An Awesome Message to Moms from Kid President

Easy-Peasy Pork Tenderloin in a Pressure Cooker

I had a 2.5 lb pork roast to cook for dinner and I really want to utilize my Nesco pressure cooker more often so I brought it out.  This one is great because of all the cooking methods it can do: steam, brown, slow cook and pressure cook.  I love that I can brown my meat in the pressure cooker so I don't have to dirty another pot.  I wish I had thought ahead and taken pix all throughout the preparation of this meal, but I didn't.  I actually didn't even think to take a nice picture of the final product until the hubs was about to take his 1st bite and snapped the top-left one, but it's a little fuzzy.  The top-right one is my plate with seconds on it.  :o)  The tenderloin in the picture is a 2nd one I have (they were a BOGO deal).  Anywho, let me tell you how easy this was!

Ingredients
2.5 lb pork temderloin, quartered
1 onion, quartered
2 small apples, peeled and quartered
3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 C beef stock (if you don't have, use wine, chicken or vegetable stock or even water)
Salt and pepper
If you want to make gravy
3 tbsp butter, melted
3 tbsp flour (you could use cornstarch and water, instead of butter and flour)

When I unwrapped the tenderloin, it was actually in two, long pieces.  I cut both pieces in half, giving me 4 even pieces that fit in the pressure cooker.  Add a tbsp of your choice of oil to the bottom of the pressure cooker and set it to "brown".  Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper and brown all sides of the pork, two pieces at a time, in the cooker.

Remove the browned pork, place the meat trivet inside the cooker, then set the 4 pork pieces on the trivet.  Drop the onion, apple and garlic cloves on top (don't worry if some fall  through the trivet to the bottom).  Pour beef stock in and seal cooker.  Cook pork for 35 minutes.  If you have a manual pressure cooker, start your timer after it starts to jiggle.  In my electric pressure cooker, I can set the timer and then it won't start counting down until it's reached full pressure.

When timer is up, release pressure and remove pork and trivet; cover pork to keep it warm.  (I tasted the liquid in the pot and the onions and apple had flavored the stock nicely, so I removed them with a mesh strainer.  You could leave them in and use an immersion blender to puree them into your stock, thus thickening it into a gravy.)  Turn cooker back to "brown" and blend melted butter with flour (or water and cornstarch).  Once stock is boiling, whisk in butter/flour mixture and continue to cook until desired thickness.  Add salt and pepper, if necessary.

The pork fell apart nicely and was so tender!  I served it with green beans and potatoes - baked for the hubs and mashed for me and B.  If you try this recipe, let me know how you like it!

The Flexibility of Homeschooling or Honoring My Child's Interests

I couldn't decide between the two titles for this post, so I used them both.  ;o)  After we spent a couple of weeks on the Knights and Samurai chapter of Story of the World, B decided to do something else for a bit.  He spent the next couple of weeks reading books he likes, drawing comics for the book he's decided to "publish" and sell and write some stories.  The freedom of homeschooling allows you to follow your child's lead and honor what he or she needs.  B only turned the TV on during breakfast to catch up on any Phineas and Ferb episodes that had taped while he slept and then he went off by himself the rest of the day.  He reread all of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, Captain Underpants books and Big Nate books he had.  He wrote fictional stories in the Write Your Own Story Book by Usborne Books.  He gathered together all the comics he'd drawn over the years, corrected the spelling, organized them and created a cover for the book he wants to publish.  There are so many articles and how-to's out there on how to get your children to read or how to instill a love of reading in children.  We've been blessed that our love and desire for books and the worlds they expose us to has been passed onto him organically.

There was no way I was going to deny him when he wanted to do nothing but read, write and create for a couple of weeks.  We honored his interests.  I love this boy and his appetite for learning and books and his endless creativity!  It's amazing how much my child yearns to learn and enjoys learning when he has a say in what we learn and how much of each topic he is ready to take in.  He's still a boy with impulses and self-control issues, who cries when he's frustrated, who wants his parents to tuck him in a night, who dissolves into fits of giggles when the words "pee", "poop" or "butt" are said.  But he is also mature enough to ask me if I need anything, says "yes, ma'am" and "no, sir", runs ahead and opens a door for someone with their arms full and appreciates the difference between a want and a need.  I am so lucky and blessed to be with him everyday, to learn along side of him and guide him to become the man he is meant to be.  Homeschooling was a gift we thought we were giving to B, but we have received so much from it, ourselves.

My Little Fasionisto

Ben and I went to Kohl's in the beginning of April because we all needed sandals for Summer and I had a 20% off coupon.  We found great, cheap sandals for all of us and, as we were heading to the checkout, I decided to "just look" at the women's section.  I really needed some new shorts, in a larger size than last year, and since my 20% off coupon was good for my entire purchase, it just made sense to do some window shopping.  ;o)   As I was looking at capri pants, B says, "Mom, you should buy these; they'd look great on you!"  He was holding up what I thought was a skirt but, on further inspection, it was a skort.  I said, "B, I can't wear that.  I can't pull off a skort."  B replied, "Of course you can, Mama!  You can pull off anything!"  What a sweet boy, filled with unconditional love!  He proceeded to search for, and find, three shirts to go with the skort he found for me.  When I looked at the bright blue shirt he picked out that matched the skort, I said, "I think that shirt color, and the skort color, are too dark for me.  Don't you think?  This aqua shirt would go much better with my eyes."  B replied, "Mama, you already have a shirt that color!"  OMG - he was right; he observes and absorbs everything!  So I bought the skort and the 3 shirts (pictured above) that he picked out, in addition to our Summer sandals.

When we were checking out, the cashier said, "I love how all three of these shirts go so well with this skort!"  "Thank you," I replied.  "I can't take credit.  My son picked them all out for me."  "Well," she said, looking at B, "You've got a great eye for fashion."  Ben smiled at the cashier and then turned to me.  "Mama?  What do they call a male fashionista?"  A....fashionissssss...to?"  A big grin spread across B's face.  I grinned back.  As we walked out of Kohl's, we both felt proud of him.

Learning Happens Everywhere

The checkouts at the grocery store we frequent the most not only have candy, but books, too.  Puzzle books, coloring books, novels and lots of non-fiction for children.  Once B realizes that I will not be saying yes to any requests for candy (I say no every time!  Why does he keep asking?), he picks up a book or books and reads.  Yesterday's book du jour was about whales.  He shared all the fascinating facts out loud so that I, the cashier and the lady behind me in line also learned with him.

• Female Narwhal whales do not have horns like the males do.
• The male Narwhal's horns can be up to 9 ft long.
• The dorsal fin of a male Orca can be up to 6 ft tall.
• Sperm whales have the largest brains of any creature on Earth.  Adult Sperm whale brains can weigh up to 20 lbs.
• Sperms wales are distinguished from other whales by their somewhat squared heads and by the scars they bear from battling the giant squids they eat.

When he finished the whale book, he was excited to see one on snakes and one on spiders, my two least favorite creatures.  Luckily, I was all checked out and it was time to go.  But those facts stuck with him (I had to ask him to tell me some of the facts for this blog post because I, myself, had forgotten all except that the female Narwals have no horns.)  He constantly teaches me to slow down, stop and see the wonder and learning opportunities within everything we come in contact. 

Story of the World, Vol. 2, Chapter 17 - Knights & Samurai

If you click on the pictures, they'll enlarge and you'll see more details in the shields and helmet.

We had so much fun with with Chapter 17 - Knights & Samurai - from our History textbook, Story of the World, Vol. 2!  It has actually been the most enjoyable chapter we've done so far.  We did crafts, watched movies, completed a word search, read and really absorbed the learning while having fun.  The SOTW activity book has not provided us with many activities to date.  B does color the map page for every chapter (although he is not interested in any of the other coloring pages), but the activities we've done have been few and far between.  There are lots of suggested activities, however most use supplies we don't have on hand and would involve going to the craft store each week for several supplies.  That cost adds up.  Especially on weeks when an activity requires yards of fabric to be purchased.  I can get creative somewhat and we substitute with what we have on hand, where we can, but on the whole we don't do them.  This chapter, however, provided activities we could do:

• B did a word search that included Arthur and the names of the 12 Knights of the Round Table.  
• He used the knight's shield template to make a shield for himself (the one on the left in the picture) and one for our cats, Yin & Yang (the one on the right - our two cats actually drawn in the Yin Yang position!).  Since he was making shields, he decided to make a Captain America one, as well, and a sword.  All three shields are glued onto cardboard and B's and the Captain America ones have handles on the back.  The handled shields and the sword have been well loved and used during play with his neighborhood friends.  :o)
• B made an origami samurai helmet out of wrapping paper - the only paper I had that was big enough to give us a 22"x 22" square.  The directions for the helmet in the SOTW Activity Book were confusing to us but, thankfully, we found this great tutorial on YouTube.  B was not happy that I asked him to give me a "fierce" look for the pictures here of him in his helmet.  He said, "Mom, I am incapable of making an angry face in pictures. You just can't take me seriously."

We watched First Knight with Sean Connery and Richard Gere, Disney's The Sword in the Stone and The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe.  I was worried about the violence in The Last Samurai, and was planning to skip any battle scenes if they were too much, but I didn't.  The Die Hard movies had more graphic violence in them than The Last Samurai, IMO.  That movie was very well done and did a great job explaining the POV of the samurai - their traditions, service, loyalty and honor - and showed the Japanese reserved way of not always saying what they mean.  Even the emperor didn't speak his mind!  We also read a good, short, library book, Samurai by Caroline Leavitt.  The photos and illustrations are beautiful and it suplimented the SOTW chapter with more details.  And, of course, B did his lapbook exercise (he calls it his chapter craft) for this chapter.

Here's to more fun and activity-filled learning in our next chapters!

GeoSafari Laptop

My MIL gave B this GeoSafari Laptop 3 years ago after we announced we were removing B from public school and homeschooling him.  I brought this out a few times and sat him down to play with/learn from it right after he got it and it made him angry.  He didn't know the answers so that made him frustrated and he didn't want to spend the time to learn.  I put away on our homeschool bookcase and decided we'd revisit it another time. And although I would gaze upon it a few times during the past 3 years, I never pulled it back out again, until last week.

Although we got off to a rocky start with our History curriculum, Story of the World, Vol. 2, this "school" year, we've been doing much better since I discovered a free lapbook to accompany SOTW, Vol. 2 last month.  B is enthusiastic about the lapbook because he sees it as "craft time"; the learning is fun.  Every couple of chapters now, we go back and read through our lap book, as well as the review cards in our SOTW Activity Book.  Since B is now retaining more of the History and Geography facts from the Middle Ages with the addition of the lapbook, I decided to bring out the GeoSafari Laptop.

In addition to geography sheets, there are sheets on inventions, Language Arts, Math, quotations, famous people in History, landmarks, animals, weather, anatomy, wars and more.  B had a great time with sheets on continents, bodies of water, world landmarks and ancient wonders of the world.  Succeeding at something is a wonderful incentive to keep doing something.  And it was good to see that what we had be learning for almost 3 years now, was sticking with him.  I like new ways of learning as well as new ways of "testing" retention.  We will definitely be using the GeoSafari Laptop regularly.