Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

  • Home
    • About
    • FAQs
  • Recipes
    • Bread and Breakfast
    • Condiments
    • Dairy
    • Main Dishes
    • Side Dishes and Snacks
    • Desserts
    • Gluten Free
    • Instant Pot
    • Crock Pot
    • Heavenly Homemaker’s Weekly Menus
  • Homemaking
    • Real Food Sources
  • Store
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy
  • Simple Meals
  • Club Members!

Gratituesday: Nineteen Years and Counting

August 12, 2013 by Laura 31 Comments

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

It’s our wedding anniversary this Gratituesday!

What I am actually most excited about this year is that while soccer season has usually already started by the time our anniversary rolls around, this year it begins the day after. Wasn’t that thoughtful of the calendar to work with us this year? (Remember our 17th anniversary? While we couldn’t be together that day since Matt was away at a pre-season soccer retreat, I think that still may be one of my favorite anniversary memories.)

This year, we get to be together! And so, we’ll spend our special day schooling the kids, working on our rental properties, painting our house, doing everything we can to get ahead so that our busiest season of the year will go more smoothly. Then come evening, we’ll steal away without the kids to use a gift card at a local restaurant, and enjoy time to eat together and have real and uninterrupted conversation.

matt_and_laura_sm

Soccer season? Bring it on. But the evening before during our special date time? It’s all about us. 19 years and looking forward to many more!

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!

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

I Should Become a Victorio Salesman

August 11, 2013 by Laura 19 Comments

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

I think I might just do it.

I love the Victorio Food Strainer so much that I may just go into business. I’ll pack a bunch of apples and tomatoes into my kids’ wagon, then I’ll go door to door, demonstrating to everyone I meet how wonderful the Victorio is for making applesauce and tomato sauce. I’ll show everyone how easy it is to set up, how much time it saves in making these great sauces, and how lovely the finished product is. Once they see it, they will hug me and thank me for sharing this invaluable kitchen tool. Then they will excitedly begin chopping some apples so that they too can easily make applesauce in their brand new Victorio.

It will be beautiful. Can’t you just picture it?

Sure, some will be skeptical. They will say to me, “Thanks anyway, but I already know how to make applesauce. It’s easy. You just have to core the apples, cook them, then run them through a blender.” And then I will tell them that as easy as that is, using the Victorio makes the process even easier and saves even more time! And I will add some exclamation marks to the end of my sentence because of how much time this will save them. !!!!!!!

Yes, it just might be my new career. But first, I’ve got to finish using my Victorio in my own kitchen to make my own tomato sauce and apple sauce…

This message was brought to you by the Heavenly Homemaker after quickly and excitedly finishing a delicious batch of tomato sauce.

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

Preparing to Feed the York College Soccer Team

August 11, 2013 by Laura 3 Comments

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

The family menu plans I usually share with you each Sunday will be put on hold for this week and next. I have plenty of prepared meals in the freezer that I’ll be pulling from during these busy few days, so instead of preparing and following a menu plan, I’ll simply feed my family whatever falls out of my freezer first. Muffins perhaps?!

chicken_salad_lunch

This was our simple, but delicious lunch today of Chicken Salad, Whole Wheat Butterhorns, and lots of fruits and veggies. I love this time of year!

As is our well-loved tradition, our family will be feeding our Ladies’ York College soccer team several meals beginning at the end of this week. Matt is one of the coaches for this team, and we are blessed to be a part of the girls’ lives. One of my roles is to love on the team by serving them hearty meals during their pre-season days. The athletes come to campus several days before classes begin, and while the cafeteria is willing to feed them, the cost really gives the slim soccer budget a hit. I can purchase groceries and cook for less, plus, what college student wouldn’t prefer home-cooking to the cafeteria?

I’m working on serving yummy, low cost, and simple-to-put-together meals. Here are the plans I’ve made so far:

Thursday (meal for approximately 60)

I’ll be feeding the cross country team along with the ladies’ soccer team for this meal. I’ve reserved our church fellowship hall for this.

The meal plan:  Italian Pasta Bake (x6), tossed salad, French bread (from the store), fruit salad, butterscotch bars (x4)

Saturday

This and the rest of the meals will be for approximately 32 people (our family included). We will serve these meals in our own home, which makes preparing the food much easier than when I have to lug it all to the church kitchen. I have a large roaster, so when I say “crock pot,” I really mean “huge roaster plugged into my wall.”

The meal plan:  Crock pot barbecue chicken, cream cheese corn, green beans, baby carrots with homemade ranch dressing, chocolate chip cookie bars

Sunday

This was a team favorite last year. I’ve added homemade butterhorns to the mix though. I think they’ll love ’em!

The meal plan:  Roast, carrots, potatoes, gravy, whole wheat butterhorns, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Monday

These enchiladas go together so easily, and freeze well so that I can be prepared in advance!

The meal plan:  Cheesy salsa enchiladas (x4), tossed salad, grapes, brownie fudge sundaes (these brownies, this hot fudge sauce, store-bought vanilla ice cream)

Tuesday

This is a new favorite of ours – chicken breasts marinated in my homemade Italian dressing. So easy and good!

The meal plan:  Italian chicken (in the oven), baked red potatoes (in the roaster), steamed broccoli and carrots, watermelon, crustless cheesecake cups

In preparation, I spent several hours Friday evening baking desserts. Here we have a double batch of brownies, a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and a quadruple batch of butterscotch bars. These are all cut, sealed in freezer bags, and put into the freezer to get out in time to thaw and serve for each meal. Easy!

soccer_food_1

Saturday morning, I browned meat, boiled noodles, and put together all the casseroles needed for two different meals. They are now in the freezer, ready to go.

soccer_food_2
Later on Saturday, the boys helped me make the cheesecake cups, which are now in the freezer. I also made a double batch of butterhorns so that all I have to do before baking time is let them thaw and rise. (Somehow I didn’t get a picture of the butterhorns.)

soccer_food_4
Now that so much of the food is prepped and frozen, the rest of the work will be much easier! And since I don’t begin serving the food until Thursday, the beginning of this week can now be focused on getting school work done with our boys. :)

Oh, and by the way. I need to admit that I now have added four more Pyrex 9×13 dishes to my collection. It had to be done. I edited my “how many Pyrex dishes do you really have” post, so you may need to go re-read it with my updated Pyrex numbers…

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

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?

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

How To Make Muffins Moist and Fluffy

August 7, 2013 by Laura 43 Comments

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

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

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

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!

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

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

August 6, 2013 by Laura Leave a Comment

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

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.

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

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!

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

Menu Plan for the Week and My Full Freezers

August 4, 2013 by Laura 18 Comments

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

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?

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

A Wonderful Birthday

August 3, 2013 by Laura 34 Comments

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

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.

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

Join Our Community!

 Facebook Twitter E-mail Instagram Pinterest

Popular Posts

~ Will All of the Real Moms Please Stand Up?
~ Easy! Stir-and-Pour Whole Wheat Bread
~ How to Make Gatorade
~ 31 Real Food Breakfast Ideas
~ Dear Teenage Girls...
~ When Mom Takes a Step Back
~ The Inexpensive Health Insurance We Love!
~ Let's Talk Real Food Grocery Budgets

Check out our latest posts!

  • Big Family Food and Fun: June 21-27, 2026
  • Big Family Food and Fun: June 14-20, 2026
  • Big Family Food and Fun: June 7-13, 2026
  • Big Family Food and Fun: May 31-June 6, 2026
  • Big Family Food and Fun: May 24-30, 2026
Home  ~  Simple Meals  ~  Club Membership  ~  Shop  ~  Privacy Policy  ~  Disclosure  ~ Contact

Copyright © 2026 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in