But there were occasional patches where they sunk well below the surface and required some assistance to remove the snow from their boot.
Being almost 100 pounds heavier than the girls, my sinking was more than occasional.
Like every other step.
"Gimme that camera mommy. I gotta take a picture of you. It's funny you can't walk in this snow."
There are times when mommy has to look silly on the blog too.
G. did the onion chopping but L. said that the 'onion germs' were going to 'get me' so she donned a pair of goggles as well while prepping the lentils.
This is reminiscent of their creative approach to laundry chores last summer that required swimming goggles while sorting socks.
And L. liked the goggles so much she kept them on for dinner.
After dinner, G. asked me, "Mom are you going to use those pictures you took at dinner on your blog?"
"I'd like to. Can I?"
"I guess so. It is a good idea you know. The ski goggles worked."
Yup, they did.
Did you know 1 tablespoon soy flour plus 1 tablespoon water is equal to one egg? The batter doesn't taste very good but the end result looks and tastes as if you used eggs. It's a great alternative not only when you don't have eggs available but also a good nutritional substitute. Soy flour is high in dietary fiber and protein. And with the protein from the ricotta in our pancake recipe, the soy adds that extra protein for kids who don't like to eat meat (L. isn't a big meat eater but she loves these pancakes).
Cinnamon Granola
9 cups rolled oats
1 cup dry milk
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup honey
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a large roasting pan mix the rolled oats, dry milk and cinnamon and set aside.
In a saucepan add the oil, honey and brown sugar and stir over med-high heat until the sugar is dissolved.
Pour honey mixture over oats and mix well with a wooden spoon. This is a sticky job and takes a while to get the mixture combined well.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until lightly browned.
The ingredients in home made granola is a bit of an investment initially (dry milk and honey aren't so cheap) but the recipe is easy to make in bulk so it saves you money in the end. And if you use all organic ingredients, you save a significant amount of money making this recipe versus buying the same amount at the natural food store.
This granola is BEST stored in a ziploc baggie. I've used plastic storage containers but after a few days the granola gets hard as a brick because my containers are not air-tight. I've had the best luck using baggies and it helps me ration the granola. If I don't keep an eye out with the kids and Fino, they'll have the doubled-version of this recipe eaten in a couple of days.
L. loves to lick the spoon after I get the granola in the oven to brown.
One of my family's favorite ways to eat this granola is simply with milk in a bowl but we also like it with yogurt and sliced apples or pears.
Share your favorite recipes by posting your own blog entry or write a comment below.
During the week we eat meatball sandwiches because the meatballs warm up quickly in the microwave and it takes less than 5 minutes to have a meal on the table. We also enjoy pasta dishes and adding a few meatballs to those meals makes it more interesting and nutritionally balanced.
If you've got some good recipes that could easily be doubled for leftovers (I prefer the term "bulk cooking" because my kids think it sounds better than leftovers ;), tell us about it.
To make this project you just need strips of fabric. It doesn't matter what width the strips are as long as they are at least 12 inches long. Actually, using a variety of sizes and fabric patterns makes this project more interesting.
And if you've never ripped fabric, you should try it. It's the fastest way to cut fabric into strips and what makes this project so easy to do.
Once you have a bunch of strips, the kids then sew them together on a sewing machine until they have about 12 inches across the width. Since the strips are all different widths, it doesn't show as much if the seams aren't exactly straight.
Once the kids have the approximate width, just iron the seems open and use the a rotary cutter to cut to the square size you want (L.'s making 12" squares).
Once the kids have enough squares, they can lay them out both horizontally and vertically to make an interesting pattern before sewing all the squares together.
I thought this was a great project to not only teach kids to sew, but to also use all that old fabric hanging around the house.
"Swiss Family Robinson" made with Swiss cheese, chocolate cake, icing, sprinkles and jellybeans.
"Salty Dog" made with pretzel dough, food coloring markers and lots of salt.
As for the edible portion of our creations this year ...
* G.'s cake tasted the best
* L.'s fruit roll-ups made a good topping along with the icing for the cookies but they stuck together too well so we ate chunks rather than individual cookies
* My salty dog was -- surprise, surprise -- too salty.
It was a good thing I saved my old Charlie's Angels dolls because it helped me explain the reference to G. after Fino and I had a good chuckle about it.
The girls' 4-H shooting sports club has been meeting every week since early November and the other night was one of the last meetings of the season so they put away the .22 rifles and broke out a pistol for the kids to try.
I heard all about this experience as soon as the girls walked in the door after their meeting.
"Mommy, daddy got burned from a flying bullet!"
"Yeah, my pistol thingy went crazy and hit daddy! He burned his knuckles."
(Daddy is still working on expanding the girls' knowledge of gun terminology.)
Fino confirmed he wasn't really shot or seriously burned and I didn't think much about it until this morning when I was sifting through the photos and video he took that night. It seems the incident happened while he was recording.
He said the LCD screen wasn't big enough to see a flying shell casing. I saw it coming just fine on my computer though.
I love downloading photos and videos that my family members have taken. I really never know what gems - or incriminating evidence - I might find.
