Home Economics

A letter from the govenment asking what we are doing with our daily home schooling has prompted me to put finger to key again to establish new goals for the rest of the year.

Term 3 course outline 2013 – Wednesday afternoons

Week 1
Pizza bases ..followed by pizza creating/toppings

Week 2
Pastry base/sweet – followed by Apple pie filling

Week 3
Savory bread – chilli twists

Week 4
Chutney from scratch

Week 5
Naan from scratch

Week 6
Hommus from scratch learning the recipe by heart

Week 7
Pasta making – spagetti, followed by cooking and sauce

Week 8
Pasta making – Lasagne sheets …continue with the meal, lasagne

Week 9
Pastry base/savory – chicken pie

Week 10
Spice paste – followed by meal, Indian Curry

Choko’s

I really don’t think my kids would each choko’s if it wasn’t for them finding them hanging over the neighbours fence. They insisted on me cooking them and we’ve now used them in spagetti and curries. They love them..commenting “they don’t taste like I imagined them to, but I like them” – great!!

A visitor

We have about 21 chickens now – too many, and we’ve been hoping for a visit from a local snake for dinner. This one came so we were a bit excited by the prospect of declining chicken stocks but after he got trampled by the goats he sled away and we haven’t seen him since. I am wondering if the goats seem to somehow protect the chickens – the smell of the goats urine is quite potent. Anyhow our chicken numbers have stayed the same for now.

Wednesday is Home Ec!

Rise baby, and the pizza base did just that today. We make pizza often, but I’m a little over the norm, so I thought I’d introduce the kids to Calzone Pizza’s – it was a great success and Christian mentioned how great the dough was.

Surprisingly I had plenty of time here and there to think today. Maybe it was because the sun came out for the first time really in 2 months where we live and the boys were outside playing so much more.

…Anyhow one of my thoughts was that I try to do too much. Instead of teaching just the pizza we also made a cake. Sometimes there’s just no need to go the whole hog but to do just one thing really well. So in our future Home Economic’s classes I will teach ‘basic’s’ in cooking. Pasta, pastries, dough’s all from scratch – they are very easy and not time consuming (waiting for the rising is but not the labour). I think sauces and jams might be good for them to learn too. Not just a one off lesson, but the repetition of each (on rotation so they don’t get bored) I’d like them to learn healthy eating, not relying on packaged, jarred foods.