Thursday’s Recipe …… Gado-Gado (only it’s friday)

This recipe is from Moosewood Cookbook

Sauce Ingredients:

2 T butter

1 cup chopped onion

2 medium garlic cloves

1 bay leaf

1 to 2 t freshly grated gingerroot

1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt

1 cup good peanut butter (although any nut butter would work)

juice of 1 lemon

1 T honey

1 T cider vinegar

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste

dash of tamari

Other ingredients:

shredded cabbage steamed or raw

carrots

broccoli

mung bean sprouts

tofu-raw or sauteed with sesame seeds

hard cooked egg quarters

fresh spinach leaves

Heat butter-add onions, garlic, bay leaf, ginger and salt. Cook until onions are tender. Stir in 3 cups of water and remaining sauce ingredients. Simmer on lowest heat 30 minutes-stir occasionally. Pour sauce over veggies.

My 2 cents—-decrease the water by at least a cup. I wished the sauce was a bit thicker. As I said above any nut butter can be used.  I used all raw veggies and included kale and chard but no cabbage or spinach this time. This is good cold too! It travels well-always a good addition to a pot luck. I have had this over noodles too-yummy!

What’s On My Strewing Table?

Gever Tulley on 5 dangerous things for kids (click to watch)

I watched this video the other day and remembered I had an old VCR in the basement all ready to take apart

I have written about taking stuff apart  here. Ginger loves to use tools!!

But this week I didn’t stop my strewing with just putting something out to take apart but stuff to put together too.

I should probably tell you that my basement is like Grandma’s attic. I’ve got so much stuff socked away down there to pull out at various times.  So when I strew it’s often something that has been packed up for a while or forgotten so when I pull it out again it becomes all the rage!

Last Thursday’s Recipe……..Greens in Cashew Curry Sauce

Sorry for the lack of posts but I’ve been having computer issues. Hopefully it’s all fixed now!

This recipe may seem a bit time consuming, but once you make the curry paste it’s smooth sailing! And the curry paste recipe will keep for months in the fridge so next time you want to make this it will be even more simple!

Both of these recipes came from my new favorite cook book FEEDING THE WHOLE FAMILY

Homemade Curry Paste

makes 2 cups

1 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 lb onion finely chopped, 1/4 cup whole cumin seeds, 1/4 cup whole coriander seeds,       1 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds, 1 teaspoon whole cloves, 2 teaspoons black peppercorns, 2 Tablespoons whole mustard seeds, 2 teaspoons allspice, 1 teaspoon cardamom, 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon,  1/4 cup turmeric,               2 teaspoons cayenne, 1/4 cup peeled, finely chopped ginger.

whew-that’s a lot of spices!!

Heat the oil and saute the onion until very soft.

While the onions are cooking, grind the following whole spices to a fine powder in a coffee or spice grinder— cumin, coriander, fenugreek, cloves, peppercorns and mustard. Add to the onions along with all the other spices and ginger. Let cook for 5 minutes while stirring.

Store in sealed jar in the fridge for several months.

OK now on to the GREENS IN CASHEW CURRY SAUCE

1/4 cup cashew butter (I made this real quick in my food processor), 1 Tablespoon homemade curry paste, 1 Tablespoon tamari or shoyu, 3/4 cup filtered water, 2 cups quick boiled greens.

Blend cashew butter, curry paste, tamari and water in blender until creamy (I used my food processor)

Combine greens and blended sauce in a pan and gently heat before serving.

I chopped up a bunch of kale, chard and raabini and added it to about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of boiling water in my cast iron skillet with a top on it for a few minutes to steam.

Then I added the sauce.

I had some left over quinoa and added that to the greens and sauce.

I ate this for dinner several times this week. And now that I have 2 cups of homemade curry paste in my fridge, I can just whip this up real quick!

A Much Too Long, Very Biased Unschooling Post

Last week, my husband and I  were with our homeschool friends Amy and Brad. My husband has been on a kick lately of telling me to send Ginger to school. Partially because he believes it and mostly because he likes to annoy me. Amy and Brad know my husband likes to yank my chain (a lot!!)  so they mostly just laughed at him but also tried to set him straight!

I have sort of become anti-school. If my older kids decided to go to school I would support them but I would have a really hard time with all the rules and regulations that I guess need to be in place for crowd control reasons. The homework–what the heck do they do in school all day that they need to do more when they get home????    Grades?  You are “smart” if you get good grades  (know how to work the system) or your dumb and lazy (bored) if you don’t get good grades.   Arbitrary awards like pizza parties for being quiet and getting high test scores? Now that’s a true love of learning not just a love of pizza! The longer my kids are home, the more happy I am with the choices we (I) have made. I am pretty sure I  have become one of those homeschooling snobs. I’m sorry.  I don’t really look down on you, but I do feel my kids are lucky. They have it pretty good. Obviously, I don’t hold book smarts high on the list of proof of being “smart” or proof of getting a good education.  (Right here insert my super excitement to see John Taylor Gatto at our Annual Unschooling Conference in Feb!!!!!!!!!!)

I certainly wouldn’t tell someone that was thinking about homeschooling that it’s easy or the perfect choice. My kids don’t cooperate all the time or get along well even 50% of the time.But they are in command of their time,  their choices and their learning the majority of the day. And by learning I don’t mean workbooks or texts. I mean real life learning. Part of being an unschooler is living a rich life. Which is one of the not so easy parts of being an unschooling parent.

What does that mean, to live a rich life? For years I struggled with thinking we needed to move to a farm or my kids needed to have deep seeded interests that took them passionately to the library to research their interests or mentors and daily lessons in music or dance. But the reality is that most kids are not that driven or have a passion that will engulf their lives. It’s those driven kids that ruin unschooling for the rest of us mediocre chumps. The other 95 % (that’s a guess but I bet it’s high) of us  just live and play and learn in our day to day lives.  You hear about those driven kids and think your homeschool life needs to look like that or somehow you’re failing. When in reality…those are just the unschooled/homeschooled  kids you hear about. It makes for a boring read that your kids played a game or two, colored, made cookies, read books or played on the computer for hours before going to the playground with friends while the Moms discuss the following days field trip to a different park for some creeking and a picnic only to run to the rec center for break dancing class then scootering home to  stuff your papers that need to be delivered after dinner. See just day to day boring stuff.

No, we don’t live on a farm. That means I have to look for enriching things for us to do….catching and feeding monarchs before they migrate to Mexico for the winter: (Science, History, Geography, Math)

Watching the navy jump out of airplanes: (Physics, History)

Also, giving them lots of opportunities to cook, create, talk to professionals,  have pets to take care of, visit both local and different libraries, museums, local landmarks and traveling both near and far. (History, Math, English, Art, Science,Literature)

We are getting ready for a trip to Dog Island, off the coast of Florida. For us an event or a trip is the perfect reason to seek out information about things. We have gotten out maps to track our drive and globes to compare our little trip to the great big world. We have read countless  books on the ocean, coral reefs, tides and tidal pools, food chains and the gulf of Mexico. We have watched movies about sea turtles, dolphins and many magic school bus episodes on ocean life and water. We built our Galileoscopes and have our sky maps ready. This is all fun, enriching foot work that we often do before a trip to the apple orchard or camping at a local park. I learned that we don’t have to be boarding a plane or driving across the country to learn or experience something interesting, fun or real life.  But it certainly helps! This is real life learning. (For those that are looking for the learning, that’s-Science, Biology, Geography, Math, Astronomy, Literature)

Remember this post from about a year ago? (the part about all the buckeyes)   Well, a few weeks ago,  Molly shelled, drilled, purchased beads, created the necklaces, got change, biked to campus and sold $90 worth of those buckeye necklaces in less than two hours.  (For those that need to compartmentalize learning that’s-Art, Math, gym, shop)

Molly even gave her helper some money!

She  spent a good chunk of that money on an expensive Halloween costume. Yes, it made my stomach turn to see her dole out that much cash for a few hours of wear but it it is her money.  Of course I put my 2 cents in. But in the end it is her money and deciding when, where and how to spend it is also real life learning. She has a paper route so she has income coming in. She set aside money to spend on vacation and some more to purchase a hair straightener. Oh, and  don’t worry about her future because she puts half of her paper route check in a savings account!  I would say she is learning more than any text book could teach her. (Mucho Math)

Many schooled kids do these same things but homeschooling allows us more time for these learning  opportunities. We don’t have to cram them in when there is time. They are just part of our day to day lives.

Now, back to my husband. I sort of wear the educational pants in our family as my husband wears the financial pants. We may discuss things but the one with the knowledge makes the ultimate decision.  So Ginger going to school is completely out of the question! I may  halfheartedly support my older kids curiosity about school but not so much my early elementary grade kid. What could school possibly teach my wiggly 5 year old that she can’t learn by snuggling up with us reading books, playing games, painting, playing with friends, outside, inside and at parks and museums?   She is experiencing life first hand, with her family and friends. Not at a kindergarten level or in  a specific time frame. She is one lucky 5 year old!

Look–More science!!    See learning is everywhere!!!!!!!!!!

Budda Board

Yesterday we spent the day at The Works Museum. What a great hands-on place! I forgot my camera so no pictures. But there was enough to keep Ginger and I busy for 4 hours while Molly was in an Art-Science class there. One of the many things we loved at the museum was this Budda Board. They had one at the Childrens Museum in Maine but the gift shop was out of them. Lucky for us The Works had plenty in stock!

It really is a zen experience to paint with water on this slate board and watch it eventually fade away.

OOoHHHMmmmmmmmm

Checking In & Checking Out

Broken humerus snowboarding with friends today.

Lucky he had a helmet on!

Bad timing!

We are leaving for an Unschoolers Conference at a water park for a few days, we have a quick ski trip planned, he has several circus performances coming up, helping out with a music video in the girls breakdancing class, and he and Joe were going to Jackson Hole for snowboarding and snowmobiling. (which may still be possible if he heals in a timely manner).

Ginger is sick and I spent most of the day at the hospital with Jake,  so packing and shopping for our trip is not happening. So, I will be cramming in what I can tomorrow and then off for a few days of R&R. I’ll be back next week, hopefully with better news. Or at least I’ll be well rested.

Thursdays Quarter Recipe

I almost forgot to post my COOKIE recipe for this weeks theme.

I don’t have pictures of these because we hven’t made them this year yet-I am planning our holiday baking for next week. These are so easy  to make and so easy to eat!  I have made these for the past 3 years.

GINGER COOKIES

2/3 cup veg oil

1 cup sugar

1 egg beaten

4 Tablespoons molasses

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

Pre heat oven to 350

Mix all ingredients together

mix well

Roll dough into balls and then balls into sugar.

Bake on ungreased sheet 9 to 11 minutes

Makes about 4 doz.

I bet you can’t eat just one!!!!

If you want to join this weeks recipe party post a cookie recipe on your blog and somewhere in that post link to PepperPaints and then leave a comment here with a link to your cookie post.  It’s that easy!!!