Crock Pot Wednesday: Cavatini

Getting ready to assemble my Crock Pot Cavatini and put it in the crock for the next day's lunch

I hesitate to share the "recipe" for my crock pot cavatini since it is not exactly a recipe. However, if my scrambled instructions and plan here cause other moms to "think outside the box" and see how you can literally throw a semi-healthy meal together in a very little time; how to use your freezer to help you with meal preps; how to feed a lot of people in a short time; how to use your crock pot even more; etc., then I am happy to share my "recipe."

If you have followed Crock Pot Wednesday for long then you are probably aware that I like to assemble a crock pot full of food on Tuesday morning (before my editing and writing work in the afternoon), stick it in the fridge, then pull it out and "crock" it on Wednesday morning for my sons and a couple of kids who stay with us overnight during our "cottage classes" on Wednesday to have for lunch. If we have any leftovers for Thursday  night's leftover night, that is even better! ;)

So here is what I did this week to assemble our Crock Pot Cavatini:

Ingredients (estimates)

1 to 2 lbs of precooked hamburger* 

1 lb of precooked ground sausage (also in the freezer bagged up)

1 to 2 lbs of pepperoni

1 lb of smoked sausage, sliced in rounds

1/2 to 1 lb of cheddar jack shredded cheese

1/2 to 1 lb of mozzarella cheese

tons of pasta (I used 24 oz of shells)

lots of pasta sauce (I used one huge warehouse store jar of sauce and a smaller can)

onions, green peppers, red peppers (also frozen from our garden)

mushrooms (optional)

1. In huge stock pot, boil pasta until al dente. (It is important that it not be fully cooked since it will get mushy in the crock pot as it is heating if it is fully done to begin with.)

2. While pasta is boiling, stir fry onions and both kinds of peppers in olive oil in small skillet.

3. Drain pasta and mix all ingredients together in a huge bowl until all is well-mixed.

4. Fold mixture into eight quart crock pot.

5. Place in refrigerator until ready to use it (covered).

6. Take from fridge to crock pot base and cook on low for a couple of hours until heated through and bubbly. (Time will vary based on your crock pot; mine is super hot, so I had to turn it down to keep warm after only two hours on low.)

*Notice in the picture that this ground beef came from my freezer; if I don't have hamburger in the freezer, I put ten pounds in my eight quart crock pot before I go to bed, turn it on low, and let it cook all night; then the next morning, I drain it and crumble it with an old "potato masher," bag some of it up to freeze, and use some of it in the recipe for the day.

Starting Out Right With Kids' Homework

image clker.com

Once school starts and the textbooks have been previewed, you can help your students get into good homework habits by doing their homework with them for a few weeks. 


Here are some tips along those lines:


1. Taking the textbook preview further


There are a number of ways that you can take the previewing of textbooks that I discussed yesterday even further with your children for more comprehension of the material:


a. Do his first few assignments out of the book with him, pointing out the things again that you observed in your first preview. This will help him see that those things are not just good things to know, but also helpful for completely homework quicker and more accurately.


b. Help him prepare for his first test with his textbook and you by his side. Show him how he can use the glossary, sidebars, table of contents, etc. to quickly fill in his study guide or quickly determine what the most important aspects of the chapter are in order to prepare for a test.


c. As you are previewing a text (for the first time or an additional time), use a large sticky note to record what you find. Write the title of the text at the top, then make notes about what it contains as far as study and homework helps. Stick this in the front of his textbook and help him refer to it when he is doing homework or test preparation. You could even record a plus and minus system, such as



+++ means something is going to be really helpful---a +++ beside the Table of Contents, for instance



+ beside a word he writes in the front of his book tells him that this might be somewhat helpful—Example: +Some graphs



- No study questions at end of chapter—again, he can make a list in the front of his book (on a large sticky note), etc. 



d. Help him “label” different sections of his book with sticky notes along the edges. For example, you could put a yellow one at the beginning of each chapter and a pink one on the page that has definitions for that chapter, etc.






2. Prepare your younger student for textbooks by using user-friendly non-fiction books

Maybe you are not in the textbook stage with your kids; however, you can begin preparing them for those all important study skills that I described yesterday with quality non-fiction books. If kids at ages five, six, eight, and ten, learn to navigate around Dorling Kindersley, Eyewitness, and Usborne books (among many others), they will be heads and shoulders above other children who have only been exposed to fictional stories (more on the benefits of fiction later!). 

These outstanding non-fiction books have literally hundreds of topics that interest kids, but they are so colorful and alluring, you do not feel like you are “teaching” at all. Additionally, they have many aspects that your child’s future textbooks will also have: glossaries, Tables of Contents, sidebars, graphs, pictures, inserts, definitions, bold font, italics, etc. Reading these to and with your children when they are younger will provide a natural step into textbooks later on.


Note: We teach our students (in our home, our cottage classes, and in our language arts books) a simple memory device for remembering fiction and non-fiction:

Fiction=fake (both begin with f)

Non-fiction=not fake (both begin with nf)

Teaching Children HOW to Learn

Speaking about "Building Study Skills and Comprehension" at a conference

There are many aspects of teaching a child how to learn, one of which is working to increase our children’s comprehension. When people have good comprehension, they can learn anything, anywhere, anytime.

There are three primary ways that we have worked to increase our children’s comprehension: (1) Discussion with parents and those more knowledgeable than the child; (2) Good questions following reading or discussions; and (3) Provide a rich background of experience.

The first two of those go hand-in-hand. Discussion of everything with our children from very young ages has given our kids experiences in areas that they would normally not have experiences in. It gives us the opportunity to teach all the time—and gives them learning hooks that they create with the discussion material to bring into other learning situations.

Good questions, not just rote questions, help the student think more deeply about subjects and allow you to observe his thought processes and help them along. Lastly, a rich background of experience gives your student the edge in learning any subject. Like discussion, it gives a child more knowledge, more background, more information to bring into future learning scenarios.

I am adding some information about teaching children how to learn, good materials, links to articles, etc., in the sidebar of this article for those who would like to study this further. Just being aware of always teaching our kids how to learn, how to study, how to research, how to further their understanding is a big step in teaching kids how to learn. 

SIDEBAR….

                        Tips and Links for Teaching Children How to Learn

~Textbook previewing/study skills articles:http://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/search/label/study%20skills

~People often ask us what we would have done differently in our homeschool. One of the things I would have done differently is that every child, every year would have done a thinking skills book of some sort from the Critical Thinking Company: http://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp?code=c

~Recommended program for increasing reading speed and comprehension:http://www.timberdoodle.com/SearchResults.asp?searching=Y&sort=4&search=reading%20speed%20comprehension%20&show=60&page=1

~Dozens of articles on reading instruction, readability, creating an environment conducive to reading instruction, choosing readers, and much more!http://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/search/label/reading%20instruction

Three Chore Sessions Each Day!

When our children got older, I moved out of colorful chore charts on poster board types of display and into typed charts created in Excel in report covers.

When it comes to chores, I am thankful that I learned the approach that we have used for the past twenty years plenty early in my homeschooling tenure:

1. Attach three different chore sessions to twenty to thirty minutes prior to each meal. 

2. Use one of your "chorers" for meal preparations for that upcoming meal. (Eventually, our kids did breakfasts and lunches completely by themselves for the family--and either did dinner with me or rotated through and took a different night each week as they got older.)

3. Put the most crucial chores in the first chore session--the things that need done every day regardless. For us, this meant one load of laundry, one load of dishes, trash throughout the house, wipe down bathrooms, get out/start something for evening meal, and fix breakfast. This way you will almost always get to the priorities ("dailies")

4. In the second chore session, put more dailies and a couple of weekly tasks. (For us, this meant another load of dishes, laundry, and trash; lunch preps; possibly baking; and another weekly or two, such as dusting and vacuuming, cleaning out fridge, etc.)

5. In the third chore session, I put the things I only dream of getting to and dinner preps. (I always had a child in the kitchen with me each evening as I prepared dinner--unless the child fixed it himself or herself!)

6. Before each chore session, I called out "Room to Room"--which meant that each person should go through the main rooms and pick up what they have out. This allowed the chorer for that room to dust, vacuum, etc., without having to pick up first.

The key to successful chores, in my opinion, include the following:

A. Do dailies daily! Do not skip dailies. Do not try to do anything else until the dailies are down pat.

B. Never miss the first two chore sessions!

C. Have everybody work the entire chore session. (If someone got done early, he came to get another task or helped someone else. This wasn't a race--it was a daily lifestyle that helped us have time for homeschooling and all of the wonderful teaching, heart training, and family times that we wanted to have.)

D. Don't make it the least bit optional. After a couple of months of this lifestyle, my kids never even questioned whether they had to fold and put away three loads of laundry that day or fix lunch every day or cut up a fridge full of veggies. It was a way of life--a way of life that made our family successful.

E. Don't eat until the work is done!

F. Have I mentioned not to skip? 

Ten Freezer Foods I Don’t Like to Be Without

Ten Freezer Foods I Don’t Like to Be Without

           +Recipe link in Comments

                 *Must haves!

                

11.     Soup Starter+—the beginnings of chili, vegetable soup, chicken rice soup, potato soup, and more.

22.     Any kind of breaded chicken breasts*+ to pull out and use for main entrée, sandwiches, chicken parmesan, chicken cordon bleu (sort of!), chicken and gravy, etc.

33.     Sloppy joes+—One of my favorite sandwich fillings and so much healthier than cold meat sandwiches. I really like to have quart bags of these in the freezer.

44.     Master beef cube mix*+--I started with this twenty-three years ago and still use it today! I don’t think my freezer has been without bags of this for two decades! Used for homemade beef stew, stroganoff over noodles, homemade pot pies, and  more!

55.     Cheesy potato casseroles*+--I am sure my freezer hasn’t been without these in twenty years! I have had a number of recipes for this (some with sour cream, shredded cheeses, etc.), but for some reason, this has become my favorite, despite the fact that I hate cottage cheese! You absolutely can’t taste the cottage cheese, and that with the cream and Velveeta truly make the creamiest potato casserole! I take these to every potluck I go to it seems! (It’s actually a little too rich and a little too expensive to have for daily fare at home, so we usually only have this for special occasions (and potlucks, new mom meals, etc.), but I always keep some in the freezer for those times.)

66.     Shredded meats+—I like to put shredded chicken, beef, and pork in freezer bags with broth (or even gravy) to keep them moist. They are ready for anything—soups, stews, Mexican, Oriental, sandwiches, etc.

77.     Taco meat*—Talk about versatile—taco soup, Mexican pizzas, taco salad, tacos, nachos, hot Mexican dip, even chili in a pinch—this meat is my go to freezer meat!

88.     Lasagna*—Okay, I admit it. I actually tear up when I pull the last lasagna out of my freezer!! It is such a sad day! While taco meat and potato casseroles are musts in my freezer, nothing beats a meal-in-one-pan!

99.     Meatloaves—I have used Ray’s grandmother’s recipe (“Grandma’s Meatloaf”) for our entire married life. I love to pull out two meatloaves, bake them (with a sauce on top!), precook some little red potatoes in a fourth a cup or so of broth in the micro, and arrange the potatoes around the meatloaf the last thirty minutes or so in the oven. I also like to take meatloaves to new moms with cheesy potato casserole!

110.                         Marinated chicken breast pieces+--I have one recipe that we call “Don Pablo’s Chicken” because it is sweet and tastes similar to the fajita chicken at our favorite Mexican recipe. Anyway, I freeze this chicken both ways—in the marinade (marked RAW on the bag) and already stir fried (after marinating in the fridge for a while). I love having both kinds to pull out and use in Mexican and oriental dishes (fajitas; stir fries; and various skillets I make with veggies, rice, etc.)

LINKS for recipes from our blog:

Soup starters, etc.: http://raising-kids-with-character.blogspot.com/2013/04/crock-pot-wednesday-hamburger-stew.html

Breaded chicken breasts: http://raising-kids-with-character.blogspot.com/2010/11/day-295-another-mega-cooking.html

Sloppy joes: http://raising-kids-with-character.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-281-another-favorite-freezer.html

Master beef cube mix: http://raising-kids-with-character.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-258-freezer-entree-master-beef-cube.html

Cheesy potato casseroles: http://raising-kids-with-character.blogspot.com/2010/09/day-238-family-favorite-freezer-entree.html

My favorite way to cook meats for shredding is the crock pot in oven bags: http://raising-kids-with-character.blogspot.com/2013/05/crock-pot-wednesday-beef-and-pork.html

Crock Pot Wednesday-- Crock Pot Lasagna

Two crocks filled with lasagna!

I recently got a new recipe off of Pinterest for crock pot lasagna. (Unfortunately, there wasn't a link--just a recipe on what looks like a cell phone face, so I can't give credit.)

Anyway, I made up two large crock pot inserts of the tasty recipe given below--and stuck them both in the refrigerator to cook (1) on Sunday while we were at church; and (2) for my "Crock Pot Wednesday" lunch that I make for my kids and teachers at our house on our "cottage class" teaching day (Wednesdays). 

First, the good news. This recipe was super easy. My teenage assistant and I whipped two crocks full in fifteen minutes (with precooked ground beef from my freezer). It feels easier than regular lasagna (even though I do not precook the noodles in either recipe). I think it was just a mental thing though--I felt like it didn't matter if it was neatly layered in the crock pot whereas when I make them in pans for the freezer, it feels more structured and time consuming. (Again, it was probably all in my head!)

I love assembling crock pot entrees, sticking the crocks in my fridge and having them ready to use in the next few days. It is similar to freezer cooking except it is in the fridge and ready to turn on the slow cooker and go. 

I have two identical crock pots--this one with three sizes of "crocks." Thus, I have six removable crocks in three sizes (two of each size) to do this multiple-crock cooking I am describing in this post.

Now the bad news: both times I cooked this dish, the lasagna noodles became very soft, almost dissolving type of soft. I like my pasta al dente, so I wasn't thrilled with the texture. Also, it is much soupier than traditional lasagna. However, my guys liked it (not as well as traditional), but enough for me to keep it in my repertoire and use it again for "Crock Pot Wednesday"! 

(I have wondered if refrigerating the crocks of lasagna and keeping them for a while before cooking them might have added to the soft noodles. I will update this after trying this recipe again with cooking it as soon as it is made as opposed to storing it and cooking it later. However, I have frozen pans of lasagna for twenty-three years now, and it has never affected the texture of the noodles.)

I did this recipe four times for two huge crock inserts. (Each crock fed eight to ten people.) As it is given below, I think the recipe would fit in a six or possibly even four quart crock pot and would likely feed four or five people. Be sure you keep it on low. (My kids turned it on high for an hour to rush it along, and it burned the sides and bottom. However, my slow cooker is extremely hot. My high is more like super high; my low is like high; and my warm is like low!) 

Ingredients--

1 lb ground beef

Lasagna noodles

1 regular jar spaghetti sauce 

1 1/2 cup cottage cheese (or ricotta)

1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 to 4 eggs (I like to stick extra eggs in everything!)

1. Mix ground beef and sauce in large bowl, reserving 1/2 cup or so of sauce by itself.

2. Mix cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese and eggs in large bowl.

3. Spray crock pot with cooking spray. Pour the reserved 1/2 to one cup of sauce in bottom of crock.

4. Place two uncooked lasagna noodles (broken in half to fit in the crock) over the sauce.

5. Spread 1/3 of meat mixture over noodles.

6. Spread 1/2 of cottage cheese mixture over meat mixture.

7. Spread 1/3 of mozzarella cheese over cottage cheese.

8. Add another layer of uncooked lasagna noodles (two again, broken in half).

9. Pour the other half of the cottage cheese mixture over the lasagna noodles in this layer.

10. Add 1/3 of mozzarella cheese.

11. Add another layer of uncooked lasagna noodles (two again, broken in half).

12. Add remaining meat mixture.

13. Top with remaining mozzarella cheese.

14. Cook on low for four hours; do not overcook.

I get very confused about the order and amounts in lasagna recipes, so here is a quick recap of the order:

a. 1/2 cup to 1 cup sauce alone

b. Two uncooked lasagna noodles

c. 1/3 of the meat mixture

d. 1/2 of cottage cheese mixture

e. Two uncooked lasagna noodles

f. 1/2 of the cottage cheese mixture

g. 1/3 of the mozzarella

h. Two uncooked lasagna noodles

i. Rest of meat mixture

j. Rest of mozzarella

A is for AFFIRMATION

A is for AFFIRMATION!

I LOVE TO WATCH YOU...


Article from blog:

Affirmation. Words of encouragement. Words of praise. Words of confirmation. Words of affection. Words of pride. Words of belonging. These all describe that one word--affirmation.

I recently read an article about a study of hundreds of college athletes that lasted over three decades. In this article,  “What Makes a Nightmare Sports Parent and What Makes a Great One.” these college athletes described two things that are poignant for parents of all children, including non-athletes.

The first question they answered was "What is your worst memory from playing youth and high school sports?"

The majority of those surveyed said, "The ride home from games with my parents."

(If you have read much of what we have written or heard us speak often, you know that we focus on riding with our children in the van or car as one of the key opportunities to teach, affirm, talk, love, and train. It breaks my heart that this "sacred time" is remembered as one of the most dreadful times for these hundreds of athletes.)

Of course, we can all imagine why--because there probably isn't a parent reading this (author included) who hasn't come down on a child on the drive home from something about his performance--teacher conferences, speech contest, debate tournament, soccer game, swim meet, even pick-up basketball games are all opportunities to "teach" our child what he did "wrong" in the aforementioned event. 

My husband, who is truly the best dad I know, one who talks to his kids on the phone and in person quite literally hours every day, even does this, so I know it is hard to conquer. And it isn't always the parent's fault either--as I know our kids usually probe on the way home from a performance, sermon, or song. They ask us questions that make us feel like we should be "teaching" at that time. 

However, we really need to resist the urge to teach at that time. My experience has been that they ask and ask, but they really don't want a lesson. They really just want to hear the positive at that time. I have to remind myself that there will be time for teaching and lessons later--when the performance, sermon, or song isn't so fresh.

The study went on to prove this point further by telling how the kids described their joy over grandparents attending their sporting events. It seems that grandparents are more likely to watch, cheer, and then praise--with no lessons or strings attached. 

Turning from the negative and what not-to-do, to the positive, these same athletes were asked what their parents did right--what made them feel good about themselves and their performances. The majority of them said that they were filled with joy when their parents simply said six little words:

 "I love to watch you play."

No lessons, lectures, or analyses. Just six simple words that made hundreds of college and professional athletes look back on their time following sporting events with their parents fondly.

And six little words that we can use to affirm our children all the time. 

I was happy to read this article because one of my favorite buzz lines after my kids perform is 

I could watch you _________________ forever. 

I could watch you dance forever. I could watch you sing forever. I could watch you preach forever. I could watch you teach forever. I could watch you act forever. I could watch you direct forever. I could watch you lead forever. I could watch you play forever. I could watch you study forever. 

The thing about these lines---I love to watch you.... or I could watch you ..... forever---is that our child doesn't have to be the best to say these things. He doesn't have to have just played a perfect game. He doesn't have to have just scored the winning run. He doesn't have to have given a flawless performance. 

He is our child. We love to watch him grow, do, be, become. We are saying that the child is so amazing to us--without being the gold medal winner. We are saying that he is important. That we want to be with him. That we love to watch him do what he loves to do.

We are affirming. With six little words.

I love to watch you....

 

Link for original article:
http://raising-kids-with-character.blogspot.com/2013/07/i-love-to-watch-you.html





A is for AFFIRMATION!