Trekking Along

KITCHEN ADVENTURE:  Yesterday during the kids' science class, their teacher slipped a magazine at me and asked me, "Do you think this would work?" 

The page showed what looked exactly liked chocolate chip cookie dough, but it was actually a hummus-like dip. 

"I'm trying it tomorrow," I told her. And that, we did.

The recipe called for 1.5 cups of chickpeas (we used a can of garbanzo beans, rinsed), 1/4 cup of peanut butter (we used all natural/no sugar added), 6 tablespoons of brown sugar,3 tablespoons of oats, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1/8 teaspoon of salt and 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda.

Puree all that in a food processor, fold in 1/3 cup of chocolate chips, and you've got cookie dough, er, I mean hummus dip. Or something in between. 

I tasted it first and did my best not to let the kids see my face/reaction.

I expected them to do a mild gag. Imagine my pleasant surprise when they loved it!

Here's CJ flashing a blurry thumbs up! Go figure.

To me, my brain was having a hard time making it taste OK. I wanted (DESPERATELY WANTED) it to be chocolate chip cookie dough, and it wasn't, LOL.

I think the fact that that the kids made it had a big part of their liking it. They had a vested interest. :)

SPRING CLEANING: There's a never-ending campaign to keep the MPA campus clean. Today, we worked on some upholstery. 

As Annabelle fervently scrubbed a seat she said, "This is a great stress reliever, if you have any stress, which I don't!" 

Must be nice!

ENGAGE THE WARP DRIVES: This afternoon, we engaged our brains big time by playing Star Trek Catan. 

It had been a couple months or more since we'd played, so we kind of had to relearn it. 

Once we got going, it was the usual fun and bickering. ;)  

When we quit (after about 1.25 hours), CJ and I were tied for the lead, with 4 points apiece (10 were required to win, per regulations). 

BOOKED: We recently returned a stack of books to the library. Titles included "The Giant Book of Questions and Answers," a multi-hundred-paged tome chock full o' facts.

We also returned "Golem," a retelling of a Jewish folktale, by David Wisniewski, and "The Higher Power of Lucky," a novel that won a 2007 Newberry Medal. 

We also returned "Can You Survive Antarctica?" an "interactive survival adventure." CJ chose to Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, in part at my urging, as I reminded him or his heritage on my paternal side of the family. 

Perhaps it was a bad choice. He reported his crew left him in a remote area and he froze to death. Oh well, better luck next time!

Clearly, the book CJ was reading was fictionalized, as in real life, Amundsen successfully led the first expedition to the South Pole. He and four others arrived at the pole on 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition. While Amundsen and his team were successful, Scott and four of his crew died on their return journey.