This weeks open ended art project theme is “Matisse”. It’s a new thing; Open Ended Art will feature a specific artist once a month. We read “When Pig-Asso met Moo-Tisse” and “Drawing with Scissors” as well as checking out some Matisse art on the internet to get familiar with his work.
I really loved this project. I’ve always liked Matisse anyway (which is why we had those books on hand already!), and his collage work I always thought was especially stunning.
^^ THIS is how almost all of my progress shots came out this week. Yay?
To get started, and show him a bit about the collage work, I first cut a bunch of “matisse inspired” shapes and let him do a collage with those.Â
I realize that I am biased, but didn’t he do an amazing job? I didn’t cut the pieces with any kind of picture in mind at all. And here we have “Mommy Watches Two Baby Birds”. I really love how this one came out.
After that, I handed over paper and scissors and asked him to make his own shapes for another collage work. We discussed “organic” shapes, and how Matisse used very few straight lines.Â
These are the *only* process shots that aren’t all screwed up, and you can’t see very much. Sigh! He cut a lot of long wavy strips, glued several together in bunches, and then attached the mini-collages to the paper.
For more great open ended art projects, check out the linkie at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms!
I don’t know if a giraffe is actually a grasslands animal. They eat leaves, which means they need trees and there aren’t a lot of trees in the grasslands? I don’t know; the unit information page had little mini animals printed all over it, and it had giraffes and I adore them; Giraffes are my “can’t miss” animals when we head to the zoo, even if they are in the Africa section, which is the longest walk ;) So, whether they are grasslands animals are not, today features them!
Happy cheese giraffe, a couple of small cheese giraffes actually done with a cutter, English muffin pizza with pepperoni, ham and mozzarella skewers, blackberries and checkered apple, broccoli, carrots cut into giraffe heads, cherry tomato and a few summer squash match sticks. Oh, and some cucumber cut into little shapes that are supposed to look like acacia leaves, but don’t.
Time taken: 30 minutes (15 minutes, then walked away to do some other things while the pizza and steamed veggies cooled down, and then 15 more minutes assembling).
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This week’s Food Network Chef’s Cooking Challenge features Claire Robinson. This is one of the rare weekend only shows (5 Ingredient Fix) that I have actually seen a few times. When it first premiered I watched several episodes. I like her; seems very warm and approachable, and her recipes are very easy (with only 5 ingredients + salt, pepper and oil, how could they be tough, right? ;)).  Her food always looks so inviting (at least in the episodes I watched). Honestly, there were several times that I wanted to jump up, buy the ingredients and start cooking before she could even finish.
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I will say that *most* of her recipes that I have seen are basic recipes, and really directed at a novice cook. Her creamed spinach for instance is (shock) spinach and cream.
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Bonus Review!
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I have made her Sunday Roast Beef and Gravy and Thyme for Yorkshire Puddings twice before. The roast is not budget friendly; for us at least it’s a special occasion cut of meat (we had it for Easter and for my birthday). But it came out PERFECTLY with her directions. Perfectly pink, tender and soooooo good, which is why we had it again on my birthday. I requested that for my meal, as I had only been home from the hospital a few days, recovering from the c-section, and mom was there to cook, as there was no way we were going out 😉 I’d never had Yorkshire puddings before I made them on Easter, so having a basic recipe was good. They are like eggy popovers and with a little gravy drizzled over them, I thought they were fantastic. However, I was not thrilled with the gravy that is listed with the roast. Because it’s part of the roast recipe, she didn’t have many ingredients left for gravy I guess.  In order to get it thick enough to really BE gravy and not a pan sauce, it would have to reduce a very long time.  The second time we had it my mom just made a basic beef gravy, which was heavenly on the puddings. The only other note is — read the Yorkshire pudding recipe all the way through well before you want to cook. It’s got some resting time, and uses fat from the roast, so you want to plan for those things.
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Anyway, on to the current review!
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So far,  I’ve always picked a main dish to review. Not this week. I love Brussels Sprouts. I’ve never met one that I didn’t like. Fresh, frozen. Cooked crisp tender or boiled until its limp as a wet noodle — I just love them. I’ve never imagined them with apples. Even more confusing is having them with *raw* apples. So I just had to try this one.
Crispy Brussels Sprouts
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4 ounces thick slab applewood smoked bacon, cut in 1/4-inch pieces
1 pound Brussels sprouts, washed, trimmed, and halved lengthwise
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and sliced
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Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a sheet pan, lay out bacon slices. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned and the fat has rendered. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon, and transfer to a paper towel lined plate. Carefully toss Brussels sprouts in the hot pan, and season with salt and pepper. Return the pan to the oven, and roast, turning once, until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, [add] the walnuts and apples and toss to combine. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Transfer to a serving platter, top with the bacon, and serve warm.
I ended up making this on Monday, and the hubby was gone for dinner, so it was just me. I thought they were just OK. I like brussels with nuts, but the apples were very strange with it.  The texture was nice, the crisp apples with the crispy outsides, soft insides of the sprouts was a nice contrast. But I couldn’t get past the weird (to me) flavor combonation of apples and brussels. I would probably eat it again if someone else made it (I never met a brussels that I didn’t like, remember!) but I wouldn’t make these again, with the apples. I do like them roasted wth the walnuts. If you’ve never tried them roasted before, you should!
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Edit: DOH! Reading Mubs review of these, I was reminded that I forgot to post that the time was off for roasting. My oven is on its last legs (so sad, I adore my stove), and things generally take a little longer to cook than normal, but it still took a good 30-35 minutes to cook them. Maybe she was using smaller sprouts. I picked up mine still on the stalk at a world market near by and they varied from pretty big to down right huge. I debated quartering them, but in the end I just halved as she said and it took nearly twice as long.
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And my camera fritzed out. I only took a few photos because my DH was out seeing John Cleese and I was juggling the 5 year old kidlet, the 5 month old baby and meal prep. Because I’ve had so many problems with my camera I usually take 2-3 shots of everything. I didn’t this time and paid for it with a lack of pictures. Sorry!
The unit this week in Kidlet’s kindergarten class is “grassland animals”. The Lion is also the school’s mascot, so I decided that was the grassland animal I’d start with this week.Â
Lion is turkey and cheddar on a sesame seed roll with meat and cheese features, scallion whiskers and carrot curl mane. The eyes are puffed cereal. There’s an itty bitty forelle pear (so cute!) which I halved, then used a small melon baller to take out the core. Blackberries, broccoli, cherry tomato, golden beet cut with mini lion cookie cutter, a tiny cookie with paw print drawn on with food marker and a cinnamon graham cracker shaped like a dragonfly. Some dressing in the lion bottle.
Time taken: I spent 5 -10 minutes last night making the carrot curls, sticking them on toothpicks and putting them in ice water to help them hold thier shape. 20 minutes for assembly this morning.
When I was photographing today’s bento lunch, Kidlet asked if he could take the picture today. Why not? It’s digital, it’s not like its going to waste film. “sure,” says I.
I thought I’d get a blurry photo or two of the whole lunch, perhaps off center. Instead, I got these:
I don’t know why the gallery isn’t working properly. I’ll fix it later. My bandwidth is being chewed up this morning and things are taking FOREVER to load.
The art literacy program at my son’s school is provided solely by volunteers on a class by class basis. There were no takers for kidlet’s class, so although I’m not particularly *artisitic* or passionate about any specific artists, I decided to take it on so he and his Kindergarten class wouldn’t go without the program.
My first presentation was this morning and the topic was “gargoyles”. I had planned to make a cool gargoyle lunch, but I was too stressed and too rushed to do much of anything fancy with his bento today. I cut the sandwich into triangles, popped out a few bear faces, and tossed everything together so I could get out of the house a little early with my piles of clay and other presentation materials.
PB and lemon curd on whole wheat, cheese bear faces, broccoli, cherry tomato, bear head carrots and golden beet, blackberries, banana under the carrots and beet. He wanted lemon pepper for his vegetables instead of ranch dressing today.
Time taken: 10 minutes or a little less
I only managed to stick to my menu plan for half the week last week. Going to carry over a couple recipes since I have the ingredients for them.
I really liked the Bacon Cheeseburger Wellingtons; the boys had mixed reactions. I ended up using some hamburger from the freezer that had been pre-cooked with onions and red peppers, and then added the ingredients to it as per Candi’s changes she’d mentioned in a comment here. Kidlet was gobbling it up until he found a piece of red pepper; and then he was D O N E. lol
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Monday:Â Â Creamy Shrimp Chowder, Rolls, Green Salad
Tuesday: Marinated Broiled Ribeye, Roast Potatoes, Crispy Brussels Sprouts from Claire Robinson for the FNCCC
Wednesday: Soft Tacos (typical — flour tortilla, beef, lettuce, tomato, cheese, etc), Tortilla Chips, Lightened Up Guacamole
Thursday:Â Â Salmon Turnovers, Green Salad, Corn
Friday:Â Â Saturday: Crockpot Cabbage & Sausage Soup, Bread Sticks, Fruit
Sunday:Â Chicken Cordon Bleu, Pasta, Broccoli
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For breakfasts we always have oatmeal, cold cereal, scrambled eggs, toast, freezer muffins, yogurt, cottage cheese and fruits to choose from. Â I also keep us stocked with lunch meats, cheeses, fruits, veggies, etc for bentos. Â Â Â Even when not specifically listed, I usually have a mixed greens salad and fruit available for dinner.
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This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at Organizing Junkie.  Check out the hundreds of other menus posted.
On my endless quest for quail eggs, I went to Zupan’s market the other day. I don’t shop there often, although I normally like to frequent locally owned business. They have lots of local foods, and a gourmet selection of items. But they are so expensive.  A post on the internet said they might have quail eggs. They did not. But I did find these most adorable shortbread cookies with a hard frosted coating. Seriously, isn’t he the sweetest (no pun intended!) frankenstein you’ve ever seen?
Mac and cheese monster with ham and cheese accents (and see, I found those most adorable picks ever, finally!), hard cooked egg with lemon pepper in the sauce bottle, babybel cheese with moon cut-out, broccoli. Ridiculously cute frankenstein cookie. Under cookie/cheese are apple slices, strawberries and carrots.
Time taken: 15 minutes. Mac and cheese and egg were already cooked.
Kid friendly friday is hosted at I Blame My Mother. Check out this weeks linky to see the projects and ideas that other mom’s have posted!
I think that making book marks is a great activity for kids. We’ve done it a number of times over the years. It lends itself to many different themes and mediums. One Christmas I had kidlet make them as gifts, using holiday stamps and glitter.
At my son’s harvest party yesterday I ran an activity table, and bookmarks are what I chose to offer. I used scrapbook supplies. I cut card stock and patterned paper to size, gathered up a bunch of embellishments, ribbons and some small rubber stamp alphabets and let the kids decorate them as as they liked. I have a Xyron Creative Station, so I bought a fresh roll of lamination for it, and took that to help make the bookmarks a little more durable and permanent.
Everyone turned out very different. (Hopefully I’ll be able to add some process shots later. I was so busy I didn’t get to take any myself, but another mom did and she said she would email the photos to me). Here’s a few of them finished:
Several of the kids in the class (Kindergarten) said they were starting chapter books and were already using bookmarks and were very excited to have one they made themselves. Plus, my husband complains about my leaving my books propped open all over the place, so I plan to snitch one of my son’s to use. I think he’ll get a kick out of mommy using his work!