Economic Geography Work ~ Waffles/Candy

What's Cookin'?

It seems like I work especially hard to keep the family away from processed foods by imitating processed foods, you know what I mean?

Today we had waffles for lunch.  Strange time for waffles but I was too tired at breakfast time (rough night) to do something that intense for breakfast.  I have to admit that I had never made waffles before.  We used this recipe and they were excellent (oldest dd made them with me).    I am now motivated to make them again (but with a soaked recipe for better nutrition... see below).  Instead of the 2 Cups buttermilk we used 1 Cup milk, 1/2 C kefir, 1/2 C water.  That worked fine.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,165,142167-226206,00.html

Here's another recipe that soaks overnight.  I plan on trying it with 1/2 whole wheat; 1/2 all-purpose unbleached.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,195,132189-241192,00.html

Here's a waffle recipe that uses sweet potatoes - which I just so happened to get at the store Friday.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,235,154177-232200,00.html

We made sauerkraut Saturday.  I can't wait to try it.  I actually took pictures but will have to post those later.  The fun part of the kraut was that I put in one small banana pepper from our garden, a little bit of chopped onion, dill seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, and.... jicama!  Just a little bit of chopped jicama.  Then, as I was looking at some extra liquid from mashing the cabbage and the rest of the beautiful sliced jicama I thought, "Why not?"  I put some jicama in a separate jar, covered it with the liquid, and am now hoping it will work.

What's Schoolin'?

Some people get motivated to do projects based on personal goals; others by their children's needs and interests.  I get my motivation by... someone daring to put a hold on 'my' library book and it being due TOMORROW!  It doesn't matter that I've had the book checked out for at least a year - I just never got around to using it for my project, KWIM?

I have been wanting to make these for a long time (as in years!)... or at least get started...  Here is my inspiration:  http://www.montessoriresources.com/ECONOMIC-GEOGRAPHY-STAMPS--P775.aspx
Aren't those the coolest stamps you've ever seen?  The book in question is this one (can you believe there is one used for US$0.83?):

















Here is my plan:  To make pictures on cardstock (in black and white to save on ink, or colored, I haven't decided) and cut them out to make the "stamps." [Gee, that sounds so easy when I 'say' it!].  The dc will lay them out on the big world felt map (or a separate map or on the pin maps?? Thinking out loud here).  I will need to have the little pictures separated into groups by continent to make it easier (and color small dots on the backs in case they get mixed together).  Then they could work on just one continent or all of them.  I haven't completely decided on the control yet.  I'm considering just placing the "stamps" where they belong, taking a photo of it, and enlarging it.  My other option is to buy the book on Amazon for them to use for the control.  We've used an atlas for a control before and it worked okay.

In the meantime I ran off single page printouts of each continent, obsessed with the above book last weekend (when I wasn't cutting out chemistry cards or feeding the family), and put little numbers and an index so I'll remember what goes where.  Then I was ready to at least turn it in to the library.  I guess I should just buy the book, eh?  This looks messy but it's part of the process (that happens when you have to rush!).

Extension:  I will have extra blank continent printouts in the continent boxes.  They can draw the little pictures on the maps and glue them in their culture notebooks.

Frankenfood Frosting Revisited:

I showed you how the frosting killed my grass.  This link sort of goes along with that...

I have had this company tagged since the beginning of the year for natural food coloring and dye-free candy canes, peppermints, etc.  I also found the same food coloring on Amazon (it's floating around in the slide show in the left margin) in case you are already ordering and want to add it in.  I'm actually more excited that I found a 2-pack at Amazon (also floating around in the slide show) because it qualifies for free shipping and if I can go in with a friend it would save even more.  Anyway, before finding it on Amazon I was already planning on getting it here plus some other candies.  Yes, I plan on spending most of my part-time pay on candy - it sounds silly when put like that!  [Especially when I STILL need to buy some curricula!!] Normally I just try to keep some Yummy Earth candies on hand for certain times.  However, last Christmas I ran all over town trying to find candy canes with no red dye.  I finally found the Pure Fun brand at Kroger, stashed some extras for this year in my overflow freezer thinking I was so smart, and lost all of them when our freezer thawed one day (let's just say that I lost a lot of beef too and leave it at that!).  I love how this company has symbols for so many aspects of its candy such as:  Feingold (dyes), Kosher, gluten free, made in USA, organic, etc.  They also have a section for corn syrup-free (click on special diets on the left).  I have not used them yet so I can't "recommend" them yet - but am just sharing what I've found :).

http://www.naturalcandystore.com/

Hope you have as much fun "window shopping" on their site as I have!