Homemade Granola Bars ~Recipe 2

These are more chewy than the others I posted recently.

Ingredients:

2 1/2C.  Rolled oats
1/2C.  packed brown sugar
1/2C.  wheat germ
3/4t.  ground cinnamon
1C.  unbleached white flour
3/4C.  raisins
3/4t.  salt
1/2C.  honey
1  egg, beaten
1/2C.  oil (I actually used 3/4C applesauce instead)
2t.  vanilla extract

1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease or spray 9x13 baking dish.
2.  In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, flour, raisins and salt.  Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, oil (or applesauce), and vanilla.  Mix well and pat evenly into prepared pan.
3.Bake for 30 minutes until bars begin to turn golden at the edges.  Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm.

Homemade Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

I use this in casseroles and sauces just as I would store bought cream of chicken soup.  I love knowing what's in my soup and knowing that it is HEALTHY!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C. chicken broth
1/2 t. poultry seasoning
1/4 t. onion powder (or a bit of diced onions)
1/4 t.  garlic powder (or diced garlic)
1/8 t. black pepper
1/4t.  sea salt (or to taste)
1/4 t. parsley
dash of paprika
1 1/2 C. milk
3/4 C. flour

In a medium saucepan, boil chicken broth, 1/2 cup of the milk, and the seasonings for a minute of two (longer if using fresh onions or garlic).

In a bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 cup of milk and the flour.  Add to boiling mixture and continue whisking briskly until mixture boils and thickens.

I freeze this in 1-1.5 cup portions so I can just thaw it when I need a can of soup.  And I usually at least double the recipe so I can stock up and always have some on hand.

Homemade Granola

A friend of mine shared this recipe with me (thanks, Angie!!), and my family is loving it!  We make granola, fruit and yogurt parfaits with this and also just eat it as a cold cereal.  This is so good, I don't think I'll ever need to buy packaged cereal again!

3 C.  rolled oats
1/2 C. chopped almonds
1/2 C. chopped pecans
1/2 C. chopped walnuts
1/4 C. pumpkin seeds
1/2 C. flaked coconut (unsweetened)
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt (unless you use salted butter, then omit)
4 T. butter or oil
1/3 C. honey
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 C. dried cranberries
1/2 C. dried blueberries

Preheat oven to 325

Stir together oats, nuts, seeds, coconut, salt, and cinnamon.

In a small saucepan melt butter (or oil) with honey over low heat, stirring.  Remove from heat and add vanilla. Pour over oat mixture and stir until well combined.

On a large baking sheet, spread granola into a thin layer.  Bake, stirring every 5 minutes, until brown and crisp, about 20 minutes.  Do not overcook; it will crisp more once cool.

Let cool, then stir in dried fruit.

Any combination of unsalted nuts/seeds/dried fruit would taste great.  Just use the same proportions.

***I did alter this recipe since I didn't have all these things on hand.  I made mine with almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds, raisins and dried dates.  I didn't use coconut (I don't like it), and it came out fine.  Next time around I may try coconut oil instead of the butter.  I think my family would enjoy that.  And I can't wait to try this with other dried fruits like raspberries, strawberries and apples!!

Homemade Granola Bars ~Recipe 1

I liked the way these came out, so I thought I'd post the recipe.


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Ingredients:
2-1/2 C.  rolled oats
1/2 C.  wheat germ
1/2 C.  sunflower seeds
1/2 C.  almonds, crushed
1/2 C.  peanuts, crushed
1/3 C.  brown sugar
1/2 C.  honey
4 T.  butter
2 t.  vanilla extract
1/4 t.  sea salt
dried fruit (a couple handfuls)

Crush the nuts (I used my Pampered Chef Food Chopper).  Then, mix the nuts, oats, wheat germ and sunflower seeds in a baking dish with sides.  Toast them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, stirring every few minutes so they don't burn.

Line a 13"x11" baking dish with waxed paper and lightly spray with a nonstick spray.

Put the brown sugar, honey, butter, vanilla, and salt into a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly.

Mix everything really well in a large bowl (including the dried fruit).

Dump mixture into your prepared dish, and spread evenly.  Cover the mixture with another sheet of waxed paper and press mixture firmly into the dish so it is nice and compacted and won't fall apart when you cut your bars.

Let it cool completely, pull the mixture out of the dish, flip it onto a cutting board, remove all waxed paper, and cut into bars with a large knife.

I store these in the refrigerator or they can also be frozen.

Getting Creative

I was telling my brother about my homemade English muffins this weekend, and he suggested putting raisins in it. Why hadn't I thought of that?  So today I thought I'd give it a try.  I just used the original recipe, and then threw in some raisins and cinnamon and I'm so excited to report that they came out really well!  I learned to lower the heat while they're cooking in the pan, though, so the raisins don't burn.

Peanut Butter Fruit Dip

"Rupert" found this recipe in the cookbook he got for Christmas.  We whipped it up today and loved it so much, I thought I should share it.  It's super easy, and super yummy!

1C vanilla yogurt
1/2C powdered sugar
1/4C peanut butter

Mix it all together and have at it.  We loved dipping apples in it, and as you can see, "Rupert" couldn't keep his hands off of it long enough for me to even take a picture.

Homemade Wheat Thins

I got this recipe over at Kitchen Stewardship and gave it a try this weekend.  They came out pretty good, but I think next time I'll try to get them rolled out even thinner.  I think they'll be better that way.  The recipe and some great pictures are on her site, so enjoy!  Here's a photo of mine, too.

Homemade English Muffins!

I am not a bread master, but I am thankful to know someone who is.  I've adopted JoAnn over at Homeschool Distractions as my resident bread expert.  :-)  She found a recipe for English muffins that her family loved, so I decided to give them a try, and let me tell you...they. are. GOOD!  We used them for last night's cobb sandwiches, and then this morning for breakfast.  I made them a bit too thick, but I'll fix that next time.  Thanks for sharing this, JoAnn!!

Here's the dough recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

1st Grade: Week 28 Highlights

Bible: We've really been enjoying the daily devotions at kids4truth.com They have been such a blessing for us. Check them out! "Rupert" has also been reading his children's Bible for phonics this week.

Grammar: We were introduced to three more sentence types this week- the command, the question and the exclamation. "Rupert" practiced writing a sample of each of the four types of sentences.

Science: This week we talked about our sense of touch. We also did a fun little activity where I put miscellaneous items into a paper bag, and "Rupert" had to put his hand in the bag, and determine what was in there by using his sense of touch. We also talked about how sensitive our fingers are to touch, and did the activity again, but this time wearing a mitten on his hand.

Some of the things in our touch bag:

History: We read about the Greeks (Sparta and Athens) coming together to fight off the Persians, the origin of the Marathon run, and finally, the Peloponnesian war. We also played a Peloponnesian war board game that was in our Story of the World Vol.1 Activity Book.

Math: We reviewed our skip counting songs and double and triple digit addition with carrying. After doing a great job on that, "Rupert" asked for a challenge: a 10-digit problem! My little math master did his challenge problem perfectly! We called it our "monster problem", so when he was done solving it, he drew in a monster face around it. :-)

Kung fu: "Rupert" learned more of his double stick form this week. I finished learning it, and I'm here to say, it is tough! Keeping track of what your body is doing is tricky enough sometimes, then adding a stick in each hand and trying to make those do what you want them to...I don't know how any kid would be coordinated enough to get it down. But they do...and he is.

Social Opportunities: We took it easy this week and just had kung fu class, a baking/crafting playdate for St. Patrick's Day, and PE class.

Our St. Patrick's Day craft will grow parsley "hair"

Our cupcakes had rainbow colors inside!

New Recipe: California Chicken Wraps

OH. MY. DEAR. HEAVEN! You have GOT to try these! We had them for dinner tonight and they were SO good! Next time, I think I'll try them with homemade tortillas!

1st Grade: Week 27 Highlights

Grammar: We began learning about sentences this week, and were introduced to statement (declarative) sentences.

Math: "Rupert" has skip counting by 2-6 down, so this week we started on skip counting by 7. I cannot express how happy I am with the skip counting songs we are using. It's right up "Rupert's" alley as he is mostly an auditory learner and has a great memory for music.

History: We read a little more about the Greek gods and the fall of Troy. "Rupert" really liked the story of the Trojan horse and had fun acting it out.

Science: We read about the sense of smell, watched a Bill Nye video about smell, and did a taste test without using smell to see how important smell is in our ability to taste foods.

Social Opportunities: Overnight with Grandma and Grandpa, play practice, Kung fu, peanut butter bear playdate, PE class and art day.

1st Grade: Week 22 Highlights

This was "Rupert's" second week of play practice and he's still loving it! The kids started learning some choreography this week, and got their CDs to take home and listen to for practice. "Rupert" loves playing his CD whenever he can, playing in his room, jumping on his bed, folding his laundry, bedtime...anytime is a good time for his play music! :-)

We also finished listening to "Beezus and Ramona" by Beverly Cleary this week. We have already listened to the whole Ramona series, but we loved it so much that we decided to start all over again. We love Ramona!!

Phonics: The easy readers are still working out wonderfully! "Rupert" is actually excited to pick one out of the stack to read, and sometimes he insists on reading two! I definitely think this is the way to go for us!

Spelling: We started the 2nd grade spelling program this week.

Art: We had art day with our homeschool group this week and did another watercolor lesson. We also did a watercolor lesson with Grandma this week.

"Rupert's" Journey of Discovery watercolor painting:

Mine:

"Rupert's" Garden watercolor painting:

Mine:

Cooking: "Rupert's" recipe pick of the week was Oreo milkshakes, and, of course, they were GOOD!

History: This week we read about life in early Crete. We had fun learning about the bull-jumpers, and "Rupert" made a set of bull horns and we each got to practice jumping a "bull" (each other), too.

We also read about Theseus and the Minotaur, a story that we really enjoyed. We acted that one out too! :-)

Science: This was our last week of animal study. We read about spiders, crabs, and insects. Next week we move on to our human body study (my favorite!) and I am so excited!!!

We also did a couple of the science experiments that "Rupert" got for Christmas. Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma!!

Erupting Volcano:

ASL: When we popped in the new Signing Time video for this week, we realized that of all the signs on this video, only 4 of them were new to us! Lots of freebies/review signs for us, but that's okay. I think "Rupert" was excited about the fact that he already knew most of them.

Kung fu: Professor is beginning to get us all ready for promotion. Promotion isn't until June, but he wants to be sure everyone knows their stuff. I still haven't decided whether I'll go up for promotion or not. I generally don't like to be publicly recognized like that, and really, I just want to learn. I am not concerned about what color belt I hold. It has just never been important to me. But DH is pressuring me to do it. I don't know...

Social Opportunities: Besides kung fu and play practice, this week we had a playdate with "Rupert's" buddy since birth. They played together for hours and didn't fight once! They had a great time, and we're planning to do it again in two weeks. We also joined in on a once a week homeschool PE class this week. "Rupert" enjoyed running around playing all kinds of tag with the other kids. Add art day, an overnight with the grandparents, and a skating party, and we're maxed out on social engagements for the week!

Oh! One last thing! We made this little Groundhog Day craft this week too! He pops up out of his hole to look for his shadow. :-)

1st Grade: Week 21 Highlights

Bible: We are really enjoying the Kids 4 Truth devotions online.

Sunday was "Rupert's" first play practice with the children's drama team at our church. They will be performing the musical, J-Force to the Rescue. He will have practice once a week for about 3 months, then there will be one intensive practice week where they will have practice 4 days, and finally, they will have several performances for the children in our church (6 different services, I believe), and a couple of outreach performances for other churches. It's a big commitment, but I think he will get a lot out of it.

Phonics: This week we took a break from The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (OPG). With the success we had in reading Green Eggs and Ham last week, I decided to pick up some easy readers at the library, and give them a try. It was wonderful! "Rupert" gets overwhelmed with his OPG phonics lessons. It is a plain book with no pictures. When he sees only words and a lot of them, he gets overwhelmed with how much work there is to do. It doesn't matter if the words are easy or hard, all he sees is a lot of work! The pictures in the easy readers are a bit distracting at first, but after he spends a minute enjoying the pictures, he seems more focused and ready to read. This week he was reading words that I didn't know he could! And he was actually enjoying it! Needless to say, we're sticking with the early readers for a while (though I will probably throw some sight word study in there too).

Spelling: We finished up 1st grade spelling this week. Next week we will move to 2nd grade spelling which will have more difficult words and more of them. I have every intention of taking it slow and not letting "Rupert" get too crazy with it (like doing 4 spelling lists at a time, as he did a couple of times with the 1st grade set).

Writing: We took a break from our regular writing curriculum this week to write thank you notes for Christmas gifts. I still have to get those in the mail!

Grammar: We learned that the word "I" is always capitalized, and "Rupert" made up a story about waking up as a bunny. I wrote it down on paper as he told it/acted out the action verbs, then he went back through the written story and circled all the occurrences of the word "I" (with a capital letter). He enjoyed this creative activity.

Math: "Rupert" is still going strong with his math workbook, and averages about 4 pages a day. Since most of the concepts are familiar to him, I let him choose any page in the whole book to do, but I've already warned him that next year we will be working through the book from beginning to end. This week he worked on fractions, time, addition and subtraction.

History: We read about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.

Science: We read about worms and Octopi, and watched videos of worm dissections and an octopus taking down a shark! Very cool!

Cookbook Pick of the Week: Cream cheese and jam stuffed French toast. It was fun to make and pretty yummy too!

Social Activity: This week we participated in a homeschool group show and tell. "Rupert" had really been looking forward to it, and had a good time showing off his stuffed bunny, Flopsy.

Of course, we had kung fu class and storytime at the library as social opportunities as well.

1st Grade: Week 17 Highlights

We took an easy week this week and did a gingerbread man theme. We read 2 versions of the gingerbread man story and compared and contrasted them using a venn diagram. I printed up gingerbread man themed math worksheets and other activities, and we made and decorated real gingerbread men.

Phonics: We continued working on the sight word flash cards.

History: We started on our Egyptian burial mask.

Music: "Rupert" got some beginning Christmas music from my former piano teacher, and has been having fun playing that.

ASL: We've been practicing telling a simplified version of the Christmas story in sign. In doing so, we've learned the signs for God, Jesus, king, shepherd, wise men, worship, born, savior and celebrate.

Thanksgiving is...

Well, from the looks of it, to me, Thanksgiving is baked treats. Here's what I baked today:

Pumpkin pies, brownies and cranberry bread. I can't wait till tomorrow!

Every year we put up this "Thankful Tree" and each day "Rupert" gets to write what he is thankful for on a leaf that we then attach to the tree. This year he was thankful for Grandma & Grandpa, Christmas, Wall-E, the piano, angels, Uncle Erik, Mom, Kiki (the cat), himself, Daddy, God, our house, planets, and Kiki again. Can you tell he REALLY likes the cat?

Oh! And we did a little turkey craft too!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!

1st Grade: Week 14 Highlights

I have lots of pictures this week. Let me start by posting pictures of our Ming bowl from last week. We finished it up this week and it came out pretty cool! I have a feeling this will be on display in our home for years to come. Here, "Rupert" is decorating it:

And here it is all finished!

History: This week we learned about ancient Africa. Not a lot is known about ancient Africa because, unlike Egypt, not many artifacts have been found there. We did learn that the Sahara Desert was not always a desert, though, and we read some old African folk tales. We finished up the week with an African feast! We had Grandma and Grandpa over for the feast and we tried some African dishes like Papaya stir-fried rice:

Fried plantains:

Date Chewies:

Chicken with figs:

And banana and date bars:

We also painted our faces with West African designs that I found here. We made instruments and had a little African concert as well. It was a fun time, and the food was great!

Science: This week we did an experiment to see what would happen to an egg if we left it in a jar of vinegar for three days. Here it is when we first poured the vinegar in. It seems to be sitting on the bottom of the jar and there are tiny bubbles forming all over the shell. The acid in the vinegar is reacting with the calcium carbonate in the shell and carbon dioxide is being released as little bubbles.

Here it is later, floating now. There is a collection of foam floating on the top of the vinegar.

Here the shell is completely gone! All that is left is the thin membranes that were just inside the shell.

And here is our egg compared with a regular one. It is bigger than the regular egg because it has absorbed some of the vinegar through osmosis.

Grammar: I found a song about pronouns that is sung to the tune of "When the Saints go Marching in". I may use it. We'll see how it goes over with the little man.

ASL: As long as we are talking highlights...We finally broke down and looked up the sign for "fart". Ahhh...the joys of parenting a boy. I know you're curious, and it really is a great sign, so here you go. Just click on the letter "F" at the top, and you'll find "fart" in the column on the left. Enjoy!

We're taking next week off for a Thanksgiving break! Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!

1st Grade: Week 11 Highlights

Sheesh! It has been so long since last week that I think I've forgotten what all we did. I think I'll just tell my story in pictures.

Here's the aftermath of our reading time on Monday:

We worked on double digit addition, which "Rupert" picked up on quite easily.

Then there was free creative time, which he LOVES! This week he was working on his life-size ninja turtle masterpiece. He made his goal and finished it by Halloween!

"Rupert" does his copywork twice a week at his little table.

A couple more things he made during free creative time. He was SO excited about Halloween this year and was really into making decorations to put all around the house.

On Friday, we went to the pumpkin patch. I was worried that there would be nothing left since it was the DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN, but it was wonderful! Plenty of pumpkins, and no crowd...perfect!!

We carved pumpkins on Friday night. This was the first year that "Rupert" didn't mind handling the pumpkin guts at all.

My ninja turtle got to go to the Halloween party/parade at our local library, then after dinner we went to the carnival at our church, and to Grandma and Grandpa's house. He brought home more candy than I ever imagined...enough to give us all a good solid start on the road to diabetes. :-)

I'm sure this didn't help matters. We found this in a Halloween cook book at the library. It WAS good. :-)

I also joined "Rupert" in his Kung Fu class and I LOVE it! I am so excited that I get another chance to train in martial arts. Doing it with my son is so cool. It has always been a dream of mine to train with my kids. Now if we could just lure Daddy into it, what fun we would have!