Math: an eclectic blend

I'll let you in on a secret ... our math program around here includes such heretical items as workbooks and math fact sheets! Yep, occasionally I fall back on the old standbys of drill-and-kill for learning math.

BUT, and this is a big but ....

we also do lots of other odd things to learn math. I try to help my children love while learning the math. I don't want them to think (as I did) that math is just a bunch of numbers that get bigger or smaller, depending on what we're doing to them. Math becomes removed from reality. But this is far from reality.

Math CAN be exciting ... and fun ... and well, USEFUL!

For instance, we do lots of cooking math around here: when cooking/baking some item, we practice fractions (adding, subtracting, multiplying, substituting), relational sizes, volume, etc, etc. Yesterday is a great example of our eclectic math style -- for Thanksgiving, we made two different kinds of bread: pumpkin-pecan and cranberry. Here are the recipes we used for these delightful concoctions:

Cranberry Thanksgiving Cranberry Bread
(makes one loaf)
Preheat oven to 350
2 c flour
1 c sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 c butter or margarine
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp grated orange peel
3/4 c orange juice
3 c fresh cranberries, chopped

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda into a large bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Add egg, orange peel, orange juice all at once. Stir just until mixture is evenly moist. Add cranberries.Spoon into a greased 9x5 loaf pan (or 6 small loaves). Bake for 1hr and 10 minutes (less for small loaves) or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool on a wire rack.

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
· 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
· 4 eggs
· 1/2 cup vegetable oil
· 1/2 cup melted butter
· 2/3 cup water
· 1 cup white sugar
· 1 cup brown sugar
· 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
· 1 cup wheat flour
· 2 teaspoons baking soda
· 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
· 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
· 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
· 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
· 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
· 1/2 to 1 cup raisins
· 1/2 to 1 cup walnuts
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Dredge the raisins and walnuts with about ½ cup of the flour. Stir the flour and spices into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Add the nuts/raisins. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Best served the next day!

While the breads were baking we pulled out another old favorite - catalog math. But this time, I gave them each $100 in monopoly money and they had to figure out how to spend it without going over. For BamBam, I let him just make sure it came close to $100 ... with String Bean and Lego Maniac, they had to get right on the money. We then worked on figuring shipping, tax, etc and had a real-living math morning!

Real-life learning, in the heart of the home is so much more fun, don't you think?

Feasts: St. Lucy's Day

Those whose hearts are pure are temples of the Holy Spirit.
– St. Lucy

We've become greatly enamored of St. Lucy this year -- including her in our nightly prayers and generally knowing lots about her -- primarily because a little 5 year-old boy we know has macular degeneration and we invoke St. Lucy, the patron of eyes and eye problems, in his name.

Today, for "cooking math" we included St. Lucia Ginger Snaps and St. Lucia Crowns (we made 8 individual ones -- since Brikhead made it home safely!) and generally enjoyed the lovely smells of St. Lucy Day baking.

Here are the recipes we used:

Swedish St. Lucy Ginger Snaps (LuciaPepperkakor)
From A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family and Faith Throughout the Christian Year by Evelyn Birge Vitz

Ingredients for Cookies:

• 1/2 cup dark corn syrup
• 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tsps ground ginger
• Grated rind of 1 lemon
• 1 tbls baking soda
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 6-7 cups flour

Heat the corn syrup in a saucepan. Stir in the sugar, molasses, ginger, lemon rind, and baking soda.
In a large bowl, whip the cream until almost stiff.
Stir the syrup mixture gradually into the cream. Beat at low speed with an electric mixer for 4 to 5 minutes (about twice as long if you’re doing by a hand using a whisk or spoon). Add 4 cups of the flour, mixing well with a spoon. Then gradually add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft, pliable dough.
Knead dough for 2 or 3 minutes.
Wrap the dough well in waxed paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out about 1/4 inch thick. Cut with fancy cutters, such as animals and people; or just slice 1/4 inch thick rounds (and call them "eyes"!).
Place the cookies on a lightly buttered cookie sheet. Bake at 275 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.
Ice when cool.

Ingredients for icing:
White of an egg
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Beat the white until frothy. Add 1 cup sugar and lemon juice. If the icing is too thick, add more lemon juice, if too thin, add more sugar. Can be colored with food coloring.
Yield: about 4 dozen cookies

Santa Lucia Crown
From: Cooking with the Saints by Ernst Schuegraf

Crown Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 tsp dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 tbsp butter, softened
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp saffron powder (yes, it's VERY expensive, but adds so very much!)
• 4 cups flour
• 2 eggs + 1 egg for brushing on rolls just before baking

Pour half the warm water into a large bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast; stir until dissolved. Add remaining water, warm milk, sugar, butter, salt, saffron and half the flour; blend well. Sit in 2 eggs and enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky.
Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover; let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in size – about 1 hour.
Punch down down. Remove dough to lightly floured surface; reserve 1/3 of dought for top of crown. Divide remaining dough into 3 equal pieces; roll each into a rope. Braid ropes. Place braid on greased baking sheet. Form into a circle, pinching ends together to seal.
Make top braid with reserved dough. Cover braids with cloth. Let both braids rise till double – about an hour.
Lightly beat an egg and brush on braids.
Bake in 375 over for 15 minutes for smaller braid, 25 minutes for larger (cover larger braid with foil for last 10 minutes of baking to avoid darkening).
Let cool on wire racks.

Icing Ingredients:
1 cup powdered sugar
4 tsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Red and green glace/candied cherries (optional)
Make icing by mixing powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a small bowl. Stir until smooth. Using icing as “glue” place smaller braid atop larger braid. Drizzle icing over all. Decorate with glace cherries if desired.
Serves 12

Traditions: Thanksgiving Eve

OK, I know tomorrow is Thanksgiving, but we've been doing a tradition for the last few years that I think bears mentioning. On the day before Thanksgiving, we pull out the BEST Thanksgiving book and read it.

Now, this doesn't sound like a big deal, but I don't know what we'd ever do if we lost this book and Dad couldn't read it to the littles on Thanksgiving Eve. My lovely dh always gets off early (if not a whole day) on Thanksgiving Eve and makes a point of curling up with the littles and reading this book. They all enjoy it and look forward to the annual reading. This year, I had to turn the house upside down to find the copy that I knew I'd placed in a safe place -- it was a safe place, it was just the LAST place as well as a SAFE place!

Even more wonderful is using the recipe in the back, "Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread", and making it into a "cooking math" lesson. It warms the house while it's baking, the smell fills the air and reminds of tomorrow's feast, and it warms our bellies with it's taste!

Today it will be really wonderful to cuddle up to this book as we've had a good snowfall early this morning and it's only 25 degrees ... so a slice of warm Cranberry Bread, a cup of tea and dh reading ... ah, the bliss path!

What more could you ask of a well-loved classic?

Recipe: Our Lady's Pie

Yesterday was the feast of the Queenship of Mary. Because it's been SO DARN HOT here in the Big Square State (and of course, we don't have air-conditioning), I KNEW I could NOT fire up the oven to bake something .... so, what's a mom to do who is trying to incorporate cooking math with living the liturgical year?

Invent her own dessert -- and BOY was it well received! For those of you who might be in a similar situation, here's the recipe ...

* +++++ * +++++ *

OUR LADY's PIE

(prep time -- 20 min; chilling time -- 1 hr + at least 1 more hour)

Ingredients:

(1) 9-inch chocolate cookie pie crust (such as Keebler or Oreo)

(1) 8oz. tub frozen whipped topping (such as Cool Whip)

(1) box blueberry flavored gelatin (such as "BlueBerry Blast" from Jello)

(1) cup fresh or frozen blueberries

(12) round chocolate sandwich cookies (such as Oreos)

First-layer of gelatin:

• Open gelatin packet and measure out slightly less than 1/4 cup of powder (this is half the package).
• Pour 3/4 cup boiling water on the 1/4 cup of gelatin and stir until gelatin is dissolved.
• Mix in 1/3 of the FROZEN whipped topping; stir until the topping is mixed in completely. Place the remainder of the whipped topping in the 'fridge to thaw till dinner.
• Pour into the 9-inch pie crust and chill for at least an hour.

While the first layer is chilling, you can start the next layer:

• Pour 1/2 cup of boiling water over the remainder of the gelatin package. Stir until the gelatin is dissolved.
• Add frozen blueberries or fresh into the gelatin; if using fresh blueberries, add 1/4 cup of cold water.
• Place in 'fridge for an hour or just until the gelatin begins to set.

After an hour or so, spoon the blueberry-filled gelatin over the top of the whipped-topping gelatin, being careful not to mix the layers. Continue to chill the pie at least one more hour or until ready to serve.

When ready to serve:

• Spoon remaining whipped topping over the pie.
• Place 12 round chocolate sandwich cookies on-end round the rim of the pie.

ENJOY!

Here's the meaning we developed for this pie:

• Cookie crust -- dark like the devil, crushed under Our Lady's foot
• 1st Layer -- Our Lady's pale blue veil
• 2nd Layer -- Our Lady's rich blue gown
• Whipped topping -- the white covering of her purity
• 12 cookies -- the stars, as related in Revelations 12, the surrounded her head symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel as well as Mary's part in conquering death for once and for all.

Living the liturgical year is not hard -- just combine it with meal-planning (and throw in some cooking math) and you've got a celebration that will be remembered!

Today is Our Feast Day

Now, this is one cool saint -- and the patron of our home learning experiences! Here's a guy who tried for YEARS to refute the Arian Heresy -- the one that says Jesus wasn't divine just a really nice guy. He was exiled FIVE times by different emperors who didn't agree -- but God and Athanasius prevailed and he died after 47 years of being Bishop of Alexandria.

So, we've read about his life today and discussed why he's our patron (a long story for another post!). We've decided on our menu for dinner -- which was hard as none of our traditional "saints + food" sites had anything for Athanasius. So being the ever-clever, closet-librarian, I researched Mid-east (primarily Egyptian) recipes and found a really cool site dedicated to Egyptian recipes . So we're having hummus and pita chips, cucumber and yogurt salad, thinly sliced cold beef and the piece de resistance: Granitat-al-Lamun!

St. Athanasius, ceaseless defender of the faith and Doctor of the Catholic Church,

PRAY FOR US!

Another pre-Camping Book

Last week, I wrote a post about the camping books we've been reading to get all psyched up to go camping this summer. Theresa at Lapazfarm recommended that we check out her son's favorite book -- Cooking on a Stick: Campfire Recipes for Kids.

Being nothing if not obedient, I immediately requested the book from the Library. Today we read this book -- cover to cover -- and now I'll need to immediately purchase this book. The recipes are wonderful. Linda White, the author, covers three types of campfire cooking: recipes for cooking on a stick, recipes for cooking in foil packets, and recipes for cooking on a grill/rack. And these are VERY kid-friendly recipes -- the sweets sound SWEET and the savories sound delicious.

The book contains 24 recipes (with suggestions for altering the recipes with other ingredients) and includes entrees, desserts and snacks. These would be fun recipes to make at home too (altho needing a bit of tweaking).

I'm so glad I'm obedient and listened to Theresa!

Catholic Cookbooks

We've been talking on 4real about Catholic Cookbooks. Here's the list of highly recommended selections:

• The Convent Cook: Divine Meals for Families Large and Small by Maria Tisdall
• Cooking with the Saints by Ernst Schuegraf
• A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family and Faith Throughout the Christian Year by Evelyn Birge Vitz
• Building the Family Cookbook by Suzanne Fowler
• Book of Feasts and Seasons by Joanna Bogle

If you have any suggestions for Catholic Cookbooks, please leave comments. I love merging cooking math + liturgical year + dinner all into one activity -- now that's living, loving and learning in the HOME!

Easy German Brown Bread

I just mentioned in a post about eating German Brown Bread today -- good thing we'd made a batch yesterday (for cooking math!). This is a fabulous recipe that makes three good-sized loaves and is wonderful with cream cheese ....

Ingredients:

• 1 cup raisins (be generous)
• 3 cups boiling water
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup chopped nuts (be generous)
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tsp baking soda
• 3 cups rye flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

Preparation:

• Stir raisins into boiling water. Let cool.
• Mix the sugars, eggs, vanilla and nuts. Blend well. Add to raisins/water (DON'T drain the raisins, you want that good brown water too!)
• Measure dry ingredients into bowl. Stir in raisin batter.
• Fill 2 or 3 well-greased loaf pans a bit more than half full.
• Bake at 315 for 45-60 minutes.

Saints and Cooking

I love my mother -- not only does she live with us (which is a blessing in itself) but every so often she buys me little treats that just make my day. WELL, for Easter this year in lieu of chocolate, she did one better (and even gave it to me early). She got me a copy of the book I've been drooling over since I first saw it a couple of years back: Cooking with the Saints by Ernst Schuegraf.

This is an absolutely perfect gift for me! Schuegraf includes write-ups of saints that have fascinating facts (some "cocktail tidbits" that you can throw out at your next Catholic dinner club meeting) about each of the saints -- some 73 in number! A gorgeous picture accompanies each of these saints. But the really great thing (after all, we do have lots of Saint biographies around this house) is that there are authentic recipes for each of these saints -- ethnic specialties for the feast days as well as classic dishes that have been linked to the saint for some reason. There are main dishes, desserts, breads and other goodies scattered throughout the hard-cover volume.

Last night, for St. Joseph's Day, we made two of the dishes -- Pasta di San Guiseppe (pasta with sugared nuts and olive oil) and Pane di San Guiseppe which made the best bread (and tons of it!) based on a recipe from Sicily. What a feast!

This book is THE book for living the liturgical year! I'm so thankful that mom got it for me. A Continual Feast by Evelyn Vitz is a close second (but I already own that one!) for living the liturgical year ...

Ain't it great to be Catholic?

One of the absolutely cool things about being Catholic

is being able to live and celebrate the liturgical year. Even better is being a Catholic home learning family -- it gives so much more time to really celebrate!

For instance, for those who are Polish (or those who wannabe), today is known as Tlusty Czwartek (or "Fat Thursday" for those of us who are Polish but have no idea how to pronounce the Polish words!). This means that this is the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, the last week before Lent starts.

So what does any good, self-respecting Pole do today -- eat Paczki (pronounced "punch-key") or Jam Donuts! Because we live/love/learn together at home, we can't just go out and buy these ooey, gooey balls of fried dough -- nope, not us! We turn it into a "cooking math" lesson and make them ourselves!

And they are delicious! Like a jelly donut but something tastes just a bit better. We didn't use lard (I don't have any in the house) but we used canola oil and they were just fine. Here's a link to a site with a couple of recipes and another site that has just one recipe (but a bit of background on the day, too!).

And, since I'm of mixed ethnicity -- Polish, French Basque, Irish, Slavic -- and my dh is pretty much British Isles and grew up in Louisiana, we get to celebrate all kinds of different traditions for the rest of the week before Lent starts .... Mardi Gras, King cakes, Gateau des Rois ... sounds like lots of cooking math over the next few days!

Happy St. Brigid's Feast Day!

Today is St. Brigid of Ireland's feast day. Born around 450 and died around 525; her first years of life were coincident with St. Patrick's life. Which is why Brigid's mother was Christian. Brigid lived a devout life as the daughter of a slave and the lord of the manor. He made sure she was educated and tried to arrange a good marriage for her -- but Brigid had other ideas and eventually was allowed to become a nun. She founded many convents throughout Ireland and is probably only second to St. Patrick as well-loved Irish saints go.

This is one of StringBean's patron saints, so we always do a bit more for those. Today we read a lovely book called Brigid's Cloak -- which is an interesting blend of pagan and Christian legend. We will act out this story tonight for Dad, Granmere and Kotch -- aren't they lucky? We also made Brigid's Crosses -- which traditionally are made with rushes or grass, but which we made with chenille stems (used to be called "pipe cleaners"). The benefit of the chenille stems is that they're a bit easier to maneuver and you can mold them a bit to what you want the cross to look like.

We'll make spaghetti (after all, the feast day beneficiary is the one who chooses dinner), BarmBrack (which is REALLY good and then we get in a spot of "cooking math") and watch Darby O'Gill after the first (and only) performance of our version of "Brigid's Cloak".

Feast Day: Conversion of St. Paul

Today is another feast day (don't you just love living the Liturgical Year?). Today is the feast that celebrates Saul's conversion. This is the time described in Acts 9, where God knocks Saul off his horse, he goes blind, spends the next three days fasting and praying and then Ananias comes and helps him to see -- both literally and figuratively. From then on, Paul evangelizes to the Gentiles and fulfills the Lord's words to Ananias -- that Paul is destined to preach Jesus' name "before Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."

So this is a big deal feast!

Even more so here as Bam-Bam has St. Paul as one of his patron saints. And, boy have we been having fun today. First, we worked out a skit that we'll perform tonight for Granmere, Dad and Kotch with Bam-Bam playing St. Paul and the other two having multiple roles (and I get to be narrator). In the photo to the left, String Bean is dressed as a law-breaking Jew, Bam-Bam is a smiling, Christian persecuting Saul, and Lego Maniac is getting ready to help Saul find Damascus after his meeting with God.

Then we built a tent in the living room (Paul made his living as a tent-maker) so that we could learn in there today -- we did reading and geography and science all in the comfort of our jerry-rigged tent.

To finish the celebration, we made two different kind of Jewish cookies to have with a movie tonight. The cookies, Mandel Brot (biscotti-like cookie with chopped up almonds) and another one that is like a 3-layer bar (a cocoa cake-like bottom, coconut and sweetened condensed milk middle, and bittersweet chocolate "frosting"), will go really well with our movie feature. Tonight in honor of JP2, we watched The Jeweller's Shop. This is a great movie -- I must confess I haven't yet read the original -- but the movie is fabulous with Ben Cross, Olivia Hussey and Burt Lancaster as some of the main stars. It really is a good view of how marriage is and that you never give up. I had to get my copy through ILL -- all the way from Fort Smith, Arkansas!

St. Paul the Apostle, pray for us!

National Pie Day is TODAY!

The kids are thrilled. Not only did we get to do "cooking math" today, but we get to have dessert tonight (we try to avoid sweets during the week to reduce the budget and the poundage!). Anyway, in case you hadn't heard, today is:

National Pie Day

And we couldn't be happier about it! We went ahead and made an experimental pie -- a bit of this and a bit of that recipe to create our very own "Apple Cranberry Pie with Streusel Topping and a Graham Cracker crust". It looks great, smells fabulous and the only problem is we'll have to wait till we finish dinner to test it out.

We'll let you know how it was. Here's the recipe we jerry-rigged if you'd like to try it yourself:

Graham Cracker Crust (preheat oven to 350)

• 18 graham crackers crushed to make approx 1-1/4 cups of crumbs
• 1/4 cup of melted butter

Mix together and press into a high-edged 9" pie pan. Bake for 6-8 minutes in a 350 oven. Allow to cool.

Fruit Filling (preheat oven to 400):

• 4 cups sliced/peeled apples (tarter the better)
• 2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tsp allspice

Mix all ingredients well so that fruit is well coated with the dry ingredients. Spoon into waiting crust.

Streusel Topping:

• 1/2 cup oats (uncooked)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/4 cup coconut
• 1/2 cube (4 tbls) cold butter, cut into pieces.

Combine all ingredients except butter in bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle atop fruit in pie pan.

Bake pie in preheated 400 oven for 50-60 minutes. About halfway through cooking, cover pie with foil to avoid overbrowning topping. Cool on wire rack. Serve warm or room temp.

ETA: This pie was sensational -- I'd send you a piece, but it's gone! EVERYONE loved it and want more.....

St. Anthony the Abbott -- 250-356 a.d.

Today is the feast day of St. Anthony the Abbott. This was one amazing guy! He was from a distinguished family in Egypt but his parents died when he was a teenager and he was the sole heir.

Hearing the Gospel, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor" (Matt. 19:21), Anthony did just that. He was somewhere around 18 at the time. After a bit he moved to the desert and became the father of all monks. He lived the life of a hermit when possible, but many came to seek his advice and soon other men were joining him.

He ate very little, living primarily on bread and water. He must have been doing something right as he lived to be 105! As Father explained today at Mass, St. Anthony was a "true priest in the line of Melchizedek" as he was trying to turn people from sin through his example, his fasting, his prayers and his preaching.

So to celebrate this amazing man, the littles made Saint Spoons (ala Alice). The two at the foot of the Cross, are String Bean's and LegoManiac's renditions of the saint. Note the symbols -- a Tau and bell on String Bean's and a bell on LegoManiac's. The third spoon is Bam-Bam's -- his is a bit more abstract!
Alice's idea was for an All Saints Month of spoons -- we've decided to make these saints throughout the year and then save them for November, when they will line the family altar for the whole month. My kids weren't in the creative mode today, but I will bet as we go with this, the saints will become more and more elaborate.

For "cooking math", in honor of St. Anthony, we are slowcooking "Mediterranean Lentil and Spinach Soup" which we'll have with bread and salad for dinner tonight. The recipe is from Judith Finlayson's 175 Essential Slow Cooker Classics. I've checked this out of the library, but might have to add it to my cookbook stash -- yes, it's that good. The recipes all sound so good!

St. Anthony the Abbott, pray for us!