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!

Breakfast Cake Muffins

April 10, 2013 by Laura 26 Comments

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

breakfast_cake_muffins

One reader, Kim, left a comment months ago sharing that she’d made my Breakfast Cake recipe into muffins instead of baking the batter into a cake. It sounded so good that I decided to try it right away!

And then I forgot. For months.

I think it’s actually been well over a year since she left that comment. That’s practically like trying the idea right away, right? Yeah, well…

Turns out these are an easy, yummy, freezable, on-the-go breakfast muffin that is hearty enough to keep us satisfied until lunchtime. Thanks for the idea, Kim! Next time you share a great idea like this one, I’ll try to get around to trying it before thirteen months go by. Sheesh.

Breakfast Cake MuffinsYum

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups whole rolled oats
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter, melted
¾ cup buttermilk or milk
¾ cup honey or 1 cup sucanat
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips, raisins, or other dried fruit  (We like Enjoy Life Soy Free Chocolate Chips)

Stir together flour, oats, salt and baking soda. Add butter, buttermilk, honey, eggs, and vanilla. Fold in chocolate chips, raisins, or other dried fruit.

Spoon batter into 18 paper lined muffin tins. Bake in a 400° oven for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.

Give these a try. Don’t wait a year like I did. :)

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

When You’re Sick, You Buy Bread

April 9, 2013 by Laura 58 Comments

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

Stop apologizing. Stop feeling guilty. Stop feeling like you’ve failed.

Are you doing the best you can with the food you’re eating and/or putting on the table for your family? Well then – you should feel very good about that. Are you working hard to serve lots of fruits and veggies? Have you switched to healthy fats like real butter instead of margarine?

Well then, put your zucchini down for just a second and give yourself a pat on the back.

We likely all have room for improvement. Sure, maybe sometimes we compromise on days when truly, we’re just feeling lazy and don’t want to do better. But do you know what I think? I think all of us work really hard and are rarely lazy. I think we are all doing a really good job, working to put healthy food on the table most of the time. I think it’s impossible to be perfect. Therefore, we should appreciate the good steps we’re taking on our real food journey, and should feel great about how far we’ve come!

Too many times when I’m in conversation with people, it seems that they feel like they need to apologize to me because they don’t eat a perfect diet. News flash:  Neither do I. All of you who have read my book know about my compromises and occasional orange-fingered habits (shh!). Our family loves real food and loves to encourage others to eat real food too, because really – it isn’t very hard and you will feel so much better if you do. But don’t get it in your head that because I’m a “real food blogger” I somehow have “arrived” at real food perfection. And please don’t feel bad that you haven’t arrived either. 

Did you eat some fruit today? Find a great way to sneak veggies into your kid’s lunch? Put a simple but satisfying real food dinner on the table tonight? Bravo!

In an effort to remind you (again) that my family doesn’t always eat perfectly, I took a picture of my grocery store visit tonight. Our family has been passing around a nasty flu bug for about a week and a half now. I’m tired.  Therefore, I didn’t even have the energy to go “all the way to Wal-mart” where I would have had a few organic produce choices. Nor do I have the energy to make bread or the tiniest desire to stand at the counter to make tortillas. Next week? I’ll probably be all over it. But right now? We’re in survival mode. Taking care of sick kids is more important than grinding flour and kneading bread, don’t you think?

So guess what? Tonight, I bought a loaf of bread. And two packages of tortillas. And some good looking pita pockets. I checked the ingredient lists and found some without high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. So I bought them. Then I bought a bunch of fruits and veggies because our bodies need them. Man, citrus tastes good right now! Actually, everything fresh tastes good right now. 

grocery_store

I know I’ve said all of this before, but I thought it was worth saying again. Keep it simple.  Focus on eating real food. Do the best you can. Feel great about the right choices you are making!

Share!! What is one (or more) right choice you made in the food department today? (No, don’t think about where you “failed”.)  We want to know what you did right. Bet you did great!

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

Gratituesday: Summer Break is Coming

April 8, 2013 by Laura 8 Comments

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

We have reached that point in our school work this year. Each day, I hear announcements from the boys, letting me know that the end is in sight. 

“Only three weeks worth of Spanish lessons left!” or “Just a few more math lessons!”

Yep, while there is still quite of bit of “formal” school work yet to be done this spring, we are definitely seeing the last pages of our books and the last lessons in our computer programs. As much as possible, we’ll take school time outside, where we will work on our garden and read books while lounging on the trampoline. 

Church camp applications are being filled out. Summer plans are being made.

Who can help it? It’s 76° outside today! 

Ah, but don’t get too excited. There is snow in our five-day forecast and we haven’t finished all the books on our shelves yet. Summer break isn’t here just yet. ;)

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

April 7, 2013 by Laura 6 Comments

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

We’re in between soccer games this afternoon. It’s a little windy, but I’m loving the sunshine!!

Here’s to a great week!

Sunday, April 7
Oatmeal, fruit
Crunchy ranch chicken, stir fried rice and veggies
Huddle at our friends’ house

Monday, April 8
Applesauce bread, creamy orange coolers
Grilled burgers, ranch potato wedges, fruit salad
Taco salad

Tuesday, April 9
Flaky cream cheese pastry, kiwi
Stuffed green peppers, fruit smoothies
Black bean salsa with organic corn chips

Wednesday, April 10
Fried eggs on toast, oranges
Tuna casserole, peas
Grilled bbq chicken, tossed salad, green beans

Thursday, April 11
Peanut butter chocolate chip muffins, applesauce
Spicy avocado dip with raw veggies and chips
Popcorn chicken, tossed salad

Friday, April 12
Homemade poptarts, apples
Spanish rice, fruit salad
Taco potatoes, asparagus

Saturday, April 13
Easy egg casserole, oranges
Leftovers
Calzones, tossed salad

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

Cake Boys Episode 9 (And Why You Need Ping Pong Shoes)

April 3, 2013 by Laura 10 Comments

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

Been waiting for your next dose of the Cake Boys? Here they are again, with another great cake, and another crazy commercial.

Admittedly, the cake didn’t look very pretty when all was said and done. But it sure was yummy! And even with all those disclaimers, I am completely convinced that I need to get myself a pair of Ping Pong Shoes…

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

What You Are Saying About “Oh, For Real”

April 3, 2013 by Laura 11 Comments

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

I have been so thankful to receive feedback on the cookbook! Here are a few testimonies I’ve put together from people who are loving Oh, For Real: Real Food, Real Family, Real Easy…

ForRealBookCover6

Karen:  Mine came in the mail today, much to my excitement. All other responsibilities had to come to a grinding halt while I took some time to look through it. I’m so glad you put in lovely photos for almost every recipe! I’ve already used so many of these recipes from your website and it will be SO NICE to be able to access them now in this lovely cookbook. Thank you ever so much!

Gina:  I got my book yesterday and was so excited. I have already read it most of the way through. I made a couple of recipes already. PS. I have already broke it in by getting a spatter on it.

Samantha:  When I got home from seeing you I put my daughter down for her nap and read the entire thing! I couldn’t put it down!! Thank you again!

Jean:  Got my cookbook yesterday and love it, I love it, I love it!!! I like the way that each recipe highlights where to look for the highlights in blue and then go right to the page and there’s the recipe. I was going to organize the ones that I have printed off your website, but now I won’t have to go to all of that work – it’s already done for me. Thanks so much!!!

Yvonne:  I have to say I was extremely excited that you decided to write a recipe book. Our family has been enjoying so many of your meals, but I hated to have the computer in the kitchen with me while I cooked, and didn’t want to write all those recipes down by hand. Anyway, I anxiously waited for your book to come in the mail. I have to say, my expectations were very high. When I opened the package yesterday, all I can say is “WOW”! Your book exceeded my expectations by leaps and bounds! It is so beautifully put together! Thank you! Thank you! You have really inspired me to cook and bake again!

Sarah:  I got my copy today! I’m so super excited!! It’s beautiful! And it has all the best stuff from your website all in one easy to use place. Thanks so much for all you share with us!!

Fletcher:  I just had to say thank you for your wonderful cookbook!! It came on Monday and my daughter sorted through ALL of the mail before she opened the package and started flipping through the cookbook. (We were on the way to guitar lesson and I was driving – it wasn’t fair, but she is my sous chef). We both starting oohing and ahhing over the recipes. I’m thrilled to finally have your tortilla recipe! We recently started making them from scratch, but I’ve been hoping and praying that your recipe was in the cookbook :)

Tara H:  I got your book a couple days ago. I absolutely love it! It is wonderful to have it in print! I like having a kindle app full of books but truth is, I usually don’t get around to reading them. Love, love, love all of the info in your book! It’s totally worth the price!

gb_casserole_2

This Hearty Green Bean Casserole has become one of my favorites to fix for my family. It is a “one dish meal”, with meat and veggies in it. Plus, it freezes well, to be reheated quickly when needed. It’s a perfect meal for a busy night! This is one of the new recipes featured in Oh, For Real!

Haven’t ordered your copy yet? What are you waiting for?! :)  Click here to learn more about Oh, For Real: Real Food, Real Family, Real Easy.

 

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

Dirty Up as Few Dishes as Possible {Eat Healthy – Save Time}

April 2, 2013 by Laura 15 Comments

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

Raise your hand if you like washing dishes. I said raise your hand. Your…hand.

Maybe you didn’t hear me. Oh, or maybe none of you really like to wash dishes, is that it? Yeah, that’s probably it.

I can’t say that I necessarily hate the job. I mean, it’s one of those jobs that has to be done, and it goes with the territory when you are cooking for yourself or for your family. But if there’s ever a way to avoid dirtying extra dishes, I am all over it. From your response when I asked for a show of hands, I’m guessing you’re with me on that one.

(You didn’t know I could see you from where you are, did you? Creepy, huh?)

One of my favorite ways to save steps and to keep from dirtying extra dishes is to make a casserole on the stovetop, then serve it directly from that pan. The only exception to that is if I’m making extra so that I can freeze a casserole for another time. In that case, I typically scoop out what I’m going to save for later, prepare it for the freezer, then use what is left in the pan to feed my family for the evening. They don’t require fancy serving dishes. They just require food. :)

Click here to read a little more about how to prepare a casserole on the stovetop. You’ll read more information in my Oh, For Real book as well.

Another way I save steps and dirty dishes:  When making Easy Breakfast Casserole, crack the eggs directly into the baking dish. There’s no need to use a bowl to mix ingredients when you’re just going to pour everything into a dish for baking. Crack in the eggs, whisk the eggs, add remaining ingredients, top with cheese, and you’re done. All you have to wash is the whisk. And the empty casserole dish later. :)

egg_casserole_prep_1

 Lovely, isn’t it?!

What else do I do to cut down on dirty dishes? I typically have a pan on the stove that I use several times a day to melt butter or coconut oil for baking or cooking. No need to wash it when I’m going to use it again later in the day for the same purpose, right?

After using our apple slicer or a sharp knife to cut fruit, usually I just rinse it in hot water and put it in the dish drain.

We’ve already talked about the “If You’re Making One, You Might As Well Make Two (or More)” trick. That way, you’re only dirtying up the cooking pots once, but you get two or three meals out of it!

And my all-time favorite idea is (drum roll please) – Make the kids rinse their dishes after every meal. That isn’t necessarily a way that cuts down on dirty dishes, but it sure does cut down on my dishwashing time and effort!

egg_casserole_meal
What tricks have you discovered for cutting down on dirty dishes?

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

Gratituesday: Permission to Rest

April 1, 2013 by Laura 24 Comments

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

I don’t remember the last time I let several days go by without posting anything here. But here it is Monday night, and I haven’t posted since Thursday.

Typically, I feel very bad about this. I want to be sure and post deals over the weekend so that you all know of some of the good prices you can get on healthy food. And I always want to share my menu plan, since many of you count on it as a guide as you prepare for the week. But the busy month of March was beginning to catch up with me. So, for the past few days, I have happily given myself permission to rest.

We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled programing tomorrow…I think. :)

I sure am looking forward to reading about what you are thankful for this week!

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!

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!

Don’t Have Time to Bake Cookies? Make Cookie Bars

March 28, 2013 by Laura 30 Comments

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

I remember the moment vividly. I had been a mommy for exactly three weeks. Friends were coming from out of town to meet my itty-bitty new baby boy, and I was going to make cookies.

Had I been using half the brain I had left after giving birth, I would have realized that I didn’t need to make cookies at all. I had a newborn baby after all. I’m pretty sure my friends didn’t expect freshly baked cookies when they came to meet my new son.

But, I was using the irrational side of the remainder of my brain which told me I needed to be the “hostess with the mostess.” So, a few weeks after Asa was born, I remember standing in my little kitchen, trying to figure out how in the world I was supposed to find time to make cookies for our friends who were coming over in a few hours. As a brand new mommy, I was just beginning to figure out how to manage the schedule of a nursing baby, cooking meals, doing laundry…and maybe just maybe, finding time to sleep.

Usually when I made cookies, I took the time to scoop cookie dough out onto cookie sheets, baking for 10-12 minutes per pan, then repeating the process several times until all the cookies were made and the dough was used up. Depending on the size of the batch, this process could take quite a while. What would I do if I needed to nurse the baby, and the timer for the cookies went off, and the cookies burned and….

Yeah, I should have just skipped the cookies.

Ah, but then I remembered. Sometimes, when my mom didn’t have time to make round after round of cookies, she would just spread the cookie dough into a 9×13 inch pan, put it into the oven, and walk away. That is exactly what I would do. Instead of cookies, I would make cookie bars for my friends. That would save me time and help me be more flexible so that I didn’t have to keep scooping cookie dough onto cookie sheets if the baby needed me.

I’ve had my Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe memorized since I was a fourth grader, so even with my post-partum brain – I could mix them up quickly. I threw the 9×13 pan of cookie bars into the oven, carried on with my day, and had freshly baked treats to serve my friends when they came over later.

Guess what they said when they arrived? “You did NOT need to bake us cookies! You just had a baby!”

Yeah well. Some things never change. Apparently, I just can’t not feed people. ;)

Moms of newborns, what have you learned from this little story? Do not make cookies for your friends. It is highly unnecessary.

Everyone else, if you are making cookies and find yourself in a bit of a time crunch, simply spread your cookie dough into a 9×13 inch baking pan, and bake them into bars in a 350° oven for 20-30 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Here is my all time favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. It makes awesome cookie bars, which I proved in June of 1997, right after becoming a mommy.

cookie_bars

For the record, in case you were worried, this picture is from 2013. My son may be 15 1/2, but the cookies on this plate are fresh. Or at least they were a few days ago. Now the plate is empty. Go figure.

What hard lessons do you remember learning when you had a newborn?

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

Cheesy Mashed Potato Leftovers {Eat Healthy Save Time}

March 27, 2013 by Laura 22 Comments

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

Cheesy Mashed Potato leftovers are fine by me!

You know how I talked about not liking the 13 peas leftover at the end of the meal?

Let me just clarify something:  I really do like leftovers if they serve a purpose. If they can create an entire meal and save me time? I like leftovers. If they can be made into something else for a practically effortless meal? I like leftovers. And if you can use them to create a side dish your family loves? Well of course, then I like leftovers.

Making extra food so that you have leftovers on purpose is a great way to Eat Healthy and Save Time! This Chili Mac recipe is a perfect example. So is the Cheesy Mashed Potato recipe I am about to show you.

Last week, I was making mashed potatoes to go with our Chicken Fried Steak Strips. I decided to double the amount of potatoes we would need for that night, so that I could use the leftovers to make another dish for another day.

potatoes_2

This was about eight pounds of potatoes. Doesn’t look like it? How about seeing the bowl from this angle?

potatoes_1

It turns out, making additional potatoes for another day was a great idea! It took me hardly any extra time to peel a few extra potatoes, it took hardly any extra time to cook the potatoes, it took hardly any extra time to mash the potatoes, and then it took about three minutes to put together this dish after our meal was over.

Then, two days later, when friends came over to play games, I put two chickens in the oven to roast, then put these Cheesy Mashed Potatoes into the oven to reheat. At the last minute, I steamed a veggie, and we had a meal! (All while I was getting totally killed while playing Ticket to Ride.)

Here’s the Cheesy Mashed Potato recipe, which really isn’t a recipe, because you can use whatever amount of mashed potatoes, sour cream, and shredded cheese that you like. I’ll try to figure out some sort of proportions though for you. No one wants to have a dish full of sour cream with a couple teaspoons of mashed potatoes stirred in. ;)

Cheesy Mashed Potato Leftovers

Cheesy Mashed Potato Leftovers {Eat Healthy Save Time}
 
Save Print
Author: Laura
Ingredients
  • 6 cups leftover mashed potatoes (give or take)
  • 1 cup sour cream (give or take)
  • 1 cup shredded cheese (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together the mashed potatoes and sour cream.
  2. Spread into a 3 quart casserole dish (give or take).
  3. Sprinkle cheese on top.
  4. Refrigerate until you are ready to bake this dish.
  5. Bake in a 350° oven for 45 minutes (give or take).
3.4.3177

Seriously. It’s not a real recipe when you put (give or take) at the end of every statement. But the potatoes sure taste yummy, even if your proportions are different than what I described.

cheesy_mashed_potatoes

Feel free to add bacon bits to the potatoes if you like. How many? Oh, I’d say about 1/2 cup.

Give or take. ;)

Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

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