Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Menu Plan for the Week

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Cheeseburger Macaroni – one of my favorite dishes

I hope you had a lovely Christmas with your family. I’m a little unsure of what we’ll be eating, since all routines are out the window this week. But here is my “best guess of a menu plan” for this week!

Monday, December 26
Simple soaked pancakes, fruit
Creamy mac and cheese, green beans
Chicken fried steak strips, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas

Tuesday, December 27
Applesauce muffins, bananas
Chicken and noodles, veggies
Beef enchiladas, taco salad

Wednesday, December 28
Mini crustless quiches, clementines
Tuna melts, veggies, apple slices
Easy noodle stir-fry with broccoli and carrots

Thursday, December 29
Mini apple pies, cheese slices
Chicken burritos, fruit salad
Cheeseburger macaroni, steamed carrots

Friday, December 30
Coconut flour banana muffins, applesauce
Chicken-cheese melts, grape tomatoes, veggies with homemade ranch
Hamburgers, homemade onion rings

Saturday, December 31
Whole wheat cinnamon rolls, fruit
Leftovers
Snack foods at a get-together

Are you taking a “Christmas Break” this week? Would it be weird if we all just stay in our jammies all week? ;)

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Quick Eggnog Muffins

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If you have eggnog on hand (especially if you made this Homemade Eggnog Recipe), you’ll find that these muffins can be thrown together very quickly. They taste just like Christmas if you ask me!

Quick Eggnog MuffinsYum

2 1/4 cups whole grain flour
3/4 cup raw sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup eggnog
2 teaspoons rum extract (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add melted butter, eggs, eggnog, and extracts. Stir until well combined. Scoop batter into 16 paper lined muffin cups. Bake in a 400° for 15-22 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.

Makes approximately 16 muffins.

eggnog_muffins_2

The rum extract in this recipe is optional, but it sure does add some great flavor! These are a perfect addition to your Christmas brunch. And did I mention they are easy to make? :)

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Sweet Pepper Fritata

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I can’t decide which I like best about this dish:  looking at it…or eating it. I love that the red and green peppers make this fritata look festive for Christmas. This is very easy to make and can be put together ahead of time and baked just before serving. If you want to add a little extra protein, throw in some leftover cooked chicken or sausage.

Sweet Pepper FritataYum

1 small onion, chopped
3/4 cup chopped green pepper
3/4 cup chopped red pepper
2 Tablespoons butter
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Saute onion and peppers in the butter for 5-7 minutes or until veggies are tender and your family comes running into the kitchen to see what smells so good. Meanwhile, combine remaining ingredients in a bowl. Stir sauteed vegetables into egg mixture. Pour into an ungreased pie dish. Bake in a 350° oven for 25-30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle of the fritata comes out clean. Serves 6-8.

Sweet Pepper Fritata

Which would you rather do – look at this, or eat it? Or maybe you could just really enjoy looking at it while you eat it. ;)

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Homemade Healthier Eggnog

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Let the Heavenly Homemakers Second Annual Christmas Brunch begin! (I wish we really were sitting around my fireplace chatting and “brunching” together.)

First up in the brunch line-up, a traditional holiday beverage made just a little healthier. I think eggnog is incredibly tasty, but just way too sugary. I played around with recipes this year and found a healthier variety that is sweet, but not too sweet. Feel free to add or take away from the maple syrup amount to make this to your liking.

Homemade Healthier Eggnog

Homemade Healthier EggnogYum

6 eggs
4 cups milk, divided
3/4 cup real maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

In a large saucepan, whisk together eggs, 2 cups of milk, maple syrup, and sea salt. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture reaches 160°. Remove from heat. Stir in cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and the remaining two cups of milk. Mix well. Pour mixture into a jar, cover, and refrigerate overnight or until chilled.

Whip 3/4 cup cream until it is thick, but not yet “whipped cream”. Stir the thickened cream into the eggnog mixture. Serve in glasses. Top with additional whipped cream and sprinkles of nutmeg if desired.

Are you an Eggnog lover?

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Malachi’s birthday is this week. He’s only been counting down the days since around September, which has been an incredible challenge to my math skills. My baby is going to be seven. (sniff)

I am so very excited this week because we’ve got family coming into town to spend a few days with us. My adorable nephew and niece are going to be at Aunt Laura’s house and I’m gonna make them Christmas Donuts and Christmas Pancakes and Melting Snowflakes. I can’t wait. (And I’m also excited to see their parents, and I plan to feed them as well.)  ;)

meltingsnowflakes6sm1.JPG

Melting Snowflakes are always a hit!

Here’s what we’ll be eating this week as we count down the days until Christmas:

Sunday, December 18
Oatmeal, pears
Roasted chicken, potatoes, carrots, gravy
Eating out with youth group

Monday, December 19
Christmas shaped poptarts, apples
Salmon patties, creamy mac and cheese, peas
Chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, raw veggies

Tuesday, December 20 – Malachi’s birthday choices
Cereal  :)
Homemade corndogs
Pizza, chocolate cheesecake
(While he didn’t include them in his birthday selections, I will be sure to add a veggie or two into the mix.)

Wednesday, December 21
Simple soaked pancakes (shaped like candy canes), bacon, applesauce
Sloppy joes, ranch potato wedges, peas
Chicken alfredo, tossed salad

Thursday, December 22
Christmas shaped donuts, clementines
Melting snowflakes, raw veggies, fruit salad
Lasagna, tossed salad, green beans

Friday, December 23
Easy breakfast casserole, vanilla muffins with cinnamon crunch topping, fruit
Potato soup, carrots with ranch
Hamburgers, creamy cole slaw, oranges

Saturday, December 24
Cinnamon swirl bread, applesauce
Leftovers
Velveeta knock-off (Healthier Dip with tortilla chips, eggnog, Christmas cookies

What do you like eating on Christmas Eve? We like a snacky kind of meal, which makes this Velveeta Dip Knock Off perfect.

Please make plans to join us this week for our Heavenly Homemakers Christmas Brunch!

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Second Annual Heavenly Homemakers Christmas Brunch

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Last year’s Christmas Brunch was so much fun, we’ve decided to do it again.

We appreciate all of you so much for reading here, and for all of the encouragement you send our way. As a way of saying thank you, we would love to invite you all into our home for a big Christmas brunch. Since that’s not physically possible, we will be having a “virtual” Christmas Brunch here next week that we hope you can all attend.

There will be lots of yummy food (recipes), gifts, and encouragement as we enjoy the week before Christmas together.

In addition, as an appreciation gift for coming to our Brunch, we’ll be having a drawing on the 26th for four $10 Heavenly Homemakers Gift Certificates! Each time you see the above Christmas Brunch Invitation on a post between now and the 24th, leave a comment for a chance to win one of the certificates. I’ll draw four random winners and post them on the 26th. There will be several posts with the invitation attached, so you’ll have several chances to win! (This post counts, so let the comments begin!)

And now, I’m off to prepare goodies and gifts to share with you next week. Please plan to attend this special upcoming week of festivities!

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X in a Healthy Marriage

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~Appreciate Your Spouse~Buoyancy in Marriage~Consult Your Partner~
~Dream Together Part One ~Dream Together Part Two~Empower Your Spouse~
~Have Fun With Your Spouse~Give to One Another~Honor Each Other~
~Be Intentional~Jubilee~Kingdom Focused~Listen~~Mentor Relationships~Nourish~Own It~
~Pray With Each Other~Quick to Listen~Read Together~Selfless~Teamwork~Uplift~Vulnerable~Worship~

X in a Healthy Marriage

Of Course “X” is for Sex – Matt’s Thoughts

You and your spouse are not just roommates. God’s design for marriage includes passion and pleasure. Have you read Song of Solomon?

Or how about Proverbs 5:18-19? Solomon is giving his sons all kinds of advice in the first nine chapters of Proverbs, much of which has to do with warnings against adultery. It is in this context that he says,

“May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.”

That doesn’t sound dull to me.

A healthy marriage includes mutual passion and mutual pleasure. In general, the husband’s sexual appetite is stronger – as in he desires sex more often than his wife. It doesn’t take much for him to think of his wife in a sexual way. Any of the following are possible: He could simply see his woman and think…sex; he might smell his woman and think…sex; he could hear his woman and think…sex; he may think about his woman and think…sex; often, if he touches his woman he’s thinking…sex. For her thoughts to go to sex, in general, it’s not so much about one of her physical senses, but if she feels loved. This varies from woman to woman and is part of the two becoming one. They become one as they come to know each other better in every way. If a husband knows and practices what communicates love to his wife “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” as the apostle Paul puts it in Ephesians 5:25, then she’ll want to become one with him in the bedroom too.

Guys, the reality is that we shouldn’t have sex as much as we’d like to…the children would starve. It takes time for her passion to build. Show her love every day, not just when you want her in bed that night. When her passion does build, do everything you can to pleasure her. Sex is not for your pleasure only. Again, in a healthy marriage the passion is shared and the pleasure is gifted to your spouse.

Gals, the reality is that, “The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband,” and neither spouse should “deprive each other” (I Corinthians 7:4-5). For his sake, make it happen sometimes before your passion has rebuilt. Giving yourself to him communicates your love to him.

Captivating – Laura’s Thoughts

I love the phrase at the end of the passage from Proverbs that Matt shared above, “…may you ever be captivated by her love.”

Is there anything in marriage more beautiful than him being absolutely captivated by her, and her being captivated by him? To me, that is a true picture of marital bliss, and everything (and I mean everything) that goes along with it. To me, “captivated by” says a lot more than “attracted to” or even “in love with”. It also says more than “we have a great sex life”.

To be captivated by our spouse means that we are truly one in every sense. This takes vulnerability and trust. It takes a selfless attitude on both parts, and it takes honest and frequent communication. It’s amazing actually, how many other pieces of a healthy marriage come into play with sexual fulfillment in a marriage. It is all connected.

Guys, consider what you might do to connect with your wife in a way that makes her feel captivated by you. Gals, your husband finds you captivating, what are you going to do about that? (That was rhetorical. We figured you might take that up with your man.)  ;)

Ladies, we know you’re reading here more often than the guys. ;)  We’d love husbands to read this article as well. If you feel so inclined please send the link to your husbands, or if it’s easier, we’ve created a downloadable article for you to quickly print off and share. Healthy Marriage Tips from A to Z – X in a Healthy Marriage

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Chocolate Mint Soother

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Chocolate Mint Soother – one of life’s best comfort foods.

My friend Emily is always full of good ideas. She’s often sending me fun links, or sharing her creative inspiration with me while we visit after church. Last week, Emily did it again. Since I’d recently shared about my Warm Vanilla Soother and Warm Chocolate Soother recipes, she suggested, why not adding some mint extract to those?

After reading that comment, I think it may have taken me a grand total of five minutes to go into the kitchen and try out this idea. (Good thing she didn’t share this idea with me in the church foyer – I may have left Emily standing alone and driven home without my family.)

This recipe is just like the Warm Chocolate Soother recipe, except that you add peppermint extract instead of vanilla. Sounds like we’re coming up with some great ideas for using our peppermint extract, aren’t we? :)

Chocolate Mint SootherYum

Chocolate Mint Soother
 
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Author:
Serves: 3-5
Ingredients
  • 3 cups whole milk
  • 4 egg yolks
  • ¼ cup real maple syrup
  • 3 Tablespoons sucanat
  • ¼ cup cocoa powder
  • 2 Tablespoons arrowroot powder or corn starch
  • 1 Tablespoon butter
  • 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
Instructions
  1. In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, egg yolks, maple syrup, sucanat, cocoa and arrowroot powder.
  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly (I use a whisk) until mixture begins to thicken.
  3. Remove from heat and add butter and peppermint extract.
  4. Stir until creamy.
  5. Pour into mugs and serve warm.

Chocolate Mint Soother

Aren’t you glad I have such smart friends? :)

If you like this, you might also enjoy:

Make them all and see which is your favorite! These drinks are filling and comforting, not to mention delicious. They are a perfect way to warm up on a chilly day!

If you put the leftovers into the fridge, this drink turns into a tasty pudding. It’s a win-win!

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

Compromising at Christmas Time

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Some of you may remember reading this post last year, as I wrote it for another site that had asked me to contribute. This year, I decided to tweak it and post it for you here!

Coconut Cupcakes

I am always so tempted to make food compromises at Christmastime. There are extra events going on, making it harder to put healthy meals on the table. Plus, there are sweets and holiday goodies at all of the parties and get togethers. SO MUCH SUGAR…and it always looks so pretty. Ah, frosting and sprinkles. Why must you tempt me so?

So, what should we do? Avoid all parties and shun all forms of sugary goodness? Or throw caution to the wind, dump a whole container of sprinkles directly into the frosting bowl, grab a spoon and get down to business?

Sugar bonks our immune system right on the head, so the motivation to stay healthy is helping me reach for carrots instead of fudge. But I also know that if I avoid sugar completely, I’m likely to eat the entire pan of fudge later. Allowing treats is okay – sometimes.

But here’s what I’ve decided:  The treat has got to taste really, really good. I’m not wasting my sugar intake on a tasteless, dry cookie or a three day old donut. Any treat I indulge in needs to be fresh and gooey. There needs to be chocolate involved. Or cream cheese. Or both.

And here’s another way I compromise during busy times like this. I’m not making every single bite of our food from scratch. Even during what usually tends to be a busy Christmas season, my family still prefers to eat three (to seven meals) a day. I find that buying baby carrots or pre-made whole grain English muffins helps save my sanity. MOST of the time, I cut our carrot sticks, and bake all of our bread. Right now, I feel good if I’ve remembered to give my kids vegetables in the first place. If I need to spend just a little bit more for some healthy convenience during these next few weeks, so be it.

It’s all a part of keeping Christmas time simple this year.

I think we need to cut ourselves some slack. When we work almost constantly to save money and make food from scratch, that buys us a little bit of “chill out time” during those weeks when you can’t tell your comings from your goings and your Christmas lights are tangled up around the tail of your frustrated cat.

The moral of the story is this:

Try not to eat much sugar, and when you do indulge in a treat, make sure it’s the kind that makes you faint from deliciousness. Also, when your son’s birthday falls a few days before Christmas, go ahead and buy “take and bake” pizzas for the party because making a homemade crust might make you say things you’ll regret.

Yes indeed, I’ll be buying pizzas for my son’s birthday next week. Guilt free.

It’s okay, I’ll make whole wheat organic crust again in January.

When do you make compromises? What compromises have you had to make during this season?

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Caramel Popcorn (no corn syrup!)

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Caramel Popcorn With No Corn Syrup!

For years and years and years (give or take a year or two), I’ve been wanting to find a good Caramel Popcorn recipe that did not contain corn syrup. The recipes I found that didn’t contain corn syrup were either complicated, or they contained other ingredients beyond corn syrup that I didn’t feel comfortable feeding my family.

But just leave it to you all to solve my Caramel Popcorn dilemma. A big thanks goes out to everyone who suggested that this new Caramel Sauce recipe might be able to be used on popcorn. Over the weekend, I decided to give it a try. I figured the outcome may not be blog-worthy, but surely my family would eat it regardless of whether it was great or not. My men are always so good to eat my experiments. Especially if it’s an experiment with Caramel Sauce on top.

This got rave reviews, which came, as you can imagine, while they were chewing. Since they were saying such nice things to me about my cooking, I lovingly allowed them to talk with their mouths full. Far be it from me to scold my popcorn munching children when they are in the middle of boosting my ego.

Caramel Popcorn

Yum

Caramel Popcorn (no corn syrup!)
 
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Author:
Ingredients
  • 1 cup unpopped popcorn
  • 1 recipe of Caramel Sauce*
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
  1. Pop 1 cup of popcorn and put it into two 8x13 inch baking dishes.
  2. Stir together the caramel sauce ingredients, stirring in ½ teaspoon of sea salt.
  3. Drizzle the caramel sauce over the popcorn.
  4. Stir the caramel sauce all around the popcorn the best you can without making too many popcorny messes.
  5. Bake in a 250° for 10 minutes, then stir the popcorn.
  6. Bake for an additional 10 minutes.
  7. Remove Caramel Corn from oven and serve.

Find our delicious, no-corn-syrup Caramel Sauce recipe here!

If there is any left after you feed this to your family, package some up to give as gifts. Yep, people everywhere will be talking with their mouths full. It’ll be a beautiful, Christmas moment.

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