Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Be Intentional about Eating (and Serving) Fruits and Vegetables

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While we’re in the middle of talking about Simple Steps Toward Healthy Eating, I just want to offer a little bit of encouragement and motivation once again in the area of eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. I think this is one of the most well known and understood aspects of healthy eating and still one of the most difficult for many people.

If only corn chips or french fries counted as a serving of vegetables. I’m not saying, “don’t ever eat corn chips or french fries”. I’m just saying they don’t offer much in the way of vitamins and other nutrients our bodies need.

We really need a lot of fruits and vegetables. I know this. You know this. (Right? You know this?)

I’ve talked about this here quite a bit, and I tend to bring it up during the times I feel like I myself am in a fruit and veggie rut. Writing this is my little way of kicking myself in the pants (which takes an incredible amount of talent; please feel free to picture me attempting this). I’m also hoping to kick you in the pants (which of course is easier, but not nearly as nice, so please be aware that I am only using that term figuratively, and also you don’t have to worry because I’m not very strong and don’t kick very hard).

All kicking aside, we all need to veggie up. Yes? Do you agree?

farmers_market

So how do we do this? How do we make fruits and vegetables more of a priority? How do we ensure that we are eating enough and feeding our family enough fruits and vegetables?

I’ve thought long and hard and come up with a detailed checklist for us to live by as we focus on eating more fruits and veggies. Are you ready?

  1. Buy fruits and vegetables.
  2. Eat them.
  3. Repeat.

Did you catch all of that? Go back and re-read the list as many times as you need to. Take your time. Let it all soak in.

I think that list sums it up quite well. If we don’t actually purchase fruits and vegetables, they are very hard to eat. Ever noticed that? But don’t just buy them and think they look pretty in your fridge or freezer. You’re going to need to actually eat them if you want them to benefit you the way that they should.

And don’t just serve them to your kids. You need to eat them too. Eating them in front of your kids is highly recommended. Saying lots of things like, “mmm this tastes really good” while you eat them in front of your kids is also a very good idea.

If you don’t really like many fruits or vegetables I’m going to go out on a little limb here and kindly and gently say, “Get over it and eat them anyway”. You’ve got to eat fruits and veggies whether you like them or not. Start with the ones you do like, then keep trying and adding new ones to your diet. I’ve learned to like all kinds of new foods as I’ve gotten older and as I’ve actually given good foods a fair chance. Sure, maybe I like chocolate better than artichokes. I can have chocolate too…I just need to focus on the veggies. I think not eating vegetables because we “don’t like them” is kind of silly, because we are grown-ups, are we not? I’d say “don’t get me started” but I guess I already got myself started. See what happens when I start trying to kick myself in the pants?

Here’s an older post I wrote, the first in the Simple Steps Toward Healthy Eating series I’ve been writing, encouraging you to eat more fruits and veggies. You’ll find several ideas to encourage you to eat more of these colorful foods, so I very much encourage you to go read that post. I also want to remind you that eating fruits and vegetables does not have to be expensive and is very worth the money.

Now, let’s chat together and motivate each other to eat lots and lots of fruits and vegetables.

My favorites are broccoli, green beans, fresh spinach and other leafy greens, carrots, frozen peas, asparagus, tomatoes, apples, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, grapes, cantaloupe and probably some others I’m forgetting at the moment.

What are your favorites? Do you ever find yourself in a veggie rut? What will help you out of that rut? 

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Make Water Kefir (with a giveaway!)

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Water Kefir is something I’ve been wanting to make for a couple of years now, I just needed to get a little more comfortable with “culturing” first. I feel like I’ve about mastered buttermilk, yogurt and milk kefir now…so I decided to try my hand at water kefir.

Here’s why I’ve been excited to try Water Kefir:

  • It’s super good for your digestion.
  • You can make different flavors and varieties.
  • It can take the place of soda (pop) as a healthy alternative!

Yeah, that’s probably the real reason I wanted to try Water Kefir. I gave up all forms of soda six years ago and I would love to drink something fizzy like this that’s GOOD for me. I’ve also been excited to make this as a fun and healthy drink for my family.

I received water kefir grains from Cultures for Health a couple of weeks ago and got started on the process. It’s not one bit difficult to make water kefir, you just have to baby your kefir grains for a little while until you get used to the process. I’m brand new at this, so I’m still getting used to it!

Here are my re-hydrated kefir grains all ready to go!

This is my experiment with making “grape soda”. It’s so-so. I’ve gotta keep playing and improving!
Mine’s not as bubbly as I would like it to be yet. But I’ll get there, because I’m all about the fizz. :)

I’ll try to keep you posted on how my Water Kefir experimenting goes. In the meantime, would you like to win some Water Kefir Grains so you can play along with me? Cultures for Health, my go-to source for all of my buttermilk, kefir, sour cream and yogurt cultures, is offering to give away a Water Kefir Starter Kit to one reader here.


To enter this giveaway, you must follow this link to Cultures for Health!

We’ll draw a random winner on Monday, May 23.

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Our Favorite Books This Year (and what we’re reading this summer)

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I say this every year, so I just wouldn’t dream of let you down by failing to repeat myself. I must say it again:  This has been my favorite year of home schooling so far! (Just pretend you’ve never heard me say that before.)  Either the books keep getting better or I keep forgetting how good the other books were or I just like one-upping myself. Either way, our family had a great year of reading and learning.

If you’re new here, you may want to go back and read my Homeschool Hubbub posts to learn more about how school happens (or tries to happen) at our house, and to learn about our curriculum of choice.

I want to share with you my favorite pile of books for this year so that if you haven’t read them yet, you can look them up, and if you have read them already you can say, “I KNOW, that IS an awesome book! I’m not posting all the books we read, and that doesn’t mean I didn’t like all of them, these were just my very favorites. Here they are in no particular order (because by the end of our school year, our book shelf is not at all organized!):

The Great Turkey Walk, by Kathleen Karr

We read this book as a family and got a big kick out of this adventure. I love books that crack you up and make you think all at the same time.

 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor

We also read this book as a family. Our kids were able to understand better the turmoil in the U.S. that was still going on years after the Civil War. Fantastic book.

 

The Journeyman, by Elizabeth Yates

 

Elizabeth Yates is an awesome writer, helping the reader fit right into the shoes of the main character all while teaching important facts of history. I never knew what a journeyman was before this. We learned about that and so much more.

Mountain Born, by Elizabeth  Yates

Another great one by Elizabeth Yates! This book was absolutely precious. Our boys could completely relate to the main character in this book, as the story was told through his point of view. This was one of those that I choked up at several times while reading it out loud. My boys love it when I do that {cough}.

Helen Keller, by Margaret Davidson

Justus and Elias declared this to be one of their favorite readers this year. They found it so interesting they could barely put it down. That rarely happens for my boys. (It’s usually pretty easy for them to put a book down and start kicking a ball instead.)  I love the understanding they gained and the inspiration they felt by reading Helen Keller’s story.

Indian Captive, by Lois Lenski

Wow, this book still haunts me and I can’t imagine that this “happened in real life”. And yet, what a story of love and courage. You’ve gotta read it. (Our eighth grader read this on his own – I read it too. I wouldn’t recommend it for younger grades. There’s a lot to chew on in this book.)

 

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse

This was another book our eighth grader read this year. I believe he read it in two days…I read it in one. It is incredibly written and heart jolting. And obviously, hard to put down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of US, by Joy Hakim

Asa (8th grade) and I read through this series during the year as a part of his history program. I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll say it again:  Never did I know that studying history could be so intriguing. Joy Hakim is a fantastic writer. These books were so simple to understand and taught us so much. I recommend this series as a great set of books to have on your shelves to read and re-read through the years.

 

Books we’ll be reading this summer (this of course is not an exhaustive list, just some I’d really like to read through with the kids):

  • Tell Me the Secrets, Treasures for Eternity, by Max Lucado and Ron DiCianni
  • Missionary Books by Dave and Neta Jackson (someone gave us a nice set of these and I can’t wait to read through them with the boys!)
  • The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (again, someone gave us several of these books, which are historical fiction and perfect for my boys’ interests)
  • By the Great Horn Spoon, by Sid Fleischman

What have been some of your favorite books you’ve read during the past few months? Are you reading anything exciting this summer that I should add to my list?! :)

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The Story of My Mom’s Salsa (and Why I Can’t Share My Salsa Recipe)

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salsa_1

I’ve been promising for months to share my mom’s salsa story. Not her recipe…but her story. I can’t share her recipe. But the story is kind of a nice one. :)

My mom began making salsa when I was a little girl, tweaking and playing with ingredients from her garden until she figured out a recipe that was just right. We all loved it. Neighbors loved it. Family members loved it. Friends loved it. There was nothing incredibly fancy about Mom’s salsa. It was slightly sweet. Slightly spicy. Just right.

When my brother and I were in college, she would send her home-canned salsa to the dorm with us. It became a hit with our college friends and it wouldn’t last long. :)  I’m not sure when Mom’s salsa really began to become a “big thing” locally, but I believe it was around the time I was graduating from college and getting married.

People all over the town where she and my dad lived were requesting that she make them some of her salsa. She began receiving orders. A downtown shop began to request her salsa so that they could sell it to their customers. After a while, she was making so many jars of salsa, she could barely keep up. She knew with the volume of salsa she was making, she needed a licensed kitchen to work in. She was swimming in salsa. :)

Around that time, my uncle and aunt in Chicago who had “connections” set up a meeting with a company who could make and market my mom’s salsa for her. Mom and Dad flew to Chicago, toured the commercial kitchen, made necessary negotiations, signed a bunch of papers…and my mom’s salsa officially became  BJ’s Salsa:

(My mom’s name was Bettye Jo…her family and some friends often called her BJ.)

Now my mom didn’t have to break her neck to keep up with the salsa demand! It was being made and shipped out to stores and marketed by others. My mom was so pleased with this success, and well she should be. She’d worked hard for this!

My mom was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrigs Disease) in the fall of 2002. Salsa sales had begun to slow by then anyway, and all of us were so focused on Mom and her health and keeping her comfortable, salsa was really the last thing on our minds.

After she went to be with Jesus in July of 2004, our family was so thankful to have a few jars of her salsa left. We cherished and hoarded them. We were out of sorts and grieving. We weren’t thinking very logically (or at least I wasn’t), which is why it took over a year for us to talk about or realize that it may still be possible for her salsa to be made and sent to us.

Dad checked into it and sure enough. We could get ourselves some BJ’s Salsa.

We still cherish each jar of my mom’s salsa. But we don’t have to hoard it anymore. And every time I open a new jar, I feel like I’m opening something made by my mom. There is a simple statement on each jar:

“Developed in the kitchen of Bettye Jo Hamm”

It helps me not miss her quite so much. Or maybe it makes me miss her even more.

I use her recipe now (which must be kept a secret) to make salsa with ingredients from my own garden. It’s not quite as good as “Grammy’s salsa” was, but we like it okay. ;)

salsa_2

Now, anytime I talk about using salsa in a recipe, you know that I’m not just using any ol’ salsa. I’m opening a treasure each time I open a jar of salsa. One that came right out of “Bettye Jo’s kitchen”.

{Edited to note:  BJ’s Salsa isn’t sold in any stores right now (except for one small shop in my hometown). Thanks for inquiring about it. Maybe we should look into putting it in stores again? Hmm…}

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Gratituesday: My Computer is ALIVE!

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Last week I whined to you that my computer seemed to be on the brink of death. This is quite a big deal for our household as we rely on our computer for many, many things, most importantly the work we do on this website.

Our computer is just over a year old, which should mean that having our computer up and die isn’t something we should have to fear. Yet, for the past couple of months we’ve been experiencing some crazy symptoms and scares. We’ve had it looked at, cleaned up and looked at again.

The guy working on it said he’d never seen anything like it – not a comforting statement from someone who’s been working on computers for many years. To say that I was under a bit of stress last week is quite an understatement. Looking back, I should have handled this better, knowing that God always works everything out. In the big scheme of things, having a dying computer, but having healthy children and a roof over our heads means that truly, all is well.

I won’t go into all of the specific stresses of the week, but let me just tell you a little bit about how God worked through this:

  1. A few weeks ago, my friend Brenda told me about Carbonite, letting me know that it was a great way to back up your computer. We decided to go for it.
  2. On Tuesday, Carbonite completed its back-up of our entire computer, including eBooks I have in the works plus hundreds of pictures we’ve taken.
  3. The VERY next day, the computer refused to boot up. Yeah, the very next day.
  4. After trying many other things, our computer-expert friend had to basically restore our computer to its original self, meaning that everything we had on it was wiped out and our computer came back to us like a brand new computer.

This means two things:

  1. We truly have a wonderfully working, like new computer again. It’s working fantastically.
  2. If we hadn’t just backed up all of our files, we would have lost everything stored on our computer.

I am so thankful that God prompted us to get everything backed up. Carbonite has already restored all of our files back to our computer. Wow.

I am so thankful that our computer is now working wonderfully again. And I am so thankful for friends who helped us out during that time, either by helping fix the computer, offering to help fix the computer or letting us borrow their laptops so we could at least do bare minimum work on the website while we waited to get our computer back. We have such great and helpful friends.

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,
please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

 

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Should I Eat Organic Food? (part one)

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simplesteps

Whenever I have mentioned that our family eats mostly organic foods, many of you have asked:  Is it worth it to pay extra money for organic food? Is eating organic food really that important? Is non-organic food really so bad for you? And really…isn’t this whole “organic eating thing” just kind of trendy and gimmicky?

After much research and thought, my answers to those questions are:  Sometimes, Sometimes, Sometimes and Sort Of But Not Necessarily.

Okay, so did that clear up any confusion? Good. Now what questions would you like me to answer?

azurenov092sm

Just kidding. I’ll elaborate. I’m definitely not an organic food expert, but our family has been trying to eat a whole foods and mostly organic diet for about six years now, and I really wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t feel like it was important. We also don’t have unlimited funds in our budget, so don’t assume we eat organic, whole foods because we’re rolling in dough. (Unless you’re talking about bread dough, because then occasionally I’m rolling in it.)

The fact that eating organic food is “trendy” in some areas was big news to me. Where I live, eating organic food is not very popular and pretty much not the norm. Therefore, my very uneducated and inexperienced opinion on why many see organic eating as a trend is that not everyone who buys and eats organic food “gets it”. They might just see it as “the thing to do” and feel  like if the package says “natural” or “organic” is must be better for you.

I personally am not an advocate of eating organic, whole foods (or doing anything for that matter) simply because “everyone else is doing it”. What a silly reason for me to go out of my way to find healthy foods. I try to feed my family organic, whole foods because my extensive research tells me that this is best. For the record, there are many foods with an organic label that I do not recommend. (I’ll elaborate on that soon.)

When I mentioned in this post that I wasn’t sure I felt that eating a non-organic apple was better than eating no apples at all…I really am not convinced that it is as a general rule. Some suggested that they’d rather feed their kids a non-organic apple than a bag of chips. Well sure. But I wasn’t comparing apples to chips. I was suggesting that maybe I should skip the non-organic apple and just stick with in-season organic produce instead. I have my reasons. I’ll talk about them in the next few posts in this series.

And then there’s milk and meat and grains. Those subjects deserve to be talked about a little bit too.

Thus begins a little series inside a series. (Did this just get complicated?)  I’ve been working slowly but surely through this Simple Steps Toward Healthy Eating series, and now within that series, I’ll be writing a few posts entitled, “Should I Eat Organic Food?”

See? It’s a series inside a series. While you wait for these posts, I’d appreciate it if you go back and read some of my other series, which means that this is a series inside of a series inside of a series.

By the way, did you know that the plural form of the word series is series? I find that funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but the kind of funny that makes a person shrug and say, “Huh, how ’bout that?”.

Yeah, okay, it’s really not that funny.

Anyway, you may want to read the following series:  Feeding the Family, particularly these posts:

You should also read this series:  Our Healthy Eating Journey so that you know where I’m coming from.

Also, you need to be reminded that with all of my talk about healthy eating, sometimes our family throws out all the great organic, whole foods ideas and buys frozen pizza rolls with all the no-no ingredients in them. It’s called a compromise and I don’t freak out about it. (Nor, ultimately, do I freak out about the occasional non-organic apple, but again, I’ll get back to that within this series.)

Stay tuned for the following topics within this series of series:

  • What  does organic even mean anyway?
  • Which foods should I focus on for eating organic?
  • What if I can’t afford organic food or have any resources close by?

I’ll be posting the next post in this “organic food series” next Sunday night. Until then, I’ll leave you with this question:  Do you eat mostly organic food, some organic food, no organic food?

Also, the particular word series that I printed in green above, is it singular or plural? Yeah, see? Very tricky. And a little bit funny. But not really.

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Menu Plan for the Week

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A big pat on the back goes out to everyone who was able to participate in the Freezer Cooking Challenge last week, whether it was to get just one extra food item made, or whether you spent hours and hours getting ahead! I’m super impressed with all of you and grateful that you joined me in the effort to make healthy convenience food.

Rebecca sent me this picture and wow was I blown away by everything she got done!!

Rebecca, what time should I come over for some samples? I’ll bring my own butter.

Here is our menu plan for this week:

Sunday, May 15
Giant breakfast cookies, cantaloupe
Chicken alfredo sauce with pasta, steamed broccoli
Sourdough pita bread with tuna salad, baby carrots, apples

Monday, May 16
Simple soaked pancakes, blueberries
Corndog muffins, watermelon, carrot sticks with ranch dressing
Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas, tossed salad

Tuesday, May 17
Chocolate chocolate chip muffins, applesauce
Taco potatoes, pears
Three cheese garlic chicken pasta, tossed salad, peas

Wednesday, May 18
Fried eggs on toast, oranges
Tacos in a sleeping bag, fruit salad
Baked chicken and artichoke penne with sundried tomatoes , green beans

Thursday, May 19
Honey whole wheat bagels, apples
Cheddar ranch burgers, homemade hashbrowns, peas
Chicken veggie quesadillas, tossed salad

Friday, May 20
Homemade crunchy oat cereal, dried fruit and milk
Grilled cheese sandwiches, fruit, carrots
Popcorn chicken, homemade fries, peas

Saturday, May 21
Homemade whole wheat donuts, bananas
Leftovers
Brats, creamy cole slaw, fruit salad

And with that, we’re off to more soccer games. What’s on your menu this week?

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Why You Want Homemade Ice Cream

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Like I really need to give you a reason to want homemade ice cream? Especially the really creamy kind. The really creamy kind with homemade hot fudge sauce on it. (Now I’m just being cruel, aren’t I?)

I just wanted to remind you about the Ice Cream Experiment that I conducted about a year ago, in case you’re new here or in case you’ve forgotten.

To be inspired to make Homemade Ice Cream or to at least be encouraged to buy a more “real ingredient” variety of ice cream at the store, check out the following posts:

Here’s a little hint about why you want Homemade Ice Cream :

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This was Ice Cream Brand One after sitting for eight days on my countertop.
Mmmmm, ice cream that doesn’t melt. Tasty.

Let’s all give three cheers for real, whole food, shall we?

Now that I’ve shared all that, I have to tell you that I’m sitting here shivering while I write about ice cream. Where we live, we keep shifting from ice cream weather to hot cocoa weather. Some days I’m so confused I make hot cocoa to go with our ice cream .

Not really. But I am confused about what season it is here in Nebraska.

Do share…where you live are you experiencing Ice Cream weather or Hot Cocoa weather?

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Unbleached Baking Cups

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Are you a “butter the muffin tins” kind of gal, or do you prefer to use baking cups when you make muffins or cupcakes?

I do a little of both, depending on the recipe. Sometimes, food likes to stick to the baking cup, wasting a lot of food and effort. So on recipes like Sloppy Cornbread Muffins, Crustless  Breakfast Quiches and Pancake Sausage Muffins, I get out the butter and go to town on my muffin tins.

But for most other muffins, Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins, Orange Muffins, Coconut Flour Muffins…I find that once cooled, they come off the muffin paper just fine. It’s SO much easier to prep and to clean up when I use muffin cups. Or maybe I’m just lazy.

chocolatechocolatechipmuffinssm

All that to say that I am running low on muffin cups. I prefer Unbleached Baking Cups because they are safer for my food and safer for the environment, but they can be pretty pricey. I hesitantly went to Amazon today to see if they’d cost me an arm and a leg this time or if they were a decent price for me to stock up.

Yipee!!! They were on sale and with subscribe and save I got them for just over $1/pack. This is an excellent deal for Unbleached Baking Cups, so I decided to share my joy with you (ah what little it takes for me to get excited).

In case you want to jump at this deal too, here are the specifics:

If You Care Unbleached Baking Cups at Amazon, $29.38/24 boxes which hold 60 muffin cups each. (If you’re a geek like me, you’ll be interested to know that this all equals $1.22/package and you get a total of 1440 muffin cups which is a lot of muffins!)

What to do with “subscribe and save”:

You’ll save an extra 15% on the cost of your item, plus receive free shipping if you select “subscribe and save”!! However, if you don’t want to be stuck with future cost and products, select delivery for every 6 months. Then, as soon as your items arrive, log into your Amazon account, click on “manage subscribe and save items”. There, you can cancel your subscription!

 

Last time I bought a case of muffin papers like this it lasted me well over a year. And we eat a lot of muffins. Apparently something like 1440 muffins over the course of a year. (That’s like an average of 120 muffins a month. What can I say? I still had my calculator out.)

Which do you prefer? Muffin cups, or lots of butter and effort? Or a little bit of both like me?

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Freezer Cooking Round-Up (with no pictures, sniff)

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Once A Month Mom
I promise I’ve been baking and cooking all week long. I promise I have some wonderful foods in my freezer all ready for healthy convenience on busy days coming up. I even took pictures to show you. But, the pictures were uploaded into my computer and my computer is acting like it’s dying and I can’t get to the pictures. (I’m on a borrowed computer right now, thanks to a great friend!)

 

My stomach hurts about the whole dying computer thing. But I’m trying to keep a good perspective on this situation. It’s just a “thing” and I can get a new “thing” if I need to. (cha-ching)  My stomach hurts. Okay…it’s okay. It’ll all be okay. Really.

 

I’ll keep giving myself this pep talk, and in the meantime I’m sure you’d like to hear about the food I made for the freezer this week. (Just picture these dishes in your head and you won’t be nearly as bored.)

 

Our family LOVED every recipe I tried from Once a Month Mom. Here’s what I made:

 

  • Baked Chicken and Artichoke Penne with Sundried Tomatoes – I doubled this dish, we ate one and I froze one. Not that I was trying to deceive my kids, but I figured if I told them there were artichokes on their plates, they wouldn’t eat it. Instead, I threw the artichokes in my food processor to grind up and they never knew they were in this dish. They scarfed up their servings and had seconds and thirds. Sweet!
  • Tacos in a Sleeping Bag (using my yogurt pizza dough instead of the crescent dough called for in the recipe)  –  I haven’t let my family eat these yet even though they looked and smelled incredible. They are in the freezer and will taste incredible (and convenient) next week sometime!
  • Ham Broccoli and Cheddar Roll (again using my yogurt pizza dough)  –  I can’t say this made it into our freezer. :)  I baked this before we left for a soccer game and we came home and ate the entire roll (which I had doubled). This was SO delicious!
  • Homemade Cheesy Rice –  I’m going to be making this today – I can’t wait. I may even throw some leftover chicken in to complete the meal!
  • Strawberry Orange Smoothie –  I have made this smoothie recipe not once, not twice, but three times since Monday!! To say that this recipe was a hit is an understatement. We’ve had some shocking 100 degree days this week and this smoothie has been so refreshing!

So, did you picture all of that in your head? Was it lovely? Oh good.

What all were you able to accomplish this week to get ahead in the kitchen? Here is a review of the “rules” for our Freezer Cooking Challenge:

  1. Pick a recipe (or more) from Once a Month Mom or from here at Heavenly Homemakers.
  2. Find some time this week to make the recipe(s) for your freezer.
  3. Blog about your cooking experience, if you have a blog, so that you can come link up with us here on Friday when we’ll all report back to share how our freezer cooking went. If you don’t have a blog, you’ll be given the opportunity to share about your freezer cooking in the comments section of our round up post, so please join the fun whether you have a blog or not!
  4. Each person who links up or leaves a comment on the Friday Freezer Cooking Round Up post will be eligible to win a free recipe ebook of choice ($7.95 or less) from the Heavenly Homemakers Shop.
  5. The more recipes you make and share with us, the more chances you have to win! (But don’t over-do…we would like to keep this fun. Please, we don’t want any reports that women across the world fainted from Freezer Cooking Exhaustion.)

Share what you accomplished! Any link or comment (that follows the rules above) will be included in a drawing for a free recipe ebook in the Heavenly Homemakers Shop. I’ll draw a winner Monday, May 16! Can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to this week!

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