A Common Shepherdess

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Chislic with crackers Fry bread (official state bread) with honey Wild blueberries, plum and cherries Milk (official state beverage) Apple kuchen (official state dessert) Chislic is a food that is apparently unheard of outside of South Dakota. Chislic is chunks of seasoned meat that has been deep fried. I used beef. Other choices include lamb, venison, and elk. Before frying, I sprinkled it with a simple seasoning of garlic powder, salt and pepper. Fry bread has become a popular Native American treat. The honey bee is the official state insect of South Dakota so we chose to use honey as a topping. Toppings can be savory, like taco fixings, to sweet, like berry syrup or powdered sugar. Blueberries, plums and chokecherries all grow wild in South Dakota. I don't have access to wild plums or chokecherries so we just cut up some pl...

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Knepfla Soup Rolls Cucumber salad Milk (official state beverage) Chocolate-covered potato chips Knepfla (or knoephla) soup comes from the German-immigrants-by-way-of-Russia that settled in North Dakota in the late 1800s. It is basically a dumpling soup with potatoes and cream. My kids loved this, even on a hot July day. My seven-year-old daughter made most of the soup herself. She chopped the vegetables, rolled and cut the knepfla and dropped it into the soup. I made a simple brioche dough in my bread machine and then baked them in the oven. We used a simple cucumber salad recipe: salted sliced cucumbers and sliced red onions in a dressing of 1 cup apple cider vinegar (heated to boiling first) and 4 tsp sugar. Carol Widman's Candy Company in Fargo is home of the famous chocolate-covered potato chips, or Chippers as they are called....

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Wild Rice Soup Lefse Milk (official state beverage) Blueberry crumb bars Wild rice is Minnesota's official state grain. For many years, Minnesota produced almost all of the world's wild rice. It was a staple food for the Ojibwa, Cree and Menomini Native American tribes. Lefse is a traditional Norwegian flat bread and still a popular treat among Minnesotans. Milk is the official state beverage. Blueberries can be found wild throughout Minnesota. This dinner is very white. I lived in Minnesota from about age 5 until I was married. I remember after having dinner at someone's house, we remarked how everything on the plate was white. Growing up with parents raised in the South, we were more used to sweet tea with dinner than milk and definitely used to more spices! My kids loved the wild rice soup, lefse and blueberry bars t...

I'm a sucker for a good deal. This past week I was able to purchase four cans of Pillsbury Grands! Biscuits for only $0.70 total! My kids aren't that fond of them plain however. I managed to come up with an easy recipe that guarantees the biscuits will be eaten in a flash. My kids love these for breakfast with strawberry smoothies. Apple Sticky Buns Topping: 4 Tbsp butter 1/2 cup brown sugar 2 Tbsp light corn syrup or honey 1 small apple, peeled and diced Combine ingredients in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Pour into a buttered 9" round pan. Place one biscuit in the center and place six more around the edges. (There will be one biscuit left over. I'll coat that with butter and cinnamon sugar and bake that on a small baking sheet.) Spread some softened butter over the tops of the biscuits and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 350*F, until biscuits are golden brown. Remove from oven. Place a large pla...

Nature study is an important part of Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education. It doesn't really feel like nature study to talk a walk around a city block though. We love the opportunity to escape the city and enjoy a more rural setting. Today we took the chance to visit the Hassayampa Nature Preserve. A guide took us through a couple of trails and encouraged the kids to make notes in their nature journals. One exercise that I will use in the future was to divide blank page into four sections by drawing a cross in the middle of the page. Then devote each section to four senses: touch, hearing, seeing, and smell. Our guide asked the kids to sit for 1-2 minutes, concentrating on one sense and then to write or draw. We came across this little fellow. His scales shone iridescent and yet he still blended in well with the tree. "Hassayampa" comes from a Yavapai word meaning "upside down river." Most of the Hassayampa River flows underground. It is an u...

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Bratwurst Beer cheese soup topped with popcorn Spinach salad with bacon dressing Milk Cream puffs Wisconsin is known as "America's Dairyland." According to the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service, the total monthly milk production in Wisconsin is 2.2 billion pounds and in 2008 Wisconsin produced 2.5 billion pounds of cheese. The official state nickname is The Badger State, but it isn't what you think. The "badgers" were miners in the 1800s. They would tunnel into the ground looking for lead (galena) and many of them lived in the tunnels they dug. Thus the nickname "badger". Wisconsin has since adopted the badger as its official state animal. Bratwurst is a German sausage and many Wisconsin residents have a German heritage. That might have something to do with why Wisconsin has so many brewerie...

Chicago-style deep dish pizza watermelon Cracker Jack Pizza is always a hit! Chicago-style pizza was invented at Pizzeria Uno in Chicago in 1943. We made ours with sweet Italian sausage and pepperoni. I didn't have a 15-inch deep dish pizza pan so I made it in two of my cast iron pans. It turned out great. I used a 10-inch pan and an 8-inch pan. I always like to serve a fruit or vegetable with pizza so we choose watermelon. Watermelon certainly isn't peculiar to Illinois but it is popular throughout the whole Mississippi Valley area. Cracker Jack was first introduced to the public at the World's Columbian Exposition (more commonly called the Chicago World's Fair) in 1893--most likely America's first junk food. Although consisting of peanuts, popcorn, and molasses, it is probably healthier than most of today's junk food! The Chicago World's Fair popularized many new things: electric lighting, motion pictures, elongated coins (I collect these every w...