Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

How to Make Bacon Bits and Why You Should Make Them

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Five pounds of bacon. That’s how much I cooked at one time a couple weeks ago. This might sound excessive to you, but have you met my family? 

The following are conversations I have every single time I am at the grocery store when people see my shopping cart:

Person: Wow, what are you going to do with all those berries?
Me: Eat them.

Person: Wow, what are you going to do with all that chicken?
Me: Eat it.

Person: Wow, what are you going to do with all those peaches?
Me: Eat them.

And on it goes. Every time. Without fail. At least one person at the store comments on the abundant contents of my shopping cart. Apparently my cart looks like one big party. This is what happens when you have a household of teenage boys. Also, when there is a good price, I buy in bulk. It only makes sense, but apparently people aren’t used to seeing a woman with 15 packages of cheese. I had no idea I was such an anomaly. As if 15 packages of cheese at one time is somehow weird. It’s a day in the life, man. A day in the life.

So back to the bacon. No, we did not eat all five pounds at once. Goodness.

I found it for a fantastic price, which of course means that I bought 10 packages. (Wow, what are you going to do with all that bacon? We’ve been through this already…)

I froze five packs and then proceeded to cook the other five pounds. Why?

  1. Because why cook one when you can cook five and only dirty one pot?
  2. Having bacon bits in the freezer saves oodles of time and means all I have to do is grab the cooked bacon and use it in a meal (see ideas below).
  3. When I cook bacon, my clothes and hair smell like bacon. I’d prefer this scent to be my perfume of choice only occasionally.

How to Make Bacon Bits and Why You Should Make Them

Yum

What’s the easiest way to make Bacon Bits?

I pick up the entire package of bacon, with the strips all stuck together, and I cut it with kitchen shears like this:

bacon bits 1

For five pounds, I use my largest pot. Once the pieces are cut, I cover it and cook it on medium heat for about an hour, stirring every once in a while so it cooks evenly. (A smaller amount of bacon would take much less time, but I know nothing about cooking in small amounts.)

bacon bits2

Once the bacon is fully cooked, I strain out the grease, allow it to cool, then package it up in meal-sized portions for the fridge and freezer.

bacon bits4

bacon bits3

What will I do with all the Bacon Bits? As needed, I’ll pull some out to quickly make:

In other “why you should make your own Bacon Bits” related news, I believe it is important to be aware that we’re aware that: “Bac’n Pieces™ Bacon Flavored Bits are artificially flavored textured soy flour to imitate bacon pieces.” Ingredients include Textured Soy Flour, Canola Oil, Salt, Caramel Color, Maltodextrin, Natural And Artificial Flavor, Lactic Acid, Yeast Extract, Disodium Inosinate And Disodium Guanylate (Flavor Enhancers), And&Nbsp;Fd&C Red 40.

I’d stick with real bacon if I’m you. It’s not difficult and the taste is no comparison.

Ever made your own bacon bits? Ever get amazed comments at the store because of the amount of food you buy? Ever cut bacon with scissors?

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Make Ahead Breakfast Ideas to Make Back-to-School Mornings Easier

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Here you go. 60 Make Ahead Breakfast Ideas to give us a boost as we kick off the school year! All of these are made with real food ingredients and will hopefully save our mornings from being too hectic.

60 Make Ahead Breakfast Recipes and Ideas
The beauty of these ideas is that they make mornings easier whether your kids have to get out the door for school in the morning or you homeschool and want to get your day off to a productive start without spending too much time putting breakfast on the table. (For that matter, these ideas are great even if you aren’t in the kids-in-school season of life!)

I love getting breakfast foods made ahead of time so that my kids can easily help themselves in the morning. Often we’ll also scramble or fry eggs to go with our meal and we always get out fresh fruit. My teenage boys often also crave protein at breakfast, so I try to have something meaty available for them to cook for themselves. Hmm, it sure does sound like we eat a lot around here. Truth: We eat a lot around here.

So 60 Make Ahead breakfast ideas. Here we go!

Recipes and Ideas You Can Make Ahead for a Fast Breakfast

breakfast_cake_3

All of these recipes can be made the day before and served right away in the morning!

Homemade cereal recipes you can make ahead and serve right away in the morning

Some mornings are cereal mornings, so there. Here are some homemade cereal options we enjoy!

dark_chocolate_almond_granola

Recipes that freeze well and can be thawed and reheated easily

If you have these in your freezer, you can thaw and rewarm in the oven or toaster oven!

Recipes that Can Be Made Easily with Whole Wheat Quick Baking Mix

quick_mix

Fun Ideas to Enjoy Stir-n-Pour Bread

stir and pour sandwich 3

This super easy Stir-n-Pour Bread takes practically no effort, but turns out a delicious loaf of bread. When I have this on hand, we can slice it and make:

  • Peanut Butter Honey Toast
  • Fried Eggs on Toast
  • Cinnamon Toast
  • Scrambled Egg Sandwiches
  • Simple Buttered Toast – maybe even with jelly :)

Drink Your BreakfastYum

Most smoothies are pretty quick to make and can be filling if you include peanut butter or cottage cheese. Add fresh spinach for an extra punch of nourishment.

pineapple_mango_smoothie_2

Muffins,  Muffins, Muffins!

I’ve learned to love freezing muffin batter, which you can read about here. What a time saver! I’ve also learned that silicone muffin cups are fantastic. More about that here.

silicone muffins 3

Make it Ahead, but Cook it in the Morning

Overnight Whole Wheat Waffles

  • Mix up Overnight Waffle Batter before bed so that all you have to do in the morning is cook the waffles and serve.
  • Make Turkey Sausage in large batches and freeze it in meal sized portions. Make Freezer Biscuits, and thaw only the amount you’ll need in the morning for a meal. Make a quick meal of a big treat – Biscuits and Gravy – when you’ve done the prep work ahead! Here’s my Sausage Gravy recipe.
  • Follow the freezing muffin batter idea mentioned above, set some out at night before bed, then bake them in the morning.
  • If you want to serve pancakes, mix the dry ingredients the night before so that all you have to do in the morning is add your liquids and cook. This isn’t as fast as other ideas shared here, but it does make the pancake process a little easier in the morning! Here’s our favorite Whole Wheat Pancake recipe.

I have several new breakfast ideas in the works, so be on the look-out for those. Sign up here for our free weekly newsletter to be sure you don’t miss a post!

Leave a comment to share your favorite Make-Ahead Breakfast ideas!

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How to Make Overnight Whole Wheat Waffle Batter

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What if you could mix up a yummy waffle batter before you go to bed at night, then stumble into the kitchen in the morning to cook just as many waffles as you need – with little effort?

Overnight Whole Wheat Waffles

Are you telling me that you don’t stumble into the kitchen in the mornings? That you’re a bouncer? A springer? That you wake up like Tigger? I am so happy for you.

For the rest of us stumblers, we can use this recipe to wake up slowly but still have breakfast on the table in a very short amount of time. The measuring and mixing (and the thinking and the reading of recipes) will have been done the night before. You can have your waffle iron set out and ready so that all you have to do is plug it in, turn it on, and wait for it to heat.

For that matter, you might consider prepping berries and whipped cream the night before because a waffle with syrup is good, but a waffle with berries and whipped cream is even better.

My aunt gave me this recipe a long time ago. Then I misplaced it. Now I have it back again. (Good talk.)

That fascinating story was my way of telling you that while I did do some tweaking of this recipe to use ingredients I prefer, I give all the credit to my Aunt Claudia for providing the genius behind it so that you and I can be morning stumblers. These waffles are delicious!

Overnight Whole Wheat WafflesYum

5.0 from 3 reviews
How to Make Overnight Whole Wheat Waffle Batter
 
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Serves: 8 waffles
Ingredients
  • 2¼ teaspoons active dry yeasr
  • ¼ cup warm water
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup melted coconut oil
  • 1 teaspoon honey, sucanat, or sugar
  • 3 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
  1. Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside.
  2. Heat milk to just warm.
  3. Beat in eggs, oil, yeast mixture, and all remaining ingredients. (I used my blender for this, or you can use an electric mixer if you like.)
  4. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
  5. Bake in a waffle iron.

Easy Overnight Whole Wheat Waffles

See the bubbly batter you’ll wake up to in the morning? No need for you to be bubbly. You get to stumble. The batter will be bubbly enough to make up for your inability to be bubbly in the morning. You might find it is enough to bring a slight smile to a half-awake face.

Overnight Whole Wheat Waffle Batter

Some additional recipes and tips you might find helpful to go along with this waffle recipe:

While we like fruity syrups, we typically enjoy fresh (raw) berries on our waffles. Fresh strawberries with whipped cream is our favorite waffle topping. So amazing!

Have you ever tried a mix-the-waffle-batter-the-night-before idea? I love this and plan to make it a staple at our house to save time (and brain) in the mornings!

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Low Sugar Coffee Milkshake Recipe

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If you’re wondering what I’m up to every single afternoon of every day during the entire summer – and obviously, you surely do wonder – you can be certain that I am making myself a smooth and creamy coffee shake and sipping it slowly. This, at about 1:30 each afternoon, CST. Set your clock by it. At 1:30 each day, you can think to yourself, Laura is most certainly enjoying her coffee milkshake right about now. We are so happy for her.

Thank you for your support.

Coffee Milkshake

I would love for you to also have the option of beginning your afternoon in this way, so please, allow me to share this recipe so you can indulge and love your treat right down to the last drop. The good news is that this is very low in sugar (though you can add more if you like!) and includes all real food ingredients. I suppose the other good news is that the coffee will perk us all up for the afternoon so that we can rock on with whatever it is we need to do. Hi-yah! Glory, hallelujah.

Perhaps the one draw back to making this milkshake is that you must think and plan ahead. Hot coffee ruins the moment. All key ingredients must be cold or even frozen. And then there’s the homemade ice cream issue. The ice cream amazing and easy, but too hard to scoop if not set out a few minutes ahead of your milkshake making endeavors. So here’s the breakdown so that you can achieve Low Sugar Coffee Milkshake perfection:

  1. Cold brew some coffee, or make regular hot brew and chill it thoroughly.
  2. Make yourself some coffee iced cubes. This isn’t a must, but almost.
  3. Be sure to have Homemade Low Sugar Ice Cream in the freezer (it’s easier than you think).
  4. Set your ice cream out on the counter about ten minutes before making your shake so that it will be soft enough to scoop.

Don’t get the impression that this is a high maintenance recipe. It really is not. I typically have coffee in my fridge and coffee cubes in my freezer. It takes 2 minutes to whip up a batch of this Homemade Low Sugar Ice Cream. Then it’s just a matter of pulling it all together. At 1:30 every single afternoon.

Low Sugar Coffee MilkshakeYum

Low Sugar Coffee Milkshake Recipe
 
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Ingredients
  • 1-2 scoops Homemade Low Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream
  • 4-6 coffee ice cubes
  • 1-2 cups cold coffee
Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly in a blender.
  2. Serve right away.

low sugar coffee milkshake

Take note that this is not a super-sweet treat as is, so you’ll want to adjust the sweetness level by adding maple syrup according to your taste. I personally love it with a strong coffee flavor and only a tiny bit of sweetness and creaminess. But the beauty of this recipe and the Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream recipe is that you can make it sweet or less sweet without messing anything up!

Get your ingredients ready! 1:30 will be here before you know it.

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Americana Cheesecake Parfaits (It’s too easy)

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What happens when you cross a blueberry with a strawberry with cheesecake filling? Red, white, and blue. This is what you have. Regular cheesecake parfait becomes Americana Cheesecake Parfait. Just like that, you’ve created a perfect treat for your holiday.

Strawberry Blueberry Cheesecake Parfaits

I realize it might be too late for you to do this for Memorial Day – unless you happen to have these fine ingredients already in your fridge. I once (last week) bought 18 packages of cream cheese at one time because it was on sale for $1.00 and I couldn’t help myself (obviously). Plus, I frequently bring home 12-16 pounds of berries at once when they are in season and on sale. (No one ever looks at me funny while I’m going through check-out.) Perhaps you also have a fridge full of cream cheese and berries?

If not, you can tuck this recipe away to make when you find these ingredients on sale. After all, it never hurts to make these with no holiday attached. And of course, you’ll want to remember these for the Fourth of July.

The Original Cheesecake ParfaitsYum

About this time last year, I concocted our first Strawberry Cheesecake Parfaits. We have since declared this to be the best way to eat fruit. Recently we tried Chocolate Strawberry Cheesecake Parfaits, which are just as amazing.

chocolate cheesecake parfait

Matt and I much prefer this made with stevia. Our boys make a batch for themselves with a little sugar instead. We’ve been eating this and serving this to friends who come over pretty much constantly since berries came back in season a few weeks ago. This is a definite family favorite!

Americana Cheesecake Parfaits

4.0 from 1 reviews
Americana Cheesecake Parfaits (It's too easy)
 
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Ingredients
  • 2½ cups heavy whipping cream
  • 8 ounces softened cream cheese
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 Tablespoon real maple syrup
  • Liquid stevia to taste (I use about 20 drops) (Use a few Tablespoons of sugar if you prefer.)
  • 1 -2 pounds fresh, sliced strawberries
  • 1 pint fresh blueberries
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients (minus the berries) into a blender.
  2. Whip until smooth and creamy.
  3. Spoon mixture into bowls or cups - layering them with blueberries and sliced strawberries.

Americana Cheesecake Parfaits

However are you remembering and celebrating this weekend?

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Veggie-n-Egg Scramble ~ A Great Last Minute Meal Idea

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I think this Veggie-n-Egg Scramble might become one of my favorite and most relied upon go-to meals.

Veggie and Egg Scramble

Yum

I used to make something like this years ago, but kind of forgot about it. Weird how that happens.

A few weeks ago, I needed a quick meal before we headed out to a soccer game. I didn’t have time to cook meat, but I did have a fridge full of veggies and a few dozen eggs. I called the boys into the kitchen and started throwing vegetables and knives at them. Hold on. That didn’t come out right. I didn’t throw knives at them. (Peppers maybe, but not knives.) I’m just saying I started handing out jobs and we all worked together to make this quick and nourishing meal.

Everyone started chopping until my big electric skillet looked like this:

Veggies for veggie scramble
All the veggies are good in this Veggie-n-Egg Scramble, but I will suggest that onions are a key player. Onions give this dish such amazing flavor! Sweet peppers are a close second. Broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, and spinach come next. The beauty is that you can use whatever veggies you like and whatever you have on hand.

Saute the veggies in olive oil or butter until tender. Scramble in some eggs with salt. Toss in a little cheese for extra amazingness. So much deliciousness. Very little work. Extra wonderful nourishment.

Veggie-n-Egg Scramble ~ A Great Last Minute Meal Idea
 
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Serves: 3-4
Ingredients
  • 4 cups chopped veggies (onions, sweet peppers, zucchini, asparagus, spinach, broccoli, or any others you like in any combination)
  • 3 Tablespoons butter or olive oil
  • 6 eggs
  • 2 Tablespoons milk
  • sea salt to taste
  • shredded cheese to taste
Instructions
  1. Saute vegetables in oil or butter until tender.
  2. Meanwhile, crack eggs into a bowl and whip with milk.
  3. Pour egg mixture over cooked veggies and salt as you like.
  4. Scramble the eggs with the veggies until they are cooked through.
  5. Sprinkle cheese on top to melt.
  6. Serve

I at least double this for my family of 6 big eaters. Plus we serve it with fresh fruit. Buttered toast also helps fill them up. Seriously. We really do eat and keep eating at our house.

TIP: If you happen to have leftover ham or bacon – even chicken or beef – hanging out in your fridge, those would be a wonderful addition to this dish.

This meal has become one of the easiest ways to get my family to eat a big variety of veggies in one meal. It ranks right up there with Easy Noodle Stir-Fry.

Easy Veggie and Egg Scramble

Do you ever make a meal like this at your house? What veggies would you or do you include? 

It’s meals like this that make “teaching our kids about nutrition” quite natural.

P.S. It is worth noting that this dish makes it possible to feed my family very well for about $1.00 per plate. (We won’t talk about how many plates we go through during a meal…)

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Stir-and-Pour Chocolate Swirl Bread

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Let us not miss the irony of the timing of this post. As you know, I currently have no oven. As great as this Stir-and-Pour Chocolate Swirl Bread recipe is, I cannot bake any right now. I made this last week before my oven died and I’m just now getting around to posting about it.

Chocolate Swirl Bread

You though. You probably all have ovens. On behalf of my oven-less self, won’t you please bake this bread for your family? It would make me so happy. (My request is not completely selfish. It should also make you happy. Because chocolate. And homemade bread.)

Side note: I made some measurement adjustments and tried the regular Stir-and-Pour Bread recipe in my crock pot yesterday. I figured if it works to bake quick bread in a crock pot, I could try making a yeast bread. It turned out….not great. I’m determined though. I’m gonna keep tweaking and try again. In the meantime, feel free to make fun of this way too crusty on the outside, weirdly chewy in the middle attempt at crock pot bread…

Crock Pot Bread Fail

But moving on to share how to bake this Stir-and-Pour Chocolate Swirl Bread in an actual oven. This is made in a similar way to the Stir-and-Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread. Seeing as we don’t have to knead this bread (hallelujah!) it’s a bit hard to actually roll this out and make lovely swirls. I simply layered this bread. I put one-third of the dough into the pan, then spread on 1/2 of the chocolate layer. Then I spread in another third of the bread dough, and spread on the remaining half of the chocolate. Finish by spreading on the last of the bread dough. Bake. Slice. Eat. Appreciate the fact that you have an oven. Amen.

Stir-and-Pour Chocolate Swirl BreadYum

Stir-and-Pour Chocolate Swirl Bread
 
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Ingredients
  • 4 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat)
  • 2 teaspoons active rise yeast
  • 2 Tablespoons sucanat or sugar or honey
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 3 Tablespoons honey
  • 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 Tablespoons milk or water
Instructions
  1. Stir together flour, yeast, sucanat, salt, and water.
  2. Cover and allow it to sit for 30 minutes.
  3. In a small saucepan, cook and stir together the honey, cocoa, and water until smooth.
  4. Remove from heat.
  5. Pour ? of the mixture into a well-buttered loaf pan.
  6. Spread ½ of the chocolate mixture over the dough.
  7. Spread another ? of the dough over the chocolate layer.
  8. Sprinkle remaining ½ of the chocolate mixture over the dough.
  9. Spread remaining dough over the top.
  10. Bake in a 350° for 50-60 minutes or until evenly browned.
  11. Allow it to sit in the pan for 15 minutes.
  12. Remove the loaf to let it cool completely before slicing.

Stir and Pour Chocolate Swirl Bread

Other Stir-and-Pour Bread variations include:

Raise your hand if you love this Stir-and-Pour Bread and all the greatness it offers!!

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The Easiest Sweet Vanilla Coffee Creamer Recipe

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Before I say anything else about this Sweet Vanilla Coffee Creamer, I should tell you that this tastes 100-times more amazing if you use Homemade Vanilla Extract. Not that I’ve tested it on anything else. This is just an obvious conclusion since homemade vanilla makes everything 100-times better.

Homemade Vanilla Creamer

You like how my fruit bowl is in the picture behind my coffee mugs and bottle of coffee creamer? It is there to show that photography is not my gift. Also, using precious energy to walk all the way around the table and move it out of the picture would have been just too much. What am I? A teenager? Plus I hadn’t had my coffee yet. Thanks for understanding.

I did take the time to scatter coffee beans and vanilla beans on the table for effect. Mostly they just smelled really good. Try to imagine.

So why did I make a Sweet Vanilla Coffee Creamer recipe to share with you? After all, I drink my coffee with no sweetener – just some cream (which is perfectly sweet if you ask me). I did it for the kids. MY kids. Yup. Justus and Elias enjoy a cup of coffee with me now a few mornings each week. It’s pretty special that we can share this simple pleasure together. There’s just something cool about sharing a cup of coffee with someone. (Though to be clear – I do not share my own personal cup of coffee. It’s mine and everyone else can back away and get their own cup. I guess I should have said that I share my pot of coffee. I’m sorry to give you the impression that I was actually nice enough to share even a drop of what is in my mug each morning.)

For the past several months, the boys have been making their coffee with a splash of cream and a squeeze of NuNaturals Chocolate Syrup. I love that this makes such an amazing cup of coffee that they love – particularly because it contains no sugar. If you haven’t tried this concoction, you really want to. You won’t believe how good it is.

A couple of weeks ago, Elias asked what else he could do with his coffee – you know – for a little variety? He played with different NuNatural Flavored Stevia options, but nothing hit a home-run for him.

So we experimented with ingredients to come up with this Sweet Vanilla Coffee Creamer. Unfortunately it’s not stevia-sweetened like the chocolate syrup – so he has this one less frequently. Still though – he thinks it’s pretty tasty and worth sharing with you. Remember – Homemade Vanilla makes all the difference. Why just put in one teaspoon when you can put in two?

Sweet Vanilla Coffee CreamerYum

5.0 from 2 reviews
The Easiest Vanilla Coffee Creamer Recipe
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 cup half-and-half
  • 3-4 Tablespoons real maple syrup
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients in a jar or bottle.
  2. Shake well.
  3. Refrigerate for up to two weeks.
  4. Shake well before each use.
  5. Pour desired amount into a hot cup of coffee and stir.

Homemade Sweet Vanilla Coffee Creamer Recipe

Feel free to sweeten it more or less to reach your desired flavor preference. This recipe is a no-brainer so even if you don’t measure exactly, you can’t mess it up.

Would you be so kind as to leave a comment sharing how you like your coffee? I know my boys would have fun playing with different combinations and flavors – and maybe we can come up with more recipes to share!

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Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread

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It would appear that there is a theme this week in the Stir-and-Pour Bread category. First, a Stir-and-Pour Pizza Crust, now a Stir and Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread. Hey, I’m just trying to make your lives easier, one recipe at a time.

Stir and Pour Cinnamon Bread Recipe
Or in this case I guess I would have to say that it’s the same recipe over and over made with a few variations. This in and of itself keeps life easy because after a while, you’ll have the basic recipe memorized and the variations will come naturally.

So let’s review.Yum

Get to know this basic and incredibly easy Stir-and-Pour Sandwich Bread recipe. That recipe has forever changed my bread-making life and I will never (probably) knead bread again. Why would I when I can just stir and pour – then take a nap?

With this basic recipe, we’ve learned that we can make Stir-and-Pour Rolls and Stir-and-Pour Pizza Crust. Today we learn that we can make Stir-and-Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread. If you want, you can add raisins to make Cinnamon Raisin Bread. Or you can add dried cranberries to make Cinnamon Cranberry Bread. Or you can add dried apples to make Cinnamon Apple Bread. Or you can add nuts to make Cinnamon Nut Bread.

Or you can add all of the above to make Cinnamon Apple Raisin Cranberry Nut Bread.

How happy are all of us right now that this recipe offers so many wonderful possibilities? We are all so, so happy.

You might notice that since originally posting the basic recipe, I have ditched the optional cream and egg. They are optional, after all. I’ve found after making the recipe so many times that the egg and cream didn’t make much difference so I skip those steps which cuts out a good 32 seconds in bread making time. Every 32 seconds counts.

Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread

5.0 from 1 reviews
Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread
 
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Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 4 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat)
  • 2 teaspoons active rise yeast
  • 2 Tablespoons sucanat or sugar or honey
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 3 Tablespoons sucanat or brown sugar mixed with 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
  1. Stir together flour, yeast, sucanat, salt, and water.
  2. Cover and allow it to sit for 30 minutes.
  3. Pour ⅓ of the mixture into a well-buttered loaf pan.
  4. Sprinkle ½ of the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the dough.
  5. Spread another ⅓ of the dough over the cinnamon/sugar layer.
  6. Sprinkle remaining ½ of the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the dough.
  7. Spread remaining dough over the top.
  8. Bake in a 350° for 50-60 minutes or until evenly browned.
  9. Allow it to sit in the pan for 15 minutes.
  10. Remove the loaf to let it cool completely before slicing.

As you can see, instead of actually swirling the cinnamon-sugar, we’re actually layering it. This method works great!

Whole Wheat Stir and Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread

I am super excited about all these great Stir and Pour options! Have you tried any other variations you can let us know about?

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Make Your Own “Jiffy” Cornbread Mix (the Healthier Way)

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You get to learn to make cornbread mix! Your day is now complete.

Homemade Cornbread Mix

It’s borderline ridiculous how little time I have to spend on meal prep now. #life with teenagers #workingfromhome Or maybe it’s how little time I want to spend on meal prep. This, from a girl who loves to cook.

The thing is – I love food and I love feeding people. But I also love efficiency and simplicity. I’ve learned to make a hearty main dish, then throw out the simplest fruit and veggie side dishes possible. It’s all nourishing and filling and it takes very little work. I love this so much.

So when it comes to “bread as a side dish,” I very rarely have time or spend time or choose to make it a priority. After all, there are many more nourishing side dishes to choose from (tossed salad anyone?).

Sometimes though, we all just need a good cornbread muffin. Like with chili or soup or well, with chili or soup. To me, that’s when cornbread muffins are the best. I haven’t made cornbread in over a year – not because it’s hard to make – but because it’s just one more thing to do and I don’t have time for one more thing. (I’m almost pitiful. Almost.)

Last week, two things happened:

  1. I ran across this recipe for homemade Jiffy mix.
  2. We shared a meal with some friends in which delicious soup and cornbread was served.

I decided that if I had cornbread mix on hand, it would save me a few minutes of meal prep and simplify my life. Instead of talking myself out of mixing up a batch of cornbread because of the extreme difficulty of getting out and measuring flour and baking powder (the struggle is real) I could just dump the pre-measured ingredients into a bowl and stir in the liquids.

I adapted the recipe (included whole grains and cut out some sugar), multiplied the recipe to make it more efficient, stirred ingredients into a big bowl, and had six jars of muffin mix in less than 10 minutes.

Cornbread Mix

Funny how this simple task of making a mix ahead of time is so helpful. It doesn’t take much, you know?

Cornbread Mix in Jars

Will you save money making this cornbread mix yourself? I don’t know. How much is a box of Jiffy these days? They used to be 33¢ but I haven’t looked at them in several years. I didn’t do the math on this mix (because if I don’t have time to make cornbread I probably don’t have time to break down the cost of cornmeal). But I’m almost sure it only takes a few cents to make this – and I used 100% whole grain flour and organic cornmeal.

Homemade Cornbread MixYum

Homemade "Jiffy" Cornbread Mix (the Healthier Way)
 
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Author:
Serves: 6 mixes
Ingredients
  • 4 cups whole wheat flour
  • 3 cups cornmeal
  • ¼ cup sucanat or sugar
  • ¼ cup baking powder
  • 1 Tablespoon sea salt
Instructions
  1. Mix ingredients well in a large bowl.
  2. Scoop about 1⅓ cups of mix into six pint-sized jars.
  3. Store in the freezer until ready to use.
  4. To make cornbread: Empty contents of jar into a bowl. Add 1 egg, ½ cup milk, and 2 Tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil. Spread batter into an 8x8 inch baking pan or scoop into 6-7 prepared muffin cups. Bake in a 400° oven for 15-20 minutes.

Homemade Cornbread Mix in Jars

Easy as that, you have cornbread.

Are you like me? Do you find that mixing up bread to go with a meal is just a little too much effort (pitiful)? What do you like to serve with cornbread?

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