Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Lazy Dinner

I know some people don't know how to cook.  I can almost understand it.  Almost.  Maybe your parents didn't teach you.  Maybe you didn't take home ec.  I don't know.  But this here is a lazy, from scratch dinner.  You can do it.  It's one of the first things I ever learned to make.  It's a forgiving recipe, and I've included some ideas for making it your's.

No, not the prettiest dinner.  But easy and delicious.


Pot Roast in the Crock Pot (aka Yankee Pot Roast)

1 roast of your choice -- Now right there, you might be panicking.  Relax.  Your local grocery store probably has some roast on sale right now.  My personal favorite is rump roast.  You could go with a chuck roast or a sirloin roast.  Anything will work.  The photo is of a rump roast, which often has this string netting over it.  You can cook it with the strings on, then just cut them off at the end.  What weight should it be?  Whatever you think will feed your family.  Mine is probably a good 5 lbs.  We might eat it all.  If we're lucky, there will be leftovers for Hub for lunch.

carrots -- I had 2 small bags of carrots from a local farm, so I put them all in (scrubbed and left whole, as they were only 3-4 inches long).  I usually put in at least 1 lb. of carrots.  You can add more if you like them.  Somehow, meat-flavored carrots are just extra yummy.  You could just halve them and they'll be fine.

potatoes -- Again, I had some red potatoes from the farm and most were small.  I scrubbed them and just threw them in whole.  You could use any potato, though something like a red or new potato would hold up better than a russet in the crock pot.  But any kind works.  You can halve them, too, or quarter them.  Or leave them whole if they are smallish.

onion -- I used a medium purple onion.  Need more onion flavor?  Use more, or use a different type, like a yellow or white onion.  Want a sweet onion?  Go ahead with the Vidalia or Walla-Walla.  (I just wanted to say Walla-Walla).  I peeled, then halved, my onion.

seasoning -- This is a lazy dinner.  So while I could've gone all fancy, I didn't.  I used the Costco version of Mrs. Dash.  And some kosher salt.  


Place cut veggies in bottom of crock pot.  Top with roast.  Again, if you have a rump roast, you can leave the string on.  Sprinkle seasoning over top.  I probably used about a teaspoon, maybe a bit more, of the fake Mrs. Dash and just a light sprinkling of salt.  I'll taste it when it's done and season it again if need be.

Add about 1/2 cup water (or beef broth) to the pot.  Put the lid on and set on low for about 8 hours or so.  Remove meat and veggies to a platter or bowl.  Don't forget to taste it all again.  Often, the veggies will need a bit more salt as most of it went on the meat.

If you're feeling crazy, you can use the juice in the bottom of the pot to make gravy.  But that's another post.  I usually just spoon some over top of the meat.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Week in Review--Week 4, in which nothing goes according to plan

I couldn't figure out all week what was wrong with me.  I was so tired.  No, no bun in the oven.  I just have a cold.  Which explains why I had NO motivation this week.

Somehow, as ever, school manages to get done.  There's no rest for mama, is there?

We managed to do spelling and some language arts.  I have to admit, it appears they are my first subject to set aside when we're falling behind.  Do I think it's easy to catch up on?  I don't know.  I think they aren't as fun as science and social studies.  That's something to work on.

We read a bit more about whales this week.  I was talking about sperm whales, and mentioned that Moby Dick was about a sperm whale, and Scrappy piped up and informed me he knew all about Moby Dick.  How, I have no clue.  I suspect he watched part of the movie with my dad.  We watched an IMAX movie about dolphins, which was great.  I love having Netflix.  There are a lot of movies on there that we can use to supplement our books.

For social studies, we made monk's cross necklaces out of clay.  The kids sculpted them and let them dry overnight.  If only I could get them to take a vow of silence, at least for a day.  Maybe even an hour.



The kids have been spending time with Hub developing a new hobby.  They've all become crazy for dominoes!  The kids built some domino runs (I don't know if that's even the right term) this week.


For art this week, we've started talking about the color wheel.  Even Silly wants to be involved with art, which I find surprising, since the book claims it's for ages 8 and up.  She is doing a fine job.  She just wants to do school with the rest of the kids.  I am not pushing her into anything, as she's just 4 and I think she should be spending her days playing ponies.  As long as she isn't interrupting us, she has been joining us this week.

We had a field trip this week.  Yay!  I am big believer that field trips and any real life experience is the best way to learn things.  Two weeks ago we read about the English pushing the Celts out of England to the west (Wales) and north (Ireland & Scotland).  This weekend we went to the Irish Festival here in town.  What a good time!  We saw some traditional dances, hand crafts, and learned some Irish language as well.

For more ideas, check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Eats for the equinox


I made this in late spring, when spinach was everywhere.  But now fall is approaching, and spinach will be back.  This is super easy.  The most expensive part of it is the bacon, so a splurge for the good stuff is definitely warranted, if you feel so led.

Penne, Spinach & Bacon

1 (12 oz) package penne
2 tbsp. olive oil, divided
6 slices bacon, chopped
2 tbsp. minced garlic
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 bunch fresh spinach, rinsed, torn into bite-size pieces (The Flour Children tore the spinach)


Cook pasta according to package directions.  Heat 1 tbsp. oil in skillet over medium.  
Place bacon in skillet, and cook until brown and crisp.  Add garlic, and cook about 1 minutes.  Stir in tomatoes (with juice) and heat through.  Put spinach in colander and strain pasta over it.  The cooking liquid will wilt your spinach.  Toss all ingredients together with 1 tbsp. oil.





Friday, September 3, 2010

Week in Review--Week 3

Spelling
Continued working through our spelling book. 

Language Arts
Oh, Emma Perl, how I love you.  I really like Primary Language Lessons, though we have not memorized anything.  I know they are capable of memorizing; they do it for AWANA.  So I don't know about the poems.  Maybe when we get to one that I think would be super nice to know.  I do like memorization.  Hub can still recite Jabberwocky and I still know the preamble to the Constitution.  Does it help us in day-to-day life?  No.  Does it make us awesome?  Yes.

Also, we continued working on proper vs. common nouns.

Social Studies
Turns out there are two Augustines.  Who knew?  Not I.  We read Chapter 3 in Story of the World about the spread of Christianity throughout Britain.  We're also reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  All of the kids love this book!  We also read a few medieval tales this week as well, The Sword in the Stone and Finn MacCoul.
















Science
We finally made our ocean boxes.  All year long, we'll be adding creatures to our "ocean."  We're going to try to make them out of clay, and if that doesn't work out, then we'll do cut outs from magazines and such.  We did an experiment where we learned that cold water is heavier is warm water.  We also started reading about whales.  We watched a number of videos.  Here's one you might enjoy.

Math
Scrappy has really nailed double digit addition, so now he's onto double digit addition with carrying.  Funny did a great job on her quiz this week.  I finally got Goofy to slow down at math, mostly by saying, "not now."  Isn't that terrible?  I think if I let him he'd finish the book by the end of September.  I don't know, I suppose it's not a bad thing.

Art
The kids turned in their block lettering practice.

We still didn't get to music and health this week.  That's all we're behind in now!  Yay for catching up!


Want more ideas?  Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.