Recipes – Page 3 – Wineberry Woods

10Jul 2024 by catbird 2 Comments

Summer Sun Cookies

If you have read any of my recipes before than you may have picked up that I love to use natural ingredients to add color to my baking and the proliferation of freeze dried fruit powders available on the internet has only fueled my obsession. I used to buy freeze dried fruit and grind it in a spice grinder, but now you can find nearly anything already neatly ground up into powder and ready to use. It is a bit more expensive to buy a bunch of fruit powders, especially if you don't plan to use them for multiple recipes, so as always, if that isn't your thing, then by all means just use food coloring and get a very similar result. That said, the mango and goji powders in…

10Jul 2024 by catbird 1 Comment

Sunny Orange Mint Popsicles

Recipes, Summer, Summer Solstice

It's not really summer without a good popsicle! I recently have come to realize that orange and mint together are delicious and refreshing, maybe everyone else knew this already, but I was surprised! I think in head I was tripped up by toothpaste and orange juice, but that isn't at all what fresh mint tastes like in orange juice. It just adds another herby layer and makes them taste extra cool and refreshing. They also make for a super quick and easy popsicle without any added sugar which is my favorite kind. The clementine suns are completely optional, I shaped them into little suns and froze them in the popsicle, but they were only sort of visible and I'm not sure I'd bother next time. They did look adorable held…

10Jul 2024 by catbird 1 Comment

Magical Summer Solstice Rituals & Traditions

Craft Project, Folklore, Recipes, Summer, Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year. It’s the day that the earth is tilted the closest to the sun and consequently has more hours of sunlight and less hours of dark then any other day of the year. The sun is at its highest point in the sky on the Summer Solstice and shadows are the shortest they will be all year. The word solstice comes from the Latin, sol means sun and stitium means still. The sun on the Solstices seems to pause, leading our ancestors to surmise that it was standing still for a time. Humans have observed the Summer Solstice since the Stone Age. Stonehenge was built at least in part to track the Solstices. On the Summer Solstice the rising sun is framed…

24May 2024 by catbird No Comments

“The Accidental Apprentice”

Craft Project, Folklore, Foraging, Free Printable, Learning, Middle Grade Book Buds, Recipes, STEAM

I began Picture Book Buds with the intention of exclusively featuring picture books. But then I read The Accidental Apprentice (Wilderlore Series). I was so inspired that I knew I needed to start doing middle grade book buds! I have been reading a ton of middle grade books lately, but would love to hear your suggestions for more book buds! Middle grade books are substantially longer, so I have broken the middle grade book buds into a lesson (called lore in honor of Wilderlore here), a craft or two, and a snack. All are driven by the themes and ideas in the respective book. These could be the jumping off point for a more in depth academic book study, or just a fun project to further immerse yourself in the worlds…

16May 2024 by catbird No Comments

“Mother Holle”

Craft Project, Folklore, Learning, Midwinter, Picture Book Buds, Recipes, Winter

Picture Book Buds are a fun and easy way to incorporate literacy into nature study. Read a book (you can even read it outside!) and then enjoy the related activity and snack suggestions! Mother Holle Written by: The Grimm Brothers & Illustrated by: John Stewig Mother Holle is a classic Grimm’s fairytale in which a mistreated step sister falls down a magical well to a fairy realm where she is rewarded for being kind to Mother Holle with gold. (There is of course also a “bad” sister who does everything wrong and is punished in proper Grimm fashion.) The moral of the story is that “industrious children are rewarded and lazy children are punished” although I like to view it in a more modern sense- that kindness is rewarded. Mother Holle…

21Mar 2024 by catbird 2 Comments

“Thunder Cake”

Craft Project, Learning, Nature Art, Nature Journaling, Picture Book Buds, Play, Recipes, STEAM

Picture Book Buds are a fun and easy way to incorporate literacy into nature study. Read a book (you can even read it outside!) and then enjoy the related activity and snack suggestions! Thunder Cake Written & Illustrated by: Patricia Polacco This is a beautiful book about a young child and her grandma baking a cake during a thunderstorm to distract her from being scared. So many kids can relate to this feeling and you can take it further and learn about storms. I like to think that learnig about the science of storms makes them less scary and it has definitely helped my kids. Also cake. "It's Raining" by Gail Gibbons is a great nonfiction starting point. And "Mushroom Rain" written by by Laura K. Zimmermann and illustrated by Jamie Green…

21Mar 2024 by catbird No Comments

“Fungi Grow”

Autumn, Craft Project, Hike Ideas, Learning, Picture Book Hikes, Play, Recipes, STEAM

Picture Book Hikes are a fun and easy way to bring learning outside. Read a book (you can even read it outside!) and then enjoy the related hike, activity and snack suggestions! Fungi Grow Written by: Maria Gianferrari & Illustrated by: Diana Sudyka Maria Gianferrari is one of my favorite nonfiction authors and Diana Sudyka is one of my favorite illustrators so I I had high hopes for this book. It didn't disappoint-- it has simple kind friendly explanations of how mushrooms and mycelium grow and live. It is of course a perfect excuse to take a mushroom hike! I usually think of this as a fall activity because so many edible mushrooms fruit in late summer/ early fall, but there are mushrooms fruiting nearly year round. I love crafting and cooking…

18Mar 2024 by catbird No Comments

Spring Equinox Tea Party

Play, Recipes, Spring, Spring Equinox

Spring always feels like a tea party time of year to me. I'm not sure why, I guess maybe it's a delicate sort of season? I always seem to find myself throwing a tea party this time of year, regardless. (You can find a flower watching tea party in my Spring Equinox book.) It's also one of the best times to eat outside, it's just starting to get warm and sunny afternoons feel like a celebration already. What is interesting to me about this time of year is that none of the typical "spring" foods we associate with this time are actually ripe yet, at least not where I live. The asparagus have not poked up yet, no strawberries, and rhubarb is just starting to unfurl. So how do we…

09Mar 2024 by catbird No Comments

“When the World is Dreaming”

Craft Project, Free Printable, Learning, Picture Book Buds, Recipes

I love picture books. Like crazy, unofficial librarian in my own mind, love picture books. You may have noticed I often recommend books to go with various projects and recipes, I have a whole section devoted to books I love by topic, and include extensive reading lists in all of my books. I also love writing lessons and curriculum and am constantly have discussions with other authors about how I'd love to write a lesson for their book. So I decided to stop talking about it and start doing it! Introducing Picture Book Buds, where I will share some of my favorite picture books and pair them with a craft or lesson and an easy snack. (Check out Picture Book Hikes too which was a an offshoot of Picture Books…

25Jan 2024 by catbird 2 Comments

Snow Cream

Full Moon, Play, Recipes, Snow Moon, Winter

I didn’t realize until adulthood that snow cream is a peculiarity of the Mid-Atlantic states-- we aren’t quite in sugar on snow territory-- but we still get a fair amount of snow. The recipe is a loose guideline at best-- get some snow, add something creamy and sweet to it and eat it quickly before it melts. When I was a kid it was always chocolate syrup, as an adult I like the creaminess of the condensed milk and vanilla. I almost never make this quantity, instead we fill individual bowls up with snow and add the condensed milk to taste with extremely imprecise measurements. However if you want to use up a whole can of condensed milk, this is how you do it. Ingredients: 8 ish cups of clean…

Category: Recipes