Christmas time…. I had made it through Thanksgiving, but Christmas goes on for a long time and I was worried. However, I was determined that no matter what, my kids were going to be able to have the favorite Christmas cookies I had baked each year. I was following an eating plan, but they weren’t and there was no way I was not going to bake all their favorites. I just needed a plan and it had to be one where I could stick to what I needed to do, without making them uncomfortable.
I got up early and made myself and awesome breakfast. I had eggs with mushrooms and vegetables. I was FULL and I thought for sure I can could do this.
My daughter came over to help me. I got out all the ingredients and the recipes and I was ready to go. But if you are a cook who learned to do everything by taste and smell, well, 50% of that equation was missing. It was harder than I thought. I know you aren’t supposed to, but I had always tasted the dough to be sure it had enough vanilla and things like that.
I thought that I am just going to have to follow the recipe more carefully and just use smell.
As soon as the first batch came out, I told my daughter, “You have to try these because I can’t eat this.” It started out okay but as the day wore on, we got into these giggling fits, because she had worked really hard recently to lose fifty pounds and here she was sampling cookies. When my future daughter in law came over, it escalated. Here were three of us, laughing so hard that we were crying all the while they keep sampling and eating the broken ones.
I kept thinking how this was the best Christmas cookie baking EVER and yet I had not eaten a single cookie!!! And the best part was that I was flying around the kitchen without so much as a break in between. Did I really need the sugar to make it a fun day? Absolutely not.
At the end of the day, my daughter kept telling me she was shocked I wasn’t exhausted, and so was I! It was amazing what a few months difference meant. I think I will always look on that cookie baking day as one of our best. Filled with me rides, giggles and love, is soooooooo much better than sugar and flour.