Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Easy Salads for Summertime

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Need some easy salads for summertime?

I’ve confessed here before that I often just grab mixed greens out of the fridge and eat them on the fly. No dressing. No bowl. No fork. Mixed greens are finger food for this busy mom.

But do I truly enjoy them that way? Not really. I just eat them because I need them and know that they will give me nourishment. Weird and boring…I know. But it works because I need it to work.

Meanwhile, these awesome salad recipes are sitting here waiting to be actually enjoyed. They taste amazing, include fantastic and flavorful add-ins, and they don’t take a lot of time to prepare.

My favorite by far is this BLT Chopped Salad. Wow is this a fantastic combination of flavors! This salad is worth getting out a bowl and a fork for!

Some of the salads in this list are an entire meal all by themselves. Some make a wonderful side dish. All of them are wonderful to take on a picnic or potluck. Some have fruit, some include greens, some even include cream cheese because God is good.

Easy Salads for SummertimeYum

What are your favorite summertime salads?

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Simple Salsa Burgers

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Need a fun idea for a tasty new burger to grill this summer? You have to try these Simple Salsa Burgers!

Yum

You know me. I love to make food extra special, but I don’t like to spend a lot of time doing it. I’m simply not a gourmet cook.

But how easy is it to stir a little something special into regular ol’ hamburger meat? So easy. In fact, you might remember these three super easy Burger Recipes I’ve shared through the years:

Not that regular ol’ burgers aren’t pretty awesome in and of themselves.

But now we’ll do something wild and crazy and dump some salsa into our meat before we shape patties. If you want, you can also stir in some shredded cheese. We prefer to leave out the cheese and instead melt a slice of cheese on top of our Salsa Burgers.

And we like to top it with this Easy Guacomole. So good!!!


Simple Salsa Burgers

Simple Salsa Burgers
 
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Serves: 8
Ingredients
  • 2 pounds ground hamburger
  • 1 cup salsa
  • 1 cup shredded cheese (optional)
Instructions
  1. Mix together ground meat and salsa.
  2. Stir in shredded cheese if you like.
  3. Shape mixture into 8 patties.
  4. Grill or fry per your preference!

What are your favorite ways to make burgers?

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Psssst! Everyone be sure to grab our Simple Real Food Recipes cookbook full of amazingly tasty and simple real food recipes like this one!

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How to Make Stick-of-Butter Rice in the Instant Pot

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If you have an Instant Pot, this method for cooking Stick-of-Butter Rice cuts the cook time in half!

Yum

Once I learned to make Stick-of-Butter-Rice, I’ve never gone back to making it the “regular” way again. This recipe is TOO DELICIOUS. My entire family likes this – even the ones who never really cared about rice before. It’s the butter, of course. Also the onion. And the broth. The mixture makes incredibly tasty rice!

If you bake this recipe in an oven, it takes a solid hour. This is fine if you have an hour. If you don’t, and you have an Instant Pot, try it this way instead! It can be done in just a half hour!

I love making batches of rice ahead of time. Typically I’ll make this and use what we need for a meal, then use the rest to stir into recipes like:

Then I can get two meals out of one!

Here’s how we often eat our freshly made rice, served with:

But truly, this rice is so flavorful that it’s perfect as a side dish all by itself. I think you’ll be like me once you try this and never go back to regular rice again!

How to Make Stick-of-Butter Rice in the Instant Pot

How to Make Stick-of-Butter Rice in the Instant Pot
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 2 cups brown rice (uncooked)
  • 2 cups beef or chicken broth
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 Tablespoons dry minced onions
  • 1 stick of butter, cut into 6 chunks (1/2 cup)
Instructions
  1. Place ingredients in your Instant Pot and stir.
  2. Seal pot and cook on the manual setting at high pressure for 22 minutes.
  3. Allow the pot to release naturally after cooking.
  4. Stir and enjoy!

 

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Easy Crock Pot Fajitas

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Easy Crock Pot Fajitas? Yes!!! The easiest!

Yum

Stand at the stove and fry your fajita meat and veggies if you like. But as for me, I’ve learned to throw all of my fajita ingredients into my crock pot and I don’t think I can go back! I don’t think it changes the flavor one bit, and if anything, since the meat is cooked low and slow, I think these actually taste better!

It goes without saying that throwing everything into a crock pot makes meal prep so easy! And I’ll let you in on a couple of other little time-saving secrets:

  1. I cheat and buy meat already sliced for fajitas and ready to dump into my crock pot. (Yes, it costs a little more. But I’m spending my time with these cuties)
    I’m also spending time with my big kids and our new boys who fall somewhere in the middle, but I don’t usually take pictures of them helping me with laundry. They are still cute too, though.
  2. I found that buying a frozen bag of sliced sweet peppers is incredibly helpful and DOESN’T cost more than buying them fresh and cutting them myself! This is a huge perk and also helpful because:
    The babes have learned to climb on everything, and since there are two of them, it doesn’t work for me to turn my back to them while I cut sweet peppers.

So, now you know. I buy pre-cut meat and pre-cut veggies. Again, let me say that buying pre-cut frozen peppers costs the same or LESS than buying fresh peppers and taking the time to cut them myself. Score!

Now that I have my convenient, but still real-food ingredients, I can throw them into my crock pot, season it quickly, and five mintues later our dinner is cooking. My job here is done. Now I can go chase babies out of the…um, just about out of everything. Phew!

Easy Crock Pot Fajitas

Easy Crock Pot Fajitas
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 2-3 pounds steak or chicken, sliced in thin strips
  • 16-ounces frozen sweet peppers or 2-3 sweet peppers slicked in thin strips
  • 1 small onion, sliced in thin strips
  • Sea salt to taste
  • ½ teaspoon chili powder
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
  1. Mix everything in a crock pot.
  2. Cook on low for 6 hours.
  3. Serve on tortillas or in a bowl of rice with any of your favorite fajita fillings!

See how pretty the ingredients look after you put them into your crock pot, turn it on, and walk away?

We love serving these with this Easy Guacomole, and it gives me great joy that guac is a way to sneak veggies into my kids!

Our kids like wrapping these in tortillas like regular fajitas. But Matt and I have enjoyed putting our fajita filling into a bowl of rice made like this. SO flavorful and good!

Give these easy fajitas a try. You will love how simple and delicious they are!

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Psssst! Everyone be sure to grab our Simple Real Food Recipes cookbook full of amazingly tasty and simple real food recipes like this one!

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

Simple Spicy Cheesy Chicken

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If you sense a theme going on, it’s because I’ve become obsessed with this Simple Spicy Chicken Cheese Dip and I keep tweaking it to make it into different dishes. This one becomes a very Simple Spicy Cheesy Chicken, simply by…well. You’ll have to read the recipe below to see.

Forgive me, friends, for bombarding you with so many variations of one basic recipe. I am sorry – not sorry – for making your meals so delicous without much effort.

Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to make this dip recipe – but instead of stirring in shredded chicken, topping with cheese, and baking it to eat as a dip, you’re going to spread the cheesy mixture over boneless chicken, and bake it to serve as a main dish.

Incredible. We just took the exact same ingredients and turned them into a brand new meal. Give yourself a round of applause. You just learned a brand new easy recipe and you can make it without thinking or working hard. What did we ever do before figuring out these simple recipes?

Speaking of Simple Recipes – you do you this cookbook don’t you? If not, run with haste to get yourself a copy forthwith (haha, if you watch Blue Bloods, you will laugh with me over this funny choice of words). It is FULL of delicious recipes that are made with real food and take only a few minutes to prepare. You will love it!

And now on to today’s simple recipe:

Simple Spicy Cheesy ChickenYum

Simple Spicy Cheesy Chicken
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 8-ounces softened cream cheese
  • ¼ cup hot sauce (your favorite)
  • ½ cup ranch dressing
  • 1 cup shredded cheese (we use Colby jack)
  • 2 pounds bone-in or boneless chicken thighs or breasts
Instructions
  1. In a blender or with a hand mixer, mix together the cream cheese, hot sauce, and ranch dressing until smooth.
  2. Fold in shredded cheese.
  3. Place chicken into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
  4. Spread cream cheese mixture over the chicken.
  5. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-50 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. (Shorter time needed for boneless chicken; longer time needed for bone-in.)

We like to fry leftover baked potatoes or Stick of Butter Rice for a delicious and easy side dish. We also serve this chicken with mixed greens and a steamed or roasted veggie!

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How to Make a Gyro

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Note from Laura: I asked my friend Bethany to share this. I’ve never attempted it – but she has mastered it! So now we can all learn how to make a gyro!

Gyro meat recipe

By Bethany:

I was pregnant, and I wanted a gyro.Yum

Needed a gyro. Couldn’t think of anything BUT a gyro. And so I began my search.

We live in a small town, and the closest restaurant with gyros was over an hour away. I knew I didn’t want to drive that far with a toddler in tow to buy one, so I took myself to our local Arby’s, and ordered a sandwich on their menu that included the word “gyro” in its description. A few minutes later I was sadly eating a subpar, roast beef sandwich. Strike out number one.

Next, I scoured Wal-Mart, and found a kit in the frozen food section for gyro sandwiches. I’m not usually one to frequent the fast food drive thru OR frozen food aisle, but–pregnancy craving–so I bought it, made it, and regretted it. Those “gyros” were even more pitiful than the Arby’s version. Strike out number two.

I searched the second grocery store in town for anything even vaguely resembling a gyro, but to no avail. Strike out number three.

Completely out of options, I opened my laptop, and researched how to make gyro meat. Then I got to work in the kitchen. I used ground beef, added tons of spices, blended the meat, baked it, sliced it, and served it in homemade pita bread with lots of toppings.

It wasn’t until my husband was eating a gyro, and asked me where I had found gyro meat, that I knew it tasted authentic! Yay!

And now, I am sharing the recipe with you, sweet readers!

Be Mindful of Your Blender

When I was making this recipe, I was blending the meat in the blender, and thinking wistfully about how both Laura and Tasha own and love their Blendtec blenders. I was wondering, as I merrily blended away, if/when my own generic blender of five years bit the dust I, too, could buy the Blender of all Blenders.

As I stood there, staring out the window, dreaming of another blender, smoke began seeping out of my own blender.

I think I killed it with my own disgruntled thoughts.

That, or attempting to blend too much meat all at one time.

So, readers, learn from me: perhaps blend the meat in small quantities to avoid any issues! Unless, of course, you are trying to kill your blender in order to buy a Blendtec. Ahem.

Gyro Meat
 
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Cook time
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 1 small onion peeled, and quartered
  • 2 pounds ground beef or lamb
  • 6 cloves minced garlic
  • 2 T Italian spices (oregano, rosemary, thyme)
  • 3 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoons ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Blend the onion chunks, and then put them into a paper towel and squeeze out the moisture.
  2. Stir all the ingredients, including the blended onions, together in a bowl and set in the fridge to marinate for 1-24 hrs.
  3. Remove meat mixture from fridge. Adding a little at a time, blend it in your blender.
  4. Take the meat mixture, and pack it into a bread pan, being careful to remove any air pockets.
  5. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until done.
  6. Remove the pan from the oven, pour off any oil that has accumulated.
  7. Wrap a brick or heavy bread pan in foil, and set on top of the gyro meat loaf, to compress the meat. After twenty minutes, remove the weight.
  8. Chill, and then slice into thin strips for your gyros!

How to Construct a Perfect Gyro Sandwich

The perfect gyro meat is:

  • Heavily spiced (use lots of garlic, cumin, and Italian spices)
  • Has a dense texture (in order to achieve this at home, be sure to blend the meat, and then compress it after it is cooked)
  • Sliced into thin strips (after it is completely cooled)

How to serve the gyro:

  • Serve the meat in pita bread.
  • Add sweet onions, feta cheese, halved cherry tomatoes, and shredded lettuce.
  • Make your favorite cucumber yogurt dressing or Greek dressing to top it.

Additional Recipes:

 

 

Bethany is a stay-at-home mom to two. During her babies’ naptime, when she’s not dreaming of Blendtec blenders, she works behind the scenes for Laura.

Do you love gyros as much as I do?

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Simple Spicy Chicken Cheese Dip

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I ate this Spicy Chicken Cheese Dip at a friend’s house recently and fell completely in love with its flavor!

Therefore, I came home and promptly made a big batch for my family the very next day. It’s ridiculously easy to make – especially if you have chicken already cooked and on hand to stir into this dip. (If not, simply cook 3 boneless chicken thighs or breasts in a pan on the stovetop for several minutes in a little water until it is no longer pink and shreds easily.)

Here’s where I confess to you that ever since we started taking in foster kids, I’ve started compromising more in the kitchen. But you already knew that. What you probably didn’t know is that I often now keep this canned chicken on hand in my pantry to use quickly in a pinch. I don’t even feel bad about it because God is bigger than free ranged chicken – and also chicken in a can.

So indeed, if you have canned chicken, drain a couple cans and throw it into this dip. Easy, delicious, and dinner is on the table super quickly!

Simple Chicken Cheese DipYum

Simple Spicy Chicken Cheese Dip
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 16-ounces softened cream cheese
  • ½ cup hot sauce (your favorite)
  • 1 cup ranch dressing
  • 3 cups cooked, shredded chicken
  • 2 cups shredded cheese (we use Colby jack)
  • Tortilla chips
Instructions
  1. In a blender or with a hand mixer, mix together the cream cheese, hot sauce, and ranch dressing until smooth.
  2. Fold in shredded, cooked chicken.
  3. Spread mixture into a 9x13" baking dish.
  4. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the top.
  5. Bake in a 425 degree oven for 10-15 mintues or until cheese is melted and dip is bubbly.
  6. Serve with tortilla chips.

If you want, you can throw this dip into a crock pot to take to potlucks or parties. Make as directed, and cook in a slow cooker on low for 2-3 hours.

Amazingly tasty!!!

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Want more Simple Real Food Recipes? We’ve got a beautiful cookbook full of them!

 

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Make-Your-Own Cane’s Sauce

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I can’t take the credit for this one! Malachi (15) came up with this and we all decided that you all needed to know how to Make-Your-Own Cane’s Sauce!

What’s Cane’s? Oh my, only the best chicken place around, according to the Coppinger family. Raising Cane’s is definitely our top restaurant choice when we go to Lincoln. We love their chicken – but it’s the dip that really makes it great!

So when we made chicken strips at home recently, Malachi decided to try and duplicate their sauce for extra good dipping. What he came up with was so delicious, we all declared that he must make this for us to have on hand at all times. We even cleaned out an old ketchup bottle so we now have a special squeezy Cane’s Sauce bottle in the fridge alongside all of our other favorite condiments. #priorities

If that’s not a delicious way to reuse and recycle, I don’t know what is.

Make-Your-Own Cane’s SauceYum

Make-Your-Own Cane's Sauce
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 cup mayonnaise (we use Hain Safflower mayo)
  • ½ cup ketchup
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 2 Tablespoons worcestershire sauce
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
  1. Combine all ingredients with a whisk.
  2. Store in an airtight continer in the fridge.

 

We’ve found it interesting to note that this sauce tastes great with just about everything. I even caught one of my kids using it to dip veggies, and who am I to argue with a  kid eating his veggies?

Try it with these Chicken Fried Steak Strips. Try it with Popcorn Chicken. Try it in Popcorn Chicken Tacos. Truly, this Cane’s Sauce is dreamy!

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Want more Simple Real Food Recipes? We’ve got a beautiful cookbook full of them!

 

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Oatmeal Cinnamon Yogurt Muffins

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Hmmm, Oatmeal Cinnamon Yogurt Muffins. I’m sure you’re wondering…what’s in these muffins? ;)

Perhaps a little oatmeal? Some cinnamon? Possibly a tad of yogurt? Wow, you guys are good. How’d you figure that out?

These simple muffins are the result of an experiment on a day I needed to use up some yogurt in my fridge. Yogurt makes muffins extra moist – though the oats make them a little more hearty. So the yogurt plus the oats work well together so that these muffins don’t turn out dry and crumbly!

And the cinnamon? Well, of course, that makes these muffins taste incredible!

We prefer these straight out of the oven, slathered in butter. You can use flavored yogurt if you’d like, though if you do, I’d recommend cutting down the sugar since flavored yogurts have sugar added. I use whole milk plain yogurt when I make these.

Oatmeal Cinnamon Yogurt MuffinsYum

5.0 from 1 reviews
Oatmeal Cinnamon Yogurt Muffins
 
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Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • ¼ cup sucanat or brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ¾ cup whole milk plain yogurt
  • 2 eggs
  • ¼ cup melted coconut oil
Instructions
  1. Stir together dry intgredients in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Add yogurt, eggs, and oil, mixing well.
  3. Scoop batter into 12 paper-lined muffin tins.
  4. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20-22 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.

I especially like these because they remind me of a muffin I used to enjoy in our college cafeteria wayyyyy back in the day. I have no idea what was in those, but they were hearty with a hint of sweetness and cinnamon. Mmmm.

Is it crazy that I now have sons in college? And that I have babies again? And that I can still taste those college muffins from 29ish years ago? Life is crazy. Expect God to do great things!

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How to Make Perfect French Toast

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Want to know the secret ingredient that makes Perfect French Toast? How about two secret ingredients? Mhmm, these ingredients are about to become not-so-secret…

I realize that these tricks may be what you’ve been doing all along to make Perfect French Toast. Still, it’s fun to share, just in case. Nothing like taking a delicious and easy breakfast, brunch, or dinner and making it just that much better!

How to Make Perfect French ToastYum

Here are the two tricks I use to take our French toast up a notch:

1. Add Vanilla Extract to the egg mixture.

2. Use Cinnamon Swirl Bread.

The vanilla adds a wonderful flavor to your French Toast. And using Cinnamon Swirl Bread instead of “regular ol’ bread” is a huge game-changer for the better. THIS MAKES FRENCH TOAST SO GOOD!!

I used to always make Cinnamon Swirl Bread at home. I started using:

  1. This Cinnamon Swirl Bread Recipe, then switched to an easier method which turned into:
  2. This Stir-and-Pour Cinnamon Swirl Bread Recipe

But now that we’ve added little ones to our home again and I find myself juggling my bigs, my littles, my marriage, my home, my work, court dates, case worker visits/meetings, appointments, my own health – well…

I happily and un-guiltily buy the cinnamon swirl bread.

Does it need to be said? Ok. Let’s review:

God is bigger than store-bought bread.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

However you would like to make your Perfect French Toast, with whatever bread works best for you, go for it and enjoy! But oh making it with Cinnamon Swirl Bread does make it so much better!

Perfect French Toast

5.0 from 1 reviews
How to Make Perfect French Toast
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 10 slices of Cinnamon Swirl Bread
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 Tablespoons cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Butter for cooking French Toast
  • Fruit and Real Maple Syrup
Instructions
  1. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, and vanilla extract.
  2. Heat butter in a skillet until melted.
  3. Dip bread into the egg mixture, coating each slice entirely.
  4. Fry each coated slice of bread in the buttered skillet until both sides are golden brown.
  5. Serve with real maple syrup and fruit

What about making homemade vanilla? Goodness I would but is the price of vanilla beans ever going to go back down?? C’mon beans. We need you. And we need you to cost less than our sons’ college tuition.

Have you tried using Cinnamon Swirl Bread when you make French Toast? And do you add a little shot of vanilla? Mmm, so good.

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