Swedish Pancakes

Photo credit here

Sarah at Stars in Her Fingernails is gathering recipes for her daughter. I promised to contribute my brother-in-law’s Swedish pancake recipe and thought I’d post it here in case you wanted it too. This is honest-to-goodness Viking fare – my brother-in-law is from southern Sweden – and has become my daughter’s most requested special occasion food. I make a batch for her birthday, if we have company or sometimes just to remind her that she is loved.

Although these pancakes are usually eaten with dinner in Sweden, we eat them for breakfast with jam or fresh fruit. If you want to be extra naughty you can spread on some Nutella.

Swedish Pancakes

2 eggs
1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 c. half and half
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted butter
(my addition, fresh nutmeg to taste for breakfast)

Beat together the eggs, flour and half of the cream into a smooth batter. Add the remaining cream, salt and melted butter. Heat a crepe pan and brush with melted butter. Add about 3 tablespoons of the batter. Tilt the pan to coat the bottom with batter. Cook over medium high heat for about a minute. When batter loses its sheen, flip and cook for a few seconds on the other side.
Pan should be hot enough for batter to sizzle slightly when added and cause a pattern of small circles to form.

November Patchwork

Some bits, pieces and thoughts from this very busy month…

Asha’s Cranberry Chutney

:: Yes, it is possible to de-starch Thanksgiving and still have a tasty and appealing meal. My daughter and I removed the rolls, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cakes and crackers from the traditional feast and added more veggies and fruits in order to make a friendlier meal for my diabetic father. The result? Easier to cook, prettier to look at, tasty and better for us too!

:: Why do I need to know this? If anyone has the answer to this million dollar question, posed after introducing how to find the equation of a line, please feel free to share. I have every confidence that your answer will be better than my lame response: It’s going to be on the SAT.

:: A water molecule painting from this month’s science week. A single week each month covering one topic is working so much better than anything we’ve tried in the past.

:: BBC’s Robin Hood season one became a family favorite. Season two? More Indiana Jones than Robin Hood, I’m afraid. Entertaining but not appropriate for school.

:: One big work project is finished, another organized and ready to go… detailed lesson plans for the next two weeks are waiting and groceries for the next four days fill the pantry and fridge. I’m still not sure how this happened, but I’m going to enjoy it!

Peace Within

My newest mandala: Peace

Something happened when I flipped the calendar to November. Satisfying days became hectic and harried. At least once a day (usually more) I’d find myself thinking, I’ll just get through this and then I’ll slow down. I‘ll write in my journal. I’ll take the extra time we need for school. I’ll curl up with a book, take my time cooking a meal, go to bed early. Just as soon as I…

Stop.

I often forget that it’s up to me to make the life I want. The life that happens in the small spaces, not the elusive afternoon with nothing to do.

I keep a verse on the board in my office. It was buried under notes and memos. Thinking of the the busy-ness that can creep in and take over the next few weeks, I cleared away the clutter and moved it to the front of the pile once again.

May today there be peace within.
May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.

May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.
Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to
sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

These beautiful words came to me via Monday Morning Musings at Muselan.

However you choose to celebrate, I wish you peace as you start your holiday season.

Photography Club: November

This month’s assignment? Fungi.

From Asha:

A graceful tree trunk dressed in ruffles

and scallop shells.

From me:

Delicate cherry blossom petals… scattered

River stones grace a fallen log

Turkey tail feathers fanning wide

On Our Screen

Over the past two months we’ve watched some thought-provoking films. All three are available through Netflix and come with my highest recommendation for family viewing with kids 12 or older.

Having read Fast Food Nation and seen the movie, I had a pretty good idea what Food Inc might cover. What I did not expect was how my views on shopping would change. I still hate big box stores. However, armed with the knowledge that big box is the driving force behind the food culture in this country (that’s a post for another day) I won’t feel so bad about buying my organic food there during the off season. It’s casting a monetary vote for positive change – although I still prefer our CSA or co-op. Buying fast food has now gone from “emergency only” status to “not happening.”

We’re also completing this assignment for school.

I didn’t know much about FLOW: For the Love of Water when I chose it to accompany a week-long science unit. What a great surprise! I’ve never seen my daughter walk away from a movie so full of passion to create change. In addition to more stream monitoring, I’m looking another volunteer project we can participate in that’s tied to clean community water.

The SuperSize Me guy, Morgan Spurlock, does a fine job raising many social issues through his reality show 30 Days. We watched the episode Minimum Wage as a family. Besides helping us to count our blessings, seeing how tough it is to live on minimum wage was a great motivator to continue to work hard and learn new skills. We were also reminded to write our senators (again) regarding health care reform and take the things we don’t need to our local church-operated free store.

While I think these shows are great for teens, they do contain scenes that are hard to watch and information that can feel downright overwhelming at times. I suggest you screen the movies first to decide if they are right for your family, allow plenty of time between viewings and have an action plan in the wings to help your kids end their experience on a positive note.

Plan B Days

Late fall and early winter can be some of my busiest work months. Knitting is a good craft for these times. It’s portable, easy to stop and start, and the yarn feels good in my hands.

I’m a pretty laid-back knitter. Each season I pick a few new things I’d like to learn and leave it at that. Keeping my goals modest keeps everything fun. This plan also ensures I can knit well into my 90’s and still have plenty of new things to learn.

Last week I scrounged a forgotten skein of pretty mohair and ribbon from the yarn drawer and taught myself how to knit “something with holes.” I wasn’t quite ready for the lacy scarf pattern I had set aside, so I made my own pattern on graph paper. I don’t think it looks too bad.

Today I taught Asha how to yarn over and she knit a swatch. This week she can work out her own pattern and we’ll pick up yarn over the weekend for a scarf. We had been up since 5:00 am with our dear cat, Priscilla, who is 18 years old and in fragile health. After a tearful morning and rushed trip to the vet, algebra was clearly not going to happen.

The cat is doing better now…

Handwork is great to keep tucked in our back pocket for Plan B school days – the days when life has clearly dictated that Plan A is not going to happen but you’d still like to squeeze in some learning.

I made a Plan B list this summer when I was spending a lot of time helping to care for my parents. Some activities I have my daughter turn to on these days are:

• Cooking & baking
• Free painting, sketching or journaling
• Handwork
• Home management
• Photography
• Learning more about the reason our plans have changed. What is a stroke? How is it treated? How do viruses spread? What are the signs of dehydration? What should you do if the washer overflows?
• Watching a good biopic or educational film. Last week Plan A was failing miserably so I finished school early and we went to see Amelia, which led to some nice discussions on women’s rights, public relations, costume design and senior citizens.
• Listen to a book on tape
• Complete a small service project
• Have a mini review

Having too many Plan B days in a row can make me feel decidedly unsettled – as in there is not enough learning happening here! In reality a good back up plan is what keeps learning happening on days when school could have easily been canceled altogether.

How do you handle Plan B days?

Phantom of the Opera

October is one of my favorite months. I like to make school a bit more fun by choosing subject matter that’s just a little quirky or gently dark. Phantom of the Opera seemed to fit the bill perfectly on both counts.

Truth be told, this was also my classic counterpart to the Twilight saga.

Spurred on by curiosity, both my daughter and I read parts of the popular vampire series over the summer. Neither of us cared for the writing, although in discussing the story line we did spend a lot of time pondering modern day fairy tales  – and that was a good thing.

Besides reading the book, Gaston Leroux’s tale also provided many great jumping off points such as:

• The history and architecture of the Paris Opera House
• Listening to Faust, La Boheme and The Phantom of the Opera musical soundtrack
• Symbolism in literature
• Masks – various types, uses and the psychology of, designing and creating
• An introduction to the city of Paris

We discussed personality traits and how each of has various faces we show the world, and then painted self-portraits showing two opposing emotions we might feel. (There was also an option to paint a portrait of Eric in this way, but neither of us chose it.)

Asha: Happy & Mad

Christiane: Peace & Rage

Halloween night was the perfect time to snuggle up and watch the movie version. The romance, cinematography, music and lavish costumes seemed to be just the right story for my 13 year-old girl.

The unit isn’t quite finished. Asha’s last assignment was to design, create and photograph the mask Christine might have worn to the masquerade ball. The mask is ready to go… now she just has to plan the shot and invite one of her friends over to be Christine for an afternoon.

Garden Notes

We’ve been putting the garden to bed. Jeff harvested the last of the potatoes and took down the beans. I cut back my herbs, gathered seeds from some of my flowers and cleaned up one of my strawberry beds. This weekend I hope to finish the rest of the berries and get them all cut back and tucked in for winter.

It’s survival-of-the-fittest gardening at our house. At first I was worried that our lack of time to devote to a garden might result in a lot of waste but, as we discovered this summer, with a little planning and very minimal effort it is possible to yield a good bit of food from a small space.

Since I don’t keep a garden notebook, I’m going to write my notes for next year here.

Raised Beds
I had Jeff build raised beds for my herbs and ever-bearing strawberries this year, just to see how I would like them. I love them! They look nice and seem to have fewer weeds. There may be more of these on the horizon.

Beans
Jeff’s pole beans were slow to get moving, but once they did… whew boy! And that was kind of the problem. We couldn’t pick them before they became old and knobbly and unappetizing. Plus I don’t eat green beans. Ever. Childhood bean trauma, you know. I hate to see the lovely frame my hubby made go to waste, but I think we can use it for something like snow peas or climbing spinach.

Tomatoes
Knowing our CSA would provide baskets of the most beautiful tomatoes, we planted just a few Romas for sauce. I find myself eating plates of big beefy tomato slices with sea salt and pepper in the summer, so I think we would be wise to switch it up a bit next year.

Potatoes
We got a little carried away on the potatoes. We’ll stick with red and yellow fingerlings and take a pass on the blue variety as all of us found their texture to be rather mealy and strange. I’ve given up trying to sneak them into anything and have them set aside to hit the compost pile… or maybe not, since they might love it there and reproduce.

Herbs
While I did meet my goal of increasing the amount of fresh herbs used in our summer cooking, I did not make full use of the plants as planned. This winter I hope to read up on things like tea blends and tinctures so that I might do more next season.

Cucumbers and Squash
These are both things we’d like to find homes for on our small lot. Over the last two years I’ve grown to love acorn, butternut and spaghetti squash varieties and would like to add those, as well as a pumpkin plant, to the mix.

Cleaning Food
I need to remember to clean harvested food properly before bringing it in the house. I gave the fridge a good scouring yesterday and was somewhere between disgusted and amazed at all the smudges, specks and unidentifiable tiny bits of stuff that I swiped up.  Note to self: purchase a garden basket for gathering and rinsing.

Using Space Effectively
This is another area I’d like to improve. Our privacy fence runs half the length of our lot, and I know we could make much better use of the vertical space it provides, even if it’s just to grow beautiful flowers that attract more birds and butterflies.

I think my appetite for tasty and inexpensive food is my garden currency… I’m just not a toiling kind of gal. As I grow older, I’m also learning to appreciate the quiet and functional beauty vegetable plants provide.

October Patchwork

For a homeschool blog, I’m not doing a stellar job of writing about school this year. Until I can come up with an interesting post about slope-intercept formula, I’ll offer you these snippets:

October Artist: Georgia O’Keeffe

:: Artist of the Month has returned. I keep it very simple – a few lovely coffee table books from the library, internet searches, a written summary and one or two favorite works added to the art history notebook. If Asha wishes, she creates an inspired work. If not, that’s okay too.

O’Keeffe inspired painting

:: October Photography Club’s assignment: fall foliage. On the sunny day we took these photos, the task seemed a bit lame. Now nearly naked tree limbs sit in front of gray drizzly skies and we think fall foliage was a grand idea.

Asha’s fall leaves in the cemetery

Pretty foliage on our block

:: Baked goods for a potluck, dessert for after dinner, cupcakes to share with book group. I send my daughter into the kitchen, treats magically emerge and my dining room table becomes a photo studio. Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes continues to be a favorite.

Sweet little sunflowers

Classic Red Velvet cakes with Buttercream icing

Monsters for book group

:: My long-awaited year of the ghost story has arrived! Now that a scare is a good thing (it’s different for every child, something you just can’t rush) we are enjoying two of  my favorite seasonal books – Jane Emily and The Witches Children by Patricia Clapp – under the covers on cold mornings.

:: The season for Resource Room has ended too. A special thank you to my dear friends Dawn and Anet for their participation and support, and to Wendy at Athena Academy for nominating me for Alasandra’s Homeschool Blog Awards.

R & B: Brown Rice and Pepper Risotto

We’re squeaking in a few more weeks of local organic produce thanks to a generous CSA extension. Our farmer’s pepper crop has been nothing short of amazing this year. I’ve been bringing home two or more pounds of peppers a week for more than a month: poblano, sweet red, orange, yellow, green, scotch bonnet, jalapeno. All this peppery goodness has spurred me to find some new recipes.

Creamy brown rice risotto is a nice seasonal transition for our family. In addition to being a great way to use up the sweet and smoky pepper varieties, it’s also budget friendly, easy to make and is part of our new winter plan to eat a meal based off rice or beans, or both, at least once a week.

I never knew it was possible to make risotto with anything other than arborio rice until I ran across this recipe in The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Vegetarian Cooking. I’ve modified the recipe slightly to include soaking the rice, adding more garlic and peppers and a topping of parmesan cheese. With sliced apples and a quick salad, this makes a satisfying Autumn meal.

Brown Rice and Pepper Risotto

3-4 large peppers – sweet or poblano – roasted, skinned and diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 14-ounce can fire roasted chopped tomatoes
2 bay leaves
Approx. 5 cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 c. brown rice, soaked
6 basil leaves, snipped
fresh ground salt, pepper and parmesan cheese

Heat oil in a dutch oven. Add garlic and tomatoes and cook over gentle heat for 5 minutes, then add peppers and bay leaves. Stir well and cook for 15 minutes more. Pour the stock into a separate pot and heat to simmering. Drain rice and stir into vegetable mixture. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then ladle in enough stock to cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until all the stock has been absorbed into the rice. Continue to add stock in this way, making sure each addition has been absorbed before pouring in the next. When the rice is tender, season with salt and pepper. Remove pan from heat, cover and let stand for 10 minutes before stirring in basil. Top with fresh shaved parmesan cheese.