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Menu Plan Monday

February 24, 2008 by Laura 5 Comments

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The boys helped me decide what we’re eating this week. They love it when I’m planning our menu and call out…”OK guys, what sounds good to eat this week?”

The answer usually comes out sounding something like, “LASAGNACREPESPIZZAROLLSROAST!”

So, here you go!

I’ll be continuing to post great recipes for “natural sugar” treats this week (treats made without white sugar or white flour). If you’ve missed the beginning of this series, find those recipes here. And come back each day, as I post new recipes using honey, rapadura or real maple syrup for sweeteners!

Downloadable Menu Planners here!

Download this menu.

See what others have planned for the week.

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The Night of the Red Moon

February 24, 2008 by Laura 2 Comments

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Did you get to see the lunar eclipse on Wednesday night (or was that only happening here in Nebraska?)

(I’m KIDDING.)

I don’t remember ever seeing one before…and it was SUPER cool!

Go God!

My favorite part of the night however, was this…

We have a great window to look out of in one of our son’s rooms, so Daddy took all the boys in there to get a better view.

I went up a few minutes later to see it better…and while the lunar eclipse was awesome…the view in the bedroom was priceless.

There was Daddy, sprawled out on the bed looking out the window…with all kinds of little boys piled on top of him…looking out the window.

For many, many minutes.

I’m pretty sure all the boys will have a special memory of watching the eclipse with their Daddy that night.

Me? I’ll have a special memory of my boys watching the special event with the man they love most and most want to be like.

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Healthy Treat for Today: Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

February 23, 2008 by Laura 17 Comments

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Did you try making your very own homemade chocolate chips, er, chiumpks?!

Yes, they’re different than store bought ones…

But we really like them! And, I think I’ll keep playing with them to see about making them with butter…just to see if that works too!

I have really enjoyed munching on the trail mix…I love the combo of all the nuts with the fruit…and of course the CHOCOLATE!!

So now, here’s a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies, using unprocessed flour and sugar. These have a different flavor than you’re probably used to with a CC cookie…because all of the good stuff hasn’t been stripped out of the ingredients you’re putting in.

We think they’re just as good, if not better…

And when I’ve fed these to company (minus the homemade chocolate chips…I just tried those this week), they LOVE them. And they don’t even know there’s good stuff in them!

Chocolate Chip CookiesYum

2 sticks butter, melted
1 1/2 cups rapadura or sucanat
2 eggs
1 t. sea salt
1 t. baking soda
1 t. vanilla
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 – 1 cup homemade chocolate chips (I tend to be a little stingy on the chocolate chips that are homemade…I kind of want the batch to last longer!)

Mix melted butter and rapadura. Add eggs and stir well. Mix in salt, baking soda and vanilla. Stir in the flour until all combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop teaspoon sized pieces of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Now, of course I picked out some of the prettier ones to show you…and just so you don’t wonder why some of yours didn’t turn out that pretty…

The homemade chocolate chiumpks in these just melted allllll over the place.

Maybe we could call those Chocolate Swirl Cookies?! (Sounds better than Runny Chocolate Blob Cookies.)

The good thing is…they taste great no matter what!

My kids had NO complaints about eating the ugly less fortunate looking ones.

Stay tuned for our next recipe…Peanut Butter Raisin Balls…sent in by Krista.

As you can tell, this series of healthy treat recipes is not going to end any time soon! I still have to talk about smoothies and coconut macaroons and…

There are SOOO many great things to make. Please send me any ideas you would like to share!

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Healthy Treat for Today: Trail Mix With HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE CHIPS

February 22, 2008 by Laura 29 Comments

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Who knew?

You can make your very own chocolate chips!!

Okay, well, I’m actually not clever enough to make them into the shape of chocolate chips…so maybe we’d better call them chocolate chunks.

Chip…Chunk…whatever. How cool are WE to know how to make our very own Chocolate Chiunpks?

I’ve had this recipe for a while, but hadn’t really thought about making it. Then I saw it on another post and was reminded! I’m SO glad for the reminder!

The recipe comes from my FAVORITE nutrition book: Nourishing Traditions.

I adapted it just a bit because it had a pretty bitter chocolate taste…and you may need to adapt it more, depending on how bitter you like your chocolate.

Also, depending on the quality of coconut oil you use, you may or may not have a
coconut-y taste in your chips. I LIKE it with the coconut taste.

Okay…so are you ready?!?!

Homemade Chocolate ChipsYum

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup rapadura or sucanat
1 cup coconut oil
1 T. vanilla

Mix ingredients in a glass container and set in simmering water until melted. Mix together well.

(Anybody wanna know what I was doing at exactly 2:04 yesterday?)
(uh, see…you can see my clock there, behind the melting chocolate chip mixture.)

Spread mixture on a piece of buttered parchment paper and allow to cool in the refrigerater.

When hardened, remove parchment paper and break into chunks. Store in refrigerator in an airtight container.

Aren’t they beautiful? Mmmmm-mmmm. (See a more thorough chocolate chip making tutorial here!)

Now…for the Trail Mix part…

1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried apricots, cut into pieces
1/3 cup homemade chocolate chips

Mix it all together and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator…if it makes it that far!

Come back tomorrow for a recipe for whole wheat, rapadura Chocolate Chiumpk Cookies!

(And let me know if you can figure out how to pronounce that.) :)

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El Cheapo Birthday Present

February 22, 2008 by Laura 3 Comments

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Last Friday, our second son Justus turned eight.

When asked what he wanted for his birthday he had two requests:

Wool Socks and a SwitchFoot CD that is all his own.

Okay first – wool socks? Are we raising this kid to be practical or what? (How cute is HE?)

And second…we already have a SwitchFoot CD…and we just didn’t like the idea of spending $15 for him to have his very own.

SO, I bought a pack of five blank CDs…for $5! and wrapped them up.

When he opened them, we told him that not only could Daddy make him a Switchfoot CD by using our computer to burn it onto one of these blank discs…he could choose four more of his favorite CDs for Daddy to burn. Then he’d have FIVE of his very own CD’s (for way less than the price of one NEW CD).

Justus has had SO much fun with his birthday gift…and Daddy is even teaching him how to “rip” and “burn” the CDs. (Of course, everyone here thinks it’s so cool that these procedures have such awesome names…who wouldn’t want permission to rip and burn things!?)

While I (the lone female of the house) didn’t get into the ripping and burning…I got to do the fun cutesy part of printing out labels for the CDs and covers for the cases. Justus LOVES them!

Ah, I love working together with my family to make inexpensive and SUPER fun gifts!

And I love that my kids are so thrilled with these gifts!

And I LOVE that we created 5 CDs for $5!!

(P.S. You know it’s only legal to copy CDs if you bought and own them…right? Hey, we’ve got pirates around here aplenty….but we never pirate anything! Okay, just wanted to clear that up.)

Be sure to go to Biblical Womanhood for more Frugal Friday ideas!

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Thirteen Healthy Treat Ideas

February 20, 2008 by Laura 9 Comments

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Below you will find 13 wonderful treat ideas for your family.

NONE of them use white sugar or white flour. ALL of them are made with wholesome ingredients!

1. Pizza with whole wheat crust

2. Homemade Soft Pretzels

3. Chicken Nuggets and French Fries (Imagine…a chicken nugget with real chicken in it?!)

4. Strawberry Milkshakes

5. Fresh Pineapple

6. Breakfast Pizza

7. Homemade Whole Wheat Crackers

8. Breakfast Cookies

9. Strawberry Fruit Salad

10. Lasagna Casserole

11. Peanut Butter Honey Bars

12. Creamy Pudding

13. Today’s Recipe:

Orange Muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/3 cup honey
1 egg
1/4 cup butter, melted
The juice of one freshly squeezed orange
1/2 t. grated orange rind
1/2 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients together. Make a “well” in the center. Add honey, egg, melted butter, orange juice, orange rind and milk. Stir until just combined. Bake in muffin paper lined muffin tins for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

!!!!!!Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great recipe for a nutritious treat…Trail Mix…with GET THIS…HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!

More Thursday Thirteen here.

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Healthy Treat for Today: Creamy Pudding

February 19, 2008 by Laura 122 Comments

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Today, I am sharing recipes for three varieties of YUMMY Creamy Pudding! Just look at all these wholesome ingredients!

And…if you put all or some of those wonderful ingredients together…you’ll get these:

Aaaand…if you put all those three together…and put real whipped cream on top…you’ll get this:

Creamy Vanilla PuddingYum

2 1/2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup real maple syrup (grade B is best for you) or honey
4 Tablespoons arrowroot powder (or organic corn starch)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 Tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, egg yolks, maple syrup, arrowroot powder and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring CONSTANTLY until pudding begins to thicken. Stir over the heat for about 15 more seconds. Remove immediately from the heat, and continue to stir until pudding is creamy. (I use my whisk the whole time for stirring and find this works great!) Add butter and vanilla and continue to stir until mixed. Pour into serving dishes and serve warm, or chill for two hours and serve cold.

Butterscotch Creamy Pudding

2 1/2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
2/3 cup sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar juice…has a wonderful “molassasy” taste!)
4 Tablespoons arrowroot powder (or organic corn starch)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, egg yolks, sucanat, arrowroot powder and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring CONSTANTLY until pudding begins to thicken. Remove immediately from the heat, and continue to stir until pudding is creamy. Add butter and vanilla and continue to stir until mixed. Pour into serving dishes and serve warm, or chill for two hours and serve cold.

Chocolate Creamy Pudding

2 1/2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
2/3 cup sucanat or 1/2 cup real maple syrup
1/4 cup cocoa powder
4 Tablespoons arrowroot powder (or organic corn starch)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, egg yolks, sucanat or maple syrup, cocoa, arrowroot powder and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring CONSTANTLY until pudding begins to thicken. Remove immediately from the heat, and continue to stir until pudding is creamy. Add butter and vanilla and continue to stir until mixed. Pour into serving dishes and serve warm, or chill for two hours and serve cold.

Oh, and just a couple of tips to make SURE your pudding is super good:

1. Enlist the help of an blond headed eight year old (or a close equivilent).

2. Be sure to have a short, cute taste tester on hand for quality control purposes. (I have some taller taste testers around here somewhere…guess they didn’t smell the “purding” cooking like the little guy did.)

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Healthy Treat for Today: Peanut Butter Honey Bars (Gluten free!)

February 19, 2008 by Laura 29 Comments

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Today begins my new series of posts in which I will share recipes for yummy, healthy treats for you to make for your family.

You’ll appreciate these recipes if you:

a) Took the NO SUGAR Plunge.
b) Want to take the NO SUGAR Plunge.
c) Have never heard of the NO SUGAR Plunge.
d) Like yummy food.
e) Have a family who likes to eat.
f) Want to avoid white sugar and white flour.
g) Want to make the most of every bite you put into your mouth.
h) Some of the above.
i) None of the above.
j) All of the above.

(I’m sorry, but if you chose ( j ), I must let you know that that particular option is not really an option…as you can not take the plunge having never heard of the plunge…nor can you “some of the above” at the same time as you can “none of the above”. If you chose ( j ), it would appear that you eat way too much sugar to function properly, proving that you should really take the NO SUGAR Plunge with us!)

My goal with these recipes is to help us all to be able to offer our families special dishes/desserts/drinks/snacks that we can feel good about. They will not have any processed sugars or flours in them…and as much as I can…I’ll try to post recipes that don’t even have flour at all!

And here…is the promised recipe for Peanut Butter Honey Bars:

1 cup peanut butter (be sure to use natural peanut butter with only peanuts and salt in the ingredient list!)
1/2 cup honey
1 egg
1/4 t. vanilla
1/8 cup sesame seeds

Mix all ingredients well. Spread mixture into a 8×8 pan. (I used a baking stone) Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Allow bars to cool completely before cutting.

Yum

These Peanut Butter Honey Bars are moist and satisfying! And so easy to make!

Stay tuned for more yummy recipes! Soon to come (listed in no particular order):

*Super Smoothies*
*Creamy Pudding*
*Fruit Cobbler*
*Coconut Macaroons*
*Limeade*

And oh so many more! I can’t wait to share these with you!

Be sure to leave a comment to let us all know how you’re doing with the Plunge…or if you’d like to jump in with us!

And be sure to come back tomorrow for another recipe to treat your family. I’m not sure…but I’m leaning toward the Creamy Pudding…

Any votes on that one?

You’ll find MANY more “natural sugar” treat recipes here!

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GRATITUESDAY: The Computer

February 19, 2008 by Laura 1 Comment

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My computer might seem like a silly thing to “feature” this Gratituesday…but just hear me out.

Our family has not had a computer at home for very long. Since getting one, a whole new world has been opened up to me…and well…I’m lovin’ it!

My kids can do research and find things that would either not have been possible without a computer, or at the very least would have been VERY hard to come by.

My husband and I can find all KINDS of helpful information…anytime we need to.

But more importantly, I’m loving the connection with people!

Email is wonderful! (I know, I know…that’s old news. But I haven’t been able to freely enjoy it until now…so indulge me a little. And MAYBE you have been taking email for granted just a little bit…do you think?)

(Why, back in my day, we had to write letters with a quill using our own blood as ink and deliver the letter on foot without shoes in the scorching heat on hard rocks carrying our lame horse uphill…)

And beyond that, the whole website/bloggy world out there…what an invention! Here we are all connecting to one another, encouraging each other, sharing laughs. What a joy!

The NO SUGAR Plunge…I could NOT do it without you! And look at you…If you took the plunge yourself, haven’t you found it encouraging to meet here and join with others who were accepting the same challenge? Even if you didn’t take the plunge, you’re still participating with us by encouraging us and checking in with us on how it’s going.

And so, I just wanted to use this Gratituesday to appreciate YOU and to thank God for the way computers bring about a connection with people…a connection that otherwise may not have happened.

I would love to hear from you! Either leave a comment so we can all read what you’re thankful for…or swipe the GRATITUESDAY graphic from up top and write your own on your blog of thanks today! (Just be sure to leave a comment letting us know you have your own Gratitueday on your blog so we’ll all know to come check it out!)

Then, I can go read all of your blogs, and continue to thank God for you!

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Plastic Guns and Little Purses

February 18, 2008 by Laura 6 Comments

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A few times a week, I babysit for a little girl who is almost two.

Today, we opened the door to greet Emma and her daddy, and immediately Malachi (age 3) holds a plastic pistol up to her chest.

What a greeting.

And there sweet Emma is, with her little heart shaped red velvet purse in one hand and her pink baby doll in the other hand.

As Emma’s daddy was pulling the door closed behind him to leave, Malachi says, “Emma, I’m going to shoot you!”

Hm. I wonder if I’ll ever be allowed to babysit Emma again after today.

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