Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

How to Easily Freeze Oranges for Smoothies (plus a recipe!)

by Leave a Comment

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

You can easily freeze oranges for smoothies. Here’s how!

I never liked oranges in smoothies until I invested in a Blendtec. Regular, inexpensive blenders don’t have the power to puree fruit like oranges. This is fine – if you like to chew your smoothies. :) But a high-power blender like my beloved Blendtec easily blends all fruits until they are super smooth. Here’s more info about why I love my Blendtec and why I feel it’s worth the investment!

But back to freezing oranges…

I recently found myself with 5 extra pounds of clementines that were looking a little bit pitiful. Knowing we wouldn’t eat them all before they had to head to the compost, I simply peeled them, separated them, and put them into a freezer bag.

Now, when we want orange flavor in our smoothies, instead of pouring in orange juice, we blend in a handful of these frozen orange slices. These are great with strawberries, bananas, and well, just about any fruit combination!

Here’s our favorite recipe that includes frozen oranges:

Tropical Smoothies

How to Easily Freeze Oranges for Smoothies (plus a recipe!)
 
Save Print
Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups frozen mango chunks
  • 1½ cups frozen pineapple chunks
  • 1½ cups frozen orange slices
  • 2 cups plain yogurt, milk, or coconut milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor together.
  2. Blend until smooth.

It’s tough to beat pineapple, mango, and orange all together in a glass! Use coconut milk in this recipe if you want your smoothie to be extra-tropical tasting. And if you do that, it will be naturally diary-free too!

Do you freeze oranges? How do you use them?

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

Summer Activities for Kids: Make Smoothies, Milkshakes, and Popsicles!

by Leave a Comment

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

Looking for some fun activities to do with your kids this summer? I’ve enjoyed 22 summers with kids (and counting!), so I certainly have a few ideas to share! Stay tuned during the next few weeks as we provide all kinds of suggestions for making your summer with your kids meaningful. (Subscribe here so you won’t miss out!) Today’s idea: Make Smoothies, Milkshakes, and Popsicles!

There are many glorious reasons to make smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles with your kids. What are these reasons, you ask? Oh, I am more than happy to share:

  1. Smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles are obviously perfect to enjoy on a hot day because they are so refreshing and cool.
  2. When you make food WITH your kids, they are much more likely to want to eat it.
  3. You can sneak all kinds of nourishing foods into smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles – so basically, you are making treats that are very healthy!
  4. Making smoothies, milkshakes, and popsicles are a super simple way to get all your kids – from tiny to big – into the kitchen to learn some kitchen skills!

When our 5-year old Bonus Boy first moved in with us, one of the first fun activities we did together was to make “milkshakes.” (They are really considered smoothies, but he “doesn’t like smoothies – he only likes milkshakes.” Call them whatever you want! We load them with fresh greens, frozen strawberries and bananas, farm fresh whole milk, and sometimes even an avocado. He drinks these “milkshakes” right up! And he loves to help us make them, so we aren’t sneaking the healthy stuff in. He puts it all into the blender himself!

Below are 13 of our favorite smoothie, milkshake, and popsicle recipes. Take note that you can make a smoothie and then freeze it into a popsicle – a double good treat! Or look there at #13 – make homemade wholesome pudding, then freeze it into Pudding Pops! Creamsicles anyone? Yep! There’s a recipe for those too!

Make Smoothies, Milkshakes, and Popsicles!

  1. Pineapple Mango Smoothies
  2. Pineapple-Orange Slushies
  3. Creamy Orange Cooler
  4. Strawberry Peach Slushies
  5. Icy Cold Milkshake Treats
  6. Green Machine Milkshakes
  7. Easy Peppermint Milkshakes
  8. Fresh Peach Milkshakes
  9. Strawberry Milkshakes
  10. Strawberry Creamsicles
  11. Mock Frozen Yogurt
  12. Orange Creamsicles
  13. Homemade Pudding Pops

Sky’s the limit on the variety of milkshakes you can make with different fruits and fun combinations. The same is true for smoothies! Use whatever you have in your freezer or fridge. Use up odds and ends of leftover fruit that is starting to go bad. Use milk, cream, kefir, yogurt – whatever you have. There’s hardly a way to go wrong with these ideas!

HINT!

Do you think your kids would enjoy the taste of these milkshakes and smoothies? But they are turned off by the color of these goodies when you add greens to your blender? Yep, I hear ya. We’ve learned to pour the mixture into a solid cup so that it isn’t see-through. We top it with a lid and let the kids choose a fun straw. Ta-da! Problem solved. The kids can’t see the funny-looking mixture – they just know the contents inside their cups are delish!

Looking for the perfect blender?

Any ol’ blender will do. But nothing is amazing as a Blendtec or Vitamix if you want a perfectly smooth smoothie. Your family is much more likely to guzzle down their smoothies and shakes if they are seedless and chunk-less. :) Here are more details on why I love my Blendtec.

Looking for great homemade popsicle makers?

I just invested in the double-set of these. They are fantastic! Why the double-set? Well, because 6 popsicles just isn’t enough. Making 12 popsicles at once is much better, don’t you think!?

By the way, while the above 13 recipes are beyond great and extra full of nourishment, it is worth a mention that I often pour 100% juice into our popsicle molds to make simple fruit juice popsicles. Incredibly easy and a super money saver!

Looking for more help as you pull your kids into the kitchen with you?

And if you really want to go all in and teach your kids to cook this summer, I encourage you to invest in Katie Kimball’s Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. I used this course with Malachi and plan to use it with Brayden too. It is FANTASTIC!!! Get the details here.

Psst! Did you see our other Summer Kid Activity ideas so far?

Stay tuned for more fun Summer Kid Activity ideas!

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

Soup or Smoothies? I Can’t Decide

by 5 Comments

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

pineapple_mango_smoothie_2

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. I learned that in Kansas in first grade when my teacher Mrs. Howell explained the concept, then gave us paper plates to make lion and lamb faces. We hung them on the wall in the back of the room above the coat rack. (I remember pointless things.)

I’ve since learned that typically in Nebraska, March comes in like a lion and acts like a lion all month and goes out like a lion and greets April like a lion and once in a while a little lamb pokes it soft little head out just long enough to tease the lion. But this year the lamb appears to be a bit more feisty than the lion because the sun is shining and we’re having some unusually warm weather. The boys have been going outside in shorts because they can. We’ve been shooting hoops in the driveway with the sun in our eyes. Awesomeness.

For the first time in months, a smoothie sounds good, especially after playing or working outside. But then we come back into my house and guess what? Brrrrr! The house hasn’t caught up yet with the outside weather. What should we expect? It is still getting pretty cold at night.

So sweaters or shorts? Flip flops or boots? Iced coffee or hot? Soup or smoothies?

I’m thinking both. Lions and lambs can be friends, can’t they? Here’s what I’m celebrating during this fun collision of lion and lamb during the month of March:

1. THE SUN IS SHINING, even during the cold parts of the day. I heart sunshine.  I’ve probably mentioned that here before.
2. I can enjoy baking and grilling at the same time. This doesn’t happen in the winter or the summer.
3. There are no bugs yet because they haven’t yet realized that it’s warm enough to come out and crawl on us.
4. Soup and smoothies taste good together.

Cheeseburger Soup

Today I present to you, in honor of The Month of Crazy Weather, our favorite soup and smoothie recipes. You just never know when you’ll need one or the other or both at the same time.

Soup

Smoothies (and other fun, cold drinks)

While looking through my archives, I realize that I actually have very few smoothie recipes here. That’s because I just throw in whatever fruit we have, which makes smoothies at our house “non-recipe” items.

What are you experiencing at your house? Lion or lamb? Soup or smoothie? Boot or flip-flop?

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

How to Freeze Pineapple for Smoothies

by 20 Comments

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

You probably already know how simple this is, but just in case, I’m writing an entire post about how to put chopped pineapple into a freezer bag. But first join me for some boring talk about being boring, which is really quite exciting depending on who you are and what you are interested in.

How to Freeze Pineapple for Smoothies

You know how pre-teens can talk and laugh about a fictional character for hours, how teenagers can talk about shoes, how computer geeks can talk about wires, and how athletes can discuss the score of a game from 2004 – and whichever category of people you don’t fit into, you think that subject is the most ridiculous and boring topic on the face of the earth?

Yeah, well women are just as exciting. Here’s what I talk about with glee to my friends while my kids fall off their chairs in the background:  “I got 4 pineapples for just $1.29 each! I know! eeeheeeheee!”

Really, I remember my mom and Kristina’s mom (my childhood friend) having a very long conversation about the price of lettuce (which had most certainly gone up to 79¢ – can you believe it?) – when I was a teenager back in 1985. Kristina and I just rolled our eyes and giggled about the fact that our mothers could possibly think that information about the price of lettuce would be interesting in the least. While our mothers continued their dry discussion, Kristina and I turned back to talking about much more exciting and meaningful topics such as which shirt to wear to school tomorrow and how the cover of my notebook had torn on the way to band class.

As it would appear, I am now my mother, and you are my friend’s mother because I’m here to tell you that I seriously got 4 big fresh pineapples for just $1.29 each! Is that not awesome? Especially since the cheapest I typically find them is between $3.00 and $4.00. That’s why I bought four. You’ve got to get four when you get them for that great of a price. And see, here I am, going on and on and having a very long conversation (with myself, sort of) about my wonderful deal on pineapple.

I, for one, am enjoying this conversation very much.

Those of you who choose to instead talk about your rock collection or printer ink for hours are going to have to find someone else to share it with – because I just got four pineapple for $1.29 each! Do you know how great this is?

How did I get such a great price on four such lovely pineapples? Now that there is an Aldi 50 miles from my town, I can price match at my local Walmart. Aldi was running a special, so I went to Walmart and price matched that deal. (They were just $1.29 each!! Did I tell you that part yet?)

Our family loves pineapple, but our palates might not appreciate eating so much pineapple in a matter of a few days. Instead, we chopped one and ate it, then chopped the rest and froze the chunks in baggies to be used later in our very favorite Pineapple Mango Smoothies.

No way will I ever find bagged, frozen pineapple at the store for $1.29/bag. Oh, but if I do, you can bet I will have a lively conversation with you about it, filled with lots of exclamation marks. (!!!!!)

Pineapple Mango Smoothie Recipe

As you can see from the picture tutorial early in this post, freezing pineapple is as easy as cutting away the outside of the fruit, then cutting the inside into chunks. We found that one large pineapple filled a quart-sized freezer bag.

Now you tell me:  What’s the greatest deal you’ve gotten lately? You know I want to hear all about it. Be sure to use exclamation marks. (!!!!!)

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

Drink Your Nourishment {31 Days of Real Food Reality ~ Day 28}

by 3 Comments

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

Three meals. Every single day.  Plus snacks. I’m over it! Please pass me a bag of chips.

Oh yes – I’ve been there. Some days, I’m still there. Can’t we just get a little break from all the food needs?

Whether you’re just starting your journey to healthy eating, or you’ve been on the journey for quite a while – being sure to get plenty of nourishment day after day after day can become overwhelming if we allow it. But don’t fall back on a bag of chips in your frustrated moments. After all, you would crush the bag of chips, and wouldn’t that be a shame? You would also just be filling a hole, not giving your body anything it needs to thrive, and likely, you’ll still be hungry – because our bodies crave nutrients! And sometimes Doritos.  But truly, the more we fill ourselves with real food, the less our bodies will ask for the junk. I promise (says the former Pepsi addict).

Today, I want to combine two thoughts that I’ve shared within this Real Food Reality series:  Food is Nourishment. What a Concept. and You Are What You Drink.

It is very fun to put together delicious, nourishing drinks. These drinks can be used as a meal or a snack. The variety of options is limitless. They are filling. You can get creative. You can use what you have on hand. You can use what you find on sale.

Feeling overwhelmed with ways to offer your family nourishment? Try a fun drink option! Here are some of our family’s favorite, nourishing drinks:

Warm, Nourishing Drinks

Warm Chocolate Soother

Warm Chocolate Soother

Chocolate Mint Soother

Chocolate Mint Soother

Warm Pumpkin Custard

Warm_Pumpkin_Custard

Warm Vanilla Soother

Warm Vanilla Soother

Cold, Nourishing Drinks

Creamy Orange Cooler

Creamy Orange Cooler

Pineapple Mango Smoothies

Pineapple Mango Smoothie

All Kinds of Smoothies

smoothies

Pineapple-Orange Slushies

Pineapple Orange Slushies

Strawberry Peach Slushy

Strawberry Peach Slushy

Chocolate Milkshakes

Chocolate Milkshakes

Strawberry Milkshakes (substitute another variety of frozen fruit if you like)

Strawberry Milkshake

 

What are your favorite nourishing drinks?

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

Pineapple Mango Smoothies (No Sugar Added – Dairy Free Option)

by 15 Comments

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

This Pineapple Mango Smoothie is more refreshing that you can imagine. Mmmm!

High Five Recipes 2

We were on our way home from Kansas City after a weekend event our boys had participated in. The event had been awesome, our boys had done great, and we were all flying high. Except for Asa (our 15 year old) and me. It appeared that the two of us were coming down with the flu. Our throats hurt, our chests burned, and we both began to get feverish. Our eyes were red and achy. Our heads pounded.

(Great story so far, eh?)

We were both a little bit hungry, although nothing really sounded good to eat. We had packed food, but all of it seemed too difficult to eat. Funny how the normally simple act of chewing takes so much energy when you’re sick. All I could think of was, “I just want a smoothie.” (Well, and “I just want my bed.” But out on the interstate, a few hours from home, that was not an option.)

Matt, bless his heart, was determined to find his feverish bride a smoothie. We finally managed to find a place that had some decent options (without too many funky, sugary ingredients). I chose a pineapple mango variety and aside from the fact that it was cold and made my chills just a little bit more miserable – I had never enjoyed a smoothie more. It was so refreshing. It was just what Asa and I needed. We slept the rest of the way home.

Asa and I are all better now. In fact, this all happened a couple of months ago. But ever since, I’ve been craving a Pineapple Mango Smoothie. I typically make my smoothies with berries – which we love. But the refreshment that comes from pineapple, mango, and orange juice all blended up in a glass? I knew I needed to recreate this treasure.

It’s not hard to make – you just need five simple ingredients. Add a little maple syrup or stevia if it’s not sweet enough for you. We think it’s sweet enough as is. Coconut milk makes it taste great and offers a dairy free option if you need it. We like it with plain, whole milk yogurt. I think I may make these every single day this summer.

pineapple_mango_smoothie_2

Pineapple Mango SmoothieYum

Pineapple Mango Smoothies (No Sugar Added - Dairy Free Option)
 
Save Print
Author:
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups frozen mango chunks
  • 1½ cups frozen pineapple chunks
  • 1 cup orange juice
  • 2 cups plain yogurt or coconut milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor together.
  2. Blend until smooth.

Pineapple Mango SmoothieWhat’s your favorite fruit smoothie combination?  For the record, I don’t recommend getting the flu before trying this. It’s much more fun to eat when you can hold your head up off the pillow.

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

How Our Menu Plan Helps During Busy Days – Wednesday On the Run

by 25 Comments

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

Our Wednesdays tend to be busy since we have Home School P.E. Class in the morning, and then Bible Class in the evening. Today, I had a 2:00 appointment as well, so I feel like I was only home to cook and eat today. (As I’m typing this, I hear Matt in the kitchen rinsing the dinner dishes. I love how he’s always willing to pitch in.)

Our Wednesday menu plan was:

Wednesday, January 30
Chocolate chocolate chip muffins, applesauce
Meat and cheese burritos, fruit
Alfredo sauce with pasta, tossed salad

Having a plan in place is so helpful for days we are on the go! I had our muffins started last night, so all I had to do this morning was finish mixing them up, put them into the oven, and let them bake while I got ready to go and got the boys up. Along with Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins, I also made a batch of Coconut Flour Muffins, per Malachi’s request. It was easy to do, and it was very nice to have the variety of choices this morning. I always need to make a double batch of muffins to fill us anyway, so having a single batch of two different kinds worked out great.

I had some leftover Caramel Apple Dip in the fridge, so I sliced up apples to go with it, and poured everyone a glass of milk. It had snowed a couple inches during the night, so Matt (who has a snow-removal business) had gotten up bright and early (or should I say dark and early) to get to work moving snow. We were nice enough to save him a few muffins to eat when he got home.

wednesday_1

When we got home from P.E. the kids were “starving”. I pulled Meat and Cheese Burritos out the freezer (which I had made last week), and put them into the oven. The kids got a big drink of water, then worked on school assignments while they waited for lunch. I think one or two of them may have swiped a leftover breakfast muffin to hold them over too. :)

wednesday_6

While the burritos baked, I made smoothies. Admittedly, frozen fruit on a snowy day didn’t sound like the best idea. But smoothies are a great way to get lots of nutrients. And I thought the kids would find them to be refreshing after running so much during P.E. Sneaking spinach into smoothies is so easy – you can’t even tell it’s in there!

wednesday_2

See?

wednesday_3

Why yes, we did shiver while we ate them. It was oh-so worth it though. Yum!

I got a later start on dinner than I meant to, so I was a little rushed to get us fed before we headed to church tonight. I get frustrated with myself when I do that. What? Like I expect myself to pull this off perfectly all the time? It’s hard to remember to give myself grace. And it’s also hard to give the kids grace when we have ten minutes to eat and they aren’t hurrying like I’m asking them to. Grr. Chill out, Mom. 

And now, back to the happy post in which I share about how I fed my family lovely food today… {blush}

I steamed broccoli and carrots together to go with our Pasta Alfredo and Salad. (And by salad, I really just mean “torn lettuce leaves” because that’s all we had time for!)

wednesday_5

Oh, and we were out of Ranch Dressing so I had to mix that up real quickly too. Shew! At least I had a jar of mix already put together so that all I had to do was scoop some out and shake it with the other ingredients. 

wednesday_7

I do believe tomorrow should be a slower day. Without a doubt, having a menu plan saved me today! (Having ranch dressing already made would have saved me even more, but whatever.)  :)

So, how was your day?  Hope you got to chew your food at dinner tonight. I think I may have just swallowed mine whole. I don’t recommend that. :)

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

Favorite Blender?

by 63 Comments

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

If I had to pick a kitchen appliance that I can’t do without, a blender might be at the top of my list. (Right up there with my Nutrimill Grain Mill, my Electric Skillet, my Food Processor…)  I use a blender every day. And in the summer and fall while I’m making tomato sauce and applesauce and tomato soup…I use it constantly.

We use our blender daily to make milkshakes, slushies, smoothies…and shucks…now we even use a blender to make powdered sugar!

Which brings me to a sad, sad story (okay, it’s not that sad). Last week, my blender broke. It was made of glass and out of nowhere, there was suddenly a great big crack running through it. I’m sure it wasn’t really out of nowhere, but I’m not really sure out of where it came. Regardless, unless you want glass shards as a main ingredient in your smoothie, I don’t recommend using a cracked blender.

Normally, Matt and I give some thought to a purchase like this one. We’d consider our options and look around for the best deal. We might look into using some of our Swagbuck earned Amazon cards to purchase one online. We might put it on our Christmas list.

But this was a blender. With this lovely fall weather, I was still making tomato sauce last week with the last of our late tomato crop. I needed a blender in five minutes and I did not have time to wait or consider my options. My only option was:  Go to the store RIGHT NOW and buy a blender.

Before I headed out, Matt and I did take the time (like an entire two minutes) to talk about whether or not we should invest in a  higher dollar blender, or just settle once again for a cheap one. He left it up to me, depending on what I might find in the blender aisle.

I know you’re all on pins and needles (like you normally are when I tell these really exciting stories about my broken blenders, which is never). 

I ended up buying a cheap one.  I couldn’t help it. I think one day I’d like to save for a high quality VitaMix. But at that very moment, I couldn’t bring myself to spend much. I instead went for a much cheaper blender:  a Hamilton Beach Wavestation Express Dispensing Blender. Everyone at home was thrilled when they saw it and begged me to make milkshakes right away…

Is that FUN or what!??!? With all the milkshakes and slushies we make around here…it does not get any easier (or more fun) than our cool Hamilton Beach Wavestation Express Dispensing Blender. For a cool $20.

It doesn’t have much in the way of fancy settings or buttons. All I truly need is a lid  and an on/off switch and I’m good. But wow, isn’t that little dispenser something else? It doesn’t take much around here to make us excited.

So there you go…that’s my little review of my new Hamilton Beach Wavestation Express Dispensing Blender. For $20. With a dispenser. That is so cool.

I often get emails asking which blender I prefer and if I recommend a VitaMix. I’d love to here all of you offer a little review on which blender you have and like. And if you have a VitaMix, can you tell us whether you’re pleased with your investment?

Oh, and if you want to come over for a milkshake, I would love to dispense one for you.

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