Southern Summer Food

May 22nd, 2008

for all our humidity we do have some things that just can’t be beat.

last night’s dinner that brought back my childhood days is definitely one of ‘em.  

homemade cornbread made with bacon drippin’s in a cast iron skillet.  real cornbread should not be sweet.  unless you’re eating it with strawberry preserves on top for dessert.  i just forgot to pick up some buttermilk to crumble my warm fresh cornbread into.  oh, how i missed out.

fresh homegrown tomatoes (wish they were from my own garden – but, alas, i’ll settle for someone else’s, for now.)  straight from the icebox and sliced – still not fond of salt on mine, but i will take a little ranch dressing.

purple hull peas (mine, unfortunately were from the freezer this time, i neglected to buy some from the farmer’s market) – sliced onions, salt, and pepper with a little bacon drippin’s for flavor.

green tomatoes – sliced, dunked in milk and dredged through cornmeal, paprika, garlic, salt, and pepper.  fried to a golden brown in, what else?, but bacon drippin’s.

and a side of salisbury steaks just for a little added protein.

served up with a tall glass of freshly brewed sweet tea.

and dessert?  why, watermelon, of course.

i’d've made my mama and daddy proud last night.

Maize

May 21st, 2008

while reading some more about native americans we learned about corn.  and then we went to the farmer’s market and bought some fresh local corn (still in the husks).  we talked about how they grow, then we cleaned them together and boiled them.  we saved the husks and went here to learn about how to make corn husk dolls.  and we ate our corn.  oh, my!  we’re never going back to frozen!!

Oiled Paper

May 21st, 2008

we read about how very few colonists had glass windows in their houses and instead put animal skins or oiled paper over the windows.  why oiled paper?  we had to find out.  we taped regular paper to the window.  then put vegetable oil on another piece of paper and rubbed it all over.  we let it dry and then a few days later hung up the oiled paper next to the regular paper. 

can you tell which is plain and which is oiled?

Rain Sticks

May 21st, 2008

yep, more crafts and more hands on learning!

we watched this native american rain dance video and then made our own by following this tutorial.  and then i dealt with rice being poured all over the house as my 3 year old and my 1 year old joined forces and destroyed them.  oh well.

Native Americans

May 15th, 2008

we’ve been studying american history and yesterday we learned about indians and their homes.  we watched traditional dances (on youtube, of course!) and we looked at their traditional clothes.  the kiddos loved this part of our history.

my 3 little indian warriors – notice their war paint (aka my lipstick)

these are our different native american dwellings we made.  along with some totem poles, just for fun.  we also taped down a (very rough) outline of the U.S. and learned where each type of dwelling was indigenous to.  we made longhouses, teepees, a wigwam, a chickees, and a pueblo. 

Flower Experiment

May 8th, 2008

 we used food coloring in water with some marked down walmart carnations.  and on bill nye the science guy we saw them split the stems and put each side of the split stem into two different colors of dye.  we were going for half and half, but my stem-cutting skills need some work.  but that was pretty cool to see anyway, how the amount of color on the petals is directly related to the amount of stem that is stuck in the dye.

and from one experiment to another, our oldest boy wanted to see if they would grow.  with no roots.  he thinks yes.  i think not.  we’ll see.