Christmas Food

Well, I did it... made the cookies I saw HERE. Curiously, I saw it first on a webpage called TheGunnySack, but in a matter of a day, that site is down. Perhaps too many visitors? Once a link goes viral, there's no telling what can happen! Anyhoo....

So, I made the Hot Chocolate Cookie Cup....and it's as cute as suggested on the Pillsbury webpage. A few things I had to adjust. Being in high altitude, I added a quarter cup of flour to the Pillsbury sugar cookie dough... the recipe calls for a tablespoon of dough in each mini muffin cup, but that was waaaay too much. You can see how the dough was over the edges, by a long shot, making the cookie as a whole stick to the pan.(also, I didn't actually measure my flour in the first try, which lead to some gummy, uncooked cookies b/c of the altitude problem)

Second try! Added the quarter cup of flour and used half a tablespoon of dough per muffin whole. A few of the cups were a little short, too short to use, but over all the outcome was a success. So I began the MOST. TEDIOUS. part of the entire process. The pretzels. Suggest, use LOTS of white chocolate and after melting the chocolate, wait a minute or so until it cools a bit...still soft, but not liquid. Oh, and be ready to use lots more pretzels than anticipated. Breaking pretzels is harder than it looks!! I only got one good handle per pretzel. In the end, I used the extra white chocolate to make a pretzel/white chocolate brittle. (YUM)

Then the ganache... my only suggestion here is that you could half the amounts they tell you to use. Because I ended up with double the number of cookies, I doubled the ganache...and now have about a cup and a half of chocolate ganache that I might have to eat... ;) By the way, ganache--so easy to make!

Last but not least, I don't know where Pillsbury got their teeny, tiny marshmellows, but I couldn't find anything like it so I used the little cake decorating pearls instead. Ended up being pretty perfect, if you ask me. :)

 

Type I Diabetes and Exercise

Such a beautiful peaceful weekend.
Yes, I forgot about my daughter's confirmation retreat...
Saturday ended up being about family and a few house chores, listening to music, sleeping in, relaxing. Oops. Not a good recipe for taking care of business. And maybe a retreat isn't exactly business...but it just slipped.

Embarrassingly. LOL :D But I will not regret how my weekend played out over it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yesterday I had a great conversation with a friend about running [for me, walking]. We chatted about eating and maintaining energy, which seems to be an issue for me, has always been an issue for me.

This morning, I got so mad! I had a small bowl of cereal early (6am) and took my insulin as I should...not over-dosing, which I often do when eating cereal because cereal is the DEVIL. When my insulin pump/continuous glucose monitor alarmed a rising high, I wasn't surprised. But I didn't bolus again!!! Like a good girl, I waited! Again, doing something out of the norm...cuz usually I'd be all over another bolus in that frantic race to beat that high back down... (impulse can rule). I ate a three egg omelet at about 7:45. Left the house at about 8:20 to go walk and before I even got on the path at Britt David Park to start my morning routine, my pump/monitor was beeping a low. Two downward arrows!  grrr.  I swear. I was not happy.  I ate my daughter's animal crackers and headed out to walk at about 8:40. Walked a slllloooooow mile, finishing right at about 9. Had to stop.

I swear! I have to figure this eating/exercising ratio. Last week was fine, so I know it's possible. But I can't have days like this. Even when I don't start low...last week ended with me being pretty frustrated, because the second mile I would struggle. My legs would be really tired. Where is all my energy! This whole exercising thing should be getting easier and easier as i go along... but it's not getting easier. I'm holding. Not harder, not easier, doing the same routine. Hmm.

As long as I don't stop, I guess that's good. Maybe I'm just too impatient. :D
Tell me--diabetic or not--what do you eat before exercising???
With Love,
Bethanne

Friday Food

I'm almost at a loss for what to talk about tonight. I should be writing my story. I told my girls I'd be writing! So I wracked my brain for an alliteration. I do love those. Fiction Friday, Friday Five...

This time, I came up with Friday Food. Not just a list of my favorites either. Or a feature of something Fallish, like Chili!! Oh, how I love Chili. [It's on the menu for tomorrow.]

Food always plays a role in my stories. If there's anything about my characters I like to relate to, it's food.

In Shake the Sugar Tree, my heroine connected to the scent of cinnamon and her grandmother's apple pie.
In Houseboat, my hero is a southern boy who has a certain craving for shrimp, grilled with that great cajun seasoning.
There's this great Italian restaurant [and character] in Certain Suspicions that makes this awesome fresh pasta and marinara. The garlic, the fresh basil. Mmmm. Yum.
Sand Bay Secrets is my newest story, I don't know the characters completely, but I wonder if my hero might like to grill...and he likes a rich steak, seared to perfection then cooked to a delicate medium rare. Molly will have a thing for fish and seafood. She's lived on the coast her whole life and loves everything about it. Grilled, baked, fried. She wants it with a salad, a rich, dark green bed of vegetables.

Food is a big deal. What a person eats can often be key to who they are. I can't ignore it. Do you?