I love spinach artichoke dip. It's yummy, creamy, and it's good for you because it's got spinach, right? Well, no. Greg read an article in some bicycle magazine or something that said spinach artichoke dip is the worst thing to ever happen to spinach and artichokes and no one should ever eat it because it might actually kill you. That said, I'm going to go ahead and post my favorite recipe for the deadly stuff. I adapted it from a couple recipes. Next time I make it I'll add a picture to this post. Oh, and just for fun, I'm including the recipe for really delicious pita chips that are definitely not as bad for you as the dip. Who knows, maybe they'll counter the effects and save your life. If not, and you die from eating it, I promise you'll die happy.
Yummy Baked Spinach Artichoke Dip
Ingredients:
1 pkg (8 oz) Neufchatel cheese (reduced-fat cream cheese), softened
1 pkg (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed, well drained
1 jar (7.5 oz) marinated artichoke hearts, drained, chopped
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup plain lowfat or nonfat yogurt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Dash of cayenne pepper or a few drops of hot sauce such as Tabasco
1/4 cup grated or shredded parmesan cheese
Instructions:
Heat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients except parmesan until blended. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake 20 minutes or until bubbly. Serve with crackers or pita chips.
Easy Baked Pita Chips
Ingredients:
1 pkg whole-wheat pita rounds
2-4 TBSP Italian dressing (I like KRAFT Tuscan House Italian)
Instructions:
Heat oven to 350. With a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut each pita round into eight pieces (like a pizza). Separate the halves and arrange the pieces on a cookie sheet. Each round will make 16 chips, so make as many as you need. You may need to do several batches or use more than one cookie sheet. Brush lightly with dressing. Bake for 10 minutes or until browned. Serve warm with dip or hummus.
If you make this and love it, or hate it, or have questions about the recipe, or take a nice photo of it that you'd like to share, please comment. Enjoy!
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
On An Orphaned Baby Dragon
As much as I love typing out my random thoughts in this blog, fiction is still my true love. I am now 60,000 words into my current work in progress, a fantasy novel that is threatening to become a scale-tipping tome. In my current revision I'm working in some short stories, old-world fables that may or may not actually be true (in that world). Just for fun, I thought I'd paste one in here, to offer a peek at what goes on in my imagination. You've been warned: here be dragons.
It was in the days when the Ancients and the dragons were at war. The King had come across a great golden dragon and her young, a half-grown blue male and a tiny female, only a few years old, who glowed with the soft purple of the amethyst. The mother dragon heard the King coming and warned her son, who immediately took flight, but the baby was too young to fly well. Quickly, the mother hid her baby beneath a huge gold wing and turned to face the King of the Ancients, who was armed with a bow and arrows designed to pierce dragon armor. She tried to Speak to him, to tell him she was not an enemy but a Servant of the One as he was, but he would not listen. As she reared up to defend her baby, he shot the bow with the skill of the master, piercing her heart. She fell, and as she did, her wing knocked the baby’s head and she fell too,unconscious, one leg trapped beneath her mother’s dying body.
Hours later, the baby awoke in confusion. Her leg hurt terribly, crushed underneath her mother, who by that time had grown cold. She keened in pain and mourning, a terrible, lonely sound that only dragons can make. Her brother had fled, her mother was gone, and she knew she would most likely die there, orphaned and injured in one of those terrible twists of fate that sometimes happen when the servants of the One pursue their own crusades instead of paying attention to His desires and interests. The little dragon did not know much, but she did know that her mother had fought against the evil dragons and did not deserve to die. The keening continued until her throat ached almost as much as her leg. She was so distraught, she didn’t hear the rustling in the nearby undergrowth.
“Hush, little one. Do not be afraid. If you let me, I will help you.” Despite the gentleness in the voice, the baby was filled with terror when she recognized the language of the Ancients. She choked and looked around in horror, but her vision was blocked by her mother’s wing. Then the wing was lifted, and she looked for the first time into the face of the King’s daughter. Tears filled the girl’s eyes and tracked down her cheeks.
“Oh little one, I am so sorry. Please let me help you. My father does not know that I followed him on his patrol. I was pretending I was one of his warriors, strong and able to help him if he should need me. But at the first sign of trouble, I hid. I heard your mother try to speak to him, but he was filled with fear at the thought that a dragon had found its way so near to our home. He reacted without listening. I tried to stop him, too, but I was too far away and he still does not know I am here. He is gone now, and I swear I will not hurt you. You do not have to fear.”
With strong arms and gentle hands, the girl lifted the dead dragon’s body enough to free the baby’s leg. “It is broken badly. I do not have a gift for healing, but I will do what I can,” she promised. As she worked, the baby was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude that only grew as the days went by. The King’s daughter hid the little dragon in a clearing miles from the city but came to visit her every day, bringing food and herbs to help with her injured leg. Unfortunately, she had spoken the truth when she said she did not have skill in healing, for the leg developed a twist and the dragon never could walk without a limp. However, with the guidance and encouragement of her friend, she did learn to fly well. Once she had grown strong enough to fly away and make her home wherever she chose, she insisted on staying near her friend. Long after the dragon war ended, their friendship continued as an enduring symbol of the truth that the One an take even the worst of circumstances, the most bitter enemies, and make something beautiful from the pain.
It was in the days when the Ancients and the dragons were at war. The King had come across a great golden dragon and her young, a half-grown blue male and a tiny female, only a few years old, who glowed with the soft purple of the amethyst. The mother dragon heard the King coming and warned her son, who immediately took flight, but the baby was too young to fly well. Quickly, the mother hid her baby beneath a huge gold wing and turned to face the King of the Ancients, who was armed with a bow and arrows designed to pierce dragon armor. She tried to Speak to him, to tell him she was not an enemy but a Servant of the One as he was, but he would not listen. As she reared up to defend her baby, he shot the bow with the skill of the master, piercing her heart. She fell, and as she did, her wing knocked the baby’s head and she fell too,unconscious, one leg trapped beneath her mother’s dying body.
Hours later, the baby awoke in confusion. Her leg hurt terribly, crushed underneath her mother, who by that time had grown cold. She keened in pain and mourning, a terrible, lonely sound that only dragons can make. Her brother had fled, her mother was gone, and she knew she would most likely die there, orphaned and injured in one of those terrible twists of fate that sometimes happen when the servants of the One pursue their own crusades instead of paying attention to His desires and interests. The little dragon did not know much, but she did know that her mother had fought against the evil dragons and did not deserve to die. The keening continued until her throat ached almost as much as her leg. She was so distraught, she didn’t hear the rustling in the nearby undergrowth.
“Hush, little one. Do not be afraid. If you let me, I will help you.” Despite the gentleness in the voice, the baby was filled with terror when she recognized the language of the Ancients. She choked and looked around in horror, but her vision was blocked by her mother’s wing. Then the wing was lifted, and she looked for the first time into the face of the King’s daughter. Tears filled the girl’s eyes and tracked down her cheeks.
“Oh little one, I am so sorry. Please let me help you. My father does not know that I followed him on his patrol. I was pretending I was one of his warriors, strong and able to help him if he should need me. But at the first sign of trouble, I hid. I heard your mother try to speak to him, but he was filled with fear at the thought that a dragon had found its way so near to our home. He reacted without listening. I tried to stop him, too, but I was too far away and he still does not know I am here. He is gone now, and I swear I will not hurt you. You do not have to fear.”
With strong arms and gentle hands, the girl lifted the dead dragon’s body enough to free the baby’s leg. “It is broken badly. I do not have a gift for healing, but I will do what I can,” she promised. As she worked, the baby was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude that only grew as the days went by. The King’s daughter hid the little dragon in a clearing miles from the city but came to visit her every day, bringing food and herbs to help with her injured leg. Unfortunately, she had spoken the truth when she said she did not have skill in healing, for the leg developed a twist and the dragon never could walk without a limp. However, with the guidance and encouragement of her friend, she did learn to fly well. Once she had grown strong enough to fly away and make her home wherever she chose, she insisted on staying near her friend. Long after the dragon war ended, their friendship continued as an enduring symbol of the truth that the One an take even the worst of circumstances, the most bitter enemies, and make something beautiful from the pain.
Monday, February 17, 2014
On Being Good
I am a pastor's wife. I am surrounded by good people. In fact, we tend to be so good that we compare our goodness to the goodness of others. We measure our worth in our eyes, in our friends' eyes, and in God's eyes, by a certain set of standards, bad behaviors we should avoid and good behaviors we should be able to check off a list. And if someone should happen to fall below those standards, well, we can talk about ways that they should improve themselves, and avoid them until they can manage to behave better. After all, bad company corrupts good character, right? Or is it that bad character corrupts good company? Either way, if I continue to surround myself with better and better people, I should have an easier time making myself better, too. At least, that's how it ought to work. Isn't it?
There is a fundamental problem with this kind of thinking. On our own, in the very depths of our souls, we are not good. None of us are. We are the broken products of a broken world, destined to fail in our endless drive for perfection. Not a very pretty picture, is it? Generally, it leads to one of two responses: We give up on this perfect ideal and just live to get whatever we can out of this miserable life until we die, or we try to cover up the ugliness and imperfection with a mask of goodness. That is human nature. And honestly, it's never going to do us much good. We need a new nature, a perfect mind, a flawless character.
Enter Jesus. God in flesh, born perfect, lived perfect, died to destroy our imperfection, raised to life to offer us His life, His nature, His mind, and His character. The exchange cost Him everything, and it costs us, too. We have to be willing to take it, to admit that we are not enough, will never be enough, and that we need Him to save us. Once the exchange is made, God never sees us the same way again. We are forgiven, clothed in Christ, free from condemnation, free to live the way He designed us to live in the first place. And in a novel, that would be the ending to the story. Everything would be "happily ever after" from that point on. So, why doesn't reality look that? Why are so many of us who have made that exchange still living like it never happened? We do, don't we? We thank God for His blessings, His salvation, His promise of eternal life, and just keep living by human nature, either focused on getting everything we can out of life, or finding that old mask of goodness and trying it back on. We don't even notice that it's filthy. We look out from the mask and wonder what's wrong with other people. Why can't they get their lives figured out? Why do they make things so difficult for us? And come to think about it, when we were promised all this joy and freedom, why are we still so miserable?
Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Gal. 3:1-3) To paraphrase: "What are you thinking? You know the truth of what Jesus did for you. So let me ask you, were you saved because of something you did, or because you trusted in what God did? Are you an idiot? Are you really trying to cover up God's work in your life with your own stupid mask?"
We don't have to wear a mask. God has given us His Spirit, which is everything we need to live the good life He wants us to live. The Bible says repeatedly that the only reason we want to do good is because of His life in us. Only His grace equips us to do good. Philippians 2:12-13 says specifically that we should obey God's commandments and work to live like people who have been saved, because it is God who gives us both the desire and the ability to do good. So even when we live like we are supposed to, it is because of the work of God within us. We still live in a broken world. We still fail. But the grace of God that covers our failures also gives us the ability to live in victory. This is the good news that I live my life to proclaim. My ugly old mask never fit very well, anyway.
There is a fundamental problem with this kind of thinking. On our own, in the very depths of our souls, we are not good. None of us are. We are the broken products of a broken world, destined to fail in our endless drive for perfection. Not a very pretty picture, is it? Generally, it leads to one of two responses: We give up on this perfect ideal and just live to get whatever we can out of this miserable life until we die, or we try to cover up the ugliness and imperfection with a mask of goodness. That is human nature. And honestly, it's never going to do us much good. We need a new nature, a perfect mind, a flawless character.
Enter Jesus. God in flesh, born perfect, lived perfect, died to destroy our imperfection, raised to life to offer us His life, His nature, His mind, and His character. The exchange cost Him everything, and it costs us, too. We have to be willing to take it, to admit that we are not enough, will never be enough, and that we need Him to save us. Once the exchange is made, God never sees us the same way again. We are forgiven, clothed in Christ, free from condemnation, free to live the way He designed us to live in the first place. And in a novel, that would be the ending to the story. Everything would be "happily ever after" from that point on. So, why doesn't reality look that? Why are so many of us who have made that exchange still living like it never happened? We do, don't we? We thank God for His blessings, His salvation, His promise of eternal life, and just keep living by human nature, either focused on getting everything we can out of life, or finding that old mask of goodness and trying it back on. We don't even notice that it's filthy. We look out from the mask and wonder what's wrong with other people. Why can't they get their lives figured out? Why do they make things so difficult for us? And come to think about it, when we were promised all this joy and freedom, why are we still so miserable?
Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Gal. 3:1-3) To paraphrase: "What are you thinking? You know the truth of what Jesus did for you. So let me ask you, were you saved because of something you did, or because you trusted in what God did? Are you an idiot? Are you really trying to cover up God's work in your life with your own stupid mask?"
We don't have to wear a mask. God has given us His Spirit, which is everything we need to live the good life He wants us to live. The Bible says repeatedly that the only reason we want to do good is because of His life in us. Only His grace equips us to do good. Philippians 2:12-13 says specifically that we should obey God's commandments and work to live like people who have been saved, because it is God who gives us both the desire and the ability to do good. So even when we live like we are supposed to, it is because of the work of God within us. We still live in a broken world. We still fail. But the grace of God that covers our failures also gives us the ability to live in victory. This is the good news that I live my life to proclaim. My ugly old mask never fit very well, anyway.
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