Ham- supporting our homeschool since 1995

I love being a homeschool mom ! I love being present for each new discovery my son makes, seeing firsthand how he overcomes challenges, and helping him to ponder through those things that trip him up. One other untold joy is being able to re-learn and learn things along side of him. It seems that many of us take for granted  so many things we were taught as part of our own education, but when you are a homeschooler, often you have to not only refresh your own mind about various things, but process them on a new level so that you can present them to your child in a way that your child not only understands, but actually cares about. Thus, you can often be found reading about the Battle of Hastings at 1 am and determining if you have enough apples, oranges and toilet paper to recreate the Bayoux  Tapestry in the living room next week because little BamBam absorbs a thing best by acting it out. People, other than homeschoolers, will consider this odd behavior. You consider it simply a part of your job description, and it is cool.

Till you remember you have to make dinner ( or breakfast, lunch, so on)

Planning becomes important, but the best laid plans get.....ignored some days for different reasons. Lessons go over so well your children do not want to stop, lessons do not go over so well and you try to salvage the day and find a better way to inform ,on the fly, the lesson inspires a wonderful discussion and together you wander down a dozen related rabbit trails, a deer or some other creature appears on your lawn and you break into an unplanned biology lesson,  the washer breaks, the toilet overflows, a neighbor or family member needs help and your well planned day goes not so according to plan. Suddenly it is dinner time and you have hungry people and the roast you planned on somehow never made it out of the freezer to defrost. You could do fast food, but you could also keep on hand the items for some tasty dish that can be prepared in a flash and make you look like supermom. This is one of those

 Amatriciana

1 lb spaghetti, cooked
5-6, 1/4 slices leftover ham, julienned
1 large red onion,chopped
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved (  can sub with canned diced tomatoes)
red pepper flakes to taste
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
Salt for seasoning to taste


Place half a cup of extra virgin olive oil to a sauté pan and add red onion slices and add to the frying pan.
Cook for a minute and add cherry tomatoes and red pepper.Cover and cook 5 minutes, or till tomatoes begin to break down. Add the ham and cook for 2 minutes. Taste and adjust the  seasonings. Remove from heat, toss in pasta and serve.

Curriculum is easy to come by. Managing the rest of life while schooling can be a real challenge. Few homeschoolers stop homeschooling for the lack of a geography curriculum, but many do because of Mt Washmore and the lack of a fridge that operates on Divine Intervention ( if I stare into ir for long enough, it will know what we could eat for dinner and toss it out at me) . Having a good collection of pantry /freezer stable, fast -fast recipes on hand  can be the most important thing for being able to homeschool all the way through high school and stay a happy family.