Recipe: Pepperonata with Penne and sausage

OK, this is a homeschooling blog, so you're saying "Why is she posting a recipe?" WELL....for one thing, homeschoolers (or at least the ones I know....) often find themselves at 4 in the afternoon saying "Oh, what am I going to make for dinner?" And this, 4pm thought, is the FIRST time they've thought of it all day. D'oh.

So, this recipe is GREAT for homeschoolers, because it seriously takes 20 minutes.

Seriously.

I have made this recipe a half dozen times in the last year, and I LOVE it. Yesterday, I was excited ALL day knowing that this was what's for dinner. Another bonus? It's got peppers in it. My kids don't like peppers...or so they would tell you, but they eat this up like there is no tomorrow.

Another tip? When I make it, I dice up twice as much peppers as a I need, and freeze half. Next time I make it, I won't have to dice peppers at all.

This is from a book, I can't take any credit for the inception of this phenomena. My fabulous mother-in-law gave me a book called "Desperation Dinners: Home Cooked Meals for Frantic Families in 20 Minutes Flat"....she brought this to me when she came just before Four was born. Think she had an idea of what life would be like "after?" She is a mother of 5 after all.

Anyway, on to the recipe:

2 cups penne (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon olive oil
4 links Italian sausage (3/4-1lb total)
1 large onion
1 medium green, red, and yellow pepper
1 can diced or whole tomatoes (I've only ever used diced)
2 tbls light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 tbls balsalmic or red wine vinegar (I've only ever used balsalmic)
4 bay leaves (I've made it with and w/out, I would say these are optional)
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Salt and black pepper to taste
Grated parm cheese (optional)

1. Place the penne in 2 1/2 quarts of already boiling unsalted water, cook until tender (11-13 minutes)
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil over medium heat in an extra-deep 12 inch nonstick skillet that has a lid. Pierce the sausages several times with a fork and add them to the skillet. (I personally cut the links up into large pieces instead of leaving them whole..but that's personal preference.) Let brown, turning the links occasionally while peeling and slicing the onion. Add the onion to the pan as you slice, seperating it into strips. (Again, out of personal preference, I dice the onion, and also the peppers....the smaller the pieces the less likely my kids are to ask questions LOL.)
3. Seed the peppers and cut into long strips about 1/2 inch wide. Add them to the skillet, stir, cover the skillet and raise the heat to high. Keeping the skillet covered as much as possible, add the tomatoes with their juice, the brown sugar, vinegar, bay leaves and basil. Stir well. Bring mixture to a boil.
4. Lower the heat to medium-high and boil until the sausage is no longer pink in the middle and the veges are tender but not mush, about 7 minutes, uncovering to stir occasionally.
5. Drain the penne and place some of each on each serving plate. Season the sausage mixture with salt and black pepper and top each pasta portion with some of the sauce, making sure to discared the bay leaves. (Another variation, I drain the penne and then add it to the skillet with the sauce.)

Enjoy!

Catch Up!

So, it's been eternity and a day.

This is going to be my catch up post. :-)

ABC Book project: I'm taking photos of big colored in letters along with real life items that start with that letter and putting them in a 3 ring photo album for Three to use as we're learning the alphabet. So far the project has been a lot of fun for myself, AND One and Two who like coming up with more things that go with each letter. Here are a couple examples:

G is for Goldfish, and B is for blocks.

Snow angel:

Valentines Day craft:

Putting the tissue paper on the contact paper for the above craft.

"Working like Daddy." (notice he is well prepared...snack right there on the tray)

A "pigit" (picnic)

Three recently celebrated his 3rd birthday, in honor of such a wonderous event Mother Nature gave Three a double rainbow for his birthday.

This was a birthday craft. It was a large candle. He painted the paper for the candle, then I cut a flame shape from contact paper and he sprinkled glitter on the sticky side. Then I sealed it shut and we glued it to the back of the candle.

Look forward:

I have put together a unit on Dental Health for this coming week. Three is now asking every day to "do school," and I've been doing a better job of getting things together. :) We are seeing the dentist for a cleaning (Three's 2nd visit, and his first visit where I won't be going back with him) in a couple weeks so we're going to go over all that sort of stuff again. He did phenomenal at his first visit, but we had talked about it A LOT, so I'm hoping. Ohh, and I'll be taking our Letter D to the dentist and get him to pose with it for our ABC book. Lucky me, our Dentist's name is "Dr. Don" so he's a 3 for one shot (Doctor, Don, Dentist!)

Weeks Work

Week of August 17:

This is a toy called "Pyramis" made by Haba. The blocks have holes in them, and there are cylinders that fit into each hole, so they all nestle into each other. It's very neat. Three doesn't quite "get it" yet, but he enjoys working with it and exploring different ways to fit them together.


Another idea from No Time For Flash Cards (seriously, I love that site!). Three is not a fan of getting his hands messy, so actually getting him to fingerpaint was tough. Although, since then he has asked repeatedly to finger paint, so that's progress!

I was nursing Four, and working with One on her schoolwork when Three painted the fish (using a rolling pin covered in bubble wrap for a neat texture). Daddy and Two were helping. So, I didn't get a picture of the actual painting, but here are the painted fish, and some I had already cut out.

And, the final product:

This is a Hide-N-Seek box I made (see previous posts) after seeing the idea on Totally Tots (a new site I love! New to me that is). Let me just tell you all that Three LOVED LOVED LOVED this...it was by far his favorite thing this week, and he has played with it over and over.

Give-Away!

The Mom Buzz and One Step Ahead are doing a great giveaway of a Sit n Stand Elite Stroller!

http://www.themombuzz.com/2009/07/sit-n-stand-elite-stroller-from-one.html

Entry is easy! Visit The Mom Buzz today. :)

Projects for New Works to come

I've been perusing blogs this week during my free moments on the computer (which are far to few these days!), as well as combing through a book my MIL (Mother-In-Law) bought for me when she was here when Four was born, called "The Toddler Busy Book."

The laminated sheet that you see has a couple different projects on it. The small pieces of paper you see are something called "Find the Oddball." Each strip has 3 of the same stickers or drawings on it, and one "oddball." The two larger pictures are for our vocabulary building/sorting/pre-reading set. We often discuss what the object in the pictures are, and we are moving into sorting them into groups, and then we will move into laying them out left to right, top to bottom as a pre-reading skill. I have a fairly large set of these cards, and I'm almost constantly making more. Anytime I have a spare spot on a laminating sheet I throw a few on there. :)

The ziploc bag has 3 different kinds of pasta in it, for a pasta sort game. I will give him the pasta in a larger bowl, with 3 small glass bowls to sort the different pasta in to.

The cube you see that has a red top is 2 milk carton bottoms put together to form a cube. We are going to cover each side with a different color. This will the base for several different games. First game being obvious, colors! We will toss the cube and whatever color lands on top we will find something of that color in the house. Second game, I will tape shapes to the sides, as well as an outline of the shape on the floor. We will toss the cube and whatever shape it lands on everyone will run to and try to stand inside of! Third game, numbers. Fourth game, alphabet. You get the idea, right? :) Another idea from the book.

Lastly, the clear container that is half filled with oatmeal. This is an idea from Totally Tots called Hide-N-Seek bowls. The oatmeal was a suggestion found in the comments section. I had some extra oatmeal that I had for reindeer food back in December so I grabbed it and made this easy activity. I think he'll like it, and someday in the future I'll change it to beans, then maybe pasta, then maybe rice to keep the activity new.

Other Works from this Week

This is just a gratuitous photo of Three and Four. :)

Pre-Writing skills practice:

Sorting shapes (these are just shapes cut from cardboard):

Then we glued those shapes to a piece of paper, I had intended for Three to paint the shapes with watercolors after he glued them on, but he wanted to go outside instead.

The finished (unpainted) project:

These are actually in reverse order of the way I intended for them to post....but I don't have the time right now to go back and correct them. Sorry! Finished caterpillars...(excuse Three's messy face!) This craft idea is also from No Time for Flash Cards.

Adding googly eyes is serious business:

First time I let him use liquid glue...it went better than I anticipated.

Painting the egg carton:

This is a pizza craft that was One's idea. They each decorated a pizza, then put them on the "fridger". In order from left to right, One, Three, and Two.

Three also put poker chips into a container. He enjoyed it. It was an empty crunchies (Gerber) container with a slit cut in the lid. I have also used it with pom-poms, and fake coins. He enjoyed all 3. I didn't get any pictures of it though. We also played "Memory", he had a really good time with it until Four began screaming and made it virtually impossible to concentrate.

Pictures

Here is the finished project (see last post for link with directions):

Three was not entirely sure he liked the feeling of the shaving cream on his hands. This didn't suprise me, as he is not a "messy" boy. He must have asked 10 times for a napkin before I finally just let him clean it off! LOL

This Afternoon's Plans

http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2009/08/recipe-for-cookies.html

I'm going to do the puff paint, and I'm about to create a set of pretend cookies to sort and sell.

A blog I love:

http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/

Shape Box

I made a shape box. What is a shape box? Well, in this particular scenario a shape box is a box (betcha wouldn't have guessed that!) that has various shape materials in it. It contains wooden shape puzzle pieces (that have long ago had the puzzle board itself broken and tossed), index cards with a traced shape on them, the name of each shape is written on the back, and two of each shape cut from felt. After some time, there will also be household items that are examples of each shape, but I'm still in the process of collecting those items and will probably add them as we learn each shape. I'd like to do a box for each color too, but at this point I'm thinking that may have to wait until after "four" arrives. Ideally, it would be done before...as we are currently working on colors and shapes, but alas, life gets in it's own way. I'll keep you posted if I get to those color boxes. :-)

Blogger Neglect

Most of you found this blog via the homepreschool yahoogroup, or a birth board that I am a member of and therefore are probably aware that I am currently expecting baby #4. This has caused a great deal of blogger neglect. However, I'm going to try to get several projects completed in the next 2 months and hopefully will get them all posted to this and my other blog.

Today's Activities

This morning my son said his first color name! Now, I cannot say that he actually knew which one it was in the box, but it was the name of a color nonetheless! Expanding vocabulary is a big thing in our house right now. I KNOW (in the logical side of my brain) that he is well within the range of normal for vocabulary and he understands FAR more than he is capable of verbalizing....but you know there is that non-logical side of my brain that says but his sisters were talking in complete (and for my oldest, elaborate) sentences by this age. My oldest knew the ABC song, and several shapes and colors....so there is this small part of my brain that says "Hmmmm." So him saying "Blue" while pointing at the box of markers was a BIG moment. Like I said, I don't know that he really meant he wanted the blue one, but I did give him the blue one again (he had already had it).

After he colored for a good long while, the longest amount of time he's ever been interested in coloring (I give credit to the use of markers here....usually I give him those boring old crayons..pffft who wants those things) his hands were covered in marker so I set up a hand washing station (He LOVES this activity.). He washed his hands and then I gave him fresh water and he played in the water with cups, spoons, bottles, and funnels. He also poured from one bowl to the other.

A couple new works

I can't take credit for this first one, as it hadn't occurred to me. I was at a birthday party on Saturday night, and was talking with the hostess and a mutual friend about trying to entertain the toddlers while schooling the big kids. I mentioned the spooning, and jar lids. And our mutual friend (someone whom I adore BTW, she's just full of fantastic ideas) suggested letting them put things into an empty wipe container. You know the kind with the pop up lid, with the slot to pull one wipe through at a time. She said she remembered doing pom-poms. It was an AHH HAAA moment. Not that long ago, someone on our birth board mentioned that their child loved putting coins in her piggy bank...this is a VERY similar activity, but yet I hadn't thought of it.




This morning I did this activity with Ben. I asked him if he wanted something to do, and he gleefully answered "UH huhhh" (he still doesn't say Yes or N0). So I sat him down at the table (a nice low table) and got out a bowl, the poms, and an empty wipe container (I KNEW there was a reason I had kept that....HA to my husband, my junk DOES have purpose!). I gave the demonstration and them let him get to work. He repeated it with all the poms I had given him 3 times! He would bring it to me and say "more", I'd empty the poms back into the bowl and he'd repeat the activity.





Here's a pic:

I can think of a couple variations for this: poker chips (I have these), and LARGE beans or buttons.

After he tired of this activity, I broke out the pegboard. I didn't snap any pictures of that work but this is the board we have: http://www.drtoy.com/1999_c/dtpeg.htm He likes to fill all the holes and he likes to see how tall he can stack them before they fall over.

More of Toddler Lessons

So, I'm sharing some more of our "school" time. My DS loves to help unload the dishwasher. He brings things and says "Thank You." as he hands it to you, because that's what we always say to him as he gives it to us. It's too cute. The problem with this? Oh, yes there is a problem. When I'm trying to LOAD the dishwasher, he comes running saying "Thank You! Thank You!" Because he wants to UNload the dishwasher. It's a minor problem, and worth the life lessons involved in helping out the family.

Some things he knows where they go and can put away himself after he retrieves them from the dishwasher.

Most important of all, imaginative play with the farm (we are learning the signs for farm, and the animals).

And there was just something so very wicked witch of the west about this that I couldn't help but share it.

Transferring Activity

We didn't get to do beans the other afternoon, I realized I only had small beans. While my DS isn't big on putting things in his mouth anymore, it still presented too much of a choking hazard for me to let him play with them..on the off chance he might put them in his mouth. Now, if I had been planning on sitting there with him, that would have been a different story. But, one of my goals is to get him to do more things independently, so I didn't want to sit there. Well, this morning he got out our transferring bowls again, and I was searching for something around the house that he could transfer without me worrying about him. I then found the container of buttons! I knew these would be a HIT as he is ALWAYS asking to play with them, and I've never allowed it before (mostly because they would just be scattered everywhere, and I didn't want to deal with that).

You need two bowls (Montessori methods prefer glass or wood....but I don't have any of those yet, so mine are plastic). A large spoon. And, whatever objects (buttons, large beans, pom poms, dried wagon wheel noodles, or anything else you come up with) you are going to transfer. It's also best to have a workmat, you see that I'm using a placemat as our workmat. It keeps the bowls from sliding around.

Here is the setup:

And then I did the presentation, I unscrewed the lid of the jar. I said "Don't touch, watch mama." I poured some of the buttons into the first bowl. I picked up the spoon, I scooped a few buttons up and dumped them into the second bowl. I repeated it three times. Then I asked if he'd like to try. "Uh huh!" (He never says yes or no, uh huh and uh uh.) I handed over the spoon, and he was able to do it successfully. Another 30 minutes!

What We Did Today....

I think I'm mentioned in previous posts about our collection of jars. I have several, although I just found out this morning when my toddler pulled them out that my husband threw out almost all of the lids! So, now I have to start collecting AGAIN, so I can have jars with lids. SIGH. Anyway, we managed to have a very productive morning without them. My son often asks me to open the cabinet that has the jars in it (it's in one of the few baby proofed areas). I almost always oblige. This morning, he got them out (my involvment is usually simply opening the cabinet door..then he chooses how many/which ones he wants and goes on his merry way) and took them to the table. You'll notice he also grabbed the bowls we use for transferring objects. He spent nearly 15 minutes (he is only 19 months old, so that's a good amount of time) playing with the jars alone! He put the smaller ones into the larger ones, and attempted to put the large ones into the small ones. Then he had to work some to get the small ones back out. The jar you see that is painted purple is part of our sound jars set (there are jars with different content and when you shake them they make various sounds, and there is a matching set). After he had lost interest in playing with them alone, I decided to show him how to take the lids off. I took the only two I have with the lids (which is fine for him, because he's small and has a short attention span...but my 4 yr olds student really enjoyed this activity as well, and now he'll have to wait til I have restocked the collection), I cleared the table off and sat the two jars up. I told him not to touch, and to watch Mama. I picked up the large jar, and slowly showed him how I twist my hand to take the lid off (to which he delighted "OFF!"). I sat the jar and the lid back on the table, and picked up the smaller jar and repeated (again to a very delighed "OFF!"). Then I put the lids back on, and asked him if he wanted to take them off. He said "uh huh" (with the best inflection on that huh you've ever heard). The first time he couldn't do it, so I demonstrated again. And, to my surprise, on his second attempt with the large jar he was able to unscrew the lid! The smaller jars lid takes a bit more effort to twist, and he never did successfully get it off, but hey, there was still victory! And, the fantastic pronouncement that it was "OFF!" (Off is currently his favorite word.)

After such success with my jar activity, and a messy snack necessitating the need to wash hands, I decided I could do a second presentation on hand washing. So I set up a towel, a bowl, the soap pump, and a small towel to dry with. I did a presentation on washing hands (another favorite activity btw, although we had never done it this way) and to my surprise he REALLY copied me almost exactly. I was impressed. Then of course, there were cries for "wata" "wata", so I got him some fresh water in his bowl, gave him a second bowl (for pouring you know) and funnels, scoops, large spoons, a baby bottle, a glass jar, and let him play in the water. I showed him how to use the jar to scoop water from the first bowl and pour it into the second. He was relatively successful. My oldest daughter (10) came to play with him while I helped my younger daughter (8) with her language arts activities, and she showed him to just pick up the first bowl and pour it into the second bowl. He loved that. He did that three times before we ended up with the water spilled everywhere. I gave him one more fresh bowl, and he continued to play. This bought me a good, happy 30 minutes!

When he wakes up from his nap, we're going to try another transferring activity. Beans in bowls. :-)