Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

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.)  ;)

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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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Menu Plan for the Week

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As I mentioned last week, we won’t be hosting High School Huddle at our house again until January. This week, middle and high school huddles come together at the church building for a Christmas get-together. Asa and Justus are in charge of making snacks to take to this get together, since they are in high school and middle school. I love watching my boys cook – they do a great job!

I’m excited to make some Peppernuts this week.
My grandma always made these little cookies around Christmastime and I loved them.
They are a perfect snack with hot cocoa.

Here’s what our menu looks like for this week:

Sunday, December 11
Marriage class treat – Mini apple pies
Beef roast, carrots, potatoes, gravy
Huddle Christmas party – taking Cream Cheese Salsa Dip and chips

Monday, December 12
Applesauce bread, bananas
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
Turkey sausage and red bean stew, cornbread

Tuesday, December 13
Mini breakfast pizzas, oranges
Baked potatoes with butter and sour cream, green beans
Italian cream cheese chicken, steamed broccoli and carrots

Wednesday, December 14
Homemade poptarts (maybe made with Christmas cookie cutters?!)
Chicken tortilla soup, fruit-kefir smoothies
One dish meat and potato meal, peas

Thursday, December 15
Scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, hashbrowns
Bbq chicken, potato wedges, peas
Three cheese garlic chicken pasta, tossed salad

Friday, December 16
Peanut butter honey toast, apples
Bean and cheese burritos, fruit salad
Lamb-burgers, onion rings

Saturday, December 17
Funnel cakes (shaped like snowflakes, maybe?)
Leftovers
Beef stroganoff, green beans

What’s on your menu this week?

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Fun {healthier} Holiday Baking

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What with all the butter I hear you’ve been going through lately, it sounds like there’s a lot of fun Christmas baking going on out there! I actually haven’t even started doing my baking yet, but I will start soon. Oh yes, the butter and sucanat are going to start flying around here.

As I began to make my baking plans, I put together a list of some of my favorite holiday cookies and treats. All of these are made with healthier flours and sugars (usually honey or sucanat). I won’t be making all of these treats, but  I’m really hungry right now, so I just kept adding to the list.

Gingerbread Men

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Applesauce Bread

Peppernuts

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Christmas Graham Crackers

Reindeer Brownies

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Coconut Macaroons

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Snickerdoodles

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Orange Cream Cheese Cut Out Cookies

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Christmas Spice Cookies

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Chocolate Snowballs

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Reindeer Cuties

What’s on your Christmas baking list this year?

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Since I’ve been sick, we made different plans for our High School Huddle so that I didn’t need to host and cook for 35 people tonight. With all the different events going on through the end of the year, we actually won’t be hosting Huddle again until January. I guess I’ll enjoy a nice long break. :)

While cooking meat for today’s tacos, I’ll be cooking extra meat to use throughout the week for Taco Potatoes and Taco Corn Fritters. Just trying to be efficient with my time during the Christmas season!

We’ve enjoyed this Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe so much. One reader, Emily, mentioned that she’s been making these Coconut Flour Muffins into Pumpkin Muffins – a great gluten free variety! I’m hoping to give those a try this week and report back with the specifics. There’s not much better than pumpkin and cinnamon this time of year.

Here’s what’s on our menu this week:

Sunday, December 4
Oatmeal, pears
Spaghetti, tossed salad, corn
Tacos

Monday, December 5
Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, bananas
Taco potatoes, fruit salad
Easy noodle stir fry with broccoli and carrots

Tuesday, December 6
Giant breakfast cookies, applesauce
Popcorn chicken, potato wedges, peas
Potato soup, raw veggies

Wednesday, December 7
Multi-grain pumpkin waffles
Lamb-burger patties, steamed veggies, milkshakes
Venison fajitas

Thursday, December 8
Honey wheat bagels, apples
Homemade beef balogna, creamy mac and cheese, green beans
Chicken burritos, fruit

Friday, December 9
Mini apple pies, cheese slices
Taco corn fritters, peaches
Homemade pizza

Saturday, December 10
French toast
Leftovers
Pigs in a blanket, green beans

Have you been doing any fun Christmas baking?

Be watching this week for a fun Holiday Giveaway Parade!

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

Menu Plan for the Week

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All last week, I cooked, and I cooked, and I baked – and I loved it all. But once Thanksgiving day was over, I felt ready for a break from preparing food! I didn’t cook a thing on Friday, and we instead ate leftovers (which I let everyone warm up on their own). On Saturday, I sucked it up and took the time to make Turkey and Noodles (just like my Chicken and Noodles recipe) from the leftovers. And now that I’m working on our menu plan for this week, I’ll admit that I’m having  a hard time motivating myself. Maybe I’ll resort to my Mac and Cheese solution this week? ;)

Sunday, November 27
Oatmeal, pears
Taco salad (because I’m feeling rebellious against turkey and I feel like a salad)
Turkey veggie quesadillas (because I think I can handle turkey again after eating some beef for lunch)

Monday, November 28
Simple soaked pancakes, blueberries
Corn dog muffins, carrot sticks, applesauce
Turkey alfredo with pasta, steamed broccoli and carrots

Tuesday, November 29
Honey whole wheat bagels, apple slices
Tuna salad on crispy cheese crackers, fruit salad
Creamy turkey and rice casserole, green beans

Wednesday, November 30
Scrambled eggs, creamy orange cooler
Bean and cheese burritos, peaches
Taco potatoes

Thursday, December 1
Warm vanilla soother, toast
Homemade beef bologna, cheese, crackers, apples
Italian pasta bake, tossed salad

Friday, December 2
Sweet potato streusel muffins, applesauce
Chicken tortilla soup, raw veggies
Hamburgers, homemade fries, carrots

Saturday, December 3
Whole wheat donuts
Leftovers
Steak fajitas

What’s on your menu this week?

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Menu Plan for the Week

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For our Marriage Class treat this morning, I decided to make a variation of my Oatmeal Butterscotch Chip Cookie recipe. Instead of butterscotch chips, I used chocolate. And, instead of making the batter into cookies, I pressed it all into a 9×13 pan and baked for 20 minutes. The results were terrific. We have exactly two small cookie bars left. ;)

This week will be a little bit different in that:

  • High School Huddle will be combined with Middle School Huddle, so several of us are combining our efforts to feed the larger group. I feel like I have “the night off” since I’m only taking a few things that I purchased from the store.
  • Our local college has the week off, but some of the sports teams are still in town for a few days. We’re hoping to feed the ladies’ basketball team sometime this week. I’ve “penciled” them into Monday’s lunch, but may need to rearrange this plan once I nail down the extact time with the coach.
  • We’ll be sticking around here for Thanksgiving and have several college students to join us for our big meal.

I’ll try to take a few pictures throughout the week to document our Thanksgiving meal prep – IF I have my act together enough to cook and take pics. I did actually get our turkey baked and deboned yesterday. It’s always great to get that job out of the way! :)

Here are plans for this week:

Sunday, November 20
Marriage class treat – Oatmeal chocolate chip bars
Lunch – Cheeseburger macaroni, steamed broccoli and carrots
Huddle – combined with middle school – taking cheese, crackers, carrots and ranch

Monday, November 21
Multi-grain pumpkin waffles
Bball team? – Sloppy Joes, relish tray (carrots, broccoli, olives, pickles), potato salad, chocolate chip cookies
Chicken fried steak strips, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas

Tuesday, November 22
Coconut flour banana muffins, apples
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
Tacos

Wednesday, November 23
Easy breakfast casserole, oranges
Clean out the fridge while Mom preps food for tomorrow!
Chicken noodle soup, carrots

Thursday, November 24
Cereal, so Mom can focus on cooking the good stuff  :)
Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, cream cheese corn, stuffing, sweet potatoes, homemade whole wheat rolls, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, cheesecake
Leftovers

Friday, November 25
Scrambled eggs with cheese, creamy orange cooler
Leftovers
Hamburgers, ranch potato wedges, carrots

Saturday, November 26
Whole wheat sourdough biscuits with butter and honey, fruit
Leftovers (unless we’re sick of them – or have eaten them all – by now!)
Lamb burger patties, green beans, fried okra

What are your Thanksgiving plans this year?

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Today, my husband is once again my age. (I have an entire three months on him, so from August to November he gets to brag about how much younger he is than I.)  We don’t typically do much for birthdays around here – unless you consider the food. The honoree gets to choose all three meals for the day. However, today didn’t work very well for me to cook all of Matt’s favorites since we’re feeding so many extras during our morning marriage class and our evening high school huddle. Therefore, it would seem that we are celebrating his birthday all week long, cooking his favorite meals on different days of the week when we can squeeze it in. Sounds like more fun anyway, huh? Bring on the Stromboli!

And speaking of tonight’s Huddle, I decided to do something a little different for this meal. I’ll be making five Easy Breakfast Casseroles and serving them with fruit and muffins. I’ve had so much fun this weekend baking around 130 muffins in preparation. Batter, chocolate chips, flour and muffin papers (which I got for 1/2 price on November 1st, by the way) have been flying!

Here’s our menu for this week:

Sunday, November 6
Marriage Class – Banana muffins
Lunch – Steak fajitas with onions, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and sour cream (birthday meal #1)
High School Huddle – Easy breakfast casserole (x5), chocolate chocolate chip muffins (x4), blueberry muffins (x2), banana muffins (x3), pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, grapes, orange slices

Monday, November 7
Leftover muffins from Sunday, if there are any left?
Sloppy joes, ranch potato wedges, peas, boysenberry cobbler (birthday dessert)
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, okra (birthday meal #2)

Tuesday, November 8
Pancake sausage muffins, blueberries
Pigs in a blanket, applesauce, carrots with ranch
Lasagna (x5), honey whole wheat bread (x 4), green beans, tossed salad (end of season meal for YC ladies soccer team)

Wednesday, November 9
Scrambled eggs with cheese, creamy orange cooler
Tuna salad on toast, fruit-kefir smoothies
Cheesy turkey sausage stromboli, tossed salad (birthday meal #3)

Thursday, November 10
Homemade beef summer sausage, mini apple pies
Leftovers (because surely we’ll have some after all of those big meals)
Black bean taco salad

Friday, November 11
Peanut butter honey toast, applesauce
Pizza casserole, steamed carrots and broccoli
Nachos

Saturday, November 12
Mini breakfast pizzas, oranges
Clean out the fridge
Venison steak, cream scalloped potatoes, peas

If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up to win this wonderful Grain Mill Giveaway!

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

Peanut Butter Apple Cookie Bars

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Peanut_Butter_Apple_Bars

I’ve managed to whittle my apple supply down to about only 50 pounds of apples after making two rounds of Apple Sauce, Apple Butter, Caramel Apple Dip, Apple Crisp and Mini Apple Pies. Since I’m still surrounded by apples, I knew I had to try these Peanut Butter Apple Cookie Bars when I saw them at the Diva Entertains Blog. If you are unable to eat nuts, I would imagine you could substitute Sunbutter in this recipe, but I haven’t tried it to know for sure how it would work.

Peanut Butter Apple Cookie Bars (adapted from Diva Entertains Blog)

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sucanat (or brown sugar)
1/2 cup peanut butter (homemade or natural)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat)
1 1/2 cups peeled and diced apples

In a large mixing bowl, stir together melted butter, peanut butter and sucanat until creamy. Add eggs, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda and salt, stirring until well combined. Mix in flour thoroughly. Fold in diced apples.

Spread dough into a 9×13 inch baking dish. Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until golden. Allow bars to cool before adding the glaze.

Peanut Butter GlazeYum

2 cups powdered sugar (I recommend making your own with sucanat or using organic, unbleached)
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter (homemade or natural)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth. Drizzle or spread over the cooled bars.

peanut_butter_apple_bars_5

As you can see, drizzling the glaze kinda led to spreading the glaze like a frosting in my case, so feel free to drizzle or spread or slop the glaze on there however you’d like. They’ll pretty  much taste great no matter how you do it. :)

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Leaving the Skins on Homemade Applesauce and Apple Pies

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Slowly but surely I’m getting a few things figured out with this applesauce-making business. Many of you left comments sharing that you were shocked that with all the canning I do, I don’t have a Victorio. Others were shocked that I take off the apple skins. Yep, I’m just learning along with the rest of us here. I didn’t grow up doing any canning, so I’m learning as I go. I’d never even heard of a Victorio or a Squeezo before last week, so I’ve appreciated your ideas and suggestions!

Since I don’t have a Victorio strainer, nor do I know anyone who has one I can borrow, and since I’ve got apples that need to be put up right now, I went ahead and tried yet another applesauce method. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner! (I think we will probably end up investing in a nice strainer, especially for tomato sauce. But for apples, can you all reassure me that the bad, wormy parts in the apples really do get strained out? I’m still hesitant about that since the apples I work with aren’t always pretty once I cut into them. Really – do I just quarter them and throw them all into the pot, worms and all?)

This time, I followed the advice of leaving the skins on and blending them up along with the apples. I hesitated with this idea at first because I figured there would be little bits of apple peelings in the sauce and that my family would rebel. Well, what’s a mother to do, but to try the idea and not tell her family what she’s done?

Sure enough – I cooked my apples, ran it all through my food processor, served it up, and would you believe – not one boy or husband knew that there were apple peelings in the applesauce!

Not only did this method save lots of time, we’re getting a healthier applesauce. Plus, there was much less waste – so I got several more quarts of applesauce for my efforts!! Ahhh, I’m so happy about this.

Applesauce Instructions:

Quarter and core apples, cutting out bad spots. Cook apples in a large pot, following these directions. When the apples are soft, run them through a food processor until smooth. See, the peelings just get blended up in there! (I don’t have an immersion blender, but according to many of you, sticking the immersion blender directly into the pot saves yet another step. I may ask for one for Christmas.)  :)

Yum

I used some of my “special” jars this time, because this applesauce is so pretty. These jars came from my late friend Lorna Mae. I miss her. :(  I think she’d be thrilled that her jars are being put to good use for my family.

I also made a bunch of mini apple pies, a big apple pie and an apple crisp – all with apple skins left on. I may never peel another apple again.

 

So there we have it. Leaving the skins on the apples when making applesauce and apple pies saves time and adds nutrients. Now, on to the Apple Butter…

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