Thanksgiving

Today we were inspired by thanksgiving.  

We began our day by making a pilgrim bonnet 

(we had already made one with our daisy scout troop and loved it!) 

 We got the idea from the Martha Stewart website (here).

The instructions are on the link above but here is how we did ours.

You need a 11x17 sheet of paper, a hole puncher and hole reinforcers.

Here are the measurements...

We reinforced our holes so they would not rip with the ribbons.

Cut upwards on the 3" line.

Fold over the top.  This will be on the brim.

Tape the outer edges together.

Tape the top flap down.

Add ribbons.

Very cute!  :)

We were inspired by this next project idea over at the blog "Little page turners".   

It's a thanksgiving bracelet to remember the first thanksgiving story.  Each bead you add to the bracelet tells a part of the thanksgiving story.  We used a bit more beads to make our story longer.  

Red, white and blue beads to represent the pilgrims leaving england.

Flower bead= traveling on the ship the Mayflower.

Green = to seek new land

6 blue beads = they sailed at sea for 66 days

Green = they found land

Black=stepped on Plymouth Rock.

white= it was winter and very cold when they landed

red= people got very sick.  Some died.

"W" bead= Pilgrims were greeted by the Wampanoag tribe.

2 "S" beads = they met 2 American indians that helped them, "Samoset" and "Squanto".

orange = pilgrims planted pumpkins

yellow = corn 

fish= the Wampanoag taught the pilgrims to plant herrings with the corn for a better crop.

red= cranberries were plentiful in this new land.

black = pilgrims learned to hunt wild turkeys.  They had never seen turkeys before.

Heart = the wanpanoag tribe and the pilgrims became friends.  The pilgrim were thankful for their help and the wanpanoag were thankful that the pilgrims were friendly, peaceful people.

star= they shared the first thanksgiving feast together.

We also read 2 great thanksgiving books.  The "Pilgrim cat" by Carol Antoinette Peacock and "Thanksgiving Day" by Anne Rockwell.  

Happiest thanksgiving everyone.

We are so thankful for the love of family and true friends.

~_~

PS... here are some pilgrim fun facts (here)

Today ...

Morning ....

(vegan lemon poppyseed muffins)









Noon...

(for the toothfairy )






And night...

(lovely tunes on the victrola, wine and Family puzzle making )







Goodbye Sunday ...
Hello Monday .

^_^

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Vegan almond cookies

I used to work in Chinatown in NYC teaching and one of my loveliest memories were visiting the Chinese bakeries with friends. I remember my kids bringing in goodies to class like pork buns, coconut buns, scallion pancakes and sesame cookies . Everyday before and after work I visited the corner bakery on Henry St for breakfast or snacking. Mmmmm. Fond memories. I learned a lot about food, family, and friendship during those years... and perhaps even the art of asking in restaurants... "what exactly is inside that?".

Recently I came upon this recipe for vegan almond cookies that totally took me back to those
years. I thought I'd share it.
It is slightly sweet, slightly salty and just the right crispy texture for sweet memories of moon cakes, Chinese new year and friends who are now far away west.

Enjoy!


Vegan almond cookies
From "veganomicon" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 cup rice or soy milk
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/3 cup sliced blanched almonds

Preheat oven to 350*

-Place parchment paper on 2 cookie sheets.
-Sift together the flour, almond meal, baking soda and salt in one bowl.
-In a large bowl or your kitchen aid mixer, beat together the oil, brown rice syrup, rice or soy milk, sugar, extracts and sesame oil.
-Add the flour mixture in and mix until a firm dough forms.
-Roll the dough into balls using about 2 tb of dough a piece.
-Press one side of the ball into the sliced almonds . And place them on the cookie sheet at least 2" apart, almond side up.
-Flatten each ball slightly to about 1 " thick.
-Bake for 12 to 15 minutes , until slightly golden brown at the edges. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before removing them from the cookie sheets . The cookies will be soft when they first get out of the oven but will firm up while cooling.

(before baking...)





(after baking!)

Vegan meat balls

Here's another great recipe from my recent favorite cookbook, "veganomicon".
This is a recipe for vegan meatballs... a.k.a Bean balls!
Though the recipe calls for using regular wheat spaghetti, I decided to use a spaghetti squash for the noodles and the result was fantastic !!
For those of you who have never attempted to cook a spaghetti squash, I am including a how-to.




To make the bean balls you need:

1 (20 oz) can of black beans
Rinsed and drained
2 tb soy sauce
2 tb tomato paste
2 tb olive oil
2 cloves of garlic grated or finely minced
1/4 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
*I also added some finely chopped onion.

-Mash the beans in a bowl until no whole beans are left.




-Add all of the ingredients into the bowl with the beans and knead by hand for about a minute, until everything is really well combined and firm.




-Roll the mixture into walnut sized balls. ( do not make them too big, they will be difficult to cook.)




-Put a bit of olive oil to coat the whole pan and cook them at medium heat until they are browned . Remember to flip them and cook the other sides.




(Here they are cooked)




Now, to bake the spaghetti squash...

-Slice the spaghetti squash in half. Gently scoop out all the seeds from the inside.




-Bake (inside down/ peel up) in a pre-heated oven at 375* for about 45 to 50 minutes. (Depends on your oven. Mine heats too quickly, so I need less time.)




- Once the squash cools a bit, use a fork to scrape the spaghetti strands off from the squash. You can do that by pulling the fork away from the peel. It is actually quite amazing !! All these spaghetti like stands !!!!







I added a homemade marinara sauce using San Marzano tomatoes and called the dish "veggie spaghetti and bean balls". The whole family gobbled it up happily. :)








Delicious!!

This moment...

Getting ready for the season...
(a little early .)

:)






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Making use of our halloween candy...

Ok. I'll confess. I buy loads of "snickers" bags of candy to give out on Halloween, with the hope that no one will knock on our door and I get to eat them all .
I know... Selfish. Junky even. I'm not an advocate of crap candy. If we are to eat sweets here, I rather organic lollipops for my kid and real chocolate. But there is something amazing, personally, about the high fructose corn syrup poison in those junky morsels that I indulge in once a year. I'm not going to die of regret ... Today . :)

Luckily, honeypie doesn't care too much for the non-chocolate, pure sugar junk either. So I thought ... Why not put our Halloween candy to good use by working on science and math with them.

First on our agenda was a science experiment to test for secret ingredients inside the candy. Oil, citric acid and dyes.
Here we are testing for "citric acid" by adding a bit of baking soda to the dissolved pez, nerds, and bottlecaps.





Melting the candy in warm water .





We check for bubbles.





Here we are feeling the waxy film on the water to test for oil and feeling the flexibility in the laffy taffy and starburst candy.





The waxy film that formed after the oil puddles cooled.





Here we are testing the M and M's. We see if there are food dyes on the paper towels after wetting the candy.





(on a side note... Scary!)





Next? On to some math.
Making a candy bar graph.
We got the most Hershey kisses and only one tootsie roll. Thank god!! Tootsie rolls stink. It's a poor excuse for chocolate . :)













A great fun and full of learning kind of day.


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101 things we plan to do this winter

Winter is just around the corner... I can feel it in the air.  

I've sadly put away the flip flops and before we bring out our woolly coats, Honeypie and I are layering.  We've got sweaters and jean jackets and we hope to delay winter just a little bit longer.


This weekend we sat down as a family and made a list of 101 things we wanted to do this winter and this is good because by late January we tend to start going stir crazy!  
This list has given us some exciting happy goals to meet before spring says hello.


Here is ours...


1. Make birdseed cookies for the winter birds.
2. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, woman's shelter or children's hospital.
3. Make scarves to keep someone else warm.
4. Go to the beach (just to see what is feels and looks like in the winter)
5. Make delicious hot chocolate with homemade peppermint marshmallows.
6. Watch the night sky for winter constellations.
7. Make molasses candy in the snow like Laura Ingalls.
8. Bake and decorate a gingerbread home.
9. Bake a spiced cake for someone dear.
10. Make christmas ornaments for friends.
11. Sing christmas carols as a family. (We love to do this every year!)
12. Breath on windows and draw shapes with our fingers.
13. Make reindeer and santa shaped pancakes.
14. Paint winter pictures for santa.
15. Make handmade cards.
16. Hike in the snow.
17. Have a sleep over camp out with tents in our basement.
18. Try out new cookie recipes with nana.
19. Sock skate around the house as a family. 
20. Go ice skating in NYC's Rockefeller center.
21. Go out for ice cream at our favorite place.
22. Go maple syrup tapping at Tyler Arboretum.
23. Have a pillow fight.
24. Make caramel popcorn.
25. Stay overnight at a hotel and swim!
26. Have tea at the Plaza hotel like "Eloise".
27. Go see the Nutcracker Ballet at Lincoln Center.
28. See the Radio City Christmas show in NYC.
29. Go to F.A.O Schwarz and play with all the toys but buy nothing!
30. Work on our family 1000 piece puzzle collections.
31. Listen to daddy's victrola by candle light.
32. Capture snowflakes on black paper and look at them with a magnifying glass.
33. Go to the american girl cafe in nyc, catch a look at the rockefeller tree while we are there.
34. Make peppermint bark.
35. Have a holiday dinner party for friends.
36. Look for animal tracks outside.
37. Read as many winter books as possible.
38. Watch "It's a wonderful life" on TV.
39. Roast chestnuts. YUM!
40. Make snow angels, snow men and snow doggies outside.
41. Crack some nuts with nutcrackers.
42. Stay all day in our pajamas,  nap, read, eat and cuddle all day.
43. Attend an outdoor nature program at a local park.
44. Play charades.
45. Bake homemade bread.  Maybe even try a version of Panettone.
46. Have a puppet show .
47. String popcorn and cranberries for our christmas tree.
48. Take fancy family holiday portrait/photo. 
49. Watch old time horror movies like the swamp thing, frankenstein. (Just mama and daddy.)
50. Learn to play traditional card games.
51. Make  real snow cones with special healthy homemade fruit syrups.
52. Study Japan for a week, eat Japanese food the whole week and visit and art museum to see japanese art and make our own japanese inspired art.
53. Visit a planetarium or observatory.
54. Figure out what is inside a "hot toddy"and drink one (mama and daddy) and a warm mulled apple cider for kid.
55. Go to a christmas concert.
56. Celebrate chinese new year with a traditional homemade meal and art crafts.
57. Go to Longwood Gardens to see their christmas displays.
58. Celebrate Kwanzaa.
59. Buy pajamas with feet for the whole family and wear them.
60. Knit and teach honeypie to knit.
61. Make a winter journal.
62. Learn some magic tricks and put on a show.
63. Write a family newsletter.
64. Write winter and snow poems.  
65. Decorate sugar cookies.
66. Catch snowflakes with our tongues. 
67. Go looking for christmas lights on neighborhood homes.
68. Have honeypie open a bank account using her piggy bank money.  Set a goal for depositing money in.
69. Turn off the computer by 4 pm daily.  
70. Sign up for a "walk" as a family for a cause.
71. Hold a cooking class in our kitchen and invite friends to participate.
72. Run around like crazy outdoors, on grass, at least 3 times a week.
73. Go to a flea market and find treasures.
74. Write valentine love letters.
75. Read to each other from joke books.
76. Research something that really interests us at the library (as opposed to the internet).
77. Donate a box of well loved toys to another family.
78. Make paper dolls.
79. Go bowling.
80. Make rock candy.
81. Have a family talent show.  Invite nana and pop pop to watch. 
82. Sit down and look through family photo albums.
83. Go sledding.
84. Photograph winter scenes.
85. Melt snowballs and see how much water they hold.
86. Grow our own sprouts and eat them.
87. Have a snowball fight.
88. Go on an outdoor winter scavenger hunt.
89. Collect pine cones to make a wreath.
90. Make homemade christmas gifts.
91. Sponsor a needy family's christmas list.
92. Create a terrarium.
93. Invent our own board game.
94. Spend time with grand parents.
95. Have a paper airplane contest.
96. Turn the TV off for a day.  Try for 2 days or more and see how many new things we can do while it is off.  No cheating once we make our goals.
97. Make homemade ice cream.
98. Start a collection.
99. Go bird watching.
100. See the Macy's thanksgiving parade live for the first time ever!!!
101. Set goals as a family for the upcoming new year.  Discuss together all the wonderful and positive things you accomplished this year.  
Make noise makers, hats and confetti to celebrate on december 31st.  
Make  a yummy family meal and stay up  to welcome 2011!!

So go ahead... make a list together as a family.  

It is fun to get excited about being and doing together.  

Print out your list and cross out things as you meet each goal!