Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

It’s Almost Holiday Time. Are You Ready!?

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This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

You know how I always think about food? This time of year, my obsession is worse. (This is something you didn’t think was possible.)

It’s like the falling leaves trigger a simultaneous cinnamon and turkey craving, which of course leads me to order 50 pounds of oats and 12 bags of chocolate chips. If this doesn’t make sense to you, I’m not sure I can find words to explain. I just love food. Holidays mean I have an excuse to do extra baking, which makes me very, very happy. It also makes me stock up on potatoes. Don’t try to understand me. Just nod and smile.

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Pumpkin Pecan Pie Squares Recipe, part of this balanced holiday season

When I close my eyes at night, all I see is apples. This is because everywhere I turn in my kitchen, apples are taunting me with their, “I know you’ve already made applesauce and apple pie filling with 314 pounds of us this year, but when are you going to get around to turning me into a pie?” I’ve got two pumpkins and four butternut squash on my countertop right now, waiting to become pies, soup, and muffins. (You know you can switch pureed butternut squash out with pureed pumpkin and no one knows the difference, right? True fact.)

In my spare time, which of course is never, but if I happen to walk past my pantry to get the broom, I open the door to stare for a half-second at the beautiful contents within. Cocoa powder, next to a tall jar of sucanat, next to a container of sea salt, next to a jar of baking powder? Just think of the culinary possibilities.

You know me. I love the heat and sunshine in the summertime more than any other season. But if it’s going to turn chilly (and then frigid, thank you Nebraska), I figure I may as well start looking forward to the holiday pie, right? I can’t help it anyway, because here I am, gazing with longing at the vanilla and sweet potatoes. Summer with its salads and grilled veggies and cook-outs are awesome, but God is good to make fall and winter food just as exciting. Cheeseburger Soup is rocking my world right now, and I think it goes without saying that the smell of Pumpkin Bread is the definition of comfort.

What does all this mean? (Besides the fact that I love food.)  All of this means that there are only 27 days until Thanksgiving and 53 days until Christmas. Bring on the holiday parties, delicious recipes, and joy with friends and family! Specifically, bring on the Honey Pecan Pie. Thank you very much.

To keep joy in your holidays, we are excited to offer our Heavenly Homemakers Guide to Holiday Hospitality eBook and our Heavenly Homemakers Guide to Holiday Hospitality for Kids eBook for just $1 each, now through Sunday, November 2. These books are full of organizational guides, recipes, menu plans, and more – to help you enjoy your holiday season and encourage you as you love others during this time. The organizational tips in this book begin on November 1. That’s why we’re offering a sale this weekend. You need these books starting…NOW! :)

Holiday Hospitality Package

Leave a comment sharing what you love about this time of year! (Me? I love the food. My goodness, I believe I mentioned that already.)  Grab these now while they are just a buck each!

Heavenly Homemakers Guide to Holiday Hospitality

$6.95 
$1.00

Add to Cart

Heavenly Homemakers Guide to Holiday Hospitality for Kids
$6.95
$1.00

Add to Cart

 

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Do The Funky Kitchen – Now on Kindle!

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Feeling unorganized? Wish the gunk stuck to your refrigerator shelves was cleaned off? Want a more organized pantry? Hoping to create a healthy kitchen that your family can enjoy together?  Like reading books on Kindle?

We have exciting news —>  Do The Funky Kitchen: How to Have a Functional Kitchen is now available on Kindle at Amazon!

funky_kitchen_amazon

I do have to warn you that simply reading this book will not be the magic cure to saving your dysfunctional kitchen. You still have to do the work. (There should be an app for that…)

But Do The Funky Kitchen will give you the jump start you need to get your kitchen fresh and organized for the fall season. Or any season.

Prefer the ebook version? You can grab it directly from our shop. But if an eReader is what works best for you, we’re so happy to offer this option for you! (Check out the introductory price!)

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Oh Beautiful Jars!! Stocked and Ready For Gawking

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This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

One of the jobs on my “To Do” List was to refill all of the jars in my pantry so that I’d have easy access to all of the staple ingredients I reach for so often. Since I typically purchase these ingredients in 25-50 pound quantities, I store them big buckets, and pour a smaller portion into easy-access jars in my kitchen, refilling as needed. (Read more here about where I purchase most of my food, and scroll through these posts to learn more about my bulk shopping and storage.)

My favorite part of this system, besides the fact, of course, that this just makes my life easier and saves us money while we strive to eat a whole foods diet is this:  I love staring at my jars full of pretty food.

It’s a slight obsession. A major obsession? Yeah, probably something like that.

Well, after just a few minutes of going back and forth from storage room to kitchen, lugging buckets and bags of dry goods (a great upper arm work-out!), all of my jars are re-stocked and ready to go. Pasta, sucanat, wheat, salt, beans, corn, and rice. Oh so beautiful.

 This is the part of my pantry I stare at when I most need a fix:

Hey, it’s much healthier than my former Pepsi addiction, right? :)

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Organize Your Pantry and Shelves with CanOrganizer – A Giveaway!

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Remember my scary storage room clean up and how I like to stare at my bulk food? I’m very excited that my new organizers from CanOrganizers.com help even more to keep my food storage area organized, which makes it even more fun to stare at my groceries. (geek)

I don’t use many canned foods, but I do try to have a few canned items on hand at all times for quick meals. I’ve got my new CanOrganizers stocked with our organic coconut milk, canned salmon and tuna (all from Amazon) and some organic raw honey (from Tropical Traditions). The kids loved helping me put the cans into the containers – you put them into the top, then they roll back and fall to the bottom. This makes it simple to grab a can, then a new can will automatically roll to the front for easy access!

I put my 11 year old on the task of putting together our CanOrganizers. They have a great video to watch which helped us figure out how to assemble them. It was a bit of a learning curve as we figured this out – let’s just say Justus and I bonded a little bit over pieces of heavy cardboard. But, once we figured out the first one, the other three went together fairly quickly!

Here’s some helpful information from CanOrganizer:

The 11″ deep Cupboard Organizer is perfect for smaller spaces like your cupboard where you need to maximize space. This is ideal where a pantry or extra storage may not be available. You can simply use one Organizer or many depending on your needs. Fill up your cupboard so you can easily find what you’re looking for!

The 16″ deep Shelf Organizer is deeper so you can store even more cans! Designed to fit nicely on your standard shelf so it is perfect for storage areas like your garage or storage room.

And finally the 22.5″ deep Pantry Organizer is the deepest of the bunch. This system is optimal for those deep pantries or storage racks where you have plenty of space. You will be amazed how many you can fit in the Organizer and well organized your food storage will be. Now you can hit those canned good sales and stock up for your family, saving money and having food on hand for whenever you need it.

These CanOrganizers come four to a pack, making them very economical – a perfect way to get yourself organized inexpensively! Plus, through the end of October, CanOrganizer is offering a 10% discount to all of us, by using the code:  HOME at check-out.

Interested in winning a pack of CanOrganizers? Leave a comment on this post letting us know which size would work best for you! I’ll draw two random winners on Monday, October 24.

This giveaway is now closed, thank you!

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Buying In Bulk – Gallons of Maple Syrup and Honey

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This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I’m working through a series in buying whole foods in bulk!
If you haven’t read them yet, you may be interested in : 
Why I Buy in Bulk and Buying in Bulk:  Do You Have the Space?

It’s almost Maple Syrup Day!! That’s not a national holiday (that I know of) – just the one Thursday every July that I buy three gallons of maple syrup. Why? Because that’s when the “maple syrup people” come to our Farmer’s Market for their once a year stop in my town. I buy what I hope will last me the year (although this year it didn’t, and I had to grab some from Amazon to get us by).

People have looked at me a little funny as I walk away with so much maple syrup, wondering why I would possibly want so much. Well, because we’re a family of six, because we have a lot of company, because we use it on our pancakes and waffles and french toast and in our milk shakes and soothers and in several other recipes. The maple syrup they bring to the Farmer’s Market is pure – I trust this family. Maple syrup is one of my top sweeteners of choice, and buying three gallons at a time saves me quite a bit of money and time. If I buy my year’s supply of maple syrup in July at the Farmer’s Market, I don’t have to think about maple syrup again until well…this year, it lasted us until May. 

I do the same thing with our hard white wheat berries, buying our entire year’s supply in February when my friend organizes a big truck delivery of the wonderful golden kernels. If you haven’t read my exclusive interview with myself after I purchased 500 pounds of wheat at one time, you may find it helpful – or at least amusing.

Do I buy everything in 365 day quantities? No. But with things like wheat and maple syrup, it just sort of makes sense for me to do it this way.  When I know it’s something we use continually, when I find a great price, when I know I may have a harder time getting my hands on a certain product – I stock up.

Take honey for example (because I thought you might need yet another sweet and sticky example after reading about maple syrup). Our “honey man” harvests a very limited quantity of raw, pure honey each fall. If I don’t buy all the honey I’ll need for the year in September, he’ll likely not have any more for me later. It makes sense for me to buy a year’s supply at once. 

I also do this with produce during the summer and fall. I know we’ll be needing 52 weeks worth of corn, green beans, tomato sauce, tomato soup, applesauce, peaches and pears…so I plant my garden and make my local farm produce purchases accordingly. (I also keep my nose the the ground – or is that my ear? I forget – and snatch all kinds of free produce people are happy to part with when they are feeling overloaded.)  During the months of July, August and September, we are crazy busy with preserving – either canning or freezing – our year’s supply of corn, green beans – all the foods I just mentioned. It just makes sense for our family.

I’m sure some of you are wondering:  How do we afford to buy such large quantities of maple syrup, wheat, honey, etc. at one time?  Here are two posts that might help answer that question:  How I Grocery Shop and Our 2011 Grocery Budget. I’ll be a little more specific about this topic next week! (to be continued…)

I’m curious if you buy a year’s supply of anything, or if you prefer buying smaller quantities?

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Cooking Ahead for August

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It’s coming…and I’m bracing myself. I’ve been doing everything I can to prepare and be organized so that I won’t be stressed and short tempered with my boys. Not that I would ever be short tempered with my boys. Ugh, I do try not to be short tempered with my precious angels who leave their stinky shoes in the middle of my kitchen floor so that I can stub my toe on them while I’m trying to cook and fill their constantly hungry bellies. I try.

So what’s coming, you ask? Just a very busy couple of months, that’s all. August and September are two months of very,very hard work while I do a lot of canning and preserving in the midst of beginning our school year and running to lots of soccer games. I absolutely love this time of year, but it can sometimes get hectic.

As soon as I finished writing and putting together Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve Curriculum Kit, I saw that I had about three weeks before we were going to start our school year. (We like to start in early August at our house.)  I decided that during the last part of July, I would prepare a bunch of freezer foods, stock up on items like canned salmon and tuna for easy meals and order meat from our local farm source so that I’d have a full freezer and plenty of meal options. I even pulled out Do the Funky Kitchen and read it again so that I could get my kitchen organized an in order! Anything that I could do ahead of time to prepare for this busy season, I did. I think. I’m pretty sure I forgot a few things.

Anyway, my pantry and freezers are well stocked so that putting meals on the table during the next few weeks will be easy and quick. I am excited now to begin a new school year with the boys! (More details on our school year coming soon.)

Here are some pictures of the food I prepared and froze during the last part of July:

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Strawberry Bread – Pictured above is the unbaked version. Isn’t it a pretty pink?!

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Mini Pizzas, using this Pizza Pockets recipe…
I’ll be able to just pop a few of these into our toaster oven to bake up while we finish our morning school-work.

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Whole Wheat Waffles – ready to be re-heated in our toaster oven for a quick breakfast or dinner.

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Whole Wheat Sourdough Biscuits – I may use these for turkey/cheese melts…or I may grab some turkey sausage I have pre-made in the freezer to make some quick gravy to pour over them. NOBODY would complain if I made biscuits and gravy. :)

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Sloppy Joes and Meat and Cheese Burritos

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Whole Wheat and Honey Zucchini Bread

In addition, I’ve got these items stashed in my freezer:

I also started a new gallon sized batch of Homemade Vanilla, which as you can see, will be finished “extracting” in January! I didn’t get “carded” this time when I was buying my gallon of vodka. Sniff.  Do you think that means I look older than 21 now? ;)

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Call me a nerd (go ahead – you know you want to), but I purchased a whole bunch of canning lids and put all of my canning supplies into a basket and put the basket on top of my fridge. That way, I know where everything is and I have it all ready to go each time I’m ready to can a new batch of something. I may be one of the only people who think that canning supplies in a basket is…cute.

canning_supplies

Okay, so food (lots and lots of food)? Check.  Schoolbooks? Check. Canning supplies? Check.

Oh good grief…where are the soccer cleats?

I knew I forgot something.

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