Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Granola Bar Cups – a Brilliant Way to Make Granola Bars To-Go!

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If all the brilliant people continue to share all their brilliant ideas, we will never run out of great ways to improve our lives in the kitchen and the ways we feed our family.

This time, we’re learning (from wonderful readers like you!) that we can follow my well-loved Chewy Granola Bars recipe, but instead of making them into bars as normal, we can press them into muffin cups. Need to pack them into a lunch box or be able to easily offer a single serving to cut down on the mess?

Try these Granola Bar Cups!

granola cups2

Yum

Recipes that work fantastically with this Granola Bar Cup idea are:

These are both no-bake recipes, which makes them very fast to put together.

The beauty of both of these recipes is that you can make them according to your family’s preferences and allergy needs. The Coconut Fudge Bars are much lower in sugar than other recipes, so I stick with that one now. If you need to use gluten free oats, you can. If you need to avoid peanuts, use another nut butter or sunbutter. The recipes are very forgiving, very quick to make, and very fun.

But even more fun is that you can press the mixture into muffin cups for easy transport and lunch box packing!

Granola Cups

Once they have chilled, you can slip one into a baggie and pack it to-go.

Easy Granola Bar Cups

If you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, those look like high sugar No-Bake Cookies I love,” you’ll be happy to know that they taste a lot like the beloved cookie we’ve all grown up loving. The difference is that we can eat these made with healthier ingredients and way less sugar. How fantastic is this?!

Thanks to all who shared this fun Granola Bar Cup idea!

Free Download - Lunch Box Cards

Want something else fun to pack into a lunch box?

Check out these great ideas and recipes that are great for the lunch box!

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How I Get a Soda Fix While Avoiding High Fructose Corn Syrup and Extra Sugar

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I’m the one who used to be addicted to Pepsi.

I’m the one who drank a minimum of 4-5 Pepsis every day. I’m the one who drank Pepsi for breakfast, Pepsi for a late morning refresher, Pepsi for an afternoon treat, and Pepsi with dinner. I’m the one who bought cases of Pepsi cans and loaded my cart with 2-liter bottles each time I went to the store.

I’m the one who took advantage of free refills at restaurants by filling my cup over and over and over. I’m the one who came up with excuses to go out to eat so I could refill my Pepsi cup over and over and over. I’m the one who had a double standard – not letting my kids drink soda, but going through the drive-through every time I was out so that I could get a large cup of Pepsi, easy on the ice.

I’m the one who finally learned more about eating healthy, decided to make big changes in our diets, started buying free-range chicken and organic lettuce, but still couldn’t give up Pepsi. I’m the one who learned to hate high fructose corn syrup, but still couldn’t give up Pepsi. I’m the one who had to land in the hospital because I hadn’t been taking care of myself before I recognized my need to stop drinking Pepsi and fill myself with nourishment.

So I’m the one who understands others who have a hard time giving up their favorite soda. I’m the one. I totally get it.

There were two main reasons I struggled to give it up:

  1. It tasted good to me. It was a treat!
  2. I love the fizzy burn of soda.

Now that I’m a recovering Pepsi addict (8 years clean!), I have actually come to a point that I don’t miss it any more. That’s a total God thing, and I’m so thankful for this!

But here are two things you should know:

  1. I still love drinks that are a treat.
  2. I still love the fizzy burn of soda.

I love drinking plain water, believe that drinking plain water is super important, and make drinking lots of plain water a high priority every day to keep my body healthy. We should never substitute our water drinking needs for “treat drinks.”

But just like I think food is fun, I think drinks are fun too. It’s fun to sit down with a cup of coffee topped with Chocolate Whipped Cream. It’s fun to sip a Warm Vanilla Soother. It’s fun to treat myself to a glass of refreshing iced tea. It’s fun to drink Creamy Orange Cooler with breakfast.

Enjoy Soda Without the Sugar

For my soda “fix?” Here are some fun treats I like occasionally:

1. Mineral Water With a Little Bit of Juice Added

I’ve found that about 1/4 cup of 100% juice (usually grape) mixed with about 1 1/2 cups of mineral water really hits the spot. It’s mildly sweet, fizzy, and fun.

2. 100% Juice Cans of Soda

I am so pleased that I continue to find more and more varieties of “healthier soda” on the market. It’s not cheap, and it’s still not going to offer us much in the way of nourishment – so we only drink this rarely. But it’s fun to order a case of this type of soda every once in a while for a special treat. It’s fizzy and sweet – but not too sweet because it only contains 100% fruit juice.

switch soda

3. Flavored Sparkling Water

It has no sugar, and no fruit – so if you’re looking for a sweet drink, this isn’t it. But the FIZZZZZZZZ!! I love the fizz in these. I think it’s fun that there are different flavors like lemon, lime, orange, etc. I just ordered a fun variety pack of Talking Rain Sparkling Water online. I’ll enjoy one every few days as a refreshing treat.

So how about you? Have you kicked the soda habit? What are your favorite “treat drinks?”

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Healthy Homemade Ketchup (finally!)

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I think I’ve been working on a homemade ketchup recipe for about forty years. (I have actually not reached the age of forty yet, but I am rather fond of exaggerating and I feel like I’ve been experimenting with ketchup for like totally forever.)

It’s taken quite a bit of trial and error to find a recipe that we think tastes good. So many recipes just don’t quite taste ketchupy enough for me. This recipe I’ve finally settled on is one I found and adapted from Happy in Dole Valley. I’m happy to say that this is a very easy recipe to make. Tastes good…healthy…and easy. Yes, this is the kind of recipe I like to share with you.

During my experiments, one of the toughest challenges was to sweeten the ketchup in a way we liked. I didn’t want it too sweet, but it did need to be a little bit sweet – and not too tomato-ee. (I’d like to see the words ketchupy and tomato-ee become a part of the dictionary someday, wouldn’t you?)

I tried making ketchup with raw honey to sweeten it, and found that the taste was too strong. Regular ol’ sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar juice) is a little crunchy in this recipe, so I finally figured out a great way to sweeten our homemade ketchup:  Grind the sucanat in the blender like you’re making this healthier, unprocessed powdered sugar…then add it to your ketchup ingredients. Easy and perfect!

Healthy Homemade KetchupYum

Healthy Homemade Ketchup (finally!)
 
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Ingredients
  • 7 ounces of tomato paste
  • ⅓ cup water
  • 2 Tablespoons vinegar (I used distilled coconut vinegar)
  • ¼ teaspoon onion powder
  • ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
  • ¼ teaspoon dry mustard
  • pinch of cinnamon
  • pinch of cloves
  • pinch of allspice
  • pinch of cayenne pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • ⅛ cup sucanat
Instructions
  1. Whisk ingredients together until mixed well and smooth.

I’ve found that if you grind the sucanat in the blender to make it less “crunchy” it works better.

Make french fries, get them nice and crunchy, salt them well with sea salt and give me a call.

Defining “a pinch”: When a recipe calls for “a pinch” of something, I usually put in about 1/8 teaspoon – an amount you could “pinch” between your fingers if you were to reach into the spice jar and pull some out. I don’t really like putting my fingers in to pinch my spices. But you go right ahead if you want to.

The true test with our Homemade Ketchup Experiment:  Did the kids like it?

All of my kids love ketchup, but one particular son of mine eats ketchup on everything:  eggs, green beans, broccoli… He’s also my pickiest kid (which is why he eats ketchup to get his veggies down). I  hesitantly put this homemade ketchup on his plate with a nice helping of homemade fries. He ate it. He loved it. He said, “Is this the homemade ketchup?” and I said, “Yep” and he said, “Wow it’s really good!”

Score! We have a winner!

Homemade Ketchup Recipe

Now that I’ve conquered ketchup, I’ll move on to some of the other recipes on the Heavenly Homemakers Recipe Challenge list. I’ve gotta say, I’ve been working on mayonnaise and it is about to kill me. I can not get a homemade mayonnaise to thicken even a little bit and it’s beginning to make me mad. Those of you who make mayo…what in the world is the secret to getting the ingredients to actually thicken into mayo? Ketchup took me forever to figure out, and now the mayo.  I apparently have condiment issues.

Well anyway, what’s your favorite use for ketchup? Please tell me it isn’t green beans, like my son.

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Why You Want Homemade Ice Cream

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Like I really need to give you a reason to want homemade ice cream? Especially the really creamy kind. The really creamy kind with homemade hot fudge sauce on it. (Now I’m just being cruel, aren’t I?)

I just wanted to remind you about the Ice Cream Experiment that I conducted about a year ago, in case you’re new here or in case you’ve forgotten.

To be inspired to make Homemade Ice Cream or to at least be encouraged to buy a more “real ingredient” variety of ice cream at the store, check out the following posts:

Here’s a little hint about why you want Homemade Ice Cream :

icecreamex22sm

This was Ice Cream Brand One after sitting for eight days on my countertop.
Mmmmm, ice cream that doesn’t melt. Tasty.

Let’s all give three cheers for real, whole food, shall we?

Now that I’ve shared all that, I have to tell you that I’m sitting here shivering while I write about ice cream. Where we live, we keep shifting from ice cream weather to hot cocoa weather. Some days I’m so confused I make hot cocoa to go with our ice cream .

Not really. But I am confused about what season it is here in Nebraska.

Do share…where you live are you experiencing Ice Cream weather or Hot Cocoa weather?

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