Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting
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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!It happened the day we were putting up the Christmas tree. I was also trying to help guide Justus, our 16-year old, as he was finishing a big research paper for his college class. Decorations had exploded all over the living room, and I’d just discovered that not one, but two of our strings of lights for the tree weren’t working.
Such is life. Tis the season. No big deal. But it was almost lunch time and not only was food not prepared, I hadn’t even found a moment to figure out what lunch was yet. “Help me with a quick idea for lunch, Malachi, then we’ll run to the store and get more lights for the tree.”
Malachi’s solution to every lunch would be hot dogs if I would allow it. So it was no surprise when that was his suggestion this day too.
Aha! That gave me an idea. I said, “Malachi, go grab a package of hotdogs from the freezer and get two cans of baked beans. We’ll make Beanie Weanies when we get home.” And there was much rejoicing by all.
This is where I pause to tell you how silly I feel right now. I’m actually writing a post to tell you this:
When you’re in a hurry and you don’t have anything planned for your meal, make Beanie Weanies.
I know this isn’t a typical recipe idea you’re used to hearing about from me. But there really is something about a pot of bubbly baked beans with bites of hotdogs that is comforting, am I right? Plus, this meal doesn’t have to be unhealthy if you use the right ingredients. Even the most health conscious among us need a fall back meal sometimes. Beanie Weanies it is. Rock on.
Best tip of the day: Keep a supply of canned of baked beans in your pantry. Keep a supply of better-than hot dogs in your freezer. When you’re in a hurry and need a fast meal, mix them together and lunch is served.
You’re welcome, I guess.
Not only did we manage to finish Justus’ big research paper that morning and put (working) lights on our Christmas tree, we had a fantastically satisfying meal that only took about ten minutes to make.
Am I weird? Is my whole family weird? What can we say? We all really love this meal. The Beanie Weanies tasted great along with a mixed green salad, clementines, sweet peppers, and slice pears. The sides took hardly any effort to prepare so I’m not kidding when I say that this meal really only takes about ten minutes to make.
‘Fess up! Who’s a Beanie Weanie fan?
Let Simple Meals save you money, time, and energy so you can enjoy your family! (Remember, the plans will be extra simple this holiday season. Sweet!)
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Before I get started with today’s post, I wanted to show you my new, early Christmas present!
It’s an insulated, stainless steel 34-ounce double wall French Press and I LOVE IT! It came from Ecooe, a site that has me drooling. My favorite feature of this French Press is that it keeps the hot beverage hot during our entire breakfast while it rests on the table. And of course, it’s stainless steel which makes it safe to use and beautiful to look at. The price is right, so put it on your list, or grab it early so you can use it to entertain this Christmas!
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Now let’s talk about how to save the Christmas season!
Never am I more tempted to buy Take-and-Bake Pizzas like I am during the busy holiday season. Sometimes (shh) I even consider buying Velveeta to make Rotel Dip. I know!!!! I think it’s a childhood memory thing. But also, no matter how simple I keep our holidays, there is still always more to do than a normal day in the life. Therefore, compromising in the kitchen is something I’m always more likely to do while we’re putting up the tree, wrapping gifts, or rummaging through our piles of junk to find yet one more thing to take to a White Elephant Gift Exchange.
Let us all pause for a moment to acknowledge how many white elephant gifts my family has to come up with every Christmas season now that I have a houseful of teenagers going to parties of their own. The parties are many; the need for white elephant gifts is abundant. You would think by now we’d have nothing useless or weird left in our house. Somehow we keep coming up with items to wrap and get rid of. Although at one point last year we got so desperate to figure out what to send with our oldest son to his White Elephant Gift Exchange on the college campus that we put a bow on our then 10-year old and sent them both on their way.
You thought I was kidding.
Not to worry though. After all the college students fought over this special gift, they delivered him back home safe and sound. Somehow we also accumulated a fish in a tank that night. We named him Finley and managed to keep him alive for exactly a day and a half.
So back to making food compromises and trying to survive the busy holiday season.
My solution to avoiding Velveeta? Make this dip instead. Ever since I invented this dip, I don’t even want Velveeta any more. Guaranteed, I will be making this for my family to enjoy some evening while we’re sitting around the Christmas tree playing a game. We all love this.
I will probably buy a few Take-and-Bake Pizzas sometime during the month to give myself a night off. The kids will eat more sugar than normal at all of their White Elephant parties and sure, probably even at our house. I’m not terribly worried about any of this because stress over food is, in my opinion, less healthy than the junk food itself. So bring on the fudge, but first please eat a carrot.
Seeing as I can’t fall back on compromise foods every single night from now until January 2 when things supposedly settle down, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make Simple Meals planning packets even simpler than normal. This is saying something, my friends!
From now until the end of the year, every meal suggestion in your Simple Meals packets will be extra easy, extra brainless, and even extra festive! This is going to help us all survive the holidays without having to stress over how we’re still going to put a good meal on the table while we’re trying to put together goody bags for the neighbors and rummage through the toy box for yet another (non broken) something or other to wrap for a White Elephant gift exchange.
Simple Meals Members? Look forward to refreshingly easy plans and ideas to simplify your holiday season! If you’re not a member yet, now is the time to get on board with us so you can enjoy this too!
Do you find yourself coming and going during the holiday season? What compromise foods do you find yourself falling back on? What have been your best scores at a White Elephant Gift Exchange?
Look forward to some amazingly fun and easy Simple Meals Planning Packets this month!!!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Raise your hand if you’re busy this week. (Unless, of course, your hands are in the middle of de-boning a turkey. You can just give me a nod.)
Our oldest son is home from college right now, so we are a family of six again. So what if he’s been “away,” living in his college dorm only 8 blocks from home? We don’t see him much and we miss him. Having him home for longer than five minutes has been a joy.
I would say that we’re taking life easy while we prepare for Thanksgiving, but would you believe our son #2 has two huge projects due for his online college history class on Thanksgiving day? What? And yes, he would have had them done ahead of time except that it wasn’t possible because of all the other projects he had due before these.
I’m telling you, these online classes my kids take are threatening to kill us all with a long slow death. (The on-campus classes are much more managable.) Well, anyway.
We’re hosting Thanksgiving this year for 15-20 people from town. Then we’ll head to Kansas to celebrate “Thanksmas” with my side of the family. I baked the turkeys over the weekend. The green bean casserole is in the freezer. Slowly but surely I’m pulling the meal together so that come Thursday, I can actually enjoy the day instead of cooking and cleaning for hours!
In the meantime, the six of us still need to eat regular meals. (They didn’t like the idea of fasting in preparation for Thanksgiving. Whatever.)
Meals like this Simple Last Minute Lentil Chili are amazing for weeks like this! Thaw no meat. Soak no beans. Just go to the stove and put this soup together.
Truth: I didn’t think I would like chili that didn’t have meat in it.
I am such a meat loving girl! We are a meat loving family.
But in fact: My family didn’t even notice this didn’t have meat in it until I told them an hour after they ate it. “Really?” they said, “It tasted like it did!”
Score.
Let this chili recipe save you some evening this week while you’re busy preparing to host or travel!
Don’t do all the work yourself! Let Simple Meals save your family time!
Do you have big plans for Thanksgiving?
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I experimented with these Chicken Cheeseballs on a whim. It was a simple recipe and I figured chicken and cheese – sure, they’ll probably be pretty good. Pretty good? I should say so! I turned right around (did the hokey-pokey) and made these again three days later. These cheesy little meatballs are incredible!
The first night I pulled a batch of these out of the oven, one by one my men came into the kitchen, took a look at the meatballs, and popped one into his mouth. I think each one, in turn, said the same thing, “Whoa. What are these? These are amazing! You can make these again!” (Don’t mind if I do.) I wouldn’t say my family is very picky, and yet, when every single person in the family likes a recipe, this is a huge score.
You might be wondering, like I did, “What holds these meatballs together? Don’t we need flour or bread crumbs or a bisquik type baking mix to make this recipe work? Nope. They stay together just fine even though they are made with only ground meat, cheese, and a few spices. They take only a few minutes to mix up and scoop into a pan. You can make the side dishes for your meal while they bake. AND, if you have time, you can make a double or triple batch to freeze so that all you have to do at mealtime is grab out the amount you need and bake them!
I used a scoop like this one to make these meatballs. Whoa, does that little kitchen gadget come in handy!
Use ground sausage or ground beef if you prefer in this recipe. You can use these Chicken Cheeseballs on a holiday snack buffet table, serve them for breakfast, or serve them as a main dish at dinner – they are perfectly versatile. I’m looking forward to keeping these in my freezer for quick, simple meals in the future!
Let us do your planning for you, and don’t worry, we’ll keep it simple!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!This Simple Last-Minute Nacho Plate comes together very quickly and is a huge crowd-pleaser at my house!
It’s almost embarrassing the amount of salsa we have been going through lately. Though I suppose our family goes through an embarrassing amount of pretty much everything, so never mind.
I was at Aldi a few weeks ago and put two cases of their organic salsa in my cart. Why get 1 jar when you can get 24, right? While in the check-out line, the lady behind me asked, “Oh! Did I miss a sale on salsa?” Nope. It’s a “we eat massive amounts of food at our house because of all the teenage boys” situation. That and I don’t live close to an Aldi and don’t get to shop there very often.
The great thing about any of the recipes I share that involve salsa is that you can use your favorite brand and your preferred mild-to-hot level.
With all these recipes being so tasty and easy, it any wonder that I bought 24 jars of salsa at once?
This newest recipe idea, Simple Last-Minute Nacho Plate, is the result of what happened when I made a big batch of Meat and Cheese Burritos and had leftover filling. I didn’t have time (or desire) to make more tortillas, so I put the leftover meat/cheese/salsa mixture in the fridge. The next day we warmed up the mixture for lunch. We threw the delicious meaty goodness on top of tortilla chips with a few greens and whatever other toppings (olives, tomatoes, etc) that each person wanted.
It was then that I said to myself, “Why have I not done this before?” And a new Simple Recipe was born.
Now, take note that while this is called a “Last-Minute” recipe, you most certainly do not have to wait until the last minute to make it. Sure, it’s a recipe that can save your neck if you didn’t plan ahead and you need a meal on the fly. But the meat mixture stays good in the fridge for several days so you can make it ahead of time and pull it out to warm up as needed. It also freezes well, so you can make a double or triple batch and freeze it in meal-sized portions for your family to thaw and re-heat on busy days.
Here are more Simple Recipes you will love:
Those simple recipes are just the beginning. We’re taking it all to the next level so that not only are our recipes easy and nourishing – you don’t even have to think about what to prepare or purchase! Jump in with all the others who have joined…
Here’s what Michelle said about Simple Meals: YAY. I love it. I am very thankful you are doing the “work” part of meals for me.
Hey, our pleasure. We love it too. :)
Question: How much do you love salsa at your house?
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Recently I have discovered the amazingness of baking several pounds of bacon, freezing it for later use, then pulling it out to reheat and serve in about 2 minutes.
I already knew how to make Bacon Bits ahead of time for ease in making salads and bacon-cheesy eggs. But strips of bacon? Well, I’d never tried making it ahead before. I will make bacon this way from now on because it is an incredible time saver!
Also, it keeps my hair from frequently smelling like bacon, so I think we can all be grateful for this delightful bonus.
Can you believe how easy this is?
I recommend that you lay the bacon on a broiling rack like this and place it on a baking sheet like this. This will allow the bacon grease to drip into the pan and prevent a mess.
Once the grease has cooled and thickened, I recommend transferring it to a jar in your fridge. Bacon grease stirred into green beans or other veggies makes for a super flavorful side dish!
Being able to offer my family bacon with zero effort on a busy morning has been a life saver. After all, as my men will tell you, bacon is a necessity of life.
Do you usually cook bacon on the stove or in the oven? Ever tried making it ahead of time and freezing it as described above?
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It’s the question of the day, right? The frustrating part is when I’m asked this question while in the middle of five other tasks…and I haven’t yet figured out the dinner plan. Ugh, sorry kids. Dinner is…something. I’ll have to get back to you on the specifics.
Enter: Simple Meals. 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!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!You know the tried and true recipes you always fall back on? Those are the best, right? Those are the dishes you can make without even thinking. Those are the recipes you always have ingredients on hand for. Those are the recipes that keep us sane and our families fed.
Suddenly I’m finding that my list of such go-to recipes is growing! I love it that there are so many recipes that don’t require much thought or effort to put together. I love it that my family keeps raving about all of these.
And I love it that I’m not compromising one bit with these recipes when it comes to nutrition. I’m certainly not compromising on taste, and not even on the budget. These are happy, happy, happy simple recipes!
Today’s Simple Recipe is Taco Rice Dinner. This goes together very quickly, can be tweaked according to your preferences and food sensitivities. Plus it is absolutely yummy. (My kids don’t care much about the rest of it, as long as it tastes great!) We all love the flavor of this dish.
Just like with all the other Simple Recipes, all you have to do is throw out salad fixin’s and some fruit to go with this dish.
TIP: If you didn’t plan ahead to thaw hamburger meat (story of my life!) just do this. It’ll quickly thaw you’re meat and you’ll be on your way!
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You will love this!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I don’t know one person who can do all things well, all the time. Do you? Here’s what I experience and have come to recognize as my normal:
Some days I can work on my website for many hours, edit several photos of food, write three blog posts, and answer 40 waiting emails. I end the day feeling incredibly productive after all I’ve accomplished. But you should (not) see my house at the end of the day. Nothing got cleaned. Our meals were what we would probably lovingly label as “miscellaneous.” And it’s very likely I never got out of my pajamas from the night before.
Then there are the days I get dressed right away, fix a big breakfast for my family, clean up right away afterward, and spend an hour making freezer foods. I’ll spend extra time on history lessons with my youngest, sweep the nasty floor in my kitchen, and help my 16-year old edit an English paper. Dinner will be a favorite. The dishes will be done right after. I’ll figure out what’s for breakfast tomorrow. Great right? Yes. These are great days. They are also the days I completely neglect my website work, answer zero emails, and fall quickly behind on all online duties that need to be done. In addition, those are the days I probably never made it back upstairs to even see the washing machine or remember that laundry needs to be done.
Actually, can we please not talk about laundry on any day ever? Okay.
My point? I can do a lot of things well, but I cannot do them all on the same day. I’ve realized that “getting everything done” is not a thing that ever happens. And I’ve almost come to terms with the fact that “getting everything done” doesn’t actually matter. Almost. (It’s just that the laundry piles and gross floors do get to me, you know?)
I’m assuming you can relate. If not, you can pray for pitiful people like me who find themselves coming, going, and forgetting to come back. The struggle is real.
It’s recipes like the one I’m sharing today that can make all of us feel accomplished on any day no matter what got done and what didn’t. Meals like this Simple Hawaiian Crock Pot Chicken take no effort, but you’ll still sit down at the end of the day and be like, “Wow. I made an awesome dinner. Yay me.”
This chicken recipe has your back. It’s ridiculously easy, but tastes like you worked some sort of kitchen magic.
Did you see in the recipe how it doesn’t matter if you start with frozen chicken or thawed chicken? I almost always start with frozen chicken, because thinking ahead to thaw chicken is just about more than I can handle. After all, I’m way too busy not getting everything done.
How are your days? Do you often end a day feeling like you didn’t get everything done? Join the club! (And also remember to recognize all you DID get done!)
You will love this!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Many are enjoying our new Simple Meals plans, but as we all know:
Every once in a while, I hear a mom say, “Oh snacks? My kids don’t eat snacks. They just eat big meals.”
I have no idea what to do with that. No snacks? Just big meals? I definitely know that could work for some, but this is not the case for my family. We eat big meals and we still need snacks.
You know it’s not just my kids that need snacks. I’m the mom and I need snacks frequently. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with snacking, though I do believe snacks should be just as nourishing as a meal – not just empty calories to fill a hole.
My current favorite nourishing snack:
These are amazing for energy and brain function. I like brain function.
Today let’s talk about Simple Snacking options. I’ve made it my goal to provide incredibly simple recipe options for all Simple Meals plans. So in keeping with the theme of simple recipes, here is a list of my easiest snack recipes that will keep your family fed but will not keep you in the kitchen very long!
That list contains 32 real food, Simple Snack Recipes that you can feel good about feeding your family!
Don’t forget the obvious – good ol’ fruits and veggies!
The more you get to know me, the more you’ll find that I think healthy eating is important. But I think family time is more important. As I said recently in an email:
I love to cook. I love playing with recipes and making great food for people to eat. But I love my family more, and stress in the kitchen makes me fight being a grumpy wife/mom/friend.
That’s why I’m sharing all these Simple Snacks today. That’s most definitely why I created Simple Meals. I want to make life in the kitchen simple for everyone so family time can be a higher priority.
So, look through the snack list above, and spend a few minutes making one or two. And check this out!
You get $56 worth of free eBooks with your Simple Meals subscription, and those freebies include a bunch more snack ideas and recipes.
Share with me. Can your family stay full between meals or do you often need to provide snacks to keep everyone going?
P.S. Sometimes I get out fresh spinach and eat it as a snack straight out of the container. My 16-year old loves to tease me about my weird spinach snacking habit. I don’t even have a come back. It is weird and I admit it.
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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!