Heavenly Homemakers

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Homemade French Onion Dip

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I’m getting ready to write this recipe for you, but suddenly I’m in a panic because I don’t know what makes French Onion Dip French. I get my onions from America and I don’t do anything Frenchy to them. Am I somehow supposed to Frenchify my onions? If so, what does that look like? My once super simple recipe has now become completely stressful.

french onion dip

I therefore decided to do some research on the matter since I have plenty of time to waste, but mostly because I don’t want to steer you wrong with a recipe. The first thing I came across online was a packet of Simple Organics French Onion Dip. Its tagline? “America’s Most Popular Dip.” Well that clears all the questions right up.

I couldn’t let it go, so next I did an online search for “what makes French Onion Dip French?” Because the internet never lets us down, an actual article titled Why Is French Onion Dip called French? came up. It said a few things and some other stuff, but my favorite sentence was this:

“There are now recipes for French onion dip that combine actual caramelized onions with the usual dip ingredients (mayonnaise, sour cream) and other flavorings, but this is not a dip you’d find in France.”

What?? Well, we it appears that in our quest to discover the origin of this dip, we can conclude that this dip is not French at all. The dip has nothing to do with France or French people or French food. French Onion Dip is a made up name, just because it sounded good for marketing purposes. In defense of Lipton, I would concur that French Onion Dip is a better sounding title than White Onion Dip or the obvious, Just Onion Dip. The name French Onion Dip sounds more fun and fancy. Either that or I’ve gotten sucked into the marketing ploy.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, we can move on with life and learn the recipe.

Homemade French Onion DipYum

Homemade French Onion Dip
 
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Ingredients
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 3 Tablespoons dried minced onion
  • ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
  1. Stir the ingredients together.
  2. Chill for at least two hours before serving (or serve right away because who actually follows that instruction?).
  3. Serve with fresh veggies or potato chips.

You can’t really mess up this recipe, so don’t worry about measuring exactly. Life’s too short to use (and wash) measuring spoons. Feel free to add a touch of garlic powder or black pepper. And about the potato chips mentioned in the recipe? I find the kind with the fewest ingredients and the healthiest oil (usually safflower) and go with it. Potato chips with this dip make a great party food.

Homemade French Onion Dip - Three Ingredients!

It goes without saying that the next item on my agenda was to see why fries are French, or if in fact they actually are at all. Low and behold, fries originated in the U.S. but were called French because they were “served in the French manner.” Huh.

Are you doing something fun for New Year’s Eve? I’ll probably make this dip. Then we can sit around with our friends and talk about the origin of food and where different foods got their names. I’ll be the life of the party.

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Cinnamon Sugar Pecans ~ a Great Gift or Christmas Snack

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Cinnamon Sugar Pecans

I don’t know how much these cost in the mall. All I know is that last week when my friend munched on these Cinnamon Sugar Pecans that were sitting on my table she said, “You made these?? These are phenomenal! We buy these at the mall every Christmas – but you made these??!”

Ah, well. I sure do love it when my friends come over and say nice things about my food. I mean – I love it when friends honor me with their presence and I can, in turn, bless them with something tasty to eat. Well, shoot. The food and friends thing – it’s just a win-win you know?

So back to how much Cinnamon Sugar Pecans cost at the mall. I have no idea. They must cost a lot because making these at home is not the least expensive snack or gift you’ll make this Christmas. Pecans aren’t cheap. I prefer organic nuts, but the cost throws me a little bit. I’ll only make these for the occasional treat seeing as our family (along with some friends) downed almost an entire pound of these in a day and a half. Of course, this is not surprising. We are the Coppinger family after all. “Oh look at all her tall, thin boys. They must not eat as much as other teens.” {Laura passes out with laughter.}

The least I can do for us all is to provide a recipe so we can make these at home to avoid having to spend more on these specialty pecans at the mall. I’m guessing these are lower in sugar, too. You’ll love how easy these are to make. And they do make a great gift – if you can package them up before they all get eaten by your family. Christmas blessings to you on that one.

Here are some online sources I like for pecans:

  • Braga Farms – I love this source. We visited their farm. They are fantastic people. I buy from them when I can.
  • Amazon – These are about half the price as those above, but they aren’t organic. They are a good quality, though.

Cinnamon Sugar PecansYum

5.0 from 2 reviews
Cinnamon Sugar Pecans ~ a Great Gift or Christmas Snack
 
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Ingredients
  • ½ cup sucanat or sugar
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 teaspoons water
  • 1 pound pecan halves
Instructions
  1. Mix sucanat, cinnamon, and salt in a gallon-sized ziploc-type bag.
  2. Set aside.
  3. Whisk egg white, vanilla, and water in a large bowl until frothy.
  4. Toss in pecans, coating them all with liquid.
  5. Pour the coated pecans into the bag with sucanat/cinnamon/salt mixture.
  6. Seal the bag and shake gently to coat the pecans as evenly as possible.
  7. Spread the coated pecans on a parchment paper or silicone mat lined cookie sheet.
  8. Bake in a 250° oven for 1 hour - stirring every 20 minutes.

Here’s a little look at each easy step of making these pecan snacks: whisk the egg white mixture, stir in the pecans, shake them in a bag with the sugar mixture, spread them on a pan to bake. None of this is difficult.

Steps to Make Cinnamon Sugar Pecans

Easy Cinnamon Sugar Pecans
As a happy aside – my family enjoyed sprinkling some of these on our French toast this morning at breakfast. I’m so excited that these are now a part of our list of holiday goodies to enjoy!

cinnamon pecan french toast

I feel like I should now make a gift card to go with these pecans, just in case I can set any aside to give as gifts. Here are some pretty terrible options I came up with as to what the card should (not) say:

  • Hope your Christmas is as nutty as you are!
  • I think you’re nuts!
  • You’re gettin’ nuttin’ for Christmas.
  • Don’t open before Christmas -no pecan! (that one is truly horrible)

Please, Friends. Help me come up with a good gift card tag line. Or maybe we should just eat all of these without sharing.

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2-Ingredient Cranberry Sauce ~ It’s Too Easy

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cranberry sauce

Why? Why do we make it hard? And the most important question of all, who loves how the cranberry sauce from the store plops out of the can and remains forever in the shape of the can? How do they do that, anyway?

Don’t answer that. I already know. It’s made with gelatin. I could make my cranberry sauce with gelatin too, if I wanted. It might be kind of fun, actually. I could use a tin can to make a cranberry sauce mold and I could plop it out on Thanksgiving morning. It would bring back fun memories of my childhood, because that was one of my favorite holiday jobs. I could re-live that suction sound it made as the jellied variety of cranberry sauce came out of the can. That would be way, way, way better than my memories of the sound a can of biscuits makes when it opens. I can’t even handle thinking about that one. (I’m a canned biscuit big baby scaredy cat chicken.)

So homemade cranberry sauce. It is so easy. I’d never even made it before last week because I figured it might be hard. Really, Laura? You put cranberries and sugar in a pot and you cook it for a few minutes to create cranberry sauce. Well, I had no idea.

This recipe is a total no-brainer. It’s as easy as Stir-and-Pour Bread. In fact, this sauce tastes very good on top of a slice of that particular bread. I promise to continue to make all of our real food cooking as easy as possible.

Please note though that while this is easy and made with real food – this recipe is very full of sugar. I tried to cut down the sugar – you know – to prove like so many other recipes that all the sugar is ridiculous. Unfortunately, this dish mocked me to my face. (Literally, to my very puckered up face.) It was like, “I dare you to cut the sugar down and not make weird faces. Go ahead. Try it. Heh. Nice face.”

Fine. My face was unbecoming. Make this cranberry sauce of the low sugar variety at your own risk. Keep your camera handy. Your cranberry sauce face photos will be a delight for years to come.

Whatever your sugar content choice, I promise you will love how ridiculously easy this side dish is to make. I will be making mine a couple days before Thanksgiving so that I can simply pull it out of the fridge to serve. I got my fresh cranberries for 99¢ so I was very excited. You probably wanted to know that.

2-Ingredient Cranberry Sauce

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5.0 from 1 reviews
2-Ingredient Cranberry Sauce ~ It's Too Easy
 
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Ingredients
  • 1½ cups fresh cranberries (12 ounce bag)
  • ⅓ to 1 cup sucanat or sugar
Instructions
  1. Rinse cranberries.
  2. Combine cranberries and sucanat in a small sauce pan.
  3. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes. Your work here is done.
  4. Place cranberry sauce in a serving dish, cover, and refrigerate for at least two hours before serving.

Ten Minute ~ Two Ingredient Cranberry Sauce

Make this several days before serving if you wish. Yes! It is another make-ahead dish to save you time on Thanksgiving or Christmas (or some Friday in February). Add this recipe to your Getting Ahead for the Holidays Check-List.

Have you tried making Cranberry Sauce? Ever tried it low sugar? Whoa. Who loves the canned, jellied cranberry sauce suction plop? Ah, the memories.

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While I’ve got you, I am pleased to announce the three Getting Ahead for the Holidays winners of the $25 Gift Certificates good toward any of our eCourses or downloadable items in theHeavenly Homemakers Shop!

  • Jane J.: bnwalker@
  • Shelby: sixforemans@
  • Karen: kloumc21@

Winners, email me (laura at heavenlyhomemakers.com) and I’ll send you a certificate!

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

Simple Whipped Sweet Potatoes

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sweet potatoes2

Matt grew these beauties in our garden this summer!

Will your feelings be hurt if the sweet potatoes for your holiday meal don’t have marshmallows?

I don’t want marshmallows. My husband doesn’t want marshmallows. I’ve never even liked marshmallows (even in a s’more). But some people want marshmallows.

For example:

According to my 13-year old, the sweet potato recipe below isn’t sweet enough. Therefore I asked him, “Do you think I should add more maple syrup? Maybe even some brown sugar? Extra butter? Do you think I should salt it to bring out the natural sweetness? What do you think this recipe needs?”

With a grin, he quietly said, “Probably just marshmallows.”

Stinker. 

I do love to accommodate, especially for a holiday. Therefore, even though I vowed I never would, I looked again at homemade marshmallow recipes. Maybe for a special occasion, I thought, I could go to the trouble to make some. I searched for the marshmallow recipes that said “easy” and “quick.” But once again, I realized why I’ve never wanted to make homemade marshmallows. They might be easy, but they aren’t quick. They instruct, “Stand and whip the mixture until your legs cramp and you can no longer remember your name.”

Have I mentioned I don’t even like marshmallows?

I tell you what. If you want to add marshmallows to this recipe, I won’t even care. You can make them homemade. You can buy a package of them at the store. I will probably just skip the sweet potatoes and eat extra Green Bean Casserole. We can all still be friends. The good news is that this recipe (without the marshmallows) is incredibly simple to make, and you can make it ahead if you like!

Simple Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Simple Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Simple Whipped Sweet Potatoes
 
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Serves: 6-8 servings
Ingredients
  • 4-6 medium sized sweet potatoes
  • 3 Tablespoons butter
  • 3 Tablespoons real maple syrup, sucanat, or brown sugar
  • Sea salt to taste
Instructions
  1. Scrub sweet potatoes and place them in a covered baking pan.
  2. Bake them in a 350° oven for about one hour or until they are tender.
  3. The skins should peel right off!
  4. Place peeled potatoes and remaining ingredients into a high power blender or into a mixing bowl. Blend until smooth either with a blender or a hand mixer.
  5. Serve right away or follow directions below to prepare ahead of time.

Make Ahead Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Yum
Make sweet potatoes according to directions above. Allow them to cool completely. Cover and refrigerate for up to two days before rewarming to serve. Or, cover and freeze the dish for up to 3 months. To reheat and serve, thaw potato dish, cover, and place in a 350° oven for about 30 minutes or until they are warm through and through.

Truly, you will want to embellish these sweet potatoes to fit your tastes. Add more sugar if you like. Toss on some marshmallows (I’ll look away). It’s a holiday! Do whatever you enjoy!

Are you a fan of marshmallows? 

Here are the quick links to all the recipes we covered in this series:

Getting Ahead for the Holidays

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Simple Meals is here! It’s saving my brain (and many of yours too!). If you haven’t joined yet, now’s the time. Get all the details here!

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

Real Food Green Bean Casserole (a Make-Ahead Dish)

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gb_casserole_2

If I had to choose a favorite holiday dish, it would have to be Green Bean Casserole. It’s not something I remember eating when I was growing up. I discovered it sometime after Matt and I got married. So yum.

The recipe I learned to make? It was the one with canned cream of mushroom and french fried onions. Man, I loved that stuff.

Once I learned more about cooking with real food ingredients, I knew that the canned cream of mushroom soup and French fried onions didn’t make the cut. But this casserollllllle! How to make a real food version?

gb_casserole

I learned long ago how to make cream soups. French fried onions had me stumped though – mostly because of the time I felt it would take to create them. Then all my plans to keep my real food kitchen simple would be out the window.

Finally I figured out how I could make this casserole without mushroom soup or French fried onions. It goes without saying, then, that this casserole is very easy to make. Just wait until you see how easy!

Green Bean Casserole

Yum

5.0 from 1 reviews
Real Food Green Bean Casserole (a Make-Ahead Dish)
 
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Serves: 6-8 servings
Ingredients
  • 3 cups fresh or frozen green beans
  • 2 Tablespoons minced onion
  • 3 Tablespoons butter (if needed)
  • 1 Tablespoon cornstarch or whole wheat flour
  • 2 cups milk
  • Sea salt
  • 2 cups grated cheddar cheese
Instructions
  1. Steam green beans until tender. Set aside.
  2. In a large saucepan, saute onion and butter together until the minced onion is lightly toasted.
  3. Turn heat down to low.
  4. Stir in cornstarch, then add milk.
  5. Turn heat up to thicken cream sauce, stirring constantly until sauce is thick and bubbly.
  6. Stir in cooked green beans, salting liberally.
  7. Pour the mixture into a 9x13 inch casserole dish.
  8. Top with grated cheese.
  9. Cover and bake in a 350° oven for 30 minutes.
  10. Uncover and bake for 10 minutes more.
  11. Serve.

To Freeze Green Bean Casserole:

Make the casserole as directed in the recipe above. All it to cool completely. Cover and freeze for up to three months.

To bake and serve, thaw casserole in the refrigerator and bake as directed. OR, cover the frozen dish with foil. Place it in a cold oven*. Turn the oven on to 250° and bake for 2 hours. Turn the oven up to 350° to continue baking to heat through.

*Be sure your oven is cold when you put in the frozen dish! Otherwise, the pan will crack because of the extreme temperature change.

Real Food Green Bean Casserole ~ a Make-Ahead Dish!

There is a One-Dish Meal version of this casserole in my Oh, For Real Cookbook called Hearty Green Bean Casserole. It includes hamburger and it is awesome.

Note that if you use corn starch instead of wheat flour to make the sauce for this recipe, it will be completely gluten free.

I think this will soon become one of your favorite holiday dishes! Then, of course, you will find yourself making it many times all year round. No need to wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas for this one!

Here are the quick links to all the recipes we covered in this series:

Getting Ahead for the Holidays

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simple Meals is here! It’s saving my brain (and many of yours too!). If you haven’t joined yet, now’s the time. Get all the details here!

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

Can You Make Mashed Potatoes Ahead of Time?

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Oh yes. You can. You can make mashed potatoes ahead of time.

potatoes_2

Now, there are some things you’ll need to avoid. Here are two mashed potato tricks that do not work:

1. Do not boil potatoes with the plan to mash and serve them later.

While this seems like such a good idea, this will turn them into a sticky, gooey mess.

2. Do not make mashed potatoes and freeze them as-is.

I’ve never had success with this. Plain mashed potatoes freeze fine but thaw weird. They are always watery and unappetizing. These are not the kind of potatoes I want to include on my holiday table. If you do freeze them as-is, you must cook the frozen/thawed potatoes in a pot to steam off excess water that has formed in the freezing process. More info to come.

Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes ~ What Works, What Doesn't.

Ways to prepare this side dish favorite ahead of time:

1. Scrub or peel the potatoes and put them into a pot of cold water.

Want to get the prep work out of the way on a busy day filled with meal preparations? Typically I pull my family into the kitchen the night before the holiday meal. Together, we scrub and chop potatoes. We put them into a large pot, cover them with cold water, put on a lid, and leave them until boiling and mashing time the next day.

potatoes

2. Make mashed potatoes, then use your crock pot to keep them warm.

What I find very helpful is to follow all the instructions detailed in #1 to prep the potatoes the night before. The next morning – hours before our meal – I cook, drain, and mash. I then put them into a crock pot (with butter, always) on the “keep warm” setting until serving time. In the meantime, I can wash and put away the potato pot, then focus on other meal prep that needs to be done.

3. Embellish the mashed potatoes before freezing them.

While mashed potatoes don’t freeze well as-is, they do freeze well if you add some goodies to them. Take a look at the recipe below for all the specifics! When made like that, they do freeze well. Or, at the very least, you can make them a few days before your holiday meal, refrigerate them, then bake them on serving day. This is the method I plan on using this holiday season.

cheesy_mashed_potatoes

Cheesy Mashed Potatoes are always a huge hit. You can’t go wrong with sour cream and cheese right?

Make-Ahead Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

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5.0 from 1 reviews
Make-Ahead Cheesy Mashed Potatoes
 
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Serves: 8-10 servings
Ingredients
  • 8 medium-sized potatoes
  • 1 cup milk (more or less as needed)
  • sea salt to taste
  • 3 Tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 cup shredded cheese
Instructions
  1. Scrub and cube potatoes.
  2. Boil them in water until tender.
  3. Drain water and mash potatoes with milk and salt until smooth.
  4. Stir together the mashed potatoes, butter, and sour cream.
  5. Spread into a 3 quart casserole dish.
  6. Sprinkle cheese on top.
  7. Refrigerate until you are ready to bake this dish.
  8. Bake in a 350° oven for 45 minutes.

Freezing Instructions:

Make the potatoes as directed in the recipe above. All it to cool completely. Cover and freeze for up to three months.

To bake and serve, thaw potatoes in the refrigerator and bake as directed. OR, cover the frozen dish with foil. Place the frozen dish of potatoes into a cold oven*. Turn the oven on to 250° and bake for 2 hours. Turn the oven up to 350° to continue baking to heat through.

*Be sure your oven is cold when you put in the frozen dish! Otherwise, the pan will crack because of the extreme temperature change.

What has been your experience with making potatoes ahead of time?

Here are the quick links to all the recipes we covered in this series:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simple Meals is here! It’s saving my brain (and many of yours too!). If you haven’t joined yet, now’s the time. Get all the details here!

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

5-Minute Stove-top Granola Recipe – It is Too Easy!

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Stove-Top Granola

Once upon a time, I spent five minutes stirring together melted coconut oil, sucanat, and oats in order to top an Apple Crisp. (I was making it dairy free for a friend.) While making it, I didn’t measure my ingredients (surprise, surprise) so when it came time to top my apples, I had too much topping. Oh well. I’d store them for later. Into a jar they went (surprise, surprise).

Later, my 13-year old came into the kitchen and saw the jar of apple crisp topping, about which he said, “Ooh, what kind of granola is this?” It was at that moment that I realized that all we had to do was stir in coconut flakes, almonds, dried fruit – whatever we wanted – and we’d have granola.

It was in the next moment that I decided that I might make granola like this every single time because it only took five minutes and it was too easy.

Friends, I present to you:

5-Minute Stove-Top GranolaYum

Make it on the fly. Make it ahead of time. Serve it with add-in options. It will be one of the easiest breakfast or snack options ever.

4.7 from 3 reviews
5-Minute Stove-top Granola
 
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Serves: 6 servings
Ingredients
  • 4 cups whole oats
  • ¼ cup sucanat
  • 1 cup coconut oil
Instructions
  1. Melt coconut oil in a medium-sized pan on the stove.
  2. Remove from heat and stir in oats and sucanat.
  3. Serve immediately, or allow it to sit a while to dry somewhat. We like it both ways.
Notes
Add-in options:

Nuts like almonds, pecans, or walnuts
Coconut flakes
Dried fruit like cranberries, raisins, or blueberries
Chocolate Chips

When you make granola this way, you can set it out with a variety of add-in options and have a Granola Bar. (Like my play on words there?) This is wonderful for people with food allergies or simply to appease people’s taste preferences.

5-Minute Stove-Top Granola

I’d love to hear your ideas for Granola Add-In options!

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Bacon Tomato Dip With Baked Tortilla Chips

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Bacon Tomato Dip. It is so yum.

Bacon Tomato Dip

When I first came upon a recipe like this one, it was called BLT Dip. This sounds delicious, but with one problem. The recipe included no L. There was only B and T.

(Translation: There was only bacon and tomato – no lettuce.)

I considered adding lettuce to the recipe to make it a true BLT dip, but I am quite sure the L would have gotten soggy. Nobody likes soggy L, am I right? Of course I’m right. There are books written about this. People know to run far, far away from soggy L and even limp L will raise eyebrows. So far be it for me to stir crispy L into this recipe and turn out a recipe with soggy or limp L. I love you all too much to put you through that. {wipes tear from eye}

So I played with the recipe and landed on a perfect BT Dip, but decided that BT Dip was a ridiculous name. Come everyone! Try this BT Dip! You will love it! “What a weirdo,” the people will say, “She forgets her vowels.” Then people will try to figure out which vowels and then if they didn’t want to already, they will really not want to try the dip.

Bat Dip, Bit Dip, But Dip (have mercy), Bot Dip… The people would be so busy trying to figure out what the name of the dip is really supposed to be that they would never actually look at the recipe and try the dip. This would be tragic (because this dip is terribly delicious).

I hope this gives you just a glimpse into how hard my life is. This situation has been crippling. Landing on a title kept me up night after painfully long night – so much so that I again considered adding soggy L to the dip just so I could move on with my life and effectively parent my children.

Then I just decided to turn the B and the T back into words. B=Bacon. T=Tomato. Bacon Tomato Dip. How clever.

There is nothing more to say except that you really must make this dip. And also the chips as detailed below because those make the dip many percentages better.

Bacon Tomato Dip (adapted from this recipe) Yum

5.0 from 1 reviews
Bacon Tomato Dip With Baked Tortilla Chips
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 pound bacon
  • 1 cup mayonnaise (I prefer Hain Safflower Mayo)
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 2 chopped tomatoes
Instructions
  1. Cut bacon into bit-sized pieces, cook, and drain.
  2. Stir cooked bacon into mayo and sour cream.
  3. Stir in chopped tomatoes just before serving.

Serve with corn chips or homemade tortilla chips (details below).

Bacon Tomato Dip with Baked Tortilla Chips

Now let’s talk about making Baked Tortilla Chips. I did not even consider calling these BT Chips because I’d already been through so much trauma. But as you can see, B and T would have also worked for these chips. (B=Baked. T=Tortilla) Try to keep up.

How to Make Baked Tortilla Chips

1. Cut your favorite tortillas into strips or triangles or shapeless objects of any sort. Do not name the objects. It makes for sleepless nights. (I usually make homemade tortillas, but Bountiful Baskets offered a nice variety pack and I grabbed it. This worked very well as it is very sad for me to go to the trouble of making tortillas only to cut them after I’ve rolled them. Naming recipes is hard enough. Do not make me also destroy my hand-rolled creations.)

baked chips4

Lay the cut tortillas in a single layer on a baking sheet. Place them in a 350° oven for about 10-15 minutes or until the tortillas have become crispy.

baked chips3

Notice that they puff up a bit as they get crispy. Delicious perfection.

baked chips2

Throw them all on a platter and serve them with Bacon Tomato Dip. You will love how delicious this combination is.

baked chips1

I can’t wait to hear how much you love this dip with your homemade chips!

Aren’t you proud of me for actually coming up with a dip that did not involve ground beef or cheese? And also for coming up with such a brilliant name for this new dip? May we all stand (neh, just sit) in amazement.

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

Pineapple Fluff Salad (All Real Food Ingredients!)

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We can actually make Pineapple Fluff with real food!

Pineapple Fluff

While we were out at church camp this summer, one of the cooks made a huge bowl of “Green Fluff Salad.” Malachi, our 10 year old, helped himself to seconds and thirds – absolutely loving this salad.

Now I personally think that calling this a salad is kind of like calling margarine butter which no one should ever, ever do in my hearing because I will gag and then I will do the ugly cry on the spot. (Do not picture this.) A dish which contains green jello, cool whip, cream cheese, pineapple (yay fruit!), and mini-marshmallows is…I’m going to say…a dessert? Now if you like that variety of “salad,” more power to you. I understand these types of cravings because I still want an occasional Dorito even though I know better. But I just question the use of the word “salad” here and now back to the story.

Malachi loved the Green Fluff Salad. This is why, when I asked him a week later at home for a side dish suggestion to go with grilled steaks we’d be making, he perked up and said, “Oh Mom! We should make that Green Fluff stuff we had at camp!”

Before I go on, you need to know this: It was my birthday. We were talking about side dishes for my birthday dinner. Mine. Does my child not know me the way I thought my child knew me? Was he also going to buy me some margarine as a gift? I felt an ugly cry coming on.

Catching myself before an outburst because I am always so graceful in my parenting, I gently said, “Buddy, I don’t use those kind of ingredients. I’d rather make something with food we have on hand already.”

To which Malachi said calmly, “I know. I mean we can try to figure out how to make that salad the healthy way. Like you always do.”

Squeeze him. Now that’s a boy who knows how his mama thinks. I mean, I knew all along that’s what he meant. I never doubted for a minute. I knew he didn’t mean for me to go buy cool whip and marshmallows. C’mon now.

Pineapple Fluff Salad (I guess I’m still calling this a salad. I don’t know why.)Yum

Pineapple Fluff Salad (All Real Food Ingredients!)
 
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Ingredients
  • 8 ounces softened cream cheese
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 Tablespoons lime juice
  • ¼ cup sugar or 3 Tablespoons real maple syrup or liquid stevia to taste
  • 14-ounce can of pineapple, drained (chunks, tidbits, or crushed works fine)
Instructions
  1. Open pineapple, drain, and save juice for drinking another time.
  2. Set pineapple aside.
  3. In a high-power blender mix cream cheese, whipping cream, vanilla, lime juice, and sweetener of choice until well combined and smooth.
  4. In a bowl, fold pineapple into the whipped mixture.
  5. Chill for at least one hour before serving.

If you want this salad to be green, I’m sorry. Real food is only green if it comes out of the ground that way. Jello doesn’t grow in a garden. It’s okay though. I put this salad in a clear dish on top of a green plate and that kind of gives it the greenish look. I do what I can.

Pineapple Fluff Salad with Real Food Ingredients

Did Malachi like the results? Yes. He absolutely loved it. No jello needed. Lime juice did the trick, as did a tiny bit of sugar. I didn’t take the time to figure out a marshmallow substitute for this because I am not crazy, and whipping cream was an obvious real food substitute for cool whip. This kid received the “favorite kid in my kitchen” award (because none of my other kids were home) and I received the “nailed it” award on this recipe challenge. Fist bump, high five, happy dance.

pineapple fluff malachi
One might wonder, “Why is there a toilet paper tube behind Malachi?” What? Don’t you keep those on your countertop beside your fruit bowls? It’s soooo Heavenly Homemakerish. But for real, we are working on some projects for a great big new book coming out soon for you and your kids. It’s super exciting and on this very Pineapple Fluff making day, the project involved an empty tp tube. Nothing should surprise you about me anymore. (Update: Here’s the book!)

Are you familiar with Green Fluff Salad? Or other colors of fluff salad? Drop-kick those (but not literally because, eww) and make this amazing real food version.

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How to Make Gatorade

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Homemade Gatorade!!!!!

Homemade Gatorade

Yum

The thing about me experimenting with an idea to try to come up with a healthy alternative is that I can get super excited about the result – but then immediately question, “Will this taste as good to other people as I think it tastes? Will others who are used to the ‘real version’ think this only tastes like a so-so ‘healthy version?'” These questions were especially tricky when making a Gatorade alternative because 1) I haven’t actually sipped on any Gatorade for several years so I couldn’t even remember what it was supposed to taste like and 2) the homemade version looked so cute in my recycled juice bottles that I was going to be super disappointed if my kids didn’t like it.

It’s all about the cute bottles. Am I right?

So there I was with my “I really need my men to love this Gatorade in cute bottles” conundrum. I had the bottles nicely chilled so that they were good and frosty on the outside, enhancing their cuteness and curb appeal. Hoping for the best, I drove the bottles across town to where my entire family was working on a roof.

When I arrived, they greeted me with phrases such as, “We are so hungry, what did you bring for lunch, I hope you brought cold drinks, we are so sweaty.”

This was a perfect time to say, “I actually brought some homemade Gatorade (in cute bottles, please like them) – so that should be perfect to replenish what you need after sweating so much.”

See, my family can talk about sweat right before eating lunch and it’s not a big deal. We are a family of men (except for me) and I’ve learned to live and breathe and talk all things gross. I only brought it up here because in all fairness, Gatorade truly does give a body some of what it needs – like sugar and salt (electrolytes) – to replenish after sweating. It’s just all the other junk in Gatorade I’m trying to avoid. But enough about sweat and high fructose corn syrup.

My pickiest kid – and also the one who loves junk food more than all the others – pulled out a bottle first. I held my breath. This would be the biggest test, because if this boy liked it, they should all like it. He took a sip, said “Hmm,” then took another sip. After considering the taste for a moment he said the best sentence of all, “If I didn’t know it was homemade, I would think it was real Gatorade.” Had he not been so sweaty, I would have kissed him.

Instead I shrugged and said calmly as if it didn’t really matter to me, “REALLY, FOR REAL?! YOU REALLY THINK SO? I WAS REALLY REALLY HOPING YOU’D LIKE IT!!!!” He just kept sipping, then also dug into the cooler for some lunch, because he is a boy and doesn’t understand the importance of the cute bottle.

So make this. Use it to quench the thirst and bless the bodies of all those around you who do sports or other activities in which they need replenishing and refreshment.

How to Make Gatorade

Homemade Gatorade (adapted from recipe at Deliciously Organic)

4.6 from 5 reviews
How to Make Gatorade
 
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Serves: 6 cups
Ingredients
  • 1 cup 100% juice
  • 2 Tablespoons honey
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt (I use Redmond)
  • 6 cups cold water
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan stir juice, honey, and sea salt over medium heat until the honey and salt dissolve. Pour mixture into 6 cups of cold water.
  2. Shake to combine.
  3. Chill mixture in the fridge until ready to serve.

Homemade Gatorade Recipe

I’m not sure about the exact math on this recipe, but I would venture a guess that it takes about 50¢ to make this (almost a half gallon). 50¢ divided by five 10-ounce bottles is 10¢ per bottle. Store-bought Gatorade costs quite a bit more than that, plus it is full of ingredients our bodies don’t need.

That, along with the cute bottles, should make you eager to try this recipe.

So tell me? How excited are you about my cute bottles??! (And sure, does the recipe make you excited too?)

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