Posts by Kerry Weisser
Lemon Blueberry Oatmeal Mini Muffins
Start the day off right with a power packed breakfast and your day will be more productive and your brain will be able to focus with clarity. These mini muffins make great lunch bag treats and you won’t feel guilty that your kids are having a sweet treat because the fiber and protein offset the small amount of sugar. Make these today and join us as we introduce our Growing Weisser Wellness Wisdom campaign. Check back every day for more details.
Ingredients
1 2/3 cups oats ground into coarse meal
1 1/8 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk ( fat free if possible or use plain Greek yogurt)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 Tablespoon grated lemon rind
2 eggs
2 cups frozen small Maine blueberries
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pulse oats in food processor to make coarse meal. Place all dry ingredients into a large bowl. Combine buttermilk or yogurt, oil, rind and eggs in small bowl and whisk until combined. Pour into dry ingredients and stir carefully until just moist. Fold in blueberries. Lightly grease mini muffin tins (makes 3 dozen mini muffins). Bake for 15 minutes until muffins spring back when touched. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar if desired. Cool and remove from pans. Store in airtight container for a week in refrigerator and for a few weeks in freezer.
ENJOY!
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Apricot Bran Honey Muffins
Need a breakfast idea that is packed with healthy ingredients, incredibly delicious and a great way to send your kids off with a nutritious start that first day of school? I reorganized a few of my favorite ingredients into this recipe and I know you will love these muffins.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups chopped dried apricots, about 7 oz (I used sulfur free organic)
2 Tablespoons butter (can use dairy free margarine)
3 Tablespoons coconut oil
½ cup apricot nectar
2 Tablespoons honey
¾ cup oat bran
¾ cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (8 oz) carton plain greek yogurt (can use soy or coconut yogurt to keep it dairy free)
1 egg
1 egg white
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Lightly grease a 12 count muffin tin.
Combine first 5 ingredients in a small saucepan and place on high heat until it comes to a boil. Turn down to low and let simmer for 3 minutes until apricots are plump and mixture is thick. Allow to cool.
Mix flour, oat bran, salt and soda in a medium bowl.
Wisk brown sugar, yogurt, vanilla, egg and egg white together in a small bowl and add to flour mixture in medium bowl.
Stir together until just moistened.
Fold in apricot mixture and quickly spoon into greased muffin tin.
Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Watch carefully so tops do not brown too much.
Makes 12 muffins.
Serve warm or room temperature.
Store in straight container.
Reorganize your WHY!
The Growing Weisser women are taking this week off to spend some important time reorganizing our priorities. We are attending a leadership development conference and have an abundance of new concepts and information to digest so we can share much of it with you.
The keynote speaker was passionate about her faith in Jesus and she encouraged us in business development techniques that we will pass on to you in the near future. She ended her talk by handing out tiny bags of mustard seeds with a bible verse from Matthew 17:20 ” If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” She encouraged us to believe in ourselves and to set goals, dream big and to never give up on our why!
Do you know WHY you do the things you do in your life? Maybe you need to take some time to reorganize your WHY!
All the Weisser Women…
Read MoreReorganize your Heart and DO SOMETHING!
Have you ever had an experience where something moves your heart into action? When you hear of a pressing need and you just can not stop thinking about it and you feel compelled to DO SOMETHING? Are you willing to allow that pressing need to motivate you enough to REORGANIZE your life so you can DO SOMETHING? Read on and you will understand what I mean and why I am reorganizing my life to follow my heart and DO SOMETHING!
There are 15 million orphans across sub-Saharan Africa and their 20-40 year old parents have died of HIV/AIDS. This year the numbers are expected to increase to 21 million or more due to the drought and severe food shortage. One million of these orphans live in Malawi, Africa, where some very special “Gogos” (grandmothers) are caring for these orphans in the rural villages. Many of these “Gogos” are caring for 2 or 3 children or more. They each have a small plot of ground to cultivate and grow enough to eat if the maize crop is good. This year, the lack of rain and poor harvest mean there will be hunger and starvation in the months ahead.
SAFE (Sub-Saharan African Family Enrichment, a registered NGO and approved 501©3 non-profit organization) facilitates partnerships between poor gogos and groups in the U.S. called Gogo Grandmothers. The Gogo Grandmother groups raise funds to provide the grandmothers with seeds, fertilizers, mosquito nets, blankets, preschool for younger orphans and school fees and supplies for older orphans. The Gogo Grandmother groups gather to pray for the Gogos regularly. The Gogos in Africa are given spiritual encouragement, nutrition training and education in child development and hygiene. This is a fantastic heart-to-heart relationship that brings joy to Gogos in Africa and is an opportunity for LOVE in …
Read MoreReorganize and Think Outside the Box
Reorganize
Last week I had the incredible privilege of being included in a reorganization process where two groups were merging into one. Both groups had a common foundational vision to care for the poor and underprivileged and both groups had grown out of a common passion to serve Christ, show love in action and make a difference. Reorganizing brings fresh opportunities, new ways of solving problems and renewed energy. Reorganizing challenges us to think outside the box and to open our hearts and minds to new ideas.
Some principles I learned through this process are emphasized in these passages from the bible(The Message version).
“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care — then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.”
Philippians 2:1-4 MSG
“So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:22-25 MSG
Communication is key when one is working with others to help them refocus and reorganize. When I am trying to encourage relationship reorganization and influence others to change, I must be willing …
Read More“Shotbox” a MUST HAVE Creative Invention
The girls and I had an opportunity to go to a “Bloggers Convention” last February and one of the most innovative and creative items we saw at the conference was the SHOTBOX. We were intrigued by the design and impressed with the amazing features and most importantly we knew this would be something that would improve our blogging experience significantly.
What is a SHOTBOX, you may be asking?
“Shotbox is a table top light studio. A fully contained, tabletop, collapsible, portable, lightweight photo light studio. Perfect for objects, photos and documents. The SHOTBOX is a Collapsible Tabletop Studio that uses high powered LEDs to create a perfectly lit “micro-studio” environment to get great images with any camera, including smart devices.” This is a fantastic invention that will allow bloggers like us, the Growing Weisser girls, to improve the quality of the photographs that we post on our blog without investing in a costly supplies to make a home light studio. The Shotbox is compact, collapsible and stores easily when not being used. Here is a picture of the Shotbox and some examples of the beautiful pictures that can be taken with an iPhone or DSLR camera with the Shotbox. The Shotbox company has a Kickstart campaign going on right now so if you are interested in supporting this amazing invention and want to give the design team a big boost of confidence as they get their new product manufactured and ready for market (expecting the first shipment in October) go to their kickstart campaign page by clicking this link:shotbox. They have 31 days to go in their kickstart campaign and so far have $31,134 pledged with a goal of $50,00. So join the movement and support this amazing company. Click here to check out their kickstart …
Baklava-a Traditional Mediterranean Sweet Treat
Baklava has always been a food full of memories for me. Growing up in a family that loved to cook foods from different cultures, in addition to marrying into an Armenian family , I have had a passion for Mediterranean food for years. My fondest memory of Baklava is from my college years when some girl friends and I spent our spring break in Greece. We loved every minute of our time in Greece and although it was the Europe on $5 a day era….we found ourselves a bit short on money the last three days of our trip. Knowing we needed to save enough money for our ferry boat ride back to Italy where we were living and studying, we decided the best use of the remainder of our money would be to skip conventional restaurant meals and survive for our last three days in Greece on Baklava. What a GREAT decision that was. This weekend we had our reunion with the folks we had the privilege of traveling with through Turkey and Greece a few months ago. I decided to bring Baklava for us to all enjoy since it had been one of our group’s favorite treats on our trip. Years ago, my husband’s Nana taught me how to make her Armenian version of Baklava and I have tried various other recipes over the years, but I decided to go back to our roots make my favorite Baklava Recipe…….and I will share it here with you……
Ingredients
1 (16 oz) package Phyllo dough, thawed according to package instructions
1 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 pound (4 cups) walnuts finely chopped (for a more authentic Turkish version, use pistachios)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ cup sugar
1 cup honey
3 Tablespoons lemon juice (juice of 1 lemon)
¾ cup water…
Recharged by Keeping Track of your Life with a Planner
Planning, scheduling, arranging, coordinating, and remembering… It is our life. It is in our nature. It is what we do. One thing we all usually struggle with is… TIME MANAGEMENT. How can we fit it all in? How can we fill up our busy schedule even more?
With everything going digital, the art of keeping a written planner is becoming a lost art. But I find it still very useful. I love to write things down. I love to take notes. I love to keep track of my days. Yes ICal and Google Calendar are very helpful to keep track of big dates, trips, and events and share them with other people. But when it comes to the details, I keep a pen and notebook in hand.
Some tips for Organizing your Planner:
- APPEARANCE: Pick out a planner with a cover you like, if the cover is plain, add some pictures, stickers, or decorations
- LOCATION: Keep the planner out where you can see it each morning, where you eat breakfast or have your morning quiet time
- PREPARED: keep a pen or pencil handy
- COLOR CODED: use different colors for different categories, types of events, or different kids activities if you have multiple kids
- SPECIAL DATES: Write birthdays/anniversaries on the month section and the day section
- LEFT SIDE: Write down the schedule and times of appts on the left
- RIGHT SIDE: Write a list of to do’s on the right for your daily to do list
- DAILY TO DO LIST: If it isn’t finished on the specific day, add it to the next days to do list
- EXTRA LISTS: Put big grocery lists or party details on a separate notes page or a post it note you can stick on the page
- ADD LATER: If something wasn’t planned and comes
Nutritious Nachos-RECHARGED with summer veggies
When our girls were young, nachos were a favorite go-to meal along with quesadillas. These NUTRITIOUS and DELICIOUS nachos are covered with vegetable goodness, made on home baked tortilla chips and are an easy complete summer meal. Whip up a batch the next time you have a group over or just enjoy on a Sunday afternoon while watching a ballgame. If you have the time to grill your corn and let it cool a bit before you make this recipe it has a wonderful added bbq flavor but fresh cut off the cob works as well.
Ingredients
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
1 red onion chopped (1 cup)
3 cloves garlic minced
2 cups chopped zucchini
1 red pepper chopped
1-2 cups fresh corn (you can bbq first for added roasted flavor)
1 jalepeno pepper thinly sliced
2 teaspoon ground cumin
1½ teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoon sea salt
1 can black beans drained and rinsed
½ pound ground turkey (optional if you want vegetarian version)
8-10 corn tortillas
½ cup grated Mexican cheese blend (cheddar and Monterey jack or colby jack)
½ cup queso fresco crumbled
1 avocado diced
1-2 tomatoes chopped
⅓ cup cilantro chopped
1 lime cut into wedges
Brown ground turkey seasoned with 1 teaspoon each cumin, chili powder and salt in skillet until completely cooked. Set aside
Saute onion and garlic in olive oil for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add zucchini, corn, red pepper, jalepeno, 1 teaspoon cumin, ½ teaspoon chili powder and 1 teaspoon salt and cook 5 more minutes. Add black bean and stir until heated through. Turn off heat and let cool.
Cut corn tortillas into quarters and spread out in a 15×10 inch jelly roll pan that has been coated with olive oil spray. Spray tops of tortillas with olive oil …
What Recharges YOU?
One of my favorite things about summer is having time to read! I love books and I love setting aside time each day to read. It is not as though I don’t read during the other seasons but there is something very special to me about summer reading…it might be the opportunity to read for pure pleasure or maybe it’s the memories that come to mind as I sit for an hour in the afternoon sun and read a novel. I love to listen to audio books, podcasts and learn about the lives of interesting people. We just spent hours in the car last week listening to a dramatic presentation of the life of C.S. Lewis during the war, then we listened to the unabridged audiobooks of Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. My mind was challenged to think outside the box and was filled with mind boggling questions. I am RECHARGED by having my mind opened up to new ways of thinking and discovering concepts about life and eternity. C. S. Lewis was a brilliant thinker, philosopher and a strong enthusiast for the cause of Christ. He was creative and innovative and every book I have ever read that he authored has shaped my life in a positive way.
Right now I am reading a book called Gripped by the Greatness of God by James MacDonald.
This week I read and reread a passage in the bible from Isaiah 55:1-13 that the author used to impress upon his readers that a good way to insure finishing strong in one’s life is to look for and follow people who are passionately acknowledging the greatness of God. Those people find a complete satisfaction in following God and they believe in the absolute truth of the bible that produces confidence, teaches …