Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Another Reason to Make Homemade Vanilla

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vanilla

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you’re quite familiar with my obsession with love of Homemade Vanilla Extract. If you are new to Heavenly Homemakers…just so ya know…I LOVE Homemade Vanilla Extract. I think it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my kitchen…and the easiest.

Making your own vanilla saves money, tastes incredible, is super simple and creates a fantastic gift!! But I’ve shared all of this already. I’ve also shared that using imitation vanilla is kinda like eating used paper.  Tasty.

BUT, I’ve just discovered another reason to make your own vanilla extract. I’m not sure how I missed this fact, but I was doing a cost comparison at the store the other day and decided to turn the bottles over to look at the ingredient list on store-bought “Pure Vanilla Extract”.

It was all I could do to remain quiet in the baking aisle. Do you KNOW what is in “pure” vanilla extract?????

One brand which shall remain nameless but is familiar to most of us includes:  Water, alcohol, vanilla beans, corn syrup

Uh-huh. Water is the first ingredient…which means that this vanilla extract is watered down. And corn syrup? REALLY? Please don’t call yourself pure.

The vanilla extract I found at the store with the fewest ingredients had “only” alcohol, vanilla beans and glucose.

NONE of the bottles of pure vanilla extract I found were what I would call pure. As we all know because of my homemade vanilla extract obsession…all it takes to make vanilla is alcohol and vanilla beans. That’s it.  Why in the world would you add corn syrup? Why must corn syrup be added to everything? Why? WHY?!???

I would apologize for my outburst but I don’t want to. Stuff like this makes me mad. We can not only read the label title…words like “pure” and “natural” are quite deceiving. We really must turn the label over and read the ingredients.

And then when we get frustrated, we must make our own vanilla extract. The pure way. The very cool way. The way that will make all of your family and friends impressed when you give it to them as a gift and the way that will make your hands smell really vanilla-y for several days.

As a reminder, Olive Nation agrees with my rants about making homemade vanilla and has offered all of you a 15% discount on their vanilla beans, plus FREE SHIPPING on orders over $50!!! I love my vanilla beans from Olive Nation!! You can read more about my experience with Olive Nation here. Use the coupon code home for your 15% discount.

You know what I feel like making right now? Warm Vanilla Soother. Yes, I truly do have a vanilla obsession.

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Pancake and Sausage Muffins

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Pancake_Sausage_Muffins

Here’s what you need to know if you ever send me a recipe request:  I do get around to it eventually.  I don’t even remember WHO emailed this idea to me, but I do know that it was MONTHS ago. It went on my list…the long, long list of reader recipe requests, post ideas, questions to be answered. But see, lookie…here it is! I finally got a round tuit!

The original suggestion (from the reader who shall remain nameless, not in an effort to protect her privacy, but because I have misplaced the note with her name) was to use this Corn Dog Muffin idea, but do a breakfast Pancake – Sausage Muffin instead. Brilliant!!! After experimenting and making these last week and watching my family devour them in about five minutes, I did have to ask myself why I took so long trying this idea.

Now, we don’t do much pork at our house, but I do have this killer turkey sausage recipe . I make it up in big quadrupal (or more!) batches, cook  it up, then freeze it until we’re ready to eat it. Having cooked turkey sausage on hand for recipes like this one is a huge life saver!! So easy! If you choose, you could use sausage links instead, making the muffins like these Corn Dog Muffins. Instead, I just stirred cooked turkey sausage right into the batter:

Pancake-Sausage MuffinsYum

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups milk or buttermilk
2 eggs
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 pound cooked turkey sausage (or nine sausage links, cut in half)
Real grade B maple syrup

Mix dry ingredients together. Add milk or buttermilk, eggs and melted butter. Stir in browned turkey sausage.

Pour batter into 18 buttered muffin tins. (I don’t recommend paper muffin liners for this as it will stick.)  Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes or until the muffins are lightly browned. Serve with a lovely drizzle of maple syrup!

This is a great recipe to bake up ahead of time, freeze, then pull out and rewarm in the oven or toaster oven at breakfast time!

Now, don’t wait months to try this like I did. This recipe is SO easy and my whole family LOVED them!! You can never have too many easy breakfast recipes!

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Menu Plan for the Week

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miniapplepies7sm

I’ve been doing quite a bit of cooking and freezing ahead for the month of October…especially because we’ll be hosting several rounds of company this month. I LOVE having company, and I really like to ENJOY my company, which is why making food ahead of time is such a great idea! In a few days, I’ll share pictures of my cooking adventures.

Here are some of the recipes I’ve been working on:

Here’s our menu this week (company coming over the weekend!):

Sunday, October 3
Oatmeal, pears
Spaghetti, tossed salad, corn
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup

Monday, October 4
Crepes with jelly, strawberry milkshakes
Cheddar ranch burgers, steamed broccoli and carrots
Chicken and rice, green beans

Tuesday, October 5
Breakfast cake, bananas
Homemade pizza, tossed salad
Beef Stroganoff, squash, green beans

Wednesday, October 6
Baked oatmeal, apples
Popcorn chicken, ranch potato wedges, peas
Chicken Veggie Quesadillas, fruit-kefir smoothies

Thursday, October 7
Whole wheat waffles, blueberries
Sloppy joes, angeled eggs, black bean salsa with corn chips, fruit salad
Dinner out at Southside Grille

Friday, October 8
Scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit
Sandwiches, raw veggies, chips, fruit
Lasagna, tossed salad, corn, honey whole wheat bread

Saturday, October 9
Fried eggs on toast, applesauce
Leftovers
Build your own taco – buffet

Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu planning inspiration.

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Clean Car? Question #71

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I don’t think about it very much…until someone else rides in our van with us. THAT is when I realize that there are muffin crumbs, little rocks, a few papers from the boys’ Bible classes, a fruit leather wrapperand a little lego head on my van floor.  And that’s on a good day.

I WISH I were better at managing the messiness inside our vehicles. On the other hand, I have so many other things to do that cleaning the inside (or outside for that matter) of our van is really a low priority for me. Therefore, I don’t think about it very much until someone hops in for a ride. Suddenly my van interior gets a whole lot filthier in my eyes. 

Aah, and the other day I got into Matt’s truck because we had traded vehicles for some reason. Once I adjusted the seat so that I could reach the pedals, I looked up and was shocked to see that a bunch of birds seemed to have recently had a big poop fest all over his windshield. Yowza!

Anyhoo…I know that others are much more concerned than we are about the cleanliness inside (and outside) of their vehicles. While ours aren’t trash cans…neither are they what anyone would consider clean. I NEED to send our boys out there with our very powerful vacuum…and yet I never seem to remember. I guess as long as we can see out of our windshields, we really don’t care that much about taking time to clean our vehicles. (Which means, of course, that we did remove the evidence of the bird splatter competition.)

My question for you today is….

Are you good at keeping the insides of your vehicles clean? Do you have them detailed? Or are you like us and have vehicles that allow you to write notes to each other in the dust on the dashboard?

Okay…it’s really not that bad. 

ehem

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Homeschool Curriculum and Unhealthy Soccer Snacks! Podcast #2

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It’s podcast time again! Matt and I are still working out some of the kinks, but overall I think we’re getting things figured out. We WILL be asking to boys to “keep it down” in the next room as we record future podcasts. You may or may not hear a little rough housing in the background.  And a bird might chirp here and there. My children I can control (usually)…birds? Not so much.

On a completely different note, and don’t ask me why I feel the need to share this with you, but ever since I lost my mom to ALS six years ago…there have been random moments when I sing or speak that I am able to HEAR her voice through mine. I think the older I get, the more I sound like her. I am her daughter after all. Occasionally at church I’ll be singing away and suddenly notice…WOW, that sounded just like Mom! And then I melt into a puddle right there in the pew because “hearing her voice” makes me miss her so much more.

That’s what happened when I listened to myself at the beginning of this podcast. Not the whole thing…just when I open with the word “Hello!” It completely took me by surprise and I immediately began weeping all over the computer right there in my headset. Whew…I was not expecting that. It’s amazing how the pain fades, yet the tears and yearning are always there. Perhaps God has given me a gift today in being able to “hear” what my mom’s voice sounded like. Yes, it is amazing really.

Thanks for letting me share that. You all are really, really great and I appreciate all of you so much. {She says, as she pauses to blow her nose again. Man, I’m weepy today.}

I really am okay.  :)  {deep breath}  In today’s podcast, I address the question of which curriculum I recommend and how in the world to keep curriculum affordable!! Also, I talk about how to handle it when our kids are handed sugary, food coloring filled snacks after events such as little league games. Isn’t that counter productive to the exercise they just participated in to keep them healthy?!

Sit back and relax…or get some dishes done while you listen. (Actually if you’d like to get some of my dishes done while I sit back and relax and we can listen together…that would be great!)

Heavenly Homemakers Podcast Two

Links refered to during the podcast:

Thanks for taking the time to read and listen to the podcast!

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Healthy Fruit Crisp

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I think that making a fruit crisp is one of the easiest desserts to make. But that may be because of a little short-cut I like to take.  Hey, I’m all for making special treats and doing it the lazy easy way.

Here’s my trick:  You know how a fruit crisp has a “crumb topping”? All the recipes I’ve seen say to “add all the dry ingredients together” then “cut in the butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs”. I am REALLY not a fan of “cutting in the butter” in any recipe. It takes extra effort and makes an extra mess and now that I am all grown up and not in Home-Ec class anymore, I have become a butter cutter inner rebel. I believe we should all take a stand against things we feel strongly about. And so, I hereby stand firm on my belief and I refuse to cut in butter.

I hope you can still respect me after that confession. If you still choose to cut in your butter, we can still be friends.

As a replacement (aka lazy) option to cutting the butter into the dry ingredients in a fruit crisp, I have chosen to simply MELT the butter and stir it into the oat and flour mixture. I KNOW. And check it out…I have still made crumbs:

I love this fruit crisp recipe because you can use any fruit you want. This time, I made peach fruit crisp because it just so happens that I got to go pick some lovely peaches at my friend Kim’s house. Depending on the kind of fruit you use, you may want to add more sucanat (sugar), but I’ll leave that up to you!

Healthy Fruit CrispYum

5 cups sliced fruit (apples, peaches, pears, cherries, blueberries or a combination of all)
2 Tablespoons sucanat or brown sugar

Stir the fruit together with the sucanat and place in a small baking dish (8×8 inch).

Make your Crumb Topping…

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup sucanat or brown sugar
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/4 cup butter (MELTED, for Pete’s sake)
1/4 cup chopped nuts or coconut flakes (also optional)

Mix together oats, sucanat, flour and cinnamon. Stir in melted butter and joy upon joy, it creates crumbs with little to no effort. Add nuts or coconut flakes.

Sprinkle crumb topping over fruit. Bake in a 375° for 30-35 minutes or until fruit is tender and topping is golden brown.

Easy_Fruit_Crisp

If you’ve made and canned Apple Pie Filling, just dump it into your baking dish, sprinkle on your crumb topping and bake. SO easy!

I just have to know…are you a butter cutter inner, or a butter cutter inner rebel like me? Never thought about it before? Yeah, I figured I was the weird one with butter cutter inner issues.

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Gratituesday: The Flipcam

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gratituesday

Justus (our 10 year old) just got himself his very own Flipcam.

He’s been dreaming about it and planning for it for months. The kid LOVES making movies. Lego movies, real life movies, super hero movies…he is a movie producer in the making.

It all started with Justus making small movies using my regular camera (the kind that has a few minutes of video recording on it). He played with it a time or two, then realized that he LOVED creating movies. I let him use it, and he used it often…but inevitably about the time I would have a plate or bowl of something delicious to take a picture of for the website, I wouldn’t be able to find my camera. Or the batteries would be dead. Because the kid loved making movies THAT much.

And then came the day that he dropped my camera. And it broke. Forever.

I’m a blogger; I need a camera, pretty much daily. He felt terrible. He apologized. And he was forgiven. But he still had to give me some money to replace the broken camera. And then Matt and I decided that Mama’s new camera would be Mama’s camera and nobody under the age of MAMA would be allowed to touch it. (Okay, Daddy gets to use it too even though he’s a little younger than Mama.)

Justus understood the new rule, but I think he went through Movie Making Withdrawals. And so, after looking into what he would need, he began to save his money for his very own movie camera. All summer long he mowed lawns (and he mowed and he mowed…). Once soccer season started he began to referee the younger kids’ games. Every bit of money he earned, he saved. Until finally the day came that he could buy his own video camera.

We’re so proud of him. He’s so proud of his camera. And understandably, he’s a little bit protective of it. As hard as he worked to earn it, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want ANYONE to drop it!! :)

There are movies in the making pretty much constantly around here these days. I’ve even been able to star in a few. (Okay, co-star, who am I kidding?)

So why is this my Gratituesday post today? Because I’m thankful that Justus learned to work hard and save toward a goal. Talk about perseverance! Who knows but that this will be something that Justus can develop into a career someday (although he still really wants to be a chef, so we’ll see!).

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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Switching “from White to Brown”

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simplesteps

In last week’s podcast I mentioned that another great step to make in your journey toward healthy eating is to make the switch “from white to brown”.

And what, you ask, does it mean to switch “from white to brown”? In three major areas, I would suggest starting to move away from refined, highly processed, nutrient void ingredients…and instead choose unrefined, unprocessed, nutrient filled ingredients. These three major areas would be:  Rice, Sugar and Grain. 

Yeah, because guess what?! White flour, white sugar and white rice have pretty much NO nutritional value. When we eat them, they fill our bellies…and that’s about it. Our body really can’t do anything with them since the nutrients have been stripped out of them…which is why they are called “empty calories”. In fact, because our bodies crave nutrients in order to function properly, these “white ingredients” can also be “negative calories” – as in the nutrients stored as reserves in our bodies are then sucked out to help our body function, leaving our reserves depleted. And then what often happens with the white stuff? It turns to fat.  Well, no wonder. It’s bored and has nothing else to do.

In addition, once our bodies are depleted of nutrients, we are much more likely to get sick. Did I mention that eating these nutrient void ingredients can even cause depression? OUR BODIES NEED NUTRIENTS!!!

Now that I’ve made this suggestion…I am also going to reassure you that it really is okay to take one step at a time as you start replacing white ingredients with brown ingredients in your kitchen. This switch “from white to brown” takes a little effort. It may take a while to adjust your family’s taste buds. You also may find that it adds a little more expense. (Remember though that you are investing in REAL whole food – an investment in your health and the health of your family that is well worth the cost and effort!)

But I believe in the end, you will LOVE making this switch. 

Want to know a little secret? Brown ingredients actually have flavor!! It’s amazing what nutrients will do to food – it makes them taste good!! Go figure. :)

Here are some tips to help you transition “from white to brown”:

  • Make the switch gradually. You can make a mixture of white rice and brown rice to help get your family used to it. You can do the same with white flour and whole wheat…white sugar and sucanat. Mix it up a bit…literally.
  • Read through the suggestions about the sugars I recommend here.  There are several different “healthy sugars” that make fantastic treats!
  • Try to find whole wheat flour made from hard (or soft) WHITE wheat. White wheat is a variety of grain that has the same nutrition as red wheat…but white wheat makes a lighter, fluffier flour that is not as hard to get accustomed to. We love hard white wheat at our house. And…I know I’m telling you to switch from white to brown and white wheat is white…but really…white wheat makes brown flour. Really it does. :)
  • Cook your brown rice in chicken broth to make it taste awesome – yum! (I’ll try to post a tutorial on how to easily cook brown rice sometime soon.)
  • Whole wheat pasta really is tasty! Our favorite whole wheat spaghetti is bionaturae. This brand works great for my Creamy Mac and Cheese recipe!

 I’d love for all of you to pipe in and share your tricks for making the switch from white to brown! What works for you and your family? What have been some of your biggest challenges in making the switch?

 

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Menu Plan for the Week

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In case you haven’t checked out Heavenly Homemakers Healthy Discounts Page…I’d really like to encourage you to click on over! There are some great deals posted (and I plan to add more this week)! Eating a healthy diet REALLY is possible for you and the Healthy Discounts Page is here to make your healthy food purchases more affordable. Check out what Serina just wrote on her blog:

I just scored a great deal on US-grown organic almonds. If you have the freezer space and room in your budget to do this, you’ll save a bundle, too. I ordered 25 lbs. of organic almonds from Braga Organic Farms. The cost was $140, plus $10 shipping. Using the coupon code (“home”) for 10% off (found at the Heavenly Homemaker’s Healthy Discounts page), I paid $126 for the 25 lbs. Add the shipping back in and divide by 25, and I only paid $5.44/lb.! If you’ve ever bought (or thought about buying but were scared off by the price) organic almonds before, you know this is a fantastic deal. This is roughly the same as I currently pay for conventional almonds. (Read more of what Serina has to say…)

Almonds, pistachios…and most forms of nuts are a little on the pricey side even if they aren’t organic. But nuts are SO good for you and make a great snack. Buying organic nuts instead of conventionally grown nuts is pretty important in my opinion. I love that Braga Organic Farms has such great prices…and they’ve even provided a Heavenly Homemaker Discount!!

Okay…enough about nuts. Now let’s talk about bamboo. Just kidding. :)  Here’s our menu plan for the week:

Sunday, September 26
Oatmeal, apples
Beef stew with carrots and potatoes, honey wheat muffins
Nachos, peaches

Monday, September 27
Whole wheat waffles, blueberries
Corn dog muffins, kefir-fruit smoothies, green beans
Taco potatoes, pears

Tuesday, September 28
Honey wheat bagels, applesauce
Pizza Pockets, creamy orange cooler, broccoli and carrots with ranch dip
Three Cheese Garlic Chicken Pasta, tossed salad, asparagus

Wednesday, September 29
Scrambled eggs, peach milkshakes
Sloppy Joes on homemade buns, ranch potato wedges, peas
Lamb chops, butternut squash, tossed salad

Thursday, September 30
Giant breakfast cookies, bananas
Salmon Patties, fruit salad, green beans
Shepherds Pie, tossed salad

Friday, October 1
French toast, peaches
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, carrots
Homemade pizza, apples

Saturday, October 2
Fried eggs, cinnamon apple toast
Leftovers
Chicken tostadas, fruit salad

Be sure to download your free fall menu planners here! And…if you’re looking for some great, easy lunchtime menu ideas, you’ll find a free downloadable “cheat sheet” here.

I FINALLY have another post coming in the Simple Steps Toward Healthy Eating series…stay tuned!
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Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu planning inspiration!

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A Smoothie Lunch and a Hot Pepper Eye Update

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Just in case you’re interested, I thought I’d let you know that my hot pepper hands finally stopped burning Tuesday and I can now put contacts in my eyes without pain. My eye (for those of you who were worried) really was completely fine as soon as it got the milk swish. It was my hands that continued to burn and for THAT reason there was no way, no how I was going to put a fiery finger in my eye to insert said contacts. All appears to be back to normal with the eyes and hands and I have vowed never to touch another pepper again for the rest of my life (or until I need to cut up another pepper which could really mean…tomorrow). I will however always and forever wear gloves when cutting peppers.

I say all of that to let you know that I have not suffered any permanent damage…and also to let you know that the folks over at Blogher enjoyed my Hot Pepper in the Eye Remedy post enough to re-post it over on their site. This is a great honor and I’d love for you to head over there and check it out!

In other news (in which I continue to send you away from my blog to read my writing elsewhere)…I have posted again over at Deal Moon, sharing yet another quick, healthy and easy lunch idea.

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