Learning a Chocolate Fact

We're dunking pretzels in chocolate as a Valentine's Day treat for his other youth group leaders {my husband and I are two, but there are four more}, when I declare the white chocolate was much harder to use than this milk chocolate.

"That's because it's made from cocoa butter and no cocoa liquor," he comments in a matter-of-a-fact, off-hand kind of way.

What? Did I teach him that? If I did surely I don't remember that. I think I hope I'd have remembered that.

"Where did you hear that?" I question.

"From my God's World News. Here, I'll get you the article." He leaves and returns with the February issue of Top Story.

Sure enough, there it is. A whole article on chocolate lies open.

Later, as I flip through the magazine, I think to myself, I really ought to read this more. After all, each of my children finds their own magazine interesting. What's this on gourmet coffee being processed by elephants? The elephant consumes the coffee, and the next day workers collect...um, maybe not...

Homemade Presents of Christmas Past

Last year, the children created multi-colored tree shaped crayons.  We simply followed instructions I found on line to melt and reshape broken crayons.  We used an old silicon tree mold we had on hand.  It was no longer good for candy, but was perfect for a crayon mold.  Making crayons was a fantastic "success guaranteed" project.  All the trees turned out well, and were a delight to give as presents.

The children also enjoyed creating yummy chocolate gifts.  They coated square pretzels with white and dark chocolate to make these delicious chocolate covered pretzels.  A bit more complex was the peppermint bark we made.  Using a snowflake shaped silicon mold, we layered white chocolate with crushed candy canes and dark chocolate.

Linked to Kids Get Crafty at Red Ted Art

Making Grape Juice

Our family orchard trip ended with five bags of apples and one of grapes.  We were delighted with our pickings and the experience. 

But, after two days of eating grapes with every meal, we were tired of them. 

Not having time or motivation to make jelly, I decided we'd just squish the remaining concord grapes and drink the juice. 

We all tried our hands at smashing the grapes, working to extract the most liquid.  Grinding and smashing continuously tired our hands.  Then when all the grapes were crushed beyond recognition, we strained them through a cheese cloth.  Excitedly, we watched the juice slowly drip through the cloth.  Pouring fresh, dark grape juice into glasses, I anticipated amazing reactions from the children. 

I was not disappointed.

When the children tried the fresh squeezed juice, they said,

"Oh, this is fabulous!" 

"Yeah, it tastes just like the juice in the fridge." 

"Exactly like it!"

Seriously?  All that work and mess, and this is the reaction...I sighed.  Alas, through this experience they have learned how to grind and strain grapes, observed the amount of liquid you could get from a bunch of grapes, and fostered a connection between harvesting and consuming food.