Biscuits

This is not a fancy-shmancy flaky buttermilk layered biscuit, but another quick-and-easy-get-it-on-the-table recipe. Better and cheaper than a mix, and fast enough to make every day. With a little elbow grease, you can have fresh homemade biscuits in the oven in about 6 minutes, and on the table in another 12.
From my mother-in-law.

Biscuits makes 12

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

• 2 cups flour
• 1 Tbs. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt

Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, then add:

• 1/4 cup oil
• 3/4 cup milk

Mix till dough forms a ball, then knead 20-25 times in bowl (thus the large mixing bowl). Kneading just a little makes a less crumbly biscuit. Kneading too much will make a tough biscuit. Kneading in the bowl saves time on cleanup later, since the counter will have just a dusting of flour where you rolled & cut.

Pat or roll 1/2″ thick (or as desired) and cut into 2″ circles with a small Sponge Bob cup. You don’t have a Sponge Bob cup? Try another character, or in a pinch, a regular small cup or biscuit cutter. Place on a cookie sheet and bake about 12 minutes, til bottom just begins to brown. Butter while hot, and serve warm.

On the correct way to butter biscuits:

Biscuits should be buttered while hot, fresh out of the oven. Everyone wants butter on their biscuits, so don’t bother asking. Even if you do ask and they say no, they really do want butter. They just don’t know it yet.

Look for a natural crack in the biscuit, and insert a fork. Don’t actually cut it in half; just lift the top gently. Use fork to slice a small pat of butter off the stick (no need to soften butter). The fork holds the butter much better than a butter knife, especially better than a warm one that is being used to split hot biscuits. Slip into biscuit and drop the top back into place, leaving butter to melt quietly inside.

Kitchen Scrap Cookies

Like Merchant Ships has posted a recipe that I can’t wait to try out:
Kitchen Scrap Cookies, using leftover oatmeal, along with almost any leftover bit of a snack that your toddler leaves on the floor. Well, she didn’t mention the floor, but that’s where I find all of *my* toddler’s leftover snack scraps.

Kitchen Scrap Cookies

• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 c. brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 c. cold cooked oatmeal
• 1-1/4 c. flour (using 1 cup WW pastry flour makes a crisper cookie)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. bkg. soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• At least 1 cup leftovers such as chopped apples, raisins, coconut, etc. Meredith says she has tried breakfast cereal, bananas smeared with peanut butter, chopped apples, a dollop of jelly
• Up to 1 additional cup uncooked oats, rolled or steel cut

Cream butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sift flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon. Add to wet mix. Gently combine batter with cooked oatmeal and add-in’s. The finished batter should have a semi-stiff consistency, or stay rounded as you drop the teaspoons on the sheet.

Bake at 350* 12-15 minutes on lightly greased cookie sheet until edges are browned. Enjoy them now–there won’t be any leftovers from these.

Kids are cheap

After reading this post on Free Money Finance, I just had to open my big fat mouth. Really, $15,000 for each year, for each child, to age 17? Do they really eat that much?
And if we didn’t have children, wouldn’t we find another way, probably far less fulfilling, to spend our money anyway?
I left a rather long comment, and then decided it was such a fine piece of literary frugality that I really had to save it for posterity. Here it is, for your reading pleasure:

I would estimate that our own expenses for 7 – count ‘em – 7 children, ages 19 months to 12 years, run roughly:

• $350/month for food/non food grocery items (including toiletries, diapers, etc.) This is about 60% of what we spend monthly. Being small people, the children are much smaller eaters than hubby and I, and are collectively thrilled by a $4 bucket of ice cream, whereas our own treats rank a little higher on the financial and evolutionary scale. They also use far less of the disposable products as well – maybe since their bodies are smaller. Except the one in diapers: those run $25/month but are included in our monthly grocery, and she really doesn’t use her share of the food or toilet paper
• $50/month for clothes and shoes, most purchased secondhand and passed down through the ranks. It certainly helps having all girls, though I realize there will be a price to pay later. Kimberly Clark will be handing us the bill.
• $140/month for health and dental insurance. This is the difference between a family rate and a couple rate on our particular policies.
• $120/month in additional medical/dental bills. This includes births. This, like the others, is a rather generous estimate. We rarely have medical incidents or bills.
• $200/month in extra gas and maintennance, due to driving the larger-than-average family vehicle required by our larger-than-average family.
• $210/month: this represents 30% of our monthly housing and utilites, since we would likely have a somewhat smaller home without children. Actually, this is only true in theory. Our current home, which we are living in as we build it with our own 18 hands, *is* small by most standards, and our utilities are very reasonable.
• $50/month in homeschooling expenses. Actually, much of this is used to buy books that Hubby and I enjoy as well. But just for the fun of it, we’ll tack the bill on the children.
• $1000/year for birthdays and Christmas. This varies a lot, and is a rather generous estimate. But hey, we’re generous people, right? Why else would we want to feed and dress a bunch of kids?

  sooo…grand total for annual support for all 7 children…

  $14,440

  Oh my. It appears we’re raising 7 for the price of 1. I guess we can afford #8. That’s good news, since Baby #8 is due to arrive in a few months.

Educational Video Recommendations

Our 4 and 6 year olds have been devouring the Leap Frog videos lately: viewing thirty minutes of cheesy Saturday-morning quality animation on Letter Factory, they learned all the sounds of the letters effortlessly in the space of about 2 weeks. That’s with no effort on my part or theirs. The 19mo watches too, imitating the sounds of the letters. I feel like a bad mother, but it sure keeps them occupied during school time for the older ones, and they are actually learning at the same time!

Once they thoroughly knew the sounds of the letters, they watched more cheesy Saturday-morning quality animation on Talking Words Factory, and learned to put the letters together into simple 3 or 4 letter words. While I’m explaining the finer points of Saxon Math 54 and Math 76 to the four older children, Natalie and Becca run for paper and pencil and feverishly copy words, pausing the dvd player as necessary. The 19mo watches carefully, mimicking her big sisters’ interests and actions. Later, they read what they wrote and compare notes. This is all their idea.

Now, we’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of:

• Talking Words Factory 2 – Code Word Caper (introduces long vowels)
• Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory (sentences and basic punctuation)
• Math Circus (counting to 20 and simple addition/subtraction)

Lest you think I am content to reside in Bad Mother Land, we have also started some regular one-on-one reading and math lessons. These lessons, when done cheerfully and diligently, usually end with a reward: they get to watch a Leap Frog video.

New on my sidebar

Just for the sake of making conversation, I thought I’d mention that I have added my Bloglines reading list to the right sidebar.
This is not quite a comprehensive list of every blog I read – there are also my friends and family list on the sidebar, and a few others that Bloglines just won’t pick up for me. I also don’t unfailingly read every post on each of these blogs. However, if you’re curious, it gives you an idea of who I like to keep up with. It tends to evolve day by day and week by week as others post more or less, and as I find more or less time in my day for the computer. My back has been hurt this week, so I’m spending an uncommon amount of time on my bum; as my back gets better, you may see the list shrink again.

Meme for cooks

The Headmistress found this questionaire in an old edition of Woman’s Day, and turned it into a meme for those of us who like to talk about ourselves. Count me in.

1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?

Every day we pack a lunch for hubby and any of the girls that might have the privilege of accompanying him. Otherwise, the 9 of us eat 3 meals/day at home Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, we tend to eat a late brunch and an early dinner. On Sundays, we eat breakfast before church, then an all-day fellowship meal at the pastor’s house follows.

2. How many cookbooks do you own?

Mine have been rather well purged. I think I own ~20. Of these, I use 4 or 5 regularly.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?

3 or 4 times/week. Many of my recipes are in my head; many more in my recipe box. A few (which I hope to recover) were in the laptop.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relatives, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc)

Most come from the internet now. A few from magazines and rarely from friends/relatives.

5. How do you store those recipes?

I tend to write them on scraps until I actually use them. Once they’re tried, tested and approved in our own home, they graduate to an index card in my recipe box.

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?

I never do it just as it says. I very often search out several similar recipes and blend them into my own creation.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?

We do lots of Mexican dishes. Not authentic, I’m sure, but cheap, easy and tasty.

8. What’s your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count)

Why does eating the finished product not count? What about tasting it while it cooks?

9. What’s your least favorite part?

Choosing a helper from among the frantically begging masses. They all like the tasting part, too, and we know from experience that’s it’s just not fun when 7 people help all at once, esp. when they’re all short and require chairs at the same time.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop?

Ideally, theoretically, and philosophically, yes. Recently.

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?

My Pampered Chef chopper (which, incidentally, needs a new clear plastic collar. do you have that piece of your old broken chopper lying about?). The heavy marble rolling pin my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas (which, incidentally, is broken.) My 5 qt. crock pot, a wedding gift nearly 14 years ago. We’re almost to the point of drawing straws when it needs to be carried. No one wants to be the one doused in chili when the wobbly handles come off.

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have?

Honestly? I dunno. I love my kitchen. I love my gadgets. I use nearly everything I have, and I’m not sure I would use anything more. Just replacements/updates for the ones I have (or had) and love.

13. Since money and space probably are an object, what will you most likely buy next?

A new-to-me crock pot. I’m thinking thrift store, 5 or 10 bucks, new-in-the-box…

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?

Thanks to hubby, we have a gi-normous upright freezer. It had no trouble with the 60 extra lbs. of marked-down smoked sausage we brought home the last time we did our regular monthly shopping.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others?

I usually take 1 lucky child, but last time we went on Saturday as a family. It was a blast!

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week?

Few or none. My man likes meat.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?

We have and love apple dishes, but our kitchen is not decorated extensively. I like wrought iron, old fashioned fruit, dark green and beige or cream.

18. What’s the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?

I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure I was born a grown-up so I must have known how to cook already.

19. How did you learn to cook?

(see above)

20. Tag two other people to play.

My Mother-In-Law
The Greenhouse

Abortion ban in South Dakota

Check it out! It seems that South Dakota has banned all abortions except where the baby [accidentally] dies while the doctor is trying to save the mother’s life.
A few choice bits from the article:

The law, which would punish doctors who perform the operation with a five-year prison term and a $5,000 fine, awaits the signature of Republican Gov. Michael Rounds and people on both sides of the issue say he is unlikely to veto it.

State legislatures in Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky also have introduced similar measures this year.

Proposed amendments to the law to create exceptions to specifically protect the health of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest, were voted down. Also defeated was an amendment to put the proposal in the hands of voters.

I guess there is some truth to the pro-death complaints that abortions are getting harder to find.

Mom, dessert, and a kid carnival

Mom

My sweet southern mother-in-law has started a blog of her own. I suspect this highly hospitable lady will have some great stories to share. If you have a moment, stop in and say hi – she loves company!

Dessert

We’ve discovered a delicious, effortless way to end dinner. It’s like dessert, only easy. Maybe it’s too easy to share and you’ll think we’re silly, but we just thought of it last week, and maybe you didn’t.

Just stir together 1/2 stick of soft butter, 2-3 tablespoons of honey, and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon. We do this in a fancy little serving dish. Spread on bread, and pretend you’re at the Texas Roadhouse.

Kid Carnival

Fine. You people didn’t seem excited, but I’m going to do it anyway. A carnival to share the funny/too cute stuff that our children do and say. We’ll call it something like, “Kid Comedy.” I’ll do some homework and you start watching your kids for funny stuff. I’ll tentatively set the first deadline for midnight, Thursday, March 9. You can send your submissions for the first carnival to my email addy on the sidebar: homeschoolmarm @t gmail dot com. Please include the following. I suspect list format will make it easier for me to assemble:

1. Your name (screen name is fine)
2. Your blog title and url
3. A link to your submission, along with the title of the post
4. A brief summary (just a few words or a line or two)

I remember that the Cates have a very helpful article on starting a carnival. Does anyone remember where to find it? (My computer died recently; I’m training a temporary replacement, but lost all my links, email, etc.)

Maybe we could have a little preview while we’re waiting: use the comments to share links to anything suitable you’ve posted on your blog – recent or in the distant past. I won’t be choosy, at least regarding expiration dates. Daring Young Mom, I know funny stuff drops from your fingers like pearls from that princess’s mouth (has anyone heard that fairy tale?). But no fair posting your whole blog to my comment field. You have to share nicely and leave room for other funny people. Just one month’s archives at a time for you.

OK, let’s get started. Put on your rosy glasses, your sense of humor, and your smile. You have to think funny to be able to laugh when funny goes splat on the kitchen floor.

A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart
the spirit is broken. Prov. 15:13

All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a
continual feast. Prov. 15:15

A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the
bones. Prov. 17:22

Tagged! I’m it!

Thank you, Lydia, for the tag and the trip down memory lane!

Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

1) Ink and Incapability
2) The Happy Feminist
3) Space Station Samara
4) Renewed Day by Day
5) Life in a Shoe

What were you doing ten years ago?

Ten years ago, hubby and I had been married for 3 1/2 years. We had a 2.5yo, 10mo, and I was newly pregnant with our 3rd daughter, but didn’t know it yet. We had lived 4 years rent-free in a small, old country home with very kind elderly landlords who were happy to have us clean up the place and keep it repaired while we lived there. Recently, though, the landlords were beginning to talk about selling the house. We decided we might want to buy a home of our own soon so we began voluntarily paying $150/month for the express purpose of establishing a record of paying rent on time.

What were you doing one year ago?

One year ago, we had lived in this house – the one we built (maybe I should say “we are building“) with our own hands, for just a few months.

The installation of a refrigerator, hot water heater, and washer were still fresh and exciting in our minds. Clothes were hung to dry on the deck.

We had no kitchen at all, unless you count a stack of secondhand kitchen cabinets spread about the living room. We cooked on the propane grill and in a crock pot, and in the new electric roaster hubby bought for the occasion. The tiny $18 2-electric burner unit he found at WalMart opened up a new world of possibilities.

We had no running water except the tub and toilet. Dishes were washed in a plastic dishpan on the table, and stored on a plastic shelving unit along with a few canned/dry goods. The shelves and refrigerator were in our bedroom since the kitchen was a construction zone littered with tools, sawdust, and scraps of plywood, drywall, etc.

Sheets suspended across doorways functioned as our doors. Bathroom needs were accomplished by public announcement: “I’m going the bathroom – everyone stay away from the door!”

Furniture consisted of a large bookshelf, 2 beds, a table and some folding chairs.

We’re not done yet, but we’ve come a long way!

Five snacks you enjoy

1. Chocolate. You knew that, right?
2. Fresh fruit
3. cheese
4. cold coffee
5. whole wheat toast with butter and peanut butter.

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics

Besides quite a few songs from the Psalter and several hymns which I learned by sheer repetition over the years (it’s amazing how they stick with you!) I can’t think of any. I don’t tend to notice lyrics, which is why I’ve more or less given up popular music entirely. I don’t like letting junk seep unnoticed into my brain, and I don’t seem to have the attention span to notice what’s seeping, so I try to avoid the junk in the first place.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire: hmmm…maybe this question isn’t asking for a long-term financial plan, but this is what comes to mind:

1. Tithe – off the top!
2. Pay off existing debts if any, including house
3. Do our best (presumably hubby would be a millionaire with me ) to be sure the rest was properly invested, so that we can:
4. Live as usual – with plenty of hard work and some nice perks here and there
5. Share

Five Bad Habits

1. Blindness to my own shortcomings. I know they’re there, but sometimes it’s hard to make me see.
2. Determination to finish what I’m doing – in a bad way. In a stubborn, I’m-not-doing-anything-else-or-going-to-bed-til-I’ve-finished sort of way.
3. Hubby would tell you that I always have to get the last word (actually he wouldn’t tell you, but he’d be thinking it). I think I’m beginning to overcome this, but it’s still very much a battle for me.
4. Unwillingness to ask for help, or even to recognize when I need it.
5. One or two that you really don’t want to know about.

Five things you like doing

1. Eating chocolate. Are you sensing a pattern here?
2. Showering in the morning. It’s my morning coffee – I can’t start my day without it!
3. Watching videos with my honey. It hardly matters what video. I just like snuggling up on the couch with him for an hour and a half.
4. Working with the children on that rare project where no one gets frustrated or impatient – the projects where I don’t want to shove the materials or the children into the closet halfway through.
5. Reading without guilt. It rarely happens.

Five things you would never wear again

1. bangs
2. a perm
3. a bikini
4. blue jeans with impossibly tight ankles
5. midriff-baring tops

Five Favorite Toys - most of my favorite toys bear a striking resemblance to tools, but I love them all the same

1. computer
2. Pampered Chef chopper – the springloaded one you whack on top. Great tension reliever!
3. Apple peeler/corer/slicer
4. Circular saw: there’s just something satisfying about being comfortable with anything that makes that much noise.
5. OK. I’ll say it. Hubby bought me a Tetris game controller that hooks directly to the TV. I’ve only played twice because I’m really scared of it. I think it’s like those drugs they warn you about on TV: all it takes is once or twice and you’re hooked.

Select Five People to Tag

There are plenty of people I’d like to see do this, but I’ve been offline so long I can’t possibly catch up on reading everyone’s blog to see if you’ve done it. If you already have, could you please tell me so in the comments? If not, consider yourself tagged (I hate when people say that, but I mean it!) and leave a comment to tell me that you did it. I want to see yours!

meme: 4’s

Since I was tagged by Joan at Daddy’s Roses, I get to do the 4’s meme! I noticed that Lydia tagged me for another meme (thanks Lydia!) which I am working on, but this one looks fast enough to do now.

4 jobs I’ve had

• babysitting – a natural for the oldest of 14 children
• cleaning houses – I made good money as a teen doing this!
• inspecting the seals and labels on little individual serving tins of cat food. Dee-scusting! The job lasted a month. When I gave notice to start on my next job (below), my boss told me, “Are you crazy? You have a job offer as a waitress? Don’t give me notice! Start as soon as they’ll take you!” I had to wash my hair 3 times/day for a week to get rid of the smell of that place, but I learned that in all labor there is profit.
• waitress at a small town steak house: I got the job w/no experience by telling them that growing up in a big family taught me plenty about serving crowds and multi-tasking.

4 movies I can watch over and over – I never turn on a movie, but here are a few I can’t resist sitting through when I see that someone else has started them!

• LOTR – the whole series
• Matrix
• Men In Black
• The Quiet Man

4 places I’ve lived – If I limit this to just four, you’ll miss a lot. I was married at 19 years old and moved into my 19th house. But here are the 4 states I’ve lived in:

• Oregon (something like 13 houses, in and around Portland)
• Texas (Dallas/Fort Worth and San Antonio areas)
• New Mexico (Albuquerque area)
• Ohio

4 TV shows I love – sorry; not me. We do videos (too many, most of the time) but no TV.

4 places I’ve vacationed

• Victoria, BC with my grandparents when I was 15. Memories that will last a lifetime! Not so much Victoria, but time with Grandpa and Grandma. I am so blessed to still have them in my life and my children’s and husband’s lives!
• Mexico: a day trip on our honeymoon. Being married in San Antonio, just a few hours from the border, certainly has its perks.
• Oregon, twice as a family. For a family reunion, back when a cross country trip was inconceivable on our income, we flew as a family of 4 for the price of just one ticket: my sweet sister Carlie bought us a second ticket and we travelled with 2 lap children. We went again for my grandparents’ 50th anniversary just a few years ago, this time with 6 children.
• Hawaii. A business trip, but how can you fail to have fun in a place with palm trees and pineapples and entirely surrounded by beaches, when somebody else is paying for everything?

4 of my favorite dishes

• chocolate. Anything with chocolate.
• pizza
• a good steak, cooked medium rare. mmmm.
• fresh fruit salad – no dressing, just the fruit. Can’t be beat!

4 blogs I visit daily – I’ve cut way back on computer time lately (for obvious reasons), but here are some of my favorites:

• The Common Room
• Biblical Womanhood
• Daring Young Mom
• Engstrom Family Cerebrations

4 places I’d rather be right now – sorry. I’m a homebody. I like where I am right now, though maybe I’d rather be in the other room with my family

4 people I tag – OK, y’all. Are you looking? Sorry if you’ve already done this – I’ve really been out of the loop lately.

• The Cappuccino Life
• Cup of Grace
• Renewed Day by Day (gotcha back, Lydia!)
• Daring Young Mom