We Are Deep In the Heart of Texas

Nomadic seasons of farming adventures with nature thrown in to include; a pinch of family, snippets of friends, counting our blessings, paying IT forward, home school, and the spicy things I decide to rant about.















Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Today's Experiment: Drying Beef

Today's main lessons were on the science of perserving food, the history surrounding preservation of food, and the social impact if there was a time of crisis say drought, famine, or war.  For our classroom experiment; we used top sirlon steak sliced milanese thin, I sliced into uniform strips, the boys made a marinade , mix meat and marinade, let mixture rest, and then put into the dehydrator.

We also covered other preservation methods like: fermination canning, freezing, dehydrating, sun drying, and vacuum sealing.  Next, we make powdered egg from already scrambled and then reverse the process.  It's really simple an easy enough for a child to do almost himself. NOTE:  MOM will scramble the eggs before hand for safety reasons.
Our almost finished product inside the Nesco.


Day 9 of our seed growth. We have progress. I am guessing cilantro but, time will tell.

Let's see today we covered: Phantom Tollbooth at story time, Addition, Averaging, Measurements, Science, History, Social Issues and had some Physical Education earlier.  All this happened within three hours of actual learning time and it was not a pressured day. Now, everyone is milling about before I take one of them with me to start making dinner for Dad.  It is such a beautiful day in our slice of heaven! 

7 comments:

sunset pines farm said...

this is too neat. Tell me in what public school classroom do kids get this to experience and participate in these kinds of activities?

Sharon said...

Hi Mal!
What fun for the boys! First the playing around with it and later enjoying it! They hardly know they are learning something valuable! (We all love homemade jerky here)
What's up for tomorrow?

John Going Gently said...

now I have not had a "mad as a box of frogs" comment from you for ages........hope youare not working too hard mz teacher!!!
xx

Texan said...

my honeyman keep saying he is going to make some jerky in the dehydrator... he loves that stuff..

John Going Gently said...

i knew you wouldnt let me down
xxxx

Judy's Corner said...

Looks like learning is FUN!

Jennifer said...

Important lessons I think! A dehydrator is something I would like to buy someday. Looks like you get a lot of use out of yours!