Cooking The Perfect Corned Beef Read More »
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]]>There is nothing better on a cold winter’s night than an old-fashioned, home-cooked meal. This delicious Corned Beef recipe is the ideal meal, served with a creamy white sauce and steamed vegetables, that will have the family asking for more. Leftover corned beef is also great on sandwiches, served with mustard pickles or cut into strips for salads.
What is Corned Beef?
Corned Beef or silverside is brine-cured beef. The usual cut of beef used for corned beef is the silverside and corned beef is often referred to as corned silverside in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland for this reason. In America and Canada, eating Corned Beef is associated with St Patrick’s Day.
Cooking Corned Beef in a Slow Cooker
Recipe (serves 6)
1.5kg piece of silverside
water
6 pepper corns
1/2 cup of white vinegar
2 tbls brown sugar
1 clove of crushed garlic
1 tbls mixed herbs
1 onion, cut into wedges
Place silverside into slow cooker and pour in water until it just covers the cut. Add pepper corns, vinegar, brown sugar, crushed garlic, mixed herbs and onion wedges. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Slice and serve with creamy white sauce, potato bake and steamed vegetables.
Corned Beef (Silverside) with White Sauce
Recipe
4 tbls butter or margarine
4 tbls plain (all purpose) flour
2 cups milk
Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan. Add the plain flour and mix well away from heat. Return to the stove and cook mixture for 1 minute. Pour a little milk into the mix and stir continuously over heat until it begins to thicken. Add the rest of the milk gradually, stirring until the sauce is thick and hot. Pour over corned beef or serve in a gravy boat.
Side Servings for Corned Beef
Steamed vegetables served with corned beef, adds the perfect touch to this home-cooked meal. Steamed baby carrots, broccoli and beans are ideal.
Other sides to be served with corned beef may include:
roast potatoes
steamed pumpkin
cauliflower au gratin
steamed cauliflower
baby peas
Potato Bake
4 medium potatoes, sliced
1 pkt of Maggi Creamy Cheese and Garlic Potato Bake
2 tbls milk
300ml thickened cream
1/2-1 cup of grated cheese
Preheat oven to 200 degrees (Celcius). Empty Potato Bake sachet into a medium sized bowl. Add milk and mix well, combining the mixture. Add thickened cream and again mix well. Lay sliced potato into the bottom of a casserole or oven-proof dish. Move mixture over potato and place on the middle shelf of the oven. Bake uncovered for around 40-45 minutes. Remove dish from oven and sprinkle with grated cheese. Return to the oven and bake for a further 15 minutes or until cheese has melted and potato is cooked.
Enjoy this corned beef meal at family gatherings or dinner parties. For a great family dish, with all the trimmings, pop a piece of silverside into the slow cooker and return home to a delicious, home-cooked meal.
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]]>Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Read More »
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]]>Today is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, so I decided to share my favorite recipe for baking them! There are millions of recipes out there, all with slight variations, however, this one always consistently comes out delicious and it’s easy to make.
I discovered this recipe a few years ago after trying out a lot of combinations and having quite a few fails- like the time I accidentally used corn starch instead of flour! Whoops! Since then I’ve tweaked it a little based on how many I want to bake and what types of flavors I want to add, like mint or cbd. Today I’ll be giving you my basic recipe and you can modify it how you see fit!
In addition to the ingredients above, you’ll also need a cookie sheet (I use 3), a mixing bowl, measuring cups, measuring spoons & cups, a mixing spoon, and a spatula. I also use a cooling rack.
We don’t often have a lot of extra cookies lying around, but when we make the full recipe we definitely have an excess amount. Here are a few tips for keeping your cookies fresh, especially handy for those of us who like to prep cookies for giving away during the holiday season!
I hope you love these cookies as much as we do! Let me know in the comments below if you try it!
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]]>Celebrating Earth Day 2021 Read More »
The post Celebrating Earth Day 2021 appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.
]]>This year, we kicked off our Earth Day celebrations a bit early. We still have plans to clean up the creek behind our house tomorrow, when it’s actually Earth Day, but I wanted to go ahead and share what we’ve been doing in case you need ideas!
Last year, our focus was on wind power/sustainable energy. If that’s your jam, you can find a link to those activities here. This year our focus is on having good Earth stewardship and being mindful of our environmental actions.
One of my main focuses for Earth Day this year was to help the boys understand how their actions directly impact their environment. To start working on this concept, we read 2 books, One Earth by Eileen Spinelli and What a Waste by Jess French.
One Earth was a really fantastic way to help highlight the beautiful things Earth provides for us while also teaching kids the ways they can do their part in protecting the environment. I really loved the artwork and the way they used counting & rhymes to introduce earth stewardship.
What a Waste was a phenomenal way to really highlight how our little actions add up for big results, both good & bad. It got the boys to start asking a lot of good questions and excited to do their part to help the environment. There were some great diagrams that broke down the important facts into smaller tidbits the boys could absorb that I really appreciated.
A friend who knows that I’m a big science geek tagged me in a post 2 weeks ago about a cool new startup she saw called Earth Treasure Hunt. I was immediately intrigued, so I started pouring over their website and loved what I was seeing. Science based. No easily broken plastic toys. Easy set up. I could keep going, but you get the point. This looked super rad. Here’s a little snippet from their website that talks about their product:
Spark curiosity in any child with Earth Treasure Hunt, a science-based treasure hunt game focused on quality, design and natural earth treasures.
It’s simple to play. The grown-up secretly plants the treasures. The child solves the clues using science and smarts, leading them on a thrilling treasure hunt adventure through the home!
I knew this would be a perfect fit for the Earth Day activities I had planned for the boys, so I reached out and asked their founder, Lauren, if she’d be interested in partnering up. Much to my excitement, she was willing to send over a kit for both boys and I got started planning.
When the kits arrived, I couldn’t wait to start investigating them. We had a pretty busy weekend, so I wasn’t able to hide treasures until Everett was at school. I distracted Finn with some Magic School Bus and started hiding. I kind of felt like a super spy, hiding things while Finn could very easily have discovered me! However, not only did he not figure out what I was doing, I even managed to hide a treasure mere feet from where he was sitting! Excuse me while I go pat myself on the back!
When we got back from picking Everett up from school, I navigated them through the house in a way that they wouldn’t accidentally stumble on a clue before the hunt started. Everett is still struggling a bit with reading and Finn definitely can’t read yet, so it was up to me to read the cards. It took a little bit for the boys to puzzle out the clues and I could see the wheels spinning as they tossed out ideas.
Each time they figured out the clue, they raced across the house to find the next clue. The “aha” moment and excitement was something that will stay with me for a long time. Even while writing today’s blog I have a HUGE grin on my face while remembering the joy they experienced.
Then came the educational part. We talked about what each item was and how the Earth was able to provide these awesome treasures. I tied it back to the books we had read and why their treasures were so valuable. I also talked about what made these “toys” different from their plastic ones. Finn didn’t quite grasp these concepts, but Everett most definitely was able to connect the dots. Once I could tell I was losing their interest, I let them go about and do their thing. Their own thing turned out to be video calling their grandparents and giving them a run down of the treasures and a slightly disjointed science lesson!
One of the things we’ve been doing a lot of lately is going on nature walks. Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve had to get creative with entertaining the boys, so we turned to the outdoors. Monday we did a little creek splashing and used a little nature hunt sheet to explore the area.
We didn’t take photos of the items above, but I did have them find items while they splashed around and we talked about them. A good friend who is also a photographer took photos of the boys as they explored and they turned out so well!
Tomorrow we will be cleaning up the creek in our backyard, doing a bingo game, and a free Earth Day worksheet set I found. All in all, the lessons we are working on this week are so important. Teaching children at a young age how their actions impact the environment and maintaining those lessons as they grow up will help ensure that future generations will still have an Earth to enjoy.
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]]>Throwing The Ultimate Harry Potter Party Post-Covid Read More »
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]]>This last weekend, we loaned out our basement & backyard to some very dear friends for a surprise Harry Potter themed 40th birthday.
When our friend asked about using our house to surprise her partner, I said, of course, as long as we keep it safe. After all, one of the reasons we moved into this house was it’s potential for entertaining.
Given that we are in the middle of a pandemic, one of the things I was adamant about was safety. We quickly established that the party would be primarily outdoors, where everyone could easily social distance and that we were capping the # of guests at 15- which included the 7 of us.
Guests were instructed to enter the party via our back gate, grab a Harry Potter themed mask & personal hand sanitizer. Given that the majority of the guests were in the healthcare profession, this wasn’t an issue.
Guests were encouraged to stay outdoors, however we did set up food and drinks inside. When they came inside, masks were required & they were only allowed in the room with food & the downstairs bathroom. Upstairs was completely off limits-my children were going to spend the majority of the party up there and I wanted them kept as distant as possible from the crowd.
Ground rules for any party are important, but especially mid-pandemic. If your guests can’t respect them, then you shouldn’t be inviting them.
We had some really cute themed items for this party. In addition to the themed sanitizer & masks mentioned above, we also had HP glasses for guests to wear. We hung “flying keys” from the ceiling, and kept to the main colors from the 4 Hogwarts Houses. We also decorated the tables with cute confetti and mini cauldrons. I purchased some refillable spray bottles from Amazon, we placed “Flesh Eating Slug Repellent” labels on them and filled them with bug spray to minimize bug issues.
We had sorting house cupcakes & a super neat themed cake that when sliced into, it’s layers were all the Harry Potter colors.
One thing we did, that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend for your party, was the alcohol mini filled piñata. Though none of the mini bottles broke, I was terrified of it happening the entire time! ?? It was kind of fun though!
One of the simple, yet fun things we made were Ferrero Rocher Golden Snitches. You’ll need these Printable Snitch Wings, scissors, glue, & obviously some Ferrero Rochers.
Steps:
Simple, right? They looked super cute all over the table, and as an added bonus, they were delicious.
I made a delicious Harry Potter themed punch for the party called Patronus Punch. It’s super simple, looked super cool, and reminded me of drinking a mojito.
Purchase:
Tips:
Overall, the party was amazing. We had a few minor hiccups, but when booze is involved, when are there not hiccups? ?
Just remember, with Covid running rampant through the US, if you can’t offer proper saftey protocols, just wait and have the party once things cool down. In the long run, missing parties for one year isn’t the end of the world.
If you enjoyed this blog, leave a comment below!
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]]>The post Earth Day 2020 appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.
]]>Happy 50th Earth Day! This years theme is Climate Action, so we focused on Wind Power. We read the kids Keith Negley’s newest book, The Boy and The Wild Blue Girl and made aluminum foil sailboats that we powered with wind.
Why wind power? Simple. Wind power is one of the cleanest forms of energy and can drastically reduce greenhouse gases. It’s cost effective, sustainable, and is a great clean energy source. Even better, it’s locally sourced, meaning that for us Americans, it provides local jobs and helps minimize our reliance on foreign markets.
Our earth day read, The Boy and The Wild Blue Girl, is a story about the creation of wind turbines told in an adorable way. The wind in the story is portrayed by the Wild Blue Girl. She is seen by most as a nuisance that’s always messing things up. One boy, Poul thinks she’s amazing, and ends up creating wind turbines for her. His invention goes to show everyone just how amazing the wild blue girl is and how she can contribute to society.
The boys really enjoyed it and the illustrations are gorgeous. There is also a great bit of educational information at the end of the book about wind turbines and their inventor.
Our craft for today was a super simple way to show the benefits of wind. We even only used things I had laying around the house!
This craft is completely open ended. The fun part is using the tinfoil to create different sizes and styles of boats. The kids can literally create a anything their imagination can think of! For the sail, cut a sail shape out of the paper and stick it through with the toothpick. You can make little holes in the paper or just poke the toothpick through.
We used playdough to adhere the toothpick and paper sails to the boat. Then put it into the kiddie pool for a test ride! The boats all worked! Obviously the 2 year olds almost immediately capsized their boats, but the 6 year old was captivated by how it worked. He loved blowing it around the pool and watching his “wind” power the boat!
Did you try this craft? Tell us below!
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]]>Easy Strawberry Tart Read More »
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]]>The post Easy Strawberry Tart appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.
]]>The post Rainbow Fun appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.
]]>On Monday we woke up to find that the crazy storms knocked over a huge tree in our front yard. Finn is having the time of his life exploring it and we were lucky that it didn’t do much damage. Our luck inspired me to make some fun rainbow crafts, because after all, after every storm, comes a rainbow!
Steps:
This is a super cool craft and the further into the rainbow you go, the cooler it gets! Talk to your kids about why it absorbs and how the colors start to blend in together. It’s also a cool way to talk about weather- the cotton balls are like clouds and the more water you add to it, the less it can absorb until it starts to “rain.” Also, I highly recommend using a thick poster board or a canvas for this. The more water you add, the heavier it gets, so thinner papers will tear under the strain and also be at risk for also absorbing the water.
Steps:
This is a visually beautiful craft. It also leaves very little mess behind. We tried it both with paint and food coloring. The paint works, but it mixes together slowly forming an ugly mud color the more you spread it, whilst the food coloring mixes together beautifully. You can get really creative with your color combinations and make cool paintings with it. For less rainbow-y or more detailed results, you can also use a clothespin instead of a chip clip.
Did you try one of these crafts? Tell us below!
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]]>Mess-Free Ziploc Bag Painting Read More »
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]]>Everett is spending the next week or two with his Gigi, so Finn and I get to spend some quality one-on-one time together. Today, I decided to commemorate our special time together with a mess-free painting project.
This is one activity that can go so many ways. It’s totally open ended. You can just let them mix and smoosh paint or make a beautiful work of art. It’s a great way to showcase color mixing and sensory play without making a huge mess. They can mix the paint with their hands, a rolling pin, q-tips, or even things like matchbox cars and monster trucks. You’re only limited by you and your toddlers imagination!
If you don’t want to make an artwork, simply add paint to the ziploc bag and tape it to your window or table with painter’s tape. As they mix up the paint, have them make letters or shapes.
If you do want to make a keepsake, tape off shapes/words/designs on your canvas or paper, place it in a ziploc bag, and carefully add paint. Let your kiddo mix the paint and fully cover the canvas. Once the canvas is covered, take the canvas out and put it somewhere safe to dry. Once it’s dry, take off the paint and enjoy your masterpiece!
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]]>Easter Sensory Bins Read More »
The post Easter Sensory Bins appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.
]]>Yesterday we made shaving cream paint and it quickly turned into utter chaos. Finn started painting himself, both boys wanted their booties painted, and so on.
I decided to embrace the chaos of messy play and use the remaining shaving cream for a sensory tub. I used some water marbles, eggs, and also grabbed some vinegar & baking soda to have some extra sensory fun.
Sensory Bin
This one is pretty open ended. We had a lot of shaving cream left over from our painting endeavours, leftover water beads, and leftover plastic eggs. You could honestly use almost anything in these tubs. Also, for a more kid safe version of the shaving cream, you can use whipped cream or Mr. Bubble foam soap.
Fizzy Eggs
Similar to our Volcano Egg Dyeing, we simply added baking soda to our shaving cream bin and I gave them colored vinegar to put on top. You can use empty plastic eggs, add baking soda to them, and then let them add vinegar with a spray bottle or pipette.
After we were done, we finished up with a fun egg washing water activity!
Did you do one of these? Which one? Did you modify it? Tell us below!
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]]>Easter Painting Projects Read More »
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]]>Today we brought out more fun painting projects! I wanted to have today’s painting projects be a little less messy than our rock painting day, so I found some easy to make and clean up painting projects.
I think now that we are schooling at home, I really need to invest in a drop cloth! The kids reallllly love painting and Finn definitely takes a “all hands on deck” approach.
These 2 are paints are fun to make. The jelly bean one is taste safe, so it makes a great choice for littles who like to stick everything in their mouths. It’s also pretty neat for older kids, due to the fact that process to make it is pretty cool!
The shaving cream one is pretty neat because you can add a lot of fun elements to it and you are supposed to use your fingers to paint it. It makes a great sensory experience for the kids, plus we turned the leftover shaving cream into a sensory bin (check tomorrow’s blog for that activity!).
Shaving Cream Paint
Steps:
Jelly Bean Paint
Steps:
This painting craft starts with a fun candy science experiment. This experiment is super simple and relies purely on observation skills. The boys already had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen after we did our skittles candy rainbow a couple weeks ago.
Experiment Steps:
Once your experiment is over use the colored water that you saved to make fun taste-safe paint!
Paint & Brush Steps:
Did you try one of our crafts? Tell us below!
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