Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Menu Plan for the Week

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As I mentioned in last week’s menu plan, our family will be hosting a marriage class each Sunday morning and a high school youth group meeting “Huddle” each Sunday evening. I’ll be preparing a light breakfast for our marriage class (7-8 couples) and a big dinner for Huddle (30-35 people). This week, I decided to make Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches for our Huddle dessert. I made smaller sandwiches than explained in these directions. Just to be sure they tasted good, we all had to try one. They were approved by the whole family. Ah, you’ve gotta love having the job of “quality control”. :)

Here’s our menu for this week:

Sunday, September 25
Crystal’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (with healthy ingredient substitutions), coffee, juice
Easy chicken burritos, green beans
“Huddle” – Lasagna (x4), tossed salad, bread (provided by my friend), homemade ice cream sandwiches

Monday, September 26
Whole wheat waffles, blueberries
Pigs in a blanket, carrot sticks with homemade ranch
Orange chicken and rice, peas

Tuesday, September 27
Turkey sausage, hashbrowns, strawberry-peach slushies
Tuna salad on homemade cheese crackers, fresh tomatoes, peaches
Three cheese garlic chicken pasta, tossed salad

Wednesday, September 28
Whole wheat soaked biscuits with butter and honey, pears
Black bean taco salad, apples
Easy breakfast casserole, orange muffins, fresh peaches

Thursday, September 29
Vanilla muffins with cinnamon crumb topping, bananas
Alphabet soup, leftover muffins
Pizza casserole, tossed salad

Friday, September 30
Peanut butter honey toast, pears
Turkey ranch pinwheels, apples
Pizza, green beans

Saturday, October 1
Scrambled eggs, oranges
Leftovers
Potato soup, carrot sticks, sweet peppers

What are you eating this week? And have you tried making Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches before? Then you could also do a little “quality control” before serving them. :)

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Nourish Your Marriage Relationship

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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 Your Marriage Relationship

I Heart Gardening – Matt’s Thoughts

Okra, sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes, jalapenos and best of all sweet bell peppers. Our garden plots have been producing those for us this year. Last year our green beans didn’t yield very much, but our sweet bell peppers have consistently performed well. We rotate where we plant most of our veggies each year and I’m convinced that the soil where we planted the green beans last year lacked nourishment. The one exception to rotating our crops has been the sweet bells. They are my “babies” that are always planted in our raised garden bed. If they don’t thrive then the year has been a disaster in my opinion. I mix all kinds of nutrients in that soil and make sure they are given proper care so the fruit will be fantastic!

Yeah, this is a marriage post, so I’m guessing you can tell where this is going. Let’s make some connections in this metaphor. I have several relationships (garden plots). The more time and effort I put into nurturing a relationship, the better opportunity (soil) there is for that relationship to be healthy (produce a good harvest). Some of my relationships have grown strong and then faded through the years. I’m convinced it is because they haven’t been nourished as well. The one relationship I have committed to put above all others is with my wife…she is my “baby.” Since she is my highest priority (raised garden bed) I want to mix all kinds of nutrients into that relationship and give her proper care so our marriage will be healthy.

Check out this ginormous red bell pepper from our well nourished soil. Go Big Red!

Empty Calories – Laura’s Thoughts

I’ve shared in the past how sick I got physically when I wasn’t getting enough nourishment. A diet consisting of lots of Pepsi and other empty calories can and will slowly suck the life out of a person. I learned this the hard way. We must have healthy nutrients in our bodies in order to thrive physically.

Are you, as the wife or husband, sucking the life out of your spouse, feeding your relationship full of empty calories and causing your marriage to be unhealthy?

Are your actions and words encouraging your spouse to be more godly, more productive and more loving…or are the things you do and the words you say tearing down your spouse and wearing him/her out? The more you fill others with the garbage that flows out of you, the less nourished your relationship with that person will be. It is incredibly wearing on a person to constantly have to work at pleasing you, satisfying your whims, guessing what your mood will be like today and so on.

Don’t be a 2-liter bottle of wasted, life draining calories to your spouse. Instead, be intentional about offering nourishment in the form of words, actions and attitudes that build up, encourage and refresh the soul of the one you love.

In what ways are you nourishing your spouse?

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 Z to Z – Nourish Your Relationship

 

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Raw Cookie Dough Bites (somebody stop me from eating them all!)

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I happened upon this Raw Cookie Dough Bites recipe today over on The Nourishing Home. Since I had all the ingredients and since the thought of eating cooke dough bites made me very happy, I decided to surprise the boys and make these for a snack.

Yum

My goodness these things are good. They took just a few minutes to put together, plus they are packed full of goodness. What an awesome, healthy snack to have on hand!

Best of all, for those of you with food allergies, these are egg, dairy and gluten free!!! (Sorry nut allergy friends, these do have nut butter.)  They call for ground flax seed, which I ground in my food processor. And they call for coconut flour, which is one of my new loves. I used my mini soy free chocolate chips and found that these little bites are super addicting. I decided you needed to know about these so that you could also become addicted. Wait – that’s not what I meant. Really, I just wanted to share a new, great snack recipe idea with you because I’m nice and helpful like that. Yes, that’s it.

 

You’ll find the recipe for Raw Cookie Dough Bites here. Warning:  It’s hard to eat just one. Or two. Or four.

It’s a good thing these are full of healthy ingredients. ;)

Hey, hey! I just peeked over at Amazon and found that the Azukar Coconut Flour is back in stock and still being offered for a great price! These bags always seem to be snatched up quickly, so act fast if you’re interested.

Azukar Organics Natural Coconut Flour 32 ounce bags (3 count)…

Azukar Organics Natural Coconut Flour 16 ounce bags (6 count)…

These are excellent prices for coconut flour!

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Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce – easy!

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When you make tomato sauce on the stove-top, it takes several hours, plus you have to stir the sauce quite often to keep it from scalding on the bottom. No biggie – I’ve done it this way forever and it hasn’t killed me yet. But guess what? My friend Anne just figured out a way to make tomato sauce in the oven and it’s even easier!!!! (Maybe some of you  have been doing it this way all along and it’s only new to Anne and me?)

If you’ve read my stove-top tomato sauce directions, you already know that I do not peel my tomatoes nor do I take the seeds out. I just blend up the tomatoes and call it good. Some might call this lazy. Shucks, I call this lazy. But this is one instance where being lazy works fine. You are very welcome to take off the skins and take out the seeds if you prefer.

I never measure or weigh my tomatoes, but in doing a little searching on the internet, I find that it takes 35-45 pounds of tomatoes to make 7 quarts of sauce. How many tomatoes equals one pound? It totally depends on the tomato. What kind of tomatoes can you use to make sauce? Whatever kind you want. We always plant a variety of tomatoes and throw them all together into our sauce.

Because tomatoes are very acidic (especially heirloom tomatoes), I’m not terribly concerned about adding lemon juice to my sauce. However, if you feel more comfortable adding lemon juice for safety, you’ll want to use about 2 Tablespoons in each quart jar.

Now, how to make Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce:

First wash your tomatoes (unless you enjoy the grit of soil from your garden…mmm).

Next, cut up your tomatoes and throw them into a roasting pan or any large baking dish. I usually cut my larger tomatoes into fourths and my smaller tomatoes in half.

Place the container of tomatoes (uncovered) into a 350° oven for about 1 1/2 hours or until the tomatoes are all shrivelled up and are floating in their own juices.

Run them through a strainer so that all you have left is the shrivelled tomatoes.

Place the tomatoes in a blender until smooth. Or better yet!! Run them through a Victorio!!!

Can them in a water bath (you can read more about this process here) for 25-30 minutes.

Are you a canner? Have you ever tried making tomato sauce this way?

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Homemade White Chocolate Chips

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We have homemade chocolate chips, homemade butterscotch chips, and now we have homemade white chocolate chips! As with the butterscotch chips, I didn’t use sucanat on these because I felt like the flavor would be too strong. Instead, I used organic raw sugar, which isn’t much healthier than regular white sugar, but at least it hasn’t been bleached. :)  (You can read more of my thoughts on healthy sweeteners here.)

I ordered cocoa butter from Mountain Rose Herbs and was very pleased! I also found that I could get it through Amazon, but it was a little more expensive there. The little cocoa butter wafers look good enough to eat all by themselves, but beware, they are not. I may or may not have taken a little nibble just to find out for sure. But alas, chocolate is not chocolate without sugar, no matter how tasty it looks. ;)

White Chocolate ChipsYum

1 cup cocoa butter
1 cup organic raw sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine cocoa butter, sugar and coconut oil in a medium saucepan.


Stir with a whisk and heat until all the ingredients are melted and mixed thoroughly. This takes several minutes.

Remove mixture from heat and add vanilla extract. Pour it into a parchment paper lined baking dish (I used my 9×9 inch pyrex).


Refrigerate for several hours until hardened. The mixture may separate while it’s cooling, but that’s okay!

Break the hardened mixture into little chunks. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.


We stirred some homemade white chocolate chips into these fudge brownies…

See those bits of white chocolate chips in there? It was like candy in a brownie. You must try these. (After you eat a good dinner of course.)

What do you like to make with White Chocolate Chips?

P.S. These are a little bit pricey to make – but I try to avoid white chocolate chips from the store because they are full of hydrogenated oils. I’ll probably only make these every once in a while for a very special treat. :)

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Gratituesday: This and That

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This Gratituesday, I decided to share several “little” things I’m thankful for, although really, can we call any of our blessings little? Except, of course, the first blessing I shared about weighs only a little over seven pounds…

1. Some of our close friends had a very sweet and adorable baby boy last week. Since we don’t see any more baby boys (or girls!!) in our future (unless God has something very different in mind for our future than we think He has) – I have to say that I have been living vicariously through my friend Jenny for the past few months. Now that the little guy has arrived, I have enjoyed loving on him as much as I can. Mmmmm….baby boys.

2. This week, Matt and the boys are doing a construction project for some friends of ours. Today all four of our sons headed out the door with Daddy, equipped with work gloves and a sack lunch. Seeing them all pile into the truck to go “tear off shingles and siding” made me sigh deeply with joy – not because I had the house to myself this morning, even though that was a nice way to get some work done. My heart was full, seeing my men head off together to work hard and learn. I can never take this gift of a godly daddy and four healthy sons for granted.

3. It just so happens that the couple Matt and the boys are working with/for this week used to live in the same town as and were great friends with my grandparents many years ago in Kansas. It was so wonderful to make this connection! Mrs. Spencer knows my Nana!! And she even remembered meeting my mom. I love this. I need this.

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it 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!

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Freezer Full of Healthy Foods

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I’m happy to report that I was able to cross off everything on last week’s Make Ahead Healthy Foods list, plus a little extra! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  If you want to get ahead in the kitchen, just do a little extra every once in a while. Here are a few pictures showing what I worked on during the past seven days:

I put my boys on the task of scrubbing 10 pounds of potatoes (the amount that fits well in my big roaster). We baked them to turn them into Hashbrowns.

If you’ve not tried making Hashbrowns this way – you’ve gotta try it! These are so easy, delicious and make for a great quick breakfast or dinner side dish. I freeze them on cookie sheets, then transfer them to freezer bags. Having frozen hashbrowns ready to grab and cook quickly is so nice!

I mixed up a batch of Honey Oat Crunch Cereal that is great to have on hand for a quick breakfast or a snack. (This recipe is in my Think Breakfast Outside the Box ebook.)  I wish I remembered to make this more often – it’s great to have on hand. I just stick it in a jar and put it on top of the fridge. We eat it with raisins and other dried fruit, plain or with milk or cream. So good!

I guess I was on a roll with breakfast foods last week! I made a batch of Giant Breakfast Cookies. We ate half and froze half.

I made six pounds of Turkey Sausage, freezing it into eight meal sized bags. I LOVE having this on hand to use in my Pancake Sausage Muffins and Easy Breakfast Casserole. Plus, since I now have frozen hashbrowns, I can throw some of this sausage in with the hashbrowns, scramble eggs into it and we’ve got a meal. Easy!

I had ordered a big box of strawberries from Azure Standard which arrived last week. We ate as many as we could while they were fresh, but the rest needed to make their way into the freezer. I like freezing them on cookie sheets first so that they don’t stick together in freezer bags later. Aren’t they purty?

I’ve already shared about how I made Homemade Beef Bologna – we ate some and froze some. I also made Tammy’s Homemade Spicy Beef Pepperoni, but if we thought my bologna pictures were not pretty, my beef pepperoni pictures were even worse. Come to think of it, I didn’t even take pictures of the pepperoni. The pepperoni itself was so very ugly, I hid it from my kids before they could see it and decide they didn’t like it before they’d tried it. BUT, when I sliced it and put it on pizza, it was very delicious. So, I now have ugly bologna and ugly pepperoni in my freezers too, but I’ll spare you the agony of having to see pictures of them. ;)

Have you made anything healthy and tasty for your freezer lately?

In case you’re wondering, here’s a post on How I Freeze Food.

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Menu Plan for the Week – Let the “Feeding the Masses” Season Begin! *With a Bun Update*

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I mentioned several weeks ago that we’d be hosting our High School Youth each Sunday night beginning in the fall. (This has traditionally been called “Huddle”.)  This begins today! I’ve been both excited and intimidated about this committment. Each Sunday night we’ll have around 30+ teens in our home. They are great kids though, plus we have two or three other great adult couples who will be joining us and who have offered to help with the food prep at any time. I plan to say “yes” to this offer of help whenever I need to – I’d be crazy not to! I’ll also be referencing this list of “Food to Feed a Crowd” as well as all of your helpful comments for meal ideas each week.

In addition to hosting the high schoolers on Sunday evenings, Matt and I have started teaching a marriage class on Sunday mornings in our home for six young married couples. We meet before worship time begins at church, and I’m hoping to provide some sort of muffin or other breakfast item along with coffee and juice each morning during class. Having these treats seems to put everyone at ease and well, the smell of hot coffee and muffins is just welcoming, isn’t it? We really want these couples to feel welcome and loved in our home. (Yes, food is my love language.)  :)

In order to pull all of this off this year, I’m going to have to be very organized and try to get as much done on Fridays and Saturdays as possible. When I can, I’ll take pictures to share. Although it’s not terribly exciting, I was able to snap a shot of my beverage table this morning before class. I had to put the Applesauce Bread in a separate spot since this table filled up too quickly!

Today, we also had a church potluck. Food, food and more food! Here’s our menu for the week:

Sunday, September 18
Applesauce bread, fruit plate, coffee, juice
Potluck – Italian pasta bake, frosted brownies, green beans
“High School Huddle” – BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, cream cheese corn, homemade pickles (provided by my friend), carrot sticks with homemade ranch, grapes, butterscotch bars

Monday,  September 19
Simple soaked pancakes, blueberries
Taco potatoes, fresh peaches
Chicken noodle soup, carrot sticks

Tuesday, September 20
Crustless breakfast quiches, oranges
Tuna salad on tomato slices, strawberry-peach slushies, sweet peppers
Cheesy salsa enchiladas, tossed salad

Wednesday, September 21
Coconut flour muffins, apples
Black bean salsa, organic corn chips, grapes
Chicken veggie quesadillas, fruit salad

Thursday, September 22
Pancake sausage muffins, applesauce
Cheeseburger macaroni, peas, cantaloupe
Lamb chops, baked potatoes, zucchini

Friday, September 23
Peanut butter honey toast, pears
Chicken burritos, fruit
Hamburgers, potato wedges, peaches, green beans

Saturday, September 24
Scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, peaches
Leftovers
Beef stroganoff, green beans, tossed salad

Question for you – for tonight’s pulled pork sandwiches, I purchased a 9 pound pork roast. I feel like that will be plenty of meat for 30 people, but I don’t think I got enough buns. How many buns would you feel necessary for 30 teens and adults? I know this shouldn’t be so complicated but for some reason I can’t feel comfortable with the amount of buns I got. But I don’t want a bunch of extras because one of my sons LOVES white flour buns and I’d prefer not to have lots leftover for his happy little white bun indulgence. :)

—————————————————–

Hi. I have a bun update. :)

I had originally purchased 40 buns, but we went and got two more packages just to be safe. We ended up only using 38 (surprisingly), even though there were 35 people here (my kids included). Therefore, we would have been okay with only the 5 packages of buns. Still, it was great to have piece of mind about the buns. Also, the 9 pounds of meat was the perfect amount as we only had enough meat leftover for two sandwiches.

Several ate only meat and bbq sauce without the bun. Several others came back for seconds. I still think using what many of you suggested as a general rule, estimating 1.5 buns per person is a great idea. I’ll do it this way from now on.

Also, the Butterscotch Bars and Cream Cheese Corn (recipe in Holiday Hospitality ebook and Learn to Cook ebook) were HUGE hits!!!

Most exciting of all – we asked the kids to each rinse their plates and cups and put them into the dishwasher after they were finished eating. At the end of the night, all I had to do was wash a few serving dishes and turn on the full dishwasher. Awesome! We are definitely going to go with that system every week!

Thank you all for your helpful input about my buns. I mean about the burger buns. Oh, you know what I mean. ;)

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Azure Standard is Expanding!

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Visit our blog: www.azurestandardblog.comMrs. Joseph Wood, who advertises with us here at Heavenly Homemakers, is always trying to keep me up to date on the latest great news from Azure Standard so that I can pass it on to you. Her husband is one of their trusted truck drivers, and she and her family are extremely dedicated to serving through Azure. If you’ve been reading my posts about Azure Standard and wishing you had access to this service, you’re going to be excited to read this news!

Azure Standard is going to be adding IL, IN, IA and parts of TN the first of January. They will also be rearranging the current M-1 and M-2 routes into five smaller routes so that food can be fresher when delivered to customers. This is allowing them to add new areas of CO, NM, KS, OK, TX, MO and AR if there were families in those states that used to be off route.

Because of these changes, Azure Standard is super busy, which means that it would be best at this time for you to contact Mrs. Joseph Wood instead of contacting Azure Standard themselves. To learn more or to see about setting up a drop point in your area, call 785-633-3152. Or, if you’d rather contact her via email you can do that at: mrsjosephwood @ gmail dot com.

Also, be sure follow the Azure Standard Facebook page for regular updates and great Azure Standard information!

If your location was not mentioned today, don’t despair! As you can see, Azure Standard is constantly working to expand and meet more needs. Your state might be coming soon!

 

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Mentor Relationships

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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

What School are You Paying for? – Matt’s Thoughts

“How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver!” (Proverbs 16:16)  I’ll Amen that.

“Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” (Proverbs 4:7)  Amen to that too.

Now, how do I get me some of that wisdom and understanding that I so desperately need?

Most of my life I’ve been enrolled at UHK (University of Hard Knocks). UHK has an amazing presence. There are satellite campuses everywhere I go. But in my shining moments I’ve sought out a mentor and avoided the expense of UHK.

As Laura and I have aimed for a healthy marriage, we also have looked to some couples modeling a healthy marriage who are farther down the road in their marital journey. We have watched them from a distance and visited with them couple to couple. We’ve been encouraged from afar and challenged by their words. We’ve heard their regrets, taking them to heart so as to avoid UHK for ourselves, and we’ve taken mental notes regarding their victories so that we can attempt to gain the same outcome.

Why don’t we do this more often, rather than paying room, board, tuition and fees to UHK? Many times it’s because I’m chasing gold and silver rather than wisdom and understanding.

How can I get me some wisdom?

“Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise.” (Proverbs 19:20)

Red Flag Relationships – Laura’s Thoughts

Most of us tend to gravitate toward those who are in the same stage of life we are in. Singles like to hang out with other singles. Young marrieds like to spend time with other young marrieds. Parents with babies like to get together with other parents of babies. And on it goes. This is all great and truly – many of our best friendships are based on the fact that we have so much in common. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with spending time and enjoying others in your stage of life – unless those are the only people you spend time with.

We’ve seen marriages destroyed because couples were not willing to look beyond their 20 or 30-something age group for companionship, guidance and encouragement. We’ve been heart-broken to see relationships crushed because young couples were spending too much time with other young couples. It’s dangerous – watch and be aware of how close you are becoming with other couples, especially if these relationships are purely for fun and hold little spiritual depth. Let a red flag be raised and make changes in your couple-to-couple friendships if you begin to find yourself becoming too “comfortable” with your friend’s spouse.

Be intentional about spending time with couples who will sharpen you, encourage you and make your marriage stronger. Seek out couples who have been married longer than you and who know more than you about maintaining a healthy marriage. Don’t be afraid of people who are older and wiser than you. Sit at their feet, ask questions, soak in what they have to say.

Your healthy marriage depends on it.

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 A to Z – Mentors

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