Weighty Wednesday -- Bane of My Existence

has been and always will be PEANUT BUTTER.

At least, I've managed to wean myself away from the whole jar as the bane of my existence. I've learned to hate getting the stuff on my hands while digging out the last little bit.

And yes, I know there's such a thing as a rubber spatula, but I still get messy. Must be a cat thing.

Now, I only have a problem with a freshly opened jar. The beautiful smooth top, the rich aroma, the tempting urge to keep the smooth top level as I scrape even layers out of the jar.

And then one of the family members gets into it.

Violating the smooth perfection by jabbing it with a knife. Deep wounds that score my soul as much as it digs deep into the peanut butter's luscious goodness.

I try my best to heal the peanut butter wound, smoothing the rough edges and taking the coarse, ugliness away, but there is only so much one spoon and one person can do. Because those sickies will strike again and again, stabbing, jabbing, and ruining the surface of my beautiful peanut butter.

Those evil doers have been at it again.

*le sigh* Only yesterday this was a freshly opened jar with jab wounds that I sealed yesterday afternoon . . . after Weight Watcher weigh-in, of course. Last night the villains suffered from evening snackiness attacking this poor defenseless jar with abandon and pretzel crisps.

 

Alas, poor peanut butter, you were so young.

 

Hate to say it--and this is a good thing--I have absolutely NO DESIRE to smooth out this mess.

 

Guess you might say that I've learned to get a handle on one of my long-time food addictions.

 

If you're reading this blog, you've either had a weight problem, or are fighting a weight problem, or or you are a friend/family who feels guilty because I only have 100 people visiting my blog on a daily basis, but I like to think it's the honestly that I use in my posts.

 

Weight loss isn't easy, especially if you approach it the healthy way. It takes time for the weight to drop off, whether you have to lose the weight of a cat (10 pounds), toddler (20-40 lbs) or another person (80+ lbs), you have to recondition your responses to food.

 

It isn't easy, but it is doable. Just keep at it. I'm in your corner. . .  

 

Because I've been there. I'm still fighting the good fight, and I probably will always be food challenged. Sometimes we make poor choices, but the key is to forgive ourselves that one poor choice and move on.

 

When you don't forgive yourself and keep making poor choices is when we get into trouble. Yes, I smoothed the top of the peanut butter jar, but I'm not doing it multiple times a day, every single day like I used to do it.

 

I don't need to it any longer.

 

I've moved on. And so can you.

 

Later, Peeps! 

Foodie Friday -- Puppy Chow

Last week, I was chatting with a swim mom and she was telling me about a snack that her neighbor made every Christmas. This year the neighbor was going out of town and wasn't making this snack. This mom was lamenting the fact because her son loved it.

Just by her basic description, "powdered sugar" told me all I needed to know. I said it sounds like Puppy Chow. She looked confused--it could be because English isn't her native language, and she thought I was talking about dog food--and I went into greater detail of the crunchy cereal, peanut butter and chocolate mixed together and tossed in powdered sugar. She said that it sounded like this particular snack.

I thought I had the recipe on my blog. I didn't. So I just directed her to check Google.

I will mention that I've never made Puppy Chow. I've eaten it, but never made it. And when I Googled it, I found numerous variations of the same ingredients.

Here's one version:

Puppy Chow

1 (12 ounce) bag chocolate chips

1/2 cup butter

1 cup peanut butter
1 (12 ounce) box Crispix cereal or 1 (12 ounce) box similar cereal
1 lb powdered sugar

Melt chocolate chips, butter & peanut butter over medium heat, or microwave in 30 second increments. Stir to blend. Pour over Crispix in large bowl. Stir to coat. Pour confectioners sugar in paper grocery bag. Add Crispix and shake vigorously until it breaks apart. Serve in new doggie dish.

Another version:

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. vanilla
9 cups Crispix cereal (any flavor)
3 cups powdered sugar

Melt the first three ingredients in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in-between, until smooth. Add vanilla and stir. Pour over cereal and stir to coat. Place powdered sugar in large plastic bag, add cereal in batches, shake to coat.

Hints & suggestions:

• You can use Rice Chex cereal in place of Crispix. The key here is to have 'airy' cereal with two sides and air in between the layers.
• Rice or corn Chex cereal is preferable to wheat Chex. Wheat Chex has too strong of a flavor and it makes the snack too heavy. Just my opinion.
• I'd use a seriously large Ziploc bag to toss the mixture in powdered sugar
• IF you think there is nutritional value in this, you would be wrong. Jus' Sayin'. Any protein from the peanut butter is nullified by the high sugar overload.
• It's addictive. You will be eating it by the handfuls until your teeth start to hurt from the sugar content.
• Give it away to your neighbor's children. Let them deal with the hyperactivity from the little runts. . .

Enjoy!

Foodie Friday -- Reindeer Poop

So I promised you some reindeer poop, didn't I? Well, here you go:

Oh, darn, it's not available any more, guess I'll have to give you a recipe.

Reindeer poop is easy to make, well, actually it's the filling for peanut butter cups. For some reason, when I molded them as peanut butter cups everyone compared them to the gold standard--Reese's Peanut Butter cups. And let's just say they didn't make the grade.

But when I formed them into balls and dipped them into chocolate . . . instant raves!

Humans are so funny.

Reindeer Poop

18 oz. jar of peanut butter (I use creamy Jif)
1 (1/4 pound) stick butter, melted
1 pound powdered sugar

Stir peanut butter and melted butter together. Add powdered sugar in increments and mix by hand until blended--actually, you have to put your back into it and KNEAD the dough. Roll into small balls (1/2-inch diameter or hazelnut size) and dip into chocolate. Set on waxed paper to dry. Trim excess chocolate.

That's it, my friends.  Easy-peasy. Buy some cheap Christmas mugs, make a batch of reindeer poop and polar bear poop, place some of each into mug, wrap with Christmas decorated cello paper, and voila, instant Christmas gift! Well, not instant, but easy.

Hints & Suggestions:

• When mixing the peanut butter and butter together, it gets sloppy. But then again, when you add the powdered sugar, it can become a Winter Wonderland in your kitchen. Jus' sayin'. . . It's not like I've ever done that, right?
• Though I'm a HUGE fan of creamy Jif, it does have a higher than average sugar content than other brands. The problem comes if you need to stiffen the dough a little bit--it makes it very, very sweet. Next time, I make these, I'm going to decrease the butter by a tablespoon or so and see what happens.
• If you have to refrigerate the dough prior to dipping it in chocolate, it can bust through the bottom layer of the chocolate when it warms up. When this happened to me, I added another step of dipping the bottom in chocolate and letting it dry, chocolate facing up, before completing the dipping process. They weren't really round when I finished, but it worked.
• I use Merken's chocolate to dip any of my candy, but you can buy numerous types of candy coat or almond bark at various stores to do the same thing.
• The peanut butter mixture will eventually infuse the peanut butter flavor into your dipping chocolate. You don't want to reuse this chocolate for anything else. Try to use the minimum amount of chocolate you need to dip.
• If you have extra chocolate, it does freeze well. Just warm the chocolate left in your dipping bowl about 15-30 seconds, scrape out of bowl onto a piece of waxed paper. Yes, it looks like a big poo. Let it solidify. Break into pieces and store in small freezer bag until next year. It freezes quite well.

That's all I can think of for now!

Later, Peeps!

Weighty Wednesday -- Ramblings or Lagniappe

Two days ago, I knew what I wanted to blog about for today, so I didn't bother to write it down.

Yesterday, I  couldn't remember what it was.

Today, I'm going to simply ramble on and on, and maybe I'll hit a topic that means something to someone.

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As you all know, though I'm a WW Lifetime Member, I still have to weigh in monthly to maintain my LT status and my free meetings and etools.

Well, hooey to that! To keep myself accountable, I have to weigh in every single time I go to a meeting.

Yesterday, I gained 0.4 pounds. I'm still within my goal parameters, but it was a struggle for the previous two days to get it to that point!

IF I HAD NOT FORCED MYSELF TO 1) GO TO A MEETING, 2) WEIGH, THEN I WOULD HAVE EASILY STARTED THE DOWNHILL SLIDE INTO GAINING WEIGHT!

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Our Tuesday AM meetings are usually pretty full, but not yesterday. I'd say we had about 1/3 of the normal crowd. I don't know if it was because of the July 4th holiday, or vacations, or what, but studies have shown that if you skip one time because "oh, I'll lose what I gained by next week . .  ." The odds are against you to lose that weight. In fact, many times you'll keep gaining and the vicious cycle will start again!.

Trust me, I know. I've been there. Which is why I will weigh myself weekly. And if I'm over then I'll pay the fine and do the time to get back to my thinner me!

It's all about accountability, people.

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Yesterday, after my so-so weigh in. I gazed longingly at the jar of peanut butter. Instead I opened the jar of Nutella and took a nice scoopful out and proceeded to nosh on it.

Whoever invented the stuff works for the devil I say! It's EVIL!! Right up there with the Monster under the Bed! So good and decedent.

So what did I do?

Well, I taped up the jar of peanut butter, and then I proceeded to tape the jar of Nutella. I'm not talking that I put the jars into bondage. All I did was take painters tape (the blue stuff) and make an X over the top of the jar and onto the shoulders.

It won't keep me out if I'm determined, BUT it will make me pause and think about my choices. I've done this before with peanut butter (my personal challenge) and bags of chips. I just need another barrier to make me think about what I'm getting ready to do. Most of the time, I'll simply put the item back into the pantry and guzzle down a glass of water.

**Many times when you are trolling for food, you aren't really hungry, YOU ARE DEHYDRATED!**

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So after my almost tip-toe through the pantry, what did I do?

Well, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies. From scratch.

Why?

1) it's been months and months since I baked anything . . . no, I didn't even need to look at the recipe. ;-)

2) hubby will take the rest of them to work. I have frozen baked cookies before, but I discovered that I like to eat them frozen = bad Margaret.

3) I refuse to buy the pre-packaged cookies in the refrigerated section of the grocery store--too tempting to eat raw, and too many preservatives.

So I enjoyed my afternoon of decadent behaviour of eating raw cookie dough and a couple of baked ones.

Did I count them? No, but I'm back on track today. And I'm good with it. 

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The problem isn't having cookies or chips or other treats. The problem happens when it becomes a DAILY treat.

I would much rather enjoy a couple of homemade cookies, or drive to Custard King for a small Butterball concrete as a ONE DAY treat instead of having them in my house tempting me for multiple days.

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Yes, losing and maintaining a weight loss does take some self control, but you build that up over time when you learn about your particular challenges.

You might have to totally remove the food item from your house, or refuse to go to certain restaurants because you know you'll order XXX (insert favorite fat-filled, sugar-filled, large quantity item here), but you can do it.

I have faith that you can succeed, and I'll be right there with you!

Later, Peeps!

FOODIE FRIDAY-Peanut Butter Cookies

I don’t know about y’all, but I LOVE peanut butter cookies. I don’t do anything special to them, but I simply use the recipe right off the jar. Maybe that’s the secret. I use JIF® creamy peanut butter. Yes, I had to find one of those registered trademark symbols. Sometimes I get a little steamed at the hoops we bloggers must jump through. *this is aimed at you, Martha Stewart!*

Anyhoo, the print is too darn tiny for these old peepers, plus I promised my kidlet that I would put a copy of this recipe in our computer file. It says the recipe makes 3 dozen cookies, but I use a big cookie scooper, so it doesn’t make quite that many at my house. Here’s the recipe.

JIF® Peanut Butter Cookies

¾ cup JIF creamy peanut butter
½ cup Crisco all-vegetable shortening (buy the sticks, it’s easier and they don’t go rancid as quickly)
1 ¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3 Tbls. milk
1 Tbls. vanilla
1 egg
1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. baking soda

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Place sheets of foil on countertop for cooling cookies.

Combine peanut butter, shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended.

Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix until just

blended. Drop by heaping Tbls. (or med. cookie dough scooper 1-7/8 diameter) 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten slightly with floured fork tines in a criss-cross pattern. 

Bake at 375 degrees F for 7-8 minutes or until set and just beginning to brown. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet. Remove cookies to foil to cool.
 

Hints:
· Undercook the cookies
· If you use 2% milk, spike it with a little half and half to make it richer

.Do NOT substitute butter for the shortening. That would be bad, very bad.