Friday, September 26, 2008

Today, I actually did one...

of those "cool" homeschooling mom things. We are studying the colonial period, and I made a colonial breakfast.

If you know me personally, there should be a collective "Ahhhhhh" going on right here.

For the rest of you who know me through the veiled transparency of a blog, why is this such a big deal? Because I am not a crafty type of person and abhor most school projects of all types. This is why we do not lapbook, scrapbook or e-book. This is why we do not diorama or drama.

School projects always gave me hives when I was a student, and from there my deep rooted insecurities have grown to my not wanting to repeat the event by actually assigning such projects. For then to assign a project would mean my having to oversee the project, grade the project and horror of horrors, find a place for the project to reside until it had collected sufficient enough dust and cat hair for me to justify tossing it out without risking the psyche of my child.

Who am I kidding, I don't worry about my child's psyche.

Anyway, last week while on our bimonthly library visit, I came across two cookbooks. One contained recipes of the thirteen colonies and the other recipes of the revolutionary war. A cursory glance at the ingredients lent itself to my perception that maybe, perhaps, just possibly my pantry contained these things, and we could colonially cook.

This morning was the morning. Last minute of course which is how I always did my projects, procrastination was my middle name and yes, it contributed greatly to the hives. Paralyzing perfectionism contributed to the procrastination.

So, when I decided on our recipe, "Flat Jacks," I discovered that I was going to have to substitute some things.

Those who know me are thinking, "Of course. When has she ever made a recipe according to original instruction."

Basically, colonial style Flat Jacks are a cornmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, ginger dry mixture combined with a buttermilk, molasses, melted butter liquid mixture. Once mixed till combined, the soupy batter is poured into 1/4 cup heated oil and fried to a crispy texture.

I didn't have buttermilk but did have milk and vinegar, and honey served as molasses. Not so bad actually. Either the project thingy or the actual end result. They roughly tasted like a pre-sweetened pancake. I didn't have exactly the right pan for my frying, and they came out a bit wrinkled.

Colonists learn to adapt though, so we ate them anyway. I'm not making any wild statements though about whether my faith in school projects is reinstated or not. This was a tasty start though. We'll see what comes next.

1 comment:

  1. I spent our entire elementary years doing the cool projects thing with Sam.

    I was convinced I was 'making memories' both educational and personal. He remembers very few of them.

    He does remember when we were 'settlers' and I made him wash his face in a bucket of cold water before we packed our bags with homemade pemmican and biscuits and set off to learn trailblazing in our local woods. Well, to be precise, he remembers me making him wash his face in cold water.

    Sigh. . .oh well, I have some great memories! : D

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