Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Easy Cheesy Bean Dip

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Need an easy and filling lunch, dinner, or snack?

No Laura, what we actually need is a complicated recipe filled with weird ingredients that our family will hate.

Okay, fine. The question above was rhetorical. Did you know that sometimes I like to be sarcastic? (also rhetorical)

Well anyway, my family loves this recipe and I think yours will too. It’s great to throw together at lunchtime and serve with organic corn chips and fresh fruit. Or, you could smear this dip in a whole wheat tortilla and wrap it up to take on the go. You could take it to serve at a party. You could make it for a game night. You could make it for a simple evening meal. You could make it for breakfast. Really? Well, sure, if you really want to. Would the breakfast police actually show up and arrest you for serving bean dip with your morning coffee? Don’t answer that. It’s rhetorical.

Easy Cheesy Bean Dip

Easy Cheesy Bean DipYum

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup sour cream
4 cups refried beans
3 Tablespoons taco seasoning mix
3 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

Mix cream cheese and sour cream in a large bowl. Stir in refried beans and taco seasoning. Spread mixture into a 9×13 inch baking pan. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Bake in a 350° oven for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Serve with organic corn chips and salsa if you like.

What are your favorite quick meals to serve?  (I’d like you to answer that question. That one is not rhetorical.)

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Food Is Nourishment. What a Concept. {31 Days to Real Food Reality ~ Day 6}

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It was way back in my “eating low-fat” days as a college student and young married gal. I would eat a bowl of low-fat cereal with skim milk for breakfast. Lunch might be a turkey sandwich with low fat mayo on “light” bread, and a side of fat free chips (aka salted cardboard). For a snack, I’d have Pepsi and Twizzlers, which are both fat free. Dinner would be any variety of food made with skinless chicken breast, white pasta or potatoes, and maybe a salad with fat free dressing. At the end of the day, I would feel great about how I’d eaten for the day. “I’ve had hardly any fat today!” I would say to myself.

That’s what I thought it meant to eat healthy.

There is a common truth in the way I used to think about eating and what I know believe about eating:  I need to be aware of what I’m putting into my mouth because it is important to eat a healthy diet.  What I didn’t recognize then, however, was that food isn’t just meant to fill a hole. Food is meant to nourish us.

Nourish.

I was getting very little nourishment when I ate a low-fat diet. Why? Because nourishment wasn’t my focus. My focus was on avoiding fat, not on consuming nutrients. Somehow, candy and soda made it on my “healthy” list.

Is It Nourishing

Whether eating low-fat or not, I’m going to venture to suggest that there are many who are consuming very little nourishment. Even people who over-eat. How can this be? Well, there are many edible products on the market that fill a hole, but offer very little nourishment. What nutrients are found in a bag of chips? A slice of white bread? A box of crackers? A box of cereal? A slice of American cheese?

Please don’t hear me heaping on guilt to those of you who are still eating many of those foods. Hey, I eat chips, cereal, and crackers sometimes too. It’s fun, it tastes good, and we enjoy the occasional treat. But I also know that if that’s all we were eating, we would not be receiving much nourishment – I don’t care how fortified the box claims its contents to be.

When making healthy food choices, we must always consider how much nourishment it will give our bodies. Crackers are a fun snack and may hold our kids over until dinner, but are they doing much to give their bodies needed nutrients and fuel?

A well-balanced diet of healthy fats, lots of fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy, rich broths, nuts, and few whole grains will give our body what it needs to thrive! When not given foods filled with nutrients, our bodies can make do for a while, but then we become depleted and sick. Sickness takes on many forms, from sluggishness to disease to everything in between.

So when making food choices, ask yourself, “Is this going to nourish me?”

Fill your body with food meant to nourish! What’s great: Nourishment comes in all forms of deliciousness. Our list of options for real food nourishment is longer than my leg, because God is good to give us wonderful variety! This real food thing just keeps getting better all the time, doesn’t it?

What’s your favorite form of nourishment? When you picture foods that fuel the body well, what foods comes to mind?

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Easy and Delicious – Black Bean Salsa

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You’ve likely seen this recipe on my site before, but I wanted to highlight it as a delicious meal that costs less than a dollar per plate!

Black Bean Salsa is easy to make and has only five healthy ingredients. It tastes so fresh, and the cilantro makes it so flavorful. I serve it with Organic Corn Chips. The total cost for the salsa and the chips costs less than $6 and will feed my entire family. This is also a great, inexpensive snack to share with guests at a party.

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You’ll find the recipe here.

Looking for more meal ideas that use healthy, real food ingredients and cost less than one dollar per plate? Here’s what I’ve shared so far:

 

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Let’s Do This! Join the Getting Ahead {Dinner} Challenge

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I loved reading about all that you did last week to get ahead for breakfast! When I extend a challenge, you all really do jump right in. Thanks for making this so much fun! I’m sure your family thanks you too. But who really benefits the most from getting ahead? You and I. Yes indeed. The pay off for our efforts is that we make our kitchen work so much easier. Sweet!

Feel free to continue getting ahead with breakfast foods. (Yes, you have my permission.)  Our Getting Ahead eCourse and eBook can help. Now we’re moving on to the evening meal, the Getting Ahead for Dinner Challenge. Feel free to call this a Supper Challenge if you prefer. I grew up calling it supper, but now I call it dinner, but that’s a post I already wrote a few years ago. :)

Who’s with me?! Let’s Do This!

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What’s involved in this challenge? Anything that will help you put a healthy meal on the table in the evening a little bit faster or with a little less effort.

Some Getting Ahead for Dinner ideas:

And those are just a few ideas. There are so many tasks you can do ahead of time to make your dinnertimes easier. (Lesson one and two – well all the lessons really – in the Let’s Do This! eCourse will give you more guidance.)

I’m planning to get a few casseroles made this weekend to help with busy days the next couple of weeks. It is SO nice to effortlessly grab a frozen casserole out of the freezer to heat up for dinner.

Let’s hear it!  What are you going to make to get ahead for dinner? (Or do you prefer to call it supper?)

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Getting Ahead in the Kitchen When You Don’t Want To Heat Up the House

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I love seeing how many are grabbing the Let’s Do This! Getting Ahead in Your Real Food Kitchen eCourse and {Healthy} Make Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook. It is especially great to hear how some of you are already using the techniques described in the eCourse and the recipes in the eBook to get ahead. As one person commented this morning, “Because of your course, I now already have dinner made for tonight! That’s a first for me!” Awesome. :)  It’s so exciting to me to see how many of you are saving yourselves so much time and energy in your kitchen!

Today, I wanted to share an additional tip that has helped me to get ahead this week. It’s been hot at our house the past several days – too hot to bake. In fact, I’ve hardly even wanted to cook anything on the stovetop because even that heats up the kitchen on hot days. But I still found myself with about thirty minutes of time yesterday that I could work ahead in the kitchen.

So what did I do? I mixed up items that could be frozen raw and baked later. It was the perfect solution to getting ahead without heating up the kitchen!

Here’s what I made:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (a necessity, right?)

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To freeze cookie dough, simply mix up the batter and scoop it out onto a cookie sheet. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer until the cookie dough is frozen. Transfer the frozen dough to a well-labeled ziplock bag. Store in the freezer for up to two months. To bake the cookies, place the frozen balls of dough onto a baking sheet, two inches apart. Bake as directed, adding a few minutes extra baking time.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin Batter

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Here are the details you’ll want to read to learn about freezing muffin batter. On a chilly morning someday soon, I can use these frozen muffin balls to make fresh muffins without any effort!

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Quick Mix Biscuits

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Don’t like the hassle of rolling out and cutting out biscuits at breakfast or dinner time? Me neither (even though it really isn’t hard). I mixed up a double batch of biscuits, rolled them, cut them, and froze them on a cookie sheet. Once they were frozen, I transferred them to a freezer bag. To bake frozen biscuits:  Place desired number of biscuits on a baking sheet to thaw for 30 minutes to one hour before baking.  Bake as directed.

Other ideas of ways to get ahead when it’s too hot to cook/bake:

What else have you done to get ahead in your kitchen that doesn’t require using a stove or oven?

How has it been going for you as you’ve been
working through the eCourse and trying new recipes from the eBook?
Haven’t started yet? We’d love to have you join us!

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Getting Food Prepared for Company

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I love having these Raw Cookie Dough Bites from The Nourishing Home on hand for snacking. 

We are very excited to have two different families coming to stay at our house – the first for a few days beginning this weekend, and another next week, staying for three whole weeks!! The boys are looking forward to playing with their buddies, and I am looking forward to catching up with great friends I don’t get to see nearly often enough.

So that I can enjoy our visits and not spend all my time in the kitchen, I’ve tried to get a little bit of cooking done ahead of time. Here’s what I’ve made (or plan to make tomorrow):

One of our guests this weekend needs to eat gluten free, and then the following week, one guest has a peanut allergy. As long as I don’t get my weeks/guests mixed up, we should be just fine. :)

Our local Farmer’s Market hasn’t had much to offer yet in the way of fresh produce. We’ll get there, it’s just still early in Nebraska! Thursday night, I was able to get some fresh greens and two heads of broccoli. We ate all of the broccoli at lunch today. So good!

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I got stocked up at the store tonight on loads of fresh fruits and a few veggies, plus a few treats to share with our guests. I love all the fresh produce available this time of year. (And no, not all of it was organic. This is all I have available to me right now, so I’m cheerfully going for it!)  Hopefully by the time company comes, we’ll still have some of this available. I mean, when there are fresh peaches in the house…

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What are some of your favorite meals to feed guests?

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Healthy Food to Pack for a Trip

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This is a topic that has come up at several Meet&Greets. It would seem as though meeting our family on the road makes people curious about what we’re eating along the way! I don’t blame you for asking. Hopefully you haven’t been terribly shocked or disappointed when I’ve shared that we enjoy treating ourselves to some Chick-fil-A here and there on our trips. :)

As much as possible, I do try to pack healthy food for the road. The difficulty comes when we’re traveling for several days in a row. Homemade food can only last so long, and a person can only eat so many sandwiches. 

We don’t feel worry over eating out occasionally. Although I will say that we certainly don’t love spending money on it and our guts don’t always feel great afterward. But since our family eats very, very well MOST of the time, eating at a restaurant is a special treat that my family enjoys without guilt. We usually try to make it count, as in, we don’t settle for icky tasting (in our opinion) restaurants and usually opt for one we all really like. I mean, if we’re going to eat french fries, we want to enjoy them, right?

So, now that I’ve explained that part, I’d also like to share some ideas for foods I try to pack for the first leg of our trips to at least get us off to a good start. In addition, I’ve made note of ideas others have shared with me. 

Breakfast on the Road

Lunch/Dinner on the Road

Snacks

  • Fresh Fruit – lots and lots of fruit! If we eat nothing else good during the day, at least we have fruit. It’s the best convenience food ever! (Grapes, Berries, Apples, Oranges, Clementines, Bananas, and Pears all travel well.)
  • Applesauce – I splurge on individul applesauce cups for a fun treat on a trip
  • Baby Carrots
  • Grape Tomatoes
  • Homemade Granola Bars
  • Mudballs
  • Crispy Cheese Crackers

As much as possible (while doing laundry, packing, and finishing up four hundred last minute details) before leaving for a trip – I try to prep the food so that all we have to do is warm it up, grab it, and go. Phew! It’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it for the money it saves and the gut issues it helps us avoid. :)

Please share your ideas for healthy foods you pack to take on the road while you’re traveling. Also, have you found some good foods to make in a hotel room? Please share!

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Menu Plan for the Week (Can following this menu plan save you money?)

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I loved what one reader emailed recently in regard to the menu plans I share:

I just wanted to say I have learned so much in the last fews months from your website. I grew up in a home where if it wasn’t instant, it wasn’t food. Therefore, when I got married and started a family I knew how to cook nothing besides frozen food and instant mashed potatoes. My husband left about 5 years ago and it’s just been me and my now 8 year old daughter. Money is tight and since I started following your meal plans and cooking real food, my grocery bill has been cut in half!

I love it when people share that they have switched from processed food to real food – and I love it even more when they share that this practice has saved them money! Feel free to follow my menu plan all you want. It just might save you some money!

Sunday, February 24
Easy breakfast casserole, oranges
Alfredo sauce with pasta, steamed broccoli and carrots, tossed salad
Chili cookoff at church

Monday, February 25
Banana bread, scrambled eggs, applesauce
Chicken noodle soup, carrots, kiwi
One dish meat and potato casserole, peas

Tuesday, February 26
Flaky cream cheese pastry, apples
Homemade corndogs, fruit salad
Pizza casserole, tossed salad

Wednesday, February 27
Cinnamon swirl bread, scrambled eggs, clementines
Hamburger cream cheese dip, tortilla chips, apples
Crock pot barbecue chicken breasts, green beans, tossed salad

Thursday, February 28
Coconut flour muffins, kiwi
Pizza boats, tossed salad, fruit
Rice and veggie stir fry with chicken, broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms

Friday, March 1
Giant breakfast cookies, apples
Baked potatoes with various toppings, peas
Quick mix pancakes, scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, fruit

Saturday, March 2
Chocolate chocolate chips muffins, bananas
Leftovers
Bbq brisket, tossed salad, cream cheese corn, green beans

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Gratituesday: Food is Fun!

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I decided to let my Gratituesday post become my “here’s what we ate on Monday post”. Why? Because feeding my family is fun for me. Because I think it’s important to be grateful for all of the “little” things in life – like food – that we don’t typically give much thought to each day. And because I’m thankful for all of the variety God has provided. (Let’s all give a big hooray for the fact that we don’t have to eat a diet exclusively of manna and quail for 40 years straight, eh?)  So here we go:

I was the first one awake this morning (as is typical) and was ready to get started making blueberry pancakes when Elias, usually the first boy of the house to wake up, joined me in the kitchen. He had received a “Snacks on a Stick Maker” for Christmas, which has been so much fun to play with. Since we hadn’t tried pancakes on a stick yet, he asked if we could try it this morning. Sure? Why not. ;)  (By the way, I didn’t have any fresh blueberries so decided to use freeze dried berries that I’d bought from Vitacost. These worked great!)

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Well, the “pancakes on a stick” turned out to be a big hit with the whole family. However, making breakfast this morning took approximately two hundred hours. The machine only makes six at a time, and the boys could all eat about that many per minute. I cranked them out as fast as I could, while reading Bible to the boys and getting them started on their other assignments for the morning.

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Check out our mis-matched drinking glasses. Being the same would be so boring, don’t you think?

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I thought the blueberry pancakes on a stick turned out especially pretty.

After a morning filled with world history, math, laundry, and answering a few emails – I started making our lunch of Chicken and Noodles with carrots. While it was cooking, I mixed up the Bbq meatballs which were to be our dinner. I was also planning to take dinner to our friends who just had a baby! Four pounds of hamburger later, our meatballs were put into the fridge, ready to bake at dinner time. (My meatball recipe is in this ebook.)

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I finished up our lunch, “cheating” just a little bit by using purchased whole wheat fettuccini noodles. Ya can’t make noodles without eggs – and I had used the last of mine in the meatballs. :)  I also rewarmed some homemade cabbage rolls (recipe coming to you soon) to help make the soup stretch a little farther.

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To help clean out the fridge, and to add more nutrients, I threw some leftover peas into my soup. Yum!

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Not surprisingly, we still needed to stretch our lunch to fill the boys. A jar of this summer’s applesauce to the rescue!

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After lunch I got out a few frozen cookie dough balls I had made a while ago and baked them to take to our friends tonight. 

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Apparently this move was a little bit cruel since I only made enough cookies to take to our friends, and didn’t make enough for our kids. (The poor little dears had to settle for the leftover fudge brownies I had made a few days ago.)

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Sometime mid-afternoon as the boys were wrapping up their school work for the day, I had them head into the kitchen to take turns scrubbing potatoes for dinner. Elias and I left to pick up a few things at the store – including jeans for his ever-growing long legs. 

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In the meantime, Matt got the meatballs and potatoes into the oven to bake for dinner. When we got home, all the boys unloaded the van while I made green beans and packed up the food to deliver to our friends. I was blessed to have a wonderful visit with them while I held their new baby. Bliss!

When I got home, we sat down to eat our own dinner. Not only had Matt baked the potatoes and meatballs for me, he had put a spaghetti squash into the oven. What a great addition to our meal!

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And there you have it. I mostly followed my meal plan, with several additions and adaptations to round everything out and to fill up the boys. Plus, why make pancakes when you can make pancakes on a stick (and kill two hundred hours of your morning)?! :) 

God is good. Food is fun. Thanks for letting me share!

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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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You Are Invited! Heavenly Homemaker’s Third Annual Christmas Brunch

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It’s that time of year again! For the third year in a row, we would like to invite you to our “Virtual Christmas Brunch”.

We hope you can join us now and every day through the December 24th. There will be food (recipes), gifts (giveaways), and a fun surprise (you’ll just have to wait and find out)! :)

We are so thankful to have you all as a part of our lives. You are all a wonderful piece of the puzzle which continues to make this blog a happy place to hang out. This brunch we are hosting is our way of saying thank you.  You are all very dear to us.

As we close out another year, we want to celebrate with you the coming of Christ and the rich blessings of life that we have because of Him. So make plans to join us if you can! The more, the merrier, so invite your friends to join us too. There are plenty of food and gifts around our tree for everyone!

Here’s gift number one:  Each time you see the above “Christmas Brunch Invitation” – leave a comment on that post for a chance to win one of three $25 gift certificates to our Heavenly Homemakers Shop, which will be good on anything downloadable that you like. That includes this post…Ready, set, go!

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