Cooking in the West

I am writing this column as a public educator who has served my community as a teacher and administrator for 44 years. I care deeply about our public schools, but I know that there are many who seek to undermine public education even further this legislative session than they did during the last few sessions. Now is the time to get ahead of a snowball headed for public education hell--the introduction of the voucher system.

In Montana, we have always had school choice-public, private, or home school. Parents who do not want their students in public school for whatever reason have the option of sending their children to private schools or home schooling them often through online courses. The last legislative session started us down a slippery slope called Open Enrollment, which is really just a backdoor approach to consolidating our small schools in Montana, which effectively wipes out the community aspect of the school as the center of our communities.

For example, here in Sweet Grass County, we have four elementary districts. However, a parent could request enrollment for their child in a district they do not reside within if they wished to do so. Most of those requests were granted by the boards of the desired district if the reasons were logical and the requests were feasible. The 2023 legislature threw a wrench into that system that had been working for decades. "Open Enrollment" was a unicorns and rainbows term for a wolf in sheep's clothing.

For a district such as Greycliff Elementary and McLeod Elementary in Sweet Grass County that have approximately 13 students from each district attending the out of district school of Big Timber Elementary, it will cost their taxpayers of each of those districts approximately $2,234.00 PER STUDENT to cover the cost of Open Enrollment. Obviously, this is not going to go over well when the tax bills come out next year, but it will be too late, because the legislature took action with complete disregard for the toll it will take on communities where the school is the community. It will eventually force consolidation of our small schools, which is exactly what it was diabolically designed to do.

"Open Enrollment" was just phase one of a more diabolical plot to hamstring public schools. It was designed to weed out the smallest schools, but on the horizon, there is another black cloud forming in Helena to wreak havoc on public education-the educational voucher.

Make no mistake, under the guise of providing families with more choices and better educational opportunities, it will cripple public education. The concept is to redirect public funds into private education, and that is absolutely not what our founding fathers intended when the public school system was created. Public schools are accountable for educational quality, but there is no oversight of non-public schools. Taxpayer money earmarked for education will be diverted to schools with no accountability, and the public schools will struggle more than they are struggling presently to provide a quality accredited education for all children.

Many states have already gone down the voucher road, and the effects have been drastic cuts to public education. Just ask anyone from Arizona whose legislature fell for the ideas of open enrollment, tax credits, educational savings accounts, and vouchers. Their public education system is in a funding crisis, and there is no evidence that those pie in the sky ideas have improved the quality of education for the students who have capitalized on a legislated scam to grab taxpayer money, which is supposed to be utilized for the common good. . . the education of every student.

Talk to your legislators. Encourage them to research the disaster that has befallen Arizona schools. We are experiencing an unprecedented teacher shortage now. It will be exacerbated when much less money is available for public schools because it has been diverted to individuals. Educate your lawmakers before they defund our schools, and we end up in the same underfunded sinking school ship as Arizona and other voucher states!

I spent last year teaching FCS, which was my minor, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I had spent the previous 25 years of my teaching experience teaching junior high English, but I jumped at a chance to teach high school culinary, and I enjoyed it very much--especially since no one got burned, seriously cut, or came down with a food-borne illness. With Halloween looming up, I would like to share some kid tested recipes this week.

Pumpkin Popcorn Balls

5 C. popped popcorn

1 C. candy corn

1 C. chopped salted peanuts

1/2 C. butter

3 C. miniature marshmallows

4 drops red food coloring

3 drops yellow food coloring

4 sticks brown or black or green licorice, cut into thirds

Pop corn and remove all unpopped kernels. Mix peanuts, popcorn, and candy corn in a large bowl and set aside. Melt butter in a saucepan, and mix in the marshmallows and food coloring. Stir to melt the marshmallows. The food coloring should turn the marshmallow a nice shade of orange, but adjust the color as needed. Pour orange marshmallow over the popcorn, nuts, and candy, and stir well. Spray a muffin tin and a spoon with cooking spray. Using the sprayed spoon, round the mixture and form rounds into muffin cups. Stick a licorice stem into the corn and mound the popcorn mixture around it. Allow them to sit about 15 minutes, and you should be able to remove them by the stem. Serve your pumpkin patch!

Witch's Brew

1 C. boiling water

3/4 C. white sugar

2 (3 oz.) packages lime-flavored gelatin mix

1 46 fluid ounce) can very cold pineapple juice

1 (2 liter) bottle ginger ale

1/2 gallon orange sherbet

3 cups orange drink such as Sunny Delight

Gummy worms

Mix boiling water, sugar, and lime-flavored gelatin together in a large bowl until sugar and gelatin are dissolved. Stir in pineapple juice. Pour pineapple juice mixture into a punch bowl. Add ginger ale, orange sherbet, orange drink, and gummy candy; stir well until blended. Serve immediately with floating worms.

Stuffed Pepper Jack-o-Lanterns

1 t. olive oil

4 large orange bell peppers

1 pound ground beef

2 t. kosher salt

1/2 t. ground black pepper

3 pinches cayenne pepper, or to taste

1 t. Worcestershire Sauce

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 C. thinly sliced green onions

2 T. salted butter, melted

2 T. ketchup

1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

1 cup cooked rice

2 C. pasta sauce

Use a small knife to cut eyes, nose, and mouth into the flattest side of each pepper, just like a jack-o'-lantern. Cut around the seedpods and remove the tops, trimming and discarding any seeds from under the stems. Trim the white membrane from the inside of each pepper and shake out any seeds. Place in a greased baking dish. Mix together ground beef, salt, pepper, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, green onions, melted butter, ketchup, Cheddar cheese, and rice in a bowl until well combined. Mix together ground beef, salt, pepper, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, green onions, melted butter, ketchup, Cheddar cheese, and rice in a bowl until well combined. Stuff mixture evenly into peppers and cover with the pepper tops. Wrap the baking dish loosely with foil and place on a sheet pan, and bake in the upper center of a 400 degree oven for 1 hour. Remove the foil and continue baking until peppers are tender and ground beef is cooked through, 10 to 15 more minutes. Place stuffed peppers on a few tablespoons of warm pasta sauce. Serve immediately with more sauce on the side.