Choosing the Healthy Sweet Treats

Sugar... such a special ingredient in so many recipes. However, how many of those recipes actually need as much sugar as they call for? Not only that, but how many times do we crave a certain sugary snack and do not think about the pure amount of junk that is in said snack. Sadly in today’s America pure cane sugar or honey is not the main source of sweetener in food. One time at a restaurant I picked up a single serve packet of supposed honey. Would you believe me if I told you that honey wasn’t even high on the ingredients list? High fructose corn syrup has become extremely invasive in the food products that we consume in America. Sadly people do not realize that their “healthy snack” is actually the opposite of that.

In my journey to become healthier and lose weight I have started to look at the food label at the store. It can be hard at first, especially when you are in a hurry. After a while you start to get the hang of it though and know what to look for. The main idea or rule I follow would be these two questions. Can I pronounce every word on the ingredients list? Is there a known bad for you ingredient, such as red 40 or high fructose corn syrup? When the answers to these questions aren’t what they are supposed to be then maybe you shouldn’t be purchasing and eating these foods. I know that many of you will say, but healthy natural food is out of my budget. No, it isn’t. You just aren’t looking in the right places.

Healthier alternatives are out there and sometimes even cheaper and tastier than the original. Take pancake syrup for example, all it is, is sugar, water, and flavoring. However, when you buy it from the store it has a whole bucket load of extra non-essential ingredients in it that are bad for you. Another great example of this would be almost anything chocolate and peanut butter. Dark chocolate actually has quite a few health benefits if you get the good stuff. This can include things such as iron and minerals as well as some antioxidant properties. Plain peanut butter is a good source of protein as well as other nutrients. Peanut butter is also filling and in its natural form good for you.

Chocolate peanut butter snacks can vary but one of the easiest would be a dark chocolate bar and a jar of peanut butter. You simply take a table knife and smear the peanut butter on a chunk of chocolate and eat it like that. It tastes the same as a Reese’s peanut butter cup but without all the extra preservatives and fake sugars. Another option would be to make homemade peanut butter cups. By making them yourself, you get to choose the ingredients and how much sugar goes into it. Generally speaking, making your own will be significantly cheaper. According to the Walmart app in Dec 2024 a 17.6oz bag of Reese’s miniature cups cost $8.54. To make your own you would need Jiff peanut butter ($3.12 for 16oz), Ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips ($4.64 for 10oz bag), and powdered sugar ($2.22 for 32oz). However, you would only use less than a cup of sugar ($0.14), and about half the jar of peanut butter ($1.56). Therefore, to get around the same amount of candy it would cost you $6.34 to make it. Even less if you were to use cheaper ingredients. It would also have health benefits instead of empty calories that are bad for you.

For many they believe that eating healthy food means they have to give up things they love but in reality, that’s simply not true. You don’t have to give them up, you just have to change the way you eat them. Recently I have been doing a low sugar diet. Basically, this means only dark chocolate, no store-bought baked goods, limited amounts of soda, no excess sugary things. After awhile of doing this the sugary things were no longer appealing to me. I tried eating a small piece of cake at a birthday party and got nauseous over the extreme amount of sugary sweetness. When I make things that are sweet at home then I make the ingredients myself. For example, I made a cranberry orange fluff salad for thanksgiving. Instead of using premade cranberry Jello puree I made my own cranberry compote. Instead of store-bought cool whip I made my own with the tiniest bit of sugar and heavy cream. By making my own I was able to avoid the high fructose corn syrup and preservatives in everything but the marshmallows. Here is the recipe for that salad if you’re interested.

Becoming healthier isn’t always easy but it can be fun. We don’t have to live without our favorite snacks we just have to make them ourselves. Sugar still can be enjoyed but in its natural form and in moderation. I can guarantee based on experience that after a while you won’t even crave or find those highly sugary foods appealing. So go out and explore the world of making your own candy store. I can guarantee you’ll like it better anyways. Till next time Grace Marie.

Cranberry Wassail

As Thanksgiving is here and Christmas is fastly approaching many of us are getting out our favorite holiday recipes to enjoy this season. One of my favorite winter holiday recipes is a good wassail. I was first introduced to this delicious drink at a bed and breakfast in Pella, IA during Alex and I's wedding breakfast. Since then, I have been trying different recipes trying to find one that I like. I have come to realize as my Marie teachers have always taught me that sometimes the simpler the better. This Sunday afternoon, I tried a new recipe. This recipe is extremely simple and easy. It is also fairly cheap when compared to others I have tried. Cranberry Wassail, with only ten ingredients this one, will be a crowd-pleaser. 

Cranberry Wassail

Directions

Rinse cranberries, pick out any bad ones, then add them to a large stock pot.

Roll orange/clementines on counter to release juices. Grate the peel into pot then tear it into small pieces and add them and the orange's flesh to the pot. You’ll use the entire orange.

Add water to fill pot ¾ of the way full. Turn on heat to low and simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Add water as needed to keep at ¾ full. When berries turn near colorless and are fully squishy it’s done.

Left photo is almost there but not quite. Right photo is perfect!

Into that pot add all of your mulling spices

Using a mesh strainer and a ladle strain the chunks out of the juice. Pressing the juice out of the berries.

Rinse your pot and mesh strainer, then carefully strain again back into the pot. I tried using a coffee filter to aid this process but the juice was to thick to go through.

 

Add sugar and bring to a boil. More or less sugar may be needed per batch. It’s meant to be more like a cider than a sweet juice.

Serve hot or cold.

Ingredients

• 1 bag fresh cranberries
• 2 clementines or 1 orange
• 2 whole star anise
• 2-3 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp whole cloves
• ⅛ - ¼ tsp Fresh grated peppercorns (must be fresh)
• 1½ tsp fresh ground ginger
• ¼ tsp Ground nutmeg
• Lots of water and patience
• ½ cup White sugar

Prep time: 30 min

Cook time: 3 hours

With as simple as this recipe was, I was skeptical on whether I'd like it or not. However, I will be keeping this recipe for quite some time. I am sure it could be altered to be done in the crock pot. However, if you want your house to smell like Christmas I would highly recommend doing it on the stovetop. 

I got the idea for this recipe from a Pinterest video, however, as with all recipes I use. I didn't follow her recipe but instead made my own off of their idea. Cooking should be done by following what your gut tells you, therefore, most of the time I don't use measuring utensils or follow an actual recipe. In fact, my friend asked me for my Chicken Alfredo recipe recently and I really had to think about what I add to it. 

I hope you all enjoy this tasty treat this winter holiday season! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Until next time Grace Marie.

 

Marie Teacher’s: Mom Marie

 Why do we bake and cook? What draws us to the kitchen? Do you do it because you have to or because you want to? Who taught you to cook, your mom, grandma, a YouTube video? For me it was my mom who taught me all I know, and I love being in the kitchen thanks to the things that she taught me. She also instilled in me a love for history and knowing my heritage. Therefore, I am on a mission to preserve that history through this blog. To start this mission, I interviewed my mother to learn about what being in the kitchen looked like for her as a child.

All my Marie teachers in generation order.

I asked her a few questions about her favorite memories and recipes. She told me it was hard for her to choose a favorite and I don’t blame her for that. It’d be like asking me to choose a favorite book. Almost impossible! After thinking about it for a while though she came up with some pretty amazing stories to tell me.

Mom’s favorite heirloom recipe is her Great Grandma Carrie’s Apple Butter. This recipe is what came to her mind, because it’s a once-a-year thing to do. She loves it because it isn’t fussy and is possibly the oldest recipe she has in her heirloom cookbook. Mom loves the smell it creates in her home, and so do I. This recipe is especially awesome because it takes hard work and dedication over time to make. To follow the recipe best you need orchard apples and not the ones from the store. After working so hard on the apples you get to preserve it to use at a future date. To this day whenever she makes this recipe it reminds her of memories of home that make her laugh and smile. Growing up, canning was a yearly thing, both for her and me. She values preserving hard work and getting to savor it all year round. The apple butter is extra special because you cannot just buy this at a store or even the ingredients, as it will not taste the same.

Great Grandma Carrie Mae

Next, I asked her what her favorite thing her Marie teachers taught her growing up. This was a hard question to answer but only one thing kept coming to her mind. When mom and dad got engaged, mom’s grandma Sally told her two things. “The best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” The other was, “he’s a big boy your gonna have to feed him,” with a lean in and all-knowing look. Both my mom and my great grandma married a tall dark and handsome man. She enjoyed this commonality. While growing up, cooking was just what they did. It was a part of life and not a special thing. When a new neighbor moved in you brought them a plate of cookies. If someone had a baby you made them a casserole. Grandma’s comments were an example of the way they thought. They perfectly captured the way she grew up. You cooked because you had to. A work equals love kind of thing.

My Mom and Dad just after they got engaged.

How old were you when you started helping in the kitchen? For mom her earliest memory of being in the kitchen was preparing dinner for the family while others in the family did animal chores. She grew up on a busy farm, with cattle, pigs, and crops. Seasonally they had bucket bottle calves. They had very busy days filled with bus rides, animal chores, and homework. When she had supper duty everything was laid out and ready for her to put together. Although she probably helped her mom in the kitchen before this, she has no memory of being that young. She was most likely around fourth or fifth grade when she started working in the kitchen without supervision. For me it was about the same age. However, in high school I had friends who were not even allowed to touch the stove unless their parents were in the kitchen with them.   

Some of her other early kitchen memories were when she would get sent to her paternal grandparent’s house to help with canning. One year she got sent to help pick cherries and it wasn’t very fun, she told me. Her grandparents had multiple trees that they completely stripped, then they pitted the cherries to freeze them. Another memory was as far back as she can remember, at Christmas time at her maternal grandparents’ farm. All the women in the family would come together, aunts, cousins, daughters and the like. They would make molded chocolate candies together by melting chocolate in jars using crockpots and hot water. At the time, crockpots were still a new concept. Another item used was an electric skillet, which is most famous for frying chicken in.

Listening to mom tell these stories I could see the look of remembrance on her face. She looked happy as she remembered doing these things with her Marie teachers. This legacy of love is something she passed on to me and I hope to pass on to my future children. Although the way we cook and the attitude towards it has changed, the need has not. People still need to eat. We need to get back to healthy home cooking. Teaching our children to cook at a young age while they are easiest to teach. These skills are important to the future of our young children. Until next time…

Grace Marie

About me

    Heirloom, what does that mean exactly? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary it means, “something of special value handed down from one generation to another.” In my family learning how to use the kitchen successfully and tastefully has been an heirloom trait. Through the generations, my family has made dishes from around the world and close to home. I have been taught how to butcher a chicken, make homemade bread and noodles, and bake all sorts of delicious delicacies.

    You may be wondering though. Who am I and why do I want to blog about my heirloom kitchen? Why did I name it Marie’s Heirloom Kitchen if my name isn’t Marie? Well, let me answer a few of those questions. My name is Grace Marie. Marie is an heirloom name on the maternal side of my family. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all have that middle name. Someday when I have a daughter of my own, her middle name will also be Marie. These wonderful women have taught me so much both in and out of the kitchen. Because of this, I shall call them my Marie teachers. I love experimenting in the kitchen and playing with food. Learning new tricks in how to deal with a picky eater has been my most recent challenge. Although I have been blessed with beautiful teachers in the kitchen, not everyone has. This is why I want to share some of my knowledge in the kitchen with you, my readers.

This is a picture of me and my Marie teachers in 2015 at a Christmas meals for the less fortunate event. From left to right is my Great Grandma Sally, Grandma Kim, my Mom, little sister Brie, and me.

    Knowledge is a beautiful thing, and I gain more of it every time I enter my kitchen. Learning to cook is about more than just following a recipe. Sometimes it means adapting that recipe to work with cheaper ingredients you may already have in your kitchen. Sometimes it may mean looking at five recipes and combining them to make one because you like some of the features of them all but not any specific one. Or when you try a new recipe that sounds like it should work but just isn’t quite right. So, you try it again but with some small tweaks and keep playing with it till you’re satisfied. Learning how to do these things is a skill I have learned from my Marie teachers over the years. I have been in the kitchen helping them since before I could see over the countertops. When I’m stressed, to the kitchen I go. The irony of it though is that sometimes the kitchen makes me stressed.

    When things don’t go as planned or you get burnt by popping grease splatters. This is when some tend to give up, I however, take it as a challenge. There was one time in high school that I was making BLT’s and brownies by myself at the same time. In my family we save the grease left by bacon in a glass container in the fridge. I’ll share in a later post about what you can do with that grease. I was melting the butter I had just taken from the fridge in the microwave when it decided to explode all over it. This was stressful enough by itself, but it gets better… I was pouring the bacon grease into what I thought was its storage container when my little sister walked in. She asked me what I was doing and I responded with putting the bacon grease away. She’s like I didn’t realize it goes in the brownies. I looked down and realized that alas it was not the glass grease container but the partially finished brownie batter that was waiting for the butter which had earlier exploded in the microwave. At this point, I was not about to waste all my hard work. So, what did I do? Well, I put in what remained of the butter and baked the brownies, bacon grease and all. My sister-in-law and brother couldn’t tell the difference when I asked how they were later that day. All this to say that sometimes when things go haywire in the kitchen it doesn't mean things cannot be mended. Some of the best inventions in the food industry are the products of mistakes. Beer, yogurt, and even the chocolate chip cookie.

    My hope for this blog is to not only share my experiences but also those of my Marie teachers. I truly believe that anyone can cook and bake if they set their mind to it and have a great teacher. Hopefully, I can help some of you on your journey to learn the arts of the kitchen. Some topics that I plan on covering in the future include bread baking tips and tricks, quick and easy meals, learning to cook for a picky eater, and the challenge of a 1,600-calorie diet. I look forward to sharing this journey with you. Thanks for reading, Grace Marie.