Book Review: Dollar Tree Cookbooks

Ok, so it's confession time... I may have gone to the Dollar Tree today and I may have bought three ridiculously thin cookbooks... but in my defense, they have pictures. 

Gorgeous pictures. 

On every page. 

Honestly, I did look at the recipes themselves before purchasing the books, but to be equally honest, the pictures were a deciding factor. I'm a very visual person, and to be able to see a picture of what a recipe makes really does help.

Well played, Dollar Tree... well played.

Anyway, these three little cookbooks really did have a number of delicious- sounding recipes I am excited to try. The books on salads and smoothies are probably going to be the most helpful; Any way I can motivate myself to actually eat leafy greens is a good thing, and if I can disguise them in a smoothie, then so much the better!

The smoothie book has a good variety of smoothie recipes, ranging from dessert smoothies to breakfast smoothies, to protein smoothies and green smoothies. There are only 11 recipes, but they are diverse enough to make quite a useful little collection.

The appetizer book is probably the least useful to me, but I bought it because, like the other two, it has a good variety of recipes... and it had recipes for Baked Crab Dip and Spinach Artichoke Dip, both of which I greatly enjoy eating, but haven't tried making yet. Later in the summer if we have a good pea harvest, I want to try the Green Pea Hummus recipe. It sounds quite interesting.

Each book also has one of these helpful measurement equivalents pages

As I have mentioned, the third book I purchased contains salad recipes. Like the others, it also has only 11 recipes, but very diverse ones. For example, the book starts out with a Chili Lime Southwest Chicken Salad (reminiscent of the one I love to get at Panera), but also contains a recipe for Fruit Salad, several pasta salad recipes, and a yummy-looking Lentil Salad recipe.

Lots of bang for your buck... and maybe not such a bad impulse purchase after all!

To find these books, you can go to the Dollar Tree website here to find location near you, or you could order online... they only let you buy a case of 36, though...

Oh, and I was reminded as I looked these up on the website --there's also one about grilling.

The Importance of Family Vacations

A week ago, I traveled with my parents to my oldest nephew’s graduation. I almost decided to travel separately, partly because I enjoy driving, and partly because I enjoy the freedom to stop whenever and wherever I feel like stopping on the way back home. My dad had seemed a bit disappointed, though, when I had voiced my inclination to travel alone, so I had changed my plans. After all, it had been years since we had done a trip together, and he had planned to do some vacation-y things on the way back home. 

I am so glad I did not go with my first instinct about this trip. My parents and I had so much fun! It wasn’t as though we did anything extravagant –we stopped at a grocery store and bought food to put in our cooler for lunch in the car later, we went to a free visitor’s center museum, and we took a walk at a small state park while Daddy napped in the car. We did go to one visitor’s center museum that charged admission, but my parents are both seniors now, which gave us a discounted rate.

No, the blessing of this trip wasn’t in enjoying luxuries or in the novelty of things we did (picnic in the car, driving, going to a couple visitor’s centers…). It wasn’t even in seeing something amazing. (We got pictures of Mount St. Helens from afar, but by the time we got to the closest viewing area, the clouds had rolled in.) The joy of this trip was in the bonds developed by experiencing something together. It was my dad’s first visit to St. Helens, and it was fun to show him all the things my mom and I had enjoyed when we had visited there years before. The memories we made are now the building blocks of relationship, because they gave us a new source of conversation, reminiscence, inside jokes, and illustrations for future times together. The shared experience of even a day trip can serve as a catalyst for building relationships with your family. 

Spending a lengthy amount of time in the car together also forces a family to find things to talk about. In our case, it was the scenery, the book I was listening to (with headphones), the talk shows and music everyone else was listening to, and anything else that came to mind as we drove. Because we had such a long time together in a small enough space no one could escape into their own space, we ended up finding things to talk about that we wouldn’t otherwise have bothered to bring up in conversation.

So the moral of my trip is: even if you enjoy the independence of traveling solo, try traveling with others more often: you never know how God might use it!

Hope of Gladness

This morning as I read in Proverbs, a verse stood out to me which I had never taken the time to really think about before.

The hope of the righteous shall be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked shall perish.

Proverbs 10:28

The hope of the righteous shall be gladness… I could tell by the way the phrase grabbed my attention that the Holy Spirit was quickening it to my heart, that is, showing me that this particular truth was what I needed today. I wasn’t exactly sure how to apply it… a couple of obvious doctrinal applications came to mind, but to my shame, I must admit that I didn’t take time to think it through right then. In fact, I found myself rushing to get ready for church, then rushing from ministry to ministry all morning. It wasn’t until during the sermon that it finally clicked. 

I had one of those thoughts pop up as I was listening to the sermon… you know, those sparks of discontentment which if given any fuel at all spread into a full-blown forest fire in no time. Anyway, the thought occurred, and as I took a deep breath preparing for battle, the verse came to mind again.

The hope of the righteous shall be gladness… I realized what it was that the Holy Spirit was teaching me. At that particular moment, doing battle with my own thoughts and emotions, I wasn’t happy. The hope that I had was not that I would never experience unhappiness, but rather that the way to gladness was in responding to the unhappiness in a righteous (Christ-like) way. I can trust that no matter what difficulty or unhappiness God allows, He has already promised to help me through it, and He will give me grace and strength to fight off the ungratefulness of discontentment so that I can return to the gladness He desires me to enjoy -the gladness that comes from stopping Satan’s fiery darts of discontent with the inflammable and impervious shield of faith.

Isn’t it amazing how God gives us exactly what we need when we need it? This truth helped me to get the spark extinguished before it had a chance to spread, and instead of having a crummy, emotional, depressing day, I had quite a happy one! This all reminded me of the promise in I Corinthians 10:13

“God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

Praise the Lord for His faithful love!