lapbook ~ Texas History Lapbook

2011-10-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

As I was scouring the internet for a pre-made Texas History lapbook (I *really* don't want to start from scratch right now even though I love creating) I thought I would check out HOAC.

The Freebie right now at In the Hands of a Child is a full lapbook for Island of the Blue Dolphins (click on freebie at the link). It says grades 4-7 but I don't think my 4th grader is ready to really appreciate it yet. I've saved it for later:

http://www.handsofachild.com/

Texas Lapbook:

They DO have a Texas History Lapbook! I would need to add to it for it to be a complete study for the year and be more comprehensive in the History area but it would make a great spine. Plus, for 4th, even if I didn't add much it would still be "enough" and she would remember it so much better through lapbooking. I remember trying to teach it all in 4th in public school - it was sooo much info for them! For the indigenous peoples I divided the class into groups; they did research and made projects; and then presented to the class. That was one way for everyone to have exposure to all of the tribes and learn and *remember* details about at least one :). How I wish I had known about lapbooking 20 years ago!

http://tinyurl.com/69gup2v

It turns out that the HOAC Tx History lapbook is on sale right now at currclick. Yeah! $9.95
http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=2493&it=1

Hmmm.... decisions, decisions. I found free resources in my google search of Texas History Lapbooks but this one is more "History" and I've always been pleased with their products.

Books I need to Buy/Check out:

A Child's History of Texas
http://tinyurl.com/6zzsnn3

Texas (Eyewitness Books)
http://tinyurl.com/6c6vdh2

The Story of Texas
http://tinyurl.com/4xnz6aq

I keep waffling back and forth about getting this one - I would have already gotten it if I had unlimited resources:
Dinah Zike's Big Book of Texas History:
http://tinyurl.com/3svxu9z

You can see them better at this older post made back when the Amazon widget was working:
http://eclecticlvng.blogspot.com/2010/08/chemistry-coloring-book-texas-history.html

Now I'm going to start working on some Montessori-inspired Texas History shelf work... I'm thinking a big map that can be used for dd to place things like dinosaur pictures; different tribes; city labels; rivers, etc. Basically a TX version of the world felt map. I just found this great resource link to make some type of dinosaur work (I think fossil hunting will be a must of a field trip!):

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/kids/wild_things/dinosaurs/

Green Polka Dot Box Free Year Membership!!

2011-10-05T05:44:00.000-07:00

The Green Polka Dot Box, an online buying club for organic products at reasonable prices, has extended its promotional offer of a free one year membership through October 9th. Hop on over and check it out. You have to watch their 30 minute webinar which is a blurb about their higher membership and then sign up. As an example, I found this Spectrum Refined Coconut Oil for under $5. I don't get a lot of pre-packaged food (except for this summer during our "living in 4 homes in 3 months nomadic adventurous move") so I won't benefit from the savings on the bulk of their products, but I still found plenty of items I use.

It's $9.95 shipping for any order under $150 and free shipping after that (I can't find exactly where I read that on the website but that's what I remember, anyway, from when I was on it before joining). Memberships are usually $50.

I love being able to support a company that is in turn supporting companies that are non-GMO or moving in that direction - and that's easy on a thin, crumpled pocketbook. I can't say at this point that I'll continue my membership next year without the promotional freebie, but I'm happy to give it a go and make a few orders; even if it takes saving up for a few months to consolidate it for the free shipping. The prices on some of the items phenomenal.

Here's the link:
http://www.greenpolkadotbox.com/

Here is my referral link, but I'm not hung up on getting referral points - I just want to get the word out about the freebie and about this company that has great promise. Anything else would be homemade, natural dye, real butter and sugar icing on the cake! Here's my referral invitation (which I didn't even know existed until after I had written the post):
http://www.greenpolkadotbox.com/invite/9904/

Let me know of your experiences with this company. So far they even helped me over the weekend when I was having trouble getting my free membership to work and I am already impressed with their helpfulness.

Portfolios ~ "BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience" video

2011-09-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

BOATLIFT: A Must-Watch Video

What's Cookin'?

Food Show Recipes:

Dc will be using the following recipes for their contests this year.

Dd-9 is making Banana Nut Muffins. We soak ours but will actually follow a recipe for a change for the contest :). Of course this will take some testing so we're making them in a few minutes. I found this recipe online. For the contest we're making the following adjustments but for real life I would soak them overnight with adjustments: whole yogurt instead of low-fat; rapadura/sucanat for the sugar; and vegetable oil instead of canola oil (much of canola is genetically modified)(we'll probably use sunflower oil).
http://eatingcleanrecipes.com/2010/02/whole-wheat-banana-nut-muffins/

Dd-14 is making zucchini bread. I'll try to type that up soon.

Dd-15 is making pancake crackers (scroll down to What's Cookin'? here) and homemade peanut butter (I posted here about peanuts).

What's Schoolin'?

What do I do with all of their work?? Well, this has worked well for us for several years... but you'd have to understand my NOT left-brain type (and compensations for my Lyme brain). It would probably drive many of you crazy!

Throughout the year we simply toss "keepers" in one of these wonderful Sterilite plastic drawers that I kept in the closet of the old house. It includes Math pages, tests, art work, etc, etc, etc. Then during the summer (okay, it was every TWO summers for a while!) we go through it and they/I choose the real keepers of the year, take a photos with all of the rest spread out on the floor, and put the real keepers in a binder. I punch holes in the art work or papers when appropriate and put others in those plastic page protectors when appropriate. I can also put any cards, letters, smaller items and even notes to me in those page protectors.

This has worked so well that I plan to continue using it. When we switched to lapbooking the "keepers" went down considerably because the unit pages are in the completed lapbooks that we keep on a shelf in the schoolroom. When we switched to spiral notebooks for the different subject areas the "keepers" went down even more because random assignments or shelf work follow-up work is done in spirals. Each spiral may span several years and when one if full we chunk it in... the drawers until summertime :). At that time I simply store the full spriral with their other portfolio binders.

I hope posting this "system" will help others struggling with keeping/organizing their children's work.

Enjoy!

Montessori Kindle Books

2011-08-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

I've been considering a Kindle or some other reader for quite a while now for the olders. Here is a compilation of Kindle Montessori books for download. In case you don't already know, you can install the Kindle reader on your computer free of charge. I did that when I downloaded some free test prep books for the olders a while back.

Here is the Kindle:

http://tinyurl.com/3gjuk83

http://tinyurl.com/3st3gso

http://tinyurl.com/3n4b4qs

http://tinyurl.com/3k2382t

Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook (free)
http://tinyurl.com/3zt8l8c

Spontaneous Activity in Education (free)
http://tinyurl.com/3f2jmw6

The Montessori Method
http://tinyurl.com/3l55j77

Montessori from the Start
http://tinyurl.com/45ysnjj

Montessori Madness! A Parent to Parent Argument for Montessori Education
http://tinyurl.com/3pjk75k

Understanding Montessori
http://tinyurl.com/3j2aavo

Montessori FAQs Unplugged Book One
http://tinyurl.com/3w5f5dq

Montessori's Own Handbook
http://tinyurl.com/3m4yr28

What's Cookin'?

Weird, I know, but I've been thinking a lot about fish heads lately, lol. Yes, between all of the chaos of our current living arrangements I've been thinking about being brave and trying to make a similar recipe to what I remember from the beach growing up in the tropics. You would have to scoop around the fish head to serve your bowl of soup. Since I was so easily eeewww-ed as a kid (having spent my first 9 years up here in the States and only summers below the tropical latitude) I would quickly scoop and try not to make faces at the fish head staring up at me. Unfortunately my "ewww-ness" made me miss out on taking full nutritional advantage of nutrient-dense traditional foods that I simply wasn't used to eating.

What's Green?

I found 2 scorpions in our new house as I was prepping it to move in the other day. (sigh) One was in dd's closet and the other live one in their bathroom. The dead one in their hallway relieved me somewhat.

So... I'll be looking into their natural predators, natural pesticides, spraying and praying. If I remember right crushed glass is what exterminators use for scorpions. I have a bucket of food grade garden Diatomaceous Earth somewhere in storage. I may sprinkle that along the outside of the house for now as I think that is also a scorpion killer. I sure don't have to worry about rain washing it away because we're in drought here with it only raining once all Summer (and 3 months straight with above 100F temps).

Montessori Pencil Holders ~ More Gottatries...

2011-08-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Aren't these pencil holders from Montessori Services beautiful?

If you can't or don't want to pay high prices for pencil holders such as this you have quite a few options. You could paint recycled food cans; use clear acrylic containers from a hobby store and put stickers, paper, or paint on them; even use those colored plastic cups (I just saw that in image google when I went to get a photo). You can find nice wooden containers to paint (or not!) at a hobby store as well.

What did we do when youngest dd was little? We used baby food jars nestled in a short-sided box that she could carry to her work area. In those jars she kept colored pencils, markers, and even crayons sorted by color. I didn't find it necessary to color-coordinate the jar, she just sorted them by color and knew where to return each one by the colors already in there.

However, if you want the finished look of a commercial product, here are a few:

What's Cookin'?

Some more Gottatries:

No Bake Pecan Pie (uses 1 C each almonds/raisins for crust; 1 C pecans, 1 C dried figs):
http://www.squidoo.com/the-wholesome-life

Zuke Chorizo Lasagna (Mmmm)(sliced zukes/yellow squash for lasagna noodles, so it's low carb). I always hesitate (and thus never buy) chorizo even though it has great ingredients and is readily available in my area because of the whole mass food industry pork issue. I've been getting my pork once in a blue moon from local farms but no chorizo in sight. I'd like to say (and have actually said) that the only place I eat pork outside of the house is at Chipotle... but that would be a lie because once in a while I do find myself giving in at a breakfast restaurant - I just love bacon way too much (you know, the other food group!). Anyway, I will try to look into the chorizo possibilities so here is the recipe:
http://www.beyondthepeel.net/2011/08/zucchini-chorizo-sausage-lasagna-no-pasta-was-harmed-in-this-recipe.html

Easy Pancakes (change to soaked):
http://www.naturalfamilyawareness.com/health/index.php/2011/07/25/leas-easy-pancake-recipe/

Strawberry yogurt popscicles (1 qt yogurt; 2 C fresh or frozen strawberries in blender or food processor; put in molds)
http://www.naturalfamilyawareness.com/health/index.php/2011/07/02/leas-creamy-strawberry-yogurt-popsicles/

Zucchini Ideas (stir-fried summer squash; zuke spice cake; zuke fritters; zuke pancakes):
http://www.homegrownandhandmadethebook.com/2011/08/zucchini-here-there-everywhere.html

Double chocolate chip cookie:
http://www.cookiedropletsetcbymarelie.com/2011/08/my-double-chocolate-chip-cookie.html

Anther mayo recipe (used a hand mixer):
http://stuffifeedbrian.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-make-homemade-mayonnaise-gluten.html

What's Green?

A kitchen counter cleaner with 2 T washing soda, 3-5 drops dish detergent, hot water to fill the spray bottle and lavender or peppermint oil optional:
http://www.16ballsintheair.com/2011/02/simple-baby-step.html

Fresh (Food) Start ~ Gottatries

2011-08-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Oldest DD: Mommy, we need to study Colloids!

Why is she suddenly interested in the colloids from her Chemistry book from which she just stopped taking notes? Well, it just so happens that the following are in the colloids group: milk, butter, whipped cream, and marshmallows. I have homemade marshmallows in my little freezer that's stored in my mom's garage at the moment and our beater (to make whipped cream) is in storage. "Oh well, I guess we'll just have to have some chocolate milk," is dd's solution. Hmm.... I happen to have some cacao and rapadura/honey... Who am I to get in the way of Chemistry studies?

What's Cookin'?

Hopefully we will close on our new home this week and I'll have a kitchen again (yeah!!!). The first thing I plan on doing is soaking some beans and making some bone broth while they soak. I'll also be digging out my bread recipes and trying to remember which was our favorite recipe. Soaking almonds for homemade almond milk (for dd) will top the list also. I'm glad she hasn't really taken to the store-bought kind we've been using throughout the summer.

I did a lot of food compromises throughout the summer and here are some steps I'll be taking to get back on track:

No more breakfast cereal. Although we were getting natural kinds with no food dyes, no fake sugars, no HFCS, etc, etc, it is still highly processed. This may require some withdrawals but we'll be switching back to eggs, soaked oatmeal, arroz con leche, and other homemade breakfasts.

No more drive-thrus. This happened as a consequence of driving back and forth so much this summer but we won't be driving like that as much once school starts and we get our belongings out of storage. I tried to choose "better" drive-thrus but, you know, let's just say they aren't the best choice for our health. Chick-Fil-A switched to canola oil so I'm bummed about that but their chicken salad sandwiches sure are good and filling :). I don't feel bad (physically) after eating there like I do with other places or frozen processed foods. Chipotle is the best around but is on the opposite side of town where we would drive and only went there once or twice during the summer drives. Braums does not use hormones nor "routine" antibiotics in their dairy cows so I (naively) assume that their burgers are the same.

No more processed sandwich meat. This will also cause some withdrawals (from them for the taste and from me for the ease). We get some with no nitrites/nitrates but it is still highly processed and who knows if they use that 'industry standard' meat glue (disgusting!!)[Watch this short video!]. By the way, I always (if possible) cook our sandwich meat to steaming when we do make lunch meat sandwiches to kill any listeria or other baddies. Deli meat is NOT recommended even in the mainstream for pregnant moms unless cooked so I do this as a matter of course.

No more paper plates, plastic forks, spoons, cups! We'll be setting up our "UNpaper towels" in a handy place in the kitchen.

No more store-bought yogurt for daily use. Cottage cheese is a tough one though because my attempts failed and organic is sooooo expensive for something I eat almost every day (dopamine precursor is in cottage cheese). I get Daisy cottage cheese and sour cream because it just has cultured cream but it's not organic. No hormones but probably antibiotics. Organics also sometimes have lots of unnecessary ingredients like some organic yogurt I've seen lately and unhealthy food additives.

Revive my dairy kefir grains. We'll see how they do after only being changed once during the summer and being pushed back in the fridge. Otherwise, I think I have some in the freezer.

Fermented drinks. That sounds fun, doesn't it, lol? Actually, I meant lacto-fermented drinks for me and the dc. We'll start with fermented lemonade and I'll also make some beet kvass.

My mom will be so glad, I'm sure, to get my little freezer and boxes of staples out of her garage (and study - when I saw that the new Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil I bought in bulk was pure liquid in a plastic container in the 115F+ garage I moved it to the study inside - where it still stayed liquid but not as hot). She has been such a good sport about our stuff this summer.

These baby steps for a fresh start are part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/08/real-food-wednesday-8172011.html

Gottatries

I always tag more than I put in my gottatry lists but here are some recipes I'd like to try asap:

These sweet potato and black bean enchiladas will go right along with the beans I'll be making and I *love* sweet potatoes:
http://www.realfoodallergyfree.com/2011/08/sweet-potato-and-black-bean-enchiladas-with-mole-sauce/

Crunchy Granola (I can never have enough granola or granola bar recipes to try):
http://ruthsrealfood.blogspot.com/2011/08/crunchy-granola-for-hippies-and-others.html

Lacto-fermented dill pickles:
http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2011/08/perfect-dill-pickles-recipe.html

Eggplant Parmesan (smaller eggplants have less seeds; eggs; breadcrumbs)(serve with angel hair pasta and mozzarella)(maybe even just serve plain with the cooked eggplant):
http://www.theadirondackchick.com/2011/08/eggplant-parmesan-traditional.html

Ooo yeah, watermelon ice cream! I don't have an ice cream maker but I wonder how this would do just frozen in little popsicle molds or cups; or maybe in a big bowl and stir every hour or so until frozen? I tried giving them 'fresco de sandia' once and it didn't go over very well. Then many years later I got some from a stand at the open-air market in San Antonio and they only tasted it. How can you not love fresco de sandia??? This may work, though:
http://recipestonourish.blogspot.com/2011/08/creamy-watermelon-ice-cream.html

Roasted Eggplant (eggplant, salt, olive oil, garlic cloves)(can be frozen for a fast side dish - can it get any better than that?):
http://www.traditional-foods.com/recipes/oven-roasted-eggplant/

Kohlrabi Fritters:
http://amomonamission.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/kohlrabi-fritters/

Monkey French Toast (this should help ease the pain from leaving behind breakfast cereals!):
http://angelfoodskitchen.blogspot.com/2011/08/celebrity-cook-along-rachael-raymonkey.html

No-Tomato Sauce (uses carrots, beets, seasonings)(video):
http://realfoodforager.com/2011/07/videorecipe-the-no-tomato-sauce-scdgaps/

Black Bean and Cream Cheese burritios:
http://debbidoesdinnerhealthy.blogspot.com/2011/08/black-bean-cream-cheese-burritos.html

Single serving quick peanut butter cake. This may be worth trying - in the oven though:
http://www.extremepersonalmeasures.com/2011/08/one-minute-peanut-butter-cake.html

Lemon curd. A must-try! (3 eggs, lemon zest, sugar, butter):
http://creativekitchenadventures.com/2011/08/02/lemon-curd-perfect-summertime-treat/

Zucchini Boats (zukes, cream cheese, mozzarella, parmesan):
http://www.greenbeangardens.com/zucchini-boats/

Kefir Cream Cheese:
http://www.stacymakescents.com/kefir-cream-cheese

Banana Crunch Muffins:
http://pattietierney.blogspot.com/2011/08/banana-crunch-muffins.html

Grain-Free Skillet Lasagna (uses summer squash for noodles!!):
http://nourishedandnurtured.blogspot.com/2011/08/grain-free-skillet-lasagna.html

I have been mulling this over for a while. I was even joking recently with my cousin on the phone about having to scoop your soup out of the pot around the fish head as children:
http://thepurposedheart.com/homemade-fish-stock/

Vegetable Frittata:
http://premeditatedleftovers.com/vegetable-frittata/

Another version of fudgesicles using avocado without cooking (just blend ingredients):
http://recipestonourish.blogspot.com/2011/07/homemade-fudgesicles.html#comment-form

Vidalia Salsa:
http://www.tendergrassfedmeat.com/2011/08/02/raw-vidalia-salsa-provides-balance-for-grassfed-meat/

How to freeze fresh corn:
http://www.halleethehomemaker.com/2011/08/freezing-fresh-corn/

How to freeze herbs:
http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/the-easiest-way-to-preserve-herbs/

Almond Date Bar (like a LARA bar)(with video):
http://realfoodforager.com/2011/07/videorecipe-almond-date-energy-bar-scdgaps/

Cheese Scallion Muffins:
http://debbidoesdinnerhealthy.blogspot.com/2011/08/cheese-scallion-muffins.html

Chewy Cinnamon Almond Cookies (gluten free)(can be used for ice cream sandwiches)(would normally have all ingredients on hand as well - 2-1/2 C almond flour):
http://nourishedandnurtured.blogspot.com/2011/07/chewy-cinnamon-almond-cookies-gluten.html

Fermented bread and butter pickles:
http://nourishedandnurtured.blogspot.com/2011/08/fermented-bread-and-butter-pickles-gaps.html

Petite Lasagnas (uses wonton wrappers)(make in muffin tins)(make sure to have 1-1/2 C ricotta or cottage? and 1-1/2 mozarella or swiss? plus tomato sauce and cooked ground meat):
http://sensibleshoppers.blogspot.com/2011/07/petite-lasagnas.html

Breakfast ideas:
http://realfoodlittlerock.blogspot.com/2011/08/back-to-school-breakfast.html

Lunch ideas:
http://realfoodlittlerock.blogspot.com/2011/08/back-to-school-lunches.html

Roasted Pesto Tomatoes (basil (pesto), oil, tomatoes, salt):
http://www.artfoodlifeblog.com/2011/08/roasted-pesto-tomatoes/

Blueberry Muffins (gluten and sugar free) (2 C almond meal):
http://momsforsafefood.net/2011/08/02/gluten-sugar-free-blueberry-muffins/

What's Gardenin'?

This was on RFW for tomato blight/garden fungal problems:
http://shanonhilton.blogspot.com/2011/08/fighting-blight-fermented-recipe.html

"Course of Study" Yearly Planning Form

2011-08-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Here is a "Course of Study" to use in planning for the year or for use as a record of the school year to help with transcripts later. Our goals will be set by the student in individual parent (teacher)/student conferences. Knowing my dds we will probably continue on the back of the page!

http://www.4shared.com/file/P9WK0rHs/Course_of_Study_-_yearly_plann.html

What's Cookin'?

I got some fresh dill from the grocery store and added it to some cream cheese for a dip. Very fresh tasting.

I tried to preserve some jalapenos that I got at the local farmers market. I had about 20 to preserve. I sliced and froze some; others I sliced in half, seeded, and fermented in apple cider vinegar with salt (on the counter 2 days then in the fridge for 2 weeks before ready); and the rest I sliced thinner and fermented the same only I added some fresh dill that I didn't want to waste (that also helped to keep the jalapenos submerged under the level of the brine).

What's Inspirin'?

Here are the lyrics from Laura Story's song Blessings. I like to click on the video and then read these words while she plays. If there's nobody around I'll sing along too :).
http://www.lyricshall.com/lyrics/Laura+Story/Blessings/
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGmKC34UZ68&feature=player_embedded

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?

What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

And all the while You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?

And what if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the achings of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst
This world can’t satisfy?

And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise?

Chore Chart

2011-07-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

I used this template from Donna Young's site to make a document for my own use. I liked the format but it wasn't typable (is that a real word??).

Her original:
http://donnayoung.org/f11/household-fs-f/hofiles/chore.pdf

For my chart I will change the font colors for kitchen duty, bathroom duty, and pets/M's helper to match their names that I will type in the top right corner. That way their daily rotating duties will be color coordinated with their names. The chores in the "everybody" column will remain in black. The second page will be separate... maybe near the bathroom mirror or inside their bedroom doors??

An aside: all three dc help out on laundry day; Sundays have a different cycle [I tried not rotating it for a day of rest but it wasn't working out and was less peaceful than just alternating Sunday responsibilities]; I have the zones posted separately (on an index card that I tape in a prominent place in the kitchen) which rotate by week.

This is the first year for dd-9 to be in the rotation - we added the Pets/M's Helper chore category so we can rotate evenly.

My file as a .doc:
http://www.4shared.com/get/ck5JBprS/Chore_Chart_2011.html

My file as .odt:
http://www.4shared.com/get/oTW1SOLa/Chore_Chart_2011.html

And as a pdf:
http://www.4shared.com/get/dQ6wh7DN/Chore_Chart_2011.html

Enjoy!

Fudgesicles ~ Art History Link

2011-07-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

What's Cookin'?

Homemade Fudgesicles: This is so easy that you'll wonder why you haven't done it before... I sure wondered why I hadn't!!

Step 1: Make chocolate pudding.
Step 2: Freeze in popsicle molds or paper cups with a spoon in it.
Step 3: Enjoy!

Now, here's the tricky part: Don't use boxed pudding to make the chocolate pudding. Seriously, it takes almost the exact amount of time to do it from scratch. Personally, I don't use the recipes that require egg yolk because of the extra step; however, you may want the extra protein. I also do not use cornstarch so I just use white flour instead for this splurge. There are many chocolate pudding recipes online. I mix the following in a small pot and stir constantly over medium heat until it bubbles or thickens:

4 Tablespoons Cacao
5 Tablespoons Rapadura
5 Tablespoons white flour (really about 4-1/2)
2 Cups milk (I mix in 1/2 C until smooth and then another 1/2 C until all is added)
1/8 teaspoon Real Salt (only if using UNsalted butter)(I have started buying unsalted butter so I can control the salt in it and use Real Salt)

After it has thickened mix in 1-1/2 Tablespoons Butter.

That's it! Now you have wonderful chocolate pudding to use for fudgesicles or... chocolate pudding :)

The dc enjoyed it this afternoon during the super hot weather (dh says it's so hot the birds are wearing oven mitts!). It got 3 thumbs up (it would've been 6 thumbs up but they were holding it with the other hand). I asked them to compare it to a commercial fudgesicle and they said it was creamier, didn't melt as fast, and tasted like pudding.

This recipe is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/08/real-food-wednesday-832011.html

What's Schoolin'?

Here is a great link for Art History, Art Appreciation, or for individual artists or artist studies:

http://www.gardenofpraise.com/art.htm

There are also some great music cards for shelf work on that site.

Montessori Scope and Sequence

2011-07-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Montessori Scope and Sequence Links:

http://www.moteaco.com/36scope.html

http://www.moteaco.com/69scope.html

Scroll down for a list of links (thanks, Daisy, for this webpage!):
http://members.shaw.ca/montessori4all/ages.htm

http://www.bgmontessori.com/montessori/curriculum

This has cool links to photos or presentations:
http://montessorimom.com/toddler-scope-and-sequence-lesson-ideas-practical-/

http://www.telluridemtnschool.org/academ_curriculum.html

Here is the one from above for the overall scope/sequence for all grades:
http://www.telluridemtnschool.org/documents/TMSScopeandSequence2009.pdf

http://www.sites.google.com/site/monticellomontessori/about-us/montessori-scope-and-sequence-1

Geography:
http://www.montessori.org/sitefiles/geography.pdf

Divided by Periods:
http://montessoristory.blogspot.com/2009/02/sequence-of-montessori-work.html

What's Cookin'?

Trust me... you don't really want to know (that means I don't really know!). My list of possible meals this week are: Homemade pizza on Afgan flatbread; quiche; chicken soup (made with leftovers and chicken bones I got over the weekend from my freezer that's in my mom's garage - I'll make the bone broth, then take out the bones and add in leftovers); lumpias (real lumpias with ground pork and cooked cabbage but in egg roll wraps). That's it. We move to another rental in 3 days so I don't want to get very many groceries.

"Homeschoolroom" Pictoral Inspirations

2011-07-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

We don't even have our house yet, much less an organized schoolroom, so these are certainly not from me! As I was looking online for inspiration I thought I would share a few finds. There are lots of wonderful Montessori schoolroom blogs with ideas for youngers. I will post a few of those. I'm struggling with how I want it to look/work for older students (youngest is 4th; oldest is 10th) while maintaining the free choice shelf work aspect. It will be out in the open (as opposed to a separate school room as it was in our old house) so I would love for it to look nice as well.

The dc will have desks in their rooms to stay (somewhat) organized but we'll come together in the "dining" room for the most part; although they've always been free to work wherever they please for independent work - even outside. Also in that "dining" area we'll have some type of shelving/storage for shelf work. It's the dichotomy of wanting the works to be visible but not wanting the works to be visible ;). The geography works are the most challenging because our pin maps are oversized. I've been window shopping for several weeks and it's been fun dreaming.

http://pastorettesprogress.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome-to.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/montessoribyhand/sets/72157602128379274/

http://pinterest.com/thelittlelist/learning-spaces/

What We really Ate

2011-07-20T06:28:00.000-07:00

There are some great menus out there. This is not one of them. This is the translation of great plans and ideals into real life under less than ideal circumstances. We're still living out of suitcases and boxes in a rental (I'm so grateful for the rental we have!!). We have about 1-1/2 weeks in this rental before we move to another rental.

Sometimes we look at all of the awesome ideas, routines, lifestyles, and how-tos online and unwillingly fall into discouragement. I thought I would post reality to encourage someone out there - ha, maybe even myself! - that it's okay. Do what you can when you can however you can.

Breakfast
Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain Hot Cereal: I soaked it the night before with the recommended amount of water and some whey. In the morning I poured off the water and put back in the same amount of fresh water (like soaking rice). I tossed in a bone from the freezer that I had saved to make bone broth for some added minerals and calcium. After it was cooked I put a pat of butter and a small handful of blueberries in each serving. Wow. Wow. Delicious and no sugar crash-and-burn; just a good feeling of energy.

Lunch
[Youngest dd dictated this section to me word for word!]
Corn Dogs - "Good Edible Stuff": My mom made homemade corn dogs and boy, were they good! I hope she makes them again. They were fantastic. They were nice and mushy with the hot dogs in them. My mom didn't have a stick so she made them like a pizza.

I used Bob's Red Mill gluten-free cornbread mix and poured it over small sections of Applegate's hot dogs that I had gotten for the 4th of July as a special treat (I froze the extras already cut). I then cooked them in my mom's Express 101 electric cooking thing (there's a story there!)(I am not recommending that contraption 'cuz it's teflon covered but it's really helping us out right now).

Dinner
No-name nourishment: Leftover frozen mashed sweet potatoes (3 cups); 2 peeled, diced, boiled, and mashed beets; 1/4 pound leftover frozen diced stew meat. I put all of this in a baking dish; covered; and heated it through. We ate it with Jacob's crackers/butter and watermelon. Odd combo but satisfying, nourishing, and satiating. The touch of humor was needing to use a frying pan to serve the watermelon. :)

Breakfast
I had 2 scrambled eggs early before running a before-breakfast errand; the dc had, yes, boxed cereal (sigh) - Cascadia Farms organic O cereal (extrudiated, so major compromise food).

Lunch
Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain Hot Cereal: I wanted it for lunch because it was so good the day before. When I asked if anyone wanted any all 3 dc shouted out, lol. Unconventional lunch but it was good. One dd and I used blueberries and the other 2 added raisins. Yes, I threw a bone in there again while it was cooking for the goodies.

Dinner
Spaghetti: I used 1/2 pound grass-fed beef and some diced bell pepper/onion. To that I just added a can (ugh) of organic tomato sauce with lots of Real Salt. It was...okay. I overcooked the noodles, bleh. For sides we finished that watermelon and had yogurt with blueberries and a salad. I was thrilled to find organic carrots at the local Wal-Mart for less than $1 for a pound bag.

Breakfast
Me and oldest dd: eggs. Other dc boxed organic cereal (ugh).

Lunch
We ate at a local small-business sandwich shop. I shamelessly ate a pulled pork sandwich without grilling them about their pork source. Usually I only order pork at Chipotle (read this, here is a small quote: "Today, in addition to all of our pork and all of our chicken in the US, more than 50 percent of our beef is raised in this way. And someday soon, all of the meats we serve will be naturally raised."). A kid's taco kit at Chipotle is just right for me. I'll miss knowing it's nearby for those emergency meals on the run (not that we went often but the 4 times a year it sure was nice!).

Snack
Crackers and cheese: I had a bit of sliced cheddar from the freezer (Minerva Cheese) that I defrosted and served with some Pita Crackers.

Dinner
Leftover cooked grass-fed rump roast from the freezer; mashed potatoes (organics from Wal-Mart for $3.50 with plenty left over); and peas. One dd hasn't been feeling great so I made a meat broth by shredding some of the roast and simmering it in a little water. Then I poured off the liquid and gave her that. She ended up with seconds and also ate seconds of the potatoes :). She felt much better.

Breakfast
Soaked Bob's Red Mill cooked with a bone from the freezer (pastured pork chop bone) for added nutrients.
[Olders had a piece of Ezequiel Sprouted 7 Grain bread with butter before running an early errand with dh and had the hot cereal when they got home]

Lunch
Me: A quasi-chicken salad with 2 hard boiled eggs, 1/2 mango, Hain's safflower mayo, Real Salt, a dash of Italian Herb vinaigrette, and some leftover chicken. It boosted me out of my fatigue almost immediately. Then I had a small bowl of organic Kettle potato chips (sigh).
Dc: Sandwiches with leftover chicken or roast on Ezekiel bread with mayo; nice and thick potato soup; lots of mango; plain yogurt (youngest dd put mango in hers).

Dinner
Tacos (sort of): the leftover 1/2 lb of grass-fed ground beef that I had cooked with pepper and onion; fresh cilantro; sour cream (Daisy brand); cheddar cheese (regular store brand cheddar); lettuce, and organic salsa (maybe the Target brand?) served on pita bread :). We ate some applesauce on the side also.

Breakfast
I guess I can't conveniently skip writing a meal if I'm being truly honest with this food log, so... Dh offered donuts for breakfast this morning. 2 dc took him up on it and 1 dc ate a hard boiled egg (by choice!). I had a hard boiled egg (with a tiny bit of mayo) for protein and a bowl of Back to Nature sweetened wheat-fuls.

Lunch
Applegate ham on Ezekiel bread w/ Hain's mayo; sauerkraut; pears; raw carrot; some Jason's crackers.

Snack
A handful of kettle potato chips (no canola/corn oil) each (okay, I had 2 handfuls - my weakness) as dinner was cooking.

Dinner
Leftover-filled egg rolls/lumpias: My dc love anything cooked up in an egg roll and they are all called lumpias (my apologies to any Filipinos who know what a lumpia *really* is... I try to make those too!). I threw the following leftovers in a big bowl: mashed potatoes, a teeny tiny bit of roast and chicken, and some frozen peas. I put little scoops on the egg roll wraps and added a tiny piece of cheddar cheese. Then I rolled them and fried them in virgin sunflower oil (trying to stay away from canola - major GE crop - and don't have my coconut oil). For dipping I tried the vinaigrette I have and also mixed (in another bowl) mayo and ketchup for the dc. We ate 20 and 2 are left for the freezer.

I missed a few days that I was going to include. Basically we had scrambled eggs one morning and (again) Back to Nature's version of shredded wheat another. For lunch, despite great plans of bean and cheese melts using homemade soaked/cooked beans from the freezer, we just had the regular sandwiches and sides. We're having those bean/cheese melts for breakfast today. For dinner we had pancakes from the Bob's Red Mill package served with butter and local honey. Oldest dd made those for us and the dc really liked them. We tripled the batch and it was just barely enough for 5 people.

If you've actually read this "menu" I'm quite impressed, lol! Hopefully it will give some encouragement seeing how I try, yet stumble, yet keep trying to give my family nourishing food during our transition. Who am I kidding? The transition is the excuse - I haven't ever had it all together :).

This is part of Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/07/real-food-wednesday-7202011.html

Free Online Lesson Planner

2011-07-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Free Online High School Courses:
http://www.courserepository.org/

Lesson Planner:

Here is a free online lesson planner that worked really really well for me... when I used it :).

http://www.home-school-inc.com/

It worked great with the way I plan units, Montessori presentations, or teacher directed lessons. I liked it better than the the basic (free) Homeschool Tracker due to its flexibility and ease of use. Setting up the courses the first time takes a while as you learn and input. The following years it was pretty quick to set up new courses.

A few quirks:
I don't care about the times and didn't use it for a schedule, but I DID want the courses printed in the weekly schedule in order of presentation. Well, it alphabetizes when you print them all out for the week (within each day) so to solve this problem, when you name your course start with the number. For example, I named math: 1.Math; 2.Writing, etc. If you use scheduled times when you set up the courses this may not be an issue.

You can print by the month, week, or day. You can print out an assignment sheet for each child as well.

You can use it to keep records of what the child DID instead of planning.

You can plan each subject out as far as you want independently of the others. This was the major selling point for me. I don't plan weekly well. When I'm on a roll with a topic I want to keep going. Others I tried wanted me to plan each subject for the week. That's not how my mind works; especially since I don't really follow many curr with just inputing page numbers. I have to actually write what we'll do or at least the materials.

If you skip school one day (field trip, illness, etc) you can push everything forward, which is nice. However, if you just want to push one subject forward because you didn't get to it, you can't. Maybe it's improved since then. I am looking forward to checking on that aspect and trying it again this year. Remember: It's free!

Some more free online planners:

http://www.homeschoolskedtrack.com/HomeSchool/displayLogin.do

http://www.homeschooltracker.com/tracker_basic.aspx

Years ago when I looked through millions of lesson planning (software and/or online) I found and liked this one. They even had a conference call with me and led me through it:
http://www.oncoursesystems.com/products/lessonplanner/lp.aspx
What's Cookin'?

Free samples from Bragg's:
http://bragg.com/samples/samples_23651.php

Here are some bone broth links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGUCSaud1kI

I have *got* to get my hands on some bison bones! I can't afford the meat but maybe some bones. That's what I do with organic free range chickens - I just get the bones instead of the meat.
http://www.traditional-foods.com/recipes/bison-broth/

Big Lots Food Finds and Some School Finds

2011-07-13T05:41:00.000-07:00

What's Cookin'?

Simple Sides: Boiled tiny potatoes from the farmers market and boiled diced beets. Lots of butter and some Real Salt. Several dc went back for seconds.

Emergency Dinner: We came in at 5:30 and I was fatigued. It was time to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Olive oil ('cuz that's the only oil I have right now) and butter in a skillet; add a bag of frozen oriental veggies; add about 2 cups of pre-cooked/pre-cut frozen chicken leftovers and heat all on medium. When it's all heated through sprinkle in some flour (we overdid it with about 3 tablespoons!) and a bunch of milk (until it's runny because it will thicken noticeably). Bring it to a low boil and add more milk as needed to keep it the consistency of gravy. The only seasoning I have is Real Salt right now so I generously gave the family some trace minerals as I added some Real Salt. From the freezer to the table in less than 30 minutes. Okay, giving credit where credit is due: Middle dd stirred it, after I tossed it all in the pan, and kept an eye on it until it was time to make the gravy in the pan.

Big Lots: If you have a Big Lots in your area you may be surprised by some of the food items. Bob's Red Mill flours. Yep. Here is what I got and remember, no shipping!
Organic High Fiber Pancake and Waffle whole grain mix - $3.50
7 Grain Hot Cereal - $3.00
Gluten Free Cornbread Mix - $2.45

I hesitated to get the cornbread mix because corn is such a BIG genetically modified crop and it was not organic. However, I found this on their website which puts my mind at ease. Unfortunately, since it's a mix it'll be a compromise because I can't soak the corn in lime. Hopefully I can eat a little without any consequences due to the mold/toxins/mycotoxins that get neutralized after soaking corn in lime water overnight. The truth is, I probably wouldn't have soaked it anyway because my pickling lime is in my mom's garage somewhere...

"Are your products genetically modified?
No. All of our products come from identity preserved seeds. This means the seed planted in the ground is non-GMO. We simply can't guarantee against cross pollination due to natural occurrences such as wind drift, so we do not label our products GMO-free."
http://www.bobsredmill.com/bobs-red-mill-faq.html#GP4

I can soak the 7 Grain Hot Cereal for tomorrow, but the Pancake and Waffle mix already has baking powder in it. I wonder: Would it change the pH or would it just fizzle out and not give it rise? I could always add more baking powder in the morning but I'm not sure what it would do to the soaking since it is already in there. Another compromise. Yes, ideally, just make the pancakes from scratch (or simply not eat it). However, I haven't found plain whole wheat flour in the stores around here yet and I wanted to do give them a treat in the midst of the transition.

I think what I'll do is try to get some bone broth in them any way I can. I may even toss a bone from the freezer in with the hot cereal while it cooks. We've been eating a LOT of compromise foods and white flour and unsoaked grains. I may need to temporarily get some Concentrace until we're settled again.

Another find at Big Lots:
Old Orchard Organic Pomegranate Green Tea (caffeine free) 64 oz for $2.00 [I'm not sure about decaf green tea since it naturally has caffeine and I'm not sure how it's processed, but I got some for the pomegranate]
They also had Fig Newtons for $2 for dh but we won't talk about that!!

I found some Milton's graham crackers for the dc with minimal ingredients for $2 as well and some Jacob's cream crackers with just wheat flour, palm oil, salt, sodium bicarbonate, and yeast for $1.50. These are both stashed in the cabinet for a later time. The crackers are for homemade cream cheese or some low-pasteurized cheddar from grass fed cows that I just took out of the freezer. Hopefully the topping will counter some of the compromise foods.

These Food Finds are linked on Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/07/real-food-wednesday-7132011.html

PS: I'm reading Dr. Brownstein's book Salt Your Way to Health. It's an easy read if you want to understand why REAL (as in authentic not just the brand) sea salt is good for you and refined and/or lab salt is bad. We NEED those trace minerals. Okay, that would be another post, but I read 1/2 the book in one sitting and will finish it today.

What's Schoolin'?

This floor plan for a 3-5 Montessori classroom was posted on one of the groups:
http://www.julianagroup.com/images/Classroom3D.jpg

I noticed they have 10% off right now:
http://www.julianagroup.com/

Free online grammar/writing workbooks:
http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghb.html

Adapted Classics: I'm usually not one to get abridged versions of classics. In the words of middle dd, "I'd rather wait and read the original book." However, when I saw Heidi, Pollyanna, and The Little Princess for only $1 each at Target I snagged them. Youngest dd is excited to read Heidi because she says that she's heard about it and is curious. I remember watching the Heidi cartoon growing up but, I admit it, I've never actually read the book... until last night. I really enjoyed this abridged classic and look forward to the original.

So, if you happen to be in Target, scope out the dollar section by the front door.

They also usually have card sets. You could get double sets to make 3-part cards or simply to put on the shelves for shelf work, depending on the card set.

Mardel: It's time to get geared up for Mardel's big education sale July 21st! 20% off all education, school supplies, homeschool, and kids' products. Fortunately for me there's a Mardel in all three towns I keep bouncing back and forth between these days. Here's a link (on the homepage there's a banner announcing the 20% off that day):
http://www.mardel.com/education-sale-july-2011.aspx

Our new schedule we are trying this week:
Mornings: Breakfast and go run around scouting out the new town for about 1-1/2 to 2 hours. It's too hot to do anything outside so mainly window shopping and the library, errands, etc.
Noon-ish: Home for lunch
Afternoons: About an hour of schoolwork (mainly math but will add our Chemistry and History tomorrow); quiet time for everyone (maybe just 1/2 hour); free time/play time while I make dinner. [this already got changed the first day because dh wants to go swimming in the late afternoons - truly great, just hard on dinner prep. I'll work it out and time with daddy is too important to skip]
Evenings: Dinner, etc routine.

What's Green?

Freecycle: If you're not hooked in with freecycle yet, give it a try. It's easy to see if there is a group for your area and to join the local group. The purpose is to keep usable items that would otherwise go to the landfill out and into the hands of someone who actually wants/needs that item. I have been blessed over and over by people's generosity. I have also tried to bless others with items we no longer need. Make sure you use .org in the link:
http://www.freecycle.org/

What's Lyme Green?

This looks like a really good site to start out with regarding Lyme Disease. It has some good links in one spot but isn't overwhelming.

http://lyme-aware.org/texas.html

Gottatries

2011-07-06T07:11:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since I've done this. Here are my "Gottatries" from Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:

Easy chicken strips: Dredge chicken in egg; then dust or coat with flour mix:
http://realfastfood.blogspot.com/2011/06/quick-chicken-strips.html

Summer squash sauteed with meat for a skillet meal:
http://www.realfoodallergyfree.com/2011/06/italian-sausage-and-summer-squash-skillet/

Garlic sourdough crackers [note to self - look at her root cellar post]:
http://commonsensehomesteading.blogspot.com/2011/06/cheesy-garlic-sourdough-crackers.html

Walnut/pea veggie dip (if I remember right walnuts help with the production of acetylcholine - or is it seratonin? I knew I shouldn't have read both chapters on the same day from the brain book I'm reading!!):
http://realfoodforager.com/2011/07/recipe-walnut-vegetable-dip/

Check out the links for drinks (we really, really like our fermented lemonade and use minimal sugar):
http://divinehealthfromtheinsideout.com/2011/06/sugary-drinks-a-real-food-moms-nemesis/

Oh, so THAT'S what you do with kohlrabi!:
http://ibelieveinbutter.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/recipe-sauted-kohlrabi/

Meatballs over turnip-parsnip mash:
http://amomonamission.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/meatballs-in-chunky-tomato-sauce-over-turnip-parsnip-mash/

Simple banana ice cream. One dd recently said she will never eat bananas again (long story) but this may entice her:
http://eatliftmomrepeat.com/2011/06/27/one-ingredient-ice-cream/

I found that our homemade crepes froze and reheated really well, and I hope to plant mint and strawberries again, so this is a great combo:
http://theintentionalminimalist.blogspot.com/2011/07/lime-mint-crepes-with-strawberry.html

Easy ice cream: fruit, real cream (frozen), a tad of sweetener like honey, and blend:
http://vimandvigor.typepad.com/vim-and-vigor/2011/07/my-entry-3.html#tp

I always forget to make sloppy joes and the family loves them. Here's a variation:
http://debbidoesdinnerhealthy.blogspot.com/2011/07/saucy-sloppy-joes.html

Crispy almond pancakes:
http://nourishedandnurtured.blogspot.com/2011/07/crispy-almond-pancakes-gaps-legal-grain.html

Easy Meltable Cheese (calls for 1-1/2 gallons clabbered milk so I'll have to adjust proportions to lessen the recipe)(ingredients are clabbered milk, butter, sour cream, salt, baking soda) :
http://www.squidoo.com/the-wholesome-life

[I had to stop here at 52 :( Life calls...][There are many more great recipes and links - check out the GM papaya link]
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/07/real-food-wednesday-762011.html#comment-92037

Keep and Share ~ Crustless Quiche

2011-07-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Keep and Share: I admit it, last year was a dud year regarding organization, record keeping, and planning/implementation. For a "latent perfectionist" it was frustrating and defeating. However, (insert perky voice) this year will be different!! One of several things that have helped for record keeping in the past has been Keep and Share.

I think Keep and Share was developed and is used by most people as a *planning* tool and an *organizational* tool. I'm semi-liberated from using left-brain organizational techniques as-is and try to tweek them to my brain type/functionality (and continued health/brain issues for which I need to compensate and with which I need to function).

Basically, Keep and Share is a calendar tool. What is really cool is that you can have several calendars going at the same time. One could be for planning, I guess ;).

For Montessori: Easy record keeping for what lessons have been presented to whom and what shelf work choices the children have made. You could keep the screen up during shelf work time and just jot down notes as things happen. You can also put in planned presentations (just a short note to remember; not the whole plan) as well.

For you 4-Hers out there: The year we used this for 4-H was great at Record Book time. I would input brief notes as life went on straight into the calendar. For example "Dd made cheese cake." I printed out the calendars for each child at the end and highlighted all pertinent activites for that child. We compared it to the wall calendar and made sure we didn't leave things out like workshops and tours, etc. I have to point out though, that dds told me yesterday (as I was starting to use it again - yeah!) that it's great but I'm really keeping records FOR them, they are not doing it themselves. They still prefer the index card method they do on their own. However, they agreed that it was good to have to make sure they remembered everything in case they missed something on their cards.

One solution is to let each child have their own calendar page. You can import and combine calendars to print and each one can have a different color; so on the combined calendar you can have different colors for their input and your input.

There is SOOO much that you can do with Keep and Share and I haven't even scratched the surface. If you discover something cool and use it a different way, please let me know! The calendar was all I could handle at the time but maybe I'm ready to branch out with it a bit now :).

I only have 3 calendars right now: 4-H; Volunteer Hours; and Citizenship (our state requires that we teach 'citizenship' each year so I log things for that in case it ever comes up and I need documentation). I'm considering having one for each child for them to log 4-H things - if they want. They may still prefer the index or spiral. I think just spending consistent time for them to jot down notes will make the difference no matter what system they choose.

For food/health journals: You can keep a record of what you eat or symptoms. They can easily be printed for doctor appointments. If you're a menu planner they could be used for that as well. Hmmm.... I think you can set things to repeat but I'm not sure about that. Then I could insert quiche maybe every 2 or 3 weeks since my family likes quiche but I don't remember to make it often.

Also, Keep and Share is FREE :).

Give it a try at:
http://www.keepandshare.com/

What's Cookin'?

Crustless Quiche: My recipes are packed; although I actually think I know where the ones are that I usually tape inside my kitchen cabinets (of which this is one). Anyway... I threw together this quiche last night with limited kitchen resources and thought I'd share. May this give hope (or amusement) to those trying to feed their families real food under less than ideal circumstances.

First of all, there is no mixing bowl or any big bowl in the rental house (but I'm so appreciative of this rental so it's not a compaint, just reality). I had to use a skillet to mix everything. If you are in the same dilemna try this: Saute the veggies in the skillet; set aside in little cereal bowl. In the cooled skillet mix 10 eggs, 2 handfuls of flour (I guess that would be about 1/2 C??), 2 teaspoons baking powder, and a bunch of sea salt. Mix it well. Divide meat/veggie mix into 2 buttered pie pans; pour the egg/flour mix into the 2 pans over the meat/veggie mix; put 1/2 C shredded cheese on top of each pan. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes before cutting.

Or, you could do what I actually did: Forget to use the correct order with the skillet and mix the above egg, etc. with a spatula because there isn't a big spoon. Pour it into 2 aluminum (yes, aluminum) throw-away (yes, throw-away) pie pans greased with butter (remember: these are less than optimal conditions - little cookware). Then wipe out the egg stuff left on the skillet and saute the veggies and meat. [I had 1/2 pound pastured pork sausage (pre-cooked) and some wonderful veggies from the local Farmers Market (round zucchini, sweet peppers, bell pepper).] Completely forget the onion you had gotten for this meal and remember as you are typing your blog post. Generously crumble cheddar over the two pie pans already filled with the egg/flour mix - about 1/2 C per pan. Sprinkle the cooked meat/veggie mix over each pan holding back enough of the mix to make some awesome eggs in the morning. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Cool a few minutes before serving.

Enjoy the ooohs and aaahs of your family and the accomplishment of serving real food in less than optimal kitchen circumstances. :).

There were 2 slices left over from a family of 5 that includes 2 teenagers that eat more than adults and a 9 yr-old that eats almost as much as her sisters. Those are wrapped individually in the freezer for quick snacks or a breakfast-on-the-go. Making it a 10-egg quiche and adding the bit of extra flour helped stretch it.

This simple quiche is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/07/real-food-wednesday-762011.html

Cheesecake for Breakfast???

2011-07-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Has it really been a whole month since I've written anything? Well, most of school is in storage, most of our kitchen is in storage, and life is teetering and tottering right now. We have our 4-H Record Books to keep us busy for a few days and I keep catching dd-14 working on her Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 book so she can finish the school year. Wow, she's driven!

What's Schoolin'?

Jackpot! I was at a homeschool store the other day checking out (with a used DIVE Biology CD that we will try this year) and noticed a stack of Three Cousin Detectives books by the cash register. I called youngest dd over and she picked out the ones we didn't own yet. They were each $1 or $1.50 - my kind of sale! They are a second grade reading level (or third? I can't remember) and she read them quickly but they are such sweet mysteries. Even the olders read them :). Each centers around a fruit of the Spirit (or a Bible verse). The three cousins actually get along and don't bicker the whole time like in some books that we've read. This is the first one in the series:

What's Cookin'?

This was fun to watch: Middle dd was watching Paula Deen on the Food Network at my mom's house when we stayed the week last week. She missed the beginning AND the end of the episode but scribbled down the ingredients. Then she set out to make it without even knowing what it was. I figured you couldn't go wrong with ingredients like butter, graham crackers (we used Annie's graham bunnies; cinnamon or honey), cream cheese, eggs, chocolate chips (we used Enjoy Life), and only 1/4 C sugar...

It turned out to be a cheesecake and was super delicious. Unfortunately for her... she doesn't even like cheesecake :). She ended up liking this one though!

As she made it in the evening and it wasn't ready by bedtime (and they had been waiting and waiting and I'm such an ol' softy) I actually let them have it for breakfast the next morning. But wait! My standards got even lower because I let them have some the NEXT morning for breakfast as well before we packed up to leave, lol! We don't even eat boxed cereal for breakfast and donuts, cinnamon rolls, or pancakes are rare treats. Oh wait... we're eating boxed cereal almost every morning this week - yes, the standards sink even l-o-w-e-r :). I think they are enjoying that part of our transition. It was a struggle to find cereal that, although still a processed compromise, wasn't laden with artificial dyes, flavors, petroleum, high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified organisms, etc, etc, etc, but I settled on Cascadian granola oats and honey; and Barbara's Puffins.

Here is our tentative menu with limited cookware/resources:

- Baked chicken thighs. I had to buy a baking dish but it was worth it. Near the end I had to hide a few thighs for a later meal.

- Chicken-a-la-king (but made with 2 small pastured pork chops instead of chicken for a family of 5 so it was a ssstretch meal) using homemade cream of mushroom soup from the freezer and frozen peas served on Afgan flatbread I grabbed at the last minute of packing up the freezer food for travel ($1.99 at Kroger if you're local! Ask at the bakery counter if you don't find any and they'll pull some from the freezer for you)(that's a long sentence!).

- Beef tacos using the following veggies sauteed from the local farmers market and then mixed with the precious cooked grass-fed hamburger meat: bell pepper, sweet pepper, round zucchini, a round yellow squash, and tomato. Served on regular white tortillas for dh and on Ezekiel's sprounted tortillas for dc and me. I'm laughing at myself because I never noticed until posting the link that they do not have wheat. You would never know (obviously!). Garnished with lettuce, sour cream, and salsa.

- Quiche using regular store eggs and some very super precious pastured pork sausage [note to self: get some flour and baking powder]. I'll saute more of the above veggies to include also.

- Chicken pseudo-stir fry over rice or vermicelli (using the rescued chicken thighs and frozen veggies sauteed in lots of butter and EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), maybe even some coconut oil if I can find it in my mom's garage.

- Baked chicken (again) using Sanderson chicken that was on sale for $1/pound. I hope to have leftovers for sandwiches or a chef salad.

- Frozen pizzas... yes, frozen pizzas. I stood there at the store freezer for a while, sighed, and got Newman's Own brand hoping that it would have less additives; but I wouldn't really know because I chose to not even look. I need to stock up on those Afgan flatbreads for homemade pizzas that we can make with our limited kitchen. It's white bread but has very, very few ingredients.

I told the olders I would help them type their 4-H Record Books (we only have 3 more days to finish and polish them) so I'm off to be productive... or read an old Agatha Christie book I found on one of the rental's bookshelves :).

Countdown!

2011-06-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to thank you, my readers. It wows me and humbles me that anyone would want to read what I write, lol. I don't have a fancy blog, amazon links haven't worked in weeks, photos are nearly non-existent, and I don't even know how to do a blog roll!! Thanks for reading and thank you also to those who have ordered through the links or my astore at amazon (link at left). I hope that some of my ramblings and adventures (including some misadventures!) in homeschooling and food/nutrition/health help someone else as you go through your homeschool or food journey. Yes, pathetically, I actually use my own search box and use my own posts to remember what a recipe is or how I did such-and-such! Just yesterday I used it to find the tempura chicken link. Much to older dd's chagrine, who was helping, I threw in a lot of dried basil and oregano from our garden (you'll know why after you see the rest of my post).

St. Joseph

Countdown:

2 weeks from today we have to be out of our house. We'll be a bit nomadic for a while - no house in sight as of yet, not even a rental. That makes things a bit more complicated than just moving. On the other hand, I'm soooo incredibly thankful. Our house was only on the market for 4 days. I know things can still happen, but it's gone as smoothly as it could go so far. I really wanted a family to get our house because it's such a great kid-house (except for closet-sized secondary bedrooms) and a young couple with a toddler is buying it.

I wish I knew our short-term (not to mention long-term!) living conditions to help me prep for the transition. Friday or Saturday I'll start boxing up the rest of our Montessori materials. I had managed to squish everything into 2 bookshelves and now I need to whittle it down even further. I got some bright orange duct tape to mark those ASAP boxes to keep handy to unpack or move around with us.

This is what is left on the shelves to pack yet keep handy (somehow!):

Math: Dot game; stamp game; flash cards; cassette tapes with math problems and times tables; snake game; multiples box with bead bars; short bead chain; long bead chain; multiplication bead bar layout; some polyhedral dice for making up math problems; geoboard w/ book; binomial and trinomial cubes; powers of ten cards; properties of numbers cards; memory charts; geometric stick material (which I never got back to in presentations!); math facts bingo; geometry box; power of two cube; hundreds board; and some fraction work. Youngest dd is ready for long division so I need to make sure I have my manual and math storage banker box ready (since I'm not organized mentally to just pull those materials out right now).

Science: Chemistry box; Bohr model material; elements box (that is mostly empty so far!); zoology box; botany box; and the zoology box.

Other Culture: Land/water forms basket; world felt map; Europe Geopuzzle; globe ball; box of cards/rocks/beads for world felt map; some art cards; a bunch (really!) of geography books like an atlas, Trail Guide book (teacher book - so I don't loose it! - they can look through for now); Atlas in a Box game; and more reference books. We have library books for Canada in a basket in the living room that they've been reading and pulling from for putting things in their geography notebooks (and culture notebook for youngest).

Language: Books by Ruth Heller (they start here and go on to the next page or so); cards that go with the R&D manual that we've already covered; farm objects; reading response cards (olders will use for Shiloh and Sounder; younger for By the Shores of Silver Lake); grammar symbols box; and sentence cut-ups. We also have a few thesauruses and dictionaries handy.

On top of all of those materials we have several shelves with just books: their notebooks and books and my teacher books.

What else? "Love your liver."

I just watched this video on liver health. As a teenager I had the food-borne hepatitis (in another country) and more recently took Diflucan for 5 years straight (along with daily antibiotics) which is also rough on the liver (it has a liver caution and I checked my liver enzymes monthly). At the tail end I had "drug-induced hepatitis" from the medications for Lyme. You would think because of those two biggies I would be more vigilant, eh?

http://www.liverdoctor.com/index.php?page=videos&subpage=how-to-improve-your-liver

Here is her book. I'm going to see if the library has it.

http://astore.amazon.com/ecleclivin-20/detail/0967398363

These are my notes that I took while watching the video:

~Liver Detox Superfoods:

- onions, garlic, leeks, scallions, turmeric, ginger, chili, bell peppers, globe artichokes [these have organic sulphur that the body uses to make glutathione AND to detox]

- broccoli, cauliflower, brussel's sprouts; cabbage, watercress, kale

- mustard greens, bok choy, and other Asian greens

- carrot, beet, celery, asparagus, all radishes

- bitter greens such as chicory, endive, rocket, radicchio, dandelion, kale

- seaweeds such as nori, kombu, wakame, arame, dulse, kelp

- fruits, especially rhubarb, citrus, blueberries, strawberries, apples

- super herbs such as basil, cilantro, parsley, oregano, mint, chives (thyme also mentioned along with the other herbs regarding lowering amount of viral load in body)

~If you don't eat the sulphur foods, then some MSM plus Vit C powder because organic sulphur is needed for: liver support; supports liver detox; cleans blood and skin; has natural antibiotic properties.

~Selenium: supports the liver, supports adrenals, is essential in reducing the viral load in your body (also a companion supplement for iodine so I was going to begin anyway. This affirms the importance of it!). Make sure to get the 'organic' kind that the body can use (she uses the term organic, I think, as opposed to synthetic). This looks like a good one and my conventional doctor sells this brand (she's so awesome):

http://astore.amazon.com/ecleclivin-20/detail/B0017I2CLY

~Milk thistle: I haven't used in years, since on daily antibiotics. Need to consider this and look into it more (daily or occasional use?)

~30% diet raw foods (note: I have thyroid issues and low iodine so I do NOT eat raw cabbage, kale or other goitrogenic foods - although fermented as in sauerkraut is awesome and I eat a small portion almost daily)

~Other notes:

- increase water

- coffee/tea okay in moderation

- chocolate okay in moderation

- herbal teas are good (green, dandelion, nettle, etc)

- raw veggie juices are recommended

- homemade lemonade (we like the fermented lemonade)

~Juicing: in the section regarding gall stones she mentioned putting the following in the juicer: apple, carrot, ginger, cilantro, dandelion, kale, and cabbage. I'm assuming this would support the liver as well. Again, I would not put in kale or cabbage but the rest sounds delicious. She also mentions to have Apple Cider Vinegar with every meal to help break up stones gently (along with juicing the above). When I've overindulged in fat (as in 1/2 stick of butter! Then I know I need some extra Butter Oil from Green Pastures and the craving stops!) I'll have some ACV to help my body handle the extra fat. I remember when I was recovering from Hepatitis Paquita (who worked for us) would make this awful carrot/orange juice and would make me drink it - stand by the bed until every drop was gone. By the end, after drinking several daily for weeks while bedridden, I loved this juice and looked forward to it. I would beg her to make some even years after I was well.

~Somewhere else on the site she mentions how great soy is. I strongly disagree. Traditional soya is **fermented** soy; which is waaaaay different than all of the (genetically modified) unfermented, highly processed soy in our packaged/processed available foods ("health" food or otherwise). I believe miso is fermented but you would need to check on that - I haven't had the need to go there yet. I still, and always will, regret the YEARS that I gave youngest dd soy milk... long after necessary after the soy formula (I probably wouldn't have had another option for that - I'm not sure, but I DID have options after the baby formula, anyway...).

All that to say, filter her recommendations but I found her liver info invaluable and motivational.

These notes for liver support through food are part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/06/real-food-wednesday-6811.html

Memorial Day Poem

2011-05-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

Oldest dd wrote this poem tonight (Memorial Day) (AFTER lights were out, btw - and she came out to show it to me :) ). I thought I would share it with all of you this Memorial Day. She's been reading Ralph Fletcher's Poetry Matters book and a book by the same author with poems about moving (relating to his move when he was young) called Moving Day. Poetry Matters is written with the children as the audience instead of the teacher and it is about writing poetry.
______________________

The lone soldier left for dead on the battlefield lies twisted like a crumpled brown leaf.
Next to his lifeless horse, a tattered canteen, and his sharp shiny saber in its sheath.

Lying face down in the blood-soaked soil he realizes the end is near.
He thinks of the ones he loves the most: his wife and his children dear.

So many men have died this way.
So fly the flag on Memorial Day.

Why I like Spelling Power

2011-05-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

Do I like Spelling Power because of the flexibility of when to start and that it's not recommended until 3rd grade? Absolutely.

Do I like Spelling Power because it will take my children through high school? Yes.

Do I like Spelling Power because of the ease of multi-age use? Yes.

Do I like Spelling Power because of the rules? No. It drives me crazy when there is a word that doesn't quite go with the rule.

Do I like Spelling Power because of the testing format instead of workbook format? Mmm, Yes. But mainly because this program is working better than workbook formats did for my older children. Otherwise, workbooks are simpler for mom because you just say, "Go do your Spelling." :) With Spelling Power I sit with them to give the tests and make up inane sentences that make little sense (I guess that's redundant!) while they make faces at me. My youngest dd does enjoy her Spelling workbook that she uses on the side for fun. She also sits in with the olders as she chooses for Spelling Power. She has a Spectrum Spelling book we got at Mardel. I can't remember why I chose it over Spelling Workout for her, but that was the other choice.

Do I like Spelling Power because it is Montessori-compatible. No. The testing is not Montessori-compatible. However, the task cards ARE Montessori-compatible and we keep them on the shelf. I was going to sell them this year and got a resounding, "No, don't sell them!" from the dc. Go figure. This year we started having an ongoing list by the olders' desks where they could write words they miss in any other regular type of writing such as writing workshop, letters, speeches, etc. Then they would have a real-life list to use with the task cards during shelf work time.

Do I like Spelling Power because of the Task Cards? Yes. I would use the Task Cards even if I was not using Spelling Power. In fact, we don't use them at the same time, anyway. They can use them with words they miss on the daily tests or with words they miss in other writing or with any words they want.

Do I like Spelling Power because of the notebooks? Yes - the dc actually color in a little bit of the design each time they make a 100. It took me a while to figure out what they were doing, lol. On the front side of the page they take the daily test and on the back they work with the words they missed. They have different colored notebooks according to the line size and whether or not it has a dotted line. Yellow is for gr. 6th and up; green is for gr. 4th-6th; blue is for late 2nd-4th; and red is for K-2 (which is weird 'cuz the program isn't recommended until 3rd but maybe they had requests??).

Do I actually do Spelling Power daily? Uh, no, let's just leave it at that.

Is it worth the money? Yes. Let's pretend that I actually paid the $60 for a new book. Let's pretend that I would've gotten a $10 Spelling workbook each year for my children (Many Spelling books are closer to $15 per year per child). That would only cover 2 years of Spelling. Spelling Power will cover years and years more than that with only replacing the notebooks as we fill them.

Is it the BEST Spelling program out there? No. Personally I like the Spalding Writing Road to Reading - THAT is the BEST regarding phonograms, etc. However, I tried for years to implement it at home and it's just too cumbersome and teacher intense for home use. I used it in the classroom one year (or maybe two??) and it's great - but very time/teacher intense to do it right. Now I just have the cards out and plan on going through them with youngest dd. Actually, I may ask dd to take her through so she can get the extra input as well. There are some spin-offs now that are more user-friendly and based on the Rigg's Institute binder for the Writing Road to Reading. I've looked at one and it was okay - just not quite the same. Since we were already having success with Spelling Power I didn't switch.

What do I like the MOST about Spelling Power? What the dc do after they miss a word (say the word, spell out loud, look at it, repeat saying and spelling out loud, close eyes and spell it, check it, trace and say without looking, check it, write without looking, check it, repeat if necessary). It helps them to internalize it and they rarely miss the same word twice.

Below are pictures/links to the Spelling products we use and and different notebooks. They have the line measurements at the link for you to see which notebook best fits your child's handwriting size.

[What's Gardenin'? is below the pictures/links for Spelling]

I'm not necessarily recommending the Spectrum Spelling books below but my youngest dd enjoys them, they're inexpensive compared to other Spelling consumables, and I will probably continue to get them for her.

What's Cookin'?

We were able to get some grass-fed beef and had roast for the first time in MONTHS. I cooked it overnight on low in the crockpot and didn't even season it. It was flavorful nonetheless. I also cooked up a few pounds of ground beef so we had spaghetti. For sauce I just used organic tomato sauce (tomatoes are one of those no-nos with lots of pesticide residue) with a bunch of home-dried basil, Real Salt, pepper, and a dash of marjoram (don't ask me why, it was there!). I was regretting not having put some fresh oregano in when it was cooking or not having dried any yet - the oregano looks more like a bush right now and is over-ready to harvest!

What's Gardenin'?

We harvested a bunch (literally) of carrots yesterday with oldest dd. It was fun to see all of the weird shapes. Some had gone to seed and the stem was too woody to even cut easily. Others were young and tender. These were planted a YEAR ago. This year I was planning on doing a better job of adding nutrients to the soil (aka fertilizing but with organics) for better growth. That will have to wait for next year's garden (hopefully).

The potatoes have started to bloom. Does that mean they're ready to harvest? I've forgotten but we need to harvest anyway. I'll do that later this week.

I'll be harvesting and drying the oregano this week or weekend as well. I'll probably do the sage as well.

Mystery Story Unit ~ Homemade Sour Cream

2011-05-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

Yesterday was our last class day for both the Spanish and the Writing Workshop classes I taught middle schoolers this year (plus 2 highschoolers plus my 3rd grader!) at a local homeschool enrichment program. We did a Read Around during Wtg Wkshp in which each student read their mystery story aloud to finish up the Mystery Story Unit we've been doing.

We really could've used just one more week (or two, or three) because we didn't have time for teacher conferences this time around. Even so, the young writers did an outstanding job and showed great growth throughout the year. It was a very laid back class with virtually zero homework (to fit the needs of the children/families) which makes their progress even more glowing. I had to cram a warm-up; writer's craft; mystery story structure; and technical wtg wkshp mini-lessons; oh yeah, and writing time (!) into 1-1/2 hours per week. The students were awesome and very encouraging with their efforts and outward enthusiasm.

I posted about this Mystery Unit here and here which includes a link to my unit for your personal use. If I weren't in the middle of a move I would probably offer the Mystery Unit as a class this summer at my house. Last summer I did a Middle School Reluctant Writers class but wanted something different this time.

I had my doubts about their ability to sit still and really listen to everyone's stories after having had a pinata in Spanish class, lol. However, I made it a point to get dye-free candy for the pinata with no HFCS, etc - although I gave in with the mini-Snickers and made myself not look at their ingredients! They were very respectful and encouraging to others. I also had some cookies set out for the Read Around to make it more special. They had less goodies in the pinata and Read Around 'cuz I just couldn't make myself get the regular candy and cookies but I felt better about what they were eating (mini-Snickers excluded!) and I think it was plenty for just snacks.

Writing for the next few weeks at home will be writing up their 4-H Record Books and Memory Book. Talk about overwhelming!! I have a love/hate relationship with Record Books :). Sandwich that between moving, catching up with Math, First Communion, a joint birthday party, other school studies we want to finish (like Canada), and moving (it gets double mention) and every second is taken up. I need to make a point to relax and have fun with the kids and give them outside/free time daily and play dates whenever we can.

What's Cookin'?

Chicken Pot Pie: I can't believe it's already been a week since I last posted. Last night I made 2 chicken pot pies but I couldn't even start to tell you how I did it, lol. I bought an organic package of cream of celery soup because I knew I wouldn't have time in the kitchen and was out of homemade in the freezer. I mixed that with some pre-cooked chicken, some frozen corn, some frozen broccoli, some spices, and some flour ('cuz I put too much water when I mixed in the soup). I would've preferred peas instead of broccoli but my hand landed on the broccoli bag first :). I used a very non-NT white flour pie crust and today I plan on getting some yogurt dough soaking for times such as this. I got the recipe a long time ago from cooks.com and basically (in the pie plate) you mix 1/2 C oil; 1/4 C milk; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1-1/2 C flour. Mix well, then smoosh it up around to cover the plate. I baked the chicken pot pie at 375F for about 40 minutes.

Last night I also baked 2 bricks masquerading as bread. Although they were fine imitations at a glance, their brickness was quite apparent upon closer examination.

Sour Cream: I am sooo excited about my newest discovery. It is so good I can hardly believe it! Someone mentioned using milk kefir grains to make sour cream in a kefir forum [thanks, R!]. I experimented with the following and so far it has made 2 excellent batches: 1 cup fresh cream and 1 teaspoon kefir grains. I fermented it for about 12 hours until it just started to thicken somewhat. You may want to taste at this point. Then I put it in the refrigerator where it continued to thicken. I was either too lazy or in a hurry each time and stuck it in the fridge with the grains still in it. So, I have to dig around them to scoop out the sour cream. Next time I really need to spend the whole 1 minute it would take and scoop them out before storing the cream. If you try it, let me know how it goes!

This sour cream how-to is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday at:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/05/real-food-wednesday-51811.html

Enjoy!

Platanos Fritos (Fried Plantains) and Chips

2011-05-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

Platanos Fritos:

Ingredients: One of the ugliest plantains in the grocery store :). I've been in a store before when they were pulling out plantains to toss them just when they were getting ready to cook. Ack! The thing is, they don't look pretty when they are ready. They have black on them, spots, or even gnats. THEN you know they're ready!

Peel. Lay it longways on your cutting board and slice into 3 long pieces. Stand each piece on end like a tower and slice it downward into 3 pieces. This gives you 9 slender pieces per plantain.

Heat oil of your choice. I use Spectrum palm shortening because it has NO trans fats and cooks well for frying. I use Spectrum but Tropical Traditions organic palm shortening may be more sustainable if I remember right. If I had tallow or lard I would use that most likely (I'm hoping to get some fat to render soon for another new adventure in cooking!).

Cook the pieces flat side down, turning frequently until they just barely start to turn brown. Try cooking one a little crispier to taste the difference and see how you prefer. I'm weird and like the outside pieces of the plantain cooked lighter and the inside slices nice and crispy. Don't ask me why - it must be a texture thing.

When I think of fried plantains I think of breakfast in El Salvador with fresh French bread from the little store across the street baked fresh that morning, mashed black beans, and real thick Salvadoran cream with coarse salt on it ("kitchen salt"). Mmmm. A taste of Heaven on Earth.

So, whether you're studying Central or South America in your continent studies or just want to try something new, go for it!

Plantain Chips:

Slice your ripe but firm (not quite so ripe nor as soft as for the above recipe) in thin slices to make circles. Fry in the hot oil. Remove to a paper towel or something to soak up the excess oil and salt with sea salt liberally. Basically, make them as you would potato chips.

I grew up buying plantain chips (platanitos) just like you would potato chips from the store, etc. If you would rather buy than make, I found some on Amazon. I sometimes buy a bag at my local grocery store:
Search Amazon.com for plantain chips

This recipe is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday at:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/05/real-food-wednesday-51111.html

Money: Race for a Quarter

2011-05-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

What's Schoolin'?

This game is called Race for a Quarter and it's a take-off from Race for a Flat (which I use to introduce place value regrouping). Each player has a playing mat.

Roll the die, get that amount of pennies from a "kitty" to place in the penny's place (you always get pennies with your roll). When you get 5 you excahnge it for a nickel. 2 nickels get exchanged for a dime and so on. Whoever gets a quarter first is the winner. You could extend it to "Race for a Dollar" and have the players get 4 quarters.

How to make the mat: Section off the top row and each column making sure that the coins will fit in each as shown. I used stamps to put the pictures of the coins but you could also print/cut/paste from online. I made mine way before the internet (yes, I'm THAT old!).

What's Cookin'?

Soaked Buttermilk Biscuits: I'm trying Katie's recipe from her FREE e-book called Is Your Flour Wet? (p. 22). Sign up for her new e-newsletter and get this 84 page e-book for free. The informational section in the front is fantastic and succinct (unlike my own rambling which is why I don't ever even try to explain why you should soak, sprout, or use sourdough). There are many recipes as well in this wonderful free e-book. :)
http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2011/05/09/download-is-your-flour-wet-a-soaked-grains-ebook-for-free/

Cinnamon (Raisin) Biscuits: Usually when I make cinnamon raisin biscuits I just add a handful of raisins, several big dashes of cinnamon, and a few teaspoons of rapadura to my soaked biscuit recipe.

This time I tried the following recipe and adjusted it to a white whole wheat soaked recipe. I mixed everything EXCEPT the baking powder and baking soda the night before. I used kefir instead of the buttermilk. [I actually got some buttermilk at the store to try to culture my own but I don't know how to do it yet :). I need to find out ratios or if that's even a good way to do it. So, all that to say I just used kefir.] I used 1/2 the rapadura for the sugar - just enough to make it palatable - and skipped the topping. This makes it more of a snack than a treat.

I'm finding that it's easier the next morning to spread out the dough and sprinkle the leavening over it when making soaked muffin/cookie recipes. Then knead and knead it in.

Here is the original recipe:
http://countrygirl-hollie.blogspot.com/2011/04/cinnamon-biscuits.html

Wild West Lapbook ~ Chocolate Pudding

2011-05-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

What's Cookin'?

Chocolate Pudding: For my birthday youngest dd made me some chocolate pudding. Mmmm. My weakness. This is super easy and beats the taste of Royal or Jello-O brand boxed pudding any day. The hardest part is being patient while stirring it until it thickens :).

Ingredients:
2 C whole milk
2 Tablespoons rapadura (or sweetener of your choice)
4 Tablespoons Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (this is my secret ingredient!)
4-1/2 Tablespoons white flour
1 Tablespoon real butter
1/2 Teaspoon real vanilla (ever try homemade?)

Directions:
Grease a saucepan (I use a small 1-qt pot and use palm shortening with NO trans fats but you could use butter or lard). Mix the milk, rapadura, and flour in a bowl. Pour into the greased pot and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Immediately remove from heat and stir in the butter and chocolate chips. Stir until well blended. Pour into serving bowls or one big serving bowl. Refrigerate until cooled and ready to eat. Note: Leave a little extra in the pot for 'first licks' to share between you and the child who worked hard stirring the pot. :)

Notes: The original recipe called for 4 Tablespoon cocoa, 4 Tablespoons sugar and NO chocolate chips. If using powdered cocoa then mix with the milk/flour in the bowl first. The original also called for 3 T flour and 1-1/2 T arrowroot or cornstarch. I just use all flour and it thickens just fine.

This recipe is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday found here:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/05/real-food-wednesday-5411.html

What's Schoolin'?

Here are photos of one older dd's Wild West Lapbook. I talked about it here (scroll down to What's Schoolin'?) and used the book The Wild West by Mike Stotter as the spine for it. If you have youngers I would recommend editing a couple of paragraphs (where it alludes to cowboys' drinking and brawling) but other than that I would've read the rest aloud to my younger (but we ended up not, after all, since I had some other books for her). My olders were fine with it... after all they saw The Alamo with John Wayne in their history class (sigh) and even though the teacher fast-forwarded the drunken brawl scene the kids could still see it (another sigh). By the way, even though that classic is Not Rated I found reviews recommending it for ages 15+. It's a classic and fine for olders but mine weren't 15 yet and I'm a prude when it comes to what they watch.

Speaking of the Wild West (specifically the late 1800's in our history studies), the olders have really enjoyed a DVD we got at a garage sale (I think) of the original Lone Ranger series. I love it! Some are black and white and some are in color. I'm fairly sure we have this one but if you're a die-hard Lone Ranger fan here is a collection.

Another video series the olders have really enjoyed that I found used is called Legends of the Old West (an old TV series also). I especially like it because it introduces them to historical figures, albeit outlaws, but anyway... It's fictionalized because the main heroes always catch the outlaw but it weaves in facts.

I should note that my dc actually prefer the white only and plain manila folders. If you printed on colored paper or used colored folders it would be more colorful. Sometimes my olders will color in with colored pencils but not usually. Younger dd still likes to color her mini-books whenever she lapbooks. Enjoy the pictures of the lapbooks...

What's Gardenin'?

Our house goes on the market tomorrow so there is no more gardening for me this spring; unless we can actually make it over to the community Children's Garden (which has yet to happen for us this season!). I have, however, found a new favorite hanging basket plant: Sun Parasol Pretty Pink Mandevilla.

The onions and garlic are doing great (ready to pick) and the sweet peas don't have powdery mildew for a change (although that may change after all of the rain we've had lately).

As soon as it stops raining I'll get some lady bugs to help keep the aphids under control. I've found some lady bugs enjoying lunch but I'd like to have more lady bugs around. It was interesting that the aphids swarmed the Kale and left the other plants around it alone. I just pulled up the infested plant and got rid of it. The potato plants are growing and loving this wet weather. Hopefully since it's a raised bed they won't get too much water.