The Happiness Diet

Warning: contains some crazilicious theories on dieting. :-P

Baking is dangerous! Or so you'd think! Honestly, I swear I've lost weight since I've been eating a pound of butter a week. Unbelievable, I know. But hear me out. I've got a theory. And maybe a revolutionary diet bubbling to the surface! lol

I love to cook meals, but the love I have for the baking process makes my love for cooking seem like a tolerance! I've never felt as good cooking an entree for my family as I do baking a decadent layered chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting or delightfully scrumptious sour cream scones. The cake and scones take twice as long as most dinners, but somehow I enjoy it more. I know there's something so satisfying and delicious at the end of that long process. And the smiles and the "oooh...mmmmm...uhhh this is the best!" is the inevitable reaction from my family, and of course Moi!

So here's my theory as to why I feel less puffy after eating such forbidden foods!

* I'm not buying these naughty treats from a store, so it's all 100% pure food! My body recognizes it as food instead of half chemicals and industrial products, and it says, "yeah, I know exactly what to do with this," and that "something" is not to add it to my thighs!

* Baking is just plain enjoyable! For me, it's one of the top 5 favorite activities of all time. So, the happier I am, the less stress I have. The less stress, the less cortisol released, and the less my body holds onto and creates fat.

* I'm more satisfied with food in general and eat less because of it! My sweet tooth, or more appropriately called my "butter tooth" is satisfied on a daily basis, so overeating is less of a temptation.

You may not buy it, but the fact is, I have been eating foods no diet would condone, and my jeans fit better!

That doesn't mean you could eat what I eat and not gain weight. It's not because I have a high metabolism. I don't. The diet is a diet that prohibits unhappiness. The diet consists of finding what truly makes you happy and doing it on a daily basis. Lucky me, that happens to be baking! For you, it may be realizing you love to glue gum wrappers to cereal boxes! lol

Find what feeds your soul, and your body and mind will be harmonious, and you will lose that extra pudge. Or as I like to say, you'll "de-puff". In my case, it wasn't simply eating peanut butter brownies, it was baking them!

xo
jbnewcomb<3

18K Gold Granola Bars

First time I created a recipe completely on my own, and boom! Fabu! *toot toot!* < that's me tooting my own horn. :-p

My daughter needed more variety for breakfast and more nuts and seeds (gotta have those omegas!) in her diet. So Mommy came up with an unbeatable recipe for getting her to eat....(drum roll, please!).....

* Pumpkin seeds
* Flax seeds
* Sunflower seeds

Those foods can be rough to eat, especially for a 5 year old. Personally, I can eat them all individually. Well, flax seeds on their own are a bit slippery and odd in texture. But I needed to dress up those power foods with something that would make her beg for more. And that, she did!

Here's my 18K Gold Granola Bar Recipe. I named it this because it has 18 ingredients. You can substitute certain ingredients for others, eliminate a few all together and up another ingredient. There are endless combos for granola bars, but this one is utterly magical!

18K Gold Granola Bars

Ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup wheat flour (or all-purpose)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup soft butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup canola oil (or vegetable)
1/2 cup honey (tip: if you measure the honey with the cup you measured the oil with, the honey will easily slide out.)
1/2 cup sugar (or skip this and just use a full cup honey)
1 tbsp molasses (or just use brown sugar instead of sugar or none at all! lol)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

1/2 cup cashew pieces (or chopped cashews)
3 tbsp flax seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

2/3 cup raisins
2/3 cup sweetened cranberries
2/3 cup chocolate chips

Directions

Mix first 4 ingredients into the large main bowl.

Mix next 7 ingredients in medium to large bowl. Add this mixture to the the large main bowl.

Mix next 4 ingredients in small bowl (or just throw these ingredients into the main bowl and stir).

Mix last 3 ingredients in small bowl (or again, just throw these ingredients into the main bowl and stir thoroughly).

Pour into greased pan and bake at 325F for 25-30 minutes or until desired consistency.

I used a pizza cutter to cut these into bars while still hot.

Voila!

You're welcome. ;-)

xo
jbnewcomb<3

Buttercream Butter Dream

Creamy dreamy buttercream. Oh, my lovely butter dream. Everything tastes better with butter. Everything tastes better with cream. And if you disagree, you're probably just trying to convince yourself because of the guilt-potential. :-P

I made buttercream frosting for the first time today. It's 228 calories per serving, but they're super dee duper delicious calories! Is it totally crazy to eat veggies for every meal just so I can eat buttercream frosting? Umm yeah.

The buttercream adventure began with my disatisfaction with Oatmeal Cream Pies. Plastic comes to mind when eating them. Plastic and sugar.  so when the whole box was gone, I decided to invent my own non-industrial version.

First, I made oatmeal chocolate raisen cookies. They didn't come out as flat as I wanted, so a little more experimenting is needed. Oh darn. ;-)

Next came the buttercream frosting to be sandwhiched between two cookies.

I found an amazingly simple and noisy recipe. One stick of butter {mmmmmmmm}, 2 cups powdered sugar {10X sugar is what the hardcore buttercreamists call it}, a bit of vanilla, 2 tbsp. of milk. Using a noisy mixer, cream {fancy word for mix} the butter, then slowly add the sugar, next the vanilla and milk, and voila! Buttercream that will make you use the word "buttercream" in every song....if you're lyricists like my crazy family pretend to be.

My hubby is playing the guitar and singing these lyrics with Aurora as I type. Here are a few gems:

"I like it....on my cake
  I like it....on my steak

  I will eat it....with a carrot
  I might even....share it

  Ohhhhh I like buttercream,
  I like buttercream."

And the lyrics go on and on and on in Dr. Seuss style.

Needless to say, buttercream frosting will be made on a semi-regular basis in this house...

{I secretly saved a cookie sandwich to take a picture of, which is coming soon!}

Super Deliciousnous!

He just could stop himself. The moment the sweet deliciousness touched his tongue, he was addicted! No one thought they looked like anything special, including me. It was a simple, mostly pre-packaged recipe, but oh so freaking fabulous!

For the 4th of July, my fam went to our daughter Aurora's best friend's house. Aurora and Lilia were smitten with each other since day one of preschool, and they had a BLAST watching fireworks and playing with glow necklaces! It was Lilia's brother Ren who was smitten with the dessert we brought.

The cookies we brought were Aurora's creation. She drew a picture of what she wanted them to look like:

What a creative mind! She's simply amazing!

Here's Aurora's recipe, which is not from scratch (my favorable method, but we were limited on time)...

Ingredients

Sugar Cookie Mix (plus all the necessary additions)

Pre-made CREAM CHEESE frosting (again, I would have preferred making my own, chemistry set-free :-P )

Blueberries

Strawberries

Powdered Sugar (granulated would work too)

Directions

Follow Sugar Cookie Mix Directions

If you wish, roll out dough and cut into fun shapes. We did stars for the 4th of July!

Bake, then let cool

Place Strawberries and Blueberries in a bowl and coat lightly with sugar

Spread a thin layer (or thick, as my hubby prefers) on each cookie

Top cookies with blueberries and strawberries, and voila!

Now try this and tell me you could resist it...I think it's pretty impossible!

xo
jbnewcomb<3