Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Easy Veggie Dip (With Homemade Seasoned Salt)

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It’s been exactly 21 hours and 4 minutes since I posted the Homemade Seasoned Salt recipe, so I’m assuming all of you have some mixed up and ready by now? Perfect. You’ll be needing it for this Veggie Dip recipe. You have cucumbers and carrots on hand, right? Perfect.

Easy Veggie Dip 1

One of the recipe cards that we made to go with your Seasoned Salt gift package shares this Easy Veggie Dip idea. Right after mixing up my first batch of seasoned salt, I made some Perfect Potato Wedges (a recipe also found on the free recipe card printable) and some of this Easy Veggie Dip. It was so….well, easy. The only way I can get my family (including the mother – that’s me) to eat cucumbers is if I supply dip. Typically, I go for ranch. But cucumbers with this Easy Veggie Dip is delicious. Even my hubby, who doesn’t really dig cucumbers, was enjoying the combo. Yay – another great way to eat veggies!

Easy Veggie DipYum

Easy Veggie Dip (With Homemade Seasoned Salt)
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 Tablespoon dried minced onion
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 2 Tablespoons real mayonnaise (I use Hain safflower mayo)
  • Seasoned Salt to taste
Instructions
  1. In a bowl, mix together minced onion, sour cream, and mayonnaise. Add Seasoned Salt until mixture changes color (it should become a light peach color), tasting as you go for desired flavor. Chill for at least one hour before serving. Serve as a dip with assorted raw vegetables.

You’ll find our Seasoned Salt recipe here, along with this recipe (and 3 others) on cute printable recipe cards. This makes a great gift! This dip is great for holiday parties, or simply as a way to get your family to eat vegetables (like cucumbers!) any day of the week. <—- I’m looking at you Coppinger Clan.

Can’t wait to hear how you like this Seasoned Salt and the recipes to go with it!

Easy Veggie Dip with homemade Seasoned Salt

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Win “The Healer” From Perfectly Posh

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You know I always encourage the importance of being careful about what we put on our skin. I love that Perfectly Posh agrees with me. From their website:

Perfectly Posh products are naturally based and made right here in the USA. You can rest easy knowing that there are no harmful ingredients (no SLS, no parabens, no paraffin, no petroleum byproducts, no gluten, no soy fillers, and no lanolin) in our products…you will find only pure, fresh, and clean ingredients.

Putting natural products on your skin is so important. Did you know that whatever you put on your skin is absorbed directly into your bloodstream within 30 seconds, and is found in your cells within 20 minutes? What you put on your skin is just as important as what you put in your mouth.

Yes! We need to be  so careful about what we eat and about what we put on our skin.

So, what to do when we get a burn or a cut, have a scar or stretch marks? Laura A., consultant of Perfectly Posh, recently sent me one of their products called, “The Healer.” I grabbed it three nights ago right before sitting down to watch a movie with my family and rubbed it on a small cut I had on my finger. I kid you not – that cut was gone by the time the movie ended. Wow. What is this stuff?

the healer

Well obviously, I had read the ingredients before putting it on my skin. But after it healed my finger so quickly, I was eager to read more carefully. It’s ingredients are:

Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter)
Cera Alba (Beeswax)
Citrus Sinensis (Orange) Oil
Vanilla Planifolia (Vanilla) Oil
Citrus Paradisi (Grapefruit) Oil
Tocopherol
Tocopheryl Acetate.

 

Hold on a second. Toco-what?  I had to look those up. Ohhh…naturally occurring Vitamin E. So shea butter, beeswax, essential oils, and vitamin E. This naturally creates a fast working, healthy for the skin – healer.

 

The next item on my agenda is to rub some on my 17 year old’s nasty scar from his run-in last summer with a branch in the lake at camp. (We have pictures. I’ll spare you.)  With how quickly it worked to heal my cut, I am eager to see how The Healer might help take away his scar.

 

How would you like to give The Healer a try? Laura A. is giving away 4 of them! Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win one. I’ll draw four random winners on Tuesday, December 9. Be watching for a post stating the winners as you will be responsible for contacting me if your name is chosen.
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Homemade Seasoned Salt with Recipe Cards Attached ~ Homemade Gifts for Under $5

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Homemade Seasoned Salt is a recipe I’ve had on my list to try to recreate for several months. What better time than now while we’re thinking about inexpensive gifts!

Homemade Gifts for Less Than $5

What’s fun is that not only did I come up with a very easy and MSG free way to make this seasoing (similar to Lawry’s), I also came up with ideas for delicious ways to use it in new yummy recipes. Now we can mix up some Seasoned Salt for gift purposes, as well as print off cute recipe cards so our recipients will have fun ideas for cooking with their gift. Package it all up together and it will be a hit!

Homemade Seasoned Salt Shaker Gift

Homemade Seasoned Salt

Homemade Seasoned Salt with Recipe Cards Attached ~ Homemade Gifts for Under $5
 
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Author:
Ingredients
  • ½ cup sea salt
  • 2 teaspoons sucanat
  • 1½ Tablespoons paprika
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric (optional)
  • 1  teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch
Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients well.
  2. Funnel mixture into a salt shaker.
  3. This recipe makes about ⅔ cup of Seasoned Salt.

(I use Redmonds Sea Salt.) This seasoning is perfect for your French fries, for your burgers or steaks, for chicken – for adding a little pizzazz to just about any food. In addition, you’ll want to download these Seasoned Salt Recipes for tasty and easy ideas. Mixing this seasoning up to give as a gift? Print those recipe cards and include them in the package.

Look how pretty all the colors are before you mix them all together!

Homemade Seasoned Salt Recipe

I found the shaker jar for this at Wal-mart for 97¢. I’d look at the dollar store too for fun shaker variations at a low cost. The ingredients cost a minimal amount, making this gift delicious, fun, and inexpensive too!

More Homemade Gifts for Under $5 coming soon. This is too much fun!

Download Your Free Seasoned Salt Recipe Cards here.

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Quick and Easy Fabric Bracelets ~ Homemade Gifts For Less Than $5

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Homemade Gifts for Less Than $5

Don’t even want to spend $5.00 on a gift? Well then, how does 8¢ sound to you?  Yeehaw.

Remember when I asked “what do you get when you cross some scraps of fabric with shower curtain rings?” THIS. This is what you get. (I found the idea here.)

Easy Fabric Bracelets for Less Than $1

Now I know what you’re thinking, but just settle down. Cute as these are, you need to leave your shower curtain right where it is. Your family will not be nearly as thrilled to see your creations at the end of the day if they walk into the bathroom and see the shower curtain crumpled on the floor.

Instead, I suggest that everyone of you needs to head to the store right this minute (after you finish reading this) to pick up a package of shower curtain rings. I got a 12-pack for just 97¢.

If you have little girls in your life, you should pick up several packs because these bracelets are sooooo much fun to make! These would be perfect gifts for friends at school, cousins, nieces – and if you cut off the end of the ring, these should fit many adult ladies too.

I made 12 bracelets in less than an hour using my handy new $3 hot glue gun. If I can make these, anyone can make them – guaranteed. If you have bits of fabric lying around, this is a great way to use it up and avoid spending extra money on this gift.

Fabric Bracelet Supplies

How to Make Quick and Easy Fabric Bracelets

What You’ll Need

  • Shower Curtain Rings
  • Fabric Scraps, cut into about 1/2″ x 18″ strips
  • Hot Glue Gun
  • Scissors

What To Do

  1. Begin by hot gluing one end of the fabric strip to the inside of a shower curtain ring.
  2. Tightly wrap the fabric around and around the ring, adding one or two more drops of hot glue to secure the fabric as you go.
  3. Cut any left-over fabric off at the end and glue in place.

Quick and Easy Fabric Bracelets

I plan to gift some of these to my elementary-aged prayer pal at church – a little reminder that I’m praying for her. I’ll let my nieces pick out a few. Malachi even suggested that we send some to Gladis. Won’t she have fun sharing some of these with her friends!

Hope you have as much fun with these as I am having. Thanks to everyone who has sent in Homemade Gifts for Under $5 ideas. Keep them coming! I’ll be sharing them here soon. You won’t believe how many great ideas there are for inexpensive homemade gifting!

Now, go. Go buy shower curtain rings.

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Gratituesday: One-On-One Christmas Shopping

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gratituesday[2]

One of my favorite family traditions is one the boys and I started several years ago. I take each of them shopping, one at a time, so that they can pick out and purchase Christmas gifts for their brothers. Having this rare one-on-one time with each boy has been beyond wonderful.

boys mugs

You may remember me sharing the fun story of these mugs that Malachi picked for his brothers (and himself!) last year.  :)

I used to do this shopping marathon with they boys all in one day. Four trips back and forth to the store, four tours around all the aisles – all in about a 6-hour time frame. That was fine (said the crazy lady), although my brain and energy were fried by the end of the day (you think?).

This year, we’ve broken it up a little bit. Asa and I were at the mall last week since we had to go out of town for doctor appointments. He got his shopping done there. Elias had items in mind that could all be purchased online. He got his shopping done in his pj’s while sitting by me at the computer a few days ago.

Today, Malachi and I headed out and had a great time picking out gifts his brothers wanted/needed. Later this week, Justus will take his turn. Then, we’ll have a little more one-on-one as they hide out with me and wrap their gifts.

It’s probably best if I don’t mention the fact that traditions are all the more special to me this year since our oldest is a senior in high school. Yeah, I won’t mention that.  It’s been fun to see our family traditions develop through the years.

boysbytree2sm2

Check out this gem from 2007 I found a few days ago!
Who are those little-bitty boys, anyway?

I’m so grateful for this holiday season, and all the fun and joy that comes with it. Praise God for the fun traditions he’s created in our family!

What are you grateful for this Gratituesday? Leave a comment to let us know!

 

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Homemade Gifts for Less Than $5

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What do you get when you cross a hot glue gun with a pair of socks? Some scraps of fabric with shower curtain rings? A jar with some freshly ground flour?

The sky’s the limit, right? Homemade gifts are loads of fun to make, give, and receive. I have some fun ideas I’m working on, and I’m hoping you have some even better ideas. But you know how I am with crafts, right? I beg of you – help a girl out?

Homemade Gifts for Less Than $5

During the next two weeks, I’d love to share many ideas so that we can all put together some simple and inexpensive gifts. Whatcha got for me?  I’d love to feature your ideas here!

No pressure, but if your homemade gift ideas can include words like no-sew, easy-peasy, or maybe even crafts for dummies, I for one would really appreciate it. My clumsy thumbs shy away from difficult projects. I break out in hives when I see crafts that include more than 5 simple steps. I love making gifts, and swoon over homemade crafts, but I’m not gifted in this area and I don’t even know what “modge-podge” is. (Noun or verb? I seriously don’t know.)

So let’s review. I want homemade gift ideas. I want the ideas to be easy enough for a fifth grader (wait, let’s go with third grader, just to be safe). And I want to be able to make the gift for $5 or less. An added bonus would be that the gift actually be useful and make the recipient joyful instead of forcing them to politely say, “Oh, this is…interesting. Isn’t that nice.”

If you have an idea, take a picture, write detailed (but simple – bless you) instructions, and email them to me. My younger boys and I have a sack full of project ideas we’ll be working on this week. If any of them actually turn out – and they totally should because I did invest $2.97 in a new glue gun today – I’ll be sharing my ideas with you soon.

Stay tuned during the next few weeks for these Homemade Gifts for Less Than $5 tutorials, plus plenty of yummy new recipes for the holiday season.

Ahhhhh, recipes. That I can do. Don’t worry. I’ll keep my new glue gun out of the kitchen….

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Final Day to Get $10 Free To Spend in Our Shop; Free Shipping Today at MadeOn; Homemade Vanilla Announcement

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Since we got home from our Kansas trip, we’ve filled our house with extra teenagers. It kind of just happened, without much planning. I’ve decided that sometimes that’s the best way to do it!

Our boys invited friends over for a movie night on Saturday, which included tons of popcorn and a batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies. On Sunday, six extra kids came over after church for lunch. I quadrupled my waffle recipe, so we got along just fine. Then, Sunday night our high school youth group came over for Huddle, so our living room filled up again. Nachos, Bible study, and fellowship – a great combination.

Why am I telling you all this? No reason.  It’s just been a lot of fun, and while I’m sitting in my office trying to write (Sunday afternoon), I’m listening to teenage hubbub in my living room. I’m so grateful that my boys have such great friends in their lives. {happy sigh}

Monday is a big day for online shopping (my favorite way to shop!). I wanted to remind you that today is the final day we’re running our $10 bonus and sale price offers. Want a free $10 to spend in our shop? Here’s how to get it:

ForRealBookCover6
Purchase our printed book and you’ll immediately receive an email which includes a bonus $10 gift certificate to use on anything downloadable in our shop! Use the certificate yourself, or gift it to someone else. This certificate will expire December 15, 2014. Bonus offer ends midnight Monday, December 1, 2014.

Oh, For Real: Real Food, Real Family, Real Easy 
$25.95

Add to Cart

Cost for a book shipped to Canada is $34.05. If you are from Canada or another country outside the U.S., please email me before purchasing. Thanks!

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Get a big discount on our “giftable” version of the Build Your Menu Planning Notebook. With this version, you can download and print a notebook for yourself and print to gift others with notebooks too! You get unlimited, lifetime downloads with this package. Sale price ends at midnight Monday, December 1, 2014.

Build Your Menu Planning Notebook 350

Build Your Menu Planning Notebook – For Personal Use and for Gifts (unlimited lifetime downloads)
$10.99
$6.99

Add to Cart

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Get Teaching Your Kids to Cook or Learn to Cook (the downloadable versions) for just $5 each. Print these for your kids this Christmas! Sale price ends at midnight Monday, December 1, 2014.

Teaching Your Kids to Cook Downloadable Book
$12
$5
 Add to Cart

Learn to Cook Downloadable Book
$12
$5
Add to Cart

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I also wanted to let you know that today only, MadeOn is offering free shipping! This is awesome – both for gifting others or simply purchasing for yourself. My winter hands are well loved by MadeOn’s BeeSilk Hard Lotion. No coupon code needed for free shipping to apply. Everyone gets free shipping on any order, all day Monday! (Disclosure – these links are affiliate links.)

beesilk hard lotion bars in hand

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One last item to share:  We’ll be bottling up our latest batch of Homemade Vanilla Extract this week and offering it for sale here on Saturday, December 6. We’ll begin the sale at 8:00 am, CST. Mark your calendar, and set your clock. It’s first come, first served on this – and we often sell out quickly during our Christmas sale. We’ll have 2-ounce, 4-ounce, and 8-ounce bottles this time around as those smaller bottles are awesome for stocking stuffers and teacher gifts. :)

vanilla_one

Hope your week is off to a great start!

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Merry Christmas and a Hoppy New Year ~ Simple Craft for Kids

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I originally posted this fun craft idea back in 2008. That translates to the dark ages ago in blog years. Not only did you probably not know this idea existed on my site – I had even forgotten all about it.

Hoppy New Year Christmas Craft

I think that frog is too cute to be ignored, and that this craft is to simple not to bring to your attention. For those of you who love detailed craft projects – this one will not interest you and I say, “You go, Girl!” I am simply not super gifted in the crafting arena, so I stick with cut out frogs, hole punches, and candy canes.

Supplies you will need:

  • Red cardstock, cut in half and folded over to make a card
  • Frog pattern
  • Green cardstock for frogs
  • Print out of Merry Christmas sign
  • Googly eyes
  • Candy canes
  • Blow markers (optional)
  • Markers
  • Glue bottle
  • Glue stick
  • Hole punch
  • Scissors

To Make:

Print frog pattern, trace onto green cardstock and cut out. Punch a hole on both sides of the frog. Carefully slide candy cane through the holes to look like the frog is “holding” it. Draw a smile onto the frog. Use green blow marker to make “speckles” (optional).

Use a glue stick to glue frog onto card. Glue googly eyes on with glue bottle.

Use glue stick to attach “Merry Christmas and a HOPPY New year” sign to card.

It’s as easy as that. Your kids can enjoy making these cards for classmates, Bible class teachers, neighbors – whoever you’d like to bless. :)

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Menu Plan for the Week – and a Peek Into Our Thanksmas

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I hope you have had a wonderful holiday weekend! We had a great time with family in Kansas, bringing back Asa’s “new” 20-year-old car on our way home. So exciting for him!

Here’s a picture of my beautiful (quiet, well-put-together) family:

thanksmas 2014 3

Nice, huh? But God bless my sister-in-law for snapping the following picture on my phone as we were posing for the one you see above.

thanksmas 2014 2

If that’s not the real Coppinger family, I don’t know what is.
I had a nice giggle when I discovered that jewel on my phone. 

After individual family shots, we attempted to get 13 grandkids – ages 3-weeks to 17-years – all in one picture. I’ve decided that photos like this are so much better than perfectly posed shots.

thanksmas 2014 1

We had a great time together, you can bet on it. :)

Not a single one of us got up early to go Black Friday shopping. But here’s something fun to share:  When we got back to Nebraska, the weather had turned beautiful! Malachi and I took a walk to the dollar store to look for something I needed for a quick project. I didn’t find what I needed, but I did happen upon a 75% off clearance section. I grabbed a few potholders and dish rags, thinking they would be about 25¢ each after the discount. When they rang up, it turns out they were already discounted to around 30¢ each – then I got 75% off that price! I ran back and grabbed more, of course. My total for all you see below was less than $3.00 total. Amazing and fun!

groceries november 14 4

I didn’t get any steals when I made a produce run later, but hey – it’s food. Good food at that. :)

groceries november 14 5

I picked up mixed greens, avocados, sweet peppers,
oranges, carrots, pineapple, and mushrooms.

Since it was such a nice day on Saturday, and since we were hungry for lots of veggies, I put together a big pasta salad. It was so pretty, I had to take a picture. By the way, adding spinach to pasta salad works very, very well.

pasta salad

A cold front is moving back in, but a couple days of warm weather sure was a treat! Now we’ll be getting back to soups and hot drinks. I’m still loading us up with pumpkin. I have plenty, and all the recipes are delicious and healthy – so why not?

Here’s what our menu options will be this week:

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Fruits and Veggies (I serve 1-4 with each meal)

  • Peas
  • Green Beans
  • Mixed Greens
  • Spinach
  • Broccoli
  • Carrots
  • Asparagus
  • Spaghetti Squash
  • Spicy Avocado Dip
  • Clementines
  • Fresh Pineapple
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Applesauce
  • Sweet Peppers

notebook 2

Did you brave the crowds and go shopping on Friday? What’s your menu looking like this week?

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Easy Pumpkin Pie Bars

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Wow, Laura. Another pumpkin recipe? Really?

Actually, I used butternut squash puree in this recipe, so there. But yes, it’s another pumpkin (aka butternut squash) recipe. I told you I was on a roll with pumpkin recipe experiements. I’m here to provide you with easy recipes – and also to force you to eat vegetables. What better way than in a dessert? (And in a salad, of course.)

You’ll notice that I loved the Shortbread Crust idea so much in the Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe that I stole the idea for this crust too. This is basically Shortbread with Pumpkin Pie baked on top – all in a 9×13 inch pan. No rolling of a pie crust necessary. Easy, buttery, delicious – what more could we want?

Easy Pumpkin Pie Bars

Easy Pumpkin Pie BarsYum

Shortbread Crust

3 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat for this)
1/2 cup sucanat (or brown sugar if you prefer)
1 1/2 cups melted butter

Stir flour and sucanat together in a bowl. Add melted butter, combining well. Press mixture into a 9×13 inch baking pan. Bake in a 350° oven for 7 minutes. (It will only be partially cooked at this point.)  In the meantime, prepare the filling:

Pumpkin Pie Filling

3 cups pumpkin or butternut squash puree
2/3 sucanat
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon nutmeg
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup heavy cream

Whip ingredients together until smooth. Pour over crust. Bake in a 350° oven for 45-55 minutes or until a knife inserted into the bars comes out clean.

Have you had your fill of pumpkin this holiday season?

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