Today started with Conversation Hearts and flowers:
I made bolognese sauce to go with my new favorite bucatini noodles for dinner:
And Ladybug and I tried a new brownie recipe that used avocado oil for dessert:
I don’t know which was the most delicious part of the day!
I’m not a big casserole person (I actually hate most of them!), but there is an exception, and I don’t just tolerate Reuben casserole, it’s one of my favorite dinners! I even like it better than the more traditional Reuben sandwich…I think it’s at least partly because the toasty Rye bread on top is so delicious!
Preheat oven to 350. Spread chopped corned beef on bottom of 9×13 pan. Drizzle about 1/2 cup 1000 Island on top. Sprinkle with sauerkraut. Top with Swiss cheese. Toss chopped bread with melted butter, and place over cheese. Bake in preheated oven for about 30 minutes until the bread is toasty.
February has arrived…at least it’s a short month!
Ladybug continued to work with everybody’s favorite word problems featuring “distance equals rate times time” in algebra 2 this week. We started a new chapter in chemistry, focusing on acids and bases. She finished Part One of To Kill a Mockingbird. The theme for our recent cooking adventures was salad…Ladybug had two salads in her memory that I used to make for lunch that she wanted to learn to prepare, so after a lot of googling trying to find just the right recipes, she made Mediterranean tuna salad and orzo salad with fennel, cranberries, and mozzarella:
Chickadee practiced finding the greatest common factor of two numbers in math. She learned about buffalo, bison, and other cattle in science. We started reading about Rome in history…and we’ll continue reading about them for a while, because there’s just so much to cover! We got to the part in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where Aslan dies, and even though I knew it was coming, I cried. She reviewed contractions (and how to diagram them) in grammar.
The weather is supposed to be unseasonably warm next week, so maybe we’ll get out of the house for an adventure!
I was very disappointed when I went shopping for our New Year’s dinner and discovered that there are no longer jarred spiced apple rings available in my area. I really, really love spiced apple rings, so I decided to make my own. Most of the recipes I found included large amounts of Cinnamon Imperials, which doesn’t surprise me based on the taste and color of apple rings, but they were almost impossible to find at Christmas, so I had to come up with a recipe that had the right flavors without them. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and they weren’t even that hard to make!
In a large skillet, heat first nine ingredients to boiling. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer 5 minutes to blend flavors.
While syrup is simmering, core, but don’t peel, apples and slice into 1/4 inch thick rings. Cook half of rings at a time in the syrup. Simmer until tender but firm, 5-10 minutes…you don’t want the apples to get mushy or fall apart. Remove first half of apples rings and cook second half in same syrup (if it gets too thick, add a little extra water).
Discard lemon slices. Place all the apple rings in a wide, shallow dish (I used a pie plate) and pour syrup over. Cover and refrigerate for up to one week.
Following our extended Christmas break, we finally got back to work this week! But we started with something fun…a trip to the St. Louis Zoo. It was the perfect January day to visit, because many of the animals were very active!
We also did actual work. Ladybug did a lesson on ratios in algebra 2. She started reading To Kill a Mockingbird. In history, she read about the life of Muhammad and the continuing decline of the Persian Empire. She identified noun clauses in grammar. She wrote a short play in creative writing, using Stitch from Lilo and Stitch for her inspiration. In chemistry, she worked with the concept of stoichiometry, and found that the math wasn’t too intimidating!
Chickadee worked on identifying polygons and drawing circles with a compass in math. She started a chapter about ungulates in science, beginning with her favorite animal, the elephant. All of her grammar this week was review, which was convenient after so much time off! She read about Greek mythology, and also some of the battles of the Greeks, as well as the first marathon, in history. We started reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and we made Turkish Delight!
We hit the halfway mark in both math classes this week, so it’s all downhill from here!
The holiday season is officially over, so let’s take a look back at all of the festive feasts and holiday baking we enjoyed, starting with Thanksgiving. I think the turkey turned out especially well this time around!
We had our “pick out dinner” on Christmas Day:
And our “fancy” Christmas dinner two days later. I never want to prepare a beef tenderloin any other way!
On New Year’s Eve, we had our traditional hot chocolate bar, but we made it fancy, with the addition of homemade hot chocolate bombs!
And on New Year’s Day, we had our traditional pork tenderloin, with an untraditional (for us) side of twice-baked potatoes:
On to the baking. Of course there were pies (seven!) for Thanksgiving:
We made five types of German Christmas cookies in Christmas School:
And another ten types of Christmas cookies besides!
There were eight different cakes throughout the season:
And some other various treats including Christmas cracker candy and lussekattes:
This was a fun and delicious season, but now the kitchen is closed!
I’m sure we’re not done with Recipes from the World of Tolkien, but here’s a look at everything we’ve made so far…it’s another really fun cookbook to have around!
I’ve really enjoyed trying some new things and learning some new techniques…I’m grateful that cooking has become such a big part of our school!
“Fast away, the old year passes
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Hail the new, ye lads and lasses”
Can you believe it’s already 2023? 2022 (for the most part) just zoomed right by! Here’s a look at how we celebrated New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day this time around.
I like a theme, so we started the day yesterday with hot chocolate rolls:
We spent a lot of the day decorating sugar and gingerbread cookies. Mickey Mouse shapes were very popular this year!
I also (finally!) made eggnog:
We decided that 2022 deserved one more Disney Dinner, so I made one of our favorite recipes from Delicious Disney, Monte Cristo sandwiches:
After Apollo 13, we had our traditional hot chocolate bar, with the addition of hot chocolate bombs that Ladybug and I made!
Another new addition was hot chocolate Chex mix:
My only motivation to stay up until midnight is ringing in the New Year on my Animal Crossing island, and I made it!
New Year’s Day is the perfect excuse to wear something sparkly, am I right?
Of course we started the year with a special dinner, so I set the table with the china again, and this time, I learned a new napkin fold to make things a little fancier!
Pork tenderloin is a fairly traditional New Year’s Day main course here, although I did prepare it differently this time. I also made twice-baked potatoes, roast carrots and parsnips, and for the first time, spiced apple rings, since you apparently can’t buy them in a jar anymore.
It was delicious, and not as much work as Christmas dinner (and way, way less work than Thanksgiving!).
For dessert I made a hot chocolate cake, complete with homemade marshmallow creme (I told you I like a theme!).
So that’s how we said goodbye to 2022 and hello to 2023…and now I’m looking forward to giving the kitchen a bit of a break!
It’s time to take a look back at 2022, starting with my favorite food photos of the year (minus desserts and drinks)!
Let’s start in February, with this beautiful quiche I made for the tea party we had to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne:
A lot of my best food photos this year occurred during our “Disney Dinners,” like these Moana’s Motunui Sliders:
Some of my other best food photos came from my adventures in German cooking, like this Bavarian Obatzda with homemade pretzels:
We had a lot of fun with The Nightmare Before Christmas cookbook…I love how colorful this “Snake and Spider Stew” was!
More German cooking…this time, a whole dinner plate featuring homemade schnitzel:
And a bonus picture, because nachos at the ballpark just photograph so well!
I took a lot of food photos this year, so stay tuned for specialized lists focusing on desserts and drinks, too!
Happy Santa Lucia Day!
As always, we started the day with lussekattes, served by our little Lucia.
We had stroganoff for dinner again this year. I’m not really sure why, but it makes for a very nice dinner on Santa Lucia Day.
For dessert, I made a cranberry cake with cream cheese frosting. This is the third year in a row I’ve made a cranberry cake for Santa Lucia Day (I really like the way the red fruit against white frosting reflects the colors of the holiday), so I guess it’s a family tradition now. I’ve never made the same cake twice, though!
This was another nice Advent day!