World Heritage Merit Badge

Amber has been working on her American Heritage Girl World Heritage Merit Badge. She had to select three countries to learn about and chose Italy, Belgium, and France. One of the requirements was to make a meal. She chose to make Italy her lunch menu, dinner her French menu, and breakfast the following morning as her Belgian meal.

Making pesto from scratch.

Amber is mixing the pesto in with the fucilli. It was a very tasty meal ... but MY was it garlicky!

It was a nice idea to have toasted chibata bread with our noon meal. It helped to take the edge off the garlic. She melted some cheese on top. It was crunchy and yummy.

Lunch

Dinner was from France and these beans were amazing! They weren't fresh from our garden, but they were fresh from the store. Nothing frozen in this meal. All fresh ingredients. Roasted slivered almonds topped the beans. YUM!

Potatoes au gratin were a fantastic side. I had forgotten how much I really enjoy them, too. I remember Mom making them when we were kids. Brought back delicious memories.

The main part of the evening's French menu was pear pork. It was very tender and very tasty.

Dinner

Bananas flambe was dessert. Best left to Dad because of the fire. It didn't taste as amazing as it had in the past. But, maybe that was just me. However, it could have been the banana liquor, too.

Flambe!

A little glow.

Breakfast the next morning was Belgian Waffles with a fruit compote topped with homemade whipped cream. Yummy :)

Father's Day

While Daryn had been gone for two weeks for work in Hawai'i, the kids planned what to do for him for Father's Day. They made some cards, and then had a difficult time deciding what to do for a gift. We put our heads together and decided we'd give him the gift of golfing. He really enjoys golfing, but since coming here and because of work, has not had the chance to go out and golf in a couple years. Although not a quite game with his friends, it was an afternoon spent as a family.
We blindfolded him so he couldn't see where we were going, and he even wore his headphones and listened to music so the kids wouldn't give the secret away. However, he's too smart for us! He knew where we were before he took the blindfold off. I should have taken the time to twist and turn and take a while to get there, but I didn't ... we live and learn.


All set to start out. We did 9 holes instead of 18. Daryn, Ian, Ethan, and Amber golfed. Evyn caddied for Daryn and I took pictures.
Daryn gives Amber a lesson on how to hit the ball.
Ethan applies the knowledge he learned a couple weekends ago on his Arrow Patrol outing. (He and his fellow patrol members went out and earned their golfing merit badge.)
Ian tried to strong-arm his hits. The afternoon was a lesson on how to let the club do the job.
Daryn's out of golfing shape. He started to get the strokes down as we neared the 9th hole.
A little lesson on the putting green for the kids.
Back at home, Amber designed a cake just for the occasion. For her AHG Cake Decorating badge she had to cut a cake into a shape and use a tip for icing. So, we did a deep round pan, she made a chocolate cake and then cut it into a square. We used a glass to make the hole, and then she started putting on the green stars for the golfing green.
Nice and even, no straight lines. However, our frosting consistency wasn't the greatest. But, it hardened well and was tasty.
The finished cake, complete with a dark chocolate molded golf ball from our favorite candy store.
Happy Father's Day!

AHG - Cooking Badge - Making a Pie

Amber is finishing up her AHG cooking badge tonight. Her last cooking requirement was to make a pie, with a homemade crust. She made Great-Grandma Joie's recipe and did it perfectly! Sadly, I neglected to get photos of her with dough mushed between her fingers and flour up her arms, but she went through the process twice to make a bottom and top crust. I demonstrated how to roll out the crust by doing the bottom, and she did the top.

She chose a 4-fruit pie recipe from one of our Gooseberry Patch cookbooks and decided against putting in the apple, and we didn't have rhubarb, so we added extra blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. The contents of the pie were all mixed together and then she plopped on the top as if she'd done it before. There were a few rips, as the rolling job wasn't completely circular, but it still worked! She was excited to get to the crimping phase.

Crimping all the way around, trying very hard not to put her thumbs into the top of the crust.

Oops, little bit of a hole. Ian caught her just as she said, "Drat!"

Adding the ventilation holes ... and her own decorative touch!

Now the pie is completely baked and sitting out cooling. Doesn't it look delicious? We shall have pie when the boys return from their scout meeting tonight :)

Ready to be served ... with a smile!

American Heritage Girls

Amber and I have embarked on a new adventure together - American Heritage Girls (from here on out known as AHG).

Since her box arrived, complete with uniform items and book, Amber has had her mind set on one particular merit badge, dance. It has not been a difficult one to achieve, but it has also not been a "gimme" badge! Although she's dance most of her life, she did have to do some additional research for this badge. She has completed all but one element, which is choreographing two dance pieces to two different types of music. She has been working steadily on one already and needs to find a different type of music for the other. The biggest hurdle was the research: pick two countries and learn about a style of dance from that country and the costumes and traditions associated with that dance style. She chose the dances first, and then looked up their origins. The first dance style she chose was Salsa which came from Cuba. The second dance style was ballet, which came from Italy. Ballet has a rich and broad history. Her initial thought was that it came from Russia! We learned quite a bit on that one together, as I thought France!

Today we are working on her Cooking Badge. A couple of the requirements are for her to make a casserole for dinner and a salad. So, she is making those for dinner this evening. She also has requirements to make cookies and a pie! The boys are awaiting her dessert choices. Perhaps we'll get some sort of dessert made while they are at their scout meetings tonight and we'll have a treat when they get home and we all settle down to watch Chuck together.

The casserole recipe Amber chose was Pot O' Gold Pork Chops from our Gooseberry Patch Best-Ever Casseroles cookbook.

4 pork chops (we had 6)
1 T. oil
2 T. onion, chopped
2 T. butter
1 t. salt
2 T. all-purpose flour
1 c. sour cream
2 15.25 oz. cans corn, drained (we didn't have any, so we used frozen corn)
1/2 pound bacon, crisply cooked and crumbled (we used 5 thick slices)
2 T. green pepper, chopped

Sprinkle pork chops with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a skillet; brown chops on both sides. Remove from skillet; set aside. Saute onion in butter until translucent; blend in salt and flour. Stir in sour cream until smooth; add corn, bacon, and pepper. Spoon into a greased 13"x9" baking pan; top with pork chops. Bake at 350*F for 45 minutes. Serves 4.

Browned pork chops (we cooked the bacon first, and used that grease instead of oil to brown the chops).

Chopping the bacon; thick slices don't crumble easily.

Stirring in the sour cream until smooth.

Adding the frozen corn.

Next in the pan is the bacon.

The corn mixture is in the pan and the chops go on top.

We already started dishing it up when we remembered we needed to get another photo. It smelled so wonderful and everyone was ready to eat.

This is Amber's plate (photo by Amber).

** It's 9:43 p.m. and she is one tired little girl. After dinner she began making gingersnaps! We took the boys to scouts, stopped to get gas for the car and then brown sugar for her cookies, and we baked until 7:50, when we headed back out to go get the boys. She completed her cookies after we got home ... only to find our program wasn't on this evening :(

The cookie recipe Amber decided on was Gingersnaps from our Betty Crocker Cookbook.

1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/3 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar

Mix brown sugar, shortening, molasses and egg. Stir in flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour. (We didn't do this ... we forgot!) Heat oven to 375*F. Grease cookie sheet lightly. Shape dough by rounded teaspoons into balls. Dip tops into granulated sugar. (We rolled them around completely ... oops, didn't read very well!) Place balls, sugared sides up, about 3 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or just until set; cool. About 4 dozen cookies; 80 calories per cookie.

Rolling dough in sugar.

Making gingersnap balls.

Another into the sugar bowl.

Getting the first batch ready for the oven.

Her pork chop casserole was amazingly delicious. She wanted to save the leftovers for Daryn, but as he won't be home until the weekend, it is probably not a good idea. It'll probably be dinner for one of the boys some time this week (dance schedule).