Sugar cookies + Caramels – Willpower = Fat Tif

Wow, have I been letting myself slide for the past few weeks!  In the last month, I have lost a total of……(drumroll please)……..0.6 pounds.  That really sucks.

I know where I’ve been messing up.  I think my lack of losing began when I decided not to post my intake daily.  When I had to write how each day went, I was more motivated to do well each day, and I was focused on keeping on track.

In addition, I’ve been letting myself indulge for the holidays.  This week I ordered heavenly caramels to be delivered to the house, and I made a huge batch of sugar cookies (my favorite!).  I’ve eaten both, without moderation, all week.  The last three days in particular have been binge-heaven for me.

With the cold weather, exercise has gone out the window.  This is holding me back as well.  I have an elliptical in the basement; maybe it’s time for me to actually start using it.

And I decided to wait on the tummy tuck until after summer, which has taken that pressure, to lose weight quickly, away.  Now I feel like I have all the time in the world.

So, drastic changes are needed!  And they will be happening NOW!

I will be logging all of my food again, and updating with a daily post just to keep myself on track (these will not be very interesting posts, so please feel free to ignore)!  I will try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise in each day, be it elliptical, walking, hula-hooping…something!  And I will not be filling my house with tempting treats that cause me to go off track.  I will make Christmas cookies for the kids, but I will make tiny batches, so that there are few left over.

I realize that this month will be hard.  I’m going away for a weekend, will be going to lots of parties, and will have Christmas goodies in the house.  I am not setting my goals super-high until after the holidays are over.

My goal for December is simply to be in the 170’s by the time it is over.  That gives me three weeks to lose 3.7 pounds or more.  Normally I gain a ton of weight during the holidays, so if I am able to lose this amount instead, I will be thrilled!

Then, come January, I will set some more lofty goals for my progress.

Pray that I stay strong in the coming weeks!  I’ll be posting again tonight, hopefully with news of a successful day!

Building Gingerbread Houses from Scratch!

I’ve been very busy for the past couple of weeks, building 8 gingerbread houses for my kids and our family and friends to decorate!  I do this every year, and it has become my children’s favorite Christmas tradition!

I won’t lie…it’s messy and a TON of work (when you are building multiple houses).  But, it’s always worth the effort!  So here we go…a tutorial for all of those who have never made a house on their own.  Let’s start with the recipes:

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GINGERBREAD HOUSE DOUGH

1 cup butter, softened

1 3/4 cups brown sugar

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 T molasses

6 eggs

6 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 T ginger

1 T cinnamon

1 T allspice

In large bowl, cream butter and sugars.  Beat in molasses and eggs.  Mix in all dry ingredients well.  Batter will be slightly tacky.  Cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.  Then put dough in freezer for 30 minutes to stiffen before rolling.

You will need to have your template ready before this part:  Oven to 325 degrees.  Line cookie sheet with foil that is buttered and floured.  Roll dough 1/4 inch thick (or thinner) on a heavily floured countertop.  Cut out one piece at a time, then placing piece on the cookie sheet before cutting out windows or doors.  Put crushed candies in the window holes (these will bake along with the house pieces and become like a stained glass window).  Bake 13-17 minutes until firm, but not too dark.  Recut pieces when they are pulled from the oven, right away, as they may have spread during baking.  Dry pieces uncovered, overnight.

One batch of dough will make two small houses.

 

GINGERBREAD HOUSE ICING

3 egg whites

1.5 tsp cream of tartar

3.5 cups powdered sugar

In a large bowl, beat whites until foamy.  Add cream of tartar and beat until whites are stiff but not dry.  Gradually beat in powdered sugar, and continue to beat for 5 minutes until icing is of spreading consistency.  Keep covered and refrigerate until ready to use.

Several batches may be necessary.

 

 

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This is what your gingerbread dough should look like when it is first mixed.  It will be very tacky, and even after it is refrigerated and put in the freezer for a bit, it will be tacky enough to need lots of flouring while you are shaping and rolling it.

Helpful hints:

• The thinner you roll your dough, the less it will spread during baking
• Then thinner you roll your dough, the harder it will be to move onto your cooking tray…it’s a delicate balance!
• The colder your dough, the easier it will be to move from countertop to tray
• A template can be made out of posterboard or found online
• A simple house will have an identical front and back template, identical sides, and two identical roof pieces (so only three template pieces needed).  The windows and doors can just be cut freehand before the pieces are baked.
• Crushed Lifesavers or any other clear candy work well for the windows.  Don’t fill the windows up too much with candy or they will overflow as they melt.
• We like to light our houses up, so I cut out a small hole in the back piece of each house before baking, big enough to put an electric light into.

A picture of my messy workstation…there is no clean way to do this!  Keep flour handy, so you can keep flouring your countertop and your dough as needed.

Here are two sides and a roof piece that I have cut out and placed on my foil-wrapped, buttered and floured tray.  I then cut out two windows and added crushed candies to the center.  This tray is ready for the oven.

After the pieces come out of the oven, I cut them again, putting my posterboard piece over each one and recutting the outline so that they will fit together nicely when constructing the houses.  Then, I slide the foil and the pieces off of my cookie sheet (the pieces still attached to the foil) and leave them on the counter to cool.  When they have cooled, I transfer them onto the table (lined with foil, parchment paper, or wax paper) to harden overnight.

See the pieces with the pointed tops that have a little semi-circle cut out of the bottom?  That is my hole to add a light when the houses are finished.

The next day I mixed up a few batches of frosting and went to work on constructing all of the houses.  The frosting recipe I use is NOT like glue…it can be a little tricky to put these things together at first.  When the frosting hardens it is as tough as cement, but that takes about a day.  When you first put it on, it is very soft and gives just a slight hold.

Some helpful tips:

• You must use a pastry bag and a round (about 1 cm) tip to apply the icing
• Start with your front piece and pipe a thick line of frosting where your front piece will sit
• Then add one of your sides, first piping the line where it will sit, and then piping icing at the corner where the two pieces join (both inside and outside)
• Don’t be afraid to use lots of icing to keep the pieces together
• Enlist help from someone else!  I can do this on my own, but I’ve been doing this for a while.  It helps to have someone who can help hold the pieces in place for you.
• The roof goes on last!

Once your house is assembled, let it dry overnight and it will be glued together for good!  Get all of your candies ready….it’s time to decorate!!!  The more candy options you have, the more fun this will be!

Time to make some more frosting for decorating!  Using a piping bag, heavily pipe frosting onto the areas where you would like to place candy.  Then decorate!  If you use too little icing, your candies may begin to fall off, so frost generously!

Allow to sit overnight, and the frosting will be completely hard by morning.  Here are some more examples (and no, my daughter is not drinking wine!):

Please comment with any questions!!  I will try to help answer any that you might have 🙂

Days 31 and 32…Gingerbread madness!

I’ve been super-busy creating my yearly gingerbread houses!  Forgive me if this blog is neglected a bit this holiday season, as my schedule is already packed through November, but I will come and go as time allows.  🙂  In the pic above, my daughter is posing with one of our houses from last year.  Right now, the houses aren’t assembled yet.  I still have some more baking to do…another three houses tomorrow…and then I will start putting them together.  The decorating will begin this Sunday!  That’s the fun part.

Tomorrow is Halloween and bags of candy will be entering the house via my two baby girls.  For the first time, I have no interest in even trying any of it!  I haven’t touched the Halloween candy that we are giving out, and that is quite an accomplishment for me.  It seems that this new way of eating is finally starting to become a habit.  It doesn’t consume my every thought anymore, and I am able to make healthier decisions quite effortlessly.  In fact, it sometimes seems like it’s almost too easy.  But then a hard day comes and challenges me fiercely.

I am really starting to look forward to my walks.  Now that I am listening to audiobooks via my smartphone, I can’t wait to hear what happens next.  That alone often encourages me to lace up my shoes and start moving.  Right now I am nearing the end of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  After this book is over, I get to start one of the two books that I bought as a reward for hitting my first milestone!  You can listen to the classics (like the one I am listening to now) for free, if you download the audiobooks app.  There are many to choose from.  The books I bought are new novels that had to be paid for and I purchased them through Itunes.

I’m getting sort of tired of writing out all of my foods each day, and I don’t know that it’s very helpful anyways, so I think I’ll just give you a general update on how each day is going and the calories consumed:

Yesterday-  I did very well.  Walked for a total of 5.5 miles, and added two hundred calories to make up for some of those that were worked off.  My total calories for the day were 1400, and my food choices were very good.  Overall, I was very pleased with how I did yesterday.

Today-  I walked for about 2.5 miles, and my total calories for the day were 1350.  I wanted to keep it at 1300, but I indulged in a few mini pretzels this evening.  I was a bit carb-heavy with the snacks today, but it is my TOM so I do tend to crave these things at this time.  I was very tired today, physically.  My legs didn’t want to move during the walk, so I just went at a slower pace and didn’t push myself too hard.

That’s all for now!  I must be off to get some sleep and let this fat have a chance to become pee and CO2!!  🙂