In a bowl, mix 1 pkt or 1 TBS yeast, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 2 cups warm water and 1/4 cup olive or veg oil. Let sit for 10 minutes. Then add another cup of whole wheat flour and 1 tsp salt and stir vigorously. Continue to stir and add unbleached white flour half a cup at a time until it is too stiff to stir easily and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Pull the spoon out and scrape off the dough. Use your hands to keep mixing the dough, adding half a cup of flour each time the dough gets sticky, until you have a soft dough which feels like your earlobe (feel your earlobe before you start or it will get all floury!) Keep kneading the dough by flattening it, folding it in half, flattening it, etc. You can do this on a floured counter, or right in the bowl. I knead mine for just a minute or two. Let the dough rest on the counter while you prepare the veggies and such for whatever meal you are making, about 15 minutes.
*letting the dough rest makes rolling it our much easier. Dough gets stressed out with over handling, and just like us it clenches up and becomes stiff. We all need our rest, and dough is no exception ;-)*
When you are ready, get a dry skillet, or better yet I use an electric griddle with a no-stick surface. I do not put oil on it. Take a blob of dough the size of a lime and put it on a floured surface. Flatten it with your hand, then with a rolling pin roll it out into a large flat circle. You will need to sprinkle flour to the board and the top of each one to keep it from sticking. Do not be afraid of the flour! The tortilla should not stick to anything, you should be able to pick it up with your hands and move it around without it sticking.
It will probably not be a perfect circle, and that is just fine. I like mine thicker, but play with it and see how thick you like it. Between an 1/8 and a 1/4 inch, depending on what you like. If you want larger tortillas, use more dough, smaller use less. It is certainly not a science. Roll out one or two at a time, depending on how much room on the skillet you have. Place the tortilla on the skillet, which has been heated to medium, or 300 degrees on the electric skillet. Roll out the next one when the first is cooking. When the top starts to look puffy, lift the edge of the tortilla with your hand or tongs to check. It should look cooked, and start to slightly brown a golden color in spots. The longer you cook it, the less soft it will be. If you are making these for dipping cook them longer than if you want to use them as wraps. Flip it when it is done to your satisfaction, then place on a plate and put the next one on. Repeat until they are all done. You can place them in the oven on low if you like, I put the plate underneath the electric griddle (which is on little legs) and it keeps them warm.
I use these with refried beans, veggies and salsa, breakfast burritos, felafel, humus wraps, and dipping in humus. I warn you, once you make these, you will be spoiled and not want to lower yourself to store bought wraps any more. Your husband or wife will probably come by and snitch one to nibble on, so make a couple more than you think you will need. You can always put them in a plastic bag and have a wrap for lunch the next day if you have them leftover. They keep for 3-4 days in plastic. I have not tried freezing them.
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The trouble with Boys
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965522/site/newsweek/?GT1=7538
This was an excellent article about boys in school. While I feel it left out many causes, it hit on some of the big ones, including fatherless homes, female-centric school methods, and lack of male teachers in elementary education. I am fully supportive of same sex education, that is separating boys and girls for classes. Dispite what some may thing, boys are just different than girls. Not better or worse, just different. I do not think boys should be punished for not being girls, anymore than girls should be punished for not being boys.
I have two boys. While I felt homeschooling had its drawbacks for us, I still seriously wonder if it is a better choice. My older son is still having problems in school with homework and lack of interest. My younger one is still on honor roll, but is really unmotivated by the coursework. At what point do I start to wonder if it is the environment? Fortunately, we have a very traditional school which in large part does respect boys. We picked this home in part because we liked the school system. But even this system must hold up to state standards, which are very female centric. He must take a foreign language for 4 years, but only gets to take autocad as a senior. Nick would much rather take computer classes then language. He got a 98 in autocad during he 6 week into last year, and he would use autocad far more in real life than spanish. His teacher is always assigning love poems and such, and the boys think the whole class is a joke. Spanish is heavily on language skills, which boys struggle with more than girls. To also have the curriculum biased to girls as well makes spanish a real difficulty for the boys.
I have thought about starting a study group for boys here at the house. We have a huge bar with darts and pool table, after studying they could hang out for a while. That way I can help the boys without trying to fight with the school.
I just really worry about what life will bring my boys.
This Saturday’s Recipes by The Pioneer Woman
3 years ago
6 comments:
I have a 15 year old son that i homeschool. My son went to a local public elemantary school and did well (because I was a dedicated advocate for him at the school)but he found middle school to be overwhelming. We started homeschooling and never looked back. My son is so much happier homeschooling. Homeschooling doesn't work for everyone but it saved my sons self esteem.
I homeschooled the oldest for 6 months, we were moving anyways that spring, and some things happened at school that made me want him out right then.
He loved it. He excelled at his classwork, and his self esteem grew. He was a different child when he went back to the new school in the fall. He really is doing well socially for the first time in his life, which is why I am hesitant to take him out.
It is really sad how schools today just erode a boy's self esteem.
Your comments about foreign language particularly interested me because at two different points in my life I taught high school foreign language (Spanish and French).
Boys DO seem to have harder time at foreign language than girls. I remember one boy who was an honor student and had no problem earning A's in most of his other courses, and he would get mad at ME because he couldn't earn an A in my class with the usual amount of effort he put into his other subjects. Of course I understood his frustration perfectly--when I was that age I used to dash off my foreign language homework in about ten minutes and then go home and cry over my algebra for a couple of hours.
Four years of foreign language sounds like an awfully extreme requirement. I've never heard of more than two years being required. But over the last generation there has been a definite change in how students feel about their language requirement. In my day no one grumbled about it, and many went on to take more than the two required credits. Now the students seem to resent it, and claim that it's too hard and they don't want to do it and everybody should just speak English anyway. LOL. Of course, where I used to live in Texas, knowing Spanish was a lot more valuable than any of those kids with their limited experience realized. But I can't see the point in requiring kids in upstate NY to take four years of it. And love poems??? That's silly. The most important things are mastery of vocabulary and Spanish-only conversation that forces students to start "thinking in Spanish."
My son starts school in another year and a half. It's exciting and worrisome, too...
Anne
SO do you have any ideas on how to get him more interested in spanish? I only had a couple of years myself and no one helped me study, so I don't remember any of it. I would learn if he would be willing to work with me. Maybe we should spend an hour each day only speaking spanish!
So you have a 4 year old? I thought you were older than that!I was picturing someone with grown kids who had far more perspective than many. That is a compliment on line, btw!
Has he been in preschool? I found that to be an important lead in, we got very lucky and had good preschool teachers, I actually went on to teach with them for a year. My kids, at 10 and 15, still wish they were back in preschool!
Aw, shucks! :-)
Yes my son will be four in April and my daughter just turned two last month. I'll also be forty in April--I didn't marry till I was 35, and our son was born nine months after our wedding. We also got our daughter on the first try, too. So much for fertility declining with age--you couldn't prove it by us. LOL
He hasn't been to preschool yet, but I'm thinking of putting him in maybe a couple of days a week. We're also looking for a church to attend and I think the preschoolers Sunday school class will be good for him too. My husband is reluctant to put them in preschool--he worries less when he knows they're with Mommy, you know--but they do need more social interaction. And kids really do socialize each other. For example, my son is such a picky eater and has to be pushed and prodded thru most meals but when his same-age cousin (who eats a lot) is over visiting, he eats much better and faster because he sees his cousin doing it.
How to get the kids more interested in language was a question that I and the other language teachers grappled with constantly. In Texas Spanish was everywhere, and I often explained to the kids how useful Spanish fluency would be to them in their careers (doctors and nurses communicating directly with Spanish-speaking patients, lawyers understanding a Spanish-speaking witness' testimony instead of having to trust an interpreter, and so on). But this may not be the case where you live, so that approach may not work. But far and away the best tool, once they're past basic grammar and vocabulary, is intensive Spanish-only conversation. Spending time in a Spanish-speaking country often does more for kids than years of language study in school because of the immersion effect--when you're forced to speak the language exclusively you actually start to think in the language. When this isn't possible, then yes a great idea is a certain amount of Spanish only conversation each day or each week, as the case may be. Does your husband speak it at all? The more people you have participating the more better it is. You could even introduce the idea of having a Spanish round table every so often at school. We had one in college that met every Thursday during the lunch hour, and there would usually be snacks provided, and we had a great time. For high school aged kids, though, it would probably have to be made a requirement or have extra credit or some other kind of incentive attached to it.
Anne
We picked out our preschool partially through a recommendation and partially through interview. I chose one where they encouraged the parent to volunteer and also had an open door policy. I figure they should have nothing to hide, and I was suspicious of anyone who had limited visits.
My older one was very shy, and preschool was a great way to ease into the idea of going to kindergarten full tine. He went 2.5 hours twice a week at 3, then 3 times a week at 4 and 5. He didn't go to kindergarted until he was almost 6.
Our youngest one was in kindergarten when he was almost 5 (both are October babies). The nice thing was that we fed lunch at home, so they only had a snack there.
Maybe if your husband were part of the process for picking out the school? It is scary to send them off, but we were very glad we had them start at preschool because it got them used to the separation,in very small doses and it gave them a positive outlook towards school.
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