Faith, Food and Family

I don't know about you but I really enjoy ranch dressing. The stuff in the bottle is okay, but if you look at the ingredients it contains some not so good stuff like MSG and added sugar. It also has a lot of added sodium. I'm trying to watch my sodium so I decided to make a salt-free ranch mix, then I can control the salt whenever I make the dressing or add it to a recipe. It's super easy to make your own ranch mix. If you make a batch of this up, you can have it already on hand to make ranch dressing or add it into other recipes. Let's get started! Salt-free Ranch Dressing Mix Ingredients: 4 Tbsp of dried parsley 4 tsp of dried dill 4 tsp of onion powder 4 tsp of minced dried onion 2 tsp of garlic powder 1 tsp of ground black pepper Combine the spices in a bowl and from here you can process them for a bit in a mini food processor to mix well and make some of the parsley smaller or you can use a coffee grinder as a spice grinder. Then place in a contai...

I hope that all of you have had a blessed Christmas and New Year! I know many of us start the New Year off with the resolution to eat healthier. I definitely want to be on the path to being healthier and am trying to make better choices along the way. Sometimes that can be hard when things are busy but baby steps help. So hopefully I will have lots of new recipes to post of some yummy goodies that are healthy as well! I feel that chicken salad is a pretty healthy dish. Especially if you are careful to check the ingredients of the mayonnaise. I use Hellmann's Olive Oil mayonnaise and really enjoy it. Chicken salad is a favorite of mine, but I usually make the same recipe. Chicken, mayo, dill, celery, nuts, etc. Sometimes I add grapes to it as well. However, this time I tried something a bit different. I added relish and hard boiled eggs. I loved the result! This chicken salad is so good! I hope you try it and if you do, let me know what you think! The Best Chicken Salad ...

Christmas is almost here! It sure is hard to believe. Time goes by so much more quickly than I realize. I had meant to get to this cookbook review before now, but have been very busy with school. I was anxious to get a look at Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix cookbook. It is indeed a very interesting book. He promises "more than 700 simple recipes and techniques to mix and match for endless possibilities." This definitely sounded like something I wanted to check out. The book is hardcover and has a nice feel to it. There were lots of photos inside, which is always a very important thing to me. What I really like about this cookbook is that it gives you so many ways to prepare one item. He gives 12 different ways to prepare cabbage, 12 different ways to make beets, 12 different ways to cook shrimp. You definitely won't be bored with the ideas in this book. I like how he shows a variety of ways to make each item. Sometimes it can be easy to get in a rut and make...

Do you have an avid reader in your household? My daughter could just about live on books alone. LOL She was very interested in reading a book called Armada by Ernest Cline. When it arrived, she was excited to get started reading it. Usually, I review cookbooks and such but this time, my daughter wanted to review this book so I am letting her. Here is her review... I first heard of Armada by watching a booktuber and it sounded really interesting. I was excited to dive in and get started on the book. However, it didn't quite meet my expectations. The book is heavily based in gamer lingo and I had a hard time following all of it. If you're a gamer, this book might be more up your alley. While the story line was interesting, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I would recommend this book be read at age 14 and above as there was quite a bit of profanity and some other more mature topics in the book. You can find more about the author here . Disclaimer: I received this book...

Do you all remember when the first American with Ebola was brought to Atlanta to be treated? It seems like it's been forever ago in ways. Last year I kept up with all of the news information about Ebola. I had first heard of the disease as a child and I remember how much it scared me because of it's devastating effects and high death rate. One of the things that bothered me most about the disease is how you lose the ability to touch another person because you are so contagious. So when I saw that Ebola was raging out of control in West Africa and that two missionaries had contracted it and they would be bringing them here to treat, I was definitely uneasy. I followed Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol's stories closely. I was so thankful for their recoveries and when I found out that Dr. Brantly would be releasing a book, I was anxious to read it. His faithfulness and devotion to God in such a devastating situation was inspiring. His book, Called for Life, arrived at ...

Do any of you have any of Trisha Yearwood's cookbooks? I have one and just added another to my collection recently. It's called Trisha's Table and the recipes look so yummy! That is one thing I have really enjoyed about this book is looking at all of the yummy looking photos! They make everything look so tasty! Trisha includes a great recipe for breakfast burritos that would make a great on-the-go breakfast. I am hoping to soon make her recipe for Spinach Frittata as it looked so good! Some of the other recipes I hope to try is the caramelized onion dip, Mama's egg salad, wild rice and mushroom soup, cornbread chili casserole, chicken enchiladas and so much more! This book has lots of fresh ingredients that are great for healthy family dinners. As well as recipes for things like unfried chicken, to put a healthier spin on some old favorites. I look forward to trying some of these recipes soon! Do you all have any favorite recipes from Trisha Yearwood? Want ...

I don't usually have allergies but last week, something knocked me down hard. I know it was allergy based because of my symptoms but I think it also went to my sinuses. I was miserable for several days. I'm feeling better but still can't taste or smell 100%. I was very excited to look through the newest cookbook in my collection while I was sick though. It's called Pure Food by Veronica Bosgraaf. Her cookbook is all about eating clean with seasonal, plant-based recipes. She has actually laid her book out in chapters of the months of the year. So it gives you a good idea of what to fix during those months with the seasonal produce that will be available at that time. This book has many yummy sounding recipes with several pictures of the recipes situated right in the middle of the book. I do wish the pictures accompanied each recipe and that there were more pictures, but I am a picture lover when it comes to cookbooks. I feel with a cookbook, you never can hav...