Recipe for Shelley's Frugal Frittata by Shelley Hopkins

Cooking is always an adventure for me, kind of like walking a trail and ending up on another path, maybe even in a different forest.   As always, I start a recipe, find out I am missing ingredients, rummage through the pantry or refrigerator and end up with something else, different but good.  I enjoy these food adventures.  The other night I decided to fix a frittata, a simple egg meal. The recipe called for zucchini and Parmesan cheese to top the frittata, and of course I didn’t have any.  I ended up creating a topping with bacon and all the left over veggies I could find.  I topped the final product with feta cheese, and provolone and we loved the meal.  Last night I did the same with my soup.  I wanted to make the Tuscan pasta soup but the kale had been in the fridge a little too long.  I cooked chorizo, onions, garlic, peppers and mushrooms, added the beans and pasta and we had a great supper.

Shelley’s Frugal Frittata

Cook some bacon and set aside to cool, then crumble or cut into pieces.  We used turkey bacon.   In olive oil cook onions, red peppers and garlic till soft, then add mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.  Add the bacon to the veggies and set aside while you prepare the frittata. 

Whip 6 eggs, add two tablespoons water and whip again.  Pour into hot omelet pan greased with butter.  When eggs begin to set, top with the bacon and veggies.  Add salt and pepper if you wish.  Add whatever cheese looks good, I used feta and provolone sections, and place under a hot broiler until the top browns and is set. 

This recipe was adapted from the Frugal Gourmet by Jeff Smith, whose cookbooks  I love.  He suggests serving the frittata sliced like a pie with a salad.

Travel trips and how to plan by Shelley Hopkins

I just finished reading a description of the Blue Grotto of Capri, written by Richard Halliburton, an explorer who travelled and wrote during the early 1900’s.  I am reading his book The Complete Book of Marvels.  He writes about geography and travel in a way that makes the reader want to get out of his chair and go, now!  If I were still homeschooling we would be reading these stories as a way to enhance history and geography.  As I read I am laying out a plan of study, then I remember, I no longer have students.  I am reading for pleasure only.

Halliburton shares his visit of the Blue Grotto with us.  The entrance to this cave is nearly under water.  The guide and the writer had to lean down into the boat to enter.  Inside this famous cave the writer was amazed at the beauty, the rock walls, the sparkling light made when his hand trailed in the water and the very deep luminous blue wavering throughout the cave.  They were the only visitors, and changing into bathing suits they dove in the water, splashed and had a great time.  I could just imagine how it would be now, for me.  I looked up the Blue Grotto on youtube, and found a home video posted by a vacationer.  It looked like Disney Land, a line of boats waiting to enter the cave, taking turns with the exiting boats.  Inside the water and the rocks sparkled a deep blue, guides sang Italian love songs and children shouted at their echoes.  I’m not sure how much magic is left.

So often our travel dreams and travel reality are not equal.  We forget, in our plans and excitement, to think about the realities; traffic, parking and crowds.  The very things that cause us to want to visit a place entice others as well.  A few years ago my kids and I drove out west, and one of our stops was the Grand Canyon.  We decided to visit the North Rim, choosing it over the more popular South Rim.  We had a wonderful visit.  We camped at a Forest Service Campground and in the morning, after coffee and breakfast, we drove into the park.  There was a slow moving line of cars at the entrance, causing maybe a 15-minute delay, but once in the park we all spread out, driving to the various overlooks.  We never had trouble finding a parking space even though we saw plenty of cars and people.  At lunchtime we ate at a picnic table along with many others, but we had no trouble finding an empty spot.  We spent the entire day in the park.  By evening we enjoyed a few of the pullouts by ourselves.  We walked to a fairly remote spot, peacefully enjoyed the sunset and the blending of colors across the canyon.  Other people were nearby, but it was never crowded.

 Near the end of summer we met a man that worked at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  He told me that during the same month we enjoyed the North Rim, he was at the South Rim, where cars waited in line for over an hour just to enter the park gates.  Crowds were huge, and vacationers were tired.  The South Rim is so popular the park has a bus system to move people from one viewing spot to another.  Visitors sometimes have to wait for a second or third bus before they can find a seat.  A few years later we visited the South Rim, and saw many short tempers, frustrated visitors and perhaps disappointed faces.

We don’t expect to go on vacation only to encounter more stress than our daily lives, but often that is what happens.  There is a disconnect between the desire and the reality.  Here are a few tips to help prepare and avoid these troubles.

 Travel Trips

1      Plan plenty of time for crowd related delays, long lines and long drive times.  Look at a map and understand the distances you may be driving.

2      Pack water bottles and snacks to avoid dehydration and the crankiness that comes with hunger.

3      Relax and enjoy.  Don’t set a goal to see the most things possible, instead set a goal to enjoy the things you do see.  Live in the moment, not in an imaginary expectation.

4      Go to places that are less popular.  The Grand Canyon is just as beautiful from the North Rim as the South. 

5      Understand that just because you are on vacation it doesn’t mean you are not in the “real world.”  You still have to look before crossing the street, you still have to take turns and be polite, and plan ahead.

6      You are still “you” on vacation.  You have not entered a magical world where suddenly personalities have changed.  If you have problems, you will bring those problems with you.

7      You must be alert.  Thieves go on vacation too, just for different reasons.

8      Treat the vacation place as you would your own home – don’t litter, don’t park on the grass, take care of the resources.

9      Most importantly, have fun! And learn something! 

How to Cook Fresh Pumpkin by Shelley Hopkins

This year for Halloween I waited until the last minute to buy our pumpkin, and all that was left was the small sugar pumpkins.  It was too small to carve, so we created a face from paper, and took it with us to our trunk or treat.  It sat in the back of our car looking out over all the children and their costumes.  Back at home it looked over the kitchen for several days, smiling at me as I cooked.   Today, I turned it into muffins, and very good muffins they were too.

Pumpkins are harder to cut than I expected.  I had to use both a huge sharp knife, and leverage as I pulled the cut sides apart.  I cleaned out the seeds and pulp, cut the pumpkin into two pieces and placed them in an oven safe dish.  I cooked the pumpkin parts for an hour and a half at 325.  I cleaned the seeds, salted them and placed them on an oiled cookie sheet.  I cooked them about 25 minutes at the same time and same temperature.  When the pumpkin was fork tender, I let the pieces cool, then scraped the meat into a bowl.  With a hand blender I pureed the meat and used 1 cup of it in my muffins.  This was so easy, I don’t know why I had never tried it before, and fresh pumpkin is so much better than canned.

Pumpkin Muffin recipe from allrecipes.com

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp ground ginger

2 eggs

1/3 cup buttermilk ( I just add a drop or two of vinegar into milk before using)

1 TBS molasses (  I didn’t add this, I was out of it)

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup white sugar

 1 cup canned pumpkin (or fresh)

½ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease muffin cups.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices.

Beat together everything else except pecans in a large bowl.  Mix the dry ingredients and stir just until moistened.  Then fold in the pecans.  Spoon into muffin pans and cook 20 – 25 minutes.

When done I added an orange glaze.  I mixed powdered sugar, a drop or two of vanilla and a couple of spoonfuls of orange juice.  I stirred until a glaze formed, and this glaze tasted great with the pumpkin.

raking and memories by Shelley Hopkins

The rake swept across my grass, pulling brown leaves off the lawn and into little piles.  I moved about the yard, adding leaves and combining small leaf piles into larger ones.  I made a few large piles, smelling the musty scent of decay, enjoying the cool breezes of a fall day, and stopping so often to enjoy the colors.  The sky was a brilliant fall blue, the grass green, and the air fresh. 

Leaf raking is much easier without small children helping.  I walk around the house to find a container, and when I return the leaf pile is still intact.  The work is done quickly.  But, I remember when my children were small, the fun they would have jumping in the leaf piles, burying each other and jumping out.  Sometimes I would stop work and enjoy watching them, sometimes I would join them, but sometimes I would sigh, chase them away or put them to work, focused on the task.

I look at my lawn.  Freshly raked, but still there are stray leaves scattered about.  I go around raking up the missed leaves, but for every leaf I catch, three more fall or are not caught by the rake.  I feel frustrated, but then I stop.  I look over the entire yard.  I can either see the scattering of leaves on a yard, or a yard freshly raked, with a few leaves.  The choice of focus is mine.

 I relax, put away the rake, pour a glass of lemonade and sit on the porch.  I think I’ll call my grown children today and say hello.

Try something new! by Shelley Hopkins

Don’t let the fear of Failure Paralyze You!

            A commercial on the radio says, “I remember one Thanksgiving when my Mother tried several new recipes.  The turkey was dry, the gravy was salty, and the sweet potato pie was burned.”  The commercial ends as the speaker cheerfully says, “the good news is mom never tried a new recipe again!”

            How sad!  Sometimes what seems like a great idea in a cookbook falls flat on the table, but other times the meal is wonderful, and a new favorite is discovered.  If we never try to create a new meal, we will never enjoy a new meal.  Perhaps that is obvious, but it is still true.  We have to try new things, reach out and take risks, or we will never grow.

            Our family used to host game nights in our home, and I decided to try something new and special for my last one before moving out of state.  I cooked several tapas, Spanish snacks, and they were, well, not as good as hoped.  Actually they were awful.  I am still not sure what I did wrong.  Even so, I had fun making them, creating something new and different.  The game night was enjoyable, we had other good snacks to eat, and we all learned that tuna in half-raw dough was not appetizing. 

            All Southern women have to bake a batch of burned rocks before they can serve flaky biscuits, and we all have to cook pots of glue before serving creamy grits.  If no other lesson is learned we discover that a bad meal, a burned biscuit is not the end of the world.  We will be hungry again; we will eat again and cook again.  Daily.

            Of course this applies to other parts of life; taking risks, trying new things, failing at times but not letting failure stop you, all of this is necessary and a part of life.  If we fail, and learn from our failures, we grow.  Failure can be good.

            One year I attended Girl Scout Camp and I wanted to use the canoes.  Every girl had to take a canoe out on the lake, swamped it, turned it back over and demonstrated that they could bring the half sunken canoe back to the dock.  After passing this test we enjoyed the canoes with less fear.  We already knew what it felt like to capsize and we knew what to do.  Maybe our little failures are like that.  We see that we have failed and we move on.  We see what the worse thing that can happen is, and we are OK, we try again.

Do toddlers learn with computers and apps? by Shelley Hopkins

When a toddler plays educational games on the ipod, ipad or other screen device, are they actually learning?  What is happening with their brain development?  Pediatricians don’t know, but they have seen a corollary between early TV watching and shorter attention spans.  There are many educational apps out there, and quite a few of them are aimed at toddlers and small children.

I have my doubts that a child playing with a finger paint app is enjoying and learning in the same way as a child sticking his hand in gobs of gooey finger paint, smearing it all over the paper, making patterns, and creating pathways of paint with depth and texture.  He can smell the paint, feel the paint, create with the paint, and of course he can make a huge mess with the paint.  But, perhaps that is the point; his paint is real, with true consequences, sensations, and responses.

The smells of finger-paint and play dough triggers pleasant memories.  What will the iPad playing toddler remember?  Flashing lights and an unnatural zoning out, a calm dopamine enhanced trance? 

When my kids were younger we tried a few of the educational computer programs, but quickly I discovered that they were simply clicking on answers until the right one was chosen.  They were not thinking, creating or working; they were chasing green lights or whatever electronic reward they could get.  Some games were better than others; our favorites were puzzle-solving games that made the kids try to figure out clues or keys to solving problems. Their favorite educational game was The Oregon Trail, where we learned that pioneers died of dysentery, nearly all of them.  I never blocked computer and video games for my older children.   As long as the kids were enjoying real experiences, real books, and the outdoors, I had no trouble letting my school age kids play on computers or video games.  I would feel different about toddlers and babies, who do not need computers, iPods or video games and especially TV.

Games have improved, but they are also targeting younger and younger children.  I believe these games encourage passivity, not creative thinking or working for an answer, just a passive clicking to earn a reward.

Do I think computers and electronic items are bad for kids?  It depends on the age of the child and how they are used.  I read about a group of children that used their tablets in exactly what I would call the perfect learning activity.

A group called One Computer per Child chose two very isolated villages in Ethiopia and dropped off boxes of tablets.  Each village got a solar powered charger and instructions on how to use it before the group left.

The children opened the boxes, found the tablets and began to explore.  The goal was to see if the children could learn to read through the use of educational apps alone.  A few of the kids learned to sing the ABC’s, and one boy worked out how to write LION on an animal word app, but the real learning was observed in a different and unpredictable way.  With no computer training or experience, some of the kids figured out how to override programming that had disabled the cameras, and they also figured out how to change the tablet start up screens, overriding another program.  Instead of learning how to spell or read, they learned how to hack systems that were beyond their experience.

Now these kids were learning!  They took an unfamiliar object, learned how to use it, and then with creativity they leaped beyond the expectations.  There was no one to direct them to correct learning outcomes, no one to show them what they should be learning, so their natural curiosity and desire to understand and achieve a goal pushed these Ethiopian children to learn more than planned.

Tuscan Bean Soup by Shelley Hopkins

Last night I cooked a Tuscan Bean Soup that was a hit with my family.  Since they don't usually like soup, and since it was another meatless meal, I was shocked and pleased and thought I would post the recipe here.  I love soup, and could cook it nearly every day, which is why I think my family doesn't like it too much, but when we find a soup we like, I am a happy Momma!

Tuscan Bean Soup

1 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3 cups low fat, low sodium chicken broth
1 cup canned whole tomatoes
1 1/2 cups kidney beans, I did used 1 can drained
2 tsp fresh thyme
1/2 cup chopped kale
1 cup seashell pasta

In a large pot over medium high heat, combine the oil, onion and garlic and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the red pepper and kale and sauté for 3 more minutes  Add the broth, tomatoes and beans.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add the pasta and simmer 7-8 minutes, till the pasta is done.

Enjoy!