Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches

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When I mentioned that I was making homemade ice cream sandwiches for the YC ladies soccer team, several of you said, “You ARE going to share your recipe aren’t you?!”

Uh yeah. Who am I to hold back on a recipe that includes cookies and ice cream? That would just be mean. Although this isn’t really a recipe exactly.  I just put ice cream between two cookies and called it a sandwich. I didn’t even make the homemade ice cream this time. I needed to make 40 of these and I was making homemade ice cream for the team another day…so this time it was Breyers to the rescue!

First off, I baked TWO double batches of these chocolate chip cookies. I used a Pampered Chef medium sized scoop so that my cookies would mostly, sort of turn out uniform in size. You must make sure your cookies are completely cooled for obvious ice cream sliding avoidance purposes. In fact, I made mine ahead and froze them. Then they were nice and cold and ready for ice cream.

Here’s the Homemade Ice Cream Sandwich math:

~A double batch of chocolate chip cookies made about 40 big cookies, which was enough for 20 ice cream sandwiches. Therefore I needed TWO double batches of chocolate chip cookies to make 40 ice cream sandwiches. I suppose that would be a quadruple batch, wouldn’t it?
~One container of Breyers Ice Cream was enough for thirty ice cream sandwiches.

I let the ice cream soften just a bit on my counter top. By “just a bit” I mean I have  no idea exactly how long I left it there. I brought it home from the store and put a few other groceries away and helped one of the kids on a math problem then got out supplies to make the sandwiches then started some meat cooking on the stove then washed my hands and finally started putting the sandwiches together. Yeah, about that long. The ice cream was then nice and soft for scooping, but not yet running all over my counter and down into my silverware drawer.

Once your ice cream is soft – but not too soft, good luck with that – pick two cookies that look pretty similar in size.

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Yum

Place a scoop of ice cream onto one of the cookies. If you get some on your fingers you are not allowed to lick it off. You are making these to share with other people right? Work hard to avoid the temptation to lick your ice creamy fingers. It will not be easy. But you can do it. If I can do it, you can do it. Believe me. Because it was lunch time and I hadn’t eaten yet.

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Place the second cookie on top of the ice cream which is on top of the first cookie. Squish it down just a little bit. But not too much. If you squish too much the ice cream will ooze all out of the sides of the sandwich and wow will you have a mess. So don’t blame me if you squish too hard. I warned you to do slight squishing.

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Hold up the pretty ice cream sandwich and show all family members and friends who are around and wish to see it. And then tell them that sorry, they can’t eat it yet.

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Place each ice cream sandwich in a little fold top sandwich bag. Who knew those were really for ice cream sandwiches and not just ham and turkey?

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Place all the wrapped sandwiches on a pan in the freezer for at least two hours or for however long you need to keep them there. Or for however long you can keep them there as these are rather tasty and people will want to take them out of the freezer and eat them.

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When you are eating your very own ice cream sandwich, you are then allowed to do all the squishing of the ice cream you would like to do. You are also then allowed to lick your fingers…and the ice cream that may or may not be running all the way down your arm toward your elbow.

Go ahead, see if you can lick your elbow.

You tried it just now didn’t you?

For the record, I am not quite able to reach my elbow to lick it. I will need to catch the running ice cream before it reaches my elbow. You?

No, not my elbow…yours. You may NOT lick my elbow.

Lick your own elbow…if you can.

Can you?

Yeah, explain this one to your family.

“Mama, why are you sitting at the computer trying to lick your elbow?”

“Just getting ready to make Ice Cream Sandwiches, Dear.”

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Where to Buy Vanilla Beans

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I’m often asked where I recommend you buy vanilla beans to make homemade vanilla extract. You have checked into making homemade vanilla, right?! :)  Ooh, it’s so delicious…and easy…and can save you a lot of money!

I recently began a new batch of homemade vanilla extract but since I don’t purchase vanilla beans very often, I didn’t have a “go-to” source for them. I did a little research, and liked Olive Nation as they appeared to have a high-quality vanilla bean for a very reasonable price, plus they offered free shipping on orders over $50 and 15% off when we use the coupon code home. So I ordered a pound of vanilla beans from Olive Nation.

When my vanilla beans arrived just a few short days later I was very, very impressed. The beans were shipped very promptly. They were packaged very nicely. The beans were excellent quality.

I thought to myself, “I like how these people do business. I’m going to contact them.”

So I did….and they agreed to give all of you a discount on vanilla beans!!! They already offer free shipping and reasonable prices, so for them to offer a 15% discount on top of that for Heavenly Homemaker’s readers is awfully nice, wouldn’t you think?

If you order your vanilla beans through Olive Nation and use the code:  home you’ll receive a 15% discount on any size order of vanilla beans. Plus free shipping on orders over $50. Plus receive prompt service. Plus receive excellent quality vanilla beans.

When I did the math on how much it would cost me to make a big batch of homemade vanilla using beans from Olive Nation and inexpensive vodka from the store…it ended up saving me more than 50% over store-bought vanilla. So, yes making homemade vanilla does save money. Plus the homemade vanilla you make using this method makes very strong vanilla…so you can use half of what a recipe calls for! More savings!!!

The process I use for making homemade vanilla takes about six months, but if you want to start a batch now and have it ready for Christmas gifts…it will still work (if you hurry and get it started!!)…it just won’t be quite as strong as if you’d given it the full six months to “extract”. I say go for it! Your family and friends will love it and you will have made them a wonderful gift at a very low cost to you. If you do, check out these pretty labels! They are customizable, and come in several fun designs!

I’d like to thank Olive Nation again for offering the coupon code (home) to all of Heavenly Homemakers readers. Be sure to check them out…I was very pleased with their service and prices and I think you will be too!

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Gratituesday: Teamwork

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Matt and I love the idea of working together as a team. We don’t get to spend nearly as much time together as we would like to, but as much as possible we like to do “teamwork”. Work gets done so much faster when we work as a team.

Now that our boys are getting older, they join in the teamwork. They’ve always been “helpers” but wow is it cool that they are all old enough to really be a part of our “team” as we serve together.

I’ve really been struck by the blessing of our family working together as a team while we’ve all been feeding the soccer team together this week. Our boys don’t always do what they’re asked to do without complaining (trust me), but for some reason this week they are hopping right in…asking what needs to be done…going from one job to the next without complaint.

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 I am so proud of them. The work has been so much more fun with all the boys pitching in and being a part of our team!

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When to Compromise on Healthy Foods??

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I always try to make my guests feel like I went out of my way to “treat” them to some good home cookin’, but I will let you know that I do compromise a little on some of the ingredients I use when I’m feeding a very large crowd. Hey, when you’re feeding 40 people five different meals within a week’s time, can you expect a girl to make all the mozzarella cheese and tortillas and bread for every meal? 

Also, I’m not always willing to share some of my home-canned produce. I’d run out of our home-canned tomato sauce real fast if I used six jars to make enough lasagna to feed everyone one meal.

Is this selfish of me? Is it wrong of me to compromise? I don’t think so, but you may (kindly) disagree with me. My own family comes first and while I am very willing to share our good, healthy food on most occasions…I know that my resources are somewhat limited. I can’t just run right out and replace our home-grown organic produce once it’s gone. I have to ration it for the year and be wise with how I use it. 

I still use real butter and in general “real ingredients” when I’m cooking for large crowds…I just don’t always whip out my stash of real maple syrup or sucanat.

I find that in general, people are so used to eating processed foods, that even my homemade food made with what I consider to be compromise food is a treat for them. 

I also don’t feel like eating the occasional “less than the best” foods are going to kill my family. We eat very well at almost every meal. Eating the occasional store bought tortilla or white french bread from the bakery is okay. Really, I think it is.

I think that if I felt like I had to feed all of the extra people we feed our grass fed meat and homemade bread made with freshly ground flour…I would probably drop the whole thing and NOT FEED ANY EXTRA PEOPLE EVER. So what’s the trade off? Should I serve others, or be so worried about compromising ingredients that I never serve ever? 

I will say that in our day to day company…the times that we have just a few people over at a time…I DO tend to stick with our normal way of eating and I do it without a problem. We’ve budgeted in extra knowing that we feed a lot of company, therefore I buy extra meat and can/freeze extra produce to accomodate. But that’s just enough for “regular” company. Its a little different when we’re feeding 34 extra people at one time!!

Oh, and I will also admit that during these days that we’re feeding all these extras…we’re using paper plates. :(  I HATE using paper plates (both because of cost and because of waste) but seriously I don’t think I could stay sane if I was washing all those extra dishes. I’m still trying to get through a school day at home too, ya know? I bought a bag of Solo cups, had the girls write their  names on them and we’re using them all week long. And I did NOT buy styrofoam anything…but still. I hate using disposable and I’m doing it anyway. I know my limits.

Alrighty, well this was a choppy and poorly written post. Let’s blame it on the fact that my week is VERY busy and I don’t have time to concentrate or edit. :)

I’d love for you to share your thoughts on when you compromise on healthy foods and when you don’t. And when do you pull out the paper plates? ;)

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Cooking for a Crowd

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I often feed large crowds, whether it’s just a couple of families joining ours for dinner…or whether I’m feeding an entire soccer team like I’m doing this week. I think it’s rather fun, because apparently weird things like this make me happy. Big pots of food…lots of smiling people eating from the big pots of food…what could be more fun than that? 

Cooking for a big crowd doesn’t have to be stressful. I think the keys for avoiding big crowd feeding freak out are:

  • Make a thorough plan including very detailed lists
  • Prepare as much food ahead of time as possible
  • Keep the menu simple

You don’t have to make a four course meal with fancy dishes to make the crowd happy. I’ve actually found that less is more, both for my sanity and for the joy of the people I’m feeding. 

Like take today for instance. For lunch today, I fed the team Tammy’s Chicken Pasta Salad (a big hit, by the way!) and a big bowl of cut up watermelon. That’s IT. The pasta salad was the main dish, the side dish and the vegetable all wrapped up into one big pot of goodness. The watermelon was a perfect compliment to the salad and the girls raved about it all (like I had made the watermelon all by myself or something?).

Then I pulled out the homemade fudge brownies, homemade ice cream and hot fudge sauce…which I’d made five days before and stuck in the freezer. They LOVED it. It was easy to make ahead of time and wow was it a crowd pleaser. They all left our house patting their tummies and saying, “Thank you SO much for lunch…it was amazing…wow I can’t wait until tomorrow” and all that good stuff. 

You wouldn’t have to serve homemade ice cream…or even offer any ice cream at all. Simple brownies would have been fine too…I just really wanted to give the girls a great treat. And since I could make it all ahead of time it wasn’t at all hard.

Okay, here are some pictures of my cooking preparations last week. I did the majority of the cooking for the five soccer team meals all in one day. It is making my life SO much simpler this week!!! 

Please take note of all the messes in the background. There’s not really a good way to cook a huge amount of food without making big messes. Oh yeah, and my stock pot is my friend. We have SO gotten our money’s worth out of the stock pot.

I got groceries on Wednesday morning then dumped it all over the kitchen floor…

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This is actually only part of the groceries. Probably only half of it actually. But you get the idea.

I got to work then right away browning 18 pounds of hamburger meat. (Actually, I believe Matt was home at the time and he got all the meat in the pot for me.)  Once it was in the stock pot cooking, I started the ice cream machine with homemade ice cream. 

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Once the meat was finished cooking (18 pounds took forever by the way!), I separated it and seasoned some of it for the nacho bar, set aside some of it for beef enchiladas and made the rest into lasagna sauce.

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After the hamburger meat was finished, I cut up bunches of chicken breasts and cooked the pieces in olive oil for Tammy’s Chicken Pasta Salad and for chicken enchiladas.

Then, I began to assemble chicken enchiladas, beef enchiladas and lasagnas.

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Assembly lines rock. 

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I borrowed two huge pans from our church kitchen for the lasagnas. 
Now that is a lot of lasagna!

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I baked a gignormous amount of brownies. I allowed them to cool, then I cut them…

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…and froze them in pieces. 
When I served them, I just popped one into a bowl, topped it with ice cream and hot fudge. 
Easy!

It took several hours of work on Wednesday (with a lot of other things squished into the day like reading to the kids and checking handwriting books while meat cooked) but now all I have to do each day is pull food out of the freezer and make the sides to go with the meal!!! 

Now tomorrow, let’s have a little chat about how I compromised a little bit on some of the ingredients I used, shall we? Stay tuned…

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Menu Plan for the Week (Feeding the Masses!)

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It’s that time of year again. My husband helps coach our local Christian college women’s soccer team. They are back in town for pre-season practices and well, they’re hungry. :)  Remember how we fed them several meals last year? We’re at it again, feeding them five different times. We already fed them one meal last week. This week we’re feeding them lunches Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

So how many are we feeding? Well, there are 34 of them…plus the six of us. So that’s a total of 40 people each time. Yeah, that’s a lot of food.

My friends think I’m crazy and can’t decide whether to shake their heads at me for saying yes to this or to just simply feel sorry for me because of all the work looming ahead for me. I say, do neither.  We LOVE this. I don’t think we could do it if we didn’t. We’re just using our gifts. We love these ladies. We love feeding people. You have no idea how awesome it was Thursday when they arrived and many of the returning students ran into the kitchen to give hugs and let us know how excited they were that we were feeding them again! Shucks…they even stay after and help with dishes. And they’re girls. It’s nice to be around the female sort every now and again.

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As I was planning the meals this time, I went back and re-read all of  the ideas for feeding a crowd you all offered last year. Wow, was it helpful!! I’m sticking with some of the team favorites (I don’t think they’d let me get away with not making lasagna!) but I’m adding in some of your ideas too. 

Here’s what I’ll be feeding the crowd:

As far as the rest of our meals this week, you know, since my family will still be wanting breakfast and dinner before and after those big lunches? I’m just going to make lists here to pull from. I’ve been saving most of the food I had made ahead and put into the freezer specifically for this week. YAY for freezer food. It will be saving my neck this week for sure! (Not to mention my brain.)

Breakfasts – served with fruit or smoothies:

Dinners – served with whatever vegetable I can find to throw in:

In case you’re worried or wondering…I’m drinking lots of water and taking my vitamins this week to be sure and keep myself healthy. Matt actually has two days off this week, which doesn’t happen very often, so he’ll be a great help. The kids are a huge help too…and somehow we’ll get their school work done in the middle of the cooking.

Oh, and did I mention that I already have most of the bulk cooking finished and in the freezer? Yes, and I took pictures in case you want to see the mess. I mean…in case you want to see the big pans of lasagna. I’ll try to share all about it soon. ;)

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Aa is for Apple Pie

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Malachi, our kindergartner, is working through parts of Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve this year. We began this week with the letter Aa and I couldn’t resist taking pictures to share. 

Monday morning we all sat around the table brainstorming about people we knew whose name began with the letter Aa…then we talked about what we might like to do for the family we chose. I loved that even our older boys were having fun brainstorming with us.

It was decided that we would make an apple pie for the A_________ family. (Yes, we realize the apple pie recipe isn’t mentioned in the kit, but the point of doing these acts of service is brainstorming as a family and figuring out together what you’d like to do!)

And so, this morning while the big boys were working on math and handwriting, Malachi and I worked together to make a big apple pie. He especially loved cutting little tiny apples out of the pie crust and arranging them (throwing them haphazardly) on top of the pie. It’s pretty rare that Malachi gets alone time with Mommy these days now that school is in full force and the bigger boys’ work is more intense. It was a pretty sweet half hour. :)

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I thought his pie turned out SO cute!!

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Tonight after dinner we all loaded up so that Malachi could make his special delivery. 

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It was a sweet moment. Malachi was so proud.

(I was pretty excited that the pie made it all the way to the door without being dropped. Not that I was worried.)

Now we’re already thinking of what we’ll do for Bb week…hmmm…..

(By the way, you can see a sample of what Lesson Bb looks like here.)

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Homeschool Hubbub: Flexibility is Good

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Interested to know what a perfect day looks like at our house while we follow the awesome organized schedule I have set up for us? Yeah, me too. I’ll be sure to let you know what that looks like just as soon as we have one of those.

Want to know what a real day looks like at our house? Now that I can tell you about. Messy, loud, fun, frustrating, silly, scattered, satisfying…those are the kinds of days we usually have. Schedule? Yes we have one…just because we have to have SOMETHING to go by so that we can accomplish SOMETHING. But if I were to force us each day to stick to the exact schedule…I would make all of our lives miserable. Especially my own. 

I’ve learned through these past eight years of homeschooling to keep our days flexible. To write down what I’d like a school day to look like and then to follow the plan loosely. Because just about the time I finally get all of my children in the room at the same time, settle them comfortably into their spots on the couches with pillows, wait for all of them to look up expectantly at me so that I can begin reading an enlightening chapter from our latest history book…someone is going to have to go to the bathroom. 

And while that someone is in the bathroom, another someone will remember that he forgot his pencil but on his way to go get it he will see the Lego man on the steps that he had been missing and then he will accusingly ask which of his other brothers left the Lego man on the stairs when clearly Lego men are not allowed out of the Lego room because this is how we lose Lego people and the other brothers (the ones that are not in the bathroom) will run to see which Lego man it is and then they will all go to the Lego room, forget all about history and start to build a space ship. 

In the meantime, the phone will ring with a call I can’t ignore and by the time I can corral them all back into the living room for history a good forty-five minutes will have passed and we’ll all finally get settled back down again…just in time for someone else to need to go to the bathroom. 

These are the days of our lives.

I work very hard to keep our school days free of outside appointments, and I almost never answer the phone while we’re schooling…but sometimes things can come up that are out of my control. We have to roll with it. (No, boys!  I did not say that you could roll and wrestle all over the art materials which are on the floor…I meant roll with the schedule! Get off the sketchbooks!!!)

Somehow our children are learning in spite of all of the “life” that is going on around us. 

Hey, it would appear that “life” is what they need to be learning about anyway.

Well, I’m so glad I worked that into the schedule. ;)

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Reaching Out to Others…Where to Start

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Several of you have mentioned to me that you love the idea of using Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve with your children…but the idea of reaching out and doing that many acts of service for people is a bit out of your comfort zone. Or, what if you’re new to the area and don’t really know a lot of people? You’ve asked for advice, so I’ve been brainstorming some ideas to make it (hopefully) a little easier for you and your family to cook “Soup for someone who is Sick” on Ss week, or take a new “Book to B________” on Bb week. 

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The following ideas are simply offered as a way to get you going. To help ease you out of your fears. To gently get you and your family used to visiting others and putting smiles on their faces! 

  • Utilize extended family members, even if it means you have to send something through the mail. Family (hopefully) will feel safe to you and will be an easy beginning to getting your family in the mode of making something to give to someone. Plus, I’m pretty sure if your child sends something homemade to a grandparent or aunt…the appreciation and feedback they’ll receive will be pretty huge. Family members LOVE your kids an awful lot. :)
  • Pull out your church directory if you have one. Looking through the directory together may help give you new ideas of people you could serve.
  • Do some of the acts of kindness anonymously. Don’t rely on this one too much, because you will receive such a wonderful blessing when you deliver something to someone and are able to see the smile on their face. But there is something to be said about the gift of surprising someone by leaving it on their porch for them to find when they come home. (I will caution you though that if someone left a homemade goody on my porch and didn’t tell me who it was from…I may not want to eat it. I’m just sayin’. You might want to reserve the anonymous act of service to be something more inedible.)
  • Visit a local rest home to carry out some of your service. Sometimes it’s easier to visit with a complete stranger, knowing that your visit will make their day, than to visit with someone who is, say an acquaintance from church. 
  • Pick some of your children’s good friends. It’s awesome to reach out to people you don’t know as well…and to people in other generations…but WOW it’s fun to knock on your best buddy’s door to deliver a Jar of Jelly beans on Jj week! 
  • Make it a team effort. Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve is meant to be a project for the whole family anyway. Piling in the car all together and visiting your recipient all together is so much easier than going alone with just one child. 
  • Ah, who am I kidding? Your kids are so cute, the person you’re serving will ooh and ahhh over your child and the fact that he/she came to do something kind…and that in and of itself with be a huge buffer in your comfort level. Seriously, if you’re worried about what you’ll talk about when you’re visiting someone…just visit about your project and other things your kids are doing. People love that.
  • On the other hand…be sure to ask the other person questions…especially if they are sick or have been going through any kind of struggle.
  • Don’t feel like you have to stay and visit with someone for three hours. Have your child hand over the goodies (whatever they are that week!), explain your project and maybe tell why your family chose them and then if the timing seems right, you can then be on your way.

Just think of the blessing you are giving your child! By starting them on the journey of service now, as they get older…thinking of others and serving them will become a natural part of who they are.

And I promise (because I speak from experience!) the more you serve with your children…the easier it will be for you too! God does amazing things when he “stretches us” beyond our comfort level a little bit. You know what you alone are capable of, right? So when you do something for someone that pushes you past your comfort zone, you KNOW that you’re doing it only because of the awesome power of God. It’s an incredible feeling.

God is so good. You can do this!

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Gratituesday: Back to School Shopping

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If you’ve been hanging around here long, you might already know that the boys and I have a tradition each year a few days before we start school. Each boy gets his very own “school supply list” and off to Walmart we go so that they can pick out new notebooks and folders for the year.

I will admit that I tend to forget each year that while this is an incredibly wonderful experience and I love doing it…there is also a fair amount of chaos involved with four boys, four baskets, four lists and an aisle full of bright and attractive objects. My older guys can be calm and patient while basically picking their supplies without much help. My youngers require more help and also um…they don’t always like to follow their list so much. My youngest doesn’t know how to read the prices on the shelves, which means that I have to quickly redirect him to the 15¢ notebooks instead of the really cool $2.50 notebooks. The paper inside is the same, ya know. ;)

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Oh yeah, and this year I had a fifth boy with me…because if you’re already taking four, you might as well take five. Five boys, five lists, five baskets. Five hundred questions. All at once. (“Is this the kind of folder I need Mom?” “I don’t know…why don’t you get it out of my face so that I can actually see it?”)

And yet, I do it because the boys love it. And mostly, so do I. It is SO much fun to watch them enjoy getting excited for school to start. It is so much fun to watch them walk out of the store with their very own bags of supplies. 

And…it is so much fun to only pay 20¢ for glue sticks.

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The best part is watching them come home and pour the contents of their bags out to look at all over again. Then they put it all away to have it ready for the first day of school. (Or, they leave it sprawled out all over the floor so that it can get ruined already before it even has a chance to be written in yet.)

There really is something magical about new school supplies and new books that brings an excitement to the beginning of a new school year. So far we’ve had three days of school and every one of them has been just wonderful. Perfect? No. But wonderful nonetheless. 

Today, I’m grateful for the chance to be my boys’ teacher and thankful that we share traditions that will be lifetime memories. I’m even grateful for that crazy joy in the Walmart school supply section. Having a bunch of boys eager to start a new school year…now that’s something to be grateful for!

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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