Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Easy Whole Grain Cherry Muffins

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Why have I not thought to make Cherry Muffins before?

I was inspired a few weeks ago after helping out at our church’s monthly food bank distribution.

It’s one of my favorite days of the month, by the way. Well over 100 families are served, and they get to pick up lots and lots of food to help meet their grocery needs for the month. I’ve loved taking as many of our boys as are available each time. Yes, even the little boys. Brayden stays with a big brother and helps transport boxes of food in wagons. Boy Babe hangs out with me. Without even trying, he makes all the people waiting in line smile. Then they often start telling me about their kids and grandkids. It’s fantastic.

As a perk, after all the community has been served, if there are any food leftovers we volunteers can go through the line and take what we can use. In August, there were huge bags of dried cherries available. I snatched one right up with the idea to make trail mix. But then I got the idea to try these Whole Grain Cherry Muffins.

Not too shabby of an idea if I do say so myself.

I love that we can take a basic muffin recipe and add so many different add-ins. Fruit, nuts, chocolate chips – so many great options! Find a huge list of other muffin recipes here, many of which are simple tweaks to the recipe below.

For this particular recipe, I added a hand full of dried cherries, then a splash of lemon juice to make them extra tart and flavorful!

Easy Whole Grain Cherry MuffinsYum

Easy Whole Grain Cherry Muffins
 
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Author:
Serves: 9-12
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups whole grain flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat.)
  • ⅓ cup sugar (sucanat, brown sugar, honey, whatever your preference)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 egg
  • ¾ cup milk
  • ¼ cup sour cream
  • ¼ cup melted coconut oil
  • 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
  • ½ cup dried cherries
Instructions
  1. Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Add egg, milk, sour cream, coconut oil, and lemon juice.
  3. Stir well, then fold in dried cherries.
  4. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
  5. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 18-22 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.

**Do you have our Simple Mixes to Save the Day eBook yet? Grab it so you can save time and energy by using the Muffin Mix for this recipe!! I LOVE having these mixes on hand!!!

Simply exchange the dry ingredients in this recipe for 2 cups of Muffin Mix. :)

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Easy Recipes That Include Beans

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Looking for some easy recipes that include beans? These will save you money and make your tastebuds happy too!

Easy Recipes that Include BeansYum

We’ll start with our newest bean recipe, Simple Hearty Bean Casserole. It’s one of my favorites. No. It IS my favorite. My whole family loves it.

Next, I’ll share a wonderful and easy side dish: Simple Baked Beans. What a great way to round out a meal.


Did I say the Hearty Bean Casserole was my favorite? Because my other favorite is this The Simplest White Chicken Chili. Every bite is full of yum.

No shame, we like Simple Beanie Weanies at our house. From the little guys to the grown-ups, there’s something really delicious about beans and dogs. The fact that this meal can be on the table in 10 minutes is pretty rockin’ too.

If you’re looking for a SUPER FAST meal, make this Bean and Cheese Salsa Dip. Lunch will be on the table in five minutes flat.

You will love how flavorful this Simple Taco Rice Dinner is! It includes black beans and goes together quickly for a comforting meal any time.

Black Bean Salsa is so flavorful and good! It works as a meal or a snack and it goes together quickly.

Here are a few more bean recipes you’ll love and want to check out!

With all this talk about beans, I thought it would fun and a little bit silly to throw in a little discussion about buying vanilla beans to make homemade vanilla. Hey, it’s a bean recipe too, am I right?

The price of vanilla beans has gone up greatly the past few years, so is it still worth it to make homemade?

And also, let’s have a little talk about Green Beans. Here are Two Simple Tricks to Get Your Kids to Eat Green Beans.

So many great bean options!!!

How do you like your beans?

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The Best Apple Recipes

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Apples, apples everywhere! Here are the best apple recipes around!

The Best Apple Recipes

Take a peek at what you’ll be able to make with these recipes:

ApplesauceYum

First let’s talk about making Applesauce.

Through the years, I’ve learned to make the process easier and easier. This is a good thing because I usually make a lot of applesauce every year!

I make the applesauce using this method, then just dump the cooked apples into my Blendtec and blended until smooth. It actually makes the applesauce creamy, and it takes so little time and very little effort on my part. (By the way, you can read about my cute little applesauce cups here.)

Apple Treat Recipes

Now let’s look at some of the other great ways to use apples this fall! Here’s our Favorite Apple Recipes list at a quick glance. But I’ll describe some of them in detail below.

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Applesauce Bread

This one is a family favorite, but also a wonderful treat to make and share with others!

Crock Pot Apple Cider

You’ll love how easy this is and how great it makes your house smell!


Stick with our basic Apple Crisp recipe, or take it a notch above with Salted Caramel Apple Crisp.


Some of the college kids I’ve fed Cream Cheese Fruit Dip to have declared it to be the best thing they’ve ever eaten. Who am I to argue? We go through a lot of apples when I make this dip!

These Apple Nachos are kind of an awesome snack. kind of.

What a fun time of year fall is, with all the apples and spices and everything nice. What are your favorite ways to enjoy apples?

 

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Reminder: One Last Day!

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Today’s your last chance to save on my favorite hair accessories ever! (I mean, they’ll probably have another sale eventually. But this is the last day for THIS one.)

Now tonight: Monday, September 30, you can get 20% OFF EVERYTHING on my sponsor Paula Ramm’s  website, www.lillarose.biz/BeautifulLife,  with coupon code 20%OFFNOW.

You can also get FREE SHIPPING on your order of $50 or more! Just be sure to choose “free shipping” at checkout!

If you have any questions whatsoever, please just let Paula know…she’d be glad to help you!

Have fun shopping!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Homemade Chewy Granola Bars

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Our Homemade Chewy Granola Bars recipe has been one of our most popular ever since I originally posted way back in 2010! So I decided it was time to bring it back, update it, and put it back on your radar as we all enjoy a new school year.

The beauty of this recipe – besides the fact that it uses only real food ingredients and NO corn syrup – is that you can add any of your family’s favorite ingredients. Leave out anything your family doesn’t like, add what they love! I love versatile recipes like this!

Homemade Chewy Granola BarsYum

Homemade Chewy Granola Bars
 
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Author:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • ½ cup peanut butter, almond butter, or sunbutter
  • ⅓ cup honey
  • ¼ cup coconut oil (or another oil of your choice)
  • 1 cup oats
  • 1 cup total of any combination of: sesame seeds, coconut flakes, sunflower seeds, dried fruit, mini chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. In a medium sized saucepan, melt together peanut butter, honey and coconut oil.
  2. Remove from heat and add one cup of oats.
  3. Choose your favorite combination of coconut flakes, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruit and mini chocolate chips, to equal a total of ONE CUP. (I just got out my one cup measuring cup and poured in the ingredients until the cup was full.)
  4. Pour in and stir well.
  5. Spread mixture into a 8x8 or 9x4 pan.
  6. Chill for two hours, then cut into bars.

 

We often bag these individually to take on the go. I usually make them with whatever we have on hand, but I always have chocolate chips on hand, so it is a given that I always add them to these granola bars. Is there really any other way? (Well sure. Another way is to skip the chocolate chips and instead add chocolate chunks. I am nothing if not flexible.)

What are your favorite Granola Bar add-ins?

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Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

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Sure, banana bread is delicious. But why not take it a notch above and add some chocolate chips? I’m guessing that no one would argue if you made Chocolate Chip Banana Bread…

Even if you made it with whole grains, who’s gonna know? No one. You know why? Because it still tastes delicious. It’s still moist. And there are chocolate chips in it. It’s an amazing treat!

How many times have I said that I wished more food could be made from “spoiled” food. What I mean is – after bananas turn black, we can use them to make fantastic treats like this Chocolate Chip Banana Bread. Why can’t everything be made into something wonderful after it’s past its prime?

Everything should be like a banana.

By the way, this recipe is made millions of times better simply by adding sour cream. Mmm, always add sour cream. :)

Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Banana BreadYum

Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
 
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Author:
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • ½ cup sugar, brown sugar, or sucanat
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 cup mashed over-ripe bananas (about 2-3 bananas)
  • ½ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
  • ⅓ cup melted coconut oil or butter
  • 2 eggs
  • ⅓ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. In a large mixing bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
  2. Add mashed bananas, oil, sour cream and eggs.
  3. Stir until ingredients are well combined.
  4. Fold in chocolate chips.1
  5. Pour mixture into a buttered bread pan.
  6. Bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

 

Lately, Brayden and I have been making lots of loaves of this Chocolate Chip Banana Bread to share with friends. He’s becoming quite the chef and loves delivering treats to friends.

It sure is fun to share pictures of our son. Here are more photos of his big adoption day in case you missed it. :)

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Lilla Rose Customer Appreciation Sale!

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Yay! It’s a Lilla Rose Customer Appreciation Sale! Save on my favorite hair accessories ever!

Now through Monday, September 30, you can get 20% OFF EVERYTHING on my sponsor Paula Ramm’s  website, www.lillarose.biz/BeautifulLife,  with coupon code 20%OFFNOW.

You can also get FREE SHIPPING on your order of $50 or more! Just be sure to choose “free shipping” at checkout!

If you have any questions whatsoever, please just let Paula know…she’d be glad to help you!

Have fun shopping!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How to Make Easy Fruit Cobbler

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Hopefully, we’ve all been taking advantage of summer and fall to pick and preserve all the fresh fruit we can get our hands on. Now let’s learn about how to make Easy Fruit Cobbler!

Almost 12 years into sharing recipes here with you, I am shocked that I have yet to post our favorite fruit cobbler recipe! This is, hands down, Matt’s favorite dessert. And who am I kidding? Sometimes we make it and eat it for breakfast. It’s fruit and bread, am I right?

What fruits work best for Easy Fruit CobblerYum

In our experience, with the exception of melons and citrus, just about any fruits will work. Our favorites are:

  • Peach (our favorite, favorite!)
  • Strawberry
  • Raspberry
  • Blueberry
  • Boysenberry (Matt’s favorite since he grew up in California – but we don’t have access to these berries in Nebraska!)
  • Blackberry
  • Apple
  • Pear
  • Cherry

You can buy fresh or frozen fruit at the store or farmer’s market to use in these cobblers. Our favorite and most economical option is to use whatever fruit we’ve been blessed to pick and preserve. We grab peaches or berries that we’ve frozen during the summer and quickly make an Easy Fruit Cobbler to enjoy!

Use as much or as little sugar as you prefer. Through the years, I’ve cut the sugar content down in this recipe (so we can eat it for breakfast, you know?). And of course, I use freshly ground wheat flour. So our cobblers are made with whole grains, healthy fats, and amazing fruit!

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 —- > Want to know more about grinding fresh flour and using whole grains? Read these posts! <—–

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I love that using whole grains in dessert and treat recipes takes them up a notch on the healthy scale! Yes, these are still sweet treats to be eaten in moderation. But when we cut down the sugar content, use whole grains, and use all wholesome, real food ingredients – we’ve got ourselves a dessert that is actually nourishing!

Easy Fruit Cobbler

How to Make Easy Fruit Cobbler
 
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Author:
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • TOPPING:
  • 1 cup whole grain flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar or sucanat
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ cup melted butter
  • 1 egg
  • 3 Tablespoons milk
  • FRUIT:
  • 6 cups fresh or frozen fruit, washed and sliced if needed
  • ¼-1/2 cup brown sugar or sucanat, depending on your taste
Instructions
  1. In a medium saucepan, cook fruit and sugar until soft and syrupy.
  2. Pour fruit mixture into a 9x9 inch baking dish.
  3. Mix together topping ingredients, beginning with dry ingredients first.
  4. Add melted butter, egg, and milk until well combined.
  5. Spoon mounds of topping over the fruit filling in the baking dish.
  6. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until cobbler is bubbly and topping is golden brown.
  7. Serve as-is, or topped with ice cream or milk

If you prefer a crunchy topping instead of a cake topping, try this awesome Fruit Crisp Recipe instead!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Easiest Healthy Pancake Recipes

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Did you see our post sharing Easiest Whole Wheat Bread recipes? I thought it would be fun to follow that one with a post sharing Easiest Healthy Pancake recipes!

Easiest Healthy Pancake RecipesYum

We all love pancakes at our house – often for dinner even more than for breakfast! We’ve tried many recipes through the years, and these are our favorites. For the record, we find that pancakes made on a Cast Iron Griddle taste the best!

Simple Pancake Mix Pancakes

I used to make pancakes from scratch each time, which is quite easy and fast because pancakes aren’t hard to make in the least. But for the past couple of years, I’ve been making huge batches of Pancake and Waffle Mix from the recipe in the Simple Mixes to Save the Day eCookbook. Now making pancakes is even faster and easier than before. I love this mix!

—– > I just discounted the book so everyone can have access to it at a much lower cost. All of the mixes in that book are a huge time and money saver! < ——

Check out this book here.

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Whole Wheat Pancakes

This is my tried-and-true pancake recipe that inspired the Pancake Mix recipe above. This recipe is easy and quick, truly perfect for breakfast or dinner!

Peanut Butter Pancakes

Want a little protein in your pancakes? These are so delicious, and if you add chocolate chips to them? Well, we all know how good peanut butter and chocolate tastes together!

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin Pancakes taste perfect during crisp fall weather days.

Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Pancakes

It goes without saying that these taste great topped with berries. Or we can go with the chocolate/peanut butter idea from above and spread peanut butter all over these cakes.

Simple Banana Pancakes

Have over-ripe bananas but want to make something other than Banana Bread? Whisk them into these Banana Pancakes. So good!

Whole Wheat Applesauce Pancakes

Like the Pumpkin Pancakes mentioned above, these are wonderful in the fall!

Baked Apple Pancake

Speaking of fall and apples, if you have an abundance of apples and want to try something new, this is an amazing option!

Easy Pancake Muffins

Here’s a super fun variety to a traditional pancake. These work great to take on the go!

Whole Wheat Waffles

Not to be outdone, here’s our favorite easy waffle recipe!

If you give a friend a pancake recipe, you’ll need to give her some pancake toppings to go with them…

Here are our favorite pancake toppings:

I think it’s time for a pancake dinner!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How to Serve With Your Family This Fall

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There’s no better way to spend time with your family than to serve together. ( <— read that again.) Today we want to share encouragement and give you lots of resources and ideas of ways to serve with your family this fall. Ready?

Ways to Serve with Your Family this Fall

Ultimately, our biggest and best advice is to pray as a family for ways to love people in your community. God is faithful. He will show you what to do.

And if you need more ideas and instructions, we are ready to load you up!

See, we recently completed a brand new Fall Family Fun eBook. It’s full of ideas sharing ways you can spend time enjoying your family and serving others together. We really love this new book and want all of you to have it. So for motivation for you to purchase and enjoy it, we decided to do this:

Buy Fall Family Fun for $5…Get 5 more resources for FREE!

So suddenly, this has turned into a pay $5 get 6 resources offer. It’s too fun and it’s too much of a steal and it’s all kinds of warm and fuzzy. If that doesn’t scream fall, I don’t know what does! I mean, we wish we could always give everything away for free. But a pay $5 get 6 resources offer comes pretty close!

Here’s what you’ll get for just $5!

1. Fall Family Fun

Full of recipes, games, scripture memory activities, and ideas for ways to serve as a family this fall! 40 pages! It’s brand new and we want to get it into all of your hands this fall!

2. Fall Printables Pack

29 pages of recipe cards, scripture cards, menu planners, and sticker labels to use as you serve as a family.

3. Fall Craft Pack

Print, cut, paste, create! Color, encourage, love! 18 pages of fun fall printable craft ideas.

4. Do the Funky Kitchen

We’re throwing this in there for fun this fall! Get your kitchen cleaned out and organized with this simple, step-by-step guide. There’s no better time than right now!

5. Getting Ahead for the Holidays

In this packet, you’ll find simple planning pages to help you make lists and get organized. But the best page is the one full of links to help you get your holiday meals prepared ahead of time so you can enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas!

6. Gifts in a Jar

Starting to think about Christmas gifts for neighbors, the lonely, and people who could use a pick-me-up? This book is full of ideas you can make and put into jars. So much fun!

And THAT is what you’ll get for just $5!

Six resources, including our brand new Fall Family Fun eBook. We’re pretty excited to be offering this and hope as many of you as possible will jump aboard and grab these. Then start serving with your family this fall!

This special Pay $5 Get 6 Resources offer ends Friday, September 27.

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