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If you garden in Indiana, you have an abundance of zucchini. If you don't garden (that would be me!), people bless you with their abundance of zucchini.
While most of my children will eat zucchini bread, few will touch it (willingly) raw or cooked. I made this recipe and then held my breath. It was a huge hit! Only Emelie knew it was zucchini - everyone else thought it was made from apples! Awesome!
Zucchini Crisp
8 cups cubed peeled zucchini
3/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
TOPPING:
1-1/3 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cold butter, cubed
In a bowl, combine the zucchini, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; mix well. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish.
For topping, combine brown sugar, oats and flour in a bowl; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over the zucchini mixture. Bake at 375° for 45-50 minutes or until bubbly and the zucchini is tender. Yield: 12-15 servings.
During the 30 minutes each morning that I read to the school-age children, the younger ones are in "Room Time." For more on Room Time, see the Our Day page above.
We use Room Time year-round since we use that time to fold laundry while listening to history or a good story. I try to sprice things up in the fall by rotating toys that have been in hiding in the basement for several months as well as adding one or two new ones.
The big hit of the year are the Teddy Mix & Match cards
. It basically and adorable set of "Memory" cards so I'm shocked how often the older children ask for turns with these. The children have given all the bears funny nicknames, and Hunter often is caught walking around with the green gummy-bear pair.
The first night out of the box, Meg (10) challenged Ted (13) to a match. Emelie and I nearly fell off our seats laughing as Ted couldn't make a pair to save his life. Since the game is rated 2.5-5 years old, we just kindly reassured him (with tears of laughter rolling down our cheeks) that it was because he's further from the 5-year age recommendation.
Ted's since done better, but Meg's still the champ. I told Ted I'd get Heidi (3) to tutor him.
After Reading the book Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations 
by Alex and Brett Harris (and encouraging my older children to read it too), I've worked to remove the word "teenager" from my vocabulary. After all, the word wasn't even around 100 years ago! The word conjures up a stereotype that I don't want anyone to think of when I'm referring to the "young adults" in my household.
Rather than the teen years being a tread-water, have-fun-until-I'm-old-enough-to-move-out time, the Harris brothers are convicting that the time can, and should, be spent in doing things that positively impact others. More like an internship in adulthood.
Interested? Read more here: the Rebelution blog.
As I type this, my mom is in surgery. It's times like these that menu planning can really save the day! Meg (10) handled the breakfast meal. Emelie (14) will cover lunch and dinner while I hang out at the hospital.
We're starting to feel that fall is just around the corner with all those school-year activities starting up. Not so sure how I feel about that!
This week we will be enjoying:
Monday - Beef Enchiladas
Tuesday - Waffles, Sausages, Eggs
Wednesday (AWANA - 1st night!)- Mock Lasagna
Thursday - Turkey Divan
Friday - Bible Study
Saturday - Rice Meatballs
Our menus for last year can be found at our website. Breakfast menu is here; lunch menu is here.
Find more menus at:
In my never ending quest to combine frugality with time savings, I have recently discovered how to cook dried beans in a fraction of the time - by using my pressure cooker. No more soaking overnight and then cooking for 45 minutes or more. Now we're talking tender beans in under an hour (sounds like an infomercial!).
Here's how it works:
Wash and sort the dried beans.
Put in the pressure cooker and cover with 2 inches of water.
Check your seals and valves on the lid.
Bring up to pressure and then immediately quick-release the pressure by running the pot under cold water.
Rinse the beans again.
Put them back in the pot and cover with 2 inches of water again.
Add a tablespoon of oil so they don't foam too much.
Cook for about 8 minutes for pinto beans, 10-12 minutes for black beans.
Add some salt after they're cooked.
For my bean measurement information click here.
Go to my recipes page for more ways to use your new found knowledge.
No-Cow Sloppy Joes
2 onions, chopped
1 green pepper, diced
2 Tbl. olive oil
6 Cups cooked black beans, drained
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 C ketchup
1/3 C brown sugar
1 tea. salt
1 Tbl. Worcestershire sauce
Saute veggies in oil until tender. Add beans and rest of ingredients. Mix well and heat through. Serve on hamburger buns. Serves 12.
Notes: You can add grated carrot to the sauteed veggies and a cup of corn to the mix. I figured my crew would balk at that, so we served them on the side. If you have a favorite sloppy joe sauce, use that instead!
I'm looking forward to cycling back through Considering God's Creation
with three of our students this year. It's a wonderful, Biblical science curriculum for students K through 8th grade. I'll be using it with my kindergartner, first- and third-graders.
What my children love most about this program is the amazing student book that they create from the notebook pages. Full of mini-books, pop-ups, and 3D features, it's a resource that they will be looking at for years to come! Ted was so proud of his book that he brought it in to his AWANA leader to demonstrate the lesson about the planets.
The lessons are completly scripted for the teacher, and the supplies for the experiements are usually in my kitchen. I'm hoping to finish this in a year, but last time through we stretched it to two years.
I have an older copy that I bought used, that I would love to give to someone. It has the teacher manual and all the student pages that can be reproduced to make a student notebook. If you'll pay shipping, it's yours!
Our school day really gets down to business around 10am when we gather in the living room for Circle Time. For more information about how and why we have Circle Time, as well as what we’ve done with it in the past, click on the “Our Day” link under our photo.
This year we will be starting our 30 minutes together reading the poetry from Sonlight Core 3 and Core 100. We’ll spend two days per week with one core and two days with the other. The older children and I take turns reading this aloud.
Since we are beginning a two-year study of American History, we will be singing and memorizing History Songs
. I tried to incorporate these when we went through Core 3 about 6 years ago (pre-Circle Time). Since I never had a scheduled time to work on them, they didn’t get done. Shocker! We’ll spend about 5 weeks on each song.
Finally we will be supporting our science studies with Lyrical Life Science: Ecology and Biomes
. If you haven’t checked these out, google for some samples. They are a treat! My old copies were on cassette tapes. Now they’re ripped to the computer and MP3s on my phone. Quite a change in the last few years! We’ll study each song for about two weeks, but I’m sure we’ll be listening on many road trips!
In just 30 minutes our children, ages 2 through high school, will cover a variety of poetry, history and science. That's an efficient use of time!
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