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.

Low-Carb, High Protein Breakfast Bundles

Mommy and I have recently decided to challenge ourselves to a low-carb, high protein diet. Our focus isn't solely on losing weight, though. It is more on changing our eating habits so we ca be more healthy.

Breakfast has been quite the challenge, since both of us love our morning carbs, but we have been finding lots of good, delicious recipies on Pinterest. This morning, however, I was home alone, and was having trouble finding anything to eat that wasn't full of carbs. I looked in the refrigerator, and there I found a few simple ingredients that made a delicious and filling high-protein breakfast.

Ham and Cheese Breakfast Bundles:
(For 1 person)

4 slices of thin ham (or any other deli meat)
2 tsp. of Greek yogurt
1 cheese stick
2 tsp. crumbled bacon (we get the big bag from Costco).

Layer two slices of meat together for each bundle (so the filling won't leak out) and spread evenly with the yogurt.

Then add half a cheese stick to each bundle. Sprinkle liberally with bacon.

Then roll the bundles up like burritos and microwave for about a minute.

~Enjoy!