Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Today’s Lunch…because I figured you’d want to see it

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I decided not to wait until dinner time to make that roast I forgot to put into the crock-pot yesterday. I made it for lunch today instead because I felt the need for a Leg-o-Lamb. (Yes, we love all varieties of Legos around here.)

And then, because I was trying to make the morning easy…I skipped the potatoes and threw green beans right in the crock-pot with the meat, onions and carrots. Best. Lunch. Ever.

And also the easiest.

I just wanted to be sure you knew that we are eating quite well, Azure Standard order forgotten and all. Not that you were losing sleep over it. And really…I know that you really don’t care about seeing my luncheon roast as much as you really just want to see pictures of my scary storage room. 

Tonight. I promise.

So, what did you have for lunch?

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Gratituesday: Making Headway

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I know, I know…I haven’t posted the storage room pictures (aka freaky-mess-scary pictures) yet. You talked me into at least taking the pictures and they’ve been uploaded and everything. But I just didn’t see how posting my scary storage room pictures would be a good thing to share for Gratituesday.

I am thankful to have a storage room and enough stuff to make it messy, but still, I like keeping Gratituesday a place of refreshment…not a place to make you run screaming away from my site.

And so, I’ll wait a little while longer to post those pictures (but really, they are coming soon). In the meantime, think grateful thoughts and don’t try to imagine how messy my storage room is. It’s Gratituesday, after all.

I will share that while I was getting myself very dirty and having some very productive storage-room-cleaning-out time today, I found a nice stash of big plastic storage containers. I love glass jars best, but for bulk dry ingredients, it’s great to have big ol’ plastic buckets and jugs for storage. I forgot I had these containers, so I was very happy to dump out the dust and dead crickets (told you that room was scary) so that I can use them again!

I got them all washed up, so soon they’ll be ready to be put to good use in my new organizational system for food storage. I’m very excited and feel good about the headway I’ve made so far!!

I also feel very filthy. Yuck, this is a dirty job. :)


In case you were curious, I made this simple Stir Fried Chicken and Veggies for dinner
tonight using the food we have on hand. All the kids love this meal and it is so easy to make!
(And yes, that was really on the menu for tomorrow, but I switched the two night’s dinners.
This is what happens when you’re busy cleaning and forget to put the roast in the crock pot.)

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!

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My Exciting Grocery Posts for the Week, Part 1

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I made a big mistake this month in the grocery shopping arena. I completely missed my April Azure Standard Food Co-op ordering date, which means that I was unable to order groceries for my family and I can’t order again until May so in the meantime my family will have nothing at all to eat for four entire weeks!!!!

Okay, not really.  Not even close.  I did have to talk myself down from a panic once I realized I’d missed ordering, though. I have ordered from Azure Standard every single month for the past four or five years. My menus revolve around what I’m able to order and I very much rely on them for fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables.

But as you may recall, I always order in bulk, keeping a nice supply of food on hand at any given time. Plus, we still have quite a bit of preserved garden produce we canned or froze last summer/fall. Our freezers still have plenty of meat. So, just because I made a big goof-up this month, are we gonna starve? No.  I would imagine that even if I forgot to order from Azure for several months in a row, we’d still have plenty to eat (although we might have to get very creative with our tomato sauce and flax seeds after a while).

fruitleather7sm.JPG

I also still have a lot of fruit leather.
So we’d have tomato sauce, flax seeds and fruit leather.  :)

As I began to look around at all the food I have stored to get us through until our next Azure Standard order, I realized two things:

  1. We really have a lot of food.
  2. My storage room is a complete and total scary mess.

And so…this week I have decided to clean and reorganize our storage room and my pantry and all my food storage places, because enough is enough already with all the disorganized messes, and because without my normal Azure Standard grocery order this month, I’m going to have to be a little more creative.

I take this as a challenge to myself.  I don’t get to rely on having absolutely everything in stock like I usually have. I didn’t get to order the yeast I needed or the frozen broccoli I like to get or the white cheddar cheese I am almost out of.

And yes, I could go get some of this stuff at the store (because wow, we do have grocery stores around here), but how about I just work on using the abundance of food that we have been blessed with and what I have in storage?

Therefore, I hereby declare that I am going to get a shovel and dig out my storage room. Then I will reorganize it and make it nice and workable again.

What you need to know is that I hardly let ANYBODY into my storage room. It’s completely embarassing and a total disaster, and I’m not one bit proud of that room.

But if you scream loud enough, and say some really nice things about how you’ll still like me even after you see that my storage room looks 200 times worse that a boy’s dorm room…I may get over myself and take a picture to show you.

And then I’ll update you with my progress throughout the week and show you before and after pictures, as well as share with you some of the tasty things we’re eating with our stored food.

So, whatdoyasay? You wanna see the room? (Please say no.)

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Menu Plan for the Week

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I’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with a variety of grains while we’re doing our Gluten Free Experiment with Malachi. This has been so good for me to learn to branch out and get away from only using wheat in so many of my recipes. Whether or not we’ll need to continue a gluten free diet for him or not, I am so thankful for all I am learning and for how our family has been introduced to new and different healthy foods!

I need to figure out how to make these Pancake Sausage Muffins with different grains. Any suggestions? Millet, rice flour, buckwheat? I should probably just make these Coconut Flour Muffins and add turkey sausage, huh? That would be an easy solution!

Here’s our menu for this week:

Sunday, April 17
Easy breakfast casserole , cantaloupe
Cheeseburger macaroni, green beans
Veggie chicken stew, cornbread

Monday, April 18
Millet-buckwheat-rice pancakes, blueberries
Popcorn chicken, ranch potato wedges, strawberry peach slushies
Lamb roast, carrots, potatoes, gravy

Tuesday, April 19
Mini apple pies, cheese
Turkey sausage , hashbrowns, peas
Stir fried chicken and veggies

Wednesday, April 20
Veggie egg scramble, bananas
Taco corn fritters, mock frozen yogurt
Tuna casserole, roasted asparagus

Thursday, April 21
Coconut banana muffins, applesauce
Hamburger patties, rice and veggie stir fry
Italian pasta bake, tossed salad

Friday, April 22
Giant breakfast cookies , creamy orange cooler
Chicken cheese quesadillas, carrot sticks, apples
Waffles, scrambled eggs, fruit

Saturday, April 23
Sweet potato streusel muffins , pears
Turkey and cheese sandwiches, apples, raw veggies
Leftovers

Say Mmm is a great resource you help you with menu planning!

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Big Jar, Tiny Bananas, and the Nine Year Old Who “gets it”

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Okay, everybody…you know I don’t buy stuff. I usually encourage everyone else to stop buying stuff. I recommend that you don’t even look at stuff so that you aren’t tempted to buy it. Buying stuff generally wastes money, needs to be dusted and clutters up a house. Stuff is over-rated.

But…

You know I love jars. Jars are beautiful and jars are practical and jars get used at my house constantly. I’ve been given a countless number of canning jars and storage jars. I’ve found wonderful jars for pennies at yard sales. My house and my pantry are full of jars of all sizes.

But I don’t buy stuff, which is why I had such a struggle at the store the other day. I had Elias (9) and Malachi (6) with me at the time. We were in the “canning aisle” looking for some more of those nice plastic lids for my wide mouth jars, which unfortunately, they didn’t have. I was backing out of the aisle when on the top shelf I saw a wonderfully, incredibly cute and fantastically huge jar. It was thick and sturdy and it said “Ball” on it and I fell in love.

But I’m a person who doesn’t buy stuff. 

So I kept backing out  of the aisle, and the boys followed me. And then I felt myself magnetized back into the canning aisle, and before I knew it, instead of going in reverse, I was moving forward. Suddenly, I was holding the jar, examining it closely. The boys were quite bored with the whole situation, until I exclaimed something like, “think of the cookies we could put in this thing!” and then they also liked the jar.

I didn’t really need any more jars, and I don’t buy stuff…so I put the jar back on the shelf (I may have hugged it first), and then I backed out of the aisle and walked away.

We went to the produce section and picked up a few things we needed (and now I’m just rambling) but in the produce section we found these adorable, little bananas. I’d never seen such tiny bananas before and the boys thought they were the coolest bananas ever. They were only 97¢ for the whole bunch, so we decided to grab them for a snack.

Now we were ready to check out, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that jar. In my head, the jar was already in my kitchen, filled with delicious treats for my family…or filled with rice or beans and looking cute on top of my fridge…or filled with a nice batch of Limeade with floating ice cubes and lemon and lime slices…

Somehow, for the third time in fifteen minutes, we ended up back in the canning aisle. (Elias and Malachi are great sports…and are also quite used to having a weird mom.)

I made a decision. I was going to splurge and buy that jar. It was $10.47 for Pete’s Sake, which was an excellent price for such a nice jar. It’s not like I was going to be taking the meat and vegetables out of my children’s mouths so that I could “support my habit”.

I put the beautiful jar into my cart, stepping all over myself as I began to launch into a long, yet eloquent lecture to the boys about how we don’t normally just see something at the store and decide to buy it “just because we like it” or even if we love it, because that’s how money gets thrown away and we really want to be careful with money and not wasteful…

And everything I said was totally sinking into their sponge-like brains, I’m sure.

Then Elias interrupted to say, “But Mom…at least this is something you’re really going to use a lot.”

Maybe he was still thinking about the cookies I was going to put into the jar…but yes, he was right. I’m really going to use this little (big) splurge of a jar. Oh look…I already am.

See, isn’t it beautiful?  (It’s okay with me if you don’t think so. I love my jar.)

(And you can’t have it.)  ;)

If you didn’t already know that I am weird and obsessed about jars, now you know. And now you also know how hard it is for me to spend money on things that aren’t food or socks. Shucks, who am I kidding? 

I have a terrible time making myself buy new socks.

:)

What’s your obsession? Do you love jars? Do you drag your children back to specific aisles at the store so that you can hug things? Do you struggle to spend money on socks?

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Teach Your Children Scripture – Podcast #10

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You get a big bonus during today’s podcast:  the WHOLE family joins in! Yup…I figured instead of me just talking about how we teach our kids scripture and memory verses…I’d let you listen to part of the process! :)

Months ago, I mentioned a little activity we do as a family called “Repeat-Afters” and several of you have asked for more details. “Repeat-Afters” have been a part of our family life since all of our kids were little bitty, as a way to help them learn scripture. We love this family tradition, which takes place usually during lunch or dinner time. 

I hope you enjoy this…especially listen for the nice “whistle by Malachi” at the end of our little family session. We almost edited that out, but what fun would that be? :)

Grab some laundry to fold or kick back for a few minutes while you enjoy our new podcast!

Heavenly Homemakers Podcast #10

Please share some of the things you do as a family to teach scripture to your children!

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7 Tips for Saving Money When You Fly on Vacation

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This post is written by Craig Ford, writer at Money Help for Christians.

It’s definitely not too early to start planning your next family vacation, but the only danger is that it’s going to be really hard to trudge through the next few months of work before getting to kick back for an enjoyable summer vacation.

While I’m all for summer vacations, I have this little personal mission in life. I want to be the person who does the exact same thing as everyone else, but I want to do those things without paying the same price as others.

For example, if I’m going to be spending the night in a hotel, I want to have the room that costs $50 per night while the person in the next room is paying $129. It just makes vacationing more enjoyable knowing that I’m not spending a lot of money.

Today, I’ll pass along some of the things I’ve learned trying to master the art of cheap (and even free) travel.

7 Tips for Saving Money on Your Family Vacation by Air

1. Know your vacation style.  While I’m all for saving money on vacations, a vacation isn’t a vacation unless it is relaxing to you. In order to help you plan your vacation strategy, you need to know where you’re happy to cut corners and where you won’t skimp pennies. As an example, my wife and I have concluded that eating out, while a nice perk, doesn’t make the vacation for us. When we look back at vacations gone by, we rarely talk about what we ate. Thus, our strategy includes trying to minimize the cost of food on vacation. However, when we are able to get two hotel rooms (or a condo) for our family, we love having some space to ourselves.

2. Use opaque booking sites (like Priceline or Hotwire) for hotels. Both of these sites allow you to book a hotel by knowing the location and the style of hotel without initially knowing the actual name or exact hotel brand. In exchange for this lack of information, you can book hotels up to 50% off. Learn how to get the best price between Hotwire and Priceline.

3. Earn miles and points by getting credit card bonuses. If you have a decent credit score and avoid credit card debt, you can earn lots of mostly free travel by signing up for credit cards . Over the last year, my wife and I have each collected over 200,000 air miles, $1,000 worth of travel spending, and 2 roundtrips flights in the US – each. It took us 5 credit card applications to get all those points, rewards, and miles. Right now you can even get 100,000 miles for a British Airways Visa. If you’re not familiar with the concept of getting mostly free travel, you can get more information from the Travel Free Coach (yes, that’s me!).

4. Be flexible.  If you are flexible and willing to go almost anywhere, you can check out AirfareWatchDog.com. All you need to do is enter your home city, and this website will show you the prices to a bunch of possible destinations. Also, if you subscribe to airline emails, you’ll find some great last minute fares to some really nice destinations.

5. Think about meal times when flying.  You might laugh at this, unless you have a large(r) family. If you’re going to fly out at 1 p.m., there’s a good chance you’ll need to pick up something for lunch at the airport. Even a small meal can easily run a family $30-$50. I used to recommend that people take a lunch with them, but when you’re trying to get yourself and three kids through security, you need all the open hands you can get. Instead, find flight times that avoid mealtimes.

6. Book early or book late.  The best deals can often be found 3-6 months in advance or less than 3 weeks in advance. In my case, I’d rather know we have everything booked because I’d get anxious a few weeks before if we still didn’t have all the booking in place. If you book through Southwest you can always change your flights without an extra cost.

7. Capitalize on the extra bonuses. Be sure to book your vacation on a cash back website like Ebates  to get a few extra percentages cash back on your travel. Additionally, be sure you have the best miles credit card too so you can get bonus miles towards your next trip.

8. Plan for baggage – The cost of baggage for a family vacation can easily add up to several hundred dollars. The two best ways around the cost of baggage (short of only taking carry-ons) is booking on Southwest Airlines (no baggage fees) or having an airline branded credit card that allows free baggage. As an example, the Delta American Express lets you check bags for free. 

What do you do to save money when you fly on your family vacations?

Be sure to visit Money Help for Christians where Craig promotes a frugal, simple, debt-free, and generous lifestyle so Christians can faithfully maximize their resources by putting them at the disposal of God’s Kingdom.

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Attend Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference for Half Price!

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You may recall that a few weeks ago Matt and I were blessed to attend the Weekend to Remember marriage conference put on by Family Life. It was a fantastic weekend, and we highly recommend that you go sometime. Whether your marriage is thriving, barely surviving, or anywhere in between, you will benefit from the Weekend to Remember!

We’ve now set up a Heavenly Homemakers Group, which enables any of you to attend the conference with your spouse for HALF PRICE!! We are very excited for the opportunity to share this wonderful resource with you, and to hopefully make the Weekend to Remember more affordable for you. The normal price per couple is $318, which means that by signing up with the Heavenly Homemakers Group, you and your spouse can attend for only $159!

By signing up under the Heavenly Homemakers Group, you can still attend the conference at any time or location that works for you. We don’t all have to “go as a group”. This is just a nice group rate option Family Life offers to encourage more people to attend. Feel free to share this information and link with your friends!

Talk to your spouse about it, pray about it and follow God’s leading on this. You can’t put a price on your marriage…but half price for this conference sure is a bonus! :)

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Mini Crustless Breakfast Quiches

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crustless_quiche
You know how I mentioned that we go through a lot of eggs at our house? Six dozen last week to be exact.  This week I was able to get my hands on 11 dozen farm fresh eggs and I am so very excited. It’s obviously the simple things in life that make me happy…proven by the fact that having 11 dozen eggs available this week for my cooking pleasure has made me almost giddy.

What do we do with all those eggs you ask?  Well, there are six of us, five are male and four of those five male people can’t seem to get enough food right now. We also have extra people eating at our house quite often, so our six turns into eight or more on just about any given day. I bake a lot, so I stir them into whatever I’m baking. We easily go through an entire dozen for breakfast if I’m making scrambled eggs or a casserole, and more than a dozen if I make crepes. These Coconut Flour Muffins are incredible…and they take up quite a few eggs. And, I often put eggs in our smoothies or “milkshakes” for added protein and nutrients. (Again, let me reinforce that we ONLY eat them raw if they are organic, free range, farm fresh…otherwise I’m afraid of them.)

If I have lots of eggs available to me, I go for it and I don’t hold back! Eggs are brain food.  I pay between $2.00 and $2.50 for a dozen farm fresh eggs, depending on my source. For the quality of eggs I’m getting, I consider this to be a great price. So even though we go through a lot of eggs…what an economical source of nutrition!!! How else can I feed my family an entire meal for just over $2.00??? (Okay, yes, they eat fruit and stuff with their eggs…you see my point though, right?)

If you haven’t tried our Easy Breakfast Casserole, please go get yourself some eggs and try it. It’s the simplest little breakfast casserole I’ve ever made and my family eatsthe whole pan. Actually…they don’t eat the pan. Hungry boys though they are, they do have their limits.

I  have now adapted the Easy Breakfast Casserole recipe to become an easy, make-ahead Mini Crustless Breakfast Quiche recipe. You can make these and serve them fresh, or you can bake them the night before and re-warm them in the oven the next morning for breakfast. You can even bake them and freeze them to have available for future grab and go meals. You can make them for lunch or brunch. These little quiches are super versatile!

Mini Crustless Breakfast QuicheYum

12 eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1  cup shredded cheese (I use white cheddar, but you can use whatever cheese you want!)

Begin your quiches by whisking together the eggs, cream, salt and cheese in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle in any “add in” ingredients you wish (a total of 1 cup of add-ins). Stir them around with a fork. Scoop mixture into 24 well buttered regular sized muffin tins. Bake in a 350° oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the middle of each quiche doesn’t jiggle.

Add In Ideas:

Cooked sausage (I have a wonderful recipe for turkey sausage here.)
Chopped ham
Chopped and cooked bacon
Leftover baked potatoes, cut into chunks or shredded into hashbrowns
Sauteed veggies
Raw spinach
Cooked chicken
Taco seasoned meat

Obviously, you can cut this recipe in half to make 12 regular sized muffins sized quiches!

Mini_Quiches_2

I’m curious, just because I’m fairly certain some of you might be shocked about our egg consumption…how many eggs does your family go through in a week?

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Gratituesday: The SUN!

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I think it’s likely that I have and will write a Gratituesday post praising God for sunshine every April on my blog. But I won’t apologize for the redundancy. Or the repetitiveness. Or even for the fact that I have said it over and over again. Because the sun is shining again in Nebraska and I am SO THANKFUL!!!

Winter is lovely. Snow is fun. Sitting around the fireplace is cozy. Soups and stews are comforting. I love that God gives us seasons and all the beautiful changes that come with them. I’ve tried very hard not to be whiny about the cold, cloudy, sunless days that have lasted for several months in these parts. It’s all a part of what God gives us and whining doesn’t help me warm up one bit. :)

But well…I’m ready for a little Vitamin D in my life. I am ready to open up my house and let the sun shine in. And I can’t wait to get my hands in the soil.

Justus (11) brought me in a handful of my favorite lavender wild flowers today. He said, “Remember how I used to do this when I was little?” And then he dumped the wilting, yet beautiful little flowers in my lap. The sweetie. 

Spring is here! The sun is shining again! (And I’m prepared for the fact that there may still be a snow storm or two before summertime, but I can deal with it.)  I’m so thankful for the refreshing gift of sunshine!

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!

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