Applesauce

For the conclusion of apple week we made homemade apple sauce.  This year I bought a hand crank apple peeler,slicer, corer.  Umm. . .  we have gone through a LOT of apples since then.  I had to make a decree that you can't peel, slice, core a new apple until you've eaten the last one

 

 We had a fun time and with the hand crank--it is WAY faster than doing it all by hand. 

I decided quarts are the only way to go for applesauce in this house.  The boys love it.

Here's a video we took of the boys demonstrating the apple peeler, corer, slicer.  The random chaos cracks me up.  (don't miss the interaction between Jeremy and the baby at second 41.)

Owen's note: i  likt  it.

Barnyard Tin Lanterns

Owen's Note:

These   are   tin   lanterns.

 Momma's Note:

In Farmer Boy Chapter 2 Almonzo helps his father and brother do their evening chores in the barn.  He says, "It was dark there; only a little light came from the pierced tin sides of the lantern hung in the alleyway below."

We made out lanterns out of tin fruit cans.  Prepare a covered work area, and supervise kids at all times. 

Step one: Clean out can and remove label.  Be careful of sharp edges

Step two: Make a pattern of dots on the can with a permanent marker.  Make sure to leave 1.4 to 1/2 inch between dots. 

Step three with a large nail and hammer punch a hole over each dot.  (We found this worked best to have momma hold the can and the nail in place, with boy also holding on to nail and hammering.)

Step four: Punch a hole on two oposite sides of the upper rim of the can.  Thread a handle string through the two holes to hang the lantern from. 

Step five: Place a tea light or battery-operated tea light in the lantern.  Turn out the other lights, and admire lanterns.  

Almonzo's Apple Turnovers

We are intent on promoting a healthy food-culture as a part of our homeschooling days.

Owen and I are reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  In the first chapter, Almonzo Wilder takes a lunch to school and there is a tasty description of his apple turnovers:  "their plump crusts filled with melting slices of apple and spicy brown juice."

 A Farmer Boy Unit I referenced suggested getting a hold of the Little House cookbook to cook some recipes from the book along with your reading.  I knew that it would be perfect for the all-day learning, but not all-day schooling we are trying to do here. Luckily our local library had it.

So after reading about apple turnovers we made apple turnovers.  The recipe in the book was excellent.  I used their dough recipe, and used half butter and half lard.  I always have trouble with pie dough (I think it's solely user error) so I ended up book-folding the dough and re-rolling three or four times.  That seemed to work out OK and the crust was really flaky and delicious.

The best tip the recipe gave was to let the apples and sugar sit aside for a while then lift the apples with a fork leaving the juices behind.  This helped us not have any bubbling-all-over, sticky-explosion messes.  (I saved the sugary juice in the fridge--I'm sure it will be great on something--maybe hot oatmeal?)

Owen's Notes:

I really liked making the apple turnovers, and when we ate them I wanted to eat all of them!