Yesterday’s cooking class took Doo to Italy. The class made pizzas and pasta plus an older co-op boy played his violin to give the feeling of an Italian restaurant.
Doo is very interested in cooking. As a family, we went to Disneyland and California Adventure this week for a mid-birthday trip. CA Adventure is having their Food and Wine Festival right now so we were able to watch a Disney chef cook up one of Jamie Oliver’s recipes. Doo enjoyed watching the presentation but also took the time to write out her own recipe. It involved such things as peas, ham and “hot celery.”
We were able to see the ingredients on the TV.
Doo's recipe.
Doo and Daddy gave Mommy a copy of Jamie's cookbook for her birthday.
Yummo!
My friend G makes beautiful cakes for her sons’ birthday parties. She is also currently taking a cake decorating class. Doo LOVES watching cooking and baking shows such as Ace of Cakes, Ultimate Cake Off, and Cake Boss. We decided to have a cake decorating playdate. The kids had a lot of fun.
Doo chose brown for her fondant color (it looks like chocolate but, alas, it is not) and her friend Han (I’m nicknaming him that for the blog since he loves Stars Wars as much a Doo 
) chose a shade of blue. With help from the adults, they made marshmallow fondant and rolled it out flat after it was dyed. G showed us how to lay the fondant on the cake after putting on the “glue” icing. The extra fondant was then trimmed off and the kids painted their cakes with edible silver paint. Faces were then drawn on with red frosting.
Voila! Doo’s first fancy cake.
Doo is very interested in cooking so I am going to try and have us make at least one recipe per week. Yesterday we made a delicious, super rich Avocado Chocolate Mousse. It was super easy and very yummy – but a bit too rich for Doo so I think next time we’ll make some whipped cream (either unsweetened or lightly sweetened with agave syrup) to pair it with. But Chocolate-Addicted Mama was quite happy with the dark chocolateness. Daddy liked his bite as well.
See the above link for the recipe. Basically all you need is agave syrup, chocolate powder, an avocado and vanilla extract. I used a smidgen more syrup, vanilla and chocolate than the recipe but our avocado was huge so that may have been why.
Tasty!
Yesterday we studied bears for Another Celebrated Dancing Bear. We learned bear facts and read about how to stay safe in bear country. We also watched some bear videos – the one of the cubs playing was Doo’s favorite. The bluff charge and salmon fishing videos were also very interesting.
Afterward, we made bear claw biscuits. I made them sugar and gluten-free since that’s how I eat so I invented the recipe myself. I personally thought they turned out blah and way too spongy but Doo gobbled hers up and asked for more today! So what do I know.
Gluten and Sugar Free Bear Claws
Trader Joe’s Gluten-Free Pancake Mix
Cinnamon
Agave Syrup
Almond slices
Make TJ’s pancake mix according to the package. Add cinnamon to taste. Pour into muffin cups and bake at 350 for around 15 minutes. Pop out of the muffin tin and, while still warm, poke 4 almond slices into each “paw.” Mix agave syrup and cinnamon to taste and spread onto each one.
Voila!
After two weeks off we were ready to get back to our Five in a Row lessons. We’re rowing Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton (Doo read the cover to me and only needed help with “Virginia”). The story is about a large plow who is needed to dig out the (fake) city of Geoppolis after a very large snowstorm. The story shows how Katy the plow’s job is very important to help the city run efficiently.
We covered a lot under the theme of snow today (math, cooking, science). I included some of the activities we missed from our Yule plans due to Doo’s illness. We baked Frosty Snow Ball Cookies. They came out very well (the dough was crumbly, which made me nervous, but the finished product was approved by all).
We read a little bit about snow and looked at some snowflakes. While watching the two videos below, we talked about how where we live we do not see snow (except on the mountains) but that Auntie in Maine and Tia in Ohio often see snowstorms in the winter.
For seat work, Doo figured out what snowflakes were missing in this activity without any help from me. She also completed a dot-to-dot snowman while counting each number as she went along. We then played snowman memory and counted the pairs at the end of the game. I showed Doo what counting by 2s looked like as well.
I was told, yet again, how much she loves homeschooling. Me too.
Last week was taken up by Doo’s fever (and Daddy’s cold – Mommy was spared) and then Christmas. Lots of baking, present opening and merriment.
This week was a scheduled week off. We obviously didn’t do any lessons last week, either. I think we’ll just enjoy two weeks off – full of toy playing, family time and what not.
Yesterday we baked up some applesauce ornaments and today we strung them on the tree with yarn.
Applesauce cinnamon ornaments
1 cup applesauce
3/4 cup ground cinnamon
2 TB ground cloves
1 TB nutmeg
1 TB ground allspice
Mix all together. Roll out (our dough was VERY sticky so I ended up doing this with my hands) and use cookie cutters to cut into shapes. Small cookie cutters work best.
Line on parchment paper, poke holes at the top with a straw and baked in a 200 degree oven. The recipe I had said for 20-30 minutes but I did it for about an hour. They never got 100% hard but were firm enough to hang.
We used yarn to hang them up but thin ribbon would work as well.
They smell wonderful!
