Crafts for a Rainy Day
By Jill Monroe

March is known for coming in like a lion. This also means very active children may also be in - looking hopefully out the window. Not to worry. There are great, rainy-day crafts for the little guys, from pre-schoolers to upper elementary students!

Rain Painting

Dry Tempera paint (Tempera paint can be obtained easily from a hobby store or teacher supply store.)
Rain
Plain paper

Rain painting is always a favorite. Sprinkle dry tempera paint on paper. Place the paper outside and let the rain drip on the paint, making all kinds of cool designs and colors. If the rain is falling too hard, use a spray bottle filled with water.


Ice Painting

Tempera paint or food coloring
Plain paper
Craft sticks
Ice cube mold

Make different colors of water by adding paint or food coloring and place in an ice-cube tray. Once frozen, place several ice cubes together in a bowl and allow to melt. Kids will enjoy watching the colors mix - fun to use with primary colors. A good discussion of secondary colors could follow.

Second option: Before the ice fully melts, add a craft stick. Once frozen, kids can paint with the ice cube on the paper.


What Is Black?

Black marker
Coffee filter
Spray bottle filled with water

Draw a thick line down the center of the coffee filter. Use the rain or spray the coffee filter with water until the color starts to run. Kids will be amazed at the colors that appear from black. Most kids don't realize black is really a combination of many different colors.


Butterfly

Coffee filter
Markers
Spray bottle filled with water
Clothes pins
Black pipe cleaner

Have kids color the coffee filter with many different designs. Use the rain or spray the coffee filter with water until the colors start to run and a new design emerges. After the filter dries, attach to a clothespin and add the black pipe cleaner to make antennae.


Rainsticks

Cardboard paper-towel rolls
Aluminum foil
Rice
Paper
Tape

Seal one end of the paper-towel roll by taping a piece of paper over it. Take several strips of aluminum foil and put inside the paper-towel roll. I use all different sizes, although several should go down the length of the tube. The important thing is that there should be enough in the tube so that the rice doesn't have a straight shot down the bottom. Add a small amount of rice. Tape the other end closed. Kids can color designs on the outside of the roll. Move from side to side, allowing the rice to touch and slide against the aluminum foil to make noise.

You can explain that rainsticks are often used in Northern Chile in ceremonies to invoke the rain spirits. They are made from dead cactus tubes by people who live in the deserts. The cactus spines are pushed into the tube. By adding tiny lava pebbles, the tube will sound like rain as the pebbles cascade down the tube.

Don't forget to add fun writing activities. Ask your children to think about the puddles: What do they see inside? What shapes do the puddles take? What would you do if you were a bird in the rain? What will you do after the rain is over? Have the kids illustrate their stories with watercolor pencils. When wet, these pencils will smear and give a watercolor effect.


Jill Monroe's second book, Share the Darkness, is out this month from Harlequin Blaze. When she's not doing rainy day crafts with the kiddos, she's writing or keeping her blog visitors entertained at http://jillmonroe.blogspot.com.
 

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Colleen's Favorite "Welcome Spring" Meal
By Colleen Gleason

Even here in Michigan, we're starting to see signs of spring. The tulips are poking up, we're getting rain instead of snow, and we've actually broken 60 degrees twice in the last week!

This means it's time to get that grill out and start thinking about light, summer meals. Not only are many of us going to be contemplating swimming-suit season (and fitting into those pesky things), but we'll also have an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables available for warm-season meals.

So here is one of my favorite, easy meals to welcome spring. It's great for a light dinner or a big lunch and is fancy enough to serve for guests or just as a treat for yourself and family.

Tuna Niçoise Salad

Ingredients:
* Fresh tuna filets (approximately 6 ounces per person)
* Italian dressing (I prefer Paul Newman's or Good Season's)
* Tiny red potatoes (about two-three per person)
* Fresh green beans (leave the little, curly tails - not the stems - on them for decoration)
* Asparagus spears
* Egg (one per person)
* Niçoise or Kalamata olives (or substitute regular black olives) - five or more per person
* Tomatoes (I prefer sweet orange ones, or tiny grape tomatoes.)
* Cucumber
* Red onion
* Fresh basil or cilantro
* Romaine lettuce
* Fresh baby spinach


Pre-Cook Prep (at least two hours prior):
Marinate the tuna filets in a plastic zip bag with plenty of dressing for one to four hours.

Blanch the green beans and asparagus in boiling water for approximately sixty seconds (you want them to be barely cooked, still crisp and bright green).

Boil the red potatoes and eggs. Chill beans, asparagus, potatoes, and eggs. (Or use leftover vegetables that have already been cooked or leftover ingredients from potato salad.)

Preparation:
Fire up that grill!

When it's hot enough, sear the tuna filets on the hottest area for about thirty seconds, then flip them to the other side. After both sides have seared, you can move the filets to a cooler area and let them cook to your preference.

Tuna can be seared and served rare or cooked to any specification, just as with red meat. Try not to overcook the fish though, or it will be dry like the tuna you get in a can. A general rule of thumb is no more than ten minutes per inch of thickness of the fish; for tuna, I usually cook it about five minutes per inch of thickness. Check the inside, and leave it a little pink for the best combination of flavor and moistness.

While the tuna is cooking, assemble the salad.

I use large, shallow pasta bowls for this kind of salad, one for each person. The presentation is part of the Niçoise experience, so have fun arranging the salad to look pretty and organized.

Fill each bowl with a combination of Romaine and spinach and chopped basil or cilantro. Slice the red potatoes very thin and arrange two or three whole, sliced potatoes in each bowl. Do the same for the boiled egg (peel it first, of course!).

Select five to six green beans and three or four asparagus spears, and arrange them on the top of the salad along with the olives, cucumber slices or chunks, tomatoes, and red onion (cut into rings or bite-size pieces).

When the tuna is finished cooking, slice it very thin and arrange it on the center of the salad.

Serve with your choice of dressing (using the same type of dressing you marinated the tuna in is usually a good choice; but of course you don't want to use the actual leftover marinade), and fancy, flat crackers.

I like a light white wine with it also; a Sauvignon Blanc or Viognier goes nicely, sitting on the back porch on a lovely spring evening....

What about dessert, you say?

Thank you for asking! With such a light dinner, a light dessert goes along well.

I like to take real whipping cream and blend it with sugar to taste with an electric mixer until it gets to be not quite as thick as yogurt. I like it thick and easily pourable, like the consistency of cream of broccoli soup.

Then I pour the sweetened whipping cream over whatever fresh berries I've been able to find at the store - strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, whatever. For a nice presentation, I use wine glasses or water goblets for this simple dessert, and I often sprinkle just a bit of nutmeg over the top of the whipping cream.

Simple and yummy.

Have another glass of wine with it, too!


Colleen Gleason loves anything cooked on the grill or smothered in sweetened whipping cream. Her first book, The Rest Falls Away, will be in stores in January, when there isn't a raspberry or grill in sight!

For metric conversions of the measurements above, consult any of the following sites:

http://southernfood.about.com/library/info/blconv.htm
http://www.thatsmyhome.com/recipes/conversion.htm 
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/conversions.htm

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