In order achieve the optimum amount of jellyness, follow this simple rule: replace everything healthy in your diet with something fattening. For example:
Recipe from Our Best Bites
With or without nuts, these babies pack that gooey crunch you are looking for, and like the recipe says, they are EASY, which means more time for you to eat. Win, win!
2. Cheese is low-carb, which we normally care about, but here is what we are looking for at this time of year--cheese is calcium rich, so you'll want to be sure to load up. Your bones are going to need to be strong in order to carry all that extra weight around. Instead of eating a yummy Mini Light Babybel, eat this:
Goodness gracious, great Chesseball of fire. Also from Our Best Bites.
3. Y'all know I've got a thing for Diet Coke, but I'm giving it up! Yes! I am! I need to hydrate my growing body with even more calories. My drink of choice:
Hot Chocolate with vanilla ice cream.
I don't think you guys need the recipe for this, do you? You do? OK, here it is.
4. Rather than just eating a Hershey's Kiss, eat it on a cookie.
Janice mentioned these cookies in her comments last week. It's not Christmas without them. Would you like the secret family recipe? (You can read it, but then I'll have to kill you.) (Is that the oldest joke in the book?) (And what book do they mean when they say that? Is there an actual book of jokes that dates jokes back to 500 B.C.?)
Peanut Butter Blossoms
Sift together:
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp soda (baking soda, that is. Not "pop" soda, because we're not drinking that stuff anymore.)
1/2 tsp salt
Cream together:
1/2 shortening
1/3 cup peanut butter (do I need to say "no crunchy pb? Because really, who buys that stuff anyway?)
1/2 sugar (very important. Do not omit this ingredient.)
1/2 brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Mix creamed ingredients with dry. Shape into ball, put on parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Top with chocolate and return cookies to oven for a couple of minutes until chocolate looks melty--but not melted into a puddle.
And here's a hint: use chocolate stars, not Hershey's kisses. The stars are so much better. And they look prettier too, see:
That's how my mom always makes them, and if you're smart, you'll do things just like my mom.
So are you guys having a hard time staying away from the sweet treats during the holidays? Will you join me in packing on the pounds? (Say yes, I will feel so much better about my rotundness if y'all are rotund as well.)
Tell us what sweets are on your naughty list. And share your very favorite Christmas treat recipe with us. You might need to talk it up and tell us how tantalizing your treat is since once again, I get to use pictures and you don't.
BTW, if you don't have the Our Best Bites cookbooks, you need to ask for them for Christmas. It's a gift that keeps giving the whole year long, especially since the following saying applies :"A moment on the lips, forever on the hips."
15 comments:
Heather- what! I'm the first one... I'm not sure which is more surprising, that I'm first or that you where up at 6:30?
Any cookie is my naughty. Any carb, especially home made rolls. And any other food item could be added. This is the time of year I just binge- hum no wonder....
I don't have a favorite holiday treat but this year we are going to make melting snowman cookies. ( I don't have a recipie, I just googled it last month) Basically its a sugar Cookie that you make look like a melting snowman.
I don't usually eat a lot of junk candy, even during the holidays. I think that's going to be even more so this holiday because one of my food aversions is chocolate! (I wonder sometimes if this kid really is mine and Steven's!) I usually just hit up eating a lot of the Christmas dinner leftovers. But, my grandma makes an awesome cheesecake (which I completely slaughtered trying to make it over thanksgiving. Epic fail on my part.) and I love to eat that. It's strange though, it's not an actual cheesecake. More-melt-in-your-mouth-fluffy-wonderfulness. We also really like little smokies - a new years eve tradition. And the one junk food I really love, are chocolate covered peanut butter balls. They're SO much work to make but you still love to do it because they taste so wonderful. I've seen several of these recipes floating around on pinterest, but I can try to find the recipe at home and come back later to post it.
Holiday Treats! I am smack, dab right in the middle of my Christmas baking. In fact as I type this I am taste testing a new Peanut Butter Fudge recipe. It is sooo GOOD! Thanks to Alton Brown.
Ingredients
8 ounces unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound powdered sugar
Directions
Combine the butter and peanut butter in a 4-quart microwave-safe bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave for 2 minutes on high. Stir and microwave on high for 2 more minutes. (Use caution when removing this mixture from the microwave, it will be very hot.) Add the vanilla and powdered sugar to the peanut butter mixture and stir to combine with a wooden spoon. The mixture will become hard to stir and lose its sheen. Spread into a buttered 8 by 8-inch pan lined with parchment paper. Fold the excess parchment paper so it covers the surface of the fudge and refrigerate until cool, about 2 hours. Cut into 1-inch pieces and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
I doubled the recipe. Turned out wonderful!
Our treat list this year; PB fudge, Java Jumbles, oreo peppermint truffles, toffee balls, salted caramels, PB rice krispies treats with choc drizzle, macaroons, Russian tea cookies, Rum balls, cranberry bark, spritz cookies and magic cookie bars.
YUMMY!
I love our best bites! They are awesome! And the cheese ball is my downfall every yr. Mostly because i eat one myself!
Am I having a hard time staying away from sweet treats during the holidays? WHEN am I NOT having a hard time with that would be a better question. Holiday treats and I are best friends. Bosom buddies. BFFs.
My naughty list treats include: divinity. Mint chocolate anything (Andes Mints melt like water in my mouth). And chocolate chip cookies--(or chocolate chip + butterscotch chip OR chocolate chip + mint chip) cookies are ALWAYS welcome, no matter the calorie cost.
Here is the recipe for my favorite holiday treat, passed on from my mother. It's called Alligator Rolls. You have to like graham crackers, marshmallows, and butterscotch chips, and then you're all set for the yummiest cute sliced up log of a treat that you've ever had for Christmas. P.S.--they taste best right after you finish making your candy graham cracker houses with the rest of the family!
ALLIGATOR ROLLS:
11 oz butterscotch chips
6 Tbs butter
2 eggs
2 cups powdered sugar
30 crushed whole (full-sized rectangle)graham crackers
1 10-oz pkg colored mini marshmallows
2 tsp vanilla
--
In a double boiler, melt butterscotch chips with butter. Let it cool.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs w/ powdered sugar, then add vanilla. Add this to cooled mixture above.
In a large bowl mix crushed grahams with marshmallows. Add wet ingredients.
Put on waxed paper and roll into logs (about as fat as a fat cucumber and twice as long). Wrap and chill 3 hours. Makes 4 long rolls.
----
Disclaimer--there are raw eggs in this recipe that never get cooked, but we've been eating these Alligator rolls for years and no one has ever died (ha ha). And besides, my friend whose husband works in the food industry says that the "whole raw eggs leads to salmonilla (sp?) is a myth". Plus, think of all those people who live on raw cookie dough! So, there you have it : ).
Try your mom's cookies with reeses pb cups instead of kisses? Hmmmmm. I love everything Christmas! Treats especially, but like someone mentioned above, I have to keep myself away from treats all year long. Penuche fudge(brown sugar), peanut butter fudge, See's fudge, Andes mints, and peppermint,toffee, and homemade caramels with almonds I might add. They now have Cadbury Christmas balls instead of just easter eggs. I could list them all.
Caramels
1C butter
2 1/2 C brown sugar
2C half and half
1C Karo
1t Vanilla
9x9 pan with tin foil on sides and bottom. Butter tin foil.
Melt butter, and add sugar, cream and syrup. Cook and stir on med. About 45-60 min until a candy thermometer says 248 or firm ball stage. Take off heat, stir in vanilla. Pour into pan, cool.
Here is the good part. Sprinkle with crushed almonds, and let chocolate chips melt as it cools, or cut a square of caramel, and wrap around a marshmallow!! :)
Heather: I'm an early bird now, don't ya know? No, actually, I'm not. I just use the tricky "publish later" setting. Those snowman cookies look cute online--your kids will love them!
Nicole: Don't you have something you need to announce to the blog??? I'm sorry your not enjoying chocolate right now. I can't imagine anything worse! BTW, I've finally become a Pinterest convert. Are you impressed?
Shelley: holy cow, you're going to make all that? I bet the hibernating bears will wake up when they smell all that baking! Yum. That fudge sounds delicious.
Rowleys: If I came over, would you share your cheeseball with me?
JazznJenna: I'm intrigued! I've never heard of dem der Gator rolls 'for. (Did I sound Cajun, because I was totally trying to.) That reminds me of making gingerbread cookies with my grandma when I was just a wee little lass (now I'm speaking Irish) and our leftover dough we baked up looked like an alligator. If we both have alligator cookies in our family history, maybe that means we're related! Maybe I should do my genealogy.
Team C: oh fudge! Is that what you say most during the holidays? I have never made caramels before--but that sounds so easy--and so tasty! How many calories do you think would be in the whole batch? I bet that'd get me nice and jolly.
Well....not to offend but i'm probably the youngest posting (I'm 18) and i can't do the sugar and sweet unless I have somethingelse with it. I should eat more and rather then gaining the Freshman Five I think I lost weight....probably cuz I don't eat real food.... Anyway, I love sugar cookies. And anything with nuts! I'm nutty about nuts! I could eat my Dad's fruit salad all day long! It's fruit cocktail with bananas and dream whip. That could be unhealthy...right? I love cheese balls! Whatever holiday we are celecrating when I make one I mold it into something that symbolizes that holidy. For example, I made a Turkey for thanksgiving. It was a good looking turkey. I'm post pictures on my blog when I go home this weekend!
I took way to much time. I may not glut myself on food but I do on time.
Lori- I noticed you've been pinning a lot more and I am very impressed that you've come to enjoy Pinterest! As long as it doesn't make you feel inadequate!
Heather- fond memories of grandmas cookie jar! Does she still have it? Where in the fudge do you find the stars !?
Devree: I am offended. #1. Your youth offends me, because I am old and so very full of mold. 2. You lost weight your first semester. 3. You don't rely on food to achieve happiness/escape/comfort/joy/whatever 4. You think adding dream whip to fruit makes it unhealthy. JK. You are cute and not at all offensive. Are you making a snowman cheeseball this Christmas? I hope so, because you probably won't get to make a real snowman at your tropical Nevada home.
Nicole: I decided I don't need Pinterest to make me feel inadequate: I can feel inadequate all on my own! Wahoo! You still forgot to announce something.
Heather: Yes, she has the cookie jar and last time we were there I was teaching my children how to open it stealthily. :) You can find the stars in the bulk food section sometimes, or you by them in a Brach's bag in the candy isle.
Lori, I live in Northern Nevada and there was enough snow for my brother to make a slush ball! I'm sure there's bound to be more! :) PS. My older brother is coming home from his mission 38 days early because they have to make room for all the newbie missionaries! I'm so excited!
Hey Blog Away! – Sorry for my absence Aunt Lori, as Gandalf would say “I was delayed”. Yes, I have been kept crazy busy with epic adventures just as Gandalf was, except he didn’t get my wife pregnant on any of his… That makes me infinitely cooler than Gandalf, say’s I. Yeah that’s right Blog Away, we are having a BABY!!!
So this topic hits home for me now that I am going to be a daddy. My babies need a dad with some extra cushion for the punching! Actually it is not about what I want for my kids as much as what I want for myself so the cushion is just for my own protection. So I figure I need to really indulge in the naughty goodies and what I have in mind is pretty amazing!
My wife makes the most AMAZING cinnamon rolls. The flipping dough is made with mashed potatoes for heaven sakes! Soooooooo Goooooood. They are not really a Christmas goodie per-say but she just made us a bunch that should get me through the rest of the year.
Now unfortunately for you I am not privy to exploit such tender deliciousness and my wife is really the “go to” lady, so you will have to ask her. Warning; some of the side effects are selfishness, fatness, the desire for laziness, lavishness, loch ness, and several other words that end with ness.
P.S. Dear Lori, I was not stealing my wife’s thunder, she just asked me to do it.
And can I just say how relieved I am that Gandalf did NOT get me pregnant on any of his adventures?
Devree: you got to make a whole slush ball??? How fun! I hope you didn't get frostbite on your fingers. Will your brother be home in time for Christmas?
Steven!!! You might be the first man to ever announce his wife's pregnancy by first mentioning Gandalf. You certainly one-uped his epic adventures. And I bet he never got amazing cinnamon rolls either. He really missed out. When am I going to get to taste said cinnamon rolls? Do I need to embark on an epic adventure? Or do I need to get someone pregnant? (You know what is weird about me? I type things and think "I really should not write that," but yet I do not hit the delete button. Why oh why do I write so vulgarness? Hey, there is another form of the dreaded "nesses" that you mentioned above. I do hope I never get the loch ness. That sounds painful.) So anywho, CONGRATS! And don't wait until the baby is born to come back and say hi!
Nicole: As am I.
(BTW Steven and Nicole: Gandalf would be a charming name for your wee little one. If it's a girl, it could be Gandalfina.)
Post a Comment