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Easy Raspberry Pancake and Waffle Syrup Recipe – Two Ingredients!

October 4, 2015 by Laura 16 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Easy Raspberry Pancake and Waffle Syrup

Yum

I just priced it. An 8.5 ounce bottle of Raspberry Syrup costs $6.99. But neener-neener, I just made some for pennies.

Now granted, I got the raspberries for free – although we did pick them ourselves – and time is money, so there’s that. We got fresh air, sunshine, time with friends, and a bit of a workout while picking (swatting bugs) – so I’m going to go with priceless on this endeavor.

Friends, let us not ever pay seven bucks for a tiny bottle of sugary syrup. Let us, instead, save oodles of money by making our own. Let us keep the ingredients healthy. Let us drizzle this good stuff all over our pancakes and waffles, and even top it with homemade whipped cream. Then let us rejoice together at the amazing deliciousness of this treat.

Easy Raspberry Pancake and Waffle Syrup - Only Two Ingredients!

Check out what I finally, finalllllly set up for you here! I seriously should have done this five years ago, but by default it fell low on my to-do list. Therefore, I skipped some housecleaning this weekend and got this done. Seeing as cleaning isn’t my fav, this to-do list swap was perfectly okay with me.

Little by little I’ll switch over all my hundreds of recipes to be easy to read and print like this. You can even leave a recipe review after you give it a try! It is too fun.

Easy Raspberry Pancake and Waffle Syrup Recipe - Two Ingredients!
 
Save Print
Prep time
5 mins
Cook time
10 mins
Total time
15 mins
 
Author: Laura
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 3 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
  • 2 Tablespoons sucanat
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan, stir raspberries and sucanat over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the berries are tender and the ingredients have formed a syrup.
  2. Serve warm over pancakes or waffles.
3.4.3177

If you need some pancakes or waffles to go with your Raspberry Syrup, here are our favorite recipes:

  • Whole Wheat Waffles
  • Quick Mix Pancakes
  • Peanut Butter Pancakes
  • Pumpkin Pancakes

Hope you are enjoying fall weather, fall food, and fall um…what else? What do you love about fall? I’d have to say it’s all pretty fun except for the way fall soccer season makes our shoe closet smell absolutely terrifying. Ask me how I felt when I realized that all of the York College cheerleaders came into my living room and walked right by the open – OPEN – closet door before I realized that one of my boys had left it that way. Messy closet aside, I just hated that they had to be put through the torture of breathing in the green cloud. No one died, and we are grateful.

One of my boys said that he feels it’s best to leave the closet door open so that it can air out. This is a great idea except for how that creates 3,000 square feet of stink throughout our entire house (notice the double meaning on the word feet there). SHUT THE CLOSET DOOR already. Or maybe burn the shoes.

Friends, you are so sweet to hang out with me here. You all smell so good and you are so nice. Here you came by for a Raspberry Syrup recipe and I share all the gross details of my happy life.

Raspberry Syrup smells oh so sweet. It also tastes good. And look! I installed a new easy-to-use recipe reader and printer-outer.

That was me, distracting you and taking you back to the good parts of this post. Love ya.

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

You Can Do This! Real Food Beginnings, Menu Planning Fun, Deals, and Freebies!

September 25, 2015 by Laura 3 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

If I could say one thing to encourage you as you work toward a real food kitchen, it would be to say this: You can do this (because you are amazing)!

I know cooking isn’t fun for everyone nor does it come easy to everyone. I know the transition from processed foods to real foods can be challenging. But as we all know, food is a necessary part of life, several times every day. Nourishment is necessary too.

I’m good at food. This is not a boast, it’s just that I love food and everything about it – just like you love what you love and are good at what you do. I also know that many of you are good at food, and some of you are better at it than you think you are! I’ve been working at this real food gig for 10 years now, and I love providing you with good recipes that are still easy and quick. I love putting together resources that will make your real food journey easier.

So this weekend, I had fun putting together a super inexpensive package deal of many of my favorite “You Can Do This! Real Food Resources.” I also compiled some of the free downloads from my archives that will help you on your journey. Real food deliciousness can be easy when you follow these simply laid out steps, ideas, and recipes.

Real Food Beginnings

First, I’m offering our You Can Do This eCourse, along with 6 of our simple, real food kitchen eBooks – worth $42.79 – for only $12.00. Total. For all of it.This is to encourage you on your real food journey.

You Can Do This Real Food eCourse and eBook package

This package includes:
You Can Do This! The First Five Steps to a Real Food Kitchen eCourse
 $5.00
What to Do With the Chicken in Your Kitchen eBook
 $4.95
What to Do With the Cow in Your Kitchen eBook $4.95
Do the Funky Kitchen eBook $4.95
Heavenly Homemaker’s Real Food Weekly Menu Plan Ideas Packet $5.00
1-2-3 Menu Planning eBook $5.00
Build Your Menu Planning Notebook $5.99

$42.79
$12.00

Add to Cart

Next, I’ve put together a list of freebie resources you can enjoy on your real food journey!

Come Get Your Real Food Resource Freebies!

  • Download our brand new Make-Ahead {Real Food} Lunch Box mini-booklet. It’s totally free and includes links to 28 recipes plus has 20 mix-and-match add on ideas.The Make-Ahead Lunch Box
  • Download a 30-Day Real Food “Back to School” Menu Plan here. This is a helpful resource any day of the year!30 Day Real Food Back-to-School Menu Plan
  • Download a list of Healthy, Inexpensive Lunch Ideas here.
  • Subscribers will receive a free copy of Healthy Breakfast Made Simple eBook. Subscribe to our free Daily Newsletter here or to our free Once-a-Week Newsletter here.

breakfast_e-book cover_sm

Enjoy these resources, and be sure to grab the big package of You Can Do This! Real Food Resources at a huge discount here now (discount ends Tuesday, September 29)!

You Can Do This! Real Food Resources
$12.00

Add to Cart

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

How to Make Refrigerator Cookie Dough – Save Money and Use Healthier Ingredients

September 15, 2015 by Laura 14 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

This idea was born out of pure laziness. I was hungry for my Easy {Low} Sugar Cookies, but the idea of chilling the dough, and rolling out the cookie dough, then cutting out the dough…oh it was all just too much.

I don’t want to knead bread dough, I don’t want to roll out sugar cookies…has it really come to this? (Yes.) So here is what I did to save myself some effort and time:

I mixed the dough. I took half of the dough and I rolled it up in parchment paper – just like a tube of dough you would buy at the store, except that mine didn’t have a Pillsbury Dough Boy pictured on the side. I stuck the tube in the fridge. It worked so well, I did the same with the other half of the dough. It was too easy. An hour later, I sliced my cookie dough tubes. I baked my slices (just as the recipe states). I rejoiced that I had avoided the difficult task of using a rolling pin. I ate a cookie.

Sugar Cookie Collage

Just a reminder that these cookies are very low in sugar – kind of like a sweet, buttery biscuit. We don’t miss the extra sugar because they are so delicious just as they are. If you were wanting to try the Easy {Low} Sugar Cookies recipe but balked at the idea of rolling and cutting and getting flour down the front of your shirt – just roll the dough into a tube. You will feel so Betty Crocker-ish, perhaps a little Martha Stewart-y, but mostly you will break in to a Heavenly Homemaker dance. Do not ask me to show you what this looks like. 

One thing has led to another with cookie dough tubes in my kitchen. These are all the other important facts you need to know:

These Cookie Dough Tubes freeze well.Yum

These are so easy and fun to make, that I found that it made sense to make several batches to freeze to have on hand for all the cookie emergencies. To do this, simply place the parchment paper-wrapped dough into freezer bags, label, and freeze. Thaw in the fridge, if you think ahead better than I do. Otherwise, set the frozen dough tube on the counter-top for about 15 minutes, then slice and bake (according to the time and temp as directed in the cookie recipe). Yes, it’s that easy.

These Cookie Dough Tubes cost much less than what you can buy at the store.

I did the math, because I was curious and thought maybe you would be too.

One recipe of sugar cookie dough cost me roughly $2.60. This was using high quality ingredients, most of them organic. I get two tubes of dough out of one batch, each making about 18 cookies. This breaks down to $1.31 for one tube of cookie dough! Take that, Dough Boy! (I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice. You are adorable. You just aren’t good for us. And you are expensive. This is not your fault, because you are imaginary.)

These Cookie Dough Tubes aren’t limited to just sugar cookies.

Obviously, you can use this same idea to make other varieties of cookie dough. Chocolate chip works very, very well.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Collage

Need the recipes? But of course!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Easy {Low} Sugar Cookies

I haven’t tried yet, but I’m very sure this idea will work with:

Whole Wheat Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Christmas Spice Cookies

How to Make Refrigerator Cookie Dough

Have you tried this idea before? What other varieties of cookies should we try with this idea?

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

Busy Morning Breakfasts That Can Be Made Ahead of Time

September 2, 2015 by Laura 11 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

I am so messed up on breakfasts right now. Our second son started taking a college class on MWF and he has to be on campus at 8:00. Color me late to this “get your kids out the door for school on time” game, but well, that’s exactly what I am. We work from home and we’ve home-schooled forever, so getting out the door to church with combed hair on Sundays has been our only morning schedule struggle. On school days, we usually eat while beginning our Bible time and school time in our jammies a few minutes after we wake the kids. Now, if you can possibly imagine, I must actually be dressed and have breakfast on the table by 7:20.

Yes, I’m sure most of you can possibly imagine, and many of you are thinking, “Really, girl? 7:20 am is practically mid-afternoon at our house.” God bless all of you early morning head-out-the-door-to-work-and-school friends. I have some recipes to share with you. We shall all eat well together…at whatever time each of us considers to be early.

Busy Morning Breakfasts That Can Be Made Ahead of Time

Yum

Busy Morning Breakfasts That Can Be Made Ahead of Time

My goal this week was to prep breakfast foods and put them into the freezer so that I’ll be perfectly organized and never have to think again. Scratch that. My goal this week is simply to prep some breakfast foods and put them in the freezer. I’ll never be perfectly organized and in typical mom-life fashion, I found myself having to think straight and answer difficult questions like “are my soccer socks clean?” just a few minutes ago.

Here are my favorite breakfast foods to put into the freezer. They save time, money, and brain – my favorite things to save.

1. Hashbrowns and Hashbrown Patties

I’ll be baking a few pounds of potatoes this week to shred and put into the freezer. Fry up some eggs with these, serve with fruit – done. Everyone loves these and thinks you’re wonderful when you make these. It is fun when everyone thinks you’re wonderful.

Homemade Hashbrown Patties

2. Muffin Batter

You knew I would say this one. I can’t help it. Making and freezing muffin batter saves so much time. Not to mention dirty dishes. Deliver me from dirty dishes.

frozen_muffins_3

3. Cooked Turkey Sausage and Prepared Biscuits

I can make biscuits and gravy sooooo fast when I do this. My family is always amazed. Let’s just let them keep thinking that I am incredible to pull this off. Add the above mentioned Hashbrowns to this meal and you can picture my kids breaking into a lively Mom is Our Favorite Person in the Whole World dance (not really).

Freezer Biscuit Tutorial

4. Oatmeal Cups

You wouldn’t think that this would save time, but it truly does. At least it saves brain. That’s worth a whole lot.

frozen oatmeal3

5. Giant Breakfast Cookies

Best thing to pull out of the freezer for breakfast…ever.

breakfast_cookies

6. Pancake Muffins

Yep. My newest favorite. I cannot get over how easy these are.

Easy Pancake Muffins

7. Quick Breads

Find our favorite quick bread recipes here. I usually double or triple a batch. If I allow them to cool completely, then wrap them well before freezing them, quick breads thaw and serve well. It is so very nice to pull a prepared loaf or two out of the freezer to go with breakfast in the morning.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

If you freeze nothing else to save yourself time, brain, and money (while also eating healthy, because you are just that awesome) – make and freeze some of these breakfast foods. It will make your morning routine so much easier. Pick the recipe that looks the easiest to you – then go for it!

What are your favorite breakfast foods to prep ahead? Have any new ideas for me? What time to you eat breakfast at your house?

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

(No Flour) Monster Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars – The Heathier Way

August 25, 2015 by Laura 14 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Monster Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars – come and get ’em!

Real Food Monster Cookie Bars

When I saw the original recipe for these bars here, what really jumped out at me was the “no flour” thing. Avoiding flour is always a nice option in recipes. I also noticed the “mini m&m” thing but decided that while those are fun and tasty, they are on the naughty list and not required to make these cookie bars good. Then I wondered if I could cut back on the 2 cups of sugar and the amount of chocolate chips.

Do I know how to ruin a good recipe, or what? 

Hey. I didn’t ruin a thing. I simply cut back on the sugar and cut out the corn syrup and 10 different food dyes. The cookie bars are still delicious, so says my family and several other people I have served these to who didn’t even know I’d healthified this recipe. It probably helps that these bars still have plenty of sugar in them.

The oats and lack of flour create a really fun, chewy bar. I say, make these then wrap them individually and freeze them to grab out for lunch boxes or on-the-go snacks. This makes 24 good sized bars.

(No Flour) Monster Chocolate Chip Cookie BarsYum

(No Flour) Monster Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars - The Heathier Way
 
Save Print
Author: Laura
Serves: 24-36
Ingredients
  • 1 cup sucanat or brown sugar
  • ½ cup melted butter
  • 1½ cups creamy natural peanut butter (here's how to make it yourself)
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1½ cups quick oats
  • 2½ cups rolled oats
  • ¾ cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Cream sugar, butter, and peanut butter together until smooth.
  2. Add eggs, vanilla, and baking soda and mix well.
  3. Stir in oats until well combined.
  4. Fold in chocolate chips.
  5. Spread mixture into a cookie sheet lined by parchment paper.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned.
  7. Makes 24-36 cookie bars, depending on how large you cut them.
3.4.3177

No Flour Monster Chocolate Chip Cookies (the real food version)

Make these gluten free by using GF oats. Learn to make your own Quick Oats here.

Enjoy this very easy treat!

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

9 Foods I Like to Make-Ahead to Help Make Meals Simple For “Back to School”

August 4, 2015 by Laura 8 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Preparing for Back to School

It’s like I’m nesting or something – which I am not thankyouverymuch. I just get this way at the end of a summer break as we head into full school days, regular music lessons, and a busy soccer season. I like to be prepared, and I also somehow have a mind-set that I’ll never again have time to go to the store so I’d best purchase 52 boxes of kleenex to ensure that leaving the house for any variety of nose issues will not be necessary for a very long time.

This makes no sense, except that it is how my brain works so I just go with it. I’m a stocker-upper, and a prepper-aheader, and I want to ease us in to our full schedule with as much grace (read: frozen food and kleenex boxes) as possible.

This mind-set will go away completely after precisely 3.5 days of school, at which time we will all settle into a routine and I will realize that life outside the home hasn’t stopped. Plus I will learn that fresh plums are on sale and determine that we should buy some. We will also be out of eggs.

9 Foods I Like to Make Ahead to Help Make Meals Simple for Back to School

In the meantime, here are 9 of my favorite foods (random though they may be) to have prepared ahead of time to make life easier overall. Want to borrow my list? I highly recommend it. Also, here is a toilet paper coupon because if you’re like me even a little bit, you realize that stocking up on tp is even more important than stocking up on kleenex.

Homemade Peanut Butter

I make several jars at a time, otherwise we would run out within just a few days. If I’m dirtying up my food processor, I might as well make it worth it, right?

peanut butter

Whole Wheat Quick Mix

I use this mix to make Quick Mix Biscuits, Quick Mix Fruit Pizza, Quick Mix Honey Cinnamon Muffins, Quick Mix Pancakes, and Quick Mix Very Vanilla Cookies. (These recipes and more in my Oh, For Real cookbook.)

Homemade Granola

I love having this on hand because it is so versatile and convenient. We can sprinkle in dried fruit, chocolate chips, fresh fruit, or plop in some applesauce – whatever sounds good.

dark_chocolate_almond_granola

Pictured is the Dark Chocolate Granola variety.

Freezer Muffins

Do this. It’s an amazing trick. You will love the convenience of fresh-from-the-oven muffins without any work.

Chicken Broth and Beef Broth

Having broth on hand means I can make soup very quickly on a busy day. And ooooohhhhh the health benefits. :)

chicken week 5

Cooked Bacon

I like cutting several pounds of bacon into bit-sized pieces and cooking in a big pot. Why? Then I have cooked bacon on hand for Bacon Cheesy Egg mornings, and to use in recipes like Bacon Cheese Muffins, Bacon, Egg, and Avocado Salad, BLT Chopped Salad, or BLT Wraps. Also, my hair won’t smell like bacon every single day we eat bacon – only the day I cook several pounds of it. See what a great strategy that is?

blt salad

Instant Oatmeal

Or you can make Frozen Oatmeal Cups. Or you can make both.

instant_oatmeal_jars

Ranch Dressing Mix

If I have a jar of this mix on hand, I can quickly make Ranch Salad Dressing, a Ranch Cheese Ball, Ranch Potato Wedges or Cheddar Ranch Burgers.

ranchdressin2sm.JPG

Italian Dressing Mix

Not only do I use this mix to make Italian Salad Dressing, I use it for these easy recipes: Italian Cream Cheese Chicken, Italian Roast Wraps, and Italian Stew. It also makes a great marinade for grilled meats.

I haven’t completed this list yet, but here’s what I did over the weekend:

I got out my food processor and made several batches of Homemade Peanut Butter.

school food prep1

I turned out 4.5 jars of Super Creamy Peanut Butter variety, but left one jar for me which is just straight Peanut Butter with nothing added. I labeled it “Mom’s” but I’m very nice and willing to share. I just wanted to avoid accidentally dipping into the wrong one since I prefer the straight peanut variety.

school food prep2

 

Also pictured is the Oatmeal Breakfast Bars I had made for Sunday morning.

I cooked four pounds of bacon, then froze it into six bags. If we’re making salads, we might need two bags for our whole family. But if we’re making Bacon Cheesy Eggs we can get away with one bag, less than a pound. (Yay for stretching meat.)

school food prep4

Everything is getting back to normal at our house now that all the boys are home from camp – as in we are blowing through food faster than I can keep up. Thankfully we have cooked bacon and peanut butter on hand so we won’t starve. (Because we were all so worried about that after seeing my freezers.)

In all the years past, our family has begun our school year the first week of August. This year we’re pushing it back two weeks for these reasons:

  • The three older boys were at Guys Camp the first part of this week.
  • The boys need to recover from church camp (lack of sleep).
  • Matt and the boys are redoing someone’s roof – a project that couldn’t be started while they were away.
  • Asa is moving into the college dorm in a week and a half and will be on a college schedule. (How do I feel about this? I’m excited for him and I also cry. Just like one would expect.)
  • Justus is taking a college class, which makes it even more necessary to stick with the college schedule.
  • None of us are quite ready yet and that’s just the truth. But hey, at least the peanut butter is ready. And the kleenex.

As soon as the books are ready, I’ll try to post about what we’re doing for school this year.

What are your favorite foods to make and have on hand for convenience? When does school start for your family?

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

Some Of My Favorite Summer Kitchen Tips

July 21, 2015 by Laura 1 Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

I’m at church camp teaching Bible classes and have been since July 12. Since there are not 42 hours in a day, there was no way to get ahead on two week’s worth of writing before I left. Therefore, today I am offering you a little more linky love from past posts. Summer kitchen tips are always welcome, right?

But first, let us be amazed together. While you’re reading this on July 24th-ish, I really put this together on July 8 because I knew that for 2 weeks I would be unplugged. In summary, I’m not really here. It’s like I’m writing this for the future, but you’re reading it in the present, but these posts you’re about to click on were written in the past. I don’t know about you, but I find that completely fascinating. {snore}

So here you go – some of my favorite summertime kitchen stuff. Stay cool, friends. Stay cool.

Favorite Summer Kitchen Tips

Because Iced Coffee is da’ bomb: How to Cold Brew Coffee

How to Cold Brew Coffee

Then once you have that, you need to know How to Make a Healthy Homemade Chocolate Frappe.

Healthy Homemade Chocolate Frappe

Which means to need to know this lovely tip about Making Coffee Ice Cubes. (I promise these links are not all about coffee. See below.)

Freeze Coffee in Ice Cube Trays

You don’t want to rely on cereal every day, but you don’t really want to turn on the oven to bake muffins either. Here are 14 Oven Free Breakfast Ideas.

14 Oven Free Breakfast Ideas For Summer

While we’re at it, you probably want 10 Oven-Free Lunch and Dinner Meal Ideas too.

10 Oven Free Meals for Summer

If they haven’t taken over your life already, zucchini season is on the way. Here are 8 of My Favorite Ways to Use Zucchini.

Zucchini Recipes - Easy, Healthy, Delicious

Want a cold treat that doesn’t include high fructose corn syrup on a stick? Here are 10 Cold Treats That Are Good For You.

10 Cold Treats That Are Good For You

And with that, I’m gone again – even though technically I’m not really here, I’m just pretending to be here. What in the world?

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

The “I’m Not Here So You Might As Well Steal Everything From My Shop” Sale

July 17, 2015 by Laura Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

No really. I’m not here. I’m at church camp and I’m mostly offline because the internet doesn’t like church camp as much as the rest of us do.

So while I’m gone, I figure you might as well go raid my shop. No really, go ahead. No one is watching. You won’t even have to sneak. I’m giving you permission.

Heavenly Homemakers Books and eCourses

I’ll even give you a coupon code – let’s call it LAURAISGONE – so that you can go fill your cart with anything you want (except for our printed items) at a 35% discount. Yep, 35% off!!!

To be clear: I’m nice, but if you buy any of our printed items with the coupon code I will reappear as soon as I’m able to refund your purchase and say, “Sorry, I’m not that nice and I can’t eat all of our printing and shipping costs.” So again: DO NOT use the code on our printed books. (Somebody sure is bossy. Good thing she’s gone.) <—Hey, I heard that.

The good news is, when you sneak into my shop you will find over 30 other e-products in our shop for immediate download. That’s a lot to pick from along with a very healthy discount.

So go to the Heavenly Homemakers Shop now. Spend as long as you want looking though all of the eBooks, Curriculum, eCourses, and more. Put everything you want (except the printed items – I can’t remember if I said that already) into your cart, then use the code LAURAISGONE to knock off 35% of your total.

You can use this code through Wednesday, July 22.

Okeedokee? Don’t have too much fun without me while I’m gone. But do enjoy the discount – on everything but the printed items. (I just can’t let it go.)

Heavenly Homemakers Shop is Here
Use the code LAURAISGONE for a 35% discount

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

35 Minutes ~ 6 Winner Winner Chicken Dinners

June 17, 2015 by Laura 11 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Hows that for a dumb title? Well, you too will feel like saying silly things and maybe even doing the chicken dance after you spend such a short amount of time creating so many delicious meals for your family. Plus, I just had a great cup of coffee so my typing fingers are under the influence of caffeine.

Last week – using ugly meat pictures – I showed you how I used my Eat Right Away: Beef Edition packet to make 6 Beef Meals in only 45 minutes. I promised you that I would do the same with the Chicken Edition. So here I am. But this time – I’m excited to report that it only took 35 minutes of work time to crank out 6 meals. We have big eaters at our house, so the only way I was able to turn 8 pounds of meat into only 6 meals for us is that I’ll be adding several fruit/veggie sides along with potatoes, tortillas, rice, or pasta to stretch that chicken. If your family is smaller than mine – you could do the same amount of work and end up with more than 6 meals!

Eat Right Away Chicken Edition 22

I’m really, really excited about this. One of my biggest goals here is to emphasize that it really doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming to feed your family healthy, real food meals. Here is the run-down of my 35 minute date with 8 pounds of chicken.

On Friday, I picked up my Bountiful Basket meat order (the first one to come to our town!). I got 24 pounds of nitrite-free bacon and 24 pounds of nicely raised boneless/skinless chicken. I put 8 pounds of chicken in the fridge to thaw.

erwchicken1

On Saturday, I got to work making four out of five of the recipes included in the Chicken Edition packet. (I didn’t make the Teriyaki Chicken and Veggie Kabobs because while I had plenty of chicken, the other ingredients needed were not on sale. No need to pay full price – I’ll make a triple batch of those another time!)

These are the recipes I worked on:

  • Easy Apricot Chicken
  • Sloppy Salsa Chicken
  • Mexi-Chicken Pasta
  • Chicken Tostadas

First I put 2 pounds of chicken into a pot with the Apricot Chicken ingredients, put a lid on the pot, and started it cooking on low. It was an exhausting five minutes. Thank you for your compassion.

erwchicken2

Next, I used kitchen shears (the best way to cut chicken, if you ask me) to cut 4 pounds of chicken into pieces for the Mexi-Chicken Pasta and Chicken Tostadas. Want to know what’s great? You use the same ingredients to cook the chicken for both of those recipes so this is super efficient!

erwchicken3

There it is. Seasoned and ready to cook. Prep took about 15 minutes. Onto the stove it went.

erwchicken5

I put the remaining 2 pounds of chicken into a third pot along with the Sloppy Salsa Chicken ingredients. Two minutes later, it was cooking on the stove. Are you grasping how easy this is? I burn complicated recipes in my fireplace. I like simple foods.

erwchicken4

While all three pots of chicken cooked, I ate lunch with my family. (Tuna casserole, green beans, and raspberries – thanks for asking.) I stirred the chicken from time to time while our older boys shared about their week at camp. (They’d just gotten home a couple hours before lunch.)

After lunch, the Mexi-Chicken Pasta and Chicken Tostada meat was finished – so I set it aside to cool.

erwchicken6

The Apricot Chicken was finished to I used a fork and knife to kind of shred it. I say kind of because it’s not completely shredded. I got to a point where I was like, eh good enough.

erwchicken7

Same thing on the Sloppy Salsa Chicken. I shredded it until it was at the “good enough” stage. It’ll pull apart more when we rewarm and serve.

erwchicken8

(I told you these chicken pictures were ugly. Good thing this stuff tastes so good.)

At this point, I let all three pots sit out to cool. Later, I filled five freezer bags: 2 with Sloppy Salsa Chicken, 2 with Apricot Chicken, and 1 with chicken for Mexi-Chicken Pasta. The remaining chicken was left in the pan to quickly rewarm after church Sunday for Tostadas. Lunch within five minutes of getting home from church? Yes please!

erwchicken9

Those five bags of food joined the 6 beef meals from last week.

I’m going with your suggestions on which packets to work on next – focusing on meatless and slow cooker recipes. It is too much fun and oh so helpful to learn these new recipes.

Learn more about the Eat Right Away Packets here. Or just grab them here:

[wp_eStore_fancy1 id=5]

 

I love how easy it is now to pull out these prepared foods to serve to my family. Tuesday we put baked potatoes in the crock pot, set out a bag of frozen Apricot Chicken, then went to the swimming pool. We got home, warmed up the meat, cooked some green beans, cut up a cantaloupe, and had our meal. Crazy easy. Plus, all my men raved about how good the Apricot Chicken was. Bonus!

Have you tried any of the recipes in these packets yet? How’s it been going for you? Hope they are a blessing to you as they have been for us!

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

Use Whole Wheat Quick Mix to Make Easy Waffles

June 14, 2015 by Laura 3 Comments

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Share Your Heavenly Homemakers Recipe Story

It’s been forever since I’ve gotten around to sharing one of your stories of using Heavenly Homemaker recipes! I have excuses. I won’t bore you.

Keep your recipes and pictures coming! I love them!

This was sent in by Cantina. I’ve never thought about topping waffles with kiwi. Great idea!

I wanted you to know that we used the quick mix to make waffles this morning. They are so yummy! Top with blueberries and kiwi…out of this world! I have one son that said he could eat 10! :) This morning we didn’t have many leftover so next time we make them I need to use the whole batch of quick mix (10 cups). That way we can freeze leftovers for another breakfast. Thanks for sharing your recipes!

Blessings,
Cantina Camp

waffles 1

waffles 2

You’ll find these recipes here:

  • Whole Wheat Quick Mix

  • Quick Mix Pancakes (which can be used to make waffles)

These recipes are also included in my Oh, For Real cookbook for easy access.

Have a fun story of how you used a Heavenly Homemaker recipe? Please snap a picture or two and send them to me along with your story. I’d love to feature it here!

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