New Years Resolutions

Personally, I think New Years Resolutions are kind of crappy. They had to be invented by a procrastinator. I mean really, what is the point in waiting until the beginning of a new year to do something that you're perfectly capable of doing now? Nothing. You just want to procrastinate so when you remember that you need to lose weight sometime around the holidays, you think "Oh, that can be my New Years Resolution" when what you're really saying is that you sure as hell aren't going to avoid cookies and cakes over the holidays, so damn it, you're going to procrastinate and cram as much junk food in your mouth between now and December 31st at 11:59 PM before you grudgingly get your ass to the gym or dust off the Wii Fit.

And really, how often do you keep your New Years Resolutions? Yeah. I thought so. If I had a dollar for every resolution that I didn't keep, well, I'd have a lot more money than I currently have.

But if you don't make a resolution or two or twenty people will inevitably ask you what it is and then you have to say "oh I don't have any." and the person doesn't think "wow this person is so great that they don't need to improve anything in the new year" they think "Lazy! Cheater! How dare this person not make a resolution!"

So, being the procrastinator that I am, of course I have resolutions for the new year. But, cunning genius that I am as well, I've decided I'm not going to call them resolutions and they aren't just happening because its a new year. I know, I know, you wish you came up with this genius scheme all on your own. Its okay, I'm sharing my awesome idea with you and I won't be offended if you claim it to be your own.


Losing Weight: The most common and rarely ever kept resolution of the new year. You wake up on January 1st, march your ass to the gym and damn near die on the treadmill. Knowing that you can't give up in just a day, you stick it out and continue going to the gym for about a month before you say F it and give up all together. Then when spring rolls around and you need to think about your flabbiness in a bathing suit, you curse yourself for not having more motivation, more drive, and damn it why the hell did I eat a Big Mac yesterday! I'm all too aware of the cycle of losing weight.

But, this time I really think I can convince myself that its necessary to exercise and actually lose weight. I'm getting married on September 17th. So, I have 8 months to shed as many pounds as possible and tone up all bits of flabbiness before my final dress fitting and walking down the aisle. To all of you people out there reading this and thinking 'stupid women only want to lose weight before their wedding so they look good; they should want to look good all of the time. The wedding shouldn't be the cause." well, you're wrong. I could not lose a pound and my dress would still fit and my arms wouldn't look like deflating balloon animals. However, I actually enjoy eating healthier foods (stop laughing. I really am serious.) and I'm well aware that unless I get taller (not gonna happen) that it's a bit hard to find jeans that actually fit me considering I'm 10 lbs overweight, which all currently resides in my stomach. So, I could spend $20 on each pair of jeans at the tailor, or I could lose weight. I'm cheap, so loosing weight is the better option for me.

Quitting Smoking: Yes, I picked up this lovely little habit. Honestly, I'm not sure why I started smoking anymore. I broke up with my high school boyfriend the summer after we graduated and bought a pack of cigarettes. At first, it was just smoking when drinking, but then came that little issue of not actually finishing a pack in a night, so then I'd be stuck smoking the rest of them to avoid wasting money or having the cigarettes go stale. I've quit a few times and picked it back up again for random reasons. I've noticed if I have a boyfriend that smokes, I have no desire to quit smoking. So try having a fiance that works for a cigarette company, that smokes, and that you live with. Yeah, right, you try quitting then!

A few weeks ago, Tom decided that he didn't want to order more cigarettes and he wanted to quit. I had the tentative plan to quit smoking on the last day of our honeymoon because all of the wedding stress would be behind us (read: me). So, he didn't order any more cigarettes. I slowly watched the cartons decrease down to 1 and then finally, Tom was completely out of cigarettes. He smokes a pack a day and a pack lasts me 2-3 days, so the obvious solution was for him to smoke my cigarettes until they were all gone and we'd quit together.

Well, that day appears to be tomorrow...maybe. Tom took the last pack last night. I still have 7 cigarettes left. Which means that my last cigarette will probably be tomorrow morning on the way to work. Honestly, I don't mind quitting. Living in Maryland, its rather tempting to quit once it gets cold outside. Really, who wants to stand outside in 30 degree weather with 15 mph wind gusts and smoke a cigarette? Yeah, not me!

So, although they are not resolutions per say, they are "things I'm going to do this year".

What are yours?

Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars (Holy Unhealthy)

This gooey bit of unhealthy-ness comes from a Nesties cookbook, taken from Picky-Palate.com. I had to use the photo from the Nesties cookbook because this was a real pain to get out of the pan. I definitely do not have 9 bars that look like slices of pie. I have a gooey piled mess that looks kinda crappy but tastes awesome.

Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars

Servings: 9

Ingredients:

3 tbs melted butter

3 cups Golden Grahams cereal, crushed

1 roll Pillsbury sugar cookie dough

8 oz. softened cream cheese

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

21 oz. can apple pie filling

1 package (2 bars) Nature Valley Oats N Honey Granola Bars

Caramel ice cream topping

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Combine melted butter and crushed Golden Grahams into a medium bowl.

2. Line an 8x8 inch baking dish with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.

3. Press Golden Graham mix into the baking dish.

4. Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven.

5. Break off small pieces of cookie dough (use half of the roll) and flatten on top of the crust.

6. Place cream cheese, sugar and vanilla into a mixer and beat until smooth. Spread over the cookie dough and bake for 25 minutes.

7. Top with 3/4 of the apple pie filling (or the whole can) and top with the rest of the cookie dough roll, spread out thinly. Crumble the Oats n Honey bars and sprinkle on top.

8. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

9. Let cool completely and cut into squares. Drizzle/pour caramel on top. Refrigerate leftovers.

This kind of tastes like a super sweet not rich cheesecake with apples. Its hard to explain really, but its definitely a sugar overload. The apple flavor also doesn't come through as well, so I'm thinking the filling could be replaced a fresh baked apple:

1 red apple, peeled, cored and sliced

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup sugar

Bake until the apple is soft.

Another idea would be to refrigerate the bars after cooling them but before adding the caramel. I think they would be easier to manage and get out of the pan. A cake server might also help, considering I don't have one of those either.

Its definitely something that I'm going to make again though! 

Shrimp Creole

I found this recipe on Food Network. Instead of serving over rice, like most recipes, this turns it into a soup. Honestly, I wasn't too impressed but that might be because I couldn't find seafood stock and used vegetable instead.

Shrimp Creole 
 Servings: 4-6

Ingredients:
 2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs minced garlic
2 large onions, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced ( I forgot to pick this up at the store so I just omitted it)
2 bay leaves
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups seafood or shrimp stock
1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp hot sauce
2 lbs. large shrimp, peeled and deveined
green onions for garnish

Directions:
1. Heat a large pot over medium heat. Add oil.
2. Cook garlic, onions, celery and green pepper. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
3. Add cayenne pepper and let caramelize.
4. Add the seafood stock, tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and bay leaves.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Simmer for 35 minutes.
7. Add shrimp and cook for 4 minutes, until shrimp are pink and cooked through.
8. Garnish with green onion.

I toasted some hamburger rolls and served them with this. It might also be better with diced tomatoes and maybe some cheddar cheese on top. I'll probably try this again.

Reeses Pieces Cookies

This was a completely random recipe. The recipe on the back of the Reeses Pieces wanted oatmeal cookies and I didn't feel like doing that; plus I had used the rest of the shortening on the Chocolate Caramel Cookies.

So I decided to randomly make my own cookie dough. Its pretty similar to chocolate chip cookie dough because I figured that would work best. I don't actually have a chocolate chip recipe, I just use the one on the back of the chips. I was too lazy to look one up, so I just added the basic ingredients until it looked right.

Reeses Pieces Cookies

Servings: 48

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

Reeses Pieces minis

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla and eggs and mix well.

3. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking soda. Stir to combine.

4. Slowly add flour into creamed mixture, about 3/4 of a cup at a time.

5. Pour 1/2 bag of Reeses Pieces into a bowl. 

6. Drop teaspoon sized balls of dough onto the cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until slightly brown.

7. Press Reeses pieces into cookies. Work quickly!

8. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then cool for 10-15 minutes or a wire rack.

I tried some of these by adding the pieces onto the dough before I baked it, but I didn't think they turned out as pretty looking. They kind of melted into the dough and the colors spread.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies

There is about 2 foot of snow on the ground. Since I'm a great procrastinator and I don't feel like shoveling out my car or cleaning the bathroom, I decided to bake cookies.

When I was at the grocery store last week I saw Hershey's Kisses with caramel in the middle. I bought them and wondered if I could turn them into a cookie. I used a basic sugar cookie dough.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies 

Servings: 48

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening (I used a little less than 1/2 a cup and this produced the easiest sugar cookie dough to work with...EVER!)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 bag Hershey's Kisses with Caramel

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease baking sheets. (I used Pam instead of butter and I think it turned out better)
3. In a mixing bowl cream butter, sugar and shortening.
4. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well.
5. Combine flour, baking soda and baking powder into a separate bowl and stir to combine.
6. Gradually mix the flour mixture into the creamed mixture; about 3/4 of a cup at a time.
7. Roll dough into a ball and place it on parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
8. Unwrap 48 of the kisses.
9. Roll dough into teaspoon sized balls and place on cookie sheet. Press down to flatten.
10. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.
11. Take cookie sheets out of the oven, place kisses in the center of each cookie. Don't press down too hard or the kiss will go through the cookie. Work quickly!
12. Put cookies back in the oven for 1-2 minutes.
13. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before cooling on wire racks.

I ended up with 46 cookies. A few were a little on the larger side so I probably could have gotten 50 some cookies from this recipe. I tried adding the kiss half way into baking but it melted through the cookie and left a mess on the cookie pan, so you're definitely better off  adding them at the end. You could also stick them in as soon as the cookies come out of the oven but I'm too impatient for that.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies

There is about 2 foot of snow on the ground. Since I'm a great procrastinator and I don't feel like shoveling out my car or cleaning the bathroom, I decided to bake cookies.

When I was at the grocery store last week I saw Hershey's Kisses with caramel in the middle. I bought them and wondered if I could turn them into a cookie. I used a basic sugar cookie dough.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies 

Servings: 48

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening (I used a little less than 1/2 a cup and this produced the easiest sugar cookie dough to work with...EVER!)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 bag Hershey's Kisses with Caramel

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease baking sheets. (I used Pam instead of butter and I think it turned out better)
3. In a mixing bowl cream butter, sugar and shortening.
4. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well.
5. Combine flour, baking soda and baking powder into a separate bowl and stir to combine.
6. Gradually mix the flour mixture into the creamed mixture; about 3/4 of a cup at a time.
7. Roll dough into a ball and place it on parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
8. Unwrap 48 of the kisses.
9. Roll dough into teaspoon sized balls and place on cookie sheet. Press down to flatten.
10. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.
11. Take cookie sheets out of the oven, place kisses in the center of each cookie. Don't press down too hard or the kiss will go through the cookie. Work quickly!
12. Put cookies back in the oven for 1-2 minutes.
13. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before cooling on wire racks.

I ended up with 46 cookies. A few were a little on the larger side so I probably could have gotten 50 some cookies from this recipe. I tried adding the kiss half way into baking but it melted through the cookie and left a mess on the cookie pan, so you're definitely better off  adding them at the end. You could also stick them in as soon as the cookies come out of the oven but I'm too impatient for that.