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Muffin Paper Liners or No?

August 9, 2013 by Laura 31 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

As I have been talking a lot about making muffins this week, many are curious about what paper liners I use, or if I skip these and just grease my muffin tins.

I almost always use paper liners. Why?

  • For easy clean up.  I find that it’s worth spending a little on paper liners to save me much time in the long run scrubbing muffin tins.
  • To protect my food.  My muffin pans are either aluminum or Teflon, and I don’t love either of those touching our food.

What paper liners to I use?

Sometimes I buy cute ones from the store, just because it’s fun. Usually though, I use If You Care brand paper liners that I buy in bulk from Amazon or Vitacost.

What about you? Do you use paper liners for your muffins?

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How To Make Muffins Moist and Fluffy

August 7, 2013 by Laura 43 Comments

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Now that we know we can freeze muffin batter to make muffin baking even easier, let’s talk about how we can make them even more tasty! Today I am going to teach you how to make muffins moist and fluffy!

How to Make Muffins Moist and Fluffy

 

I love baking with whole wheat flour, but sometimes find that my muffins are a little heavier than those made with white flour. They also seem to get dry quickly (which isn’t usually a problem at my house because we eat them all right out of the pan, but still).

How to Make Muffins Moist and Fluffy

Recently I discovered that if I use sour cream in place of milk in a muffin recipe, I get a super moist, fluffy muffin! The switch is very easy. If a recipe calls for 3/4 cup of milk, I simply use 3/4 cup of sour cream instead. Occasionally, I need to add a bit more sour cream to moisten the muffin batter.

The first time I tried this idea (on Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins), I didn’t tell anyone in the family that I’d made a change. (And for the record, these were made from frozen batter that I’d set in the fridge the night before, yay!)  I served the muffins on a Sunday morning, which means that each of us were in and out of the kitchen at different times, grabbing breakfast as we had time. One by one, the boys found me getting ready for church and would ask, “Did you do something different with the muffins? They were better than ever!”

Aha! So they noticed. And they liked the change. Score!

I will be adding sour cream to muffins more often. And of course, I will forever and always be making the batter and freezing it ahead of time. Now I have moist, fluffy, tasty, healthy, and convenient muffins.

Confession time:  Who read the post about making muffin batter for the freezer and promptly went and mixed some up? Ever tried subbing sour cream for the milk in a muffin recipe?

Need More Muffins Recipes?

  • Easy Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Banana Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins
  • Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins
  • Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins
  • Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
  • Flourless Brownie Muffins (my very favorite!)
  • Super Moist Flourless Peanut Butter Brownies
  • Super Moist Flourless Brownies
  • Easy Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Banana Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins
  • Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins

What is your favorite muffin recipe?Yum

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Freezing Muffin Batter for Quick Breakfasts and Snacks

August 6, 2013 by Laura 89 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

You, too, will become obsessed with muffin batter after you read this.

Muffins.  They are everywhere. I can’t seem to stop myself.

If you could look into my freezers right now, you might wonder if I had an unhealthy fear of an impending muffin shortage. Or that perhaps I was planning to feed muffins to my family every meal for three weeks and then force ziplock bags full of leftover muffins upon the mailman and the unsuspecting neighborhood boy walking his dog . You might wonder if I am planning a bake sale, featuring all varieties of muffins, baked by the happy, grinning muffin lady.

The practical side of you might also wonder if I’d recently found chocolate chips on sale. At our house, muffins and chocolate chips often go hand in hand just because they do.

It is also possible that some of you might look into my freezers and somehow not even notice the muffins while you think to yourself, “What is this unorganized mess and when is this girl going to defrost her freezers to make them more efficient?” To which I would answer, “Who has time to organize or defrost freezers when one is so busy making muffins?”

We shall blame this latest muffin craze on Vicki – a reader who has now changed my life, or at least my breakfast. I’m telling you right now:  Get out your muffin tins, paper liners, and mixing bowls. You will want to partake in this time saving, delicious, breakfast and snack baking activity.

The Great Freezing Muffin Batter Tip

Stir up your muffin batter as the recipe states. (You’ll find many muffin recipes here.)  Scoop the batter into well greased or paper-lined muffin tins. Do not bake. Freeze.  (Not you, the muffins. This is not a hold up.)  Once the muffin batter is frozen, take the frozen batter balls out of the tin and place them in a freezer bag. Store them in the freezer for up to three months.

When you need muffins, do one of two things:

1. Place frozen, unbaked muffin batter balls into muffin tins overnight, set it in the fridge, then bake the muffins as normal the following morning. Or
2. Place frozen, unbaked muffin batter balls into muffin tins right when you need them, bake as directed, only adding a few more minutes of baking time.

Freeze Your Muffin Batter 3

It’s not like it’s hard or time consuming to mix up muffins and bake them. But I’m all for cutting down on dishes, and getting food made ahead of time to make life and healthy meals more convenient. This wonderful muffin batter freezing tip rocks my world  – and fills my freezer with dozens of muffins in many varieties. It also saves me money and effort. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made muffins, stuffed them in the back of my freezer for a busy day, then pulled them out only to find them freezer burned and dry. This freezing method ensures I have fresh, tasty muffins every time – within minutes and without dirtying dishes.

A few additional tips:

If your batter is thick enough, skip freezing it in the muffin tin. Scoop the batter in muffin-sized balls onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Transfer frozen balls to freezer bags and use when needed.

frozen_muffins_2

Label your muffin batter balls so you can easily tell what is available in your freezer. If you have several different varieties of muffin batter prepared and in your freezer, you can pull out a few of each kind and bake an assortment, just for fun or to please picky palates.

frozen_muffins_1

This idea even works for mini-muffins.

frozen_muffins_3
Because I have muffins on my mind, I have more fun muffin tips coming up this week. (Subscribe for free updates if you don’t want to miss!)  And be watching for an awesome Strawberry Cream Muffin recipe too!

strawberry_muffins_2

I have to know:  Is this “freezing muffin batter” a brand new idea to you, or have you tried it before?  Once I tried this and learned how well it worked, I went on a muffin freezing frenzy (as confessed above). I now have Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffin batter, Blueberry Muffin batter, Chocolate Chip Muffin batter (recipe in Kids in the Kitchen eBook), and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffin batter in my freezers. Told you I couldn’t stop myself. What a time saver!

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Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve Testimony (and 40% off the download too!)

August 6, 2013 by Laura Leave a Comment

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LYLLTSfrontpage2b_sm

I got this encouraging email from Brandy last week and wanted to share it with you:

I just wanted to say thanks for writing your Learn Your Letters Learn To Serve curriculum! I totally love it!

I am using it with my 4th son (age 5). The best part is the service ideas. We have been taking him to the person’s house and going up to the door (with Daddy), knocking and then he says, “I made this for you.” while looking them in the eye. These are all huge things for a shy kid!

Thanks for teaching my kids to serve and pray for others. Everyone is getting into it and I will totally be using it for my 5th son when he is ready!

Thanks! Brandy

I love this! So thankful to hear that the curriculum is blessing so many.

Remember, you can get 40% off the downloadable curriculum kit (and all of our downloadable items) through Thursday!  (This offer is only good on the download, not the printed version.)  Use the code LAURAIS40 for the discount. Read more details about this sale here.

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Gratituesday: Perfectly Imperfect

August 5, 2013 by Laura 19 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

We took our traditional school shopping trip last Friday. I gave up on making them pose for a picture and just snapped one when I had the chance. Here’s a post with all of our past shopping trips through the years.

0802131233

Today was our first day of school for the year. It’s easy to have grand ambitions about what all we’ll get done, about how we’ll be so much better about XYorZ this year, and most of all, about how we’ll stick to our schedule and it will work flawlessly.

Y’all, I didn’t even make a schedule this year. (And apparently, suddenly I’m southern.)

I came to the conclusion that thoroughly praying over our school year was more important than thoroughly organizing it. This year we have an 11th grader, an 8th grader, a 6th grader, and a 3rd grader. I knew that attempting to schedule our day on paper wouldn’t have worked, and in fact, this year, I didn’t even have time to get all the books organized on the shelves. We woke up anticipating our “perfect 1st day of school” with piles of books scattered in the living room, unfolded (but clean) baskets of laundry in the unvacuumed hallway, and plenty of unsharpened pencils. None of us had found the time to upload software to computers so that Math and Spanish lessons could be started right on schedule. Oh wait – there was no schedule. Well then.

This isn’t my ideal – or at least it didn’t used to be my ideal when I first started homeschooling twelve years ago. I had preferred to begin our school year with the house perfectly clean, the school books and lists perfectly organized, the meals in the fridge ready to cook themselves, and me – perfectly put together with children who were awake and grinning at the table at precisely when the schedule said they would/should be. And then when something when wrong, because it always did, I’d feel like I’d failed.

Y’all, I’m over it. (Figured since I said it once, I should say it twice.)

There is no perfect homeschool day – except for the perfectly imperfect ones like we experienced today. Today, we got a decent start, but took too long discussing the first chapter of the book of Acts – which was not on the schedule that I didn’t write but isn’t that grand because why put down the Bible for a Math lesson? We had trouble getting Spanish to work correctly on the computer, couldn’t find the Typing CD, and forgot to thaw meat for dinner.

Not to worry, Dad got Spanish working, Justus found the Typing CD, and I made tomorrow night’s Salmon Patties for dinner tonight.

At the end of the day, all of our boys are now engrossed in a great new book they started today, they are standing taller because they accomplished so much, and they feel good about tomorrow since we worked out so many kinks today. Everyone is relaxed, unexpected interruptions didn’t ruin the day, we all had some good laughs (you can’t help it in the Coppinger household), and you’d better believe, we will all sleep well tonight.

Today was my favorite kind of day. Here’s to a perfectly imperfect school year.

Share how God is working in your life on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday, please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

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Menu Plan for the Week and My Full Freezers

August 4, 2013 by Laura 18 Comments

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Well, you asked to see my freezers. I decided to go ahead and show you, even though they aren’t as organized as I’d like them to be, therefore likely not as impressive as you might have hoped. As you will see, they are very full after our work to prepare lots of extra food last week. This is a huge blessing, and with all the busyness of the upcoming weeks, I will be continually thankful we spent time when we could to make healthy food ahead of time!

Here is freezer number one. This is the freezer that holds many of the prepared foods we made last week. Sloppy Joes, casseroles, muffins, frozen fruits and veggies…

freezer_1

Our bigger freezer (below) holds much of our frozen meat, along with all kinds of random items. I have some white plastic baskets that help keep some of the food organized and categorized, butter and cheese go in the door, and any overflow of prepared food goes wherever I can fit it.

freezer_2

I am thankful to have these two big freezers, which helps so much in my efforts to get ahead and save money. If you don’t have an extra freezer, I highly recommend looking into getting one (or two?!). We bought ours used (and ugly), so they were very inexpensive. I’m sure the investment has saved us thousands through the years!

Here’s our menu for this week:

Sunday, August 4
Chocolate chocolate chip muffins, raspberries
Cheesy chicken and rice, peas, grapes
Nachos, watermelon

Monday, August 5
Quick mix pancakes, blueberries, whipped cream
Meat and cheese burritos, baby carrots, cantaloupe
BLTs, sweet potato fries, watermelon

Tuesday, August 6
Peanut butter chocolate chip muffins, scrambled eggs, clementines
Sloppy joes, baby carrots, grapes
Salmon patties, potato wedges, peas

Wednesday, August 7
Cranberry white chocolate chip breakfast cookies, creamy orange coolers
Hamburger patties, steamed broccoli, grapes
Chicken stir fry with asparagus, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots

Thursday, August 8
Homemade grape nuts cereal, blueberries, strawberries
Homemade pizzas, pineapple-mango smoothies
Crock pot baked potatoes for taco potatoes, nectarines

Friday, August 9
Easy breakfast casserole, peaches
Corn dog muffins, green beans, watermelon
Alfredo sauce with pasta, steamed broccoli and carrots, tossed salad

Saturday, August 10
Whole wheat donuts, raspberries
Leftovers
Lamb chops, asparagus, tossed salad, corn on the cob

Do you have an extra freezer so that you can stock up?

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A Wonderful Birthday

August 3, 2013 by Laura 34 Comments

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My husband and boys are the best. They made my 40th birthday awesome, as did so many of you who have wished me a happy birthday. Thank you!

I wanted to share the thoughtful gift my husband bought for me. But first, a story:

When I was in Jr. High, my mom needed new plates. She picked out some of the prettiest I’d ever seen. I loved them. They were our “everyday dishes” and we used them for years.

When she died, out of everything in her kitchen, I wanted those plates more than anything else. My dad, however, had a difficult time parting with them. They were very much “Mom” so it made sense that he wanted them too. Instead, I was able to have several other meaningful kitchen items of my mom’s, so I was okay to leave the plates with my dad.

A few years later, my dad remarried. The two of them got dishes of their own, so finally, the precious plates were mine.

I’ve loved using them for my own family during the past five years. They are a piece of “Grammy” that I can share with my boys, a treasured item we use constantly. But in a busy household, breakable items will sometimes…break. Here and there, one of the special plates would be dropped and broken. The stack of my mom’s plates began to dwindle. Each time one broke, I know Matt was watching me bravely and sadly clean up and throw away the shattered pieces. I know the plates are just “things” but some things are more special than others. These plates definitely rank at the top of my “special material possessions” list.

Knowing my love for these plates, Matt has searched online for a couple of years to find replacements. They were either unavailable or ridiculously expensive. We got down to just seven of the eleven plates we started with. I refused to put them away and get something else. Using these plates everyday was something I loved and needed to do.

Finally, just before my birthday, Matt’s efforts paid off. He was able to find a perfect set of six, presenting me with this wonderful gift on my 40th birthday:

birthday_gift
I don’t believe there was another gift I would have rather received. (Well, except for the handwritten poem he also presented me with. Wow.)

Now my stack of treasured plates takes on a new special meaning. I am blessed. I am rich. And the love in this family? Unbreakable.

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Getting Ahead a Little Each Day

August 1, 2013 by Laura 29 Comments

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This has been a big week of catching up and getting ahead. I’ve hardly left the house all week, which has made for some very productive days at home. We got all of our laundry caught up from our time at camp, have been working to get our school books organized (we start our new school year on Monday!), and have been working very hard in the kitchen.

Allow me to emphasize the word WE in the above sentences. I’ve not done all of this by myself. Our boys have been a huge help – with laundry, dishes, grating cheese, stirring and measuring,  deboning chickens, taking food to freezers, and the list goes on.

Why are we making so much food? Well, it’s August. That means that college soccer (which Matt coaches) and our boys’ soccer seasons are about to begin. School work will keep our days full, soccer practices and games will keep our evenings full, and getting all this food prepared ahead of time will keep our bellies full. My sanity depends on having a full freezer of prepared food as we head into some very busy months.

At the beginning of the week, I made a list of the foods I was hoping to prepare for our fridge and freezers:

  • Homemade Peanut Butter
  • Chicken Broth
  • Chicken Salad
  • Pita Bread
  • Tomato Sauce
  • Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas
  • Cheesy Chicken and Rice (recipe in Oh, For Real)
  • Meat and Cheese Burritos
  • Whole Wheat Pizza Crust
  • Banana Bread
  • Banana Cake
  • Sloppy Joes

I took some pictures along the way. Here’s how it all went down this week:

On Monday, I made three jars of Homemade Peanut Butter. Malachi helped me make two Loaves of Banana Bread and a big Banana Cake. The cake didn’t make it into the freezer, but it sure was tasty, and the freezer won’t know what it was missing, so don’t tell.

cooking_ahead_july_1

I like making several jars of peanut butter at one time because we go through quite a bit of it. Plus, I’ve found that making several batches at once means that I can get away with cleaning my food processor less. Making one big mess instead of several little messes saves lots of time!

cooking_ahead_july_2

Tuesday was a big beef and tortilla day. I made a triple batch of Whole Wheat Tortillas (recipe found in Totally Tortillas eBook and/or Oh, For Real Cookbook). In the meantime, I browned several pounds of hamburger meat. Once finished, I made two meals worth of Sloppy Joes, two pans of Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas, and two meals worth of Meat and Cheese Burritos. (The boys spent the morning folding and putting away clean laundry. Yay!)

cooking_ahead_july_4

cooking_ahead_july_5

Oh yes, and somewhere in there, Asa helped me crack eggs and make two Easy Breakfast Casseroles.

cooking_ahead_july_3

Wednesday was a chicken day. I cooked three big chickens in my stock pot. With the broth, I cooked an enormous amount of rice. Then, Matt deboned the chickens for me (he’s always great to tackle that job) while I put together three big Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casseroles. The remaining chicken is now frozen and ready to thaw for Chicken Salad the next couple of weeks. That will make for some super quick lunches on school days!

cooking_ahead_6
The boys should have counted the number of times I sent them to the freezer with prepared food.
cooking_ahead_7

I am hoping to get around to making Pita Bread and Whole Wheat Pizza Crust this weekend. We’ve got to have pitas with our chicken salad, after all! (With fresh tomatoes from our garden.)

Also, I’ve got to make my way out to the garden to pick tomatoes and make Tomato Sauce. I’ll be sure and post once I get that done. Why? Because it gives me a chance to take a picture of jars filled with homegrown goodness, of course. :)

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My Latest Handy Kitchen Gadget

July 31, 2013 by Laura 22 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

If there is an item that will help me in the kitchen, make my life easier, save me money, and bless my efforts to put good food on the table for my family efficiently, I am all over it. And of course, if I ever discover something new that I feel will bless you too, I’m sure to share the information with you.

No need to thank me. It’s what I’m here for. And that, my dear friends, is why I am so happy to introduce to you the latest addition to my kitchen:

dumbell

No, not the toaster oven. You already knew I had that.  I’m talking about the ten pound dumbbell.  Ain’t she a beauty?

You see, after many uses, our toaster oven door decided not to close all the way by itself. Our food wouldn’t heat well, we were wasting energy, and something just had to give. That’s when my husband came up with the genius idea to bring down the dumbbell from our collection of weights. When placed against the door handle of the toaster oven, the door stays closed, and our food is heated properly.

I’m thinking I should paint it yellow to match the buttery color of my walls. What do you think?

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The Post-Camp Laundry Load Total Is…

July 31, 2013 by Laura 4 Comments

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Thanks everyone for making my party-game-post-camp-laundry-washing so much fun. I love that so many of you chimed in with your guess as to how many loads of laundry it would take for me to get all of this clean. Let’s see that before picture again, shall we?

laundry

I’m happy to say that I have now completed the task, and swept the camp dirt off the bathroom floor.

laundry_completed
The total loads of camp laundry for six people, one week, bedding and towels included was:

19

Phew! Could have been worse. The whole family pitched in, especially to fold and put away all of the clean laundry.

Thirteen ladies that guessed it would take 19 loads to complete the task, therefore I conducted a random drawing with their names to see who would win the $25 gift certificate from our shop. And the winner is:

Katie:   kdkayne@

Katie, email me and I’ll create a gift certificate code for you for $25 worth of downloads from our shop!

And now, to get myself out of the habit of counting each time I start a new load…

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