Poppy: “OK, but cowboy ghosts are the most skilled ghosts.”
Pete: “I’m a highly trained ghostbuster. I think I’ll be fine on my own.”
Monthly Archives: March 2014
Eastern Spice Co. makes Indian cuisine easy
I love trying to make foods from different cuisines at home, so I was quick to say yes when Eastern Spice Company offered to send me one of their products to try out and review. The idea behind the fledgling company is to “make Eastern cuisines much more accessible to the average Western kitchen” by supplying tins of pre-blended spices. Each tin contains enough spice to make one complete recipe, and Eastern Spice Company has a recipe for each blend on their web site.
They currently offer four spice blends — Indian Chicken Curry, or Tamatur Murghi; Indian Tangy Curry, which makes chicken or beef vindaloo; Indian Coconut Curry, or Kaari Chawal; and Indian Vegetable Stir Fry, or Aloo Subji — all of which I’d like to try because I have yet to meet a curry dish that I don’t like. They sent me the vindaloo blend, and Rockford said he’d rather try it with beef than with chicken. So that’s what we did.
Our beef vindaloo was delicious and much spicier than I’d expected it to be, which was fine by me but too much for Poppy. Pete, Rockford and Rockford’s parents didn’t have a problem with the heat level, either. We all chomped it up while Poppy feasted on rice. (We served the vindaloo with a little yogurt on the side to cut the heat.)
The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the recipe format. The vindaloo blend is meant to be made with either chicken of beef, and the proteins require slightly different preparations. The recipe on the Eastern Spice Company web site co-mingles the instructions, which made it a little bit confusing. It would’ve been easier to navigate if they’d had separate recipes for beef and chicken.
A set of four spice blends would make a really nice housewarming or hostess gift, and at $4 a tin I think they’re definitely worth the price. The guys at Eastern Spice Company gave me a coupon code to share with you, too, to make them even more affordable! The code, ESC10, will take 10 percent off your order and is good until Friday (03/14/14).
Rockford and I will both be enjoying leftover beef vindaloo for lunch today, and let me tell you: I am really looking forward to lunchtime.
Here’s what we’re having for dinner the rest of the week:
- Monday: Sweet Spicy Chicken Tenders
- Tuesday: Chilaquiles Verdes
- Wednesday: Rosemary Chicken
- Thursday: Spicy Taco Soup
- Friday: Pizza
I’m linking this up with OrgJunkie.com’s weekly Menu Plan Monday thing.
What do homeschoolers do all day?
I thought I’d change our (kind of, when I remember to write it) weekly homeschooling update up a little this week. Instead of writing about individual subjects, I tried to jot down a bit about what we did every day. This is by no means an all-inclusive accounting. That would be far too tedious for all of us.
Monday
It was a very grey, very rainy Monday, and we didn’t get started on schoolwork right away. Once everyone was finally breakfasted, dressed and ready to go, we gathered at the dining room table, where Poppy worked on her grammar and Pete and I reviewed some phonograms. He’s mastered all of them but one; that tricky Y makes lots of sounds. Then we moved on to Pete’s grammar. He’s nearing the end of level one of “First Language Lessons
Next Pete tackled his math, which was a quick worksheet on addition and skip-counting, and I sat with Poppy while she practiced her piano. We met up again on the couch to read this week’s history lesson about immigration to America, after which we pulled up the Ellis Island web site so I could show the kids the ship that brought their great-great-grandfather Maurice to the United States in 1920.
Then we took a break. Pete retreated to his room to listen to the first Harry Potter book and play with action figures, and Poppy spent some time with the Kindle in her room. After lunch and some chores — laundry for Pete; unloading the dishwasher for Poppy — the kids worked on their handwriting while I read them most of a very long chapter of “The Mysterious Benedict Society.” Pete went back to his action figures afterward, and Poppy recited her memory work and did a few Duolingo Spanish lessons. And then we took another break.
The kids eventually did the rest of their work; Poppy was still doing her math when Rockford got home from work. Sometimes the kids make their school days very long.
Tuesday
And other days they get everything done really early. By 1:15pm, the only schoolwork they hadn’t finished was handwriting, Poppy’s poem recitation and Pete’s grammar. Go kids!
They ate breakfast Tuesday morning and then just started lining ’em up and knocking ’em down. They would’ve finished everything before lunch, but when we pulled out the history notebooks to work on their timelines I realized that I’d neglected to print and add the section covering 1882 to 1880. Whoops! So they played while I printed the pages and then disassembled and reassembled the timelines, and then we worked on the day’s history project.
Tuesday’s work also included:
Wednesday
I know school happened on Wednesday. I’m sure of it. I just didn’t write anything down.
Thursday
I turned my alarm clock off on Thursday morning, and by the time I’d gotten up, gathered my wits, etc., it was already 10 o’clock and the kids were deep into a game that involved ID cards, lasers and bypassing security systems. They were getting along so well that I just let them play. I did laundry, played Scrabble on Facebook and pulled the too-small clothes out of Pete’s dresser, and we didn’t start on schoolwork until lunchtime.
We kicked things off by reading a few pages of “If Your Name Was Changed At Ellis Island
The kids did their weekly Lego Quest Challenge after lunch. This week’s theme was “Metamorphosis.” Pete made a vehicle that turns from a four-wheeled cart into a three-wheeled scooter into a boat, and Poppy made a car that turned into a tower. They were most interested in the video posted on the Lego Quest site showing another kid’s creation’s transformation, so the next thing we did was create a few very short stop-action movies. We were so caught up in our film-making that we nearly forgot to go to tae kwon do, and the kids now want to do nothing but make stop-action videos.
Friday
I did wake up on time today, but it was with a brain-squashing headache. I had a bunch of grown-up stuff (finances, ugh) to get done, too, so here it is nearly noon and the kids are playing in their rooms and I’m writing this and browsing through the newly embeddable Getty Images, and we still haven’t started school. Friday is always our most free-wheeling day anyway, though, so I’m not stressing about it.
Here’s a smattering of what will eventually happen today:
One thing that definitely won’t happen today is Pete’s grammar, because he reached the end of “First Language Lessons: Level One” yesterday and Level Two (with which I decided to proceed) isn’t slated to arrive until tomorrow. He’s pleased to have a day without grammar.
I noticed a trend as I read over this again: We have not been getting to work any where near the crack of dawn lately. I think I’m just going to have to accept that we are not early birds. But that’s OK; I don’t like worms anyway.
How was your week?
Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!