Heavenly Homemakers

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Three Reasons I Love My Sourdough Starter

October 19, 2010 by Laura 19 Comments

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

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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Excalibur Food Dehydrator

August 31, 2010 by Laura 28 Comments

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

My friend Anne told me last summer that if I was going to invest in a good food dehydrator, to get an Excalibur Food Dehydrator because they were the best!

Much to my loudly squealing delight, a few weeks ago Cultures for Health sent me a Excalibur Food Dehydrator free of charge, in exchange for telling you all about it here on my blog! Wow, wow, wow.  I love every package delivered to my door, but this big ol’ box may have made me jump a just little higher (poor UPS man).

My husband and I are having such a fun time giving our Excalibur Food Dehydrator a work-out! This is the perfect time of year for us to give the dehydrator a whirl as we have all kinds of fresh produce needing to be preserved.

See the pretty peach fruit leather?

peach_fruit_leather

Matt cut up a bunch of our red jalapeno peppers and dehydrated them. Here they are before they went into the dehydrator…

dehydrating_peppers

And then just a few hours later… 

dehydrating_peppers_2

We then ground them up to put on pizza and in chili. SO easy!!

Beyond fruits and vegetables, I’ve used the dehydrator to quickly dry homemade pasta! Note to self:  Don’t cut the pasta too short when planning to put it in your dehydrator. Or, for Pete’s sake, make good use of your Paraflex Sheets!

homemade_noodles_16

The noodles still turned out great even if they were “bent out of shape”. I’ll be sharing the recipe soon!

Our dehydrator has five drying trays, which makes it possible to preserve a lot of food all at one time. LOVE that! The best part about anExcalibur Food Dehydrator is that all of the food drys evenly so that we don’t have to rotate the trays or be frustrated because one is done and the others aren’t yet. Oh, and if we only need two trays at once, we only put two trays in. There are several different “heat settings” so that you can keep some of your food raw if you want or even make yogurt!

We are LOVING our Excalibur Food Dehydrator and appreciate that Cultures for Health was kind enough to send it to us. We can’t wait to see what we can dehydrate next!!!

I’m sure you’d enjoy looking over the Cultures for Health site. They have wonderful products to make cultured dairy products and cheese and sprouted grain and more…not to mention the awesome Excalibur Food Dehydrator!!

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

Clean Air?

July 28, 2010 by Laura 15 Comments

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

 

When is the last time you changed the air filter in your heater/air conditioner? Can’t remember? Yes, I understand. We’ve been the same way. I can hear some of you right now. “You mean we’re supposed to CHANGE those?!” 

Yes, you see, nasty stuff gets pulled in through your duct work and the handy-dandy filter catches it before it gets to your heating/air system. If the filter gets too full of the nasty stuff, the system gets bogged down and is way less efficient. (I don’t know about you, but when I get bogged down, I am also way less efficient.)  ;)

Maybe some of you have some sort of plan in place to remember when it’s time to change the filter in your heating and air unit, but I’m guessing that the majority of us don’t. For us, it is hardly even on our radar of things to think about. There are SO MANY THINGS to think about every day, you know?

And then when we finally do think about it, we have to figure out what size filter we need and figure out who carries the filter we use, and it’s just sort of a headache. 

We’ve recently been in contact with Prime Time Filters.com. They are a fantastic company for many reasons, but the best one is that they take all of the brain cell usage out of changing your air filter! I don’t know about you, but I feel very maxed-out on my brain cell usage. Please, please don’t make me keep track of one more thing!!! Prime Time Filters becomes your brain when it comes to changing your air filter! Hallelujah!! 

Here’s how it works:  You create a subscription with Prime Time Filters. You let them know what variety of filter you need and how often you need to change your filter. You let them know the size you need. THEN, Prime Time Filters (your new air filter brain!) will automatically send you the filter at the designated time. It comes right to your door step without you having to order it or think or anything. Then, when the nice delivery man hands it to you, you realize that it is now time to change your air filter. You change it, and then you promptly forget all about air filters because, thanks to Prime Time Filters, you are now able to free your brain cells to remember other important facts (like the names of your children). You will not have to think about changing your air filter again until another one arrives on your door step a few months later according to the time frame you set up in your subscription with Prime Time Filters. What a lovely (and clean) concept!

Not only does Prime Time Filters make changing your air filter incredibly convenient, they are affordable. Ooh, and you know what else they do? They allow you to set up a subscription for someone else…like your parents or grandparents or an elderly neighbor who needs the service but might not be able to set it up themselves. 

I love that Prime Time Filters is a family owned and operated company. I’ve worked with them both via email and over the phone and they are kind, helpful and knowledgeable. We had a stink of a time figuring out what filter size we needed. They worked patiently with us and were finally able to figure out the exact size. These people know what they’re doing.

Here’s what the owner of the Prime Time Filters has to say:

The biggest reason people are signing up for the service is the convenience but they are quickly recognizing the benefits of cleaner air, less dust, lower utility bills and peace of mind because we’ve taken the headache out of this important task.

I highly recommend that you check out Prime Time Filters because on so many levels, they make it possible for you to breathe easier. ;)

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

Lookie! We’re on TV!

May 14, 2010 by Laura 72 Comments

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

I received a phone call Wednesday from our local NBC news station here in Nebraska. They wanted to interview me about HeavenlyHomemakers.com…could they come in two hours?

Two hours!? Well sure they could come in two hours!

And so, of course, I spent the next two hours sitting quietly and reflecting in wonder about how a dandelion changes in form from a lovely yellow flower to a soft fluffy puff of seeds that children love to blow softly into the air…

Yeah right.

I immediately called Matt, who thankfully was on his way home from work. He suggested that I start to bake something. His reasons for this were threefold:

  1. He was hungry.
  2. He recognized that I had a lot of nervous energy and that I should knead some dough to calm myself.
  3. He thought maybe KHAS-TV might like to see some freshly baked goods in our kitchen.

My husband is so smart. Kneading bread dough when you have a TV crew coming to your house is a perfect way to calm your nerves (chalk that tidbit of wisdom away for future reference, people). 

We had a delightful time with Josh Bonifas, their videographer and “interview guy”. He did a great job putting us at ease and asked great questions. Later that night during our nightly prayer time, our boys were talking about “Josh” like he’d been a part of our family forever. So cute.

Anyhoo…being interviewed for the KHAS nightly news was a blast and a wonderful honor. You can watch the clip of me taking bread out of the oven and talking all about Heavenly Homemakers here if you’d like. Disregard the nice stuff the anchor woman says at first about me “having it all figured out”. You all know better than that, right?

newsclip
Click here to watch the clip!

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Swagbucks

May 3, 2010 by Laura 8 Comments

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

I’ve shared before about how I love using my Swagbucks toolbar as a search engine so that I can earn points to trade in for Amazon eCards and Target eCards. 

So that I’m not repeating myself, you can read more about how Swagbucks works here.    And you can read about how I’ve been able to save on organic groceries using Swagbucks here.

This week, Swagbucks is doubling all swag earnings…which I find very exciting! 

If you’re new to Swagbucks and sign up now using this code:  SWAGNATION5 you’ll receive 50 points just for signing up!

Trust me, there is no catch, you just use Swagbucks as a search engine and earn free money. I love it, which is why I’m sharing it with you!

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

FREE Coconut Oil From Tropical Traditions!

March 15, 2010 by Laura 15 Comments

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

I just learned that Tropical Traditions is giving away a FREE jar or their Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil until midnight Wednesday, March 17th. If you’ve been thinking of giving it a try, now is the time!

I was JUST getting ready to post about how we spread this coconut oil on Malachi’s skin to help soothe his ezcema. And here they are offering a FREE jar! Go get one!!

There is a $16 minimum order required for your purchase, so click here to read about all of my other favorite and highly recommended products from Tropical Traditions. ALSO, if you are a new customer and you enter my referral number:  5342568 during the check out process, you’ll receive a FREE copy of their Virgin Coconut Oil Book, explaining it’s many benefits (plus over 80 recipes too!).

Scroll through this page to see their weekly specials. I noticed their Organic Coconut Flour is on sale! Yummy!

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

A Very Coppinger Christmas Greeting

December 2, 2009 by Laura 8 Comments

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

Okay, I had way too much fun making a Christmas slideshow greeting at Smilebox. I’ll be emailing this out as our Christmas card this year!

Wanna give it a quick preview?!

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow: Very Coppinger Christmas
Create your own slideshow - Powered by Smilebox
Make a Smilebox slideshow

You have to go play with all the options at Smilebox. It’s FREE, unless you want to upgrade to receive more options. Once you sign up, you just upload some pictures then put them into a slide show…or into scrapbook pages…or into recipe cards…or into ecards…

I can’t believe how much fun it was to play with all of their designs and options.

By the way, our friend Tyler took all these pics of the boys playing in the snow last winter. If you happen to live around here and want someone talented to take pics of your family, I can let you know how to contact her!

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

Here it is!!! E-book Full of Preschool Activities and Ideas! Free to Everyone!! **UPDATED**

September 22, 2009 by Laura 52 Comments

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

Need some ideas for fun and educational preschool activities?

A few weeks ago, I asked my readers to help me out with some recipes, activities, crafts…whatever great ideas they had for keeping preschoolers busy and happy. I received SO MANY ideas they filled up an e-book!

I am so excited to finally be able to reveal to you the free pre-school activities and ideas e-book that many of YOU helped create!!

101 Pre-School Projects is filled with over 100 wonderful ideas for creative play with children. You’ll find eight fun categories in the e-book including:

  • Fun with Food
  • Seasonal Fun
  • Hands-On Fun
  • Fun with Arts and Crafts
  • Fun with Role Play and Make Believe
  • Fun with Music
  • Online Fun
  • All Kinds of Fun

This e-book is perfect for parents, babysitters, aunts or uncles,  grandparents,  friends, teachers…anyone who loves children.

AND it’s FREE!!!

Again, a great big thank you to EVERYONE who took the time to send me ideas and pictures. This e-book was made possible because of you! It’s sure a good thing you’re all so creative! Keep in mind that there are ideas for all seasons, indoor and outdoor. I love this!

Grab the e-book …grab the kids…and go have fun together!!

101 Preschool Projects Free Download

Grab this FREE 101 Pre-School Projects book here!

I’m excited to share that signing up for these freebies will connect you to our new Heavenly Homemaker’s Learning Zone. It’s free, of course. You can unsubscribe at any time, your info will never be shared or sold, and being on this list means that you’ll be the first to know of the other fun (yes, FUN!) educational tools we’re putting together!

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

Nanahood

September 11, 2009 by Laura 5 Comments

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

You know how so many of us “young-ish” bloggers are writing posts like:  “My Four Year Old Just Wrote With Permanent Marker All Over Our New Couch”. And then we all comment on these posts and say things like, “I hear ya! My daughter did the same thing all over her brother’s face last week!” And then some brilliant someone will leave a comment saying, “Don’t worry! When my son used permanent marker on our bald cat a month ago, we used a mixture of fermented tomatoes, grass clippings and rock salt and it came right off!”

We women…younger wives…mommies have a WONDERFUL community of support and encouragement online. I could not be more grateful. I LOVE all the friends I’ve met and learned from through blogging!

My friend Teresa, who loves reading sites written by and for younger wives and mommies, is in fact a Nana. A really cool, hip, fun Nana. After doing a bit of research, Teresa noticed that while there are some grand-mama bloggers out there…there didn’t seem to be a large community of support for these women who are “in the second half of the motherhood journey”.

Enter:  Nanahood.com

nanahood

Nanahood is a super fun place to hang out, whether you’re a grandmother or not. I encourage you all to go check out Teresa’s site…and please tell any woman in your life that you feel might enjoy being a part of this wonderful community of…Nanas.

By the way…the thing about fermented tomatoes, grass clippings and rock salt removing permanent ink from bald cats? That has not been scientifically (or unscientifically) proven. Sounds like it could take something off of a bald cat though, doesn’t it?

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

Hooray for Tropical Traditions!

September 2, 2009 by Laura

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

I can’t recommend the products at Tropical Traditions highly enough. Everything they sell is pure and good. I feel absolutely safe putting these products into our bodies and/or onto our skin.

Some of my favorite Tropical Traditions products are:

  • Virgin Coconut Oil (tastes like coconut) or Expeller Pressed Coconut Oil (flavorless)
  • Palm Shortening
  • Organic Raw Honey
  • Organic Shredded Coconut
  • Natural Soap
  • Coconut Peanut Butter
  • Organic Cocoa Powder
  • Organic Tomato Paste
  • Organic Coconut Flour
  • Omega 3 Antioxident Greens (I like the Berry flavor without licorice)

And…I’ve learned all kinds of wonderful information in Tropical Tradition’s Virgin Coconut Oil Book that you can ALL receive for FREE if you are a first time customer to Tropical Traditions!!! This book is loaded with wonderful information and recipes! Please also be aware that I receive Tropical Traditions credit if you are a new customer purchasing through my links. See my full disclosure policy here.

Tropical Traditions has been a wonderful blessing to our family and I’m VERY happy to share this resource with you!  Go check them out!

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