Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

So, You Don’t Like to Cook?

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I don’t understand how it can possibly be true, but from what I hear, some of you don’t get a “high” out of pulling out ingredients and stirring together dishes of deliciousness. When you see a new recipe – you don’t get giddy? How can it be?

It seems that instead, some of you very much enjoy mixing chemicals in beakers, changing the oil in a car, running marathons, writing software, organizing closets, crafting adorable items out of old window frames, decorating living rooms, taking pictures, or making quilts. I’m neither good at any of those, nor do I enjoy them – which is likely because I’m not good at them. Every time I try to run, I am then unable to walk for several days afterward. For me, quilting takes three million years of cross-eyed sewing and ripping out mistakes. And last week – someone handed me a camera with lots of cool lenses and I completely panicked because it wasn’t a simple point-and-shoot. They all stood there saying cheese, and I was like, what do I do? what do I do?

But put me in my kitchen, and I’m completely at ease. Ingredients of all kinds give me joy. (Well, not ingredients like margarine. But, you know what I mean, right?)  Creating new recipes is one of my favorite hobbies. Making four dishes at one time is therapeutic for me.

Heavenly Homemaker's Messy Kitchen

Ah yes, we all have different talents, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and interests. God did that on purpose.  It’s a good thing.  Seriously, if it were all up to me, all living rooms would be painted white, NASA wouldn’t exist,  and there would be no party games.

While I can call in for back-up when picking paint colors, unfortunately, there’s not much of a way those of you who don’t enjoy cooking can avoid the kitchen. After all, we all need to eat three times each day. I’ll even admit that while I love cooking, sometimes even I don’t feel like going to all the trouble to once again feed the forever hungry people in my house.

So to all of you who do not enjoy cooking, or who might be experiencing some kitchen burn-out, I have a few suggestions:

1. Don’t make it hard.

Is it possible that you don’t like cooking because the recipes you try are complex and challenging? I believe one of the reasons I love cooking is that I always stick with very simple recipes. Basic ingredients. Tasty food. The end. I’ll leave recipes which require fourteen complicated steps to gourmet chefs. As for me, I’ll stick with simple prep, real food, and family friendly meals.

2. Don’t give up.

I promise that cooking gets easier the more you do it. Make just a few recipes over and over, then slowly add in a few more as you become comfortable. Don’t overwhelm yourself, feeling like you have to put loads of work into this. Make a simple main dish, toss a salad, steam a veggie…and you’re done.

3. Make the most of your kitchen time.

If you don’t enjoy cooking, do everything possible to save yourself effort. If you’re making one casserole, make three (eat one, freeze two). Brown several pounds of hamburger at once, freezing one pound portions so you just have to pull out cooked meat to stir into sauce or make into tacos. Check out more of my Eat Healthy, Save Time Tips.

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I would say that about 95% of the recipes you’ll find here on my site are very quick to put together. (Homemade Twinkies are the bomb, but who really has time to bake little cakes, and then pipe filling inside except for the rare special treat?)

Here are some of my favorite, super fast and easy recipes to throw together:

Really, the list could continue – just click through all my recipe links in my Recipe drop-down tool bar at the top of my site. And don’t forget to make use of the new Heavenly Homemaker’s Recipe Search By Ingredient Box, located at the top of my right-hand side bar. It can take the thinking out of “what should I make?”

Don’t like to cook? No problem. I’ll do everything I can to make this healthy eating journey easier for you!

Let’s get an idea of how many of you love cooking, or dislike cooking. Share in the comments section! Those of you who don’t like cooking – what other activities do you enjoy?  :)

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How Do You Clean Your Home Naturally? (What Would Grandma Do?)

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cleaners

I thought I was going to gag. I almost got a headache. My lungs got tight. I’m not exaggerating.  Elias (my 11 year old) was with me, and he started to feel queasy. We were there only about seven seconds.

Where had I taken my child, you ask? To aisle nine.  We were simply walking down the cleaning products aisle at the store.

I avoid that aisle at all costs. But that particular day last week, I needed one item – an ingredient to make a homemade cleaning product. Go figure, after those seven seconds of torture, I still couldn’t find what I was looking for.

Elias asked, “Mom, why is that aisle so disgusting?” Obviously, I’ve avoided taking my kids there since my eleven year old didn’t know that it even existed. If found it hard/ironic/frustrating to explain that all of those products that seemed so nasty to him are offered for sale to help us get our house, dishes, hands, air, clothes, furniture, bathroom, floors, and windows clean.

I’m all for getting rid of the dark cloud of dirty sock scent that hovers over my boys’ room. But when did “clean” begin to smell so toxic? And why are there so many hundreds of varieties of cleaning products to choose from? Do I really need twenty-seven separate products to clean approximately five major areas of my home? Must we all keep a large cabinet full of sprays, bottles, drops, powders, and scrubby bubbles in order to be fully equipped with everything it takes to keep a house clean?

Absolutely not. Be relieved and take a deep breath (but by all means, get out of the cleaning aisle first so that you don’t pass out).

I’m inclined to ask, “What would Grandma do?” I spent hours at my grandma’s house, helping her cook and clean. Try as I might, I can not remember where in the world her cleaning cabinet was. This leads me to believe that she didn’t have one. She wouldn’t have seen the value of spending money on a variety of different cleaning products when her home naturally had everything she needed. In fact, as long as I can remember, she made her own bars of soap. If I close my eyes, I can still smell it. Mmmm, there’s nothing toxic about it. In fact, it didn’t have much of a scent at all. It only smelled…clean.

I’ll admit – I don’t make my own soap. Instead, I have found some great online resources for a few products I trust for our skin, hair, laundry and dishes.

As for cleaning my home? Well, I don’t find that it’s very complicated really. There’s nothing like good old water. Norwex products are awesome. And the best? Baking soda and vinegar.

I found a great online resource, sharing 27 Ways to Clean with Baking Soda. Not to be outdone, here’s a post I found called 1001 Uses for Vinegar. I’m guessing Grandma knew many of these tricks, because she knew that getting her home clean didn’t require that she spend much money or use toxic chemicals. I’m guessing, actually, that she never gave thought much to toxic chemicals – she simply used what she had, and she knew how to keep her home clean.

Ahhh, fresh, clean, and chemical free. That’s what I call cleaning your home naturally.

I know many of you have knowledge on this topic! Share your tips and ideas. How do you clean your home naturally?

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Funky Fresh Kitchen – The “Do You Really Need It?” Challenge

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What is all that stuffed crammed in the back of your utensil drawer? When’s the last time you used that fancy Blitzamachoppit that promised to make your life easier? And how many used twist-ties and drinking straws does it take to change a light bulb?

Oh wait. I think I just mixed two unrelated questions.

But still – I do believe it is time for some of us to take control of what is lurking in our kitchen drawers and cabinets. If you took advantage of the Do the Funky Kitchen ebook sale, you may have already started plucking unused items out of your kitchen and worked at finding them a better home (like in someone else’s kitchen – mwoohaha!!). If not, let me suggest to you that your kitchen will be a lot more fun and a lot more functional (funky!) if you get rid of items you are not using.

Here is a check-list of questions to ask yourself as you clean out cabinets and drawers in your kitchen (taken from the Do the Funky Kitchen ebook):

  1. Do I use it often?
  2. How many do I have?
  3. How many do I need?
  4. Did someone special give it to me?
  5. Does it work?

If you don’t use it, get rid of it. If you have too many, the extras need to go. If it doesn’t work, what is it still doing there anyway? And if you don’t even know what it is, you won’t miss it after you say goodbye. Keep only items that you use or items that are special to you.

If you are having a hard time deciding if you should get rid of something, do this:  Put the item in a potential “Garage Sale” box for a few weeks, but don’t get rid of it yet. Next Tuesday, if you’re preparing some food and suddenly remember the reason you had the Ultimate Onion Slicer (with built in tissues for inevitable tears, batteries not included) then by all means, go get it out of your box and put it back into your kitchen for future onion slicing and tear wiping needs. But if in fact you see that gadget in your “Garage Sale” box three months later and have to stand on your head while holding a flashlight so that you can try and figure out what in the world it is, I’m pretty sure you never needed it anyway and you can feel free to give it away or try to sell it.

Your Funky Fresh Kitchen Challenge today is to clean out at least ONE cabinet or drawer. Get rid of all items that are not useful to you. You’ll feel so much better, I promise!!

Leave a comment on this post letting us know one thing you can throw out or give away that will lessen any kitchen clutter you may have. Your comment will serve as your entry in the giveaway for one of five $10 gift certificates to our Heavenly Homemakers Shop.

 

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The Two Week Tackle

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We like to begin our home school year at the beginning of August. This just works well for our family. That means I have about two weeks left before we hit the books. I’m really excited about this, and they aren’t admitting it, but deep down, my boys are excited too. ;)

August also brings quite a bit of other “excitement” as our garden will be kicking out lots of produce, which will need to be preserved. Our soccer season also starts in August. Our boys are on teams, but more importantly, the college team my husband helps coach gets underway the second week of August. Three-a-day practices keep him hopping plus, if you’ve been reading here long, you know that I usually feed the soccer team for an entire week before the college classes start. I LOVE doing this – the ladies on the soccer team are a joy to serve. I hear there will be 43 players on the team this year. That’s a lot of food! Stay tuned to hear how all of this goes.

Here’s a big pile of our books – in desperate need of some sorting and organization!

I tell you all of this to say that I have a whoppin’ two weeks to get myself organized before the month of August slaps me in my eager – but full scheduled – face. I’ve spent a good part of the summer working on two new books. Now that they are in the editing stage, to say that my house needs a little bit of love would be an understatement. And there are other areas of life I really need to get organized and prepared for, simply so that the beginning of our school year goes more smoothly.

And so…I have made myself a list. I’m calling it the Two Week Tackle because well – I have two weeks to tackle this list. Can I do it? Who knows?

Want to watch me try? Yes, I figured you might.

Here’s the Two Week Tackle List, which I reserve the right to add to or take away from at any given time as the crazy urges hit:

  • Organize school books and create a schedule for our school year
  • Clean out kitchen cabinets – replace shelf liner
  • Deep clean the entire house
  • Plan and begin to prep soccer meals
  • Make and freeze healthy convenience foods for the month of August
  • Make homemade hand soap and laundry detergent (just because I really want to try)
  • Experiment with homemade white chocolate and butterscotch chips for the Heavenly Homemakers Recipe Challenge
  • Finish creating the Whole Foods Pantry resource list that so many of you have been requesting

Regarding this last bullet point – I will, for at least one week, be taking a break from writing my bulk food posts. Creating the Whole Foods Pantry resource page is a big job to undertake, and the more I write about bulk food, the more it has been brought to my attention that you would really benefit from this list. I’ll pick up with the bulk food series once the Whole Foods Pantry resource page is finished.

And so, during the next two weeks, I’ll be cleaning, organizing, sorting, writing, finishing the books, cooking, and in general, preparing my household for the month of August.

I’ll try to blog my way through the list with some pictures and explanations if I can. There may be times I just hop onto Facebook and give a quick update. If you aren’t already following me on Facebook, you may want to click over to do that now. I’d hate for you to miss any pictures of my insanity. ;)

And now a question for you:

What are you most excited for me to tackle and share with you? Which item should I do first?

If you’d like to join the Two Week Tackle – get your list ready and share it in the comments!

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Do You Like to Clean?

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I’ve heard it said that some people like cooking and some people like cleaning, but not many people like to do both. I’m not sure how true this is, but I will speak for myself. I LOVE cooking, but I really, really don’t like to clean.

I do like to have a clean house though, so I clean whether I want to or not. I just don’t understand these people who say, “Oooh, I love cleaning!!” My idea for all you people who like to clean is this:  If I cook for you, will you clean for me? I think this sounds like a nice arrangement. Keep in mind that it may not be a fair trade-off. Four boys, bathrooms, muddy soccer cleats. Need I say more?

Abigail, consultant with Norwex, recently sent me some of their wonderful,
non-toxic cleaning products to try. Now that is a pile of goodies that inspires me to clean.
I’ll share more about Norwex products in a couple of weeks.

Just for fun (but not so that we can have a cleaning whine fest, because truly we are called to take care of our homes without grumbling), I just wanted to throw out the question this weekend:  Do you like to clean?

 

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Gratituesday: The System

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The leftovers have been put away. The dishes are clean. My floor has been swept and mopped. The dishwasher has been unloaded. The table and countertops and window sills and chairs have all been wiped down. 

And I didn’t do any of it.

My wonderful husband (you’ve heard of him, right?) recently implemented a system. It’s a family kitchen cleaning system and I LOVE him…and the system he created.

Of course the boys have always helped out in the kitchen, but we never had any kind of system in place that would keep things fair and organized. More often than not, Matt would rinse the dishes if he was home, then I would find myself doing the majority of the kitchen cleaning because it just seemed faster and easier.

But Matt recognized that I was getting worn out and that we weren’t training our boys enough to serve in our home. He spent some time coming up with a thorough system, typed it up, put it into a plastic sleeve and put it on the fridge. Each morning, we fill in the chart with names of who does what after each meal. Matt and I are included in the rotation, so between the six of us, we can make pretty fast work of kitchen clean up. 

What I’ve been especially thrilled about is how the boys didn’t even question Matt when he showed them the system and walked them through each job expectation. And each time we finish a meal, they just check the chart to see which job they need to do before they leave the kitchen. It’s just…nifty.

The only thing wrong with this system is that we didn’t begin it sooner. It’s working beautifully and I am so grateful that Matt saw the need and took care of it. 

Next up…a Laundry System. :)

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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