Days 14 & 15: Bacon, Zucchini & Caramelized Onion "Dinner Pie" (aka quiche)

Quiche. Just the word 'quiche' does not sound like something my boys want to eat, but you call it a 'dinner pie' and suddenly it sounds perfect. LTWOS: My mom used to make 'beer bread' that used beer in the recipe (as you would imagine from the recipe name), but the thought of eating beer bread as a kid was repulsive and I simply refused. Magically, mom found a new recipe for 'milk bread' and once she started making that instead of 'beer bread' I was much happier and able to join the dinner table without a hissy fit. So now that I have kids that are just like I was 30 years ago, I also have alternative names for certain dinners and recipes.

Tonight's quiche was wonderful and indulgent. The recipe was adapted from www.beautifulfrugallife.com. 

Bacon, Zucchini & Caramelized Onion Quiche

1 frozen 9 inch deep dish pie crust                       

4 oz cream cheese, cut into pieces
6 strips of bacon, diced                                      

1 medium onion, chopped                                    

1-2 cups zucchini, shredded

1 clove of garlic, chopped

2 eggs, beaten                                               

.25 tsp dried oregano                                        
.5 tsp pepper 

.25 tsp dried basil   

1 cup shredded mozzarella                                          

Generous pinch of salt

1. Pre-heat oven to 425. Bake pie crust for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and put the cream cheese pieces on the crust and set aside to cool.
2. Cook bacon and break up. Use 2 tbs of drippings or olive oil to cook onions until translucent. Add shredded zucchini and continue to cook until all is tender and starts to caramelize.
3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, cheese, seasonings, bacon, onions, and zucchini mixture.
4. Smooth the cream cheese over the bottom of the crust and pour zucchini mix over the crust.
5. Cover the edges of the pie with foil and bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until knife comes out clean after cutting through the center.

A new pasta made of veggies

Barilla has a new line (new to me at least) of their tiny, picaluna, pasta that is made with different veggies. Today I made tomato and carrot fusili which has a full veggie serving per portion size of pasta. The three pack of 1lb boxes of different pastas (from BJ's Wholesale Club) also has Carrots and Squash Mini Pipe and Zucchini and Spinach Rotelle.

Dill & Olive Pasta Salad

1 box of fusili pasta cooked al dente

1tbs olive oil

.75 cup of mayo

1 small can of chopped black olives

1tbs cider vinegar

1-2 tsp dried dill weed

.5 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp kosher salt

Directions:
1. Cook and drain pasta.
2. Drizzle olive oil over and toss to coat. Drizzle vinegar over and toss to coat.
3. Add mayo and mix. Add olives and mix.
4. Add spices and toss to mix throughout.
5. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but overnight is better.


I cannot take credit for this recipe except that I have made it with veggie pasta and used chopped olives instead of sliced olives. My friend, and colleague, made this for a school pot luck and I was in love with it.

Days 12 & 13: I do have a little willpower!

I went grocery shopping for a few things, which makes the evening routine at home after school more hectic and fast paced, so these are the days I am usually tempted to go to drive-thru for dinner. This time I made up my mind we were having fajitas for dinner and that was that. Then more temptation came: I found out that the chicken we had at home was not enough and not boneless. Again, I usually would interpret this as a signal that we should just go through the drive-thru and not fuss over cooking at home, but I still did not cave. At home we had chicken fajitas with red bell pepper and onions and they were wonderful even with the sour cream that expired the day before. We can do it without all the junk food!

Day 11: Barf

As I mentioned yesterday, school is back in so our daily routine has shifted a lot from our holiday schedule of doing whatever whenever and our poor rainbows are not as colorful as they were last week, but tonight's dinner nabs three of the five colors in one meal--Woohoo! Tomatoes (red), bell peppers (green and orange), onion (yellow). Tonight's dinner has a long history in the family I grew up in and I never ate it as a kid despite it being a regular staple dinner in our household. I disliked this dinner so much that I stopped calling it Sicilian Supper as the original recipe named it and I renamed it barf (because I was a kid, Garbage Pail kids were cool then, and barf was the grossest thing I knew of at that age). All of that being said, I would like to admit that I was wrong and my mom was right after all: it turns out that it really is a yummy, convenient, inexpensive, and healthy meal (and it makes great leftovers and lunches).

I have now made it many, many times and most of the time I not used the recipe as it was originally written. Note: it was originally published in a 1981 Carousel Microwave cookbook that went with a megalith-sized microwave and that means we (my mom or myself) have been cooking this meal for 30 years--WOW!

Bring on the Barf . . .

1 bag of wide egg noodles, cooked, drained and set aside.
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 chopped onion
1-2 chopped bell peppers (I like a green pepper and a sweeter red or orange pepper)
1 pound of lean ground beef (or turkey)
8 ounces of cream cheese
1/4 c or less of Parmesan cheese
1 cup of milk
Garlic powder
Seasoning salt

Even though this recipe came from a microwave cookbook, I don't like to cook hamburger in the microwave so I cook the chopped onion and ground beef together on the stove until all of the pink is gone, then drain the grease. While the meat is cooking cook noodles until tender and drain. Move noodles to a bowl. When meat is done, add chopped bell pepper, can of diced tomatoes, can of tomato sauce and then fill the tomato sauce can with milk and add that to the sauce. Season with garlic powder, seasoning salt, and some red pepper flakes if you would like. Pour sauce over the noodles and mix together. Add the cream cheese, cubed, and mix in so the cubes are covered by noodles and sauce. Put the entire bowl in the microwave and cook for 7 minutes at 50% power. Remove from microwave and stir so that cream cheese mixes into the noodles and sauce. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top and eat.

The Biggest Loser WSES Edition

There are several of us at school who have made similar resolutions of eating healthier, exercising more, taking better care of our health AND losing weight. All of us are similar in personality, character, lifestyle, and so on which is why we work so well together. This is also why we all know that ourselves and each other need some accountability, motivation, and good 'ole competition between us to inspire us to stick to our resolutions. Of course, our health, our life, our loved ones, and ourselves should be enough to motivate us, but well . . . apparently not.
I have never really watched Biggest Loser, but everyone else has and will help me fill in the details. I understand our main objective of course. Lose weight, competition, winner takes the kitty and goes shopping. We will have to put up bios, goals, and pics for everyone so you can help cheer us on.

Days 9 & 10: School is back in, rainbows and time wanted.

The boys went back to their sitter yesterday and I went back to work after our holiday and even though we still did have a nutritious meal of chicken ravioli, green beans and cottage cheese with fruit for dinner none of us made a rainbow for today. Today was the same story. We all ate healthy, but no one made a rainbow today.
On the positive side, we are staying away from fast food, junk foods, and highly processed foods.

LTWOS: I know my own two boys have grown a little taller while we were on holiday, so it makes sense that my school children did too, but wow they seemed so much bigger and my classroom seemed so much smaller.

Day 8: A full week of rainbows!

Woohoo!

Elijah was the only one to make a rainbow of fruits and veggies everyday for the entire week! Monday starts our new week and hopefully the rest of us will join in his victory.

Day 7: It tastes like chicken

"This is good Mom. It tastes like chicken," says my 4 year old, "I like this. What is it?" 

Must be something strange. No, tonight's dinner was not tofu or shredded diakon radish reassembled to look like a chicken breast, it was actually chicken breast, served with sweet potatoes and green beans.

My response, "thanks sweetie, it's chicken."

Another day and another rainbow of fruits & veggies for Eli and myself. Daddy and Aaron still need some practice, or motivation. I wonder what the reward for a week's worth of rainbows will be. I am certain that acknowledging this week's achievement of a 'healthy lifestyle' will not be the reward my 4 year old is hoping for. 

Rudy Huxtable and Twilight come to lunch

"Five beets a day keeps the transfusion away" says Rudy Huxtable from The Cosby Show 20 years ago.

     And yet that is the little phrase or chant going through my head as I put pickled beets on our plates for lunch. There is so much that I can't remember from five minutes ago, but an insignificant line from a 20+ year television show is still vividly fresh in my mind. Not that I don't enjoy the fond memories of watching The Cosby Show, but if I had any choice on the "files" that take up my limited hard drive space that is probably not one I would have marked for permanently saving. 
     While I am reminiscing, Aaron is happily munching away on his beets (loves them!) and when I go back over to him to give him more he has red fingers, red lips, red teeth, and red droplets of beet juice dripping from the corners of his mouth.

Tasks Checklists Vs. Lesson Planner

I have tried many planning methods for writing out my lessons and none really ever worked for me consistently until I created my own version of a lesson plan organizer and a grade book all in one. I use the same checklist every week and some weeks when we get behind I just delete what we did complete and save the rest for the current week's checklist (then 'save as' with the current week's date). Each week, I fill in the columns for the new assignments for the week and change any center descriptions. There is a column for the state objective number, the date to be covered, the assignments to be completed and a column for each of the students in that group. The current week's checklist stays in the front of my binder so that I can check off when students have started or completed a task and I can record what grade they receive. I keep the previous weeks checklists behind the current one (for the grading period) so that I can average grades as each week ends and I can also see what a student is missing from other weeks. Basically this is my customized version of a lesson list and a grade book combined into one. I do have multiple checklists each week: 1 for each ability group (4 groups) for math and 1 for science or social studies activities for the week.

Group checklist for this week.

Checklist from last quarter with grades marked.

Center list for the week for all groups.

All of the center lists & checklists clipped together at the end of the quarter after grades are calculated for report cards.

The 'Center Stations' checklist lists the name of the Center Station (the names and the skills to be completed at these centers do not change each week but the material or problems to be completed change with our lessons and themes each week), the center number (helps with organization in the classroom and student punch cards), a column to list the specific center activity at each station for each ability level group, and finally a column to list the materials that need to be copied, collected or created for each center to be completed by the students. This Center Station list is a great reference to have nearby for myself and our teacher assistant so that we can quickly review the directions or the activity to answer student questions.
The weekly checklist has these center stations listed on it (middle to end of page) and when students start a center we draw a line diagonally through the box on the checklist with the date and when the center is completed we put the grade on the bottom of the diagonal line. Since center work is generally done in partners or independently some students are tempted to start many centers and finish none without frequent redirection. I understand this very well since I have many, MANY projects that I start and put down temporarily to work on another project. Maybe I should start putting a time stamp on my projects and tasks as motivation to finish. Nah.

Day 6: Grandpa's Omelets

My father-in-law showed us his no-mess, no-fail, customizable omelet making method several years ago and it has become a household favorite. The kids enjoy the creation process and choosing what goes into the omelet. Now that we are eating our veggie rainbows everyday this is an excellent way to add some color. 

Grandpa's Omelets
2 eggs per omelet
1 zip-loc plastic bag per omelet
Large pot of boiling water
Salt and pepper, to season
Chopped and dried veggies, meats, cheeses
*We are using tomatoes, zucchini, cooked onions, feta cheese or cheddar cheese, bell peppers, banana peppers, maple sausage or bacon.

All of the omelet parts ready to assemble.

1. Fill a pot full of water and bring to boil while making omelet stuffings. 

2. Chop the veggies and meats that you want to put in the omelet. Pat them with a paper towel to remove all excess liquid. Notice all of the red liquid that has been soaked up underneath the paper towel with the red peppers (third paper towel). The tomatoes and zucchini had less water to be absorbed because I had chopped/grated them yesterday for another meal and had already removed most of the liquid.

3. Crack two eggs into each zip-loc bag, zip and squish around to scramble egg. 

4. Add whatever veggies, meats or cheeses you want to cook in your omelet, zip and squish around again. 

Two eggs in each bag then squish!

Squish . . .

5. Open a tiny bit of the seal and press out as much air from the bag as possible and reseal. All of ours have different stuffings so it is not too hard to tell which is which, but if you have some that look similar I recommend cutting small slits on the top of the zip-loc (the part above the seal of course) such as one slit for the first born, 2 for the second and so on.

Squished, stuffed, squished & sealed.

6. Put each bag into the pot of boiling water and set timer for 8 minutes. 

7. I usually try to flip the bag over in the water about halfway through the cooking time.

8. Remove from pot with tongs and carefully open bag and slide onto plate. Toss bag. Add salsa, sour cream, salt, pepper, or whatever else you would like on top and chow down. Caution--very hot!

 

Set timer for 8 minutes (10 if really stuffed)

Enjoy!

My Classroom 2011-2012

For the last two years I have been teaching in a self-contained cross-categorical (SC/CC) class for Kindergarten through fifth grade and a year ago the other SC/CC teacher and I combined our two classes and split up our teaching subjects. I now teach math to two ability groups in the morning and I teach math again to two to three different ability groups in the afternoon. I also teach social studies and science throughout the year to either the K-2 group or the 3-5 group while Raven teaches the other group science or social studies and she teaches ALL of the language arts. In other words, I don't teach spelling, reading or writing.

All math materials moved to my room the DAY BEFORE kids arrived!

Did I mention this was the day before students came back?

When we went to our principal with this plan over a year ago he allowed us to go for it even though he had never heard of an elementary EC program having such an unconventional arrangement. It sounds confusing, but it has really made lesson planning, classroom management and student grouping, and student learning and retention improve all together. We started by ability grouping our students: we have students ranging from Kindergarten through fifth grade and none of them are in the ability level as their grade level peers. We created groups for the ability levels that did not give a high, low, basic, advanced or other level designation. Our groups this year are Tarheels, Pirates, Wolfpack, and Mountaineers (all NC college teams: UNC, ECU, NCSU, ASU. The Tarheels have students that range from Kindergarten through fourth grade, but they generally work on skills based on the Kindergarten and first grade curriculum standards. The Pirates have students ranging from second grade through fifth grade and is taught at the second grade and third grade curriculum level. The Wolfpack group is made up of fourth and fifth grades and works at the third and fourth grade curriculum levels. The Mountaineer group is also made up of fourth and fifth graders and generally works at the same curriculum level as the Wolfpack but they move through material faster and more accurately.
The pictures above are from my old classroom which was one of the largest in the school and now I have been moved to a room that I affectionately call "my cubby". Considering the fact that I always have at least 8-9 students and two adults in the room at all times and my room is intended to be an office it is probably safe to say that I now have the smallest classroom in the school.

Day 5: I love rainbows . . . and Korean Pickles.

"I colored the rainbow" says the 2 year old standing up in his chair, "HOORAY!" This is truly an accomplishment for this child who would live on milk alone if he could. My other son asked at each meal what he could eat so he could color his rainbow and at lunch at the broccoli and sweet potatoes first (before chicken nuggets) so that he could color the green and orange--Wow! 

Earlier this week we went to the NC Farmer's Market and found a new vegetable called a Diakon Radish. It was huge! And only a dollar. For a couple of days we munched on raw slices of it like we would a carrot stick, but with only half of it gone I thought I needed to find other uses. Since I am still on holiday (at least for a couple more days) I was able to try making Ggakdugi Kimchi or Korean Pickles.

Day 4: 2 for 1 deal, beans for raisins

There is nothing grand or even new for today other than to eat every color of our fruit and veggie rainbow. By the end of lunch time, Eli has eaten his rainbow already and the rest of us are only one "orange" away from finishing ours. Today's lunch included green beans, which we all like, but decidedly not as much as raisins or other fruits. Aaron needed a little motivation to eat his beans so for each one he ate, he got one raisin and by the time he finished eating his green beans he had also eaten a serving of "blue" fruits and got to mark 2 colors on his rainbow.

Eat a Rainbow of Fruits & Veggies

This is a great printable that I have used with my students when we study nutrition and I am introducing it to my boys now. They love stickers and charts (probably a result of having a teacher for a mom) and they are very competitive with each other. I printed enough copies for each of us and we colored our rainbows and then I laminated them on a handy-dandy thermal laminator I received as a Christmas present so that we can use the same chart week after week. Each time we eat a fruit or veggie for a color of the rainbow we mark it off with a dry-erase marker that can be wiped off at the end of the week. Our daily goal is to eat at least one of each color, but the more the better. Rainbow chart found at www.personal-nutrition-guide.com

Day 3: Whole wheat banana pancakes, "Salad" pizza (AKA Zucchini & Caramelized Onion Pizza)

Today's whole wheat banana pancakes were a huge hit. Aaron ate all of his and asked for more saying "they make me happy." We not only had a wonderful breakfast this morning, but we have sets of pancakes wrapped in wax paper in the freezer for breakfast on school days.
LTWOS--Only 3 days of Christmas break left and I still have a million things that I could, and maybe should, be doing for my classroom, but I am really enjoying our break. Thankfully now that my co-teacher and I have been working our current plan for awhile I don't feel so stressed about what comes next for our new semester.
Despite our breakfast success, dinner was not as much of a hit (with the kids at least). Tonight's healthy feast included zucchini and caramelized onion pizza with ricotta and mozzarella on a made-from-scratch whole wheat crust. The recipe was adapted from www.eatliverun.com. Our oldest called it salad pizza because the shredded zucchini did look like salad peeking out from under the cheese. Interestingly, he did not want to eat the crust or the ricotta cheese, but he ate the zucchini and onion "salad" with mozzarella on top. I guess he ate the most nutritious parts of the pizza so I'm happy. I am also happy with the pizza. I think it turned out awesomely yummy and we will surely have it again.

 Zucchini & Caramelized Onion Pizza
2-3 Zucchini, grated
1 sweet onion, coarsely chopped
olive oil
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 whole wheat pizza crust (using recipe from Fleismann's Pizza Yeast)
1 cup of ricotta cheese
1 cup of mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Make pizza dough according to the directions on the yeast package (or use a pre-made pizza crust).
*If I wasn't home on holiday I would probably have used a pre-made whole wheat crust, but this dough was very easy and fast to make.
3.  Stretch dough out to the shape of the baking pan. We made a circle pizza tonight, but rectangle pizza is just as yummy.
4. Spread the ricotta cheese over the dough (there is no tomato or pizza sauce).
5. Wash, trim ends off zucchini and then grate the whole zucchini (skin and all). Do this for all of the zucchini. Place all of the zucchini on a paper towel to drain.
6. Slice the onion and saute with a little olive oil. When onions are almost translucent, add a teaspoon of minced garlic. Layer the onions and garlic on top of the cheese.
7. The paper towel the zucchini is sitting on has probably absorbed a lot of the water, but take some more paper towel and place it over the top and press down to get out as much of the water as possible. Layer the grated zucchini on top of the onions and cheese.
8. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese over the top of the pizza and cook for 15 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.
9. If you live with a bunch of carnivores as I do, this pizza goes great with Italian pepper chicken sausage.

Day 2: Eli eats ALL of his zucchini and tries roasted chickpeas!!

Seasoned & sauteed  zucchini with cheese, smoked sausage and olive pasta salad for dinner tonight. And a new snack for today was sweet and salty roasted chickpeas which got mixed reviews (1 like, 2 take-it or leave-its, 1 yuck).

Zuc & Cheese
*(I tried to convince the youngest that it was like mac & cheese but with green macaroni and he responds by saying 'but I don't see any mac and cheese mama, where?"
2 zucchini cut into thin strips (I used my mandolin)
Garlic powder
Minced onion
Salt
Cheddar cheese

1. Cut the zucchini into French fry like strips. The mandolin works great for this.
2. Heat a pan to medium, spray with cooking spray and cook zucchini until soft, but not mushy.
3. While cooking, add whatever seasonings you would like. I added some garlic powder, a little onion, and some kosher salt.
4. After 8-10 minutes it was soft and I sprinkled some cheese on top and let that melt before removing from the stove. I mixed the cheese with the zucchini before presenting it as green mac and cheese to the boys.

Happy New Year!! New Year & New Goals!

It is cliche to start off the new year with a whole shopping list of goals and resolutions especially when most new year's resolutions fall by the wayside shortly after they become inconvenient and the motivation for the goal is gone. Nonetheless, you have to start a new
goal sometime and now is the time. I have A LOT of goals that I want to work on this year in family goals, parenting goals, marriage goals, financial goals, spiritual goals, professional goals, and personal goals.

My major goal this year is to become healthier. This goal includes eating better, less processed, and healthier foods with meals that focus more on vegetables and protein. My two sons, even at the young ages of 2.5 and 4, would rather eat starchy, over-processed, and highly sugared foods and go away from the table hungry if their plates have healthy, nutritious meals that I am sure they would like if they just got past the "it - looks-like-a-vegetable-it-must-be-bad" attitude. I am committed to my boys far more than I am to my own goals so this is truly a commitment versus an interest. This blog is full of random ramblings for the classroom, the home, the family and so on and our progress with our commitment to eating healthy will be updated here for accountability.

Multi-step process for Jacobs' family healthy eating:

1. Veggies first!! We are trying new vegetables and new recipes to build a bank of likable recipes.

2. No fast foods. We are becoming more strict about meal planning and sticking to our meal plan.

3. No junk food in the house. Pop-tarts are yummy and a time saver, but they are not doing any good for any of us.

4. No refined "white" foods like white bread, white rice, white flour, etc.

5. Less processed foods, more real foods.

Continuation of our healthy eating goals will include:

-Little to no glutenous foods.

-Meals using whole, real foods or foods made with less than five ingredients.

OFFICIAL DAY 1 of real foods & veggies first: Baked Chicken Penne and Brussel Sprouts that were delicious and were totally rejected by the children.

Organizing to be Organized

From the week leading up to Christmas to the second week in January I am on holiday break from school. During this time my inability to stay focused on one project at a time becomes very clear. I am desperately trying to become more organized and consistent: In my classroom with student assignments and work flow, with student documentation, with grading, and with filing materials and lessons; in my home with menu planning, bill paying and budgeting, toy expansion and chaos, chore assigning, purging the junk and donating the unused, and organizing what needs to stay in an easy to maintain and easy to find way; and in my life to organize and efficiently plan my day so that I can do a  great job with my school children, care for and enjoy my own kids when I get home, grow in my marriage, stay motivated to lead a more healthy lifestyle focused on good nutrition and fitness for the whole family, to grow in my relationship with Christ, and to find time to take care of myself, return to my hobby of throwing pottery, or even just use the bathroom alone.

Until I go back to school, most of my blog posts will be related to organizing and working on these various parts of my life. As my return to school approaches, I hope to have pictures and information about our (mine and my co-teacher's) unique classroom set up, our behavior plan, my center punch cards, and my math journals.

The Night Before Christmas

Christmas Eve Plans, Memories, Traditions

1. The boys make and decorate Christmas cookies for Santa.

2010 Santa Cookies, Aaron took bite out of his cookie while Nana helped Elijah finish his.

2011 Santa Cookies

2. Family Christmas Eve dinner together.

3. At dusk, make reindeer food and sprinkle it in the yard. Reindeer food made of glitter, Christmas sprinkles, and oatmeal to be sprinkled around the yard.

Sprinkle on the lawn at night
The moon will make it sparkle bright
As Santa's reindeer fly and roam
This will guide them to your home.

4. Change into our Christmas jammies, watch Polar Express, munch on popcorn and drink hot chocolate. 

Christmas Boys, Elijah 4 & Aaron 2.5, in 2011

Christmas Elf Boys, 2010

Christmas Boys, 2009

5. Reading Christmas stories and then leaving cookies for Santa.

What is a "left turn without signaling"?

I feel, at any given moment, that I have a half dozen or more tasks going on, a dozen or two people I am taking care of, a to-do list that grows at an alarming rate and never gets smaller, and there is a tag cloud in my head that goes on and on and on and on. I am not sure if this is common to everyone, if it applies more to my generation, if it is a product of today's overloaded information, or if it is just me and some of my peeps. So, what is a 'left turn without signaling?' The phrase actually comes from my friend, co-teacher, and neighbor who has a tendency to go off on tangents or change the subject of our conversations suddenly, just like me. We can be at school talking about science lesson plans and one of us remembers something we saw on the way to school or something we watched on TV last night and the conversation goes in a totally different direction than we planned. This sudden and complete change of direction is what we call a "left turn without signaling". A 'left turn without signaling' (LTWOS) happens when you are talking about one thing and something you say triggers you to think about a funny story that happened at home that, in your brain at least, is related to what you were originally talking about.

It's all connected, in your brain, and the sudden change in topic makes sense, in your brain, but usually not to everyone around you.