New Year's Resolutions-Awkward Hugs Style

New Year’s Resolutions 2014

Be 5’8” This one is going to be difficult, because I am currently 5’3” and not 10 years old.  But: I put on a sweatshirt the other day and the arms seem shorter, so either I’m growing again, or it shrunk in the dryer.  It’s probably the dryer thing…

Get my car paid off. This one is achievable in that it will be paid off by the fall.  It may seem like cheating to put something on a list that is inevitable, but shut up…it’s my list.

Not get upset with all the New Year’s Resolution Gym people.  Every year, I get inappropriately angry at all of the people who show up at my gym in January and February.  I should be EXCITED for them because THIS is the year they are going to get FIT! But really, I’m annoyed because I have to fight for treadmills until they give up on their goals mid-February.  Really, I just need to go to the gym later in the evening until the excitement calms down a bit.

Make breakfast.  I don’t like oatmeal, and that is the easiest thing for me to have that is ‘breakfast-y’ now, so unless I make muffins or coffee cake or something over the weekend for the week, most of the time my breakfast either consists of coffee and potato chips or sometimes leftovers.  This year will be different!  At least until February…probably…

Stop hating on leggings.  I bought a pair at Target a couple of weeks ago and guess what?  They are CRAZY COMFORTABLE! Will I wear them out to dinner or with a tank top? Hell no…but they are perfect lounging attire.  P.S…I’m starting to dress like I did in middle school.  Leggings and a sweater?  What’s up, 1995?

Attempt to control my Netflix Binging problem.  I discovered Sister Wives on Netflix recently and watched four seasons in a week.  A week! But I also discovered Sons of Anarchy and Justified because of Netflix streaming, so its powers can be used for good as well as evil.

Stop talking about getting knocked up around my mom.  Apparently she doesn’t think it’s funny, so I should probably stop joking about getting her a grandchild this way.  Probably.

Go on my Hanna Road Trip.  I’ve decided that I need to visit all of the towns in the western US and Canada named ‘Hanna’.  Most of them look like I will get murdered by a toothless old man just by driving into the town, so it should be a fun trip.  Anyone else in? Stops will include Hanna, Alberta (actually looks like a fun and normal town-thanks Canada!); Hanna, South Dakota; Hanna, Utah; and Hanna, Wyoming.  There are towns names Hanna in other states, but I’ve already been to those states, so no thanks!  Also, there are Hanna’s in Iran, Poland and Pakistan, so…I won’t be visiting them anytime soon either.

Run Market to Market.  This is legitimate and I start training for it in late February.  I also hope to do Dam to Dam again this year because I love that course.

Infuse more vodka. Everyone wins when I do this J

24 Hour Pity Party

I grew up in a pretty 'Get Over It' kind of house.  Which means you were allowed to have a pity party for 24 hours if something crappy happened and then you just needed to buck up and move on.  This mentality has come in quite handy in the last few months!  Several people have commented to me how well I seem to be doing with all the food changes and how it doesn't seem to really bum me out.  I refer you to the concept of the 24 Pity Party.  

It has not been a super easy process, and oh my Cher do I miss some food items.  I'm pretty sure I would shave my head to get to eat a plate of nachos without getting violently sick, but...no longer an option!  This time of year was already hard because of the trays of Christmas cookies that seem to turn up everywhere! 

So today, I was having a bit of a pity party for one.  My brother-in-law makes an amazing cheesecake for Christmas dinner and this year I don't get any.  Boo for me.  I did, however, make another huge batch of dairy free cocoa mix and have candy cane vodka ready for Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day, so I'll just drink up while everyone else lays around clutching their full bellies :) I'll stick with my hot beverages! No belly ache, and it's not passing out if it's Christmas afternoon and everyone else is napping too... See, that Pity Party was less than five minutes!  

My mom makes these amazing caramel rolls for Christmas morning that we have renamed Erotic Rolls because one year, my Aunt Billie celebrated with us and the sounds coming out of her while she was eating them were really uncomfortable and hilarious all at the same time, thus, the rolls have been renamed!  I refuse to have my family alter everything because of my hot mess of a digestive system, so I made vegan pumpkin muffins to share as well.  For actual Christmas dinner, I can have most of the dishes and am making a side dish of wild rice and cranberries to share too (minus the garlic and onions).   Everybody wins.  And if they're nice, I'll share my candy cane vodka too :)  

This has nothing to do with anything except that it is awesome and stars Eric Northman himself, Alexander Skarsgard.

So Merry Christmas for those of you who celebrate and Happy Wednesday Off of Work (Maybe) for the rest of you!  Hope you don't get any coal, unless you deserve it.  

P.S...I am officially obsessed with this song...and you should be too!  

Happy [Vegan, Gluten Free, Peanut Free, Apple Free, High Fructose Corn Syrup Free] Christmas Baking!

This year marks my first attempt to make a bunch of holiday cookies and treats because FISP [Fuck It Stay Positive]. 

When I was little, we would take a weekend each December and just freaking BAKE!  Candy cane cookies, Russian tea cakes, sugar cookies iced by my 5 year old artistic self (did you know sometimes Santa is blue?), buckeyes (if you don’t know what this is, I feel sorry for you-not having this as a child is basically child abuse), and more.  We’d have cookies cooling all over the house and then plate them up for neighbors, church people, teachers and ourselves.  This is totally an Iowa thing, and it’s an awesome tradition.

Over the years, I’ve successfully made gluten free candy cane cookies (they were just a bit bigger and flatter than the glutinous version) and gluten free sugar cookies, but as there is an extra challenge this year now that eggs, dairy and everything else that makes baking pretty easy and painless have all been removed from my diet.  Here’s a rundown of Holiday Prep 2013 with pictures and recipe links!

PS…photographs are not professional, because a) they are taken with my cell phone and b) I don’t care J

Candy Cane Vodka http://www.scarymommy.com/candy-flavored-vodka/

I made this last year for family with regular candy canes and it was AMAZING so I wanted to continue the tradition this year but modified with high fructose corn syrup free candy canes.  These do exist and I found them at the local coop.  They’re about as expensive as you’d expect though!  Also, make sure vodka is gluten free.  This tastes really good with hot cocoa (dairy free hot cocoa mix here)

Because organic candy canes don’t have the extra food dyes, the color is a little bit weird, so the picture is of the first step of the process and not the finished product, but I’m happy to report that the candy canes themselves tasted good and everything is better with vodka and hot cocoa. 

Thumbprint Cookies http://www.waldorfmoms.com/2012/12/quick-gluten-free-and-vegan-christmas-cookies.html

I was a little nervous about making these because I needed them to turn out the first time.  Did you know almond flour is expensive?  I mean…all gf flour is expensive, but holy crap is almond flour costly…  I wandered all over the grocery store trying to find jam without apple fruit pectin and I think I found one that works, but it still listed fruit pectin but didn’t say apple fruit, so I went with a wing and a prayer and bought raspberry cranberry jam.  

It was a good decision…that stuff is DELICIOUS!  The thumbprint cookies turned out tasting great!  Not a very sweet cookie, but the jam helps balance that out.  Also, as you can tell, the cookies may not look perfect, but I direct you back to postscript b) I don’t care about how good everything looks.  That might be the goal for Holiday Baking 2014, but for 2013, I just want to find recipes that work!  I think next year I’ll make half the batch with jalapeño jelly because that makes it look more Christmassy, plus jalapeño jelly is awesome.

Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels http://lifestooshorttoskipdessert.blogspot.com/2010/12/yummy-cinnamon-sugar-pretzels.html

THESE ARE AMAZING.  This is the easiest recipe in the world, it makes your house smell awesome and it involves ingredients you already have in the house.  I recommend Snyder’s GF pretzels because they are delicious and easily found in the grocery store. 

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies http://www.thesensitivepantry.com/the-sensitive-pantry/2010/2/8/chocolate-peppermint-cookies.html

This is round two.  I made a batch last weekend that I ended up throwing out because I didn’t read the recipe properly and didn’t do the egg replacer to water ratio correctly and it was a hot mess. 

Round Two: Still not perfect, but all right.  I ended up refrigerating the dough longer than an hour because I made the dough and then went to the quilt shop to work for a few hours and then came back and starting the baking process. 

Here’s what did not work: the whole rolling out the dough and cutting cute shapes out.  It was less of a sticky mess than the batch I threw out, but still a bit of a sticky mess when I rolled it out and tried to cut cute heart shapes.  So instead, I scraped up dough off of the wax paper, flattened it on the cookie sheet and baked it.  Toward the end, I got even smarter and rolled the dough into a ball and THEN flattened it on the cookie sheet and it looked more like Thin Mints as a final product.  I ended up baking the full 15 minutes, and my sister thinks I overbaked, but I don’t know that I did because you want the cookie to be crispy.  Next time I make them, I will roll out the dough and flatten because those turned out looking the best.

What did work: they taste like Thin Mints.  The icing is delicious and I might just start making it and pouring it over anything I make.  Mashed potatoes, steak, oatmeal…you name it.  Even my sister liked them and she is usually very supportive of what I make, but not a fan of second helpings of things I make J

Holiday Bark http://www.thesensitivepantry.com/the-sensitive-pantry/2009/12/4/holiday-chocolate-bark.html

Also super good!  Again, mine doesn’t look like the pretty internet pictures, but this is super easy and you could probably add anything to the top of it to accommodate your dietary needs.  I kind of smooshed everything down onto the chocolate.  “Smooshed” is a technical term that means: take your hands and just smoosh down everything.  I used dairy, soy and nut free chocolate chunks and they melted really well in the microwave.

Also, because there wasn’t room in the fridge, and I live in Iowa, I put the pan out on the back porch to harden and it was perfect!  10 degree weather is perfect baking weather, btw…

Good luck with your holiday baking!  And if at first you don't succeed, try again!  Or, just make a huge batch of the cinnamon sugar pretzels. Seriously-they taste like what I think I remember Teddy Grahams tasted like!