Cornbread and Beans

Carson had some assignments to choose from for his Colonial Project. There was a total of 150 points required, and he chose a 150 point project - Making Cornbread and Beans and serving it to his family for dinner. The following text and pictures are what he submitted as proof that he did the assignment.

Cornbread
I thought I could take a card out of my mom’s recipe box, read it, find the ingredients, and make the corn bread. My mom didn’t have a recipe, but we found one on the cornmeal box.
I didn’t know what corn meal was so we talked about how it was made. We guessed that you plant corn, let it grow, pick it, husk it, dry it out, then grind it. If you grind it when the corn’s still wet, you’d probably make a mess.



Beans
We had no idea how to make beans. We had a bunch in storage in our basement. I got a can of pinto beans. We called my great-aunt to ask her what to do. She said almost exactly what the directions on the can said.
First, we put the beans in the crockpot with water, turned the crockpot on low, and soaked the beans over night. We dumped the water down the sink the next morning. My grandma said you have to get rid of the water so that the beans don’t make you gassy. My mom had saved some ham drippings from Thanksgiving, so we added those to the soaked beans, put in more water, and then let the beans cook all day long. We added chunks of ham a couple of hours before we ate.



Dinner was DELICIOUS!!!!!

No Hollow Weenies This Year!

Can you say fabulous All Hallow’s Eve? We had a yummy dinner. Carson got to go out for the first time with just the guys - no parents. He even had a few of the neighborhood hotties stopping by to see if he could go with them. Good thing he was gone already, huh? Jon's friend David Tipton brought his son Josh over to go out with Griff and Evan. I got to stay home and answer the door. Griff and Evan came home to empty their bags and ended up going out again.

We started out with witch’s eyes, fried zombie flesh, and mummy guts for dinner. Look like something you’d eat at your house?
Martha Stewart had a great idea for creating spider-webbed eggs. You supposedly just add a few blueberries to the water toward the end of the boiling. When the eggs are finished, you crack the shell with a blunt kitchen tool (think wire whisk with a heavy handle) and then pour the blueberry water back over the egg. Pouring wasn't doing the trick, so we ended up putting the eggs back in the water to soak. Still no web. Added blue food coloring to the water, and here was the end result - not so spider-webby. How many eggs do you think they used to get their magazine layout anyway???

We only had one boy in makeup this year. Hallelujah!

Carson was going to be a zombie, but he found this incredible sword and had to use it. The only costume we could think of was Duncan McLeod - The Highlander. For all of you non sci-fi types, Duncan is a timetraveler who fights other Highlanders. Upon killing such foes, he goes through a quickening and becomes more powerful. Since Sean Connery had the good sense to be a Highlander, I was all for this costume...

Evan was Count Bloodthirst. His costume was the most fun to come up with. Had all of the boys involved looking for pieces of it, and I even did a little bit of sewing to make his cape. He forgot his teeth though. He'd taken them out to eat the eyes, flesh, and guts and walked out the door without putting them back in. Woops!

Griff was a RED RANGER. We found his costume earlier this fall on clearance at Target. For $6 there was no way to come up with anything better, so he was what he was. This one started eating candy before he'd even walked out the door to go Trick or Treating. When we went through his candy later that night we found multiple candy bars that had been partially chewed - paper and all. Seems G was tearing off wrappers, got a taste of the sweet stuff, and bit right in. Jon had a good point - at least we're not still changing those diapers...

Carson got the prize for largest score. At one home, the robot, CPA, and Yoshi Egg were headed off the steps ahead of him. The woman asked, "Would anyone like these?" Carson turned around and she was holding up an entire bag of Robin's Eggs (those malted milk things you get at Easter). Carson shrugged and said he'd take them home.