Last week I made this turkey roll from Food Network and it was great! The only problem was that I couldn’t find turkey breasts so I had to use chicken. It had such a nice look and flavor though. I would definitely make this again. I also couldn’t find the twine so I used toothpicks. The kids didn’t like the sauce that accompanies it, but liked the roll itself.
I loved the way these mini pumpkin pies looked on Bakerella’s website. I made them using a Pillsbury crust and they were surprisingly easy. I really don’t like to eat all of the chemicals in Pillsbury though so next time I need to make these with a homemade crust. Check out her site to get the recipe.
Since my mom always cooks the Thanksgiving meal, I thought I would give it a try on my own this weekend. Instead of a big turkey I made a chicken, so I will have to try the big turkey some day. Right now it is just too intimidating and expensive. I made all of our usual Thanksgiving sides though and boy was it hard to juggle all of the different times and oven temperatures. I sure have a new appreciation for all of the work that goes into this wonderful meal. Here are the recipes I made:
Chicken from Allrecipes.com. This chicken cooked quickly and was tasty.
Mashed potatoes- just regular potatoes. Next time I will try the garlic mashed potatoes.
Sweet Potato Casserole- my sister makes this casserole every year and it is my favorite dish by far. The kids really liked it too.
Green Bean Casserole- this recipe is adapted from Cook’s Illustrated. I have made it according to the website I found it on and found that I still like my green bean casserole like the one on the cream of mushroom can. So, I make the creamy mushroom sauce according to the website above, but I use canned green beans and just the fried onions that come in the can like the regular recipe states. So basically I just use this recipe for the cream of mushroom sauce since I don’t like the ingredients used in the can. This was very good as well.
Poultry Stuffing- I found this stuffing on a bulletin board and you can find it by clicking on the link and going to #26. We like this stuffing a lot. I also left out the sausage.
Pumpkin Pie- I made the Canadian Living recipe.
Fresh Bread from Safeway
Eggnog from Kroger- I will not buy Kroger eggnog again. It was too watered down.
I still need to figure out how to make gravy.
I didn’t make the cranberry sauce, but my sister-in-law makes a great one found on Food Network.
*I did this with my kids last year and used vinegar in the pie pan and didn’t use an overhead. They just sat and watched as I told the story. Then I used baking soda instead of Eno. I think this story scared them so I will wait until they are a little older to tell them again. I got this story from my supervising teacher.
Need: Overhead, red, yellow, green, blue food coloring, cooking oil, 1 tsp. powdered seltzer (Eno), glass pie tin filled half way with water, black witch silhouettes to lay on projector
Boys and girls, when summer is over and you are getting ready to go back to school, the Halloween witches are also very busy making plans for Halloween. they gather from all over the world, big witches, little witches, fat witches, skinny witches, ugly witches, silly witches, and old witches will hop on their broomsticks and fly far, far away to the cave of the oldest, meanest, and ugliest witch of all. Each one will bring with her a secret ingredient to be put into the pot of brew.
The old witch is ready and waiting for them. Her lazy black cat is asleep by the fire and a large pot is filled with water and hanging over the fire. Would you like to take a look inside the pot?
(remove the witch silhouettes from the overhead and place the glass pie plate with the water on it)
Watch it carefully. The ugly old witch is saying, “Fellow witches let’s begin our brew. What have you brought with you to make it more horrible than last year? I am putting some green slime from the darkest corner of my cave into it.”
(drop two drops of green food color into water)
” I will add some juice from a very evil curse,” said another
(add 3 drops of blue)
“He, he, wait till you see what I brought! It is the eyes of two dead fish,” said another.
(add 4 drops of cooking oil)
“Let me add the bile from the liver of a bat killed at midnight, ” screamed the old witch from Skimbodia.
(add 3 drops of yellow)
“I will fool everyone with a few drops of ketchup,” said another.
(add 3 drops of red)
“Here are a couple of snack eyes,” yelled another.
(add 2 drops of cooking oil)
“I risked my life getting some rattlesnake poison,” shouted one.
(add 2 drops of yellow)
And so one by one the witches added their secret ingredients to the brew. The mean old witch carefully stirred it.
(slowly stir it to swirl colors)
The fire became hotter and hotter, and soon the brew began to bubble and boil. If you listen carefully you can even hear it.
(spread a teaspoon of Eno on the brew. It will fizz and bubble for a minute and turn the mixture black)
Now the witches have made their brew for Halloween and each one will take a cup full of it and fly their broomsticks home.
Last night we did this little bat craft that came from No Time for Flashcards. I just love this site. We read Stellaluna first and then did the craft. Tomorrow we are going to read some nonfiction books on bats and make a little booklet with bat facts.
You can find this spooky skeleton here to print out, glue to paper and then hang in your house.
This was a quick and easy preschool craft that I found on Learning Vicariously. All you do is draw some ghosts using a white crayon on white paper and then let your kids watercolor over the paper to find them. Just make sure to use a regular white crayon and not a washable one. The first time we did this craft I had used washable and the ghosts didn’t resist that much. The kids really enjoyed this craft.
My kids love Ed Emberley’s drawing books. When I saw these Halloween themed books, I had to get them. They drew all kinds of pictures from them all weekend long.
For today’s Halloween countdown activity the kids and I made a Halloween game. We did a follow the path game board and put little Halloween related things to do on random squares. We used our Candy Land pieces for the markers and a die. They had so much fun making and playing our game.
