Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Icy Cold Milkshake Treats

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I’ve been sharing quite a bit about coffee treats lately. Iced Coffee, Homemade Chocolate Frappe, Chocolate Whipped Cream for Coffee…yum. This is great for everyone except for those who don’t like coffee, right? Yes, well. This post should take care of that.

My family definitely fits into the “don’t like coffee” category of people. In fact, they really don’t understand why I’ve suddenly started loving the stuff. Okay by me. It’s the one and only food/drink in this house I get all to myself. Ha! It’s mine. All mine!! (she says, lovingly.)

So for all the “don’t like coffee” people out there, including my family, who thinks my Homemade Chocolate Frappe looks really good but tastes really bad – here’s what I’ve come up with as a delicious alternative. Icy Cold Milkshake Treats.  Instead of starting out with coffee ice cubes, simply start out with regular ice cubes. Instead of adding cold coffee and milk, simply add cream and milk. Instead of adding chocolate…oh wait. We’re still adding chocolate. Unless you want straight up vanilla. That works too.

Icy Cold Milkshake Treats
 
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Prep time
Total time
 
Author:
Recipe type: Milkshake
Serves: 3 servings
Ingredients
  • 2 cups ice cubes
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Liquid stevia to taste (I use about 10 drops NuNaturals brand)
  • 3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (omit if you prefer a vanilla milkshake)
Instructions
  1. Blend ingredients together until slushy-like. Serve right away.

You’ll love how easy this is, how “real food” this is, and how it’s a treat completely void of sugar. It doesn’t get any better. (Unless you add coffee, but we’ve been through this already.)

 

Icy Cold Milkshake Treats

Most of the ingredients in the list are in “give or take” proportions. You’ll figure this out if you actually try to measure 2 cups of ice cubes. Rectangle shaped ice cubes don’t cooperate very well in a round measuring cup.

In addition, you may want your shake to be creamier, smoother, sweeter, chocolatier, or with coffee. Oh wait. This one doesn’t have coffee in it. Well anyway, feel free to add more or less of any of the above listed ingredients to make this shake just what you want it to be.

As for me, I’m going to stick with the Homemade Chocolate Frappe. And I’m going to drink the entire blender of coffee goodness all by myself because no one else in my house likes it so I don’t have to share, so ha! (she says, with kindness.)

What do you think? Which will you like better? And which will your family members like better?

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My Favorite Brand of Stevia (and How to Get Some For Free)

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nu naturals steviaI’ve talked quite a bit lately about my new love for stevia. I’ve always known it was a great choice in a real food diet, but I just couldn’t learn to like it. Now that I’ve figured out how to use it correctly, I really am loving it!

The trick is to find a good brand of stevia, and to avoid using too much. Too much stevia, and your treat turns from sweet to bitter.

I love that stevia is all natural – it’s an herb that is naturally sweet. I love that it provides us with sweet treats that are completely sugarless. And I love that it isn’t an artificial sweetener (like Splenda or NutraSweet – those must be avoided!!).

Many have asked what kind of stevia I like and where I get it. You may not be surprised when I tell you that I order it from Vitacost, one of my favorite online resources.

What is my favorite brand of Stevia?

NuNaturals is the brand that tastes the best to me. I prefer either the NuNaturals Alcohol Free Liquid Stevia or the NuNaturals Clear Stevia. So far, I’ve not experimented much with powdered stevia. Therefore, I’ve only used stevia in liquid recipes, not in baked goods. Once I figure out how to do that well, I’ll definitely pass on the information!

How Can You Get Stevia For Free?

If you are a brand new customer with Vitacost, you can click through these referral links to sign up for an account. Doing so will give you a free $10 coupon code to use on your first order of $30 or more. That makes a bottle of stevia absolutely free to you!

Does Stevia seem expensive to you? It really isn’t. This is because you use just a few drops of stevia to add sweetness to a recipe. A little bit goes a lonnnnnnnggggg way. Sweet! (literally)

Now, go get yourself a free $10 to use on Stevia (or really, whatever else you might like for free). Then you can enjoy making all these guilt free, delicious, real food recipes like Homemade Chocolate Frappe, Chocolate Whipped Cream, and several new recipes that I’ll be sharing in the upcoming weeks that I’ve learned to make with Stevia. :)

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Gratituesday: Soul Quest Worship

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gratituesday[2]

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year.

It’s Soul Quest week at York College, and since we live here in the town of York, we are blessed to enjoy the evening worship times. What is Soul Quest, you ask? It is a church camp held on the York College campus that brings in 500+ campers, including our two oldest boys. It is a week of intense spiritual encouragement, classes, and worship for the campers and staff.

soul quest

I took this picture tonight during worship while standing on a chair in the back of the auditorium.
(Way to break the rules and stand on a chair during worship, Laura. Yeah, I know.) 

Our family has taken part in Soul Quest for as many years as we’ve lived here in York. Sometimes we attend the morning chapel session too, but typically we stay home all day getting our work done, then head to the big assembly each night for amazing singing and prayer time with a room packed with teens and adults. It’s loud and crowded, but you talk about a room full of people on fire for the Lord. This is where it’s at.

We are so thankful our older boys are able to get the full Soul Quest experience (which, of course, includes staying up way too late at night in the dorms). The friendships they build and the mentoring they receive is priceless. It’s a fun perk that they are away at camp, but we can still catch a glimpse of them each evening. ;)

What would you like to share about this Gratituesday? What are you thankful for?

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Healthy Homemade Chocolate Frappe

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This frappe recipe has nothing to do with me and everything to do with: you all totally rock. Thank you for reading my posts and then sharing your great ideas too. YOU are Heavenly Homemakers that I am so thankful to call friends. Plus, you give me more delicious chocolate ideas, so of course I love you.

This recipe is a result of putting several of your comments together from both my Make Coffee Ice Cubes for Iced Coffee post and my Chocolate Whipped Cream – Perfect For Your Coffee post. I took all of your thoughts, advice, and suggestions – put them together with my ingredients and my blender…and what did I get? Chocolate Frappe perfection which is a completely guilt free treat on a hot day. Or a cold day. Or in the middle of the night. Not really. I sleep at night. But I dream of this Chocolate Frappe.

Healthy Homemade Chocolate Frappe

This frappe is stevia sweetened, which means there is no sugar in this – only wholesome, real food ingredients that won’t give you a sugar rush. Don’t like stevia? I didn’t like it either until I learned to use it correctly. I prefer NuNaturals Liquid Stevia (ordered through Vitacost). Use only a few drops – too much and your drink will have a bitter aftertaste. Get it just right and you’ll feel like you’re drinking something naughty. Oh lovely Chocolate Frappe fantastic-ness.

Healthy Homemade Chocolate FrappeYum

Healthy Homemade Chocolate Frappe
 
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Author:
Ingredients
  • 5-8 iced coffee cubes
  • ½ cup heavy whipping cream
  • ½ cup milk
  • ½ cup coffee (cold brewed or hot brewed then chilled)
  • ½ cup (or more) Chocolate Whipped Cream
Instructions
  1. Mix ingredients in the blender until smooth.
  2. Feel free to add more or less of any of the above ingredients.
  3. Serve and drink immediately.
  4. Pass out from the deliciousness.
  5. Take joy in the non-guilty pleasure.

Some additional ideas I learned from you regarding the creation of cold coffee treats:

  • In addition to freezing coffee cubes, you can also freeze cream or milk to blend into frappe type drinks.
  • You can cold brew coffee in your French press if you have one. I’m definitely trying this.
  • You can cold brew coffee in jars. Well shucks, I have jars. I can do that.
  • You can freeze tea in ice cube trays so your tea doesn’t get watered down. This has nothing to do with coffee, but it’s worth sharing anyway because, duh. Why didn’t I think of that?
  • We should all get together and drink coffee, or tea, or something because wouldn’t that be so much fun?

Keep on sharing – What are your favorite coffee drinks for summertime?

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Today is our oldest son’s 17th birthday. This is super weird since he was just born last week and two days ago he lost his first tooth. Believe people when they say that little ones grow up quickly. That never made sense to me until now.

Speaking of the birthday boy, Asa arrived home from Ecuador at 4:00 yesterday morning. We’ve had a great time looking at his pictures and hearing more about his experiences. He loved every minute of his time there, and we can’t wait to hear more as he continues to share stories of everything he did. He and Justus, our 14 year old, actually left this afternoon for a week on the York College campus for a camp called Soul Quest. Yep, Asa got back from Ecuador just in time to attend this beloved event. We don’t see much of our older boys in the summer, but we sure do see a lot of spiritual growth in them after all the trips and camps.

So back to today being Asa’s birthday. In his sleepy state yesterday after he pulled himself out of bed, I asked him to come up with some birthday food choices for today. Knowing his birthday fell on a Sunday, he hesitated to ask for Biscuits and Gravy. “Would you have time to make that before church?” he asked. Ah yes. No problem. But only because I had biscuits in the freezer and turkey sausage already made. Get all the details here for how to put a meal of biscuits and gravy on the table within 15 minutes.

Freezer Biscuit Tutorial

All the other males in the family were thrilled with Asa’s breakfast choice, as you can imagine. I loved how easy it was to put together and please my men. ;)

Here’s the rest of our menu for this week:

Sunday, June 8
Biscuits and gravy, raspberries
Lasagna casserole, tossed salad, ice cream with homemade hot fudge
Turkey and cheese sandwiches, carrots, tomatoes, sweet peppers, strawberries and chocolate whipped cream

Monday, June 9
Poppy seed bread with orange glaze (recipe in {Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook), scrambled eggs, cantaloupe
Sloppy joes, carrots, cucumber, raspberries, chips and salsa
Pizza, tossed salad, watermelon

Tuesday, June 10
Whole wheat waffles, blueberries, whipped cream
Easy noodle stir fry with broccoli and carrots, cantaloupe
Grilled barbeque chicken, tossed salad, asparagus, green beans

Wednesday, June 11
Honey whole wheat bagels, strawberries
Lamburger patties, cheesy cauliflower cakes, peas, pineapple cream dessert
Easy cheesy bean dip with chips, strawberry peach slushie

Thursday, June 12
Cheesy omelets, creamy orange cooler
Chef salads with chicken, cheese, and lots of veggies
Cheesy salsa enchiladas, green machine milkshakes

Friday, June 13
Strawberry cream muffins, applesauce
Black bean chicken nachos, pineapple, sweet peppers
Pasta salad bar

Saturday, June 14
Whole wheat donuts, cantaloupe
Leftovers
Cheeseburger macaroni, tossed salad, peas

What’s on your menu this week?

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Want to Give Homemade Vanilla For Gifts This Christmas? Time To Get it Started!

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vanilla

Yep, it’s that time of year again. It takes 4-6 months of brewing time to get a really good, pure vanilla extract. If you would like to give Homemade Vanilla Extract for Christmas gifts this year, it’s time to get your supplies together and start a batch!

Here is all the information you need about making homemade vanilla. Be sure to take advantage of the 10% discount offer Olive Nation gives us here at Heavenly Homemakers. Use the code home to receive the discount at check-out. I love their vanilla beans, their price, their quality and their free shipping on this product!

Important Announcement!  We have a batch of our Heavenly Homemakers Vanilla Extract ready to bottle and sell. If you would like to give it a try while you wait for your own vanilla to brew, or if you simply don’t want to make your own, we are thrilled to offer you a bottle of ours! We plan to offer this batch for sale on Saturday, June 14 beginning at 8:00 am CST. It will only be available while supplies last, and the supply typically only lasts a few hours. So mark your calendar and be prepared to stop by our site to snatch some up if you’re interested!

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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.

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Remember all the lovely pictures of our garden that I took on Monday and shared for Gratituesday? Those pictures are all we have left of our garden.

garden145

Here’s what our spinach and lettuce looked like on Monday.

hail garden 1

Here’s what our spinach and lettuce looked like the very next day.

Tuesday night (yes, the very Gratituesday I had shared those happy garden pictures), a huge hail storm hit our town. It smashed our garden all to bits.  Seeing how this hail storm effected all of our garden areas, we sure hate to think what the farmers around here may have lost.

Can we replant? Probably. Will we? Yes, it’s not too late to replant some of it. Is this the end of the world for us? No, but it is a huge disappointment. It was a lot of work, many hours, and quite a few dollars worth of plants and seeds – down the drain. I know this loss could have been a million times worse. Our home is fine. Our children are fine. Nobody was hurt. Still, waking up to a sad garden mess was disheartening.

hail garden 2
Most of the leaves on our pepper, okra, and tomato plants were broken off.

The moral of the story:  We can make plans, work toward a goal, and look forward to something – but the end result is never really up to us. We just get to sit back and trust God.

We’re thankful that God knows what we need and that He will provide – even if it might look a little different this year. We’ll be grateful for the handful of plants that seem to maybe be surviving. We’ll get back out there and put more seeds and plants into the ground. Who knows but that “Garden…round 2” may be better than ever?!

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Here’s $10 To Spend at ThredUp – Get Free Clothing!

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I love it when companies give out free credit as a way to introduce their site to you. Want $10 in free groceries? Check out the following posts to take advantage:

Now how about $10 free dollars to spend at on clothing at ThredUP!

Get $10 Free To Spend at ThredUP

What is ThredUP? It is a great site that will pay you money when you send them your gently used clothing. It is also a site that offers gently used clothing at discounted prices. Right now, if you are a new customer, if you click through my referral links you will receive a $10 credit to use on your first purchase. This means you can get a clothing item or two (they have a lot for just $4.99!) – for just the cost of shipping. (Shipping costs $2.99 for the first item, 99¢ for each additional items, and free with any $50 order.)

I’ve found many great items through ThredUP over the past few months for my younger boys. Recently they started carrying women’s clothing. Score! They have more than used clothing. Many items are new with tags at a big discount. Those are my favorite!

Take advantage of this great free $10 offer. It’s awesome to be able to use that credit toward something you need for your family, paying only a small shipping cost!

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Make Coffee Ice Cubes for Iced Coffee

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Frozen Coffee Cubes
Well, if this idea doesn’t take the idea of “freezer cooking” to a whole new level, I don’t know what does. I’m guessing many of you have already seen this on Pinterest or on another blog. Still I felt it was worth mentioning as a reinforcement that the idea is really wonderful.

By the way – remember when I didn’t like coffee? Then how I started liking coffee just a little bit? Then how I started liking it just a little bit more?  Yeah. I totally love coffee now.  Love it.

It seemed to happen right around the time I turned 40. Suddenly coffee started tasting really good to me. I drink it in the morning while I spend time with God. Oh my goodness, how I love to let the goodness of Jesus and the deliciousness of coffee wash over me as I start the day. Simply awesome.

So now what’s all this about making coffee ice cubes for iced coffee? Here’s how I learned this idea: Matt and I have a great male friend who is super athletic, macho, and manly. Not that guys who are super athletic, macho, and manly can’t be on Pinterest, but when this guy said to me, “Hey Laura,  do you do Pinterest? I found a great idea for you!” I was so shocked that I laughed out loud and snorted like an idiot. Oh, c’mon. You know I’m exaggerating. I totally concealed my shock, held my composure, and simply giggled and blurted, “Whoa. Dude. Seriously?”

What can I say? I’m used to this guy greeting our family by putting one of my boys in a choke hold instead of sharing his excitement about a Pinterest idea with me. Nonetheless, the idea he found is brilliant, which is this:  If you like Iced Coffee, freeze leftover coffee in ice cube trays. That way, when you pour coffee over ice, the ice won’t melt and water down your coffee. See? Brilliant.

Freeze Coffee in Ice Cube Trays
I’m not much into eating or drinking sugar these days (my body rebels and I start feeling sick – also something that happened about the time I turned 40). Therefore, my favorite way to make an iced coffee is to pour cold coffee into a glass filled with coffee ice cubes, add a shot of whole milk, and sit down to enjoy the creamy delightfulness of rich, cold coffee.

If you’re a little more into having a little sweetness with your coffee, I recommend stirring in some Homemade Chocolate Caramel Creamer. And by the way, I know there are wonderful gadgets on the market specific for cold brewing coffee. I just find that it’s easier to brew a pot of hot coffee in my French press, then chill it (or freeze it into coffee cubes). Why buy another gadget for my already full kitchen, right?

Do you like coffee? Do you like iced coffee? Ever tried freezing coffee in ice cube trays? Serious deliciousness.

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Safe, Non-Toxic Bug Block and Beesilk Hard Lotion – Free With Purchase Plus a Very Generous Giveaway!

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made_on

Funny story:

One morning a few weeks ago, before heading out for a full day of soccer games in the sun and wind, I smeared MadeOn Beesilk Hard Lotion all over my face. I planned to rub some into my hands as well, but figured I’d do it after I’d fed the family and washed the dishes. However, as soon as breakfast was over we rushed out the door. Therefore, my plan to put Beesilk on my hands was forgotten.

Fast forward a few soccer games and a few hours later. I was back at my house, wind blown and hungry. We had an extra family at our house that evening, and that family included a very cute five year old boy. As I was cutting up his meat for him at dinnertime, he looked down at my hands and said, “Wow. You have really old hands.” I looked at my hands and saw what he saw. My hands were super dry and ugly. Old lady hands indeed. ;)  The little guy then looked up at my face. “Your face looks young though, so that’s good.”

Alrighty then. Beesilk keeps my face young. And not applying Beesilk to my hands makes my hands old. Fair enough. You’ve gotta love the honesty of a child. Amazing that Beesilk works so well as to make that big of a difference, huh?

That night, I applied Beesilk to my hands liberally. I now have “young” hands again. Ha!

I always keep a nice supply of Beesilk Hard Lotion on hand for my hands, face, arms, legs, and feet. I love the stuff and how well it works. And I love that it’s completely healthy for our skin.

Now let’s talk a minute about Bug Block. I don’t want my family eaten up by mosquitos, nor do I want to spray my family down with toxic chemicals to keeps the bugs away. The solution? MadeOn Bug Block.  I love it! It’s perfectly safe for our skin, and it really works well to keep the mosquitos away.

bug block

I can’t tell you how thankful I am to have heard of MadeOn. Their products work incredibly well, their customer service is wonderful, their prices are very reasonable, and the ingredients they use to make their products are perfectly safe for our skin.

I contacted Renee at MadeOn last week to see if she might be interested in offering all of us a little bonus…or maybe a giveaway. She came back with both! :)

Leave a comment on this post if you’d like to win one of two $25 MadeOn Gift Certificates. Super generous! I’ll draw two random winners on Monday, June 9. Be watching for a post stating the winners as you’ll be responsible for contacting me if your name is chosen.

Beyond the giveaway, you’ll get a free Bug Block Stick or a Beesilk Stick with a $25 MadeOn purchase! Use the code HHJune.  When your cart totals $25 or more, you can then add either a Bug Block stick or a Beesilk stick to your cart and the stick is then free! Isn’t that nice? This offer is good through the month of June. Shipping is free on orders of $45 or more.

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