This weekend was cookie making time at my house. I have many kinds of cookie I like to make but the one I most enjoy is sugar cookies. I know I should let the kids help when I am in the kitchen -- but I like making them so much and I want them to taste so good, I can't cede control of any part of the process to the girls.
Once the cookies are baked and frosted, they have to sit on the counter to several hours to allow the frosting to dry a little so when I stack them in the bag, they won't smear and end up with green tree frosting on Santa's pink frosted boot.
Once they were drying on the counter, we packed up and headed out for the day. By the time we got home in the evening, the whole house smelled like butter cream frosting. If you are not familiar with homemade frosting, let me enlighten you. It is everything good in the world -- powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and butter (real butter -- not margarine). AND...if you leave a whole batch out all day, your house smells sooooo good. But, we all know that smell is a powerful trigger to eat. So the question becomes, "Now what?"
You all know by now that for me putting cookies in the freezer is no kind of deterrent. Frozen just means better.
So...the holiday season has started. All of the wonderful things that are only available for a limited time (so I should eat as much as I can while it is available!!??) is here and what am I going to do about it? I bagged the cookies up tight. Washed the counter down really well. (ate only 2 of them in the process -- but I can tell you that I experienced them more than ate them)
They are in the freezer now. I have resisted eating any more -- I have to take them to a cookie exchange this weekend (so I can't eat too many or I will show up with only 4 cookies to exchange and that just looks bad). But here's the thing -- It is 8 December and we still have many days until Christmas is here -- let alone making it all of the way through until the Epiphany when the holiday season officially ends -- What kind of plans do I have in place so I don't go off the deep end -- either with indulging or with denying myself???
Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Don't bring things home. If you have to take something to a potluck/cookie exchange/party/ whatever, give it away or throw it away (or just make less to begin with) so you don't bring it back to your house. There is going to be plenty of holiday eating, if you made it in the first place, you can make it again at some other time in the future -- don't bring it back.
2. Make less in the first place. (This is true for everything except the molasses cookies my mom make -- keeping making lots of those!! There are never enough and they are soooo good frozen). Everything else -- we don't need whole pieces of pie/cake/cookies-the-size-of-your-head -- make 'em smaller and make fewer of them -- make the treats special with their limited quantity.
3. If you need/want to make your goodies and you (like me) cannot be trusted to have them in the kitchen freezer -- move them into a seal-tight plastic tub (like the ones you keep your ornaments in) and put them in the garage. If the garage floor is all covered in gross, half melted snow, chances are less you will sneak out there in your socks to get a goodie.
4. Pack them into the goodie baskets you intend on taking. If you have them nicely arranged and packaged to go, there is less of a chance you will break into the pretty packaging and eat 5 or 6 -- since then you would have to rearrange them and redo the packaging.
5. If you really, really need that treat, SIT DOWN AND ENJOY IT!!! Don't just eat it quickly -- shoving it in like a guilty child -- taste it. Enjoy it. Appreciate it -- you worked really hard to make something so delicious -- you are eating it and it is going to cost you a certain amount of calories -- get the maximium amount of enjoyment out of it!! And then walk away happy...don't you dare feel guilty about it! Life is too short for that.
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