Oh, What do you do in the Summertime? Part 2

I have to apologize…there will be minimal pictures today…and none of them will be taken by me.  I still have to figure out how to take pictures of the activities and respect the privacy of the family I work for.

I have done some fabulous activities with my kiddos (yeah, their not my kids…but I call them mine anyways), and here they are!  We did all things food this week!

My kiddos love popcorn, and they love helping me make it.  I have one of these that makes it a lot of fun for kiddos.  It’s called a Whirley Pop, and you can make popcorn on the stove quickly and easily.

 A note about Safety: I don’t let them actually cook the popcorn with the heat on.  I have the kids help me pour in the kernels and oil in the pan, and then I set it on the stove and they each get to turn the handle 10 times (with the heat off), and then it’s my turn to really cook it.  If they’ve caught on that they don’t actually cook it, they don’t care :)

If you don’t have a Whirley Pop, you can make popcorn on the stove with a regular pan or in the microwave or any other way.  Here’s a site that has instructions with pictures.  The activities just need popcorn…it doesn’t matter how you make it!

After snacking on our delicious treat, we drew the outline of a tree on a paper.  Older Kiddo chose black paper, so I busted out the sidewalk chalk to make it visible.  The kiddos thought this was cool!  I made squiggles with Elmer’s glue on the tree and they covered them with popcorn.  The kiddos requested doing Christmas Trees, so that’s what we did!  I was thinking spring trees, but such is life!  I think the request was inspired by the book we’d read earlier (pictured below). 

The kiddos asked if we could string popcorn and play bingo with popcorn another day.  I said sure (thanks for planning for me…love that)!

We read lots of books about food this week.  Some of our favorites included:

The kiddos didn’t know it, but the last two books are part of a series called Math Start.  They help kids learn the first basics of math such as more, less, same and different sets.  The stories are very cute if you want to read for fun, but still get some learning in.  Fabulous!

A couple other things my kiddos love can be printed here and here.  I had cutouts of different fruits and vegetable for them to glue on.  It’s great to see how many different foods the kids can recognize!

Have fun with your food!  And guess what?  The weekend is already here!  Enjoy!

Oven-Baked Pasta Dish

Ever have nights where you know you have to cook, but you just want to throw something in the oven and be done?  The other night was one of those for me.  Here's what I made:

Oven Baked Pasta

1 jar of spaghetti sauce (If your sauce is thick, you'll need to add water to make it runny so your noodles cook well)

about 2 cups of UNCOOKED noodles (I used radiatore, but penne, macaroni, or anything like that would be great)

1/2 to 1 pound ground beef

pepper salt

onion powder

garlic powder (I didn't put any in because of this incident)

oregano

basil

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

1 cup cottage cheese

Brown your ground beef and preheat your oven to 350.  Put a small amount of sauce at the bottom of an 8 X 8 dish.  Grate some cheese on top of sauce.  Then add meat, noodles, spices as needed (my sauce is spiced well, so I didn't add much), rest of sauce, and the rest of cheese on top.  I added some italian seasoning on top for looks.  Cook for about an hour at 350.

I cooked it without the cottage cheese, and my husband added it in afterward.  Next time I'll throw it in at the beginning.  The cottage cheese helps cut down on the acid from the sauce, and makes it more creamy.  Way yummy!  Serve with toast, a vegetable, or a salad.  Enjoy!

Sooo Yummy!

Tonight I had no idea what to cook.

Like NO idea.

I didn't want to cook ANYTHING I've made before, so I made something up!

(This can be REALLY scary for me, I usually can't try anything unless I know there's a recipe for it.)

But I just have to say that my dinner was SOOOO yummy!

I literally just threw things in a 8 X 8 pyrex dish and cooked it! (Oh and a warning on the spices, I don't measure them, I just smell it and throw more in til it smells good!)

Here's the recipe if you want to try it yourself!

Lynette's Yummy Chicken

2 chicken breasts

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 can large olives chopped (I just stick a butter knife in the can after it's open and move it back and forth to sloppily chop them, it may not look fabulous, but it's fine)

1 can sliced mushrooms (I think it's like 4 oz.)

1/2 cup of rice

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup-ish sour cream (I just used the rest of my container that was going to expire)

garlic powder

onion powder

salt

pepper

parsley (I honestly just did this for looks because I like green specks in foods)

grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350. (Does anyone else forget to preheat your oven?) Put the chicken in the dish.  Mix the soup, mushrooms, olives, rice, water, sour cream, and spices.  Pour over chicken.  Grate cheese and sprinkle on top.  I just grated enough to cover the top.  I sprinkled a bit of paprika on top for looks.  Cook for about an hour at 350.  (We tried it at 45 minutes and the rice wasn't quite done.  So if you want the dish to cook faster, just cook rice separately on the stove...I was just too lazy tonight to do that. :)  This fed two with leftovers for lunch for the next day (love that!).  You could easily double it for a 9 X 13 size for a family.

My husband loved it, and I was so excited!  My first made up dish that he really really liked!  Wahooo!!!! :)

If I skipped something and you have any questions, just leave me a comment and I'll get back to you!