Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Cottage Cheese

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I have declared cottage cheese to be a hero in the kitchen. Yes, cottage cheese. Why? Because there are all kinds of yummy things you can make with it to finish off a meal – or to create a meal. Surprisingly, I found it within myself to write an entire article about the wonders of cottage cheese. 

You can read all of my amazing cottage cheese insights over at Deal Moon.

So, are you a cottage cheese lover? 

By the way, at our house we sometimes call it college cheese. I don’t know why. But we crack up at ourselves every single time. Clever, aren’t we?

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How To Cook Brown Rice

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How to Cook Brown Rice

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Transitioning your family from white to brown food (rice, grain, sugar) can be a little bit difficult on the taste buds. When we’re used to the white stuff, the brown stuff may seem a little heavy at first. I know I’ve heard the opposite from some of you, but transitioning my family from white rice to brown was actually one of our easier transitions when we were on our healthy eating journey.

But first I had to learn how to cook the stuff.  Brown rice cooks a little differently than white rice. And it takes 45 minutes? Really?

One of the things I’ve learned throughout our healthy eating journey is that whole foods may take a little longer to prepare, but that doesn’t mean that they are more difficult to prepare. I just have to plan ahead just a little bit better. Yes, brown rice takes 45 minutes to cook. But do I actually have to watch the pot and babysit my rice? Absolutely not. Start the rice a cookin’, set a timer, walk away and come back 45 minutes later.

Long story short:  Cooking Brown Rice is SO Easy.

Here are the basics of Brown Rice Cooking:

  • Use exactly twice as much liquid as rice. (For instance, use 2 cups of water with 1 cup of rice.)
  • The rice will absorb all the liquid, so if you cook one cup of rice in two cups of water, once the rice is cooked, you will have two cups of cooked rice.
  • Don’t bother your rice while it’s cooking. It will get grumpy. (Actually it will get sticky, and you may get grumpy.)
  • Sea Salt is your friend. Rice is a little bland without it.
  • We LOVE our rice cooked in Chicken Broth. The broth gives the rice excellent flavor and has really helped us transition to the taste of brown rice!

Here’s how to cook brown rice:

  1. Begin by boiling your water or broth. Remember, use two cups of liquid for every one cup of rice.
  2. Once the liquid has come to a full boil, pour in the dry brown rice.
  3. Give the rice a stir. Turn down the burner to a simmering heat level.
  4. Cover the pot with a lid.
  5. Set a timer for 45 minutes.
  6. Do not stir the rice or even bother with looking at the rice until the timer goes off.
  7. Remove the rice from the heat.
  8. Salt liberally, or mix your cooked rice into your desired recipe.

I took several pictures to create a tutorial for you, but in just about every picture, the steam from the pot fogged up my camera lense. It would have been a lovely tutorial.

See? Look at the wonderful boiling broth. With steam. This was the least foggy of all the pictures.
Don’t you just feel like you learned an awful lot by looking at it?

Sorry for the lack of tutorial photos. Really though, even without pictures to look at, I do believe you can easily cook brown rice. Then use it to make Rice and Veggie Stir Fry or Spanish Rice…or even add butter and salt and eat it plain!


Does your family like brown rice? How do you like to eat your rice?

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Healthy(er) Rice Crispy Treats

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This is one of my favorite new recipes, so I chose to show you this one first in the Heavenly Homemakers Parade of Recipes and Cooking Tips!

I rarely buy cereal because it is expensive and no matter what kind you buy, it is generally not very good for you. However, occasionally I’ll buy a Mom’s Best or a Kashi variety. We all have “those mornings” when we just want to grab out a box (or two) of cereal and call it breakfast.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking around on Amazon for organic cereal choices and was excited to find Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Cereal for a very reasonable price and with ingredients I didn’t feel too bad about. I used my Swagbucks and ordered some.

Because this cereal is made with brown rice, it’s a little bit different from your “normal” Rice Krispie cereal, but since cereal is a special treat around here, we all like it just fine. Well, then…I got to thinking that it sure would be fun to make some sort of “rice crispy treat”. I miss Rice Krispie treats. They’re so easy and yummy.

While this recipe doesn’t taste entirely like a real Rice Krispie Treat, it does have the feel and crunch of one – plus they taste really, really good!! I still haven’t tried making homemade marshmallows, so I skipped that idea altogether and just used honey to sweeten and make the cereal “stick together”. All of us have declared this recipe to be quite tasty…and I, the mom, have declared it to be one of the easiest recipes ever. It takes about five minutes to throw these together!

 

 

Stay tuned to see what’s coming up next in our Parade of Healthy Recipes and Cooking Tips!!

 

Healthy(er) Rice Crispy Treats
 
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Prep time
Total time
 
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
  • ½ cup honey
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 cups Crispy Rice Cereal
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan, melt and stir the peanut butter and honey together. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Stir in Crispy Rice Cereal. Spread in a 9x9 inch pan and allow to cool.
  2. For fun, you could add 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips as you're stirring in the cereal. We LOVE these soy free mini chocolate chips from Enjoy Life!
  3. I love that this recipe is gluten free, easy, fast, healthier and crunchy! This is SUCH a simple snack to throw together. I think I'll try to make some with Sunbutter for Malachi - I don't know why it wouldn't work!

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Menu Plan for the Week

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We’re gearing up for a very exciting week around here!! Be sure to join us for the Heavenly Homemakers Parade of Recipes and Cooking Tips, beginning tonight and running through Friday. There will be so many recipes, tips and giveaways, you may not be able to keep up. What am I saying?  I may not be able to keep up! Hope you’re making plans to link up your recipes on Friday. I wanna see what good recipes you’ve got up your sleeves too!

Here’s our menu for this week:

Sunday, October 24
Oatmeal, toast
Roasted chicken, carrots, green beans
Creamy mac and cheese, peas

Monday, October 25
Applesauce bread, bananas
Sloppy Cornbread Muffins, raw veggies
Chicken tostadas with the works

Tuesday, October 26
Scrambled eggs, creamy orange cooler
Chicken and noodles, carrots
Chicken Fried Steak Strips, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas

Wednesday, October 27
Simple soaked pancakes, raspberries
Chicken Tortilla Soup, fruit salad
Taco Potatoes

Thursday, October 28
Cinnamon apple toast, milkshakes
Chicken veggie stir fry, peaches
Shepherds Pie, tossed salad

Friday, October 29
Fried eggs on toast, oranges
Meat and Cheese Burritos, applesauce
Black Bean Taco Salad, cheese toast

Saturday, October 30
Breakfast Cake
Leftovers
Cheddar Ranch Burgers, steamed broccoli

Snacks on hand this week:

As a follow up, I wanted to check in and make sure all of you received your RueLaLa $20 credit. If you signed up, your credit should appear in your account and be available for shopping within 48 hours. Mine showed up in my account within just a few hours, so I’m narrowing down my tennis shoes choices! I’m so excited to be getting a great deal on a good pair of shoes! 

See ya in a few hours when I post the first recipe in the parade!!
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For more menu planning inspiration, visit Organizing Junkie.

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Heavenly Homemakers Parade of Recipes and Cooking Tips!

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So many recipes. So little time. It’s this big problem I have right now. I have at least seven new recipes or cooking tips that I am excited to share with you…and I just don’t feel like spreading them out over the course of several weeks. 

When a girl needs to share her healthy(er) chocolate fudge frosting recipe, she should not have to hold back.  But she’s also been promising to share  how to cook brown rice and she has this really cool tip about squash and she really should stop writing in third person but now that she’s started it’s just a little bit hard to stop.

She’s – I’m done now.

So, brace yourself, arm yourself, prepare yourself. Beginning tomorrow evening and going on through Friday the 29th, I’ll begin sharing a parade of recipes and cooking tips that I hope you will find as exciting as I do. You’ll need to check back in several times a day to keep up. And while I currently have seven recipes and tips lined up to share, you just never know when something else might just join the parade. There may even be a giveaway or two.

Beyond all the recipes and cooking tips, there will be a few other non-food related posts too. Wowza. Are you up for it all?

The most fun part of the parade will be on Friday, October 29.  That’s the day YOU get to share one or more of your favorite recipes with all of us!  I’ll post a Mr. Linky with my final recipe for the week and give you a chance to link up your recipe(s) too! There is no theme or criteria about which recipe or recipes you can share with us. Just share one or some of your favorite recipes! By the end of this week, we’ll all have so many new ideas of yummy dishes and treats to make and bake…there will be Heavenly Homemakers all over the world with tomato sauce in their hair, egg dripping down their elbows and frosting stuck to their chins. Oh how I love being party to that.

Please tell all (yes – every single one) of your friends to come and join the fun and come get new recipe ideas! We’re talking kid friendly, ingredient easy, mama happy recipes that are simple, tasty, healthy and fun. It all starts Sunday night, October 24.

Should I start with a sweet, or a savory recipe?!  Oh, so many new recipes…

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Meals to Take Others and Getting It All Done – Podcast #4

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Somehow in between drywall going up and all the other living room mess, I was able to find a quiet(ish) moment to record a podcast. And somewhere in between putting up the drywall, going to work and catching a few winks, Matt was able to put it all together for you. He is SO the greatest.

Several of you have requested that I upload my podcasts to iTunes and I think it’s a great idea. Unfortunately, after spending several hours the past two weeks trying to get that all set up for you, I have hit a brick wall. It’s either really, really hard to do this, or my gifts lie more in the area of chocolate, beef and homemade vanilla. I’m having a very hard time getting it figured out and the tutorials I’ve found to help me are NOT written in my language. And so, I will be calling for back up.  My podcasts WILL be on iTunes soon, but I don’t think it will be me getting them there. Maybe there’s something simple I’m missing? We’ll get back to you on that. Thanks for your patience! In the meantime, they are currently an mp3 file and hopefully most of you are able just to click the link and it will begin to play for you right away on your computer.

I’m not sure if I ever told you this or not, but we live very close to train tracks. If you didn’t know that before, you will definitely know that after listening to podcast #4. Two trains in 17 minutes.

Also, feel free to enjoy the irony of the moment when JUST as I am saying something like “we like to do everything as a family”, the door creaks open and in comes Malachi to poke me and try to get my attention (because apparently we even like to record podcasts as a family). I TOLD the kids that when Mama is recording, the door is SHUT and we do NOT interrupt her, but it would appear that he didn’t think that statement applied to him. It has now been reinforced to him that the statement does in fact apply to him, but shucks…won’t that be cute to listen to for years to come?

Today, I will be addressing a question regarding food/meals that are easy to take to families with young children…plus I’ll tell you just how I “get it all done”. Just in case you don’t catch it in the podcast, I never get it all done. Ever. And just wait until you hear what time I’ve been getting up in the mornings lately. :)

Heavenly Homemakers Podcast Four

Links referred to in the podcast:

If I forgot any links, please let me know and I’ll add them. Be sure to leave a comment suggesting questions for a future podcast!

So, what time do YOU get up every day?

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Chicken Noodle Soup – with homemade broth and noodles!

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You know how I sometimes almost forget to put the bananas in my banana bread? It probably goes without saying, but I think I may have issues, because sometimes I almost forget the chicken in my Chicken Noodle Soup. It’s an easy mistake, I think. (nod and smile)  I am usually so excited about the rich broth and the yummy homemade noodles that adding the cooked chicken sometimes slips my mind. Either that, or the Nerf bullets whizzing by my nose while I’m cooking temporarily distract me from the task at hand. At least the soup is still good without the chicken (as opposed to bananaless banana bread).

I love making Chicken Noodle Soup no matter what, but I really love the simplicity of it when I have both Chicken Broth and Whole Wheat Homemade Noodles already made…then all I have to do is put it all together into a quick soup. 

Chicken Noodle SoupYum

8 cups Chicken Broth
1 recipe of Whole Wheat Homemade Noodles
3 carrots
Sea salt
2 cups cooked chicken (optional, apparently)

Peel and chop carrots into bites. Place broth and carrots in a large cooking pot. Bring the broth and carrots to a boil. Boil for about five minutes, then add noodles and chicken (if you remember). Salt liberally. Place a lid on the pot and turn the burner down to simmer for about 15 minutes or until your noodles have cooked up fat and tender.

Chicken Noodle Soup tastes fantastic and comforting with a hot,
fresh Whole Wheat Soft Pretzel (on a drizzly fall evening as you sit around the table with your family…)

In a pinch, I have skipped making Whole Wheat Homemade Noodles and just added about three cups of purchased whole wheat pasta to make this soup. It works great and is an awesome quick meal to throw together. (Remember to add chicken.)

You’re welcome to throw other veggies into your soup…whichever veggies your family would enjoy (or the ones you would like to forcefully insist that they eat). You’re also welcome to add herbs and spices beyond sea salt.

Do you make homemade chicken and noodles? What herbs and veggies do you use? Do you ever forget to add the chicken?

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Three Reasons I Love My Sourdough Starter

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Please welcome Katie from Kitchen Stewardship, sharing with you a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the wonderful art of sourdough! I never knew you could make so many delicous foods from sourdough! I think you’ll be as excited as I am as you read on…

“I have captured YEAST!” I cried, in the midst of my sourdough happy dance, the day I first saw bubbles in my starter. (You can picture the scene if you overlay it with Tom Hanks in Castaway screaming, “I have created FIRE!”)

I used Laura’s photo tutorial to help me get started, but I was so nervous that I would fail, I refused to even take pictures for my own blog. I had zero confidence.

Fermentation and, you know, helping bacteria to grow and proliferate, is my hardest challenge as a real foodie. Sometimes I just need to see and experience something to really ‘get it’ and wish for someone to hold my hand a little. I wish the GNOWFGLINS Sourdough eCourse would have been available last fall to encourage me and ease my fears. I might have jumped in with both feet instead of stewing about sourdough for a year before trying a starter.

Now that I have a jar of flour and water bubbling away on my counter, I’ll never go back. I love my sourdough.

 

3 Reasons I Love My Sourdough Starter

  1. It’s More Forgiving Than a Fish. When someone overheard me explaining the care and feeding of my sourdough starter to someone with whom I was sharing a jar, she said, “Goodness, it sounds like you’re talking about a goldfish!” She’s not too far from the truth.I feed my starter some whole wheat flour every day and stir it well, adding water every other day or so. The starches give the natural yeasts something to eat, and they produce the bubbles that will make a lovely sourdough loaf.The difference between feeding my sourdough starter and feeding my son’s goldfish is simple: The starter doesn’t mind being forgotten in the refrigerator for a week. Sometimes we all need a break, and our kids goldfishes won’t “rise up” without constant TLC!
  2. I’m “in the club.” With my sourdough starter, I get to rub shoulders with sourdough masters Wardeh Harmon and Erin VanderLugt as they share 20 weeks of recipes. I tried to count how many actual things these women can make with their sourdough starters, but I lost count. From tortillas to spice cake, pita bread to cinnamon rolls, I quickly realize I’m a little fish in a big sourdough pond.Plus, I get to throw around terms like “active, domed state” and sound important!


Mmmm, cinnamon rolls. I think I know what’s going on the menu plan for Saturday morning!

3. I Make the Healthiest Bread on the Planet. Did you know whole grains can cause mineral absorption problems? God wisely created seeds to be difficult to digest, which is for the good of the seed and the proliferation of that species.

For the good of ourspecies, however, we like to eat the bread of life. To be most life-giving, whole grains need to be properly prepared to neutralize the enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid that hinder digestion. There’s much talk of soaking vs. sprouting vs. sourdough, but in my research, sourdough is the most traditional and Biblical form of bread. It’s also the most backed by scientific research on human beings. Added bonus!

Click HERE for more information on the art of sourdough baking via video, downloads, and recipes for everything you can imagine using sourdough.

The unique Pay What You Can philosophy allows you to preview the course and pay a fair price according to your means, and you can choose which lessons interest you the most and skip the rest without feeling like you’ve wasted a registration fee. Get a free thank-you gift every month when you make a payment! Enrollment never closes.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by GNOWFGLINS eCourses.

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Gratituesday: My Father-in-Law

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gratituesday

I realize that I appreciated my father-in-Law last Gratituesday when I told you that he had come from California to help us insulate our living room…but after watching him work and work and work all week long I can’t think of anything or anyone else that deserves a shout out again this Gratituesday. Prepping walls so that you can insulate them is NOT easy work. Prepping walls to put drywall up after insulating them is NOT easy work. 

Matt has, of course, had to go to work most of the days his dad has been here. I am unable to help because plaster dust is the last thing my asthmatic lungs need. My father-in-law (if a girl can say such a thing about her father-in-law) has been a rock star. He has put in so many hours of hard labor that he will for sure need a vacation from this vacation. Oh, and in between jobs in the living room…he’s been thoughtfully working to get the drains in our bathroom to work better.  I feel so cared for.  Have I mentioned that he’s the one responsible for the fact that we have a working dishwasher?

Both Matt and I agree:  This project would have never happened without him. We are so very grateful.

We’re a little bit farther along than this now…but here are the walls with insulation sprayed in. 
Just when you think the room can’t get any messier…  :)

On a slightly random note (because random is what I do best), Matt and I have been SHOCKED that our tomatoes are STILL producing. This has been one warm and lovely fall. Rarely are we still picking big loads of tomatoes in mid-October, but would you look at that:

Looks like another round of tomato sauce is in the works.

It sure is a good thing my kitchen is not as messy as my living room right now, huh? :)

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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Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns

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I’ve admitted it here before: I love me a good beef hot dog. Do I love them because they are so very good for us and so highly nutritious? I wish.  But, at least I’ve been able to find some from our local meat farmers that are better than regular dogs from the store. I also often buy Shelton Turkey Franks from Azure Standard.

I had perfected my whole wheat hamburger bun recipe, but never took the time to make the dough into hot dog buns. In the past when I’d tried to make hot dog buns (from other recipes), they turned out as big as a baseball bat and about that heavy. (We’ve already talked about how none of us want our buns to be heavy.)  This time, when I tried to make hot dog buns, I focused on making the buns small. The smaller the buns, the better…right? :)

Using this whole wheat hamburger bun recipe, I rolled out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut the dough into circles using a wide mouth jar. A wide mouth jar isn’t going to make a very big circle, and you might think that the bun isn’t going to be big enough…but keep in mind that these rolls will rise and we do not want a bready bun. No indeed.

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Take each circle and roll it up gently…

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Almost finished…

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And…done. Look at the cute little unbaked hot dog bun. Kinda makes you wish you were a hot dog so you could lay down in there and take a nap, doesn’t it?

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Put all the cute little rolled buns in a baking dish. Allow them to rise for about 20 minutes.

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Bake the buns for about 25 minutes at 350°. If they aren’t golden brown, leave them in there just a little bit longer. I kinda think it would be fun to bake the hotdog right into the bun, but I haven’t tried it yet. And just for the record, I don’t really wish I was a hot dog, no matter how inviting these buns look.

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Carefully slit the buns open at the top with a knife and pop in a cooked hotdog.

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Add all your fixin’s and you’ve got a tasty hotdog on a bun that has just a little more substance than the airy ones we find at the store, but they aren’t so bready you feel like you’re eating all bun and no dog.

So what do ya think? Should I try baking the hot dog right into the bun to make a sort of “pig in a blanket”? I think my kids would enjoy that surprise. Although since these hot dogs are made from beef or turkey, can we still call it a “pig in a blanket”? Sometimes life just throws us these difficult questions, ya know?

So humor me will ya? Are you a hot dog lover or not? Am I the only weird one who really appreciates eating real, whole foods…but still likes the occasional hot dog?  :)

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