Healthier Pancakes

I can’t tell you how often we eat pancakes. If it was up to our 5 1/2 year old we would eat pancakes every meal! Since we like to eat pancakes so much, I have tried different versions of a main recipe. I keep changing the recipe and trying different ingredients to make the pancakes more then empty carbohydrates. Sometimes I add flax seed meal, wheat germ and even chia seeds and always add fresh blueberries or blueberries we have frozen.

Healthier Pancakes Copyright by Holly Hedman

Click here to read the rest of the article and get the recipe!

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Yummy Treats!

Every once in a while, for school, we have a baking day. I love these days and so do our kids! Cooking and baking are skills that are needed and I believe that both girls and boys should be able to cook a great meal and bake a yummy cake and more from scratch. One day, must have been around Easter, we had one of those days… it was a baking type of day.

About to make a treat!
Copyright by Holly Hedman

Peanut Butter Cups!

I am not a big Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup type of gal… I never buy them for myself or eat them when we have them at Halloween. But, my husband loves them. The kids and I decided we would treat my hubby with a healthier (but it is still chocolate) version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! My husband was in Heaven with this recipe!

Girl Bunny making yummies!
Copyright by Holly Hedman

No Oven Necessary!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups *organic or all natural peanut butter (Smucker’s has a really good natural peanut butter)
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 bags Dark Chocolate chips
1-2 tablespoons coconut oil (optional)

Almost done!
Copyright By Holly Hedman

INSTRUCTIONS

Mix the peanut butter, powdered sugar, and salt in a food processor. Set aside.

Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler with the coconut oil. Add a thin layer of the melted chocolate to the bottom of each mini muffin cup, layer of peanut butter mixture and a top layer of chocolate.

Place them in the fridge or freezer to store or hide till they are set and ready to be eaten! Try not to eat more then 2 in a day… OK… 3! For someone who doesn’t love peanut butter cups… These are AWESOME!

*Quick little note. The reason why I used organic or natural peanut butter is because it has less sugar the conventional peanut butter. Seeing as you are adding sugar to it, this helps to make it not super sweet!

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Thank you for taking time to stop by Healthy Homeschool Family Blog! I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below and share with me what your favorite recipe is for Peanut Butter Cups! Feel free to share this recipe with your friends and family!

Making a Lifestyle Change!

My Pantry Now
Copyright by Holly Hedman

My pantry used to be filled with boxes and boxes of highly processed, highly preserved and horrible foods that no human truly should eat! We used to have a bunch of canned fruit and veggies too. I hardly ever had fresh fruit or veggies in the house, because when I did they would go bad before we ate them. Even before having kids I used to be all about easy cooking and not healthy cooking. But, that started to change after we started having kids but more so after I had our son. I weighed the most I have ever weighed… Yes, it bothered me! Prior to having kids, I was very physically active. I was a Physical Education teacher, coached and played volleyball and was also a personal trainer! I loved being at the gym for hours working out. Then we had kids. I started working out again after I had our first born but every time I would go to the gym and put her in the nursery she would get sick. I, just like other moms, don’t like having sick kids. So, NO more gym membership for me!

When we had one child it was pretty easy to put her in the stroller and go for a power walk. But when we added more, it really became difficult! The days would go by so fast and by the time I would think of exercising it was time to go to bed. Then after having our youngest, food had become comforting and I kept gaining weight. I am 6 foot tall (yes, I know, that is tall for a girl) and I could hide my weight very well with clothes. No one really knew I was almost 200 pounds… more then I weighed when I was pregnant with our last baby (whom I gain 18 pounds with). Seeing as I have hypothyroidism, I have always been careful and cautious about my weight. But sometimes, you just don’t care and eat, eat, and eat. Food comforts…

Just add 12 oz of liquid, 3 scoops of powder, shake and enjoy!

Just add 12 oz of water, milk or almond milk, 3 scoops of powder, shake and enjoy!

Finally, enough was enough and I decided that something needed to change. I couldn’t go on this way and my health is important in order to be a good mom. That is when, while we were home and visiting a good friend, I asked her about her meal replacement shakes she had been using. I was looking for something that was good and kept me full. She introduced us to Usana Health Sciences. This brought on a new way of thinking and a new way of life for our family! I started buying more fresh fruit and veggies, started cooking clean and healthy, started truly watching what I was eating and caring about what I was eating. We started taking high quality vitamins and supplements through Usana Health Sciences and also drinking their meal replacement drink called Nutrimeal. My husband and I both lost weight and truly had more energy and felt amazing! It amazes me what a good vitamin can do for you! We transformed our health and as a side affect of that we lost weight and felt great! You have a choice in life… to be healthy or not! We chose healthy because our kids depend on us to be around for a long time!

Recipe for you

One of my favorite things to eat happens to be pudding. I would make it almost all the time… from a box, until one day I found a recipe that uses avocado. I just had to try it and I was hooked!

Avocado Pudding
Copyright by Holly Hedman

This recipe is super simple with only 6 ingredients.

1 ripe avocado (soft to touch)

3 tbs of almond butter

1/4 cup of unsweetened almond milk

3 tbs of dark cocoa powder

1/4 cup of agave syrup

1 scoop of Usana’s vanilla Nutrimeal

Avocado Pudding Ingredients
Copyright by Holly Hedman

Directions

Place avocado and almond butter into food processor. Blend until creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Add more almond milk till you reach the consistency you prefer. A little of this pudding goes a long way! Enjoy!

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Thanks for taking time to reading. Please feel free to share my blog with your friends and family! Also, I would love to hear how you liked the recipe. Please leave a comment below.

Yummy Black Bean and Mango salad

Not sure if you knew this about me, but I love a good recipe! When I find a good recipe I share it. But, did you know that I love changing recipes to make them my own? Yes, I love to experiment with food! It has been something I have done since I was a kid. I still remember the time my brother and I were home alone (we were old enough to be home without parents) and wanted to make cookies but couldn’t find a recipe. Since we had made cookies often, we figured we knew what we were doing. Hahahaha! Oh yeah, we only sort of knew what we were doing. We made the dough and made sure it tasted right with each ingredient we threw in there! Oh my Word! It ended up being a horrible cake but we had a blast making it!

Since then, I have learned a thing or two about cooking and baking! I have many cookbooks and have watched hours of the cooking channel to know what makes good food! As with all good chefs and bakers, I have made some things that I would not want to eat, but that is part of the learning process! But, I have also made food taste better then a restaurant’s food!

I would like to introduce to you one of my favorite recipes! Black Bean Mango Salad!

Ingredients for Mango Black Bean Salad
Copyright by Holly Hedman

Black Bean and Mango Salad

1 can of rinsed black bean

1 mango, diced

1/4 white sweet onion (if you like strong onion, add more)

1 lime, zest and juice (I have made this with just lime juice)

1 cob of fresh organic white corn, cut off cob

1 avocado, diced

A small hand full of chopped cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

Drizzle of grape seed oil (olive oil will work too if you don’t have grape seed oil but a little goes a long way)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl gently. Eat right away or chill for later!

Mango Black Bean Salad
Copyright by Holly Hedman

Pretty easy recipe that everyone will love! I think you will enjoy this as much as I do!

Tip of the day!

When you buy fresh herbs (like cilantro, parsley, etc…) one of the best ways to store them and make them last longer is to put them in a tall glass with about an inch of water in the bottom of the glass, make sure the herbs are touching the water and put it in the refrigerator. This will help keep it longer so you can use it for other recipes! 🙂

Please feel free to share this recipe with your friends and family! Thanks so much!

Homemade Fruit Pastries

Hungry for something…

Seeing that I have cut out a lot of prepackaged and processed foods, sometimes I crave Pop Tarts. Of all the things that I want, why in the world Pop Tarts? They are one of the worst foods you could eat. They are totally unhealthy and extremely processed. They are high in sugar… actually High Fructose Corn Syrup. I have never understood why manufacturers have to use both sugar and HFCS? This boggles my mind. After doing a ton of research on HFCS, I don’t understand why the FDA still allows manufacturers use it! I could go on and on about HFCS, but I will spare you this time! But please do your own research on it. Don’t believe everything you see on TV either… specially the commercial where they are talking about how it is the same as sugar… NO IT IS NOT! OK, off my soap box and back on track! 🙂

Substitution for Kellogg’s Pop Tarts!!!!!

About 3 years ago my husband and I joined forces with Usana Health Sciences to help teach people how to live a healthy lifestyle. We are so happy we did! Both Dan and I love helping people lose weight, gain energy and learn how to change their lifestyle in order to have better health! That is where we met Kathy Kaehler (fellow Usana lover)! Kathy is a personal trainer for the Superstars, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, and more… But she also has started a program call Sunday Set-Up. This program she give you a meal plan, recipes, workouts and more! The best things about her recipes is that they are typically Low Glycemic and very healthy.

Dan, Kathy Kaehler and Me
Copyright by Holly Hedman

Eating a low glycemic diet will typically reduce the amount of processed foods and increase the amount of fiber you eat. As you see in the photo below is what happens to your blood sugar levels when you eat high glycemic foods and low glycemic foods. When you eat high glycemic foods, your blood sugar levels will skyrocket and drop drastically. But when you eat low glycemic foods, it takes your body longer to process it and your blood sugar levels stay in the optimal range (shown in the photo the optimal range is in the teal color.) There will be more information on the importance of eating low glycemic in up coming articles, so be on the look out for them. The Sunday Set-up program has great recipes and that is where I got the idea to make homemade fruit pastries (i.e. Pop Tarts) from. I only used 5 ingredients which is a little different then how the recipe from Sunday Set-up is. I am always changing recipes because it is fun to take a recipe and tweek it. With all of that being said, here is how I made my homemade fruit pastries that is loved by the whole family!

Homemade Fruit Pastries

Basically, what I did was take a block of cream cheese and mash it up. Then I added a container of washed raspberries (but leaving some out for the frosting) and mixed it with the cream cheese. To sweeten it up a little more, I added 2 tablespoons of Agave nectar. Mixed it all together and got my crust ready. This time I just used pre-made crust but sometimes I make the crust too. I unrolled the crust and cut out shapes with a cookie cutter. It can be any shape, but one that is big enough for the filling.

Filling the pastries

Once all the pastries are filled then they are ready to be baked at 375 degrees till dark golden brown as seen in the photo.

bakes fruit pastries

While the pastries are cooling, take the leftover raspberries and mash them up with a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract. Then add about a cup or so of powdered sugar to get the consistency of frosting. Once the pastries are cooled, spread the frosting on.

Finished Product!

These are so good and is so hard not to eat all of them in one sitting. Try to keep it at two pastries. Two of these a long with some more fruit or yogurt will make for a nice breakfast. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: This recipe is not mine but Sunday Set-up‘s. I am sharing it with you because it is kid friendly food and easy to make. The photos are all my photos but I do not claim the recipe as mine! 🙂

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Thanks for taking time to read about our journey into homeschooling. Please feel free to share my blog with your friends and family! Also, I would love to learn from you and how you homeschool. Please leave a comment below. Have a Blessed Day!