Heavenly Homemakers

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Menu Plan for the Week – Branching Out and Eating a Variety

January 19, 2014 by Laura 61 Comments

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

31 Days 300

My Real Food Reality tip for you today is to be brave! Try something new! You know…like cauliflower. It’s a brand new vegetable. It’s the latest craze in the produce section. Everyone is talking about it.

Uh-huh.

It’s just that our family has just never been very big on cauliflower. So this week, in an effort to give us more vegetable variety (green beans, peas, broccoli…green beans, peas, broccoli…yawn, ho-hum, snooze) – I’m branching out and experimenting with a new cauliflower recipe. Actually, I haven’t found a recipe yet, but I’m sure it’s out there. Have anything for me???

How can you branch out? What “new” real food can you try? I encourage you to continue trying new foods to expand the variety of healthy options you can serve to your families!

Crock Pot Hamburger Cream Cheese Dip

My kids have been requesting this Crock Pot Hamburger Cream Cheese Dip for several weeks. 
I’m finally remembering to add it to the menu plan.
Tasty, fun, and easy!

Here’s our menu plan for the week:

Sunday, January 19
Instant oatmeal, dried fruit
Leftovers
Small group – Alfredo sauce with pasta, sides others bring along

Monday, January 20
Easy biscuits and gravy, apples
Hamburgers, chips, carrots, raspberries (friends coming over for Elias’ birthday)
Chicken tacos, fresh pineapple

Tuesday, January 21
Pancake sausage muffins, oranges
Grilled cheese, tomato soup, applesauce, sweet pepper slices
One dish meat and potato casserole, tossed salad

Wednesday, January 22
Breakfast cake muffins, bananas
Easy noodle stir-fry with broccoli, carrots, and zucchini
Sweet and sour meatballs (recipe in Let’s Do This eCourse, Lesson 5), rice, something with cauliflower  :)

Thursday, January 23
Homemade grape nuts cereal, blueberries
Chili mac, peas, sliced cucumbers with homemade ranch
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans

Friday, January 24
Raspberry oatmeal bars, clementines
Hamburger cream cheese dip, corn chips, fruit-kefir smoothies
Crock pot bbq chicken breasts, baked potatoes, tossed salad, steamed broccoli and carrots

Saturday, January 25
Zucchini bread, applesauce
Leftovers
Cheeseburger soup, tossed salad

Help a girl out! Give me some good cauliflower recipes (please)! And let us know what “new” real food you can try this week. :)

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Now, Now. Let’s Not Make This Difficult ~ Easy Orange Chicken, A Super Quick, Real Food Recipe

January 16, 2014 by Laura 19 Comments

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

31 Days 300

Why do we make it hard? Why do we think that cooking healthier foods always takes a long time? Relax now. My recipes are all made with real food, and most all of them are very low maintenance. This Easy Orange Chicken recipe will prove it.

The truth is that eating a real food diet is actually rather simple. We just have to get the hang of it. We just have to plan ahead a little bit. We just have to buy some chicken – at least if you want to make this recipe. I think I had this dish in the oven after about five minutes of prep time. That’s faster than making a box of mac and cheese, and I think it goes without saying that this tastes much better.

High Five Recipes

Have you scrolled through all of my High Five Recipes? If not, you should. If so, you should again. They are all high quality recipes which call for five ingredients or less. We’re talking everything from main dishes, to side dishes, to snacks and desserts. Real food. Real easy. So how about a new High Five Recipe?

Easy Orange ChickenYum

1 cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons onion soup mix
10-12 chicken legs

Place chicken legs in a 9×13 inch baking dish. Stir together orange juice and onion soup mix. Pour mixture over the chicken. Cover and bake in a 375° oven for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Variation:

Pour orange juice mixture over 6 chicken boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Bake in a 375° oven for 25 minutes, then uncover and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until juices run clear.

Easy Orange Chicken

During the final few minutes of cook time for your chicken, put together two or three vegetable side dishes. Brown rice is also wonderful with this chicken. Your meal will be satisfying, delicious, and you won’t even break a sweat preparing it.

Having homemade MSG-free Onion Soup Mix on hand is always super helpful. In fact, I encourage you to spend a few minutes putting together several of the seasoning mixes you’ll find on this page. They save so much time, taste so much better than purchased packets, are much healthier, and save money too!

I hope you’re beginning to see that eating a real food diet really isn’t complicated. What are your favorite “throw it together” healthy meals?

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I Want You To Have This!! Real Food Reality Package – Final Day For Huge Discount

January 15, 2014 by Laura 10 Comments

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

I really want you to have this package.  Why? Because the contents answer so many of the questions I get so often about:

  • Where to start if you want to begin eating a healthy, real food diet
  • How to be more chill about this whole thing.  It’s not nearly as difficult as you might think. Remember, it’s just food.
  • Simplifying your kitchen
  • How to keep up and how to get ahead, even when eating healthy food
  • Menu planning
  • Freezer cooking
  • Saving money
  • Recipes, recipes, recipes!!!

Today is the final day this Real Food Reality Package is just $19.95. Get it now! It’ll be a great help to you. And did I mention there are recipes? Many of them are our new favorites:  Poppyseed Bread with Orange Glaze, Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole, Sweet and Sour Meatballs, Blueberry Cream Muffins…

bacon_cheeseburger_casserole
Ah, Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole. My family cheers when I make this. And I cheer when I remember that I have one in the freezer, knowing that all I have to do to put dinner on the table is slide this casserole in the oven, then make a salad and another veggie to go with it. SO EASY.

Take advantage of this huge discount on all of these resources to make your real food reality, well – a reality!

Reality Resource Sale 2

Read all of the details about this package here.

Real Food Reality Package $19.95

click to purchse

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

Focus on Stocking Your Kitchen With Real Food Ingredients (A Giveaway Package from More Than Alive)

January 14, 2014 by Laura 634 Comments

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

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Grocery stores and online resources offer plenty of prepared foods. Some of them are even of the “healthier” variety, giving us some handy snacks to have on hand that are at least made from “better for you” ingredients. I appreciate having a few of these items on hand for when we’re traveling or for those days I truly can’t find an extra minute to make something to eat.

But what I find it better to focus on is simply purchasing real food ingredients. If I stock up on all the staple ingredients that I use frequently, I can be assured that with just a few minutes of work, we will have something great to eat! Even better, I find that if I have basic staple ingredients on hand, if I find a few extra minutes in the day, I can mix something up to put into the freezer for those days I don’t have time to cook (which is happening more and more as my kids get older).

Read more about my preferred staple ingredients here. And here’s something super fun to help us all get going with our real food stock pile…

More Than Alive, which carries many wonderful ingredients that I use daily, has put together a perfect package to give away. The quality of the food they offer is wonderful. I love that you can purchase in large quantities, or just by the pound if you prefer. (Although I found that if you purchase a larger quantity, typically the price per pound is much less!)  They offer free shipping on orders over $100, which is a huge money saver. I love it when healthy ingredients arrive on my porch!

Today, More Than Alive is even giving Heavenly Homemakers readers an additional 10% discount! Use the code HHBLOG10 to receive 10% off  any order over $50 (not including shipping). Don’t forget you get free shipping on orders over $100. This discount code is good through January 25, 2014.

more than alive 2

If you win this giveaway, you will receive one pound of each of the following:

  • Oats
  • Rice
  • Rapadura
  • Real Salt
  • Amaranth Seeds
  • Baking Powder (actually, you’ll just receive 1/4 pound of this)
  • Coconut Flour
  • Sunflower seeds
  • Sesame seeds
  • Raisins

Do you know all the wonderful foods you can make with this package? Love this!

For a chance to win this giveaway from More Than Alive, leave a comment on this post. I’ll draw a random winner on Friday, January 17. Be watching for a post stating the winner as you will be responsible for contacting me if your name is chosen!

 

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

Start the Day With a Healthy (Quick & Easy) Breakfast {31 Days of Real Food Reality ~ Day 13}

January 12, 2014 by Laura 20 Comments

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

I’m almost as passionate about eating a healthy breakfast as I am about eating lots of butter. They’re both super important. Therefore…feel free to spread butter all over your breakfast. Oh yeah.

breakfast_casserole

But wait. You don’t have time to cook a healthy breakfast every morning? Me neither.  I mean, if I felt like losing an hour of sleep, skipping my much needed Bible time, foregoing my morning work-out, or beginning my day by being glued to a griddle while flipping countless pancakes – I could make the time to cook a healthy, hearty breakfast every morning. But well…I don’t.

breakfast_cake_3

That’s what scares us away from making a healthy breakfast isn’t it? Time. Effort. School. Work. Schedules. I get it. I’m with ya. I have plenty of other things to do in the morning and I like sleeping. I don’t like the stress of trying to get everyone going in the morning while trying to keep breakfast from burning on the stove. So does that mean we take the easy way out and buy boxed, convenience foods for breakfast? Sure, if you want to feel like junk all day and start your kids’ school day off with a big, blurry bang that ends in a sugar crash by morning recess. But what if there is a way to have a nourishing breakfast without the morning stress?

breakfast_2

Oh yes. There is definitely a way. I am loving this real food reality which includes a hearty, healthy, no brainer breakfast each morning.

I do everything possible to make healthy breakfast foods ahead of time so that all I have to do in the morning to get a nourishing breakfast on the table is open a container. Or boil water. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll “go to the trouble” of scrambling or frying eggs, which takes about five minutes. (Or better yet, I assign that task to one of my boys. Hurray for kids who are old enough to use a stove!)

tourney food1

How do I put a healthy breakfast on the table without much effort each morning?

  • I make breakfast the night before. Or…
  • I make breakfast foods for the freezer. Or…
  • I set out the Homemade Instant Oatmeal and let the kids make a bowl when they get up.

Seriously, making a healthy breakfast is not hard. We do not have to resort to boxed food. It’s just a matter of planning ahead and focusing on food that is real and nourishing. Real food – it is amazing.

Here are some of my favorite healthy, make-ahead breakfast ideas:

  • Prepare an Easy Breakfast Casserole and simply take it out of the fridge and bake it in the morning.
  • Make Simple Whole Wheat Pancakes or Whole Wheat Waffles, allow them to cool, freeze them, then toast them to warm them up for a convenient breakfast just like an Eggo Waffle…except cheaper and healthier.
  • Mix up and roll out biscuits, freezing them for a quick breakfast.
  • Cook bacon or Turkey Sausage, then simply reheat in the morning or cook it up with some eggs.
  • Throw yogurt and frozen fruit into the blender for a smoothie.
  • Make muffin batter and put it in the freezer for fast, fresh muffins in the morning (one of my favorite freezer cooking tips!).
  • Bake breakfast bars in the evening before closing up the kitchen.
  • Make a batch of Easy Granola, Dark Chocolate Almond Granola, or Grape Nuts Cereal to grab and eat in the morning.

And always, always serve fruit with breakfast.  That’s the healthiest convenience food there is. :)

As soon as we start making some healthy foods ahead of time, and stop assuming that eating healthy food is difficult, we’ll be well on our way to saving money and keeping our lives so much simpler in the kitchen! Plus, when we begin our day with a nourishing breakfast, we get our body off to a great start – setting the pace for a great day ahead.

add fruits and veggiesAnd there’s more!

Need some easy, healthy breakfast inspiration? We have a freebie for you!

To help us all along in this effort, I created a downloadable chart with 31 Days of Real Food Breakfast Ideas. It is internet linked, so all you have to do is click to find the recipe referred to on the chart.

Eggs and smoothies. Smoothies and eggs. Cereal. Cereal. Cereal. Snore. Need a change of pace? Want some fresh ideas? We’ve got a free printable for you that includes 31 Days of Real Food Breakfast Ideas!


All 31 ideas are recipe linked. Every recipe is made from real food: Whole grain, healthy fats, wholesome sweeteners. It’s all simple, it’s all delicious, and it will inspire you with fresh ideas for ways to feed your family each morning.

Unless you enjoy eating breakfast at night for dinner. (For some reason, waffles taste better at night. We don’t understand it. We just go with it!)

Mix it up. Substitute your favorite fruits – whatever is in season! Be sure to add protein to each meal if needed. There’s no right or wrong way to use this free printable full of ideas. We just hope you use it!

 —> Want some simple real food dinner ideas too? Check out this huge list! <—-

By the way, want to eat cookies for breakfast? With bacon? Strawberries and cream? Life is good, and so is your health. Real food for the win! (Seriously. Stop being afraid of bacon and cream. It’s real food, our bodies can utilize it for nourishment, and when we eat real food in balance, we can be healthy!)

We’re happy to share this 31 Days of Real Food Breakfast Ideas printable with you to use in whatever way works best for your family. Adapt it, pick and choose what works for you, and enjoy!

BONUS: Using these recipes will save you big bucks! How? Well, have you seen the price of a box of cereal? Making a homemade breakfast is quite a money saver. We love it!

Get your free printable 31 Days of Real Food Breakfast Ideas. Signing up to receive this will connect you to our Savings Club, providing you with relevant money-saving tips, recipes, ideas, and inspiration!

There you go – 31 healthy, make-ahead, family friendly, money-saving, real food breakfast ideas!

What are your favorite ways to get a healthy breakfast on the table quickly in the morning?

It’s here! Check out our amazing Simple Meals program!

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Stop Calling It Health Food {31 Days of Real Food Reality ~ Day 9}

January 8, 2014 by Laura 14 Comments

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We were at a friend’s house. The dear lady had been brave enough to offer to feed a meal to our family of six big eaters. As she got pulled a pizza out of the oven, one of my boys (who was pretty little at the time) proclaimed, “Uh-oh, Mama! She made us the unhealthy kind!!”

I shrugged, smiled, and responded by doing what any wise mother would do: I slunk down under the table, never to return.

At that point, it became clear to me that I had created a monster. Four monsters actually, but thankfully the littlest one couldn’t talk yet.

See, when we were transitioning to a whole foods diet several years ago, my kids, who were used to being served meals from a box or a can, found themselves with a freaked-out sort of mama. I swung our food pendulum from one side to the other, and became afraid of anything that wasn’t organic, grass fed, soaked, fermented, and free of all additives, dyes, flavorings – and felt that I would certainly be poisoning us all if even a morsel of it crossed our lips. I did exactly what I now encourage you all NOT to do as you baby step your way toward real food cooking and eating. In an effort to educate my kids as we were making seven hundred changes all at one time, I spoke way too often about what was healthy, and what wasn’t.

Part of this was good. I believe we need to make our family aware of the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to healthy eating. They need to understand why we’re opting to make changes in the kitchen. It’s only fair.

But particularly if you have kids or a husband who is not excited about making healthy changes, and definitely so that your kids won’t throw you under the bus when someone feeds you something that might just contain a bit of Velveeta or MSG – it’s a very good idea to chill out with the “we are now eating health food” family conversations. There is no need to make a big shebang at each meal as you announce that: “The healthy, real food meal is now on the table, and it will nourish us all so much better than the processed food we used to eat, especially since it contains leafy greens and abundant antioxidants…” I mean, maybe that will make your family come running to the table with eagerness, but I’m pretty sure if you just place the nourishing, well balanced meal on the table and holler, “The pot roast is ready!” they’ll be much more relaxed as they join you for the feast.

See, here’s the deal:  The healthy food we should be eating? All of this real food I’m always talking about and encouraging you to focus on? It’s all just…food. When my grandma served her chicken soup, pickled beets, homemade bread, and real butter – while it was all very healthy, in her mind, she was simply serving food. It was food in its whole form, so without even trying, she was serving us “health food.” But it would have made her chuckle for someone to call it that.

Do make your family aware of how they can make good choices when it comes to healthy eating. And definitely don’t be deceitful or sneaky in your food preparation and efforts to get nutrients into your family. But it might be a good idea to avoid making a huge deal about how “we’re going to be eating really healthy now.”

Create yummy dishes. Make tasty snacks. Use real food while you’re cooking and baking. Know that you are putting together delicious, real, whole, healthy food for your family, and that it can be as simple as Grandma’s fried chicken.

To give an example of this, tomorrow’s Real Food Reality post includes a recipe for Cheeseburger Soup. It’s a real food recipe, filled with wholesome goodness, but no one would eat it and declare, “Oh, what wonderful health food we are eating.” They’ll just devour it and call it wonderful. Oh how I love recipes like this. Can’t wait to share it with you!

Have your kids ever embarrassed you by proclaiming someone else’s food to be unhealthy? Come….come join me under the mortified mom’s table.

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

Real Food Reality Resources Package – Wait Till You See This!

January 8, 2014 by Laura 5 Comments

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

31 Days 300

It’s everything you need to gently walk through your journey to a Real Food Kitchen. Don’t know where to start? Can’t even find your kitchen? Hoping to save money and time? Need as many menu planning ideas as you can get? Check, check, check, check, and then some. This package covers it all!

Reality Resource Sale 2

This package includes five wonderful resources to make your transition to real food cooking a reality. I’m so excited to package these up and knock a bunch of money off the price in an effort to save you money coming and going. Yep, while you’ll be saving a nice percentage off the regular price of the eBooks and eCourses in this package, you’ll also be amazed at the money you’ll save by following the steps and tips described in these eCourses and eBooks. Here’s what this package includes:

Do the Funky Kitchen

Having an organized, well equipped kitchen isn’t a must, but well, it is very helpful. Spend a little time following the suggestions in this eBook, and have a functional (funky!) kitchen that you’ll love! Read more here…

Heavenly Homemaker’s 40 Weekly Menu Planning Ideas Packet

You’ll receive 40 simple, real food, family friendly, easy recipe menu plans in this packet. It is internet linked so that when you see a meal idea within a menu plan that you like, you can click the link directly from the eBook to find the recipe online. Be inspired and receive countless meal planning ideas! Read more here…

You Can Do This! The First Five Steps to a Real Food Kitchen

It’s an eCourse that includes five thorough but simple lessons to walk you through transforming your kitchen into a real food kitchen – one little step at a time. Work at your own pace. Work at it in your jammies. Love where this journey takes you! Read more here…

Let’s Do This! Getting Ahead in Your Real Food Kitchen

My favorite way to serve real food to my family is by making food ahead of time so that I have healthy convenience foods ready to grab and go. This five lesson eCourse teaches you how you can not only keep up in your real food kitchen – you can actually get ahead! You’ll love these methods and find that getting ahead in your real food kitchen is easier than you think! Read more here…

{Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks

It’s an eBook full of easy, real food recipes that can all be made ahead of time and frozen for easy use. This includes many of my family’s favorite casseroles and snacks. This eBook will save you time and money, and the recipes are delicious too! Enjoy getting ahead with these fun recipes! Read more here…

Bonus!

The You Can Do This! eCourse automatically comes with a free set of What To Do With the Chicken in Your Kitchen Recipe Cards, which includes 24 delicious, real food chicken recipes on cute, printable cards. Enjoy this free bonus worth an additional $6!

Get your Real Food Reality Resources Package

$19.95

click to purchse

And one more thing…

I must also encourage you to purchase my Oh, For Real: Real Food, Real Family, Real Easy printed cookbook. It’s a wonderful resource to have in your hands and in your kitchen. Consider adding the book to this purchase and we’ll get it sent out to you right away.

ForRealBookCover6

Oh, For Real: Real Food, Real Family, Real Easy 

$25.95
Price includes shipping – U.S. only

Add to Cart

Just want the Real Food Reality Resources Package?
Get it here for $19.95.

click to purchse

Our goal is that these resources will be a blessing to you as you venture on this real food journey!

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

One Step at a Time {31 Days of Real Food Reality ~ Day 2}

January 1, 2014 by Laura 18 Comments

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

31 Days 300

It’s an exciting time! The holidays are over, and many of us are looking forward to starting fresh and becoming healthier!

Looking forward to chucking all of the processed foods in your house, eating three vegetables with every meal, transforming your refrigerator so that it only contains homemade condiments, keeping up with meal planning consistently, packing healthy lunches every day for your kids, making all of your own baked goods using only whole grains and unprocessed sugars, and never touching store bought candy again for the rest of your life? That’s awesome! These are all wonderful goals. Hoping to do it all by tomorrow? I love your ambition, but chill out with a piece of chocolate. That may not be reality.

As someone who is encouraging you to eat a healthy diet, let me be clear. When I say, “chill out with a piece of chocolate,” I totally mean, “relax while you munch a radish.” Obviously. But my point is that if you try to make too many good changes at once, setting 42 healthy living goals in an effort to completely transform your life overnight, you may become so overwhelmed that within two days you’ll decide that there’s no way you can keep up with this healthy, real food business. At the very least, you’ll likely freak out the people around you, giving them the impression that life as they know it and their loved one’s sanity (that would be yours) just got thrown out with the Fruitie Magrooties.

Let me remind you that every healthy change you make is a wonderful step in the right direction. Usually, taking one step at a time makes the transition from junk food to real food much more doable as opposed to making many drastic changes all at once. People who go from all to nothing (or nothing to all, as the case may be) are much more likely to get frustrated, become overwhelmed, and give up before they even really get started.

You didn’t learn to count, add, subtract, multiply, divide, reduce fractions, and master hyperbolic trigonometry all in the same day did you? Neither will you transform your kitchen and eating habits all in the same day. Or week. Or month.

Take small steps toward switching from processed food to real food. Begin to cut out the bad slowly, while introducing the good at a pace that is doable for you and your family. Why not make a list of healthy habits you’d like to begin, then prioritize them in order of importance to you? Or start with the easiest ones first. Once you get the hang of one, you can tackle another.

Before you know it, you’ll be a whiz at hyperbolic trigonometry. Or rather, you’ll be like me and have no idea what that even is. But by golly, you’ll be drinking plenty of water and eating much less sugar than you used to. And on it goes.

Fruitie Magrooties, it was nice knowing you. Healthy living, here we come!

What is one step you can start taking today that will be doable for you and your family as you work your way toward a healthier lifestyle?

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

The Reality Is, We Can’t Do This Without God’s Help {31 Days of Real Food Reality, Day 1}

December 31, 2013 by Laura 19 Comments

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

31 Days 300

I can share all of my greatest healthy eating tips, impart all of my real food wisdom, and encourage you until I fall out of my chair. But the reality is, if eating real food is important to you, and you want to make healthy changes for yourself and for your family – you are going to first need to take your desires to God.

Think God doesn’t have time to listen to your concerns about your picky kids or limited grocery budget? Feel silly asking God for help when it comes to choosing vegetables over potato chips? Figure there are bigger cares to take before the throne than your transition to whole grains and brown rice? Then let me ask you this:  How long have you been burdened by the desire to be healthier? How many times have you felt frustrated when you feel like you’ve failed, when your family hasn’t jumped on board with you, or when you’ve slipped back into unhealthy eating habits? God loves you no matter what, and sees you through His eyes of grace. But if you desire to make healthy changes, oh yes, He very much cares and will help you. He knows exactly what your limits are, and He knows exactly what you need. He’s got this!

Case in point:  Do you know how long I’ve tried to stop craving and eating too much sugar? (From about the time I turned 6.)  Do you know how hard I’ve worked to have self-control when it comes to chocolate? (I mean, it’s chocolate.)  Do you know how many times I’ve tried and failed to help my picky eaters make good choices? (Why won’t they just put the cauliflower into their tiny little mouths and chew?)

cauliflower

This is going to sound cliché, but what-ever, because it applies to all areas of life, including chocolate and cauliflower:  We can do nothing without God’s help.

If I’ve learned anything the past year, it is that on my own, I am weak and fall short. But when I give up my own control and accept God’s power to work through me, I am incredibly strong. Take it from a (recovering) chocolate, sugar, dessert addict who finally let God take over this weakness a few months ago. I’ve been trying on my own for years. My will power would carry me for a few days, then I’d slip back into my old chocolate-covered habits again. But I’m finally accepting God’s power to work in me with this, which is, without a doubt, so much more amazing than my own pitiful, sugar-coated will power.

Do you want to make healthy changes in your kitchen for yourself and for your family? Then confidently tell God your desires. And none of this worried kind of prayer either. “Oh God, I’m so scared that my kids are going to get scurvy because they won’t eat vegetables. Will you please help?” No, no. God already knows our desires and is our absolute helper.  Pray confidently! “God, you know how much I desire for our family to learn to like healthier foods. I know you can work this out for us. I trust You and am excited to see You do this for us!” or  “Father, you know our resources are limited, and you also know how eager I am to honor you by staying healthy. I trust you to provide and to show me how to make this work!”

Pray, listen, and confidently accept His gift of peace in this area of your life.

Setting goals is good. Making plans is wise. Becoming excited about making healthy changes is wonderful. But don’t start this new year by making goals and trying to make changes. Start by asking God to do His work in you and in your family. It’s the first step you should take toward making real food a reality!

Obviously, this can be applied to anything you desire – not just a desire to become healthier.  Care to share some of your desires for this new year?

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31 Days of Real Food Reality – Featured January 2014!

December 29, 2013 by Laura 64 Comments

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

Ready to drop kick the sugar habit? Excited about making healthy changes in the new year? Looking to learn more about how to cook and serve real food? Hoping to continue (or start) replacing processed food with whole food?

Want someone to make it easy for you?

31 Days

Every single day during the month of January, we’ll have a post that will equip, inspire, and encourage you on your journey to real food eating. Why is it called “Real Food Reality?” Because as always, everything about this series will be doable for you. Real food for your real life.  There’s nothing complicated or time consuming about what I’ll be sharing. I’m not going to ask you to stop eating grains or meat or dairy or…chocolate. I’m not going to kill your grocery budget. I’m not going to insist that you eat weird food, make you give up your favorite foods, or heap on any guilt about the fact that you don’t eat a perfect diet.

I’ll share my real food reality with you – and you can simply relax and join the fun. Sound good?

Make your real food goals a reality in 2014!

Before we get started, please share: What is the biggest challenge for you when it comes to eating and cooking real foods?

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