Well, here we go again. 😛 It’s been seven month since my last post, did you miss me? (Just kidding!) I have, in fact, missed blogging, but I’m still struggling to keep up with it. *shrug* Let’s keep our fingers crossed, and maybe this time I’ll do better.
Last time, we left off on desserts, so today we’re going to talk about DIPS.
Let’s start off with the one that wasn’t a keeper, it’s a variation on spinach-artichoke dip, which is one of my favorites. In fact, there are dozens of spinach-artichoke dishes in my recipe box! That being said, not every one is going to be a winner. I made this for Christmas this past year (which means that I was crazy busy and unfortunately didn’t get a picture), and, while it was delicious, it was an awful lot of work for a dip that just didn’t knock me out of the park. In particular, I didn’t find it creamy enough.
That unfortunate business being done, let’s get to 2 long time favorites in this house. First up is a yummy bean dip. (Funnily enough, I made this for Christmas 2 years ago.) We’ve been making this one for years now, so it’s funny that it hasn’t made it on here before. It’s super easy to make and very customizable, just leave out the ingredients that don’t appeal to you. 🙂
Bean Dip (unknown source)
2 tsp. lime juice
1/2 tsp. cumin
1 16 oz. can refried beans
1 c. salsa
2/3 c. thawed, frozen corn
1/4 c. chopped green onions
2 tbsp. chopped black olives (Hubs doesn’t like olives, so we leave this out.)
3/4 c. shredded Mexican blend cheese
3/4 c. light sour cream
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
- In a medium bowl, combine the beans, cumin, and lime juice; stir until well combined. Spread mix evenly into the bottom of a greased 11×7 pan. Spread salsa evenly over the beans.
- In a bowl, combine the corn, onions, and olives; spoon evenly over the salsa. Sprinkle the cheese on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes, then top with the sour cream and sprinkle with the cilantro. Serve with tortilla chips.
So easy, right? This next dip isn’t as easy as all that, but man does it deliver on the flavor. It’s a Brussels sprouts dip, but hear me out. This dip is SOOO good that it even converted my husband who hates Brussels sprouts! I posted about this previously, but it’s so good that it undoubtedly deserves another mention. Creamy, semi-healthy (hey, you’re eating veggies!), and oh so tasty, this is one of my favorite things to make when Brussels sprouts are in season.
Now, for something else that we haven’t done in a while. I recently finished a C.S. Lewis book that I hadn’t read before: “Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer”. It was an interesting collection of letters from Lewis to a long-time friend. While much of what they discussed was too philosophical for me, there were some nice tidbits in it.
It started off quite fun. They were trying to renew their correspondence, and Lewis remarked that “Nothing makes an absent friend so present as a disagreement.” , which seemed like a great attitude to have about differences of opinion between friends.
In the same letter, Lewis was discussing changes to the liturgy which still sounds quite pertinent to our day and age.
It looks as if they [clergymen] believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are.
Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don’t go to church to be entertained.
As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice.
The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.
Thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping.
There’s a lot that I agree with in there. I think there’s a fine line to walk between the service always being so the same that you’re doing everything by rote and thereby losing the meaning and changing things up so often that you’re focused on what’s coming next instead of the reason you’re there.
In the next letter, Lewis and Malcolm are discussing a lady who was being judged by others for using “ready-made” prayers. Lewis points out that it shouldn’t matter to anyone else, what she does, that it’s between her and the Lord.
What pleased me most about a Greek Orthodox mass I once attended was that there seemed to be no prescribed behaviour for the congregation. Some stood, some knelt, some sat, some walked; one crawled about the floor like a caterpillar. And the beauty of it was that nobody took the slightest notice of what anyone else was doing. I wish we Anglicans would follow their example. One meets people who are perturbed because someone in the next pew does, or does not, cross himself. They oughtn’t even to have seen, let alone censured. “Who art thou that judgest Another’s servant?”
Again, I don’t agree with everything, but there are good points! I think there should definitely be some decorum in a church service, but I also know that we’re all too apt to pay attention to what others are doing when we should be focusing on our own worship.
Several letters later, they’re discussing how Lewis prays through the Lord’s prayer. While discussing the phrase “Thy will be done”, Lewis has some incredible insights.
It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at that moment, we expected some other good.
God shows us a new facet of the glory, and we refuse to look at it because we’re still looking for the old one.
Truly convicting truths!
Here they move on a bit to discuss people mourning the loss of their first fervency in the faith.
You can’t, at the twentieth reading, get again the experience of reading “Lycidas” for the first time. But what you do get can be in its own way as good.
And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year’s blooms, and you will get nothing. “Unless a seed die….”
Then they discuss forgiveness:
To forgive for the moment is not difficult. But to go on forgiving, to forgive the same offence again every time it recurs to the memory–there’s the real tussle.
And lastly in that letter, when they were discussing the phrase “lead us not into temptation”. His interpretation of it is not that God tempts us, but this instead…
As if we said, “In my ignorance I have asked for A, B, and C. But don’t give me them if you foresee that they would in reality be to me either snares or sorrows.”
If God had granted all the silly prayers I’ve made in my life, where should I be now?
A thought-provoking concept.
Later in the book, he has an interesting thought about joy.
That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.
And with that happy thought, I think I’ll sign off for the night. I’m still hoping to get back to you soon (with several egg dishes), but no matter what, I hope that you’re having a good weekend with your loved ones.
Food, Faith, and Other Fabulous Finds 