Iced Tea

My mom is from the South. She taught me early on how to make sweet tea. I must say, I tend to leave out the sugar and add my own sweetener. But when I have company, I add the sugar. For my friends who are from the Deep South, they want me to add even more.

Here is how you make it:

In a small sauce pan, fill 1/4 with water. 

Add 5 teabags 

(We use Lipton. Try flavored kinds too, it works well with them)

Let simmer for about 7 minutes. The water will look dark brown.

In your pitcher, fill about 3/4 full 

(remember, you will be adding more from the stove top)

Put in a metal spoon if you are using a glass pitcher like I am. It will take the heat. If you don't, your pitcher may crack 

(hot and cold mixed together will do that, the spoon prevents this from happening).

With another spoon, press tea bags against the side of the pan to get the tea out more. Then, pour the tea water into the pitcher. Discard the bags. 

For sweet tea: Add 1/2 cup of sugar. 

For really sweet, sweet tea: Add 3/4-1 cup sugar.

Mix it all up. Add ice. Serve. 

Yellow Day

Yellow Day

Like our previous Red Day, we set the day aside to surround ourselves with yellow. Every opportunity I could think of to show him the color yellow, I would try. In the top picture, we gathered our yellow toys. He did a pretty good job until he brought me a green tractor!

Yellow is a pretty easy color to find books on. Big Bird is yellow, ducks are yellow, the sun is yellow and I picked out Curious George because of the Man with a Yellow Hat. 

Each day, to give myself a chance to cook or clean up, I put a video in for Ben to watch. Here, we have Big Bird and Curious George. 

And for snacks, I gave him Kix cereal, lemonade, dried pineapples, Funyuns.  For real food, I gave him bananas, corn and squash.

We usually do a craft on our color days. I had intended to have him paint a paper plate yellow and make it look like the sun. But grandparents called and asked to join them at the park. The park won out for the day's activity.

Have you tried color days with your kid? Or are you planning to soon? If so, what ideas do you have for books/videos for the other colors?

Red Day

As a way to teach Ben his colors, I have decided to spend a full day focusing on each one. I won't be able to do it every day (just a day here, a day there). My mom did this with me when I was little. And recently, I've seen them featured on various blogs. Here is our take:

 

First, we wear red clothes. 

Then, we read books with the color red like this one about the ladybug and of course Clifford the Big Red dog. I found these at our library. 

I also got videos with the color red: Elmo is red and so are firetrucks.

We ate red foods on a red plate. I got lucky having a red plate :)

Here we have strawberries, apples and tomatoes. He also got a red icee pop and red Jello. 

 

We'll do another Red Day and have beets, red peppers, spaghetti, etc. 

And finally, we did a craft. I want to do a ladybug out of a paper plate. But we had church stuff going on tonight, so we did a simple craft instead. 

I took red construction paper, wrote "Red" on it,  cut out pictures of things that were red and just red paper out of a magazine. Then, I let him glue stick it all on the red paper.

He had more fun with the glue stick, but oh well. 

Don't forget to hang the artwork on the frig :)

Squash Casserole

Squash Casserole

One of my favorite things to collect are community and church recipe books. These are where the best home cooking recipes are found. We were given this book by a dear friend of my husband's. 

 

It's called "Sharing Recipes" and it comes from Oronoco Church of the Bretheren in Virginia. 

I'm always looking for squash recipes in the summertime because we are usually swamped with them from friends at church. This year, I actually had to buy some at the store. It must not be a good year for squash in our area.

Anyway, this is my favorite one. 

Squash Casserole

5-6 squash medium sized yellow squash, sliced or cubed.

1 medium onion, sliced

Mix together and cook them until they are tender. I usually steam them in the microwave.

In the meantime, in a medium bowl, mix 

1 small container of sour cream, 

1 cup of herb-seasoned bread crumbs, 

1 can of cream of celery soup (you may use cream of chicken soup) and 

1 stick of melted butter. 

Then, in a greased casserole dish, pile on the squash/onion mix and then add in the breadcrumb mixture. I have to get my hands in there to make sure it's spread about pretty well. 

Top with 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese. We like a lot of cheese, so 2 cups is more like it :)

Bake 350 for 30-40 minutes.