Tuesday, January 31, 2012

S**T Jewish Moms Say!

Please excuse the sh*t word, and I would love to say that I say none of these things but.....I CAN'T..especially at 52 seconds in, LOLLOLLOL!! Okay, and the PS4 comments, and the I'm so cold comment....and the "CALL CELLLLLLLLLLLLlu".............oh this is a riot.

Why Yes I Am Crazy...

aren't we all? Those that say they aren't, are; those that say they are, are. So okay I had this brilliant train of thought going but the teen man-child came in the room and felt it necessary to share some video he just saw about hoagies or something and now I can't think. Which is normal. Which tends to be crazy for anything to be normal.

Help! I Ran Out of Sour Cream!!

Thank goodness for the internet! A quick search on google brought me to About.com Homecooking, where I found these substitutions :)

  1. • For baking: 7/8 cup buttermilk or sour milk plus 3 tablespoons butter.
  2. • For baking: 1 cup yogurt plus 1 teaspoon baking soda.
  3. • For baking: 3/4 cup sour milk plus 1/3 cup butter.
  4. • For baking: 3/4 cup buttermilk plus 1/3 cup butter.
  5. • Cooked sauces: 1 cup yogurt plus 1 tablespoon flour plus 2 teaspoons water.
  6. • Cooked sauces: 1 cup evaporated milk plus 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice. Let stand 5 minutes to thicken.
  7. • Dips: 1 cup yogurt (drain through a cheesecloth-lined sieve for 30 minutes in the refrigerator for a thicker texture).
  8. • Dips: 1 cup cottage cheese plus 1/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk, briefly whirled in a blender.
  9. • Dips: 6 ounces cream cheese plus 3 tablespoons milk, briefly whirled in a blender.
  10. • Lower fat: 1 cup low-fat cottage cheese plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice plus 2 tablespoons skim milk, whipped until smooth in a blender.
  11. • Lower fat: 1 can chilled evaporated milk whipped with 1 teaspoon lemon juice.
Unfortunately, I am also out of milk AND butter--typical me--so I am really going to improvise here. Back to baking!

It worked! I have to be honest, I only used 1/4 cup of the evaporated milk/vinegar mixture, but wow it really seemed to give just the right amount of "sour" plus a nice thick cream. The recipe I made was Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake from Two Peas and Their Pod It came out DELICIOUSly light and fluffy yet rich at the same time.

ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Cinnamon Sugar Topping/Filling:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set dry ingredients aside.

3. Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and 1 cup sugar until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add in the eggs, one at a time, beat until smooth. Beat in the sour cream and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.

4. Slowly add in the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. In a small bowl, make the cinnamon sugar topping/filling. Stir together sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Pour half the batter into the prepared cake pan and sprinkle with half the cinnamon-sugar and half the chocolate chips. Spoon the remaining batter over the filling, spreading gently. Sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon-sugar and chocolate chips.

5. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool to room temperature and serve.

**One mistake I made was using an 11 x 8 brownie pan-it overflowed! I'd recommend using a 9 x 9 minimum size pan just to be safe. This was a terrific recipe with great instructions and, if you go to their website, wonderful step by step photos.

Monday, January 16, 2012

MLK day 2012

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

That's a tough one, don't ya think? And yet I believe with all my heart that is what enabled Dr. King to pursue his peaceful path...starting today I will work on this myself. I have gotten very far from forgiveness and have felt such resentment and anger; it's time to find a way to release it and finally understand that it is my own choice. Holding on to anger only punishes oneself; those that have done us wrong only rejoice in any anger or hurt we embrace! Babysteps again, but one foot in front of the other is still forward momentum towards walking an honorable path.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

We love homeschooling!

For today anyway, lol!

Subjects covered today were regrouping addition, money math, algebra, distances, properties of matter, foreign language, reading, physical fitness, time management, responsibility--and all that in about 2 hours. :-D Yes some of it was just part of practical everyday life, but so much of our homeschooling does evolve from that.

Zachary learned about regrouping, how to properly write and add money amounts, and multiple digit addition. He was sorting and then counting the change that Dylan paid me (Dylan handled the responsibility lesson there by paying towards his fines for having soda, plates, and other food related items in his room, grrrr....)
While he was sorting the coins, he asked if he could write it all down. (ummm, I can't believe I missed that wide open sarcastic opening there, because I said yes he could) Here is his paper:
He figured out how to add the numbers by himself, in spite of the fact that we have not "officially" covered regrouping or multiple digit math in his math book. I decided to write it out for him (at the top) to show him how it would look if doing this "properly". It occurred to me that-DUH-we have the blocks, I could show him exactly why we place the numbers where we do when working the regrouping problems! (again, thanks to Steve Demme, Math-U-See:

47+35 (the colors didn't show up for the "Units", which are tan for the 7 and blue for the 5)


The sum of the Units is 12 (1 blue Ten and 2 orange Units)


We can't have a Ten in the Units house, so the Ten moves to the Tens house :)


Add the Tens together to get the final answer of 82


I absolutely love when I get to see things click for any of the kids; it is the most incredible, indescribable feeling to see in and feel from them that they really GET IT!

Mallory, who is just too cool for lapbooking now, began her Physical Science Notebooking from Hands of a Child **click here for more info** (Notebooking is simply using the same elements of a lapbook, without cutting them out and/or using pretty colors, cause we all know colors and cutting things out are SO 12 years old...)

Which brings me to Dylan---->

A picture's worth a thousand words, right? Need I say more??

TBH (I'm cool like that, using internet acronyms..you should see my Facebook pucker!) he is maintaining an A average in math, so I'll leave any further sarcasm to your own terribly sarcastic minds. :-O





I'm finishing this post tomorrow, which is actually today of course, but yesterday it was tomorrow. I can't pull the kids away from the tv, Zachary has yelled at anyone that sat on the couch with him, heard "there's nothing for breakfast/lunch" a minimum of 3 times as of 8:30, had to break up a wrestling match between the boys; yea, another typical day in our house of homeschooling. And yea, I'm still lovin' it.