Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: Simple Season

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I have never found the Christmas season to be very restful or relaxing. I always love the holidays, but the preparations always make me tired.

christmasdecor0913smSomehow, this year, without meaning to, I have apparently made a very short Christmas to-do list. We’re not making a big, long trip this year, we’re not trying to make Christmas goodies for the entire population, we’re keeping our meals simple, and our living room just holds a small tree and our stockings.

I realized today, after I finished the last of our gift shopping, that this has been the simplest Christmas season I can remember. Shopping online and making very few plans probably has something to do with it.

We look forward to hosting some much adored family members next week, and we look forward to seeing my side of the family after Christmas. We eagerly await celebrating this special day with our boys. This year, we’re celebrating in relaxed fashion.

I love it.

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Caramel Popcorn (no corn syrup!)

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Caramel Popcorn With No Corn Syrup!

For years and years and years (give or take a year or two), I’ve been wanting to find a good Caramel Popcorn recipe that did not contain corn syrup. The recipes I found that didn’t contain corn syrup were either complicated, or they contained other ingredients beyond corn syrup that I didn’t feel comfortable feeding my family.

But just leave it to you all to solve my Caramel Popcorn dilemma. A big thanks goes out to everyone who suggested that this new Caramel Sauce recipe might be able to be used on popcorn. Over the weekend, I decided to give it a try. I figured the outcome may not be blog-worthy, but surely my family would eat it regardless of whether it was great or not. My men are always so good to eat my experiments. Especially if it’s an experiment with Caramel Sauce on top.

This got rave reviews, which came, as you can imagine, while they were chewing. Since they were saying such nice things to me about my cooking, I lovingly allowed them to talk with their mouths full. Far be it from me to scold my popcorn munching children when they are in the middle of boosting my ego.

Caramel Popcorn

Yum

Caramel Popcorn (no corn syrup!)
 
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Author:
Ingredients
  • 1 cup unpopped popcorn
  • 1 recipe of Caramel Sauce*
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
  1. Pop 1 cup of popcorn and put it into two 8x13 inch baking dishes.
  2. Stir together the caramel sauce ingredients, stirring in ½ teaspoon of sea salt.
  3. Drizzle the caramel sauce over the popcorn.
  4. Stir the caramel sauce all around the popcorn the best you can without making too many popcorny messes.
  5. Bake in a 250° for 10 minutes, then stir the popcorn.
  6. Bake for an additional 10 minutes.
  7. Remove Caramel Corn from oven and serve.

Find our delicious, no-corn-syrup Caramel Sauce recipe here!

If there is any left after you feed this to your family, package some up to give as gifts. Yep, people everywhere will be talking with their mouths full. It’ll be a beautiful, Christmas moment.

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Menu Plan for the Week

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As I mentioned last week, we won’t be hosting High School Huddle at our house again until January. This week, middle and high school huddles come together at the church building for a Christmas get-together. Asa and Justus are in charge of making snacks to take to this get together, since they are in high school and middle school. I love watching my boys cook – they do a great job!

I’m excited to make some Peppernuts this week.
My grandma always made these little cookies around Christmastime and I loved them.
They are a perfect snack with hot cocoa.

Here’s what our menu looks like for this week:

Sunday, December 11
Marriage class treat – Mini apple pies
Beef roast, carrots, potatoes, gravy
Huddle Christmas party – taking Cream Cheese Salsa Dip and chips

Monday, December 12
Applesauce bread, bananas
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
Turkey sausage and red bean stew, cornbread

Tuesday, December 13
Mini breakfast pizzas, oranges
Baked potatoes with butter and sour cream, green beans
Italian cream cheese chicken, steamed broccoli and carrots

Wednesday, December 14
Homemade poptarts (maybe made with Christmas cookie cutters?!)
Chicken tortilla soup, fruit-kefir smoothies
One dish meat and potato meal, peas

Thursday, December 15
Scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, hashbrowns
Bbq chicken, potato wedges, peas
Three cheese garlic chicken pasta, tossed salad

Friday, December 16
Peanut butter honey toast, apples
Bean and cheese burritos, fruit salad
Lamb-burgers, onion rings

Saturday, December 17
Funnel cakes (shaped like snowflakes, maybe?)
Leftovers
Beef stroganoff, green beans

What’s on your menu this week?

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Fun {healthier} Holiday Baking

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What with all the butter I hear you’ve been going through lately, it sounds like there’s a lot of fun Christmas baking going on out there! I actually haven’t even started doing my baking yet, but I will start soon. Oh yes, the butter and sucanat are going to start flying around here.

As I began to make my baking plans, I put together a list of some of my favorite holiday cookies and treats. All of these are made with healthier flours and sugars (usually honey or sucanat). I won’t be making all of these treats, but  I’m really hungry right now, so I just kept adding to the list.

Gingerbread Men

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Applesauce Bread

Peppernuts

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Christmas Graham Crackers

Reindeer Brownies

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Coconut Macaroons

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Snickerdoodles

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Orange Cream Cheese Cut Out Cookies

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Christmas Spice Cookies

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Chocolate Snowballs

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Reindeer Cuties

What’s on your Christmas baking list this year?

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Worship

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~Appreciate Your Spouse~Buoyancy in Marriage~Consult Your Partner~
~Dream Together Part One ~Dream Together Part Two~Empower Your Spouse~
~Have Fun With Your Spouse~Give to One Another~Honor Each Other~
~Be Intentional~Jubilee~Kingdom Focused~Listen~~Mentor Relationships~Nourish~Own It~
~Pray With Each Other~Quick to Listen~Read Together~Selfless~Teamwork~Uplift~Vulnerable~

Worship

Connected – Matt’s Thoughts

Woven throughout our healthy marriage posts is the theme of connectedness. A healthy marriage consists of two people connected to each other. Marriages that honor the Lord consist of two people connected to our Creator. So, a healthy marriage that honors the Lord consists of two people connected to our Creator and to each other.

That is our aim and our desire for you. When I consider the periods of our life when we experienced this at its best, by God’s grace, it has been due to our times of worship together. I believe that is because worship is both humbling and empowering. Humbling because I’m interacting with the Creator of the universe. Empowering because I’m interacting with the Creator of the universe. What doesn’t bode well for my marriage is when I get arrogant or selfish, or conversely, feel useless or incompetent. I’m not the center of the universe, but the One who is the center of the universe is living in me!

Although we urge you to worship together in group settings with other Christians, we want you to also think outside the box…err building. My view of worship may be a bit broader than others, but when I consider Psalm 148, for example, and that the sun and moon, mountains and hills, lightning and hail, plants and trees, and animals and humans are all urged to praise the Lord, my view of worship expands. God’s creation praises Him by being (and therefore doing) what they were created to be (and do). What are the two of you created to be and do?

But What If… – Laura’s Thoughts

This is our aim and desire for you. This is likely your aim and desire also. What if, however, your spouse doesn’t feel the same way about pursuing a relationship with the Creator? Your spouse is not a robot. You can not program him/her to do and to be what you want.

Do not lose hope. God is stronger, more powerful, and more willing than we understand to do more than we ask or can imagine. Your personal worship and devotion to God can and will bring the light to your household that you desire.

Worship with your spouse is beautiful, but if this is not an option for you at this time, do not underestimate the power of your own personal worship, praise, and heart-cry to the Father. He is listening. He can bring about that connectedness you long for, both with Himself, and with your spouse.

Let your life be worship, with your spouse, without your spouse, all the time.

God will be glorified.

Ladies, we know you’re reading here more often than the guys. ;)  We’d love husbands to read this article as well. If you feel so inclined please send the link to your husbands, or if it’s easier, we’ve created a downloadable article for you to quickly print off and share. Healthy Marriage Tips from A to Z – Worship

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Homemade Caramel Sauce (no corn syrup!)

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A few weeks ago, Busy Mom in AL left a comment stating that she’d used my Caramel Frosting recipe to make Caramel Sauce. Then, a little while later, the people at Challenge Butter sent me a package and asked me to come up with a recipe using their butter. Well, what’s a girl to do but make Homemade Caramel Sauce with one of those sticks of butter, and then blog about her experience?

I didn’t think you’d mind. Especially if you think about the possibilities this Caramel Sauce presents. Not only can you make it for your own family and serve it on ice cream or cheesecake – wouldn’t this make a perfect Gift in a Jar?

Why yes, I believe it would.

And then, what if you took it a step further and created a big Ice Cream Sundae Basket to give as a gift? In your basket you could include a jar of this Caramel Sauce, a jar of Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce, a container of nuts, an ice cream scoop, some bowls and spoons – who wouldn’t love to receive this inexpensive, yet thoughtful and fun gift?

Alright, now I’m giddy and need to figure out who I can make an Ice Cream Sundae Gift Basket for.

Here is the very simple – and sort of healthy because at least it doesn’t have corn syrup in it – recipe:

Homemade Caramel SauceYum

2 cups sucanat or brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup cream (heavy whipping cream)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place the sucanat, butter, and cream into a medium sized saucepan.

Cook over medium to high heat until ingredients are melted and well mixed, stirring constantly. Bring mixture to a boil and boil for one minute, while continuing to stir.

Pour mixture into a mixing bowl and add vanilla extract.

Serve immediately or pour into a pint sized jar for a gift. Store in refrigerator and reheat before serving if desired. (This recipe makes one pint jar or two cups of sauce.)

Beyond ice cream, cheesecake, and the Ice Cream Sundae Gift Basket, don’t you think I should come up with some sort of Caramel Swirl Brownie recipe? Or maybe a Turtle Fudge Something or Other? We could even use it as an apple dip I bet!

Homemade_Caramel_Sauce

Interested in giving this as a gift? Here is a fun FREE printable gift tag you can use along with this sauce.

CaramelSauceTag-prev

caramel_dip_with_apples

What do you think? How could you use this Homemade Caramel Sauce?

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Gratituesday: Folding Laundry

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Funny thing about being sick – it offers you a new perspective on what it means to feel good.

How often have I looked at the laundry piles (dirty or clean) and felt overwhelmed, just wishing I could ignore them and instead go lay down, cozy up, and read a good book – or maybe even take a little nap? How many times have I stared at the menu plan, thinking that the meals sounded good, but just longing for the food to somehow magically prepare itself so I wouldn’t have to do it? How often have I just wished for a little break from the noise and needs of the kids? Don’t the boys see their daddy standing right there, available to answer their questions? Why is it that the first word out of their mouths is usually, “MOM!” when someone has a bloody finger or when there is another brotherly quarrel?

I just wish, sometimes. I just wish I could have a break from all the responsibilities, duties, thinking, planning, solving, and doing.

Be careful what you wish for.

Not that taking breaks is a bad thing. Taking time to be refreshed and renewed is a wise thing indeed.

But give me just a few days in bed, sick and unable to care for my family – and I am quickly able to realize the significance of my role, and more importantly, my desire to fulfill it. I loved how Matt stepped right up to do everything that needed to be done, both his jobs and mine. He gave our kids the instructions of “don’t bother Mom”, and sweet boys that they are, they obeyed. I didn’t have to answer their questions, help solve their arguments, read to them, or bandage their wounds. I was not in charge of the meals, I did not wash any dishes. Matt and all the boys worked together to clean the kitchen. The laundry was done by our eleven year old. Our oldest answered the phone and helped his younger brother with math questions.

All while I laid there and did nothing. I read a book, I watched some movies, and I slept. I was served breakfast in bed, and even had a bath drawn for me. Ah, it was a life of luxury, let me tell you. Except for the part with the fever and splitting headache.

It didn’t take me long to recognize how much I truly love taking care of my family. (Sounds cheesy? Yeah, well. Lying abed in a mountain of dirty kleenexes makes me reflective and sentimental. I can’t help it.)

Feeling healthy enough to fold laundry, wash some dishes, and cook a meal is truly a great blessing – not something that should be taken for granted.

Kind of makes you look at that muddy floor with a new appreciation, doesn’t it? ;)

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!

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!

Heavenly Homemakers Practical Gift Guide

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Some of you may remember me posting part of this article last year. I wanted the opportunity to share again my ideas about practical gifts, and to link to the posts I wrote last year that offer ideas for giving practical gifts to everyone on your list. Plus, I thought some of you might enjoy reading about my grandma’s ear-plugs again.

Hello, my name is Laura and I’m a bundle of fun and a barrel of laughs. Being with me is a hoot. I’m one big party. I give the coolest gifts.

Just kidding. About all of it. Except that my name really is Laura.

I can be kinda fun and I like to host parties. I have barrels of wheat and bundles of brown rice, both of which I think are a hoot. Which leads me to the “coolest gift” statement. The fact that I think wheat and rice are so exciting may tell you something about the gifts I give. I will never win the “Coolest Gift Giver Prize”.

I’m not too much into giving junky or fru-fru gifts, and I don’t usually like to spend a lot – not because I’m stingy (hopefully), but just because I don’t see the importance of spending tons of money on gifts. Unless someone needs something.

I am a Practical Gift Giver.

Gifts for our boys usually include items of clothing they need, shoes, jammies and books. They get some toys too, but I’ve got to see the practicality in the toy before I’ll spend money or Swagbucks on it. (Like Legos. I can totally get into Legos.)

And games. I love games. Especially if they are games I can win.

Did I just say that out loud?

I think I come by my Practical Gift Giving honestly. One Christmas, my grandma gave all of the men in the family a pair of ear plugs.  All of them. My dad, my brother, my uncles, my boy cousins…all of them. We were a family of farmers (and preachers…hmmm..) so ear plugs were a very practical gift. But we all got tickled, because everyone started putting them in and wearing them around during our big get-together. Every single male in our family looked ridiculous, but that’s okay. They couldn’t hear all of us females laughing and making fun of them.

Ah the memories.

Below are a series of posts I’ve written which will give you some ideas for practical gift giving. If you’re looking for some gift ideas, or are interested in what I consider to be ideal gifts, click around on the following links. Ear plugs not included.

Are you a practical gift giver, or are you a barrel of laughs?

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Since I’ve been sick, we made different plans for our High School Huddle so that I didn’t need to host and cook for 35 people tonight. With all the different events going on through the end of the year, we actually won’t be hosting Huddle again until January. I guess I’ll enjoy a nice long break. :)

While cooking meat for today’s tacos, I’ll be cooking extra meat to use throughout the week for Taco Potatoes and Taco Corn Fritters. Just trying to be efficient with my time during the Christmas season!

We’ve enjoyed this Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe so much. One reader, Emily, mentioned that she’s been making these Coconut Flour Muffins into Pumpkin Muffins – a great gluten free variety! I’m hoping to give those a try this week and report back with the specifics. There’s not much better than pumpkin and cinnamon this time of year.

Here’s what’s on our menu this week:

Sunday, December 4
Oatmeal, pears
Spaghetti, tossed salad, corn
Tacos

Monday, December 5
Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, bananas
Taco potatoes, fruit salad
Easy noodle stir fry with broccoli and carrots

Tuesday, December 6
Giant breakfast cookies, applesauce
Popcorn chicken, potato wedges, peas
Potato soup, raw veggies

Wednesday, December 7
Multi-grain pumpkin waffles
Lamb-burger patties, steamed veggies, milkshakes
Venison fajitas

Thursday, December 8
Honey wheat bagels, apples
Homemade beef balogna, creamy mac and cheese, green beans
Chicken burritos, fruit

Friday, December 9
Mini apple pies, cheese slices
Taco corn fritters, peaches
Homemade pizza

Saturday, December 10
French toast
Leftovers
Pigs in a blanket, green beans

Have you been doing any fun Christmas baking?

Be watching this week for a fun Holiday Giveaway Parade!

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The Most Comforting Comfort Food

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It’s what I want when I’m cold. It’s what I want when I’m tired. It’s what I want when I’m sad. It’s what I want when I’m happy. And this week, it is what I wanted when I was sick.

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Warm Vanilla Soother

Warm Vanilla Soother is packed full of nourishing, stick-to-your-ribs comfort. And if you need comfort with a side of chocolate, well, there’s also Warm Chocolate Soother.

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