Lemurs In The Homestead

It is Imbolc, after all

2012-02-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

One of Lemurboy's chores is letting the goats out to the pasture in the morning, and back into the corral in the evenings.

This evening he came running back to the house yelling "Baby goats! Baby goats!"

And indeed, there were baby goats!

We had 5 goats expecting, now we have 4! Since the billy runs with the rest of the herd, we had no idea of the actual date of conception, so we thought we likely had another few weeks. Today is appropriate, though. It's the pagan holiday of Imbolc - traditionally celebrating lambing and kidding time.

The kids are walking and nursing and so on like they're supposed to. I think that the size difference (it really is as extreme as it looks in the picture - that isn't foreshortening) is difference in genetic expression, not actual runt-iness - the dad is a pygmy, and the smaller one appears stockier than the larger one. I'm pretty sure the smaller one is a girl, and the larger a boy.

I don't think we're going to try milking this mama - she's by far the least friendly of the herd.

Another mama is showing signs that delivery is imminent. So exciting!

Coconut Latte

2012-01-10T16:55:00.000-08:00

I've decided I'm too lazy to make coconut milk.

That sounds horrible, because coconut milk is really that easy to make. But I was having trouble getting consistent results, and had one batch go bad quickly after forgtting the soaking coconut on the counter overnight.

Then I discovered two things that make the laziness on this matter acceptable - blending coffee with shredded coconut produces a gorgeous latte-like foam, and it uses significantly less coconut - approximately 36 servings per cup as opposed to 12ish.

Put a cup of coffee and 1.5 teaspoons shredded coconut in a blender (I use a single serving rocket blender). Blend. Pour throuh a course strainer if you want - this takes out the chunks of coconut, but also reduces the foam, which you may or may not consider desirable.

The primary downside is that making coconut flour is a bit more of an effort, as you have to thoroughly rinse the strained-out coconut, assuming you don't want coffee-flavored flour.

Yum!

Paleo Hanukkah

2011-12-28T15:57:00.000-08:00

Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday commemorating the retaking and rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Maccabees. Enough oil was found to light the menorah in the temple for a single day, but miraculously it lasted for 8.

The nice thing about Hanukkah is that, with 8 days of celebration, you have plenty of time for procrastination! I intended to try this last week, but, between Christmas prep and work, it didn't happen. But that's ok, because tonight is still Hanukkah.

Fried foods are traditional for Hanukkah. The first night we made latkes - fried pancakes traditionally made out of potato, but we used zucchini (I know, big shock there). You could use pretty much any shreddable vegetable if potatoes or zucchini aren't your thing - I've seen carrot and sweet potato versions.

Today we had sufganiyot - fried jelly donuts.

Sufganiyot

1 to 1 1/2 cups coconut flour
1 1/2 cups nut butter + oil if needed (See note)
2-3 eggs (I used two jumbo eggs)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (probably omittable. I don't think mine puffed up much at all)
1/2 teaspoon salt (reduce or omit if using salted nut butter, increase if you prefer)
A little sweetener if desired (I left it out)
Filling - jam, jelly, fruit, chocolate - whatever floats your boat. If you really want it PB&J like, put a dab of nut butter along with the jam, rather than just having it in the dough.
Oil for frying (see below)

Combine ingredients (other than filling) in food processor and process. Start with one cup coconut flour, and add more gradually until you get a stiff dough (mine was firm, but rather sticky).

Heat oil on the stove.

Make thin circles of the dough. Mine were around 3" in diameter. Place a dab of jelly in the center of half the circles, then place the other half of the circles on top, and press around the edges to seal. Toss them in the hot oil (actually, put them in gently), and fry until golden brown, flipping halfway through to get both sides cooked. Try to let them cool adequately before you munch them!

This made 8 small doughnuts for me.

Notes: I used almond butter made by food processing a bunch of almonds until relatively pasty. As such, it was rather crumbly, so I added a tablespoon of coconut oil. If you're using a more buttery nut-butter, you probably don't need to do this.

There is, of course, the question of what to fry these things in. Olive oil is traditional (that's what was used to light the menorah in the temple), but not heat-stable for frying, and I'm not sure how the flavor would work for jelly donuts. Vegetable oil is apparently common these days, but not paleo. We generally use lard for frying, but that's rather sacrilegious. Coconut oil, rendered bird fat (aka schmaltz), or ghee would probably be the most acceptable options from both a traditional and paleo standpoint.

I used jam for filling, because we had a jar on hand for reasons that are somewhat amusing, but not really my story to tell. Fresh fruit, crushed or chunked, would be more paleo.

These turned out rather dense, not light and fluffy like traditional donuts. More bread-y... like a peanut butter sandwich. But yummy! And, when I handed one to my housemate (who is Jewish-by-birth) without comment, she bit into it and said "Mmm, sufganiyot!" So I guess I got them close enough.

If you're not into celebrating Hanukkah, these would be great as an occasional treat for your paleo-kid (or paleo inner child!) who misses their PB&J - a gluten-free Uncrustable. I suspect you could bake them if frying isn't your thing, but I can't say how long they'd need to cook. I'd probably try 10 minutes at 350F, flip, and give it another 5 minutes or so.

(I also tried this with my Coconut Donut Holes recipe, but liked the PB&J version better. Just follow the recipe, but make circles and put jam in the middle as above.)

Awesomesauce Gingerbread Cake. Also Goat Liver Cake

2011-12-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

Oh gosh, I know this isn't the Awesomesauce Cake Blog, but this one turned out ridiculously delicious, and it's nice and seasonal.

Awesomesauce Gingerbread

Approximately 1/2 cup fat of choice (Anything at least semi-solid at room temp. I used lard this time. Butter oil/ghee is my favorite for baked goods. Coconut oil or plain old butter will work fine. You could even try avocado, which apparently works well in baking as a butter substitute.)
2 Tbsp sugar (or the equivalent in your preferred sweetener)
4 eggs (at room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I didn't have any, so left it out)
1 1/2 cups coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup applesauce
1 Teaspoon cinnamon (or to taste)
2 Teaspoons ginger (or to taste)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder or blackstrap molasses (you may wish to reduce added sweetener and add 1 tbsp coconut flour if using molasses)
Ground cloves, ground allspice, grated nutmeg, lemon zest, black pepper to taste (Approx. 1/4 - 1/2 tsp each. Pick and choose which you want depending on what is traditional for you and what you have on hand)
Optional - shredded carrot, zucchini, or apple, raisins or other dried fruit, nuts, candied ginger, chocolate chips. We added about 1/4 cup of chocolate chips left over from something else, and it was amazing.

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix wet ingredients separately, then gradually add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Or just throw them all in the food processor like I did. Whatever floats your boat. Stir in any extra ingredients you want after you're done with the food processor, if you use one. Bake for about 30 minutes, until it doesn't jiggle and a fork stuck in the center comes out clean (It took me closer to an hour this time, but better to err on the side of caution and check frequently). Makes 1 8" diameter circular cake.

Note about cocoa powder vs. molasses: I used cocoa powder in making this cake. I have nothing in particular against molasses. As far as sweeteners go, I think it's a comparatively healthy option, what with all the iron and trace minerals, and with a lower glycemic index than many sweeteners. And I certainly wouldn't say that cocoa powder is any less "neolithic" or processed. However, I didn't have any on hand, and cocoa powder provides a similar color and deep, bitter flavor.

Yesterday, I cooked up a goat liver pâté. It didn't turn out very pâté-like. More like meatloaf.

A little disappointing, but it turned out for the best.

LemurBoy isn't crazy about liver, but loves meatloaf. Especially "cheeseburger style" - on lettuce leaves, topped with cheese, mayo, and mustard.

LemurGirl likes liver in pretty much any context in which I've offered it, but hates meatloaf.

So, I called this pâté for LemurGirl, and meatloaf for LemurBoy, and they both enjoyed it.

LemurGirl's quote of the day: "A liver pâté is kind of like a cake except it doesn't taste like one!"

LemurBoy's Paleo Coconut Custard

2011-11-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

LemurBoy contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. He just made this all by himself, with just a little help with the oven!

LemurBoy's Paleo Coconut Custard

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup zucchini flour (or coconut flour)
Scant 1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
Coconut flakes

Serves: 6-8

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Blend all ingredients except coconut flakes in food processor until smooth. Pour mixture into ramekins (we used pint sized glass jars), and put a pinch of coconut flakes in each. Place ramekins into a larger pan, and fill pan part way with water. Cover pan, and bake for 30 minutes.

Note: Applesauce made this sweet enough for us, but you might want to use a little added sweetener if cooking for standard taste buds or if you're not using yummy homemade applesauce. Zucchini flour is zucchini that has been shredded, dehydrated, and ground-up. If you're part of the 99.99999999% of households who don't happen to have zucchini flour on hand, I'd imagine coconut flour would work similarly. You could probably even omit it entirely and still get a good custard, but why not take the opportunity to work in an unnoticed serving of veggies?

Spontaneity

2011-11-08T18:17:00.000-08:00

One afternoon, shortly before we moved, a group of us parents sat around avoiding the summer heat under a big weeping willow at Park Day. A new member had joined us that day, and one of the dads present was explaining the makeup of the group. Pointing to each of us in turn, "Unschooler, unschooler, unschooler, unschooler, classical."

As the penultimate member of the list, I responded with something along the lines of, "Actually, we're more on the classical side." This raised some expressions of surprise, as I suppose we come across as being rather relaxed.

Are we classical? We follow a 4 year history cycle, and occasionally do narrations and stuff. We do a little Latin and I intend to order some more of that sometime soon in hopes of interesting LemurBoy a little more. But we're certainly much less rigorous than my good friend who was the last member of that list.

I definitely wouldn't say we're unschoolers, except maybe we kind of are right now. We do a lot of "life learning" at this point because we have a lot around us to learn (I suspect my children are more familiar with the structure of the standard organs of vertebrates than your typical college Anatomy student), and are a bit light on the formal academics in favor of interest-driven activities.

But we still follow the 4-year history cycle! Though we might well not if LemurBoy wasn't a history buff, but I credit Story Of The World with making him one.

Anyways, I've called our style ADHD-Classical. Tidal homeschooling is a rather more eloquent way of stating it. "Eclectic" works, too. Somewhere in the wide spectrum of possibilities between extremely rigorous and completely lax.

When I mentioned homeschooling in a recent Diaspora post (want an invite? Let me know. I'd really like it to actually go somewhere), a friend asked about how we structured our lesson plans.

Uh, lesson plans? We're supposed to do that? That's one of those responses that probably makes homeschoolers sound bad, isn't it?

I guess I do lesson plan to some extent. I have a basic outline of what chapters I want to read when for a few subjects, and various supplemental readings, videos, and so forth associated with the subject. And I have the supplemental readings for the next year scheduled into our wonderful library system, set to go on hold a few weeks before we need them. That's awfully organized, isn't it? It thrills me to no end that I can do that, which is why I mention it constantly.

But most of the time, we're pretty much seat-of-the-pants types.

I'm not trying to claim this is ideal. I'm sure we'd get much more academic done if I made a weekly schedule like this for all subjects. And I'm sure that the schedule is the only reason we keep reasonably on track with history.

At the same time, there are sometimes benefits to seat-of-the-pants.

NCERT, the National Council of Educational Research and Training in India, offers their textbooks as free downloads. I find them to be engaging, and an interesting look at a different culture, so we use them to shake things up a little, especially for math.

This week we read the story of the old man who tries to pull up a giant carrot. He can't, so he gets his wife to help. They can't together, so they get their granddaughter, dog, cat, and finally a mouse, who provides the extra bit of pull to remove the stubborn carrot. And this version ends "And then they made Gajar Ka Halwah".

Gajar Ka Halwah - what's that? So we looked it up. It is, essentially, carrot pudding, though a rather more complex and elegant version than the one I invented.

We looked up recipes, and noted the we had everything important for it (or a reasonable substitution) on hand. So we made it, and it was good.

This totally could have happened with a less seat-of-our-pants approach. And it could have gone wrong if, say, we didn't have a kitchen already stocked for cooking Indianesque food and a penchant for buying the 25lb bags of carrots. I imagine that if I'd had to take a trip to the store for cardamom, it would have ended up being forgotten.

However, the journey was worth something educationally. We learned about looking things up, and about adapting recipes to fit our dietary preferences and pantry. A trip to the store for cardamom might have proven even more educational. as I suspect that, around here, that would have meant a trip to an ethnic store, where perhaps we would have found something even more new and interesting. None of that would have happened (or only in a contrived form) if I'd been a good lesson-planner and actually read ahead in the book and figured out in advance that this would be an Excellent Learning Experience.

And if we'd stuck doggedly to our scheduled math curriculum rather than tossing it out the figurative window because it was provoking frustration (temporarily, anyways. We spent good money on it and I imagine I'll give it another stab sooner or later), we wouldn't have been using the books that led us to find this recipe.

Gajar Ka Halwah (gluten/soy/egg-free, can be dairy-free)

(based on the recipe at http://www.sailusfood.com/2011/04/27/gajar-carrot-ka-halwa/)

2 cups grated carrot

2-3 tbsps ghee/clarified butter (See notes)

3/4 cup milk (we used coconut milk without problem)

2 cloves

3 tbsps applesauce (in place of condensed milk, use condensed milk if you have it and do dairy. Smashed banana might also work well, too.)

Sweetener to taste (original recipe called for 2-3 tbsp sugar, 1 was plenty sweet for us, and we probably could have gotten by with half that and still had it be dessert.)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

few raisins, almonds, cashew nuts, and/or pistachios lightly roasted in ghee (optional, but probably good. We didn't have them, so we left them out.)

few strands of saffron mixed in a tbsp of milk (I'm not going to say "optional", since it's probably fairly essential for truly authentic taste, but don't let lack of this scare you off the recipe!)

Heat 3 tbsps ghee in a heavy bottomed vessel, add the grated carrot and saute for 8 minutes on low to medium flame. Add the milk and cloves and cook until the milk is almost absorbed (this took about 20 minutes for me). Add sugar and cook further for another 15 minutes. Add applesauce/condensed milk and keep stirring till it leaves the sides of the pan.

Remove the cloves (or leave them in and warn the kids not to bite them if you can't find them easily), add the cardamom and saffron and mix. Garnish with toasted nuts and raisins.

Serve warm or cold. I think it's best warm, but you don't have to reheat any leftovers before serving!

Notes on ghee: Ghee is a form of clarified butter. Clarifying butter removes the milk solids, which raises the smoke point, making it healthier for frying things. It also makes it edible for most people with dairy intolerances, as the casein and lactose are removed (I'd still avoid it if you have a life-threatening allergy). I've been making small quantities on the stovetop, or you can make it in a slow cooker.

If you don't desire to use clarified butter for whatever reason, plain butter is fine. Coconut oil or any other oil with a high smoke point and pleasant flavor should work too, but butter, clarified or otherwise, adds flavor.

Awesomesauce Cake II

2011-10-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, LemurBaby!

This cake is a variation on the chocolate cake I made for LemurGirl's birthday last month:

Awesomesauce Apple Cake

Approximately 1/2 cup butter oil (Coconut oil or plain butter both have similar properties and should work instead, but I think butter or butter oil really works best flavor-wise if you can tolerate it. Coconut butter might work well - whizzing two cups of coconut in a blender or food processor until pasty (2-10 minutes, depending on how powerful yours is). You might also be able to use nut butter of whatever type you prefer.)
1/4 cup sugar (or the equivalent in other sweetener) (see note)
4 eggs (at room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I didn't have any, so left it out)
1 1/2 cups coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk (of whatever type you prefer - I used homemade coconut milk)
3/4 cup applesauce + more for frosting
1 Teaspoon cinnamon (plus any other spices you want - my applesauce already had cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. If yours doesn't, you probably want to add some)
Optional - shredded carrot, zucchini, or apple, raisins or other dried fruit, nuts, candied ginger

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix wet ingredients separately, then gradually add dry ingredients to wet ingredients (actually, I just threw it all in the food processor - since it's coconut flour, you don't have to worry about overstirring, since there is no gluten to develop). Stir in any extra ingredients you want. Bake for about 30 minutes, until it doesn't jiggle and a fork stuck in the center comes out clean. Makes 1 8" diameter circular cake.

This cake came out a little on the wet side. Not to the point of being unpresentable, but it got rather brown around the edges before being anywhere close to done in the center. Either a little more coconut flour, a little less applesauce or oil (I'm hesitant to reduce the applesauce, since it's providing flavor), or eliminating the coconut milk would probably help.

Note on sweetener: I used homemade applesauce made from fresh-picked apples, so it was very sweet and flavorful (This is easy - stick apples, peeled or not, in a crock pot with about a half cup of water and whatever spices you want until soft, blend if you left the skins on and want a smooth sauce). I think I could have left out the sugar entirely, or maybe added just a tablespoon. However, plain old storebought unsweetened applesauce would probably need the 1/4 cup, or maybe even a little more. If using a liquid sweetener, you may need to adjust the amount of other liquid accordingly (ie. reduce the applesauce a little).

Gluten Free Cornbread

2011-10-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

Not grain-free, but this one is a pet peeve of mine.

Cornbread, to me, is a bread made with cornmeal. This is how I was raised. I had no idea the ubiquity of the "cake with an accent of cornmeal" type of cornbread until shortly after we moved. My cookbook was still packed up, and I wasn't quite sure of the recipe, so I googled for a cornbread recipe, hoping to find something that would work.

Everything that popped up contained flour.

So I got smart, or so I thought, and searched for gluten-free cornbread. Everything that popped up contained a zillion ingredients, including at least 3 different types of non-wheat flour, plus a gum of some sort.

It doesn't have to be that difficult, people. This is one reason people get scared off by gluten-free - so many of the recipes require a trip to a specialty store. But really, you can make perfectly good, tasty stuff with only ingredients that you can find at any decent supermarket.

Finally, I googled for "Joy Of Cooking cornbread" and found my naturally gluten-free recipe:

1 tablespoon fat of choice (for greasing pan)
1 ¾ cups cornmeal
1 tablespoon sugar (or more, or less, or none, or alternative sweetener, depending on your preferences)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk (can replace with any slightly acidic liquid - I generally use 1 cup coconut milk and 1 cup water with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice added. You could also use thinned yogurt or sour cream, or any other dairy or non-dairy milk with vinegar or lemon juice added)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Grease a heavy 9-inch oven-proof skillet, preferably cast iron, or an 8-inch square glass baking dish. If you want to be traditional, you grease the cast-iron skillet and stick it in the oven to preheat. I don't usually do that.

Mix together dry ingredients. Crack and beat eggs. Add buttermilk (or appropriate replacement) to eggs an mix. Add to the dry ingredients and whisk just until blended. Place the skillet or pan in the oven and heat until the fat smokes (or don't, if that sort of excitement doesn't appeal. It will work fine starting with a cold pan). Pour in the batter all at once and stick in the oven.

Bake until the top is browned and the center feels firm when pressed, 20 to 25 minutes Serve immediately from the pan, cut into wedges or squares with butter (or whatever topping you prefer).

There you go. Gluten-free cornbread with no special ingredients.

I have made it with masa harina in place of about 1/2 cup of cornmeal, and that makes it really nice and fluffy (though gives it a slight tortilla taste). You might get similar results with some other non-wheat flour. I couldn't tell you, since I haven't tried. But straight cornmeal really works just fine.

2011-10-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

Zucchinipocolypse has not yet ended. We haven't quite had a frost yet, and while production has slowed, it's still going.

It is good that production has slowed, because we are getting lazy about dealing with them, and I'm not sure I could deal with 12 of these at a time:

Not more zucchini, mom!!!

Birthday Menu

2011-09-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

LemurGirl turns 5 today! Here's what we ate to celebrate:

Pizza Muffins

1/4 cup pepperoni
1/4 cup dried tomatoes
1/4 cup fat of choice
2 tablespoons tomato sauce (I used salsa)
3 eggs
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 tablespoon (or more) oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine pepperoni, dried tomatoes, spices, fat, tomatoes, and tomato sauce/salsa in food processor. Pulse a few times to mix. Let sit a few minutes to let the tomatoes soak a bit (not necessary if you use tomatoes stored in oil, but ours were pretty dry and hard). Let sit a few minutes, and add a little more coconut flour if it doesn't seem the proper texture (add a tablespoon or less at a time). Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse a few more times. Spoon out into muffin tins (greased or lined). Bake for about 25 minutes, until they don't jiggle and a fork stuck in them comes out clean.

This made 10 muffins for me. I probably could have gotten 12 by making them a little smaller. I think you could cut back on the fat, especially if using tomatoes stored in oil - they were rather greasy. I was kinda hoping enough grease would make them come off the liners easier. No such luck.

There's nothing sacred about the pepperoni. It's a good traditional pizza topping, but mainly just happened to be what I had on hand. Use whatever your favorite toppings are (if you don't want it to be food processed, chop up by hand and stir them in at the end, but I didn't feel like hand-slicing my pepperoni up into little bits). You could probably also throw in some spinach or zucchini or something without hurting anything. Mix some shredded cheese in or sprinkle it on top if you do dairy.

Awesomesauce Chocolate Cake

This came to be because LG requested a chocolate cake with apple frosting. The apple frosting threw me a bit at first. Then I realized "apple frosting" = pureed apple, and is really about as simple as frosting can get.

Approximately 1/2 cup butter oil (I clarified 1/2 cup of butter and used the results, so it was something less than 1/2 cup. Coconut oil or plain butter both have similar properties and should work instead)
1/2 cup sugar (or the equivalent in other sweetener)
4 eggs (at room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I didn't have any, so left it out)
1 cups coconut flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk (of whatever type you prefer - I used homemade coconut milk)
1/2 cup cinammon applesauce (I used pureed fresh apple, not jarred applesauce) + more for frosting

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix wet ingredients separately, then gradually add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Bake for about 30 minutes, until it doesn't jiggle and a fork stuck in the center comes out clean. Makes 1 8" diameter circular cake.

This turned out delicious. I'm going to modify it (carrot/apple/spice instead of cocoa, probably) for LemurBaby's birthday next month.

Caveats: As usual, I'm recreating these from memory after the fact, so please tell me something seems wrong. I'm cooking in a desert climate at high altitude, though coconut flour doesn't seem to have as many altitude issues as others. My homemade coconut flour doesn't seem to function quite the same as store-bought (though I'm using roughly the measures used in similar recipes and it turned out well this time), so you may need to use a bit less.

For ice cream, we used Jello created with 1/2 cup water, 1 1/2 cups coconut milk mixed in the ice cream maker. Bad, I know, but easy, and more reliable taste-wise than my from-scratch concoctions.

For dinner we had (at her request), baked chicken and carrots.

Meet our new family member

2011-09-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

This is Kenya, the newest member of our herd.

She's a year old Boer goat.

Kenya and Marsha

She's a little bigger than our others, even the non-pygmies. And that's how we got her. LemurDa knows an older woman who keeps goats, and Kenya was too big for her to handle. She wanted her to go to a good home who wouldn't eat her, and we can do that much. No promises on any offspring, though.

At the moment, she's a little skittish, and hard to herd back into the corral in the evening, but obviously attuned to humans, and I don't expect we'll have trouble once she figures out that we provide food.

And so, we've been singing a lot of this these past several days:

Lunchbox Challenged

2011-09-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

Paleo Parents is having a Paleo Lunchbox Challenge.

Unfortunately, as homeschoolers, we are inherently Lunchbox Challenged, and not in a way that is conducive to this particular contest. We don't even own lunchboxes.

This is a normal lunch for us:

Scrambled egg with bacon, leftover Shrimp, Sausage, and Summer Squash casserole, and water.

Gratuitous baby picture

Not exactly practical eating after sitting around in a lunchbox for half a day, right?

So, we decided to make a more travel-appropriate lunch.

When I told the kids we were going to make lunchboxes, LemurBoy took it literally, and went out to saw a piece of wood to make a box. This particular plan was perhaps a bit overambitious, but, after some drama at the idea of not creating a permanent lunchbox, they happily settled down with cardboard boxes.

I'm pretty sure LB re-invented the Bento all on his own

With the kids' input, we decided to try to make sandwiches, baked pumpkin, roasted pumpkin seeds, and carrot sticks.

We've been reading The Little House Cookbook. Given the prominence of grains in the diet of the time, this may seem an odd choice for us, but it's full of traditional food recipes, including lots of garden produce, wild game, food preservation, and all that other good stuff. Some of the grainy recipes can be adapted to grain-free alternatives, but there's plenty that require little or no adaptation. It's all set in a kid-appealing context (the Little House series) with plenty of good historical food and lifestyle info.

The cookbook

Since we have little pumpkins coming ripe in the garden, we decided to use those for a Little House-style recipe. We actually used (roughly, anyways) the Hubbard Squash recipe, as it was more appropriate to what we wanted to do than the actual pumpkin recipes, and read about how both pumpkins and other squashes were grown and used.

Little pumpkins (Jack-Be-Little variety, I believe) on the vine

The green beans were also from our garden.

Preheat oven to 350F. Cut tops off pumpkins (or other winter squash) as you would for jack-o-lantern, or just slice them in half. Unless you specifically want to preserve the cute pumpkin shape, cutting them down the middle is going to be much easier. De-seed. I saved the seeds for roasting. Rub inside of pumpkin with an heat-appropriate fat (recipe suggests butter. I used bacon grease), and spice as desired. For these, I used a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and a touch of salt, so they'd be like pumpkin pies. You could probably drizzle a little maple syrup or other sweetener to make them more dessert like. A more savory spice mix works well, too. Put the pumpkins skin-side down in a baking tray, and fill the tray about 1/2 inch full of water. Bake until soft enough to poke with a fork - 1.5-2 hours.

For roasted pumpkin seeds, clean pulpy bits from seeds (this is time consuming and irritating). Lightly coat with oil, spice and salt as desired (I used a random mix including garlic powder, paprika, onion powder, and other stuff that I'm not sure of), and spread in a single layer on a baking tray. Bake at 350 until golden brown, or about 20-30 minutes.

Next time I make them, I'll plan ahead more and soak them in salt water for 24 hours first. This reduces the phytic acid, an anti-nutrient. Also, it makes them salty.

I've been experimenting with coconut flour lately. Coconut flour is made from defatted coconut (if the fat is there, it turns into coconut butter intead of flour), and is rather expensive. Making coconut milk from shredded coconut results in lots of coconut pulp... or defatted coconut. So now I'm drying the pulp and blendering it up into flour, and I've been trying various recipes to see if it seems to perform the same as store-bought coconut flour (which I've never bought). I've made cookies and pancakes with good success, so we decided to try some sandwich bread.

This (or minor variations thereof) is the most common pure coconut flour recipe. I cut it in half, replaced most of the oil with pear puree (both primarily for cost reasons), and didn't include added sweetener.

Waiting for the bread to bake.

It came out very flat. I'm not certain our baking powder, which well over a year old and not particularly well-stored, is still active. So I ended up chopping the loaf into three sections, then in half length-wise, sub style, rather than doing more traditional sandwich slices.

While everything cooked (I did everything in the oven at once, just for varying lengths of time), LB cut up carrot sticks, and made himself some deviled eggs, too.

LB cutting carrot sticks

I fried up some thinly sliced steak that had been marinating in the fridge, and used that in LB and my sandwiches. LG declared she didn't want meat - she wanted a carrot sandwich. So that's what she had.

I also hard boiled some eggs, since we were out.

The results:

LG's finished lunch - Carrot sandwich on coconut bread (mostly eaten), green beans, hard boiled egg, baked pumpkin, roasted pumpkin seeds.

LB's lunch - Coconut bread sandwich with steak strips, deviled eggs, baked pumpkin, carrot sticks and green beans, roasted pumpkin seeds.

Nomming

Once again, a gratuitous baby eating vegetables shot

The bread ended up tasting very eggy (which was also my experience when making muffins). I have a feeling I have to use a larger quantity of the homemade flour than I would of store-bought. The cookies I made the other day turned out very cookie-like, and not particularly eggy, but in that case I kept adding flour until the dough held together.

The kids liked it, regardless.

The pumpkin was not a huge hit with the older kids. Honestly, one of them turned out amazing - sweet and full of pumpkiny flavor, but the other three were kind of bland. Not horrible, and they probably would have been very good with some butter and maple syrup, but not nearly so tasty as the other one.

Unfortunately, many squashes don't seem to play well with me and the baby's digestive systems. Most unfortunate, since we're the ones who like them!

Everyone loved the pumpkin seeds. We had some seeds from other squash mixed in there too, and those turned out just as good. We'll be saving up our squash seeds from now on to make bigger batches.

Practicality:

This is not a lunch you can throw together the morning of. It took hours to get everything together - some time could be cut from that with more experience (not fumbling with the bread recipe, cutting the pumpkins in a simpler way), but much was unavoidable baking time. However, most of it could be made in quantity in advance and most of the individual recipes weren't all that time consuming (requiring more baking time than actual prep time). The pumpkin, while good warm, would be best for a lunchbox if cooked ahead of time and chilled. These would be very simple to prep and throw in the oven while something else was cooking. The pumpkin seeds keep for a while if stored properly, so it would be easy to make a big batch once and dole them out appropriately. I don't know how well the bread keeps, and therefore I don't know whether it would be practical to make a big batch at once.

As a bonus, here's an actual "lunch" that got taken to work:

An actual "lunch" box (thermos, rather) - Leftover Mock Split Pea Soup with a sliced hard boiled egg, some pumpkin chunks, and (not visible) chunks of sausage. Also not pictured - a jar of coffee with coconut milk.

I work a 12+ hour night shift one night a week, at least half of which is moderately active, so I have to have a midnight meal. I generally stick leftovers in a thermos, as in the above photo.

On my day shifts, I usually take a salad with lots of stuff on it, and often some nuts, fruit, or the like. Sometimes leftovers that can be kept in the thermos or don't require reheating. Maybe I'll photograph that, too.

Mad Science

2011-09-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

I think I just crossed over into firm Mad Kitchen Scientist territory. Today I jarred up our latest batch of lacto-fermented zucchini pickles. Putting it in the fridge, I noticed a jar of white stuff shoved in the back.

Great. Someone had opened up a can of coconut milk without using what I already had in there, and the old one had probably gone bad by now. Since making coconut milk isn't exactly an effortless activity, this irritated me a bit.

I opened it and sniffed it. It smelled a little sour, but not in a bad way. It had thickened up a little.

So what did I do? Tasted it.

I had accidentally made coconut milk yogurt. It wasn't fabulous, but not inedible, either. I've had coconut milk that's gone rancid, and that's gross. This wasn't like that at all.

The lid I had been using on the jar of coconut milk was labeled sauerkraut, and given our recent zuccini-pickle kick, the jar was likely previously used for fermented food as well. Whichever the source, it was apparently inoculated with lactobacillus.

So I dumped another cup of coconut milk in, and stuck it back in the fridge to see what would happen. I guess we'll see what happens in a few days, if the bites I took of it earlier don't kill me.

Zucchinipocolypse FTW

2011-08-05T17:52:00.001-07:00

Our produce cleaned up at the county fair.

The beans, zucchini, and pattypan squash are from our garden.

So is this.

Zucchini Pineapple Coconut Muffins

2011-08-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

Based on the Elena's Pantry recipe for Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins, these are entirely fruit-sweetened.

8 oz can of pineapple in its own juice (tidbits or crushed - if you get rings or bigger chunks, you'll want to chop them up. I suppose you could use fresh pineapple plus a few tablespoons of sweetener if you prefer)
Enough shredded zucchini to make 1 1/2 cups when combined with drained pineapple (a bit more than 1 cup)
1/3 cup coconut flour
2 eggs
Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt (I used 1/4 teaspoon, and they ended up a touch on the salty side)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/3 cup shredded coconut + extra to sprinkle on top.

Drain juice from pineapple (get as much out as you can - you want as much liquid as you can get for the next step, and for the remaining pineapple to be as dry as possible). Simmer pineapple juice in a small saucepan for a while to reduce. I didn't measure the end product exactly - probably a tablespoon or two.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine pineapple and zucchini. Squeeze out excess liquid.

Combine coconut flour, salt, and baking soda in one bowl. Combine wet ingredients, zucchini, and pineapple in another bowl, then mix in dry ingredients.

Spoon batter into muffin tin (I suggest liners - greasing them didn't work well for me). Sprinkle each muffin with a little shredded coconut.

Bake 18-22 minutes for mini muffins, or 25-30 minutes for larger muffins. Or longer - start there and see how they are.

This recipe makes 6 mediumish muffins, or 12 mini-muffins.

I highly suggest being sure to squeeze out the excess liquid and using liners...

When I make them again, I think I'll reduce the coconut oil to 2 tbsp and cook them a little longer. They were a bit on the greasy side, and the bottoms weren't particularly done.

For the coconut flour, I used the leftover pulp from making coconut milk (as that's basically what coconut flour is - coconut that has been defatted and finely ground. Convenient, right?). Just straight from the blender, with as much of the milk squeezed out as possible - I didn't dry it out first, as the homemade coconut flour recipes recommend - seems like a waste of energy, and easier just to cut back on the wet ingredients a bit if necessary. As such, I have no idea if it behaved anything like commercial coconut flour, as I've never baked with it. But they were acceptable for our purposes.

Comments on the original recipe have suggestions for making them eggless with ground flaxseed and/or applesauce.

Mock Split Pea Soup

2011-07-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's another Zucchinipocolypse special!

Mock Split Pea Soup

5 medium zucchinis (we used a mixture of zucchini and pattypan squash - I don't think it changed the flavor that much), shredded or chopped into small pieces
2 cups (or more!) chopped bacon, uncooked
1 diced onion
6 cups broth
A dollop of some sort of fat for frying
A few chopped up carrots, celery, or whatever else you like in split pea soup
Spices to taste. I used about 2 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp onion powder, 1 tsp paprika, and a tablespoon of oregano. Some pepper would be good. The broth was pretty salty already, so I didn't add any.

Fry bacon in the bottom of a lightly greased soup pot until about halfway cooked (you can chop up your veggies while it is cooking). Separate out 1/2 to 2/3 of the bacon and set aside. Add onion (and more grease if necessary), and fry until softened. Add zucchini, and enough broth to cover the zucchini. Add spices, and simmer for a half hour or so.

While it is simmering, in a separate pot, take the remainder of the broth, and cook the carrots, celery, and anything other veggie you're adding. (Alternatively, use roasted veggies that are already soft)

After about 1/2 hour, remove zucchini from heat. Use an immersion blender to blend it up or pour into a normal blender (be very careful with this - make sure your blender is designed to withstand heat, it is covered properly, don't overfill, and so forth). Pour pureed soup back into saucepan. Mix in reserved bacon, cooked veggies, and add remaining broth gradually until you get the consistency you want. It's ready at this point, but you can cook a bit longer to let the flavors meld more.

The resulting soup looks and tastes a lot like split pea soup, but the consistency is smoother. I'm sure you could adapt this to use with to use with ham instead of bacon, or even make it vegetarian with a good vegetable broth base, though the smoky flavor of the bacon is what makes it like split pea soup (smoked almonds have been suggested as a vegetarian alternative). I made it with fish broth and added canned fish after pureeing, and it was like a thin chowder.

According to LemurDa, this soup (minus the carrots or other additional veggies and with homemade broth) has about 11 grams of carbs per 10 oz. serving.1

While we're on this zucchini kick...

2011-07-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

Zucchini Frappuccino

1 tray coffee ice cubes (this is what we do if we have leftover coffee)
1 smallish zucchini
enough liquid (coffee, milk of some sort, water) so that the blender will work (I needed like 1/4 cup)
Optional: Sweetener, ripe banana, flavored syrup, cocoa powder, etc. to taste

Put stuff in blender. Blend. Makes about one "venti" or two "tall" servings.

Other recipes for frappuccino-knockoffs I've seen call for plain ice cubes/crushed ice + strong coffee. That would presumably work, too. Coffee ice cubes were what I happened to have on hand. If you go that route, I'd think you'd want to blend all ingredients except ice well first, then you can blend the ice just until it gets to the right texture. (Updated: I tried this method because we didn't have any more coffee ice cubes, and it didn't work well for me. The coffee was still slightly warm when I tried, and the blender too efficient at blending ice, so it just ended up watery, not icy, and not very good. I drank it anyways because I had to go to work. Update 2: Coffee ice cube method definitely works better. And paddypan squash is just as satisfactory as zucchini.)

It doesn't taste like zucchini, with a caveat - our garden zucchinis may be more mild flavored than zucchinis found at the store. If your attempts at making zucchini-stuff come out too strongly zucchini flavored, peeling may help - the peel, especially of older/larger zucchinis, has a bitter flavor. Add zucchini gradually to get a balance between creaminess and zucchininess, and be sure you use sweetener or some other flavoring. Or track down someone with a garden. This time of year they'll probably be happy to unload some zucchini.

If you try any of my crazy recipes, please let me know how it turns out, even if you think it's blech! I always pass them by at least one other set of tastebuds (in this case, a former Starbucks employee), but none of us around here could really be said to have typical American tastes, so it's possible that they're actually all intolerable to anyone who isn't nutso like us. If so, I'd like to know! After all, it's been years since I've had an actual frappuccino.

Unusual abundance

2011-07-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

We are starting to experience Zucchinipocolypse.

I'm not crazy about zucchini, particularly cooked, but we're working it out. Raw or lightly cooked, it has such a mild flavor that it's relatively unobtrusive. We've been making zucchini hummus and zucchini pancakes (I shredded carrot, powdered garlic and onion, and chopped bacon. The bacon really makes the dish!). I made zucchini "noodles" by shaving thin strips, which I mixed into a curry. Tonight I'm making this soup (roughly, anyways). (Edit: The soup turned out awesome. It's a cream soup with no cream! LemurGirl even asked for seconds.)

For surprising uses... it works well as an ice cream base.

Zucchini-Cantaloupe Ice Cream

1/2 cantaloupe (ours was one the small side, and the flavor was noticeable, but not particularly strong. Half a normal-sized cantaloupe would probably work well.)
1 normal-sized zucchini
1 cup shredded coconut (not strictly necessary - I used the leftover pulp from making coconut milk)
Coconut milk (just enough so that everything else will blend)

Cut cantaloupe and zucchini into chunks. Put in blender with coconut, and blend until smooth, adding just enough coconut milk to allow it to blend. Put mixture in ice cream maker, or freeze into ice cubes then blend in a high-power blender or food processor. The blender method didn't work particularly well for us. We usually use the ice cream maker, but LemurBoy desperately wanted to try the blender method, so I decided to give it a shot, but the blades just didn't get an adequate grip on the cubes. I ended up dumping it in the food processor to finish, as I feared burning out the motor on the blender.

Both kids ate it happily. Neither realized the secret ingredient without being told. LemurGirl declared this the best ice cream ever. I didn't add any sweetener, but our tastebuds are pretty adapted to lower sugar. If yours aren't, and your melon isn't super-ripe, you may want to add a little something.

If a green tinge is an aesthetic or pickiness problem, just shave off the peel.

I actually found myself saying, "Gee, I wish we had more zucchini" today. The two medium ones were used for zucchini pancakes for lunch, the large one is earmarked for the soup, and I wanted to try a new ice cream idea, too.

So I went out and looked, and another good-sized one had magically appeared in the two hours since I picked the zucchinis for lunch.

Mint Chocolate Chip Zucchini Ice Cream

2 zucchinis (on the smallish side of medium will give you the most neutral taste)
mint jelly (or mint extract + sweetener, or maybe even raw mint + sweetener) to taste
enough coconut milk to allow it to blend
A tablespoonful of coconut oil (probably not strict necessary. I just felt like throwing it in)
1 tsp vanilla
Chocolate chips, or 1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder if you don't have them (as we didn't), but that ruins the all-natural bright green color of the ice cream!

Chop zucchini into chunks to facilitate blending. Blend all ingredients except chocolate chips in the blender. Pour into ice cream maker and use as directed. Stir in chocolate chips if using.

We used homemade mint jelly/syrup made from the mint running rampant in our orchard.

The texture of these ice creams is kind of more like ice milk - using a higher proportion of coconut milk (or real cream) would probably make it creamier. But regardless, still tasty, cold, and kid and adult-approved.

More garden pictures:

Baby in the squash patch

LemurBoy picking leeks for the soup

Chickens in the corn

Sunflowers

A friend is getting goats, and asked about what we feed ours. I wrote that we feed them lots of a certain type of weed that grows in our yard, then realized that I should probably check to make sure it's actually safe before I recommended it. I looked in a local weed identification guide, and discovered the weed is called Kochia, and that it's actually wonderful - it has a higher nutritional value than alfalfa hay, and is actually cultivated for animal feed in some areas.

We have literally an acre of this stuff growing. We weed it daily to feed to the goats, but it's impossible to keep up.

Our kochia crop, with large dogs for perspective. The whole yard looks similar. As does the side yard. And the area by the driveway.

Thank goodness we haven't got around to mowing it down! If we can get it cut, dried, and stored appropriately, it should save us some money in animal feed over the winter.

Coconut Donut Holes

2011-07-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

In my Coconut Chicken Nuggets post, I mentioned that I'd need to try donut holes very soon.

I wasn't joking about the "very" part. The idea was too good to resist trying immediately.

I actually did measure out this recipe while making it, so all measurements are accurate.

* 1 egg (I'm wondering if this would work with pureed apple or banana for those avoiding eggs)
* Approximately 1/3 cup shredded coconut
* Spices (I used 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, some freshly grated nutmeg, and a pinch of ground cardamom. A little bit of vanilla would probably be good (I meant to add that, but forgot). Maybe even some cocoa powder.)
* Sweetener (optional)
* Fat of choice for frying

Break egg into bowl and mix. Add coconut 1 tablespoon at a time until you get a dough that holds together and keeps its shape - It took 5 tablespoons for me. Keep in mind that it's easier to add more coconut than more egg, so go slow with the coconut. Mix spices into dough. Roll into little balls a bit smaller than you want to donut holes to be (they'll puff up a bit while cooking).

Heat fat. When hot enough, drop balls of dough into it. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes, rolling them around as necessary to cook thoroughly. Remove from pan and let cool a bit before eating. I think they're best still warm, but I stuck one in the fridge for a while to see how it would hold up, and it was still tasty.

This made 8 donut holes for me.

About sweetener: Since coconut is naturally on the sweet side, these don't desperately need any added sweetener. Both kids liked them unsweetened. Leaving them unsweetened probably also helps with portion control.

But if your goal is authenticity, or if you're making these for people with conventional taste buds, you'll want to add a little bit of sweetener.

If the idea of deep (or, in this case, more than a light coating but not particularly deep) fat frying intimidates you, don't stress it. This was really the first time I've done it. I just dumped about 1/2 inch of bacon grease in a little saucepan, heated it, and fried them up.

Thus ends Impromptu Fried Food Day. I'm way too stuffed for anything else!

Coconut chicken nuggets

2011-07-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

Our housemate ground up some chicken parts today, and offered to make some chicken patties for the kids' lunch. I decided no... now that we have coconut, I was going to try some chicken nuggets.

Unfortunately, I didn't really measure as I went along, so all measurements are estimates.

This was very gloppy chicken grind, so I mixed about half a cup of coconut in with it in an attempt to absorb some of the liquid and get it to hold together a bit better. It kinda worked. I don't think you'd need to do this with commercial ground meat. Alternatively, you could cut non-ground chicken up into chunks (or strips) and use that.

Ingredients:

* 3 cups ground chicken. No, I don't know how much that is by weight. That's just the size of the container it was in.
* 2 eggs (some milk, dairy or otherwise, might work if you can't do eggs)
* 1 cup shredded coconut (I used the Let's Do Organic brand, which is very finely shredded. If you're using something not finely shredded, you might want to whizz it a bit in the food processor first)
* Seasonings to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp each of salt, garlic powder, and onion powder)
* Fat of choice if frying

(Again, all of that is an estimate. You could start with half the amount of coconut and spices and make more as needed if you're trying to avoid waste.)

Stir together coconut, salt, and spices in a bowl. Crack eggs into a separate bowl and beat them together.

Shape (or cut, if not ground) chicken into appropriately sized nuggets. Coat in egg. Roll in coconut mixture. I set them on a cookie tray until I had enough to fill the frying pan.

Heat fat of choice in frying pan. When it is hot, put nuggets in frying pan. It smells wonderful while cooking! Mine took about 10 minutes to cook thoroughly, with flipping every few minutes. Smaller ones would undoubtedly cook faster. When the coconut was nicely browned, they were adequately done.

Alternatively, you should be able to bake them at 400F for 15-20 minutes (until brown) if you'd like to avoid the frying.

This made about 20 nuggets that were about twice the size of normal fast food nuggets. Everyone who tried them loved them, and the kids came back for seconds. I think we'll have to do this again!

I took the leftover coconut and leftover egg, mixed them together into a little dumpling, and fried that as well. It was a little on the salty side, but had serious potential. Sugar/grain-free "Donut Hole" experimentation will be occurring in the very near future. (Edit: The future is now: http://learninglemurs.blogspot.com/2011/07/coconut-donut-holes.html)

Ongoing coconut milk experimentation

2011-07-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

We got out shredded coconut yesterday.

The box was much smaller than I expected. Not unreasonably small - the 8oz bags are about half of typical 16oz size, and they're compressible, so 12 can fit in a pretty small space. But I think there's an expectation, given the cost, that it's going to be a huge box. The shreds themselves were smaller, too - it is very finely shredded, not like the normal store shredded coconut. This is just fine for our purposes, really.

This time, I mixed 1 cup of coconut with 2 cups very hot water, left it to sit for several hours, and then blended it. It came out VERY thick, and not particularly smooth, but not as grainy as the previous batch, either. A lot of the liquid was absorbed, and pressing it through the strainer, I only got about a half cup of milk. That won't do!

I blended it some more, and added another cup or so of water. That produced about 2 cups of liquid of quite acceptable quality. I tried it in my coffee this morning, and it was fine.

I ate some of the leftover coconut pulp along with some pineapple for dessert. I'll have to figure out something fun to do with the rest of it. I want to experiment with coconut flour baking, and this may be a way to do it without using up our supply (because it won't get bought again if it isn't a savings over the canned milk!). Another option is to try making a second-press for just drinking straight.

There was a solid layer on top this morning (presumably the oil). Not a bad thing, since that means the oils are there and the emulsifiers aren't, but it makes it a touch hard to use. I can either make it in smaller quantities and store it in one of our lidded Magic Bullet knock-off cups for easy re-blending in the morning, or just get it out first thing and leave it on the counter until it comes up to temperature.

Last time I made coconut milk from shredded coconut, the resulting milk was very sweet and directly drinkable. This was more like standard coconut milk - not bad, but not quite so horchata-like. I kind of suspect the other coconut we used (a foreign brand) may have had added sweetener that wasn't listed on the label.

Next time (after we use the milk I already made, plus the 2 cans I already (accidentally) opened before the coconut arrived, so it could be a few days), I'm going to try adding just enough water to thoroughly wet the coconut, leave it soaking overnight, blend that, and then add more water to get to the desired consistency. I think this will allow more contact with the blender blades, and get it even smoother.

I'm sure this all sounds like a lot of work for coconut milk compared to just opening the can, but it really comes out to about 5 minutes of actual doing-stuff, so it's worth it, especially if done in large enough quantity - I'm likely to start doing a quart at a time once I get the process down.

And if this all works out, I think that next time we're going to go for the 22lb bag, which brings the cost down to $0.14/oz of shredded coconut, as opposed to about $0.22/oz now.

Everything Is Escaping

2011-06-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

A week ago... 2? Something like that... we started letting the goats out in the pasture. The back fence really isn't up to goat-holding, but they really must start earning their keep, or at least requiring less in the way of "keep". For a while it was fine - they stuck mainly to the front third of the pasture, but the past few days they've been heading off for parts unknown on a regular basis, while we try to get that back fence reinforced. We set LemurBoy out in the orchard (not actually in the pasture, but adjacent, and cool and shady) to play goat-herd when they headed out. That works for a while, but he hasn't been socialized into a child labor society where sitting out watching goats all day would be totally normal at 8. Ah well.

We've started feeding them weeds instead of hay when they're in the corral. Weeds are plentiful, free, and their preferred food anyways. It's more work, but necessary regardless. The sandy soil around here makes them easy to pull, and they grow about half a foot a day, so I can clear a big section of the property and fill a big bucket with enough food for all of them in about 20 minutes if I hit the right area. It's very satisfying, though I admit I'm loathe to do it on particularly hot days.

The mama goat (aka Turbo. The teenage boys of the previous owner named their goats, so that their mom wouldn't get attached) is the matriarch of the herd. She's rather bossy, and tends to chase everyone but her nurslings away from the food (we have multiple feedings spots, so they still get to eat!). Even in the pasture, where food is all around. It's rather silly. I can sympathize - making milk for three kids has to take a lot out of her.

The three nurslings' (are they still nursing? I'm not certain. But it's useful for classification) personalities are still rather undistinct, but they're very pretty and docile, willing to be hugged and petted. I'm not sure what their names are. I've heard Fleur, Chinchilla, Jedi, and Curry... but there's only three of them. Curry's the only one I'm sure about. I imagine you can guess his intended fate.

B.B. (Bottle Baby) is Turbo's 4th kid whom she rejected. He's about half the size of his siblings (whether that's due to being bottlefed or some congenital problem that caused his mother to reject him in the first place we're not sure), and thinks he's a human. He seemingly has no survival instinct, and wanders off from the herd, especially if there's a person somewhere around. He's probably going to end up being a pet.

He strikes me as the skinny little hyperactive genius kid who was always hanging around talking the heads off the adults instead of playing on the playground.

Dumb and Dumber, or Beavis and Butthead, are the two pygmy males. I think that's all I really need to say about them.

Marsha is the pygmy female. She strikes me as the most intelligent of the lot. She's cute and sweet and inquisitive, but rather skittish. I get the impression she's starting to tame down a bit - I've been able to pet her on a few occasions without her running away.

LemurDa thinks he wants to get rid of the pygmies and focus on the bigger goats. The original plan was to try to breed a boer/nubian/pygmy cross, and keep Marsha for milk, but given how docile the boer/nubian kids are, they're starting to feel more appropriate for that. I quickly talked him into selling Marsha instead of eating, which makes sense both because we'll get more than she'd likely be worth in meat, and because, if you can't tell, I'm kind of fond of her.

(If anyone localish is looking for a pygmy or three, let me know.)

Meanwhile, the chickens broke into the goat pen, and we decided to just let them. That's the eventual goal anyways. Many of them are big enough to stand up to the cats at this point, and the goats act threatening enough towards the cats that they've so far avoided the goat pen.

We had a smaller scale Chicken Run a few weeks ago, when we first put them outside. The cats did manage to get one that time, bringing us down to 35 chickens.

I don't think we've lost any besides the one that got catted and the three day old that died of unknown causes. Or at least I haven't found any scattered feathers or random chicken legs lying around. But I'm not up to trying to count 35 chickens running around like, well, chickens with their heads not cut off, so I can't say for sure.

Compare this to:

Sharp observers may remember we started with 21 chicks. The day we moved the first batch outside, the local farm supply store was selling 2 week old chicks off for $0.50 each because they were getting "too old" to sell - presumably too big for their brooder or something. A lower price AND two less weeks we have to feed and house (indoors, when they're so young, and it was still cold at that point) the things. Score!

Whichever ends up being the smallest rooster is set to be sold to a local friend with a flock of bantams whose rooster recently died. She may end up getting some hens, as well. A few with a particular color pattern just aren't growing as fast as the others, and we wonder if they'll end up being banties themselves. In that case, we may send them along with the rooster, as I'm not sure they'll ever be able to hold their own against the cats if that's the case.

Coconut milk

2011-05-19T17:58:00.000-07:00

We go through a lot of coconut milk around here.

Personally, I'm agnostic on the virtues or lack thereof of dairy. I don't think it's the devil. The kids eat dairy products in moderation. We've recently limited LemurGirl from large doses, especially things that are likely to have added casein, due to behavioral issues, but small quantities are ok - she was sensitive to dairy as an infant, too. I avoid even trace amounts, because the baby has screaming fits when I do eat it, so I use coconut milk in most situations that call for milk, because I see it as the best combination of health and cost-effectiveness.

However, it's still not particularly cheap.

I've looked at making coconut milk before, but haven't. Maybe because so many of the recipes call for fresh coconut; maybe because conventional stores don't seem to sell unsweetened shredded coconut. I can't quite remember. Yesterday I decided that it *had* to be possible, looked again, and found these two recipes:

http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/make-your-own-coconut-milk/
http://www.elanaspantry.com/diy-coconut-milk/

I tried it out today. We found some little 2-ounce packages of unsweetened shredded coconut locally. This came out to a bit less than a cup, so I mixed it with 3 cups of water (roughly the concentration in the first recipe), then whizzed it for a while in the vitamix.

It came out tasting fresh, sweet, and coconutty. So much nicer than the canned coconut milk, which tastes kind of stale in comparison! I was instantly converted. You can easily drink this stuff straight. It was very thin compared to the canned milk, though. More like nonfat milk than cream. For some applications this is good. As a coffee creamer or curry additive (my usual uses for it), it may need to be more concentrated. It's also a little... chewy. You end up with a mouthful of coconut solids. Not horrible, but not really desirable, either.

We have another little bag, so I'm going to try it again tomorrow-ish, and try soaking the coconut for several hours first to see if that helps with either or both issues.

The first recipe uses 1 cup coconut to 4 cups water. The second uses 1 to 2. Amazon has organic shredded coconut for approximately $2/8oz bag. So that would make approximately 12 cups of coconut milk, or about the equivalent of 7 cans (most cans are about 13.5oz, or a bit less than 2 cups).

Each can costs $1.41 with case discount. Each can equivalent would cost $0.28.

That's kind of a huge savings on something that we use a lot!

Now, the coconut milk I made today ended up being very thin. Maybe blending more or pre-soaking will help with that, but it's very possible we'll end up using something closer to the 1:2 concentration for a lot of our uses. But still, that's $0.56 per can equivalent.

But wait, it gets better! The canned coconut milk we're buying is some random Thai brand. It has preservatives, is probably not organically grown, and is probably in a can lined with BPA-containing plastic. The organic, BPA-free brand of canned milk, ordered through Amazon, is more than twice as expensive. The shredded coconut we'd be buying is organic and sulfite/preservative-free.

I expect we'll end up going through more of it than we have been because it tastes so good! Plus shredded coconut means I can also grind it up (or leave it as-is) and use it as flour for baking. We'll probably still continue to use canned for some things, like curries, which need to be thick and creamy.

Even considering that, if I can get it to a point where it works well for coffee, I think it will be a big help for our budget.

(If this works for us, we may consider the 22lb bag, which would bring the cost down to about $0.18/can equivalent at the higher dilution, but would require repackaging and lots of freezer space).

Update: As I expected, yesterday's was too watery to work well as coffee creamer. I tried it again today, soaking the coconut for several hours first, and using less water. I couldn't tell you exactly what concentration, because I threw the remains of yesterday's in as well, but something in between 1:2 and 1:4. I also vitamixed it for a full three minutes.

It turned out much creamier, but still a bit on the chewy side, so I strained those out. It still seems much creamier than yesterday's even without the solids, though still thinner than canned. I tried it in the remaining coffee from this morning, and it seemed to work out well. Then I threw the strained out solids into a smoothie. It's possible they'd work for baking, too.

Dandelion Root Beer, All Drunk Up

2011-05-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

So, I know you're all waiting impatiently to find out how this soda concoction worked out. Or maybe not. Maybe you figured my silence on the matter meant it had turned toxic and I'd given up in despair and hoped that everyone forgot about my crazy ideas.

But probably not, as the blog's stats show that there seem to be a lot of people googling about dandelion soda, so everyone else out there must be as broke as me, and looking out at their lawn covered in dandelions and going hmmm....

Back a few days ago (I stopped keeping track of how many days were involved in all of this) I capped up the root beer. After another few days, it seemed to be getting pressurized, so I stuck it in the fridge. But then when I checked again later, the bottle seemed pretty squishy, so I put it back out on the counter again, and went ahead and capped the tea bottle, too.

Yesterday they were both feeling pressurized, so I put them in the fridge, and today we tried them. I could tell by feel that the root beer was once again not quite there, so I opened the tea first. It gave a whoosh! Yay! We tried it. It was fizzy. Yay!

Not quite sure about the flavor of that one. It's still a little on the Ricola side of things. And kind of like kombucha. Not that this is a shock, given that they're both fermented tea. It's not bad, just different. It would undoubtedly be refreshing on a warmer day than today. LemurBoy liked it. LemurGirl didn't.

The root beer was, as I expected, still pretty much flat. LB didn't like the flavor (he hasn't from the beginning). LG did. Convenient, that. I'm not sure why it didn't work out. It definitely had a bit of fermenty-something going. LemurDa, who has done quite a bit of homebrewing before, said he could taste a difference in the cultures between the two, which is kinda strange, as they used the same starter. It could well be the syrup vs. sugar thing - I'm pretty sure I'd added regular sugar to the starter by the time I started the tea-soda.

So that's the result - half success, half not-gonna-kill-you-but-not-really-soda.

I think I'll start some more tomorrow.

Carrot Pudding, or I Gave My Kids Veggies For Dessert, And They Liked It

2011-05-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

A post on the Well Trained Mind forum left me with a serious hankering for carrot cake. Unfortunately, we don't have much in the way of carrot cake ingredients in the house. I searched through GF, paleo, and raw recipes, and everything required almonds or some other form of alternate flour.

Fortunately, we buy the 10lb bags of carrots, and that's kind of a key ingredient. So I decided to make carrot pudding instead.

Ingredients:
6-8 carrots
1-2 apples (I used one ginormous apple)
1/4 cup coconut milk or cream
1 tablespoon Fat Of Choice (I used bacon grease, but coconut oil, butter oil, or butter would work well I'm sure. You could probably leave this out without much harm, but it makes it a bit richer)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (best guess - I grated it)
Sweetener to taste

Cook carrots until soft. I steamed them, but you could boil them too (one similar recipe uses broth, which might add a bit of nutrition, but I wasn't sure about the flavor - save the broth for something else if you go this route! I really should have done it this way, as the pot was used for reducing broth immediately afterwards), and roasting would probably bring out the sweetness even better. Cut apple into chunks while the carrots are cooking.

When carrots are soft, throw them in the food processor (or blender) along with the chunks of apple. Process until relatively smooth. Add coconut milk or cream if you need a little more liquid. Add other ingredients and process to mix. Taste, and add some sweetener (or maybe just some more apple) if you think it's necessary. If you're using good quality carrots and apples, it likely won't be. I'm using standard grocery store produce, and it was sweet, but not quite dessert-sweet, so I added a bit (like maybe a tablespoonful) of maple syrup.

Add raisins, pineapple chunks, and crushed pecans or walnuts as desired (or not) :) If I could eat dairy, I'd want to make some sort of cream cheese whip for the top, I think.

Makes about 4-6 servings.

This turned out good enough that all three kids liked it (LemurGirl is currently literally licking the bowl. I am pretending not to notice.). I think it was better warm, but just fine cold, too.

This was, incidentally, Baby's first bite of anything even vaguely resembling baby food. She's had appropriate sized and shaped chunks of whatever we're eating to gnaw on for the past month or so (or an apple slice or boiled veggies if what we're having doesn't seem appropriate), but no purees.

A Tall Shanghai Rooster

2011-05-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Why in the heck did they bring just a rooster, anyways? Were the hens simply not worthy of mention? Odd, in a song with a distinctly feminist bend.

Last Saturday, we picked up 21 day-old chicks (21 chicks that had hatched the day before that is, not chicks who were 21 days old). Perhaps now the chicken coop will get finished. We have time before they're ready for it, but now there is, at least, a firm time limit!

What type are they? Who knows. Mutt-chicks.

They're growing like mad, and are notably bigger today than they were a week ago.

They spent the first several days in our bathtub. Our master bedroom is set up really oddly - the bathtub and toilet area are right there in the room, visually separated by a low wall. Therefore, the heat lamp kept waking up the baby all night, and therefore me as well. Unfortunately (or thankfully, depending on your perspective) they kicked up LemurDa's asthma, and they had to be evicted to the spare bedroom. Now I'm sleeping better, and feeling a little friendlier towards them.

We lost one on Wednesday. Not sure what happened. I checked them and found one lying around lethargically; breathing, but barely moving when I picked it up. I isolated it in case it was contagious, and it died within an hour or so. Poor thing.

We don't know what happened. Did it have a contagious illness? I saw no obvious signs of an illness beyond the lethargy. No nasal or eye discharge, no obviously wrong poop. The other chicks were all normally active. It may have gotten wet and chilled, though it wasn't obviously so at the time I found it. It could have had a heart defect or something.

This led to a debate: One school of thought considers this a reason to go and dose the chicks' water with antibiotics just to be on the safe side. As newbie chicken owners who are not adept at recognizing subtle signs of chicken illness, this is tempting. However, we believe that, while antibiotics are a powerful tool, widespread antibiotics usage causes more problems than it solves. So I decided to keep a close eye on them for a while and see how they did, and do the antibiotics if any of the rest of them showed any sign of illness.

They were all fine, though I probably stressed them out a little, poking at them whenever they settled down to rest. We haven't lost any more of them so far.

Chocolate Lingonberry Ice Cream, Soda Update

2011-05-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

My mother visited these past few days, after first visiting my brother. In between our houses is our dear old friend IKEA, and she stopped there and picked us up some IKEA food, none of which we should really be eating, but we did anyways.

We had some lingonberry sauce left, and I wanted it gone, so I decided to use it as flavoring and sweetener for coconut milk ice cream. It turned out delicious!

Ingredients:
1 can of coconut milk
2 tablespoons - 1/4 cup cocoa powder
Some lingonberry sauce. Probably about a 1/2 cup. The remaining 1/3 or so of the 400g jar. Let's just say "to taste".
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

(I need to start actually measuring what I'm doing, rather than adding stuff "until it tastes right" and then trying to guess at the quantities after the fact!)

Blend ingredients in blender. Pour into ice cream maker. Use ice cream maker according to instructions.

It came out nice and creamy; rich, but not overly sweet. it reminded me a lot of commercial coconut milk ice cream I've had. My mother who eats a standard diet liked it, as did the kids. And me, of course! I wasn't quite sure about it during the liquid stage, but the flavor worked better once it was frozen.

I was worried that this wouldn't make enough and I'd have to add more coconut milk, but it made enough to perfectly fill our ice cream maker (no, I'm not sure what size it is) and make 5 reasonable sized servings - I probably could have gotten six servings out of it and left everyone satisfied because it's so rich.

IKEA lingonberry sauce is almost certainly full of sweetener. We already tossed the jar and I'm utterly failing at finding the ingredients online, so I couldn't tell you exactly what it contains, but I think it is safe to assume it contains some sort of unhealthy sweetener, and quite probably preservatives and so forth. Anyways, I'm curious whether very ripe berries, bananas, or some other fruit would work as adequate sweetener for this, or if at least a little bit of honey or sugar would be needed to balance out the cocoa.

If you're not concerned about such things, some sort of preserves (strawberry, raspberry) would probably work well in place of the lingonberry sauce/

We have a Donvier-style ice cream maker, with a freezable insert, and I'm quite happy with it. I'm sure there are other home ice cream makers that produce better ice cream, but not needing salt and ice really helps for being able to make ice cream on the spur of the moment.

Now I think I need to figure out Swedish Meatballs, sans breadcrumbs.

I stuck the root beer in the fridge, and we'll officially taste it this afternoon, when the temperature outside is warm enough to warrant a refreshing drink. I didn't taste it before that because I didn't want to go and release the built up carbonation. I guess we'll see soon whether it's flat or not.

The tea has some slight bubbles, but is still overly sweet, so I threw in another 2 tablespoons of starter.

Steak and Kidney Shepherd's Pie (and soda update)

2011-05-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm really not too good at this whole housewifey meal-planning thing, and I most often end up around 10:00am, staring at the various frozen cuts of meat in the freezer, trying to figure out what in the world I'm going to do with them. The crock pot is my best friend - I can toss in some frozen stock, and a half hour later a frozen roast, and have dinner at dinnertime. Sometimes I'll even get ambitious and take the meat out once it's thawed a bit and chop it up into smaller pieces for stew or something.

Combine this with the fact that we tend to order fractions of (local, ethically raised) cows/pigs/etc., because it's cheaper that way. Possibly not quite as cheap as whatever is on clearance at conventional stores, but way cheaper than full price at conventional stores. When you do this, you end up with a whole bunch of really nice cuts of meat, and I'm never quite sure what I should do with those (also, I'm totally uneducated about cuts of meat, and have only the vaguest idea what is normally an expensive cut and what isn't).

Anyways, this led to me staring into the freezer yesterday, trying to figure what to do with a bunch of frozen steak. I noticed a kidney that's been sitting at the bottom of the freezer for months because I'm a bit leery of it, and "steak and kidney pie" popped into my head.

I've never had it, but whatever. It's a legitimate use of steak and kidney! Except we have nothing in the house to make a reasonable paleo crust, so it's going to be steak and kidney stew.

I tossed them in the crock pot on high, along with some meat-cooking juice that's been floating in and out of the freezer for ages (with cooking in between). It had some carrots in it.

After the meat defrosted a bit, I chopped it up into small chunks (forgoing the opportunity to teach about kidney anatomy because I couldn't remember enough of it off the top of my head and the baby was fussing. And because I didn't want to be all "Here, this organ makes pee. Eat it!"), fried them up a bit with some salt and pepper, then tossed them back in the crock pot on low. I chopped up an onion, fried that, and tossed it in as well, along with several shakes (let's call it 2 tablespoons) of Worcestershire sauce.

It cooked for a while, and I decided it needed something to help absorb the liquid. Something potato-y, without actually being potatoes. I asked LemurDa, who was out, to get some cauliflower or root veggies or something. He got turnips.

By the time he got home with the veggies, it was too late for them to have time to cook in the crock pot, so I decided to try a mash, and make it into Shepherd's pie.

I chopped these up, stuck them in a pot with some salted water, heated it to a boil, and cooked them until they were tender (this only took a few minutes), then pureed them in the food processor with several cloves of garlic and about 2 tablespoons of clarified butter.

It came out pretty much like mashed potatoes. I was impressed.

I preheated the oven to 400F, and used a slotted spooned to transfer the meat and carrots out of the crock pot and into an ovenproof dish, leaving most of the liquid (which got stuck back in the freezer for a future occasion), then spread the faux-potatoes over the top and sprinkled it with a bit of pepper. When the oven was preheated, I stuck it in there for 20 minutes.

It turned out pretty good. LemurGirl ate most of it. LemurBoy thought it smelled funny (I'm not really going to disagree with him on that one) and refused to do more than a requisite taste. Everyone else seemed to like it ok. I wasn't all that crazy about the kidney flavor, but it wasn't inedible.

The turnip mash had a slight bitter taste. I want to try it with cauliflower and see if it comes out even more like potatoes, but I think it fooled the kids.

I'm going to have to try Shepherd's Pie again with ground beef. LB is meatloaf crazy, and I'm sure would love it that way.

We have bubbles in the root beer! I'm going to guess it needs another day or two, but something is happening, at least.

The sun tea really needs to ferment up a bit. It's sickly sweet and tastes much like a Ricola cough drop.

Dandelion Root Beer?

2011-05-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to lose a little hope in our great experiment. There's been no real change to the soda since we bottled it. Yesterday I thought that perhaps it was starting to get a little tangy, but today I think I must have been imagining that.

Downside of only doing a liter: tasting it daily reduces the amount considerably, especially when each kid must have their own taste. I threw another quarter cup of starter in there today, both in hopes of getting things going a bit, and to fill it back up a bit more.

Despite the resounding lack of success so far, I decided to start a second liter, made out of sun tea on the inspiration of my good friend Olivia. I'm letting this cool more before adding the sun tea wort to the starter, just in case that was the problem with the root beer.

I'm going to think about starting a new batch of starter today too, as all indications were that I had a successful starter before sticking it in the fridge to hibernate.

With lots of hand-feeding, the goats are starting to tame up a bunch. The bottle baby (He's pretty much been named B.B.) is totally tame. Mama Goat tolerates us, and her nurslings are starting to investigate us a bit, too. The brown and white female as officially named Marshmallow Fudge - Marsha for short, and I can't resist calling "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha" to her, though she just gets called Little Girl more often than not. She's still skittish, but is starting to run up and beg for treats when we come in. She and B.B. are kind of the outcasts of the herd, and I think that encourages her to turn towards humans.

The two somewhat dumb white sibling goats have been quietly named Beavis and Butt-Head. It fits them. I call them Dumb and Dumber, too.

The nurslings don't have distinct enough personalities for names yet.

Dandelion Root Beer, Resurrected!

2011-05-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

We have sugar now, so yesterday I pulled the starter out of the fridge, fed it a spoonful of sugar, and let it sit to see if it would work out or if we needed to start over.

This morning, it's bubbly again! It is risen!

We're starting with 1L, rather than a full gallon, to see how it works. Since all the recipes I've found are for a gallon or more, we had to do some math.

There are approximately 4L in a gallon (rounding up. It's actually 3.785. But for an inexact experiment like this, we'll treat the liter bottles as quarts and be done with it).

1 gallon needs 1.5 cups of sweetener. I didn't ask LemurBoy to do that one in his head (0.375 cups, or a bit more than 1/3 cup). We dissolved that (minus a tablespoon or so that LG spilled on the counter trying to dump it in the wrong place...) in 2 cups of water, added the flavoring (one bottle contains 2 fl oz and makes 4 gallons, so 1/2 fl oz makes 1 gallon, so 1/8 fl oz makes a quart. Google tells me 1/8 fl oz = .75 teaspoons), and brought it to a boil, partially to aid in dissolving the sugar, partially to kill off any microorganisms already in the water. I asked LB why we were boiling the water, and he guessed the microorganism part.

While letting that mixture (called "the wort") cool to body temperature (LB correctly figured out that this was so it wouldn't kill the good bacteria in the starter), we put the starter in the bottle (1 quart per gallon, so 1 cup per quart), and stuck the rest back in the fridge, to be resurrected again if this works out well.

After adding the wort to the starter, and adding a bit more water to fill it out as there were only 2 cups in the wort (we probably should have boiled this), we put a balloon with holes poked in it over the top. LB again figured out why with no problem - the balloon keeps environmental microorganisms from getting in, and the holes allow some of the gas produced by the fermentation process to escape, so the balloon (or bottle!) won't explode. (While there is some alcohol produced in the fermentation process, it's a very small amount if you don't let it sit too long, and should be fine for kids in reasonable quantities. Just be sure to taste it yourself first to be careful.)

Again: We're using well water. Regular city tap water needs to either be filtered or left to sit for a few days to dechlorinate or the good bacteria won't grow.

And now we wait! It's supposed to sit on the counter for a few days, tasting it every day to see if it's ready, and cap it and put it in the fridge once it reaches an appropriate balance of sweetness and fizziness (the bacteria eat the sugar, so the final product should be significantly less sweet than it is now). It's supposed to be a little on the sweet side when bottled, because it needs to ferment slightly further after that to pressurize before being refrigerated.

Goat Notes

2011-05-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we got goats.

Here's the woulda/shoulda. Pretty much tells the story!

1. Even tame goat kids are still afraid of new people, especially when those new people are trying to catch them to give them a bottle.

2. A big goat yard is good, but fence off a small portion for new goats so that they don't have space to maneuver away from you when trying to catch them to give them a bottle.

3. (Goat) Kids can fit through fencing you wouldn't imagine they could when they are panicking because you're trying to catch them to give them a bottle. Be prepared to run out and get chicken wire if your fencing is inadequate.

4. Thankfully, once loose, they prefer to come back to their friends and won't hightail it for parts unknown.

5. The dogs will spend at least the next 24 hours making absolutely sure you're aware that there are Ferocious Baby Goats in the yard.

6. Dogs will find a way to fit through the fencing of their yard if there are Ferocious Baby Goats in the area. (No one was injured - they're really just curious, not attacking)

7. Goat kids consider neither bottles of formula nor apple slices to be a good treat (they don't actually need formula at this point - it's a bonding thing).

It's ok. They're getting used to us. I kinda suspect these guys aren't ever going to be bottle babies for us, though.

So that was yesterday. Those three are pygmy/nigerian crosses.

Today we got more, because LemurDa doesn't like to do anything by halves. These guys (a mother and her quadruplets, one of whom she rejected and is now a bottle baby) are boer/nubian crosses. Though the kids are younger than yesterday's, they're currently about the same size. They're much more socialized - they're all friendly, but the bottle baby thinks he's a human and is already the kids' baby.

So total, we have 1 mama, 3 girl kids, 3 fixed boy kids, and 1 intact boy kid. We'd intended to use the 3 fixed boys for meat eventually, but I have a feeling bottle boy (already named Friendly Freddy) is going to become the companion for the buck. Using siblings for that purpose would make more logical sense, but, well, he's Friendly Freddy.

The girl in particular from yesterday is starting to warm up to us.

The two boy goats from yesterday seem kinda dumb. This may be because they're a month younger than the girl. Or maybe just that they're dumb.

Mama and her three nursing kids. It's amazing how much smaller and less sturdy the bottle baby is, though that's a chicken or the egg question.

Their home is 1/3 of the shelter that was already in place when we moved here. We walled it in to block the wind. They haven't had significantly more shelter in the past, and the weather is quickly improving, so they should be ok. Once they've adjusted a little more, they'll be able to go out in the pasture during the day.

Dandelion Root Beer Update

2011-04-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

On day 4, we started getting fizzy noises when stirring the dandelion root mixture, so I stuck it in the fridge until we're ready to use it. We're waiting on sugar, as we don't actually have any in the house, and honey apparently doesn't work well for this application, given its antibacterial properties.

I think we're starting with just a liter. I have a hard time believing this will actually work, both in general and after the refrigeration, though everything has gone swimmingly so far. Since we're using an extract for flavoring, making a tiny batch shouldn't be much of a pain.

Dandelion Root Beer, Day 3 - Bubbles!

2011-04-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

The instructions for creating the starter said that it would take about a week for the fermentation to start.

Yet here we are, on Day 3 of the Great Dandelion Experiment, and we have bubbles!

See all that little foamy stuff up around the top? That's what we want!

It smells right, too (kind of a sweet/sour yogurty smell).

I had my doubts about whether this would work, between using spring dandelion root and having fake maple syrup with preservatives in it as the sweetener, but it appears to be doing what it's supposed to be doing!

I decided to cover it with plastic wrap instead of closing the lid, just in case it became too pressurized.

I think we're going to give it at least another day or two, because I have a bit of a hard time believing it's actually all ready that fast.

Today's root was neat - the single taproot branched into three separate-appearing dandelions.

For those concerned about the time investment, so far this has taken approximately 10 minutes per day. It would take 2 minutes if I was using ginger, not digging up dandelions.

Should your young kids happen to be interested in Science and/or learning to read, Secular Homeschooling is giving away The Quirkles - an integrated science/phonics curriculum.

Dandelion Root Beer, Day 1

2011-04-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

I've become a little obsessed with the idea of lacto-fermented soda. It's soda that's good for you!!! Not only can you make it out of fresh fruit or herbs (preserving some of their nutritional benefits) and include as little (or as much) sweetener of your choice as you want, but you get a dose of probiotics with each serving!

We've made homemade soda before using yeast, so this isn't a totally new venture. In fact, we have spruce beer and sasparilla soda flavoring sitting in the fridge from our last batch. I think we're going to try sasparilla first.

Most of the lacto-fermented soda recipes out there call for ginger root for the starter. This is because ginger, along with many other roots, has a high inulin content. Inulin is a form of starch which is a preferred food source for various forms of Lactobacillus. These are the bacteria that make yogurt and pickles and grow in our intestines, displacing harmful bacteria.

(In a glowing example of the sort of synchronicity which creates naturally occurring unit studies, we recently read The Magic School Bus In A Pickle, which discusses the role of microbes in pickle formation, so this fits right in!)

As far as I can tell, the reason ginger is recommended for this is because it's widely recognized as an edible substance and you can buy it at the store. But it's certainly not the only inulin-containing root, and when "buy it at the store" means a 10 mile round trip that you weren't really planning to do today, you look for more readily available alternatives. And a very readily available alternative is dandelion root, which contain up to 40% inulin. From what I'm reading, this percentage is much lower in the spring than in autumn, as the plant uses the energy stored in the root as inulin to grow new shoots. So we'll see if it works as intended. If not, no big loss - we've weeded the lawn a bit.

Note: In addition to the more variable inulin content, another reason for recommending ginger root may be that dandelions are likely to have been exposed to pesticides and other environmental contaminants (we were careful not to pick ours in the dog yard, for example!), especially in more urban areas. If using dandelions or other wild-growing sources instead of store-bought ginger, make sure that you're reasonable certain your dandelions aren't contaminated. Also, people with ragweed (and, according to LemurDa, salicylate) allergies should be careful with dandelions, as they're common co-allergens. I'm not sure how big a deal that will be for the finished product, as the roots will be removed prior to making the actual soda, but I don't think LemurDa will risk trying this one.

I sent the kids out to dig up some dandelions, not realizing that this isn't exactly a simple task, especially given that LemurGirl has been picking the flowers for her bouquets, making them a little difficult to identify. LemurGirl brought in a few dandelion flowers, and LemurBoy ended up digging out a few root sections about an inch or so long and decided he was done, so I went out, located one, and dug up a good root about 8 inches long.

I washed the roots well, then LB chopped them up into little pieces. I put them in a jar that had previously been used to store sugar, and still had a bit caked onto the sides (recipes say to add some sugar along with the root). Cover the jar (some places say cheesecloth - maybe to let in airborne culture? I just closed the lid, because my understanding is that an anaerobic environment is what we're going for, and that leaving it covered with cheesecloth would be more about letting in wild occurring yeast). Let sit somewhere that maintains a temperature around 75F. Every day, add a little more chopped root and a little more sugar until you start to see bubbles appear (supposedly around 6 days). If mold occurs, skim it off the top, but if it keeps coming back you have to try again with cleaner supplies.

(Note: We're on well water. If you're doing this yourself and using city water, you'll want to either use filtered water or let the water sit out for a few days so that the chlorine in the water has a chance to evaporate.)

To Be Continued... (when something interesting happens, so possibly not for several days)

Chicken Bacon Apple Hash

2011-04-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Inspired by this post on Mothering.com, I decided to use up our leftover chicken and make a slightly more creative than usual lunch.

Chicken Bacon Apple Hash:

Leftover chicken (I used 3 drumsticks)
Apples (I used 2 very small red delicious. 1 normal apple would probably do)
Onion
Bacon (Approximately 2 strips? I dunno. We use the Daily's Ends and Pieces, which are inexpensive, thick cut, and delicious, but don't lend themselves to accurate measuring)
Cinnamon, garlic powder, sage (or whatever other spices you desire)

Chop onion and bacon into small bits, toss into the pan with your oil of choice, and fry for a bit. I just used about a tablespoon of the onion that I'll be frying up to throw in our soup for dinner - I'd have preferred a bit more, but the kids don't like onion. While the onions and bacon are frying, chop the apple into thin slices and the chicken into bite sized chunks. Throw them in the pan along with the bacon and onions. Sprinkle with spices, and stir around until the chicken is adequately reheated and the apples are a bit soft.

This made not really enough for two kids and one adult, but could easily be scaled up (or down).

They both loved it. Boy asked if I could make it for dinner sometime (I can, but it might make for a better breakfast, as originally suggested), and declared it one of his three best dinners. Pretty impressive, seeing as it was lunch. I thought it was good, but would have been way better with a more flavorful variety of apple. I'll definitely make it again!

More not necessarily Paleo chocolate recipes

2011-04-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, no promises on the perfect Paleo-ness of these, though they're overall healthier than the Jello. They're for a friend with breastfeeding food restrictions similar to mine. They contain cocoa and sugar. You can replace sugar with whatever sweetener you feel is most appropriate.

But everyone knows mamas need their chocolate sometimes. Even, perhaps especially, those with babies with food intolerances!

I often use half cocoa, half carob, simply because I like the taste of carob, especially combined with chocolate. If you do this (or use all carob), you may need to use less sweetener, as carob is naturally sweet.

These are all peanut/gluten free (assuming you use safe ingredients). I mention clarified butter a few times - this is butter with the milk solids removed. Many people with dairy sensitivities can tolerate it, but if your issue with dairy is serious (or you're vegan), just use coconut oil instead, as it's impossible to guarantee all milk protein has been removed. They behave similarly - solidish at room temperature, quite solid when refrigerated. If using coconut oil, be sure you're using good quality, unrefined coconut oil, and definitely not the stuff from the body care aisle. Egg is included in one recipe (I copied and pasted it before realizing it had egg and decided to leave it), but you should be able to replace it with one of the standard vegan egg replacements (banana, applesauce, flax seed...).

Quick and easy chocolate fix:
I usually use this in my coffee, but have been known to eat it plain, too. It's about the consistency of whipped cream.

Refrigerate coconut milk to thicken. Or, if you use a brand that separates into water and cream, don't bother with the refrigeration and just use the cream. Take a quarter cup or so. Stir in a spoonful of sugar and a spoonful of cocoa. Stir until well-mixed. Taste and adjust quantities as desired. Eat.

Quick and easy fudge (single serving):
1 tablespoon coconut oil or clarified butter
1 teaspoon cocoa
1 teaspoon sugar
Pinch of salt (optional - I didn't need it with my clarified butter version, but it might be necessary for coconut oil)

Mix ingredients together until well blended. Adjust quantities until it tastes right, isn't too dry, and isn't too wet. Chill until solid - this took about 1/2 hour for me. It's very rich - I can't eat the "single serving" all at once.

I shouldn't have invented this recipe. It's a little too easy and tasty.

Avocado-based Chocolate Pudding:
(Are avocados available at reasonable price and quality in the Great Frozen North? I apologize if not.)

1 Avocado
1 tbsp - 1/4 cup cocoa powder (adjust amount to taste based on size of avocado, strength of flavor, and how much you want to hide the avocado flavor)
Sweetener to taste (for sugar, about the same amount sugar as cocoa powder)
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
pinch of salt (optional)
A few slices of apple or some raisins (optional, but I feel it improves the flavor and texture. I've seen cooked sweet potato used for this, too.)
Non-dairy milk

Combine all ingredients except milk in food processor or blender (or you can mix by hand if you're leaving out the apple). Process/blend until smooth. If too thick, add non-dairy milk a tablespoonful or so at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Taste and add more cocoa and/or sweetener until you have the flavor you want - if you're saying, "Eww, this tastes like avocado," you probably haven't added enough.

This evolved into...

Spicy Chocolate Avocado Ice Cream:

2 avocados
Approximately equal amounts of cocoa powder and sweetener to taste (I used about 1/4 cup of each. I find plain sugar works best for me - honey doesn't work well with the avocado IMO).
A touch of vanilla
A little salt
1 apple, sliced (I actually used a pear this time, as we were out of apples.)
1 handful of raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
Cayenne pepper to taste (No really, I have no clue how much I used. Start conservative.)

Food process everything together until smooth (if you do the apples and raisins first, then add the avocado, then add the rest, it will probably get smoothest. On the other hand, the slight raisin chunks work for me). Add a little milk (I use coconut milk) to thin to ice cream batter consistency. Put in ice cream maker. If you don't thin it, it works well as a pudding, but it was really hot on the day I tried it, so I made ice cream.

(If you don't have an ice-cream maker, you might be able to freeze it in a thin layer, then break it up and food process once frozen.)

At first taste, the cayenne isn't apparent at all. Then the heat builds up :) I think I got it pretty much perfect, for my tastes anyways - there's definite heat, but it isn't painfully hot, or so hot that it overwhelms the rest of the flavors. I'm very happy with how it turned out, even though spicy chocolate isn't usually my favorite combo.

The cayenne is entirely optional if you don't like hot stuff.

The texture of this ice cream (whether spicy or not) is totally, utterly, amazing. Totally gourmet.

Sesame-raisin fudge:
Based on the recipe at http://goneraw.com/recipe/sesame-raisin-fudge. I used to make these to take on my 20 mile round trip bike ride to school.

1 and 1/2 cup sesame seeds
2 tbsp cocoa powder (original recipe called for carob or mesquite flour)
2 handfuls dried raisins
2 tbsp agave syrup or 1 tbsp honey in a little warm water
juice of one orange
2 tbsp water
cocoa powder for coating

Preparation:
Grind up the sesame seeds in grinder until very fine.
Add cocoa and mix in with your hands rubbing out any lumps.
Add the raisins, agave and orange juice. Mix in well.
Add 1 tablespoon water at a time until you have a dough that can easily be formed into shape. Roll small pieces into balls and place in a box with cocoa powder. Roll balls around until coated.

Birthday Cake:
I made this to accommodate some GF/CF guests at one of Boy's birthday parties. IMO, it turned out way better than the standard wheat-based cake. I make no claims that this is healthy.

1 cup almond flour (ground almonds)
1/3 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs (Oops, this has eggs. Try replacing them with some mashed bananas, or a bit more flax seed)
1/3 cup oil (I actually used 1/2 cup, and think it was a bit too much, but it contributed to the wonderful fudgyness. 1/3 cup might still be too much, or might be too little. I think 1/4 cup, as I originally put, would be too little. Might be able to successfully do half and half applesauce or something and oil)
2/3 cup bean puree (can of beans thrown in the food processor)
3/4 cup coconut milk

Combine wet ingredients. Combine dry ingredients. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until it looks done. Makes two 8-inch round pans.

Coconut Fudge:
5 cups dried coconut
1/2 cup honey (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa
2-3 tablespoons water (coffee would probably taste good, too, or maybe non-dairy milk)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Blend coconut in high-powered blender until butter-like (do small batches at a time - keep blending until the contents are no longer in contact with the blender baldes, then shake back down to the bottom and blend some more). Add honey, vanilla, cocoa and mix well. Stir in nuts if using. Spoon into greased pan. Cover with plastic wrap and smooth into a slab about 1/2 inch (1cm) thick. Chill before cutting - if it is hard to cut, let it de-chill a little.

And, of course... my Delicious Chocolate Jello.

Other recipes that look good but that I haven't personally tried:
http://happyherbivore.com/2009/05/vegan-blackbean-brownies/ - I've made the egg-containing version of these, and this is the recipe that is closest to my standard recipe. She replaces the egg with banana. They're especially good with a tsp of instant coffee powder. You could use a GF brand of oats, or presumably replace that with your favorite GF flour alternative. Or possibly leave it out entirely - the egg-containing version didn't use any sort of flour, and was fine that way.

If the batter tastes anything like the egg-containing version, it would work well as a milkshake, too (Uncooked, obviously. Possibly with a little added non-dairy milk if needed).

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=24531.0 is another version that suggests applesauce as the egg replacement, which might be a bit more flavor-neutral.

Halvah - http://homemade-recipes.blogspot.com/2010/01/sesame-or-tahini-halva-recipe-how-to.html
http://thehealthyeatingsite.com/chocolate-almond-sesame-halva/
http://www.suite101.com/content/recipes-using-sesame-tahini-paste--halva-sesame-cookies-a274902
This is also a good bet for store-bought (try a middle-eastern food store) - just be sure to check the ingredients, as some types of halvah are made with butter, semolina, or other things you don't want.

Coconut oil fudge:
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2008/12/easiest-healthiest-most-scrmptious.html
http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2009/12/healthy-homemade-fudge-a-great-gift.html (I'm going to guess this would be improved by a bit of salt)
http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/recipe_Coconut_Oil_Fudge_with_Nuts_and_Fruit.htm
I also want to try something like this with clarified butter.

Easy Clarified Butter

2011-04-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Clarified butter is butter oil from which all milk solids have been removed. It keeps longer than normal butter, and has a higher burning point, making it better for frying. It is becoming my new favorite thing, as the milk solids are what most people with problems with dairy are sensitive to, including Baby.

Most methods of making clarified butter involve cooking it on the stovetop. This requires attention, which I often have in relatively short supply. However, it's dead easy to do in a slow cooker.

Take some butter. Put it in a jar (you may be able to add some more once the first bit melts, if you can't fit multiple solid sticks in the jar). Put the jar in a crock pot, and fill the crock pot with water until at least half full (obviously, don't cover the mouth of the jar). Turn on low overnight or longer. The milk solids will rise to the top and be all foamy, or (depending on how long you cook it) settle to the bottom.

(I've seen instructions for doing this by putting butter straight into one of those little 1-2 qt crock pots, but we don't have one, so the water bath works for us.)

In the morning, spoon any foam off the top, then pour the butter oil through a fine strainer or cheesecloth into another container. If you want to be extra safe, do this very gently, and don't pour the last bit with the settled milk solids.

Baby tolerates the results without any obvious issue. I wouldn't suggest someone with a more serious allergy try it. Particularly not a life-threatening one.

You know you homeschool when...

2011-04-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

...you make smoothies out of the grape juice, apples, coconut milk, and the boiled cabbage used to make pH indicator fluid so that it won't go to waste.

Bonus: Since the grape juice (hand-pressed from grapes grown in our backyard) is rather brown, the cabbage gives it a lovely artificial-but-totally-natural purple color.

LG declared it better than grape soda.

Mexican Beef Stuff with Cauliflower Couscous

2011-04-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

This was the biggest hit yet, I think. Other than the pi pie, that is. Probably because I didn't attempt to season it myself.

* A Chuck roast. I supplemented ours with about a pound of ground beef
* 1/2 cup broth
* 1 jar salsa (mine was 16 oz. Larger wouldn't be a bad thing)

Put roast in crock pot - on low if it's properly defrosted and you're doing it in the morning. On high if you do it like me and stick it in there straight out of the freezer. Dump broth on roast. Dump salsa on roast. Cook until falling apart.

If you use a larger jar of salsa, you can probably skip the broth. I used the broth because we didn't have salsa at the time I started it. I added some extra water, as well, and it was a bit excessively wet, so I left the lid off for the last hour or so to let it cook down.

Couscous:

This was supposed to be "rice", but I over-processed it, so it was couscous. Oh well. I also made too much - cutting it in half would have been fine.

* 1 head cauliflower
* 1 onion
* several cloves of garlic
* Black pepper and cumin to taste

Dice onion, and fry in a bit of whatever you prefer to fry things in until transparent. While it is frying, food process the cauliflower and garlic until approximately the consistency of rice (or couscous). Toss in with the onion and fry it a bit.

Put meat mixture on top of couscous. Or mix them together, or whatever. Eat.

Everyone ate this. LemurDa said he liked the couscous better than normal rice, but didn't eat much of that part, as he wasn't sure how it was for the low-carb thing (as far as I can tell, it's fine - it's presented as "low carb" rice replacement at least as often as paleo). So did Housemate. LemurBoy said it was awesome (with cheese and sour cream). LemurGirl ate up most of the meat part, anyways. I liked it. Housemate and AutisticGirl liked it.

We'll see how Baby does with the salsa.

I think we'll make it again if Baby can deal ok.

Delicious Chocolate Jello

2011-04-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

1 package (4 serving size) Jello, in the flavor of your choice. I used orange this time. Cherry is also good. Sugar-free is probably fine.
1 cup boiling water
1 cup coconut milk (dairy milk, cream, soy milk, or whatever you prefer would probably work)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Mix Jello with boiling water as directed.

Mix cocoa powder into coconut milk until smooth. Pour coconut milk into liquid Jello in place of additional water. Stir well. Refrigerate four hours or so.

This has a tendency to separate into layers. If this is not desired, stir after 2-3 hours - when it has some form, but isn't quite set.

It's also tasty this way without the cocoa powder.

If you use a different size of Jello, just adjust amounts appropriately - the milk replaces the cold water.

I admit, I really did just prepared this. That part is not April Fools.

Posting it here, on the other hand...

Should you want to make this in a vaguely more paleo-friendly manner, or at least a healthier manner, use plain gelatin (you could even make it yourself with your leftover bones, but I'm not clear on how to do that and have it not taste like meat) or agar mixed with fruit juice for the gel part.

This is not an April Fool's joke

2011-04-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm working on an secular/inclusive CM/WTM-based lit-based curriculum. If you'd like to join in, go to http://livinglit.wikispot.org/.

Our quasi-CM DITL

2011-03-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

As requested on the Secular Homeschooling forum...

For those not already familiar, LemurBoy is 7, LemurGirl is 4.5 (and all work being done is on her own initiative! I always feel I need to make that disclaimer), and the baby is 5 months. We're roughly following the schedule at Ambleside Online, with Story of the World substituted for history (though we've listened to An Island Story as an audiobook, too). I'm not sure, at this point, whether we're closer to Charlotte Mason or WTM-style classical. Both are influences.

All times are approximate. Assume various kid snacks, nursings, diaper changes, and potty breaks that aren't noted did happen.

Get up, kids get dressed, LemurBoy goes out to feed the pony after a bit of whining, and everyone eats breakfast - bacon and eggs for everyone but me, bacon and leftover soup for me because Baby doesn't tolerate eggs well. One of my slices of bacon for Baby, who clearly expressed she wanted some, and then tried desperately to get it to her mouth but failed to ingest anything, which is why I gave it to her in the first place. Done by about 8:15.

8:15 - I sit down at the computer with my coffee (2nd cup. 1st was with breakfast) to catch up on stuff and nurse the baby before doing the breakfast dishes. The kids take their respective computers to the couch (LemurGirl's is a v-tech toy thing, LemurBoy's is an OLPC). LB is trying to look up prices of Bakugan battle gear. Joy. A group of cows gets driven by on the road outside our house and we all run out to watch. The calves are so cute! (Need a video of this).

8:30ish: LemurDa comes in and tells the kids that, guess what! They're making walnut boats with me today! No, this has not been discussed with me. I be responsible/buy some time by saying LB has to do his math, handwriting, and reading first, and both kids need to get the rats' nests out of their hair. This backfires slightly, as LB wants to do his reading right then and there. Oh well, the internet will wait.

8:45: Complete a few pages of Hooked on Phonics with LB. He's so close to done with this level - one HOP book left to read, which he wants to do later today (our goal was to be done with this level by the end of March, so we should make that!).

9:00: LB starts on a page of Math Mammoth (we're covering money). He gets it mostly right, and the ones he gets wrong are obviously an attention issue rather than lack of understanding. Except the $3 bill. He figured if there were $1 and $2 dollar bills, there must be $3 bills as well... He corrects the ones he got wrong. LG wants some money Math Mammoth too, so I print her off a page from the 1-B books, but it's still beyond her - she's shaky on the concept of numbers past 20 still. After much fit-throwing on her part and my insistence that we need to build more of a foundation before doing the money (no, I did not actually use the phrase "building more of a foundation" with her), she settles down to a 0-6 addition facts worksheet, which she gets all correct except one.

9:20: I spray detangler and brush LBs hair. He cries. I say I want to cut his hair. Eventually it gets basically untangled and I put it in a ponytail. This is our regular ritual. Repeat with LG. Thankfully, her hair untangles pretty easily without significant crying, and I stick it in two pigtails, her favorite style.

9:30: Internet a bit more (and another cup of coffee) while LB does his handwriting and LG works on her math some more. I internally debate whether walnut boats are a handicraft (toymaking) or a futility. Not that it matters, as they're now excited about it either way.

9:45: LB is done with copywork (a short Jack Prelutsky poem, plus his full name and the numbers 0-9. He traces the printout (created at http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/dnealian/paragraph/index.html) one day, then copies it on his own the next.)

I cover the table with newspaper and get out the paints. Kids paint walnut shells. LG throws fit at the suggestion of using playdough in the bottom of the boat to hold the masts up, so I google for a good alternative. Find this Waldorf homeschool blog entry suggesting melted broken crayons. Broken crayons we have, so we gather them up and start peeling the wrappers off. LG is not particularly happy about this plan either, but accepts it in place of the playdough.

I set up a double boiler with a pot of water and a glass jar, throw the crayons into it. They start melting. I stir it a bit with one of the sticks we're using for masts (long thin reed-like things from our window blinds, which we had to shorten to keep them from dragging on the floor, so we have hundreds lying around waiting for a project like this). LB asks to stir, so I let him.

LG starts trying to pull the chair out from under LB because she wants to do it too, and it's really HER chair. I march her to the bedroom for time out because pulling the chair out from under someone standing at the stove is dangerous. She cries and cries.

Sometime while I'm busy with LG, LB stirs a little over-enthusiastically, and dumps the glass jar over into the water, getting water into it. I throw my hands up in the air and stomp around the house ranting like a maniac for a few minutes, then pour some more coffee, because it's definitely turning into that sort of day.

LemurDa comes in and finds LG having dramatic fits in her bedroom, me throwing dramatic fits around the house, and a total mess of a kitchen. He informs me that if I pour off most of the water and let the remaining water and wax cook for a bit, the water will boil off. Well, that's good. I search through the kids' box of random junk and dig up a few more broken crayons to throw in, as well as a tub of playdough that has turned a rather odd mustardy color that I suspect LG won't be too attached to, just in case the wax doesn't work out.

(LG has gotten out of time out, and we've had cuddles and hugs and talked in a calmer way about why it's dangerous and that I still love her and so forth.)

Once the crayons are all melted (into a decidedly un-Waldorfy grayish color), I pour some into each of LG's boats, helping her hold the masts up until they cool adequately. LB chooses to use the playdough instead. The kids cut sails out of paper and attach them to the masts. They float them in a bowl of water. Mission accomplished! Except that LB's tip over and the playdough gets yucky. LemurDa reframes this into an experiment - now we know why water-soluble playdough is not as good a choice as water-insoluble wax. If I were a really good homeschool mom I'd go drag out the chemistry book and explain this hydrophilic vs. hydrophobic in more detail, but I'm not, so I didn't.

11:15: Discover LG has paint all over her shirt. She'd asked for a paint shirt, and I'd said no because we weren't using *much* paint and she shouldn't be getting it all over herself. Famous last words. Oh well, it's water-soluble. Hopefully it will come out. I do internet stuff while nursing the baby to sleep so that I can work on lunch. LG asks to listen to They Might Be Giants. Sure! She asks me to turn it back off once we get past the song sung by a woman, which is the only part she actually likes.

11:30: Baby is asleep. I put her down on her pillow. She wakes and starts crying. I swaddle her up and nurse her some more.

11:45: The kids are whining about how hungry they are. The baby is looking up at me with big, utterly non-sleepy eyes. I give up, stick her in her booster seat, and start frying hamburgers for lunch. Thankfully, she is happy enough with this.

12:15: We eat lunch. LB has cheeseburgers with mustard and mayo on lettuce buns. LG has plain burger patties with cheese on the side. I have plain burgers on lettuce (because Baby doesn't tolerate dairy, either), and a sliced apple with cinnamon and ginger sprinkled on it. Baby has a slice of my apple (sans spice), which she never actually manages to pick up, but is thrilled to be able to push around her tray. The kids, for once, both eat without complaining. LB asks if we each got 1/3 of a lb of meat and we discuss fractions a bit. LG asks whether Annie or Pippi is stronger. LB says he's finished and asks if he may please have a carrot. I decide that perhaps they're cute, and maybe I'll keep them.

12:30: I do the breakfast AND lunch dishes. The kids go outside. Mail arrives, including a cute little plastic bag containing... trees! The Arbor Foundation has an offer for 10 "free" (with $10 membership purchase) trees. We chose the Blue Spruce. I decide I need to take pictures of all this stuff we're doing to go with this post, and send LB to go get the camera out of the workshop. He decides he's going to take some pictures himself. That's ok. He, at 7, is a better photographer than I am.

1:00: The kids go back outside with our housemate to prepare a spot to plant the trees. We watch a second herd of cattle get driven by (actually, this must have happened earlier, or I'd have gotten a video of it). Then I go to start up a load of laundry that I should have started this morning. I discover LemurDa's shop stuff is piled all over the washer. I leave the laundry basket there and go back to retrieve a rather unhappy BabyLemur, who gets nursed for a while. I try swaddling her so maybe she'll sleep soundly, but she really is not happy with that, so I unbundle her again. I turn TMBG back on and listen to The Edison Museum ("So when your children quarrel, and nothing seems to quell them, just tell them that you'll take them to the Edison Museum..."), but turn it off before the Sleepwalker song, which is way too creepy for me. I check my phone and see a missed call from a Davis number, which I google. It's apparently a dentist's office. None of us have ever been to this particular dentist, so I decide not to bother checking voicemail and wading through 30 messages from the library informing me of held books ready for pickup that I also haven't checked.

1:45: LG starts haranguing to do Starfall, and after a minute to finish up what I'm doing, I let her take over the computer. Baby is asleep, so I put her in her infant seat and carry her to the bathroom so I can FINALLY shower. She wakes just before I get in. Oh well, too bad Baby. I gotta get clean. Thankfully, she is perfectly content to sit in her chair and play with her blankie until I'm done.

2:00: Finish shower, dry off, and get dressed. Baby is at the limits of her patience, so I nurse her some more while using the laptop in the bedroom to compose this post up to this point. LG is still playing with Starfall, then comes into the bedroom with me and plays with her Leapster. She says it's too cold to go outside. It's at least the mid-50's, but I decide I don't feel like pressing the point.

3:00: LB comes running in yelling that Da got them a new game to play in the grass, which convinces LG to abandon her Leapster game and go outside to see. I take the opportunity to eat a few pistachios while there are no kids around to demand their share. Then I go out to check out this game and to see if my ever-so-subtle hint of a full basket of laundry has been taken and the washing machine cleared off (ladderball, whatever that is, and yes, it was).

3:10: Go out to ask DH if he'll be home for dinner (he generally has darts on Tuesday evenings) and if he's planning to grill the pork chops tonight, or if I'll be cooking them. He says that yes he'll be out tonight, and he's grilling the pork chops tomorrow. What the heck are we supposed to have tonight then? I'd been planning on the pork chops and haven't defrosted anything. He says we had this conversation (no we didn't. I think he probably had it with our housemate while I was in the room but not paying attention), and that we have some catfish nuggets, so I pull those out of the freezer to defrost.

3:20: I want to go out and hoe in the garden and get out some of my pent-up frustration, but still have a painful blister on my hand from doing the same on Sunday, so it's probably not a great idea. So I settle down to update this post, edit photos, and nurse Baby again. LD and kids are outside yelling "Yay!" periodically while playing ladderball. Baby stops nursing, gives me an adorable smile, and indicates she wants to play kissy game by grabbing my face and pulling it towards her to give me a big, open-mouth, sloppy kiss on the cheek. Then I kiss her cheek, and we repeat for a while. Then I set her down on her pillow while I go look for the USB cord so that I can take care of those photos. She happily babbles away and chews her toes. Babies rock.

Ok, no more pictures unless something really cool happens.

4:00: I hear shrieking from outside. LG is apparently trying to break the game because she wants to be done and LB wants to keep going. LemurDa carries her inside and puts her in the bedroom, where I enforce a time-out, then get her calmed down and discuss how she could better have handled the situation (just walk away). We head to the couch and read Field Trip Facts: Notes From Ms. Frizzle's Kids, which I didn't realize we owned until she pulled it off the shelf. LB came in and listened along.

4:15: LG and LB head to the spare bedroom to watch their daily movie - LG's choice today, and it sounds like she chose a Pippi movie. I go to the workshop to retrieve the laundry, and hang the dishtowels and napkins on the line, because they're thin enough to hopefully dry before dark (and ok to stay outside overnight if not). I'd usually hang everything, but I don't think the heavier stuff will dry since I got it started so much later than intended, so I'll hang the clothing inside. Then I sit down to update this and work on the photos some more. And, of course, nurse the baby, who falls asleep.

5:00: Publish photos to Flickr. Attempt to publish photos to Facebook, but Shotwell has the "add to existing album" option greyed out. Google to find a solution to this. The solution is "Rebuild from source". I decide I ain't messin' with that, export the photos, and stick them on FB manually. Consider whether to continue using FB for photos at all, or just cross-post with Flickr, given content-ownership issues. Think about dinner - it'll probably take 10 minutes to prepare and 15-20 to cook, and we want dinner on the table between 6:00 and 6:30, so I should probably start it around 5:45 or a bit earlier. Add photos to post.

5:45: Stick Baby in high chair and start dinner. Preheat oven to 375F. Put olive oil, lemon pepper, and Old Bay spice on fish. Stick in oven for 15 minutes once it finishes preheating (it ended up needing an extra 5 minutes, too). Make salads, wash accumulated dishes, clean up kitchen and dining table from the day's adventures, and retrieve and fold towels and napkins from the laundry line while it cooks. The kids set the table and whine about how hungry they are. I finished folding just as the timer buzzed. It was totally impressive.

6:20: Dinner on table. LB and housemate discuss Egyptian hieroglyphics.

6:30 (no, dinner didn't last very long tonight - it tends to be very informal when Da is out): Kids run back outside to play ladderball some more while it is still light. I nurse the baby and internet some more. I intend to hang the laundry but the kids come back in before she settles down enough.

6:45: LB reads the last HOP book to LG, Baby, and I, puts his sticker in the chart, and stuck that box back on the shelf for good! Or at least until LG is ready for it. Then they poked through the box for the next level box for a bit.

I give LB a choice between a chapter of Pagoo and Story Of The World. Unsurprisingly, he chose SOTW. We're currently on Chapter 31 - Exploring New Worlds. We split this chapter in two, since we had lots of supplemental books about Columbus, so we read Columbus last week and Vespucci and Magellan this week. Then LB put Vespucci and Magellan's voyages on a world map, and added Erik the Red and Leif Erikson of his own accord (Cub Scout Geography Pin requirement #4). Worked with LG on reading, doing the first section of Progressive Phonics intermediate book #3.

7:30: Told the kids that they could agree on a short movie as long as they got ready for bed first (to avoid delays after). They chose Scooby Doo. Joy. I retrieve LB's mp3 player and stick his post-bedtime-story-story on it - he has a choice, for tonight, between the Howard Pyle version of Robin Hood and A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. He chooses Robin Hood. We're doing Robin Hood CM-style, at a chapter a week, so getting it is a bit of a treat. Then I hand baby off to housemate so I can get the laundry hung up, since it really can't sit wet all night. She screams. Baby that is, not housemate. I get it hung up as fast as possible and nurse the baby. Again.

8:00: Kids are done with their movie, and head to bed. We're reading Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark, about a young llama-herding boy in the modern day Andes mountain, which supposedly also incorporates Incan history and mythology (we haven't quite reached that part yet), as we'll be reaching that section in Story of the World very soon. Make a mental note to try to find an example of the simple, quick, llama-hide sandals mentioned in the book, as we have plenty of leather (though not llama-leather) to do stuff with.

8:30: I finish reading two chapters. The darn mp3 player (a Sansa Shaker) isn't working properly, so I have to reload it. It totally sucks, especially for audiobooks. When we can manage it, we need to get him a better one with an actual user interface. The baby (and LB, for that matter) fell asleep during the reading, so I'm toting her around attempting not to wake her.

8:45: I sit down to finish this and post it around. Then I'll get ready for bed, which will undoubtedly involve another 5 minutes of baby screaming while I change, brush my teeth, etc. Then I'll get her back to sleep and probably read some of my book (April Fool's Day by Bryce Courtenay, which I really do need to get finished as I don't have any renewals left. Hey, let's see if I can finish it on April 1st! I kinda doubt it, as I have more than half left and I'm usually getting in twenty minutes at bedtime, but that would be funny), and maybe do a few sudoku. I'm nearly finished with all the ones on my phone, and am trying to finish the ones I'm stuck on before downloading more. I've finished 384, ranging in difficulty from easy to hard (mostly medium), since we moved in late July. Such an exciting life!

The day was both typical and not. We don't do crazy art projects every day (relatively rarely, in fact, which is probably why I get Shanghai'd into them). Nor do we regularly receive trees in the mail. But the general academics were about typical - we do math, writing, and reading every day (or nearly so, anyways). Other subjects (history, science, foreign language, original writing rather than copywork, artsy stuff) tend to happen a few times a week. Time outside, often involving working on the garden or yard, happens as weather allows, which it is doing more and more these days.

Two helpful videos

2011-03-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

I don't spend a lot of time watching videos online, and rarely click on ones people recommend, post of Facebook, or whatnot.

These two are very worth it if you're dealing with the issues they address.

This video on pencil grip may (minorly) change my life. I've had an improper pencil grip since Kindergarten. My teacher worked on it with me for ages, and gave me pencil grips and all that, and eventually gave up. People still sometimes comment on my odd grip.

I tried the (quick, easy) exercises, and the pencil really does just naturally fall into the correct position.

Definitely going to try this with the kids, neither of whom has a correct grip, and I'm also going to see if I can learn to write correctly myself. It'll take some practice, since my muscles aren't used to writing that way. But having a proprioceptive mneumonic should help.

This video about B/D confusion seems to have finally gotten the point across to LemurBoy (and possibly Girl, too). It's aimed at the teachers, and you may want to watch it yourself and determine whether it's something you want your kids watching (Nothing particularly offensive, but I now find Boy saying "No Die Die!" and dissolving into giggles every time he runs across a b or d word...).

Some of his other videos look good, too.

In the good moments...

2011-03-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Lemur Boy and Girl are sitting quietly on the floor, playing with an organic chemistry modeling set. He's building her a diamond out of carbon.

Probably not a structurally accurate diamond, but it's the thought that counts.

Cranberry Beef Stew, Um... Potatoes, and Beef Hearts

2011-03-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

LemurDa had suggested beef stew for dinner, so I made that.

We had a beef bone left over from our St. Patrick's Day Not-Corned Beef (that's what we get for not planning ahead!), so I tossed that, along with a soup bone and some water, into the crock pot on low overnight. In the morning, I chopped up some beef (probably 3ish lbs), browned it in the skillet with some bacon grease and spices (black pepper, cumin, and garlic powder I think), and tossed that in the crock-pot, too, along with some chopped up celery and root vegetables - 2 carrots and half a rutabaga (if I'm not mistaken). I chopped up and fried an onion and some garlic in the same pan I'd used for the beef, and tossed that in as well. At some point I added some more black pepper, cumin, hot sauce, a dash of basalmic vinegar, and worchestire sauce.

I kept feeling that it needed something more, and eventually, I hit on the bag of cranberries that was sitting in the freezer. Googling the idea to ensure I wasn't totally crazy, I found that other people had, in fact, had the same inspiration (this should not be a surprise. Not much is unique on the internet. I found, for example, that I'm not the only person who has literally dreamed up a recipe for Avocado Pie). So I tossed in the cranberries. LemurDa wasn't be crazy about that addition, but I told him to pick out the meat bits. The stew was already full of root veggies since I wanted it to be more than chunks of beef in broth, so he'd have to do that anyways.

Verdict:
* B said it was good.
* Autistic Girl ate it without comment or complaint.
* LemurBoy ate a bit, but didn't like it.
* I think LemurDa liked the meaty bits ok.
* LemurGirl was very happy eating the carrots and the pieces of meat with fat on them. She loves the fatty bits, and is always asking for more fat, which makes me cringe a little from a standard Western medicine point of view. But she's a child whose brain is still growing, so I try not to get too worked up about it. She asked for another piece with fat as a treat before bed.
* Me... eh. It was good-ish, but I'd imagined the cranberries as providing nice little plump bursts of tartness, when they actually provided little mushy bits of sour. They may not have been the best quality cranberries, and I probably would have gotten results more in line with my imagination if I'd used dried cranberries. I also should have removed some of the broth from the pot in the morning and saved it for something else before adding the ingredients. Without any paleo-appropriate thickener (most stew recipes use flour and/or cornstarch), it was way too brothy for a stew.

Baby tried out her new high chair for the first time, and I was able to actually eat dinner with both hands free until she got too fussy and had to be held. Very unusual these days, that.

Um... Potatoes. That's our new name for parsnips around these parts. LemurGirl adores potatoes, but they have a noticable effect on her behavior, so we don't do them anymore. But she'll happily accept cooked parsnips as potatoes. So we call them Um... Potatoes. Then send Boy to his room if he tries to insist that "Actually, they're Bunicula'd carrots".

Last night's recipe was an organ meat curry that, unfortunately, is really not worth writing about. Definitely not as good as the chili. Even the beef heart was a disappointment. I got it out all ready to totally do Anatomy Lesson with Boy before chopping it up for curry, and discovered that the heart was actually a half a heart, and not cut along a particularly useful plane. Someone else got most of the valves.

I did get to stick my finger through the hole between the right atrium and inferior vena cava, though. That was kind of cool.

52in52 #3 and 4 - System of the World and Papa Married a Mormon

2011-03-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

System of the World by Neal Stephenson really shouldn't count for 52in52, as I started it before the start of this year. Well before the start of this year. Possibly even before the start of the previous year. In fact, I have the previous book in the cycle listed as a 2008 book, so it may well have been started in 2008.

I started the first book of the cycle in late 2003.

I was at about 75% of the way through System in early October, and posted a poll on FB asking whether I'd finish the book or the baby first. The results were unanimously in favor of the baby. Thank goodness they were right.

What a slog. I can't believe I read the whole thing, as Ramona Quimby said.

That said... I have this strange urge to start it all over again, on the theory that the whole thing will make a bit more sense now that I have a better idea of the bigger picture. It wasn't unenjoyable, just long and dense, with a little too much digression.

But first I need to learn more about that period of history, in order to better distinguish history from wild confabulation. Probably next year, when we reach that point in Story of the World. Just to keep things on-topic for this blog. And I'm not sure if I find it disturbing or satisfying that I'm starting to rely on SOTW for all the stuff I apparently never actually learned and/or retained my first time through grade school.

I actually finished Papa Married A Mormon a few weeks ago, breaking my long streak of not being able to finish a book, but didn't get around to writing anything about it. I checked it out from the library, and as I approached the due date, found that I couldn't renew it because someone else had reserved it. This is a book that had been checked out twice, including my checkout, since 2003. Go figure. At least it encouraged me to take the time to finish it!

This was a fun book - a biography/autobiography written by John D. Fitzgerald, author of The Great Brain series. It's much in the same vein as that series, but written for an adult audience. Anyone who loved The Great Brain should enjoy this book, which provides a bit more background on the family, which is more-or-less based on Fitzgerald's own.

Pi Day

2011-03-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

Since yesterday was Pi Day (3/14), I was obligated to make pie. For the kids, of course.

I followed the inspiration of http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/06/how-to-make-a-raw-fruit-pie/, and made a frozen berry "ice cream" pie.

Crust:
1.5ish cups almonds (hazelnuts, pecans, or coconut would be good too, or a picture)
a few spoonfuls of clarified butter (plain butter or coconut oil would work, too)
It would probably taste and hold together a little better with a few dates or something thrown in, but it was fine. The clarified butter was a good choice, flavor-wise.
A dash of cinammon

Filling:
1 lb berries (I used frozen blackberries because that's what was least expensive.)
1 apple
Coconut milk. 1 cupish? Less than a full can.
A few spoonfuls lime marmalade (not paleo - lime juice/zest and a little honey or something would probably do fine, or you could probably skip the sweetener if you were using good, fresh, ripe in-season berries.
Good big dashes of cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom.

I also drizzled some syrup (the fake-maple pancake stuff) on top. That was good, but could easily be left out or replaced with something else. What can I say? We have this stuff that needs using up and I hate wasting food, even if it's actually "food".

Process nuts in food processor until coursely ground. Add butter or oil and cinnamon and process a bit more. Press mixture into bottom of pie pan, about 1/4" thick.

Process apple and about 1/2 to 2/3 of the berries together. Add coconut milk, marmalade (or lime) and spices and process a bit more, until it's like a thick smoothie. You could do this in a blender, in fact, but why get more than one appliance dirty? Pour mixture over crust.

Arrange remaining berries artfully across the top of the pie. Or just scatter them around if you're unartistic like me.

I should have arranged them in a Pi symbol. Darnit.

Freeze.

You probably want to take it out 5-10 minutes before attempting to cut to let it thaw a bit.

Verdict:
The kids, B, and I really enjoyed it. It was a bit too high on the glycemic index for everyone else. Warning: This is energy food! No one was tired after eating it, which is a problem at near-bedtime. I served the rest to the kids this afternoon before sending them to play outside.

I'm kind of surprised the kids enjoyed it so much - between the nuts, lime, cardamom, and low sugar content (relative to most SAD desserts, that is), the taste seems a bit more adult-oriented. But like it they did.

I think it would have been excellent with a spoonful of cocoa thrown in somewhere. In fact, I meant to include some cocoa or carob in the crust (probably carob, since it's naturally sweet), but forgot. Dark cocoa chips/chunks mixed into the filling would have been even better.

As far as I can tell, the baby did ok with the clarified butter, and that provided a good flavor for the crust. I've done similar pies before when we were eating a raw diet, and I think this crust was by far the tastiest.

Dinner was fish. I didn't make it, but it was just basic catfish fillets. I believe they just had some spices sprinkled on top, and were baked for 15-20 minutes at 385F.

The kids love fish, and ate it all up, leaving no seconds for the adults.

A SAD Kid's Nightmare Chili

2011-03-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I didn't like liver.

I had a Sesame Street book including a princess character who loved liverwurst sandwiches, and my mom convinced me to try liverwurst on the basis of that. I liked liverwurst ok, but I still didn't like liver.

In college, one of my dormmates was originally from India. Her mother sent her back to the dorm after a weekend at home with a container of Indian-spiced chicken livers. I gingerly tried one. It was really good, prepared that way. But I still didn't like plain liver.

I had liverwurst again as an adult, and still liked it.

Then one day our housemate threw some sliced up liver in the soup. It was good. It was better than good. It fulfilled a hunger I didn't even know I had.

And I realized that I'd always liked liver. I'd just been told by various media that I didn't.

Tonight, I was a little stuck on what to eat for dinner, so I looked in the freezer. We had a pound of ground beef (too little to do much with in a house with 6 eaters), a similar quantity of pork labeled "for chili", and 3 lbs of steaks. I took the ground beef and pork and threw them in the crock pot, along with a cup or so of the chicken stock I made from the chicken stock a few nights ago. Half of a pepper from the stuffed peppers remained, and some carrots in beef broth from last nights dinner, so I threw them in, too.

SAD Kid Nightmare #1 - Leftovers.

I processed an onion and some garlic and threw them in, spiced it up (cumin, garlic powder, a bit of dried mustard, a bit of cinnamon, a half spoonful of sage, a spoonful of cocoa powder (see?), and a small small amount of chili powder so the pickies wouldn't be put off. Everyone else can add more hot if needed), and left it for a while.

I tasted it, and it seemed a bit flat. I spiced it up a bit more. LemurDa finally sent a message saying he would be eating at home, and I thought it wasn't quite a big enough chili considering that, so I went poking around to see what else I could add.

I found SAD Kid Nightmare #2 - liver.

Looking around at chili recipes online while it cooked, I found one that included spinach. We had spinach, so Sad Kid Nightmare #3 got added.

Verdict:

* LemurDa is out, and may or may not eat some when he returns (the tomato paste is probably a bit high Glycemic Index)
* B says it is her new favorite way to do liver.
* Autistic Girl ate it without comment or complaint.
* LemurGirl at first refused, but deigned to eat all the carrot bits I picked out for her, and was, in fact, quite enthusiastic about them. As they were coated in chili, that's a win.
* LemurBoy says he liked it, but ate 4 slices of pizza at a birthday party earlier, and said he wasn't hungry. I'm not sure if this was the truth (I'm sure the pizza part was true, not so sure about the like part), or a white lie. (Edit: Seems to have been a white lie - he said the next day that he didn't like it very much and didn't want his leftovers for lunch.)
* I loved it. It tasted just right. The liver added a creaminess and flavor that had been missing, and it really tasted like chili.

We'll see how Baby reacts. I'm not sure she tolerates tomatoes.

(Yesterday's dinner was nothing worth writing about. A pork roast thrown in the crock pots with some carrots and a cup of beef broth. It turned out kinda dry. The only win was that LemurGirl happily ate it because I was able to give her a piece with lots of fat on it. I still shudder at this, even though I'm supposed to get over the whole "fat is bad" thing.)

Roast chicken

2011-03-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

When I was little, my mom would make us the dinner of our choice for our birthdays. I always chose roasted chicken.

Then I grew up, moved away, asked her how to make it, and felt a little dumb for letting her off the hook so easy all those years.

Preheat oven to 375F. Stick chicken parts in pan. Drizzle with olive oil (or oil of your choice). Sprinkle with whatever seasonings you happen to feel like using (garlic and dill was her standard. Tonight I used garlic, Old Bay, and something else that I can't remember now. And salt, but that's a paleo no-no, so pretend you didn't see that. I did not add cocoa powder). Stick in oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until juices run clear.

You can stick chopped up veggies in the pan with it before doing all the oil and seasoning. Many do fine with the 45 minutes, but brocolli only needs about 20.

Verdict:
* LemurDa wasn't home.
* Autistic Girl ate it without comment or complaint.
* B ate it without comment or complaint.
* I thought I totally nailed the seasonings this time. It was tasty.
* The picky kids gobbled it. LemurGirl got upset that hers wasn't cool right away and she had to wait a few minutes. She only ate one drumstick, but that's a hit compared to most dinners these days. LemurBoy ate two drumsticks.

With a prep time of about 2 minutes and it being about the only thing both pickies will happily eat, I'm not sure why I don't make this more often.

Bones are being saved for stock once we finish with the leftovers.

Stuffed Bell Pepper Boats

2011-03-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

The other day I got the sudden urge to make stuffed bell peppers. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it's something I've ever had before. It just seemed something that might be visually appealing to the pickies and a good use way of integrating veggies.

Recipe:

3 bell peppers (we have agreed to wait until they're in season to get them again, because they're expensive now)
3 lbs ground beef
1 zucchini (standard grocery store size, not mondo garden size)
A few handfuls of grated cheese
One onion
A bunch of cloves of garlic
A few handfuls of spinach
Some bacon
Cumin (probably about 1 tsp)
Garlic powder to taste (we like garlic around here)
Lemon Pepper to taste
Leftover beef/pork drippings from a previous dinner

Preheat oven to 375F. Cut bell peppers in half lengthwise (you can also just cut the tops off, but this way stretched the three peppers across six people), clean out the seeds. Grate cheese and zucchini. Peel garlic and onion, and food process along with the spinach into smallish chunks (probably could have just thrown the zucchini in there, too). Chop bacon. Mix veggies, cheese, bacon, and spices with meat. Stuff meat mixture into peppers. Pour leftover drippings (or broth, or tomato sauce) over the top. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes.

I actually made half of these with cheese and the other half not (no cheese for me, AutisticGirl, or LemurGirl, who likes cheese but not melted in stuff). I meant to leave the zucchini out of part of it for low-carbing LemurDa, but the baby was fussing up a storm, and I got mixed up and didn't manage that.

This actually made enough for two small loaf pans of meatloaf in addition to the stuff peppers, which is interesting, since I thought I used the same amount of meat to make two just slightly larger pans of meatloaf the other day. I imagine the zucchini added significantly to the bulk.

Verdict:

* LemurDa liked it, but doesn't want that much in the way of veggies right now.
* B thought the bacon and cheese made for an excellent combination, and that the peppers were very good. I'm sure I would agree if I could do cheese.
* AutisticGirl ate it without comment or complaint, as usual.
* LemurBoy loved the meat, said the broth smelled good, had seconds of the meat, and wants it for lunch tomorrow, but didn't eat the pepper.
* I thought I might have a winner for LemurGirl. I called them boats, and cunningly offered to trade my "prettier" red boat for her yellow boat. She enthusiastically accepted, talked about how pretty they were... then refused to eat more than her requisite bite. And then wouldn't let anyone else eat her pepper because it was pretty.
* I thought it was very tasty. The broth inside the pepper was absolutely amazing and I wish there was more of it. I'll be eating LemurGirl's for breakfast tomorrow.

Reinventing The Wheel

2011-03-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

I'm busy reinventing the wheel. AKA developing a Charlotte Mason/Well-Trained Mind secularly-oriented curriculum.

Why? Because it gives me something to do other than check the state Board of Nursing website 50 times a day to see if my license has gone through yet. And homeschooling the kiddos, of course.

I'm taking booklists from a number of different sources - AO, Tanglewood, Sonlight, Beautiful Feet, Mater Amabalis, my own memory - and trying to integrate them appropriately. That's a ton of books. No way is anyone in their right mind going to use them all. But so many of them are *good*!

So what I'm thinking:

SOTW is the spine for grades 1-4. For 5-8 I hope to find something that follows roughly the same schedule so that families with multiple children can work together easily (OTOH, built in review is useful). However, I also want something more comprehensive.

Each 14 week trimester will have an associated "classic" focus, to be read slowly over the course of the trimester, CM-style, and this will be the focus for geography.

In addition, there will be a bunch of free reading/read-aloud choices each week.

US History:
This is something I'm kinda mixed up on. I understand doing US history only in the context of world history (as it is in Story Of The World). I understand doing it parallel, as it's handled in most CM-based curriculums. Doing it within the context of world history makes the most sense to me personally, but I can't help feeling that this leaves kids woefully lacking in US history for quite a while, especially those who need to follow state standards or do standardized testing (though I don't think the lower Elementary tests focus much on US history, so presumably this isn't actually an issue).

Really undecided. I keep going back and forth on this. If I do it parallel, it will probably be something like 1st grade - Native Americans, basic US facts, 2nd - explorers through Revolutionary War, 3rd - Everything else, 4th - State History to be determined by the parent (coinciding with many state standards). That's not actually far off of the WTM rotation, especially since elementary US History doesn't really seem to go much past the Civil War and westward expansion.

Religion:
Most of the existing literature-based curriculums include Bible study. I plan to replace this with a focus on World Religions, hopefully tied into history in some meaningful way. Possibly a 2 year rotation.

Science:
Up to this point, we've primarily unschooled science, and I'd like to work out something more organized. Primarily a living books focus for 1-4, roughly following the WTM rotation? Actually, at this age, I think a 2 year rotation might make more sense.

Arts:
Composer Study starting in 3rd, tied to history

Life Skills:
Handicrafts, cooking, survival skills, etc.

Foreign Language:
To be determined by parent. We plan to do Latin all the way through, and probably start another language around 5th or 6th grade, and hopefully another before graduation.

Math:
To be determined by parent. Maybe make some living book recommendations.

Scouting:
It would be fun to integrate scout badge/pin/belt loop requirements/4-H stuff (if applicable) into all this.

Oops

2011-02-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

I need to sit down and actually go through more of Ambleside Online in more detail, it seems.

I was looking over Year 3 to see what books we need to find, and discovered that Marco Polo is the geography for year 3. We just finished up studying about Marco Polo, and really, Tree in the Trail would have worked better for geography for next year. I had a similar realization about Viking Tales earlier this year.

My poor LemurBoy. I feel like he's such a test-case for figuring this all out. I know the same thing doesn't work for all kids and I'll likely have to go through and figure everything out all over again for one his siblings. And I know I'll keep finding wonderful resources when I'm past the point where they would have been useful. That's life. But it feels like LB bears the brunt of my stumbling, as is the fate of all first children.

2011-02-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I was at a booth at a small educational convention thingy. A teen came up and started playing with one of the computers. Somehow, it came up that she was homeschooled. I asked her about it, and she said it was boring. Her mom just spent all her time on the internet looking up ways to homeschool her.

I imagine I'm not the only one to whom that sounds uncomfortably familiar.

And that's about how I'm feeling right now, except that I am getting actual homeschooling done too, and not just meta-homeschooling.

I'm relatively happy with the curriculum we're using now, but I feel I need to find more to add on to it. I realize that, realistically, LemurBoy at least is not going to tolerate a few pages of Math Mammoth + MEP + NCERT textbooks from India, even if they each take somewhat different approaches and build different pathways and so forth. Maybe if we were getting through MM faster, and could reasonably take one day a week for a MEP day.

I think perhaps the heart of the matter is that I REALLY need to order more Math Mammoth. LemurBoy needs to move on, and now so does LemurGirl, who has recently developed great affection for math worksheets. She's 4, and I'm printing her out first grade math worksheets. The K ones are too easy. Anyways, she's pretty set on the K recommendations from Math Mammoth, so we'll be starting with that soon - once the tax return comes in and/or a big discount comes along. Because I really want to start her with the MM way of teaching from the beginning, so I feel like I'm spinning my wheels with her right now, since I don't want to progress her any further than she already is until I can teach it the "right" way.

In the meantime, I'm printing her out random first grade math worksheets, and she's happy with that. She loves math worksheets - as long as they're printed. We have workbooks full of similar worksheets, but she refuses to use them. I think she gets a special joy of having the printer extrude something just for her.

LemurBoy is still not reading fluently, but starting to find it enjoyable. We finished the second Boxcar Children book (read jointly) today. I have a feeling I may regret that we have quite so many of them before long, if I can't get him to accept some variety. But hey, he's reading! Kinda.

LemurGirl seems to have hit a wall with Hooked on Phonics (latter half of the K box) - she can do all the sounding out without problem, but the sight words are starting to get a bit beyond her. So we've switched back to Progressive Phonics for a little while. We've been doing that with LB's OLPC in tablet mode, and both of them get a kick out of that, though LB himself would prefer to just do the HOP and reading real books (specifically, Boxcar Children. Though I hope to try Magic Treehouse soon, too) together.

We're catching up to where we're "supposed" to be in history (have to keep on track, or my library holds are all thrown off). And now the baby is screaming, so I'll cut it short.

52in52 #2 - God is Dead

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

I thought this was fitting for Secular Thursday...

My library online catalog allows you to schedule holds, so I can, for example, set up a hold now to be activated in May. When I hear of a book that sounds interesting but I'm not currently lacking for reading, I utilize this function, and schedule the book to pop up as a nice surprise at some point in the future when I've totally forgotten about it.

God is Dead by Ron Currie, Jr. is one of those surprises. I read a description of it somewhere, and it sounded interesting, but I can't for the life of me remember where that was. Probably some random homeschooler's blog.

So anyways, the book magically showed up at the library last week, and, after getting hung up on two other books, I decided to give it a try. It's 180 pages, and those pages are narrow, so it seemed like it would at least be a fast read, and it was, once I managed to get past the first chapter.

The premise of the book is that God becomes a mortal (this is apparently something he does from time to time) in the form of a Sudanese woman, and is killed, leaving the world godless. Most of the book focuses on individual and societal reactions to this crisis. It's rather Vonnegutian, full of thinly veiled absurdist allegory of our current society and what people choose to worship in the absence of God.

Actually, it's about as veiled as a 2x4 in the face. But it's a reasonably well-written 2x4, and I definitely felt some level of ironic discomfort reading the chapter about parents worshipping their children while simultaneously babbling to the baby about how perfect and smart and strong and wonderful she is (because, of course, such traits are totally apparent in a 3 month old).

A featured teenager observes, about clamming, "It was something he'd enjoyed, being united in purpose with his mother, being useful as something more than an object of adoration, carrying the great buckets of clams home by himself, with both hands." This seems a valuable observation.

I rather doubt I would have gotten past the first chapter, which has a very cynical tone, if it hadn't been for 52in52 and the obligation/motivation to finish something. But the book takes different voices from chapter to chapter, and, while the book overall takes a cynical viewpoint, it was varied enough that I got through it despite that.

So, overall, it had some worthwhile, though not particularly original or subtle, observations. I don't feel my time was wasted in reading it, though I doubt I'll be running out to recommend it to others, either.

Edit: Ironically, God Is Dead was stolen on the way back to the library.

I finished Five Children and It with the children. LemurBoy enjoyed it, anyways. LemurGirl always fell asleep. I enjoyed it, too - I never read it as a child, and somehow it always surprises me a little when old children's books are actually readable and interesting, but there were parts where I was laughing so hard that I had a hard time reading. It reminded me of an Edward Eager book, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that he was inspired by Nesbit.

LB also loved The Boxcar Children, which we did end up reading next. I didn't realize before starting that it's written in incredibly simple language, though that makes sense, since I remember reading it in first grade or so, and it was one of my first chapter books. I think we're going to try reading the second one together, taking turns.

We also finished The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook, another that I never read as a child. This was a "girly book" to read with LG. Somehow, despite being more into the whole reading thing than LB was, she has a lot less interest in listening to read-alouds, and has a tendency to fall asleep during our bedtime books (which is kind of the point actually, as that eliminates conflict over what music to listen to afterwards). So, I've been choosing "girly books" for her, and it's working. She refused to fall asleep while I read Milly-Molly-Mandy.

That said, though LB rolled his eyes when I started reading it at bedtime when we didn't have another option immediately on hand after finishing The Boxcar Children, he complained when I finished it that he'd missed some of the stories. I told him he'd be able to read it on his own very soon.

We FIAR'd it up by baking apple turnovers (complete with obligatory fraction lesson by measuring cup - LB is now figuring out addition of mixed fractions in his head) and making paper dolls. The kids now want apple turnovers tonight, too.

Now we're reading Otto of the Silver Hand for our bedtime Put-LG-To-Sleep story, which I decided on after reading someone else's 52in52 review of it. It's on the Ambleside Online free reading list for second grade, but we probably would have skipped it if not for seeing the review and realizing that it's set in the middle ages and fits right in with our history (our readings about knights and castles seem to be stretching out dramatically). He seems to be enjoying it, though he was relieved to hear that the next chapter FINALLY involves an actual kid. And it puts LG to sleep quite nicely.

Arithmetic Village

2011-01-20T07:20:00.000-08:00

Let me start this by saying I rarely get into this whole giveaway thing. I don't like turning my blog/twitter/facebook into an ad for something that I'm probably not actually going to win, anyways.

(I will, however, happily submit pictures of my babies dressed in pink leopard print, even if the prize is nothing particularly exciting.)

But the books from Arithmetic Village strike me as totally adorable, and a good fit for LG, who prefers to wear her "butterfly fairy" wings all day. And I suspect LB would like them too, though he might not admit it. And I'm a bit of a curriculum junkie. So I'll enter. And you, my utter millions of followers, can enter too, at Secular Homeschooling.

Thoughts of the week

2011-01-15T18:28:00.000-08:00

LemurBoy caught on to reading in a bigger way the other night. I'm pretty sure he jumped a grade level in the course of an hour. He started figuring words out from the context and then seeing how the letters fit together to make the word. Then he started trying different possible pronunciations if the first one he tried didn't make sense.

All things I've been trying to teach him for the past two years. Something suddenly just clicked.

He still has a ways to go before he's really an independent reader, but now I feel that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

This happened two days after I checked out Phonics Pathways from the library, but before I actually did a lesson with him. Magic book!

I need to figure out what I'm doing about handwriting. LemurGirl is 4, and very motivated to write, but holds the pencil in her fist and forms the letters all wrong. Intervention is obviously needed before bad habits are set. The italics curriculum doesn't really seem appropriate for her (It encourages waiting until 7 or so to start, and really seems designed for older kids), and it isn't particularly working well for LemurBoy as-is, either. I like the italics, so I may try editing it into something that works better for us.

The latter two thoughts remind me of my third one. LB's sudden cognitive leaps with reading, the feeling that we're spinning our wheels and not making much progress with Math Mammoth, and the handwriting thing make me think that we need to start making our curriculums work for us, rather than the other way around.

So... LB is days away from finishing the first half of HOP level 1. However, realistically, he already knows most of the second half. He needs more exposure to the associated sight words and some of the phonemes, but there's really no reason to keep plodding through on the parts he already knows well. So I'm running him through the workbook review at the end, and checking to see where he's actually having trouble. We'll do those sections, and all the sight words and stories. Then we'll probably do the same with grade 2.

With Math Mammoth, I'm going to say that we're done with the in-depth addition/subtraction stuff, and move on to another topic, but try incorporating 5 minute speed drills to get the facts down a bit more. I like that it teaches different sorts of mathematical thinking, but I have a feeling it's confusing and boring him, which is causing us to get hung up.

With italics, I'm going to cut and paste (perhaps literally, with scissors and glue) a letter formation guide, print out a copy of the alphabet, and have them go over that for a few days, then move on to the copywork, rather than keep going with the individual lessons. LB tends to get hung up on details and forget what he's doing when I try to do CM-style "quality over quantity" lessons, so I think I'm going to drop that idea.

LG says, while I was preparing dinner:
oolikoojjjjjj6aaaaasdgl;

]00=7ou'u,kklk aa

Things I want to buy:

* Pencil grips
* 3-hole punch
* Math Mammoth 1-6
* SOTW 3
* Laser printer

Printer probably isn't happening any time soon, unless we happen to find one used. The rest will. But I REALLY want a printer I can print stuff on with less concern about cost per page, especially with the Math Mammoth stuff.

One of my friends back in our old town is thinking about homeschooling her boy, who is right around LG's age. Darn the timing. I referred her to my old homeschooling group, as she was afraid that all the local homeschoolers were Christians who taught Creationism. Far from it, thankfully.

Book reviews ain't happening this week. I have three books started. One I like, but it isn't the type to rush through. One is part of a series that I've read the rest of, so I feel kind of obligated to give it a shot, but I'm not really in the mood for it. The third sounded like an interesting premise, but so far isn't particularly compelling.

That's ok. Some week when I read multiple books will undoubtedly come along. These things tend to ebb and flow for me.

And I've placed a few objects of utter fluff on hold to help ensure this.

52in52 #1 - Long May She Reign

2011-01-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

Reviews? I have to actually write something about what I read and think things out and have an opinion and all that? Ah well, I suppose that justifies it's inclusion in a homeschool blog...

Long May She Reign by Ellen Emerson White is the fourth book in a series about Meg, the teenage daughter of the first female president of the United States. The first three books were published in the 80's, and the fourth in 2007. "Updated" versions of the other three were released around the same thing - I couldn't tell you if there were any changes beyond the inclusion of modern technology (complete with awkward references to rating all the girls on the whole Face Book).

In the third book, Long Live The Queen, the protagonist is kidnapped by terrorists, suffering serious physical and emotional damage. The fourth book further addresses her recovery, physical and emotional (White seems to enjoy writing PTSD), and her first semester away at college.

When I was discussing the book with LemurDa, he commented that it must have been rushed to press before Hillary Clinton was eliminated from the primaries, and I can't help thinking there's likely some truth to that. I think it probably could have been cut by a third (of 707 pages), and still been effective. There were some parts where I wasn't really sure what message the author was trying to get across. Is she horribly selfish for not finding out all the nitty gritty details of her dormmate's lives like Good Friends Are Supposed To? Or are they typical media-obsessed jerks who can't comprehend that a high profile person under tremendous stress and in constant severe pain might, perhaps, be a little less than capable of being their most intimate best friend? Or is the point supposed to be that she's hiding her pain so well, in her political-savvy manner, that they don't realize that she has more to worry about than her RA's secret past (I don't consider that a spoiler, as there's rather heavyhanded foreshadowing in that direction) and joining them for dinner in the cafeteria?

The interaction between the dormies didn't really strike me as authentic (at the same time as they poke fun at movies for portraying dorms inaccurately), but that could be because I was kind of a loser in an a weird dorm (the "quiet dorm", which was full of people who were either antisocial or forced into it by their parents), so maybe I don't have the right perspective on that.

Her distress over considering offering sex to her kidnapper in exchange for safety strikes me as perhaps a bit overblown, given that she doesn't seem at all conservative or adverse to casual sex for any reason beyond political expedient. This isn't to say that someone couldn't be totally into casual sex and still be upset at being coerced into it it, but it still seems odd as a focal point of extreme angst given her overall attitude.

Homosexuality seems almost shoved into the book as a way of saying "Look, I'm modern and liberal and not written in the 80's!". GLBT content does not bother me. I wish there was more of it in YA and mainstream lit... included in a non-token, non-issue manner. But here, completely out of the blue from the other books, Meg claims that she is "totally straight... so far, anyways", her best friend starts making remarks that could be interpreted as heteroflexible, she has a dormmate who is ever-so-prickly about being a lesbian (about which Eminently Liberal And Ever Political Meg doesn't bat an eyelash), her mother hires a gay man for some top position, and even the president's sexuality is called into question, if jokingly. I cracked up at that point, as I'd commented to LemurDa shortly before that I expected they were going to out the president next.

But really, a lot of this is nitpicking. It wasn't an unenjoyable book - I enjoy Meg's sense of humor, and the relationship between members of the first family is fun to watch. The view into life in the White House and under Secret Service protection is fun (though how accurate, I couldn't say). And the series is oddly timely, with the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords.

And I eagerly await the 5th book where Meg and Preston finally get together. She is going to write that book, right? It's totally been foreshadowed since the first book.

Next book (perhaps. I may end up starting another before finishing it): April Fool's Day by Bryce Courtenay. I'm still reading Five Children and It with the kids, and it looks like that will extend through most of this upcoming week. We'll probably start The Boxcar Children after that.

Where we are at the semester

2011-01-03T19:21:00.001-08:00

LemurBoy is really starting to take off in reading. This has been a big focus, so that he'll eventually be able to work a little more independently. About a month ago, he decided he actually liked doing Hooked on Phonics. He could read everything in the K level. He knows many of phonemes taught in 1, but was very slow, and not great on the helper words, so we decided to start there. With a month of nearly every day work, he's about 1/4 of the way through level 1, showing great improvements in fluency, and starting to read things voluntarily, pick up words from context, and things like that.

Somewhere around the same time, we got the Leapfrog Code Word Caper movie, and LemurGirl, who only recently turned 4, started writing every word she could think of, with a surprising degree of accuracy and only thoroughly understandable mistakes. "Jessuc" for "Jessica", "Cyute" for "Cute", "Bab" for "Baby" - that sort of thing, So I pulled the Kindergarten Hooked on Phonics out, and she's zooming through that, entirely of her own initiative.

I found our Explode the Code workbooks, and both kids are doing a few pages of that a day (LB on level 2, LG on Level 1), and seem to enjoy it.

We haven't been doing Progressive Phonics, though I still love it, because at this point, it progresses too slowly - he easily understands the sounds of the various phonemes, but is slow at the actual process of reading, so the amount of practice included makes it tough to get through (come to think of it, that's the exact problem we're having in math, too). I've been considering making an amalgamation of the intermediate level books to get through it without quite so much review, but haven't gotten around to it. Also, I haven't felt like spending the ink/paper to print out it out.

LB is working on Math Mammoth 2A, and I'm finding it a bit frustrating. We're covering regrouping, which I taught him last year, and the "Do it this way, now do it this way, now do it this way" business seems like wheel-spinning to me, and I think kind of confuses him. Or maybe it's giving him a deeper understanding, or at least setting the stage for such. I'm torn between throwing up my hands in the air in disgust and going back to winging it or going and buying the full 1-6 e-curriculum. I think we'll give it another semester - a lot of 2B seems to be topics we should be able to zoom through, so I don't think we'll be endlessly bogged down as it feels now.

I don't think we did the Beestar exercises after the first week, and I haven't signed him up for the next semester. I think I'd rather just get through the Math Mammoth rather than adding more in.

We got Penny Gardner's Italics book to work on handwriting, and were doing it with some consistency with LB without great results. I don't blame the book. I try to follow the CM idea that they don't have to work on it for a long time, but that what they do should be as perfect as possible. Quality over quantity. However, LB gets so wrapped up in doing it right that he forgets what he's doing and writes the totally wrong letter or something.

Then, shortly before Christmas, he took out a pad of wide-ruled paper with a manuscript writing guide on it and wrote the alphabet, uppercase and lowercase. Perfectly. Then did so again several times over the next few days, in much less time than it generally took him to labor over the copywork I had him doing before.

I don't know - I'm tempted to tell him to try to stop worrying about perfection and just do the whole page and see what happens.

We're going through Story of the World 2 at our anticipated pace. I may spread out some of the upcoming chapters over a few weeks (we normally do 1 week per chapter) because there's just so much possible supplemental reading for some of them, and I think he'd be happier continuing history through the summer, anyways.

(Alternatively, perhaps I'll stick with the current schedule and start Vol. 3 as soon as we finish 2, in hopes of getting through 4 before the start of 4th grade. LG will be in 1st when LB is in 4th, and I think I'd prefer just to go back to Ancients rather than either having them on separate tracks or starting LG with Modern History.)

I discovered a wonderful feature of our library online catalog - I can schedule holds in advance! So I have all our supplemental reading scheduled for retrieval from the library for the rest of the year. It totally rocks.

We've been doing a lot of the classic read-alouds included in the AO schedule, as well as supplementary books corresponding with our history, and LB has enjoyed most. We tend to read them all at once rather than spreading them out over the course of weeks or months as is recommended. We manage that with some, but are too impatient on others!

LB got a loom (the Harrisville Easy Weaver) for Christmas, and has been weaving up a storm. He also got an mp3 player for Christmas, and has gotten really into audiobooks, so he's been listening to many of the suggested books while he works on his weaving. He's also doing woodwork with LemurDa, and has expressed an interest in learning woodcarving after seeing our housemate do it. And jigsaw puzzles. Do those count as handiwork?

Science continues to be unschooled. LB has expressed interest in doing nature studies again, but israther less enthusiastic about the idea of actually going outside to do them.

I hope to incorporate Song School Latin with both kids as soon as it's in the budget, because it feels like DD has gotten to the point where she could be really receptive to it.

On that note - I'm a little surprised to find it's actually easier to work with two kids than just LB! Especially with LG being so motivated. It's occasionally a bit problematic with neither of them being able to work fully independently, but in general, it seems to change the dynamic in a positive way, and both LB and I are a bit more motivated to take the lessons seriously.

2011-01-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

I started this blog a year ago, with the intention of keeping a better record of our homeschooling activities for family, friends, and my own records. It didn't really work out the way I'd planned. Same could be said of life in general. When I'd started this blog, we'd discussed moving, but hadn't decided anything resembling specifics, and I'm not sure Nevada had even come up in conversation. I thought I'd passed the hardest semester of nursing school, and had no clue the last one was going to kick me in the posterior. And another baby certainly wasn't in the plans, yet there she is, nursing away as I type.

So maybe this year, without all that school, pregnancy, and moving eating up my attention, I'll actually post something.

I'm planning to do 52 Books in 52 Weeks this year. I managed 54 books last year (that I wrote down, anyways) despite school and all, so I'm not anticipating the reading being an issue. Writing reviews? Probably moreso.

First up is Long May She Reign by Ellen Emerson White. It's a YA book, but at 707 pages I won't feel guilty about t.hat

The first three books in the series were written in the 80's. I read the third, in which the protagonist, who is the daughter of the first female president of the US, is kidnapped by terrorists. Never read the others, as my library didn't have them. The fourth book was published in 2007, and, after moving, I discovered our library system had all four, so I'm now (re)reading the whole series.

The first novel-length read-aloud of the year for the kids will be Five Children and It. We read the first chapter last night, and LemurBoy seemed to enjoy it (LemurGirl, as usual, quickly fell asleep). I'm not counting our read-alouds towards the contest, but would like to keep track of them anyways!

What we're using for second grade

2010-08-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

We're sticking with modified Ambleside Online as the core, I guess you'd say, this year.

Here's our reading schedule, if anyone is curious. We're using Story of the World instead of AO's history readings for the most part, so I've arranged things around that.

Math:
Math Mammoth 2A/B, or however far we manage to get. We have a TON of math workbooks I picked up for cheap at a garage sale a few years ago, and that's what we've used in the past, but I felt that MM was worth it for a more coherent approach. We'll probably still use them for supplementation. We're currently doing about 2 pages a day, but about 1/3-1/2 of the problems per page. He is obviously doing ok with the math itself, but the writing and repetition were turning him off.
Beestar.org weekly exercises as long as they remain fun.

Reading:
Continuing with Progressive Phonics. I feel like LemurBoy has made a big jump in readiness over the summer, despite not working on reading much - he reads much more fluently now, and is doing more proto-reading (pretending to read books to his sister and things like that).

I think I want to print out a compilation of the intermediate books, with less repetition per concept, because I feel like the amount of repetition is making for very slow progress. He needs practice, but... maybe not quite that much?

Read-alouds:
Roughly following Ambleside Online's schedule, plus other random (or not-so-random) books. We hope to get back to our former town for at least one of the book club meetings, which he enjoyed last year!

Handwriting:
We're trying Italics: Beautiful Handwriting for Children, by Penny Gardner. Again, I have workbooks from that garage sale, but I'm not sure I like the ball and stick method most of them teach, and didn't feel LemurBoy was doing well with it. This seemed an affordable and reasonably attractive option. He tolerates it.

History/Social Studies:
Story of the World, Volume 2. He loved volume 1, and we read the latter third of it as bedtime stories over the summer.
Supplemented with readings from Ambleside Online and books from various booklists (Sonlight, Tanglewood Education)
Maybe some more local stuff.

Science:
We'll probably continue with random books and documentaries for this year. LemurBoy wants to read two pages a day of a prehistoric animals book, which will take us the whole year if we're actually consistent about it, which we haven't been so far.

We still need to find something for him to do for exercise beyond helping with work around the place. We're also hoping to get him involved in Cub Scouts again, plus 4-H Cloverbuds.

4 year history rotation

2010-05-15T16:31:00.000-07:00

A thread on the WTM forums about skipping the Modern Era and going straight to Ancients so that all kids would be on the same rotation got me thinking. I charted it out, and LemurBoy and LemurGirl are one year off, while LemurGirl and FutureLemurBaby will be on the same rotation... so skipping modern and going straight to Ancients when LB is in 4th grade and LG is in 1st would make a lot of sense.

I like this idea. LB can read Story of the World to LG as part of his work, and they'll get the exposure to eachother's related literature and activities. Eventually, all three will be at the same place at the same time, and LB ends up with a "free" year at the end of high school.

On the other hand... I don't want to skip Modern! It's always been the part of history I've found most interesting, and I have a lot of books I'm looking forward to reading. Also, the period around 4th grade was, for me, the time when issues such as Nazis, concentration camps, and nuclear bombs were big concerns that haunted my thoughts, and it seems to me a natural time to address them.

My thought at the moment is to compromise - introduce the modern era through literature during 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, while formally studying other eras. My only concern is that LB won't yet be a strong enough reader to handle that all at once.

It's three years down the line. No need to decide now.

Cutting the cord

2010-03-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

LemurBoy is enrolled in a public Independent Study school. Each week he meets with a teacher for an hour, goes to optional workshops for 3 hours, and we provide a weekly summary of his educational activities, which are supposed to total 20 hours a week, but they take our word for it.

For most of the past year and a half since he started school, this has worked well. I've felt that it provides a level of accountability that I need. This year, I developed a weekly schedule, and that was really helpful.

Then Big Important Life Events happened, and, for the past month or so, things have kind of fallen apart. In fact, aside from a twinge of guilt, I lost all interest in homeschooling whatsoever. We devolved to "videoschooling", though I can't even really say that, as I haven't managed to get to the library to restock our supply of documentaries. Radical unschooling, let's say.

This made it a little hard to fill out our weekly reports.

The teacher is accommodating. I write down everything I can classify as educational, she gives us partial credit (3 out of 5 days, or something like that). We're getting back on track now - I'm back to reading homeschool blogs and message boards, which I'd been totally ignoring, in addition to getting back to work with LB. I'm hoping to make up a few days by working through LemurBoy's "Spring Break" next week in hopes of avoiding falling afoul of truancy laws.

But it seems that this is where I start to really resent the independent study program. Part of the benefit of homeschooling is flexibility. With the ability to work outside the normal school year, it shouldn't matter if we end up taking an unscheduled break in the middle of the year.

We're moving soon to a state that doesn't appear to have attractive independent study programs or charter school options, so we'll be homeschooling independently, with the only requirement being that we file a notice of our intent to homeschool at the beginning of the year. The lack of accountability is a little scary, because I'm not always the best at follow-through. But we have a system that works well enough for us now (when not dealing with crisis, anyways), and I think we'll manage.

In other news, today we went to an educational materials giveaway. The state gets curriculum samples for review, and gives away what they can't use in classrooms to the general public. It was a bit of a madhouse. It started at 12, we got there at 12:05, and much of the good stuff (apparently some people got microscopes!?!?!) had already left. By the time we left at 1:00, the inventory had been reduced by about 3/4.

We contributed to that, of course. I have no idea where we're going to store all this stuff. I didn't manage to find Singapore Math as I had hoped, but we still got quite a bit. To my surprise, DaLemur went crazier than I did. I'm not crazy about most public school materials. Still, I found some Saxon math, an ancient history book that should fill the hole left by the necessity of the return of our borrowed copy of Story Of The World (too late in the year for me to really want to buy a new copy, though I suppose it would be an investment for upcoming years, too), science materials, and some other useful stuff.

It's a two day event, and they're setting out more stuff tomorrow, so we may go again. Early this time!

2010-02-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, I do intend to use this at some point - it seems I started at a rather inopportune time. I'm in a bit of a funk lately, (my) school is eating my brain and the words just ain't flowing, either here or on my personal blog. Or on my required weekly journal entries for (my) school, for that matter.

And that's ok, since no one is reading this anyways! But should you, be assured that someday (aka. April) I will graduate, and hopefully have use of my creative brain again.

Grammar and curriculum

2010-01-27T10:58:00.001-08:00

Why is it that certain curriculums feel the need to be clever and spell their name incorrectly?

Math-U-See and Real Science-4-Kids, I'm looking at you!

I'm sure the true grammar mavens are rolling their eyes at me, glass houses and thrown stones and all that. I know I'm far from perfect at spelling and grammar. However, I do try to avoid deliberate misspelling and grammar errors. Especially in commercial products. Double-especially in commercial *educational* products. How are we supposed to teach our kids that text speak is not acceptable in formal writing when their TEXTBOOKS have it on the cover?

I've looked at Real Science-4-Kids and am pretty crazy about it - real science content at an age-appropriate level (relatively, anyways. I'd get the Level 1 for my 1st grader, who is "supposed" to be on pre-level-1 - I don't care if I have to read it aloud if he's capable of the comprehension, which he is). They're a breath of fresh air after the pablum our school provided, in which LemurBoy not only knew the material in much more depth than the textbook provided, but also found an inaccuracy in the first and only chapter we read together. I may buy it, and it's rare that I do that.

But the 4 makes me twitch, and it's hard to look past it to the juicy science content underneath.

Perhaps I should stick a label over the title to correct it.

2010-01-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

The other day, LemurBoy and I did an experiment where you get two bowls of water - one cool, one ice cold. Put your hand in the cool water and see how it feels, then put it in ice water for a minute, then back in the cool water. Suddenly, the cool water feels warm. I explained that the hand had adapted to the temperature. He, for some reason, found my use of the word "adapted" hilarious, and latched on to it, using it in the report he dictated to me afterwards. His hilarity should have been my clue to find out what he was thinking...

At our teacher meeting shortly after, the teacher asked what he meant by "adapted". He explained that this was like how a donkey and a horse could get married, and their baby would be a mule, but two mules couldn't get married.

I choked on my laugh. "I guess that wasn't quite the explanation you were expecting."

"That's why I love this job!" she said.

Still not sure where his mind was going, and I have a suspicion Proposition 8 is all tied up in there somewhere...

2010-01-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

Sitting in church looking at the hymnal, I was once again struck by the idea that I can't fluently read music. This thought occurs to me approximately once a week, around 11:00am on Sunday.

As a child, I took, for varying periods of time, piano (for several years), flute, recorder, and voice (the latter over the longest period of time, but with the least attention given to reading music). I have a good ear. I can generally sing something with reasonable accuracy after hearing it once, or pick it out on the piano or recorder if it's very simple.

However, despite technically knowing how to read music (I could use a refresher on the exact details), a musical score tells me very little beyond whether the notes are generally going up or down. If I had a piano in front of me, I could probably play it (assuming it wasn't too complex), but I can't look at the music and know how it was supposed to sound. The notes are mentally mapped to the keyboard (or, in the case of the recorder, which I remember better than the flute, the fingering), not to the sound they make, similar to how someone not fluent in a foreign language has to mentally translate each word or phrase, rather than simply understanding it. Other friends who have had music training say the same when I bring it up.

Googling the term "musical fluency", I hit upon this, which seems to echo the conclusion I came to.

I'm not sure what to do with this thought. I'd like to be able to actually read music fluently. I'd like the kids to, as well. At this point, we don't have money for formal lessons, and my experience leads me to believe that traditional lessons are probably not going to be particularly beneficial unless the kid has both a real talent and a drive. The ways I've thought about starting to teach piano - colored stickers on the keys corresponding with the notes in the score - maps score to keyboard, not score to notes, which is what I'd like to avoid. Vocal lessons, with an emphasis on actually reading the music, seem like they might be an answer.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just focus on musical exposure.

For 2nd grade

2010-01-16T22:10:00.000-08:00

An ongoing list, primarily for my own benefit

Language Arts:
This will be very dependent on how much LemurBoy is reading by that point. I'm not even going to venture a guess now.
AO recommendations.
Just keep reading!

Social Studies:
Story of the World II
AO recommendations

Math:
I like the concept of Singapore Math. However, having looked at it, I'm not convinced it's something that will work well for LemurBoy, who seems to prefer numbers to pictures. Math Mammoth is another consideration.
Or just use the workbooks we already have, though I'd like something more structured.

Science:
Real Science-4-Kids. Love the books (from what I've seen), hate that 4. I suppose I could get them and re-label the covers.
Beyond that, probably about the same as now.
Biographies?

Foreign Language:
I'm a little torn on this one. Spanish or Latin?
Maybe English From The Roots Up and Song School Latin.

Arts:
Some sort of introduction to reading music - recorder or piano.
Is there something out there about developing music fluency? 4 years of piano lessons didn't do that for me, despite having a good ear.
I'd like to start artist and composer studies.

What We Use: 1st Grade (Brief Version)

2010-01-16T21:46:00.000-08:00

Language Arts:

Several from the Ambleside Online Year 1 schedule

Progressive Phonics

Copywork

Complete Book of Handwriting

Lots of reading aloud

Monthly book club

Weekly workshop

Supplemented with Hooked On Phonics, Explode The Code, and various easy readers.

Social Studies:

Story Of The World (History)

Paddle To The Sea (Geography)

Supplemented with random library books

Math:

Complete Book of Math Grades 1-2

Complete Book of Time & Money

Handwritten worksheets

MEP

Other random workbooks

Books from Living Math

Beestar exercises

Weekly workshop

Science:

Random documentaries

Random books

Bill Nye The Science Guy

A Child's First Library of Learning

Weekly workshop

See this post for a more detailed explanation.

What We Use: 1st Grade (Verbose Version)

2010-01-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

Philosophies:

Several years ago, when investigating homeschooling options, I stumbled across Ambleside Online and fell in love with the literature-based approach, but I was a bit put-off by the heavy religious emphasis. A few years down the line, I came to realize that an awful lot of wonderful homeschooling resources are Christian-oriented, and to avoid them is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so I took another look.

This time, I fell in love with the handicrafts.

I've never enjoyed futilities, as described in the linked article. I enjoy making things, but only if they're tangible and useful in some manner. Jewelry someone might actually wear, clothing, pillows, baskets, baby carriers, candles... even baking, as that provides an enjoyable, if not permanent, result. Those are my sorts of crafts. Cutting and pasting something that will be hung on the fridge for a while then thrown away, not so much.

I was thrilled to find that Charlotte Mason apparently shared this preference, and took another look at AO when I decided I wanted some more structure for 1st grade.

And, of course, there's the price and frugal orientation - ever so attractive a quality in a curriculum.

Around the time LemurBoy was 1, a homeschooling discussion came up on a mailing list I was on, and one of the other members (Hi Summer!) talked about The Well-Trained Mind, which I poured through at a bookstore in between attempts to keep the Lemur from destroying the shelves. I thought it was somewhat interesting, but then discovered Ambleside Online and kind of forgot about it.

Fast forward a few years, and one of the families I ended up clicking best with in our homeschooling group also used WTM, so I looked into it some more, and found a lot that I liked. Also a lot that I didn't. I find it very possible that my feelings on this matter will change as the kids grow older, just as many of the Grammar Stage ideas seemed to fit better as LemurBoy grew into the stage. Outlining, for instance. I acknowledge that being able to outline is a valuable skill. Being a student myself, I use it on a regular basis to provide structure for my lecture notes, and I'm thankful my extremely talented 4th grade teacher chose to emphasize that. But the idea of making LemurBoy sit down and actually do it on a regular basis kind of makes me shudder.

Should my fourth grade teacher return to teaching approximately 2.5 years from now, perhaps I'll ship the LemurBoy off to him instead.

Anyways, Charlotte Mason/AO and WTM are relatively similar philosophies, and easy to integrate into a crazy mishmash hybrid, which is, of course, what I enjoy most.

Social Studies:

One of the things I like about the Neoclassical approach is the emphasis on history presented chronologically and narratively. Last year, we started LemurBoy on The Story of Mankind. At first he liked it, but when he started whining about doing history, I decided we needed to be using something more oriented towards his age. The Story Of Mankind is usually recommended more for kids in the 5th grade range.

I was looking for a resource that was narrative, reasonably accurate, worldwide scope to the greatest reasonable extent, and, as usual, easy and inexpensive to obtain. Our Island Story, the AO Year 1 recommended history text, while available free online, really wasn't what I wanted. Story of Mankind was out. A Child's History Of The World looks interesting, and I may use it for something at some point, but a copy wasn't readily available. I was hesitant about Story Of The World at first, but a friend had a copy I was able to borrow, and I found most of the religion-oriented criticism didn't bother me and that, overall, it seemed a good, widely available option.

LemurBoy absolutely loves it, and once again begs to do history.

We supplement with books on the time period from the library - sometimes as recommended in the SOTW activity guide, sometimes things I see on blogs or message boards, and sometimes whatever catches my eye while browsing the shelves.

Ambleside Online's 1st grade schedule includes Fifty Famous Stories Retold. We got off to a slow start with this one, but I rearranged the stories to correspond with our history reading (I'll post this schedule once I've had more of a chance to fine tune it).

We also use Paddle To The Sea, which Ambleside classifies as Geography, and therefore part of Social Studies.

Phonics:

Progressive Phonics has worked wonders for us. The site has printable or read-on-screen books, each one focusing on a different phonetic concept. The parent reads the black words, and the kid reads the red words, with more responsibility shifting to the child in the more advanced books. PDFs of associated activities (handwriting practice, flash cards, word searches) are also available for each book.

Progressive Phonics was the first program that LemurBoy was willing to work with. How To Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons lasted for about 5 lessons before he started crying when the book came out. We got a 3 grade set of Hooked on Phonics on deep discount when they were transitioning to the newer version. He enjoyed the little HOP books (similar to BOB books) that came with it, but disliked the actual lessons, and the HOP books progressed way too fast. Still I don't consider this a wasted purchase, as we're still using it to supplement Progressive Phonics.

Progressive Phonics is really great for a child who finds reading effortful. LemurBoy had trouble with the even the beginning BOB books because they just took so much effort to read (I guess he wouldn't have the same problem now, though!), but the shortness of the stories, combined with the fact that the parent is doing most of the reading, makes it easier. In addition, the fact that the parent reads the more difficult words means the stories are more engaging than your average early phonetic reader.

We also have Explode The Code and a few other random workbooks, which we use from time to time.

Writing:

A year or so ago, a neighbor was having a garage sale. This neighbor happened to be a teacher at a local tutoring center, and had a literal ton of workbooks, mostly brand new. I filled a box for $5, added up the cover costs later, and found that the total value came out to about $250.

So we have a lot of workbooks that we probably wouldn't otherwise have thought to use. The Complete Book of Handwriting is the one I use most often for writing. When I'm feeling busy/lazy, I tell LemurBoy to pick a page and do it.

When I'm not feeling too busy/lazy, we try to work more with the copywork concept embraced by both CM and WTM. I use a website to generate a handwriting sheet with a sentence of some sort or another. Sometimes it's something from a book or poem that we're reading. Sometimes it's "If you read this, we can go get ice cream".

Literature:

I suppose, aside from the previously mentioned items the only thing we're really doing from Ambleside are Aesop's Fables and Just So Stories. LemurBoy really enjoys both, especially the Just So Stories. We tried the Shakespeare for a while, and he seemed to enjoy it at first, but then started whining about it. I'm undecided yet whether we'll barrel through on that, search for a more accessible adaptation for the future, or just wait until he's old enough for the full versions. We also did Viking Tales earlier in the year (it's scheduled for the end of the year on AO. I switched it, as LemurBoy was into Vikings, but kind of wonder if that was the right choice, as it may have been a bit too complex to jump right into).

Apart from Ambleside's stuff, we just read stuff. Some might be considered "classics". Others are "classics to me".

Once a month, LemurBoy attends a book club with other kids his age, where they have a discussion, play games, and eat food related to a book they all read. That influences about a quarter of our book choices.

Math:

We mainly use the garage sale workbooks for math, especially The Complete Book of Math for Grades 1-2 and The Complete Book of Time & Money. Sometimes I just write my own problems for him to do.

He does the exercises at beestar.com weekly, and I'm attempting to find one book from appropriate book from the Living Math website to read each week. We use MEP worksheets occasionally as a supplement, but I don't have the desire to implement the full program.

Science:

We don't follow the Well-Trained Mind rotation for science, mainly because spending an entire year on anything other than biology is, at this level, utterly unappealing to me (Real Science-4-Kids may manage to convince me otherwise, if I can get past that horrible "4" in there). We tried weekly nature studies, as CM suggests, but after a few weeks of excitement it became a total drag (even after I pointed out that Dinotopia was basically an extended nature study), which I felt pretty much defeated the purpose, so now we do them occasionally. Overall, science ends up being more of an interest-driven approach, built out of random science documentaries, Bill Nye, and whatever looks interesting at the library. We're reading through his A Child's First Library of Learning series, as well. This will probably change as he gets older, but for now, his appetite is voracious.

PE:

We ride our bikes places. He plays at the park. He works with weights and so forth with his dad. We hope to start something more organized soon.

Arts & Foreign Language:

I've neglected any sort of formal, or even semi-formal, study of arts this year. Same with Foreign Language. Hopefully these will get added in more in the next year or two, when we get to the point where I don't have to spend quite so much time reading every little thing aloud.

For Language Arts, Math, and Science, he also does a weekly workshop (an hour each) at his independent study school.

About our Homeschool, or what "Inspires" us.

2010-01-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

I like to call our homeschooling style "ADHD Classical" and "Inspired by Charlotte Mason/The Well-Trained Mind"... in the same way a bad Made-For-TV movie is "Inspired by" the book. I guess you could say we're "Inspired by" unschooling, too, though we're a bit too structured to actually call ourselves that.

I suppose we should just call it "Eclectic" and leave it at that.

About The Lemurs

2010-01-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

MamaLemur is a student nurse and obsessive reader.

DaLemur is a knifemaker.

BoyLemur was born 6/03 and is currently in 1st grade.

GirlLemur was born 9/06.