Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

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Sure, banana bread is delicious. But why not take it a notch above and add some chocolate chips? I’m guessing that no one would argue if you made Chocolate Chip Banana Bread…

Even if you made it with whole grains, who’s gonna know? No one. You know why? Because it still tastes delicious. It’s still moist. And there are chocolate chips in it. It’s an amazing treat!

How many times have I said that I wished more food could be made from “spoiled” food. What I mean is – after bananas turn black, we can use them to make fantastic treats like this Chocolate Chip Banana Bread. Why can’t everything be made into something wonderful after it’s past its prime?

Everything should be like a banana.

By the way, this recipe is made millions of times better simply by adding sour cream. Mmm, always add sour cream. :)

Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Banana BreadYum

Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
 
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Author:
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • ½ cup sugar, brown sugar, or sucanat
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 cup mashed over-ripe bananas (about 2-3 bananas)
  • ½ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
  • ⅓ cup melted coconut oil or butter
  • 2 eggs
  • ⅓ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. In a large mixing bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
  2. Add mashed bananas, oil, sour cream and eggs.
  3. Stir until ingredients are well combined.
  4. Fold in chocolate chips.1
  5. Pour mixture into a buttered bread pan.
  6. Bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

 

Lately, Brayden and I have been making lots of loaves of this Chocolate Chip Banana Bread to share with friends. He’s becoming quite the chef and loves delivering treats to friends.

It sure is fun to share pictures of our son. Here are more photos of his big adoption day in case you missed it. :)

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Lilla Rose Customer Appreciation Sale!

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Yay! It’s a Lilla Rose Customer Appreciation Sale! Save on my favorite hair accessories ever!

Now through Monday, September 30, you can get 20% OFF EVERYTHING on my sponsor Paula Ramm’s  website, www.lillarose.biz/BeautifulLife,  with coupon code 20%OFFNOW.

You can also get FREE SHIPPING on your order of $50 or more! Just be sure to choose “free shipping” at checkout!

If you have any questions whatsoever, please just let Paula know…she’d be glad to help you!

Have fun shopping!

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

How to Make Easy Fruit Cobbler

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Hopefully, we’ve all been taking advantage of summer and fall to pick and preserve all the fresh fruit we can get our hands on. Now let’s learn about how to make Easy Fruit Cobbler!

Almost 12 years into sharing recipes here with you, I am shocked that I have yet to post our favorite fruit cobbler recipe! This is, hands down, Matt’s favorite dessert. And who am I kidding? Sometimes we make it and eat it for breakfast. It’s fruit and bread, am I right?

What fruits work best for Easy Fruit CobblerYum

In our experience, with the exception of melons and citrus, just about any fruits will work. Our favorites are:

  • Peach (our favorite, favorite!)
  • Strawberry
  • Raspberry
  • Blueberry
  • Boysenberry (Matt’s favorite since he grew up in California – but we don’t have access to these berries in Nebraska!)
  • Blackberry
  • Apple
  • Pear
  • Cherry

You can buy fresh or frozen fruit at the store or farmer’s market to use in these cobblers. Our favorite and most economical option is to use whatever fruit we’ve been blessed to pick and preserve. We grab peaches or berries that we’ve frozen during the summer and quickly make an Easy Fruit Cobbler to enjoy!

Use as much or as little sugar as you prefer. Through the years, I’ve cut the sugar content down in this recipe (so we can eat it for breakfast, you know?). And of course, I use freshly ground wheat flour. So our cobblers are made with whole grains, healthy fats, and amazing fruit!

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 —- > Want to know more about grinding fresh flour and using whole grains? Read these posts! <—–

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I love that using whole grains in dessert and treat recipes takes them up a notch on the healthy scale! Yes, these are still sweet treats to be eaten in moderation. But when we cut down the sugar content, use whole grains, and use all wholesome, real food ingredients – we’ve got ourselves a dessert that is actually nourishing!

Easy Fruit Cobbler

How to Make Easy Fruit Cobbler
 
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Author:
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • TOPPING:
  • 1 cup whole grain flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar or sucanat
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ cup melted butter
  • 1 egg
  • 3 Tablespoons milk
  • FRUIT:
  • 6 cups fresh or frozen fruit, washed and sliced if needed
  • ¼-1/2 cup brown sugar or sucanat, depending on your taste
Instructions
  1. In a medium saucepan, cook fruit and sugar until soft and syrupy.
  2. Pour fruit mixture into a 9x9 inch baking dish.
  3. Mix together topping ingredients, beginning with dry ingredients first.
  4. Add melted butter, egg, and milk until well combined.
  5. Spoon mounds of topping over the fruit filling in the baking dish.
  6. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until cobbler is bubbly and topping is golden brown.
  7. Serve as-is, or topped with ice cream or milk

If you prefer a crunchy topping instead of a cake topping, try this awesome Fruit Crisp Recipe instead!

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Easiest Healthy Pancake Recipes

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Did you see our post sharing Easiest Whole Wheat Bread recipes? I thought it would be fun to follow that one with a post sharing Easiest Healthy Pancake recipes!

Easiest Healthy Pancake RecipesYum

We all love pancakes at our house – often for dinner even more than for breakfast! We’ve tried many recipes through the years, and these are our favorites. For the record, we find that pancakes made on a Cast Iron Griddle taste the best!

Simple Pancake Mix Pancakes

I used to make pancakes from scratch each time, which is quite easy and fast because pancakes aren’t hard to make in the least. But for the past couple of years, I’ve been making huge batches of Pancake and Waffle Mix from the recipe in the Simple Mixes to Save the Day eCookbook. Now making pancakes is even faster and easier than before. I love this mix!

—– > I just discounted the book so everyone can have access to it at a much lower cost. All of the mixes in that book are a huge time and money saver! < ——

Check out this book here.

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Whole Wheat Pancakes

This is my tried-and-true pancake recipe that inspired the Pancake Mix recipe above. This recipe is easy and quick, truly perfect for breakfast or dinner!

Peanut Butter Pancakes

Want a little protein in your pancakes? These are so delicious, and if you add chocolate chips to them? Well, we all know how good peanut butter and chocolate tastes together!

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin Pancakes taste perfect during crisp fall weather days.

Easy Whole Grain Chocolate Pancakes

It goes without saying that these taste great topped with berries. Or we can go with the chocolate/peanut butter idea from above and spread peanut butter all over these cakes.

Simple Banana Pancakes

Have over-ripe bananas but want to make something other than Banana Bread? Whisk them into these Banana Pancakes. So good!

Whole Wheat Applesauce Pancakes

Like the Pumpkin Pancakes mentioned above, these are wonderful in the fall!

Baked Apple Pancake

Speaking of fall and apples, if you have an abundance of apples and want to try something new, this is an amazing option!

Easy Pancake Muffins

Here’s a super fun variety to a traditional pancake. These work great to take on the go!

Whole Wheat Waffles

Not to be outdone, here’s our favorite easy waffle recipe!

If you give a friend a pancake recipe, you’ll need to give her some pancake toppings to go with them…

Here are our favorite pancake toppings:

I think it’s time for a pancake dinner!

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How to Serve With Your Family This Fall

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There’s no better way to spend time with your family than to serve together. ( <— read that again.) Today we want to share encouragement and give you lots of resources and ideas of ways to serve with your family this fall. Ready?

Ways to Serve with Your Family this Fall

Ultimately, our biggest and best advice is to pray as a family for ways to love people in your community. God is faithful. He will show you what to do.

And if you need more ideas and instructions, we are ready to load you up!

See, we recently completed a brand new Fall Family Fun eBook. It’s full of ideas sharing ways you can spend time enjoying your family and serving others together. We really love this new book and want all of you to have it. So for motivation for you to purchase and enjoy it, we decided to do this:

Buy Fall Family Fun for $5…Get 5 more resources for FREE!

So suddenly, this has turned into a pay $5 get 6 resources offer. It’s too fun and it’s too much of a steal and it’s all kinds of warm and fuzzy. If that doesn’t scream fall, I don’t know what does! I mean, we wish we could always give everything away for free. But a pay $5 get 6 resources offer comes pretty close!

Here’s what you’ll get for just $5!

1. Fall Family Fun

Full of recipes, games, scripture memory activities, and ideas for ways to serve as a family this fall! 40 pages! It’s brand new and we want to get it into all of your hands this fall!

2. Fall Printables Pack

29 pages of recipe cards, scripture cards, menu planners, and sticker labels to use as you serve as a family.

3. Fall Craft Pack

Print, cut, paste, create! Color, encourage, love! 18 pages of fun fall printable craft ideas.

4. Do the Funky Kitchen

We’re throwing this in there for fun this fall! Get your kitchen cleaned out and organized with this simple, step-by-step guide. There’s no better time than right now!

5. Getting Ahead for the Holidays

In this packet, you’ll find simple planning pages to help you make lists and get organized. But the best page is the one full of links to help you get your holiday meals prepared ahead of time so you can enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas!

6. Gifts in a Jar

Starting to think about Christmas gifts for neighbors, the lonely, and people who could use a pick-me-up? This book is full of ideas you can make and put into jars. So much fun!

And THAT is what you’ll get for just $5!

Six resources, including our brand new Fall Family Fun eBook. We’re pretty excited to be offering this and hope as many of you as possible will jump aboard and grab these. Then start serving with your family this fall!

This special Pay $5 Get 6 Resources offer ends Friday, September 27.

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Easy Cheesecake Topped Treat Recipes

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After you read this list of Easy Cheesecake Topped Treat Recipes, you will most definitely need to stock up on cream cheese. Most of us would agree: cream cheese makes everything better. And usually, it is on sale this time of year.

Why make treats topped with cheesecake? Do I even need to explain this?

You see, the treats in and of themselves are wonderful. Muffins, cookie bars, you can’t go wrong. But then if you whip up a cheesecake mixture and bake it on top of the already wonderful treat? Well, this is where we all sing and dance and shout for joy. Cheesecake-topped muffins! Cheesecake-topped cookie bars! SERVED FOR BREAKFAST!!!! With a cup of coffee or a glass of milk. This is the most delicious.

So let’s get started, shall we?

Easy Cheesecake Topped Treat Recipes

Yum

We just shared the latest and possibly the best, our Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars. These are a favorite because of the chocolate chips sprinkled over the cheesecake.

 

That recipe came about by tweaking our Whole Grain Raspberry Cheesecake Bars recipe. We simply switched the raspberry jam for chocolate chips. I personally like the raspberry variety better. AND, you can switch out the raspberry jam with any flavor you like!

Say yes to these Easy Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars and you’ll be happy you did. They are perfect for an autumn treat!

Of course, we tweaked the bar recipe and turned it into a pie. And then we added chocolate chips. It’s the same recipe, just “fancier” so we highly recommend this Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie.

Now it’s time to talk about muffins. All of these are basic, wholesome muffin recipes with the same cheesecake topping baked on to add amazingness!

Easy Blueberry Cheesecake Muffins


Easy Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins

Easy Banana Cheesecake Muffins

Easy Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Easy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins

Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins

See? I told you that you were going to want to stock up on cream cheese after reading this post. Cheesecake baked on top of treats makes them incredible!

Here’s a quick bullet list of all the Cheesecake Topped Recipes:

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Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars

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Perhaps you have become great friends with the infamous Whole Grain Raspberry Cheesecake Bars? If not, you must. And now, you must also get to know our new friend, the Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars. Where has this friend been your whole life?

But speaking of whole, it is fantastic to know that these bars are made with whole grains. But no one, not even the boxed poptart lovers out there, will realize that these are packed with delightful nutrition. I know this because I fed a batch to a bunch of teenage boys who were visiting our home and who had just polished off a box of poptarts they had brought over. The next morning, I presented them with these bars.

Perhaps it was the added chocolate chips that made these so inviting. Well yeah, of course it was the chocolate chips. Still, they gobbled these down with a pitcher of iced coffee and some fruit, thanking me for the great breakfast like the sweet boys that they are.

It’s so fun to make treats like this that provide nourishment while still being “not weird.” You cannot go wrong with the words “chocolate chips” and “cheesecake bars” in the same title, am I right?

So get yourself some oats (which you probably already have), some chocolate chips (which you probably already have), some whole wheat flour (which you probably already have), and some cream cheese and some butter (please tell me you keep a lifetime supply of these golden ingredients on hand at all times). You will love these delightful Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars!

Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cheesecake BarsYum

5.0 from 2 reviews
Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars
 
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Author:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • 1½ cups rolled oats
  • ½ cup sucanat or brown sugar
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup chocolate chips
  • CHEESECAKE LAYER:
  • 8-ounces softened cream cheese
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tablespoons real maple syrup
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
  1. Mix together flour, oats, sucanat, baking powder, and salt.
  2. Stir in melted butter until the mixture resembles crumbs.
  3. Press half of the mixture into an 8x8 inch baking pan.
  4. In a blender or with beaters, whip together cream cheese, egg, maple syrup, and vanilla.
  5. Spread this cheesecake layer over the top of the oat layer.
  6. Sprinkle ½ of the chocolate chips over the cheesecake layer.
  7. Drop spoonfuls of remaining oat mixture on top of the cheesecake layer, then sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top.
  8. Bake in a 350° oven for 45 minutes or until lightly browned.

 

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Last Chance to Join our Take Ten…Again Challenge!

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If you haven’t signed up yet, it’s not too late! We’ve got a fantastic two weeks in store for all of us, and it all begins Sunday night, September 15.

Read all the details of our Take Ten Again Challenge here. We’re going to walk you through taking ten minutes each morning to do some simple meal prep so that all you have to do at supper/dinner time is put on the final touches and serve your meal. Your family mealtime is going to be SO EASY!!!! All because you decided to:

Take Ten…Again

Click here to sign up for the Take Ten Challenge!

Watch your inbox for a confirmation email, then you’ll receive a complete Take Ten Again Grocery List and information to get you started. The challenge officially begins on Monday, September 16! Sign up for free ($17.00 value!) by Sunday, September 15.

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

UPDATE: Do I Like Amazon Prime Pantry?

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So I bet you’ve been wondering, “Does Laura still like her Amazon Prime Pantry membership?” Oh hey, thanks for asking.

I’ve been Prime Pantry-ing for almost two months now, and not only do I like it, I probably like it too much.

It makes my life so easy!! Well, at least it makes life easier. Especially the parts of life that involve baby wipes, canned pineapple, and ketchup.

Unfortunately, it has me so spoiled that when I have to actually go to the store for fresh food I’m like, “Waaaa!!! Why can’t Prime Pantry bring me frozen chicken and fresh greens? I can’t believe I actually have to go TO THE STORE and GET A CART and PUSH IT AROUND and SELECT MY BANANAS.”

So yeah. Amazon Prime Pantry and I are becoming best buds. And she is completely spoiling me by dropping so many of my groceries directly onto my porch two days after I order them.

What I love about Amazon Prime Pantry

  1. The membership gives free shipping on any pantry order over $10. This means that every time I think of just a few items we need, I put them in the cart, complete my order, and have the groceries delivered for free in just a couple days. This is faster than I can keep up with laundry, and it keeps my Walmart list from taking up an entire notebook.
  2. Regarding the Walmart list, I’ve found that if I can possibly get it from Amazon at a comparable price (or sometimes less, wooo!), I will absolutely get it at Amazon. I prefer this for one huge reason: taking little ones to the store is sometimes difficult and my shopping cart has very little room for groceries after filling it with a diaper bag, a kindergartener, and a rolly-polly baby.
  3. Amazon Prime Pantry has almost every non-refrigerated food item I could possibly need, and I even found napkins with jokes on them, so wiping our faces is much more hilarious. Score.
  4. The prices are pretty much the same as I was getting at Walmart, sometimes even cheaper.

How to save money with Amazon Prime Pantry

I will admit that while I really, really love to save money, my primary reason for joining Prime Pantry really was the convenience it provides during this season in life. But all the convenience wouldn’t appeal to me if the prices weren’t reasonable. AND, there are some really fun ways to save extra beyond the already reasonably priced offers.

  1. They offer “Buy 5 Save $5” items. There’s a huge selection of these 5 for $5 off goodies, so I click through them all, choose what we need, and when the total of those items equals 5, a beautiful $5 gets knocked off my order total.
  2. They offer those fantastic little green clicky coupons. Oh how I love the green clicky coupons. They give an extra % off, or a dollar amount off, and it turns into a lovely little bonus at check-out.
  3. Sometimes there’s a green clicky coupon INSIDE the “Buy 5 Save $5” section! So I can save a % off that product and I’ll get an extra dollar off too if I get a total of 5 of those items (which I always do, because why wouldn’t I?).

We all have different needs, but if you feel that Amazon Prime Pantry might be a help for you as it is for me, I do recommend it! You can check it out here.

Also, you might find this post helpful: Why I Decided to Have an Amazon Prime Pantry Membership. In that post, I wrote more about how their program works and why I decided to give it a try. Now that I’ve been using it for a couple of months, it’s fun to report back and share that it’s working so well for us!

Try it for free?

Regular price for Prime Pantry is $4.99/month, a price I am finding to be very worth it to pay! But it’s pretty cool that Amazon offers a free 30-day trial period so you can check it out without the fee to see how it works for you! —>

And with that, I will sign off and go get my newest Prime Pantry boxes off the porch. Wooo!

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

Ready to Take Ten…Again? Join our New Take Ten Challenge!

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Our first Take Ten Challenge went so well and was so much fun that we decided we definitely wanted to offer another one. So here we go! Let’s Take Ten…Again!

You can take ten minutes each morning to prep your meal for the evening. Ready to learn how? Let’s Take Ten…Again!

We’re going to walk you through everything you need to know to get 10 meals on the table FAST! We’ll give you a grocery list, recipes, instructions – everything you need. It is so simple, so fun, and your family will love these meals!

The Take Ten…Again Challenge

Right after you sign up, we’ll immediately send you a complete grocery list plus all the information you’ll need to know as we launch the challenge.

We’ll also include this Ingredient Quick Glance sheet so you know what you need to have on hand or thaw before each day’s challenge. Easy peasy!

Each evening of the 10 day challenge, you’ll receive an email with the details you need. Watch for the first Take Ten Again Challenge email to arrive four days after you sign up to get started. It’ll look something like this, telling you what to do in 10 minutes each morning to get a head start on your evening meal prep:

Then, each evening for the next 10 days, you’ll receive the next day’s challenge details. See how simple? You won’t have to think about what to make for dinner for two entire weeks! We love how fun and helpful this is!

When each email arrives, plan to spend about 10 minutes (or less?!) the following morning doing whatever the Take Ten challenge suggests that you do. That evening, complete the final preparations, then enjoy an easy meal around the table with your family!

Not a morning person?

If you prefer, complete some of the meal prep tasks at night before heading to bed!

A note about food intolerances:

All ten of the recipes used in the Take Ten Again Challenge can be made gluten-free. ALL OF THEM, without any extra work on your part!

Everyone who joins the challenge and sticks with us until the end will receive a copy of our beautiful brand new Take Ten Again eBook, filled with all of the Take Ten challenges and recipes, plus oodles more time-saving ideas and recipe links! That way you’ll have these ideas and instructions forever. :)

Ready to join our Take Ten Again Challenge? We can’t wait to do this with you!

Our Heavenly Homemaker’s Club Members have access to this amazing resource plus ALL of our eBooks, eCurriculum, printables, and so much more – for one very low price! Join us here!

Or purchase this separately:

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Once you’ve purchased, watch for an email asking you to sign up to receive all of your Take Ten Again information. Sign up, then confirm that you’d like to receive our Take Ten Again Challenge information. Then you’ll receive our free Take Ten grocery list and other important challenge information.

Looking forward to saving time and money with you while we put great meals on the table!!

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