If you figure it out, let me know. We have a slow-feeding bowl that requires her to actually fish the pieces out individually, but that didn't help. I'd like to try this hunting method https://docandphoebe.com/ but know that it would work once and then all the little mice-shaped holders would be stuck under large furniture. I also know that it would happen every. single. day.

Yep. Usually we ate at school, but for special things like field trips when we had to bring a bag lunch, my mom would buy ham and cheese loaf for my sandwiches as a big treat.

If I leave the tea out overnight instead of putting it in the fridge (after removing the tea bags), it gets a weird taste to it which I think of as old or sort of fermented, even without sugar. Likewise sometimes I'll get tea out somewhere and it tastes what I describe as stewed or almost burnt. I've made sun tea, but that stays out longer without getting the off flavors because it's not a high heat.

Southerners, when you are making ice tea do you steep it (pour boiling water over the tea bags and let it sit) or boil it (boil the tea bags along with the water? There's a discussion on the hotdish thread about whether this may be regional within the South, so if you're willing, include your area. I'm from NC and I've always steeped, as did my mother (also from NC).

This was a standard for a lady at our church covered dish suppers when I was growing up, but she also added a can of sliced mushrooms. I need to make some, but will saute fresh mushrooms instead of the canned. If I'm making a chicken casserole, I usually use diced cooked chicken. A popular one here is a variation on poppyseed chicken casserole. I usually add diced cooked vegetables (broccoli or frozen peas work well) and sometimes cooked rotini in order to stretch it out for a potluck and make it more of a one pan meal, and I'll leave off the buttered crumbled ritz crackers in favor of just sprinkling the top with poppyseeds by themselves. My husband makes the traditional green bean casserole every year for his office Thanksgiving potluck and the dish is always emptied. A casserole is often a catch-all for whatever we have rather to hand than a specific recipe here. Usually a combo of meat (if not doing a vegetarian version), vegetables, cheese in some form (shredded or cream cheese), often cream of ___ soup, and seasonings, sometimes a cooked starch (though I'm trying to cut back on those). Mexican-inspired: diced cooked meat (usually chicken or turkey), cooked beans, corn, spinach, diced green chiles, cream cheese, cumin, garlic, enchilada sauce, topped with a layer of shredded cheese. I used to make this as an enchilada-type casserole, but we've been cutting back on starches, so I went from rolling the mixture into individual flour tortillas and pouring the sauce over it, to putting down a little sauce, laying out two tortillas in the bottom, adding the filling, topping with two more tortillas, then sauce and cheese, to leaving out the tortillas altogether. Thanksgiving-inspired: diced cooked turkey, cream of chicken or mushroom soup, peas or spinach or broccoli, maybe some sour cream, topped with prepared stuffing mix. Broccoli-rice casserole: cooked broccoli, cooked rice, cream of mushroom soup, maybe some sour cream, topped with shredded cheese. This is also good with cooked chicken or turkey added.

To defend Alton, it's 4-5 minutes, not 45. ;)

OK, I have never ever boiled my tea! :eek: To make sweet tea, I put the pan of water on the stove, bring it to a boil, take it off the heat, add the tea bags (I tend to use about 2 bags per pitcher), steep the required amount of time (depends on how strong you like it---I do about 4-5 minutes), remove the tea bags, add sugar to taste while the tea is still hot (crucial if you want the sugar to dissolve), the pour in the pitchers, add more water to fill up, and put in the fridge. The one key thing is to never try to add sugar to cold tea--it just doesn't work and sits in a sad white gloopy mess in the bottom of the glass. When I was making sweet tea, I'd use about a third to a half a cup of sugar per half-gallon pitcher. Not all Southerners require their tea to be thick enough for a spoon to stand up in it or sweet enough to make your back teeth ache. :lol: In case it hasn't been mentioned, in a restaurant in the South you order tea or unsweet tea or hot tea, and you usually have to ask for lemon specifically, if you want it. Sweet iced is the default. For fast food restaurants, I tend to find reasonable ice tea at McDonalds, Bojangles, and Sonic. Other places it does rather taste like it's been boiled, and heaven forbid it be the kind that comes out of a fountain. I switched to unsweetened tea years ago, but it either has to be herbal or have lemon added. I use the same process, and will add lemon to my individual glass rather than the pitcher, since my husband will sometimes get a wild hare and want some, but doesn't care for lemon as much as I do. The lemon somehow cuts the tannic taste and makes it taste sweeter to me. Canned tea is something entirely alien and different. I can't drink it at all. Powdered instant tea is also an entirely different beverage. Arnold Palmer is half tea/half lemonade, and if you want the tea half to be unsweetened you'lll need to specify that. I've done it but not ordered it by that name, just asked for half tea/half lemonade. I don't know that that terminology is hugely well known.

Yep, we went through a gallon of sweet tea a day as well in a family of four. I'm not sure it was quite that sweet, but honestly can't remember. We referred to any kind of soft drink as either a coke or a drink. We would also ask if someone wanted a drink, then said we had water, tea, kool-aid, etc. I remember being rather confused when I realized that when people on tv asked someone if they wanted a drink they meant alcohol. So coke could be Coke, Pepsi, Diet Rite, Tab, Sprite, Sundrop, Fanta, Dr. Pepper, etc, including a suicide (a mix of all the drinks in the fountain) or a witchdoctor (a suicide with the addition of a couple of dill pickle chips). As for other things that have been mentioned, it's duck, duck, goose here based on my daughter's experience, but I honestly don't remember playing this as a kid in the 60s/70s. We tended more to red rover or red light/green light. Casserole toppings can be crushed potato chips, saltines, ritz crackers, chow mein noodles, tortilla chips, panko, bread crumbs, stuffing mix, pretty much anything though I rarely top them with anything other than poppy seeds or parmesan cheese now. I've had hashbrown casserole where the hashbrowns are mixed in, but not any casseroles topped with tater tots. It actually took me years to get my husband to eat casseroles since he grew up with his grandmother making Pat Nixon's Tuna Surprise topped with crushed potato chips. Lasagna wasn't a casserole since as Italian food it counted as exotic when I was growing up. We had a very limited exposure to different cuisines when I was growing up in a working class family in the 60s in a small town in NC. I'm not sure there were many families in town who hadn't been there for 100+ years. :) Chinese consisted of La Choy chow mein in the can, pizza was usually Chef Boyardee mix in the box, stroganoff/goulash/chicken tetrazzini were in the "international" (ie exotic) section of the church cookbook, and we'd go to the nearest city for authentic Mexican food at Taco Bell as a treat. Heck, frozen tv dinners were exotic and exciting. ;) Although I still live very close to where I grew up, my daughter has a much different experience. She loves Thai, Mexican, Indian, Japanese, Greek, various kinds of Middle Eastern, etc and can't imagine not having them available because the area has become very much more diverse.

My husband's from a long line of Lutheran ministers, but not from MN. I haven't heard anyone in his family use the term. We did have covered dish suppers as described above here in NC, though.

Is hot dish usually a non-creamy casserole and those with cream sauce called something else, then? I had thought the two terms (hot dish and casserole) were basically describing the same thing. Here in NC, I've grown up with all kinds of casseroles, those with cream sauces and those without, for potlucks. Not sure how pasta salad fits into this?

Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady by Selina Hastings check books by Demi, Diane Stanley, Kinuko Y Craft (sometimes listed as K Y Craft), Trina Schart Hyman, Aliki, John S. Goodall, to see if any titles work There's a Magic School Bus "Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Medieval Castle" by Joanna Cole Till Year's Good End: a calendar of medieval labors by W. Nikola-Lisa The Tale of John Barleycorn or from barley to beer by Mary Azarian The Magic of Stones: the story of the arch by Alain Chess-dream in a garden by Rosemary Sutcliff (features the Isle of Lewis chess set) David Macauley has several---Castle, Cathedral, Mosque The Luttrell Village: country life in the Middle Ages by Sheila Sancha Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney Check Caldecott Award winners to see if there are good titles--it's the equivalent of Newberry Awards for illustration I also came across this thread from several years ago http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/331032-middle-ages-picture-books-and-read-alouds/

Congratulations!

She's our only, so while she has gotten all the time, energy, and attention, she's also gotten all the mistakes along the learning curve. Hopefully it will all more or less even out in the end. :)

Congratulations! My daughter's from UNCC was also small and only for freshman year.

Congratulations!

Been there as well. Now all raw meat that is thawing goes into a casserole dish before in the fridge.

I'm going to be interested to see whether her perception of the one lowest on her list changes if she gets a substantial scholarship offer. This school is the only one we haven't heard anything at all financial from, though she's in and in the honors college. Now I'm making note of all the admitted student days for one last look.

Good points. Actually, I'm not concerned about the quality of her education at any of the schools and while each has it's specific pros, I think she will find her place at any of them and be fine. I see her now taking the fullest advantage of her dual enrollment classes when others in the class don't, so I don't have any concerns that she won't take advantage of opportunities at a four-year school. The only one that I had some reservations about --socially, not academically--she actually crossed off the list after a second visit without my having to say anything. My biggest what-ifs are about cost and whether she could end up with less debt. Would a different school have offered her more, particularly one she had been interested in initially but crossed off the list? If she's not getting the larger awards we hoped for, should I have encouraged her to look at other schools that might end up being similarly costly? I'll get over it. :)

Now that acceptances are in or coming in, along with scholarships and financial aid info, anyone else also totally second-guessing how they handled the entire college application process? In reality (vs anxiety-world), I know that we have everything we possibly can to support her and put her in the best position for likely success, but there's still the niggling "but what-if"s.

Add honors college and scholarship for my daughter at UNC Charlotte.

I've had two different cats who played fetch, one now and one a couple of decades ago. The current one, now about 6 years old, loves to do so with little crumpled up paper balls. The playing with things under the door is also fairly common around here.

Congratulations! Yes, I wish I had known about this opportunity back when my daughter, also a senior, was in 7th grade. I did find out a couple of years later, but it took me until last year to convince her to enter anything.

Agreed. I submitted a detailed school profile and counselor letter with all the apps my daughter sent in. I did note in the counselor letter that this was not a recommendation, as many schools specifically said they didn't want recommendations from parents, but rather that I was writing as her counselor to give an overall picture of my daughter's educational situation. She had recommendations from her DE professors, employer, and long-time martial arts sensei (depending on how many and what type of recommendations were requested).The majority of schools she chose didn't use the Common App, so she did individual applications.

The Common App isn't the only way to apply, if one thinks it won't give a good representation of the student's education.

Congratulations!