Thursday, January 28, 2016

George Stella's 4 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

This George Stella recipe has been floating around Facebook for months now. My co-worker made them but I had never tried baking them myself, but today I was feeling motivated and really craving something sweet, which is weird for me because I'm not a big sweets person.


But these peanut buttery, crispy cookies hit the spot. They are so rich tasting that just one did the trick and they are only 2 carbs per cookie!

I'll definitely be making these often, so easy and so delicious!

The Recipe:

OLD-FASHIONED PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES 
Flourless, Gluten Free, and Guilt Free 

Recipe from “The Complete Low-Carb Cookbook” 2014
By George Stella

Prep Time 10 min / Cook Time 12 min / Serves 8; 2 cookies each

SHOPPING LIST 
1 cup all-natural smooth peanut butter 
1 cup sugar substitute 
1 large egg, slightly beaten 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and line a sheet pan with parchment paper. 

2. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, mixing well to create the cookie dough. 

3. Use a tablespoon to drop the spoonfuls of the dough 2 inches apart on the lined pan. Then use a fork to press the dough down, creating a criss-cross pattern on each cookie. 

4. Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until cookies begin to brown. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving. 

HELPFUL TIPS 
It is important to let cool completely before removing from the pan and also be careful not to overcook as these cookies are inherently "crumbly".

These are almost 100% peanut butter, and that’s a very good thing!




The recipe above says you can make 16 but I actually got 17 cookies out of the recipe and they are good size cookies with a nice thickness as you can see above. Loving the Low Carb/High Fat lifestyle!


 

Friday, January 15, 2016

Procrastination or Stress Management?

In my book, there are two kinds of people in the world, those that do things right away and those that procrastinate.


I am a self-proclaimed procrastinator.



My sister Lisa is one of those "other" people. The kind of people that does things right away. For instance bill-paying and handling mail. Lisa is one of those people that checks her mail daily, shreds what needs to be shredded, pays what needs to be paid and files away what needs to be filed. If a phone call needs to be made to a creditor and/or bank, she makes it and gets her answer.

I again am a self-proclaimed procrastinator. I believe this...



I get my mail and thumb through it and place it in a pile on my nightstand. I don't open any of it, unless it's a greeting card or looks like a check. So it all goes in a pile where it sits until the 15th of each month. On the 15th of each month I bring that pile of mail to the office and on my lunch hour I open it and make four piles. Pay, File, Shred, Question.

I pay what needs to be paid, attach the confirmation of payment to each bill and put that on the file pile. I shred what needs to be shredded and I call the creditor/bank on anything I have a question about and then I put that in the file pile. There...easy peasy! No stress, no mess!

Every once in a while I will open a letter that I should have taken care of right away, but those are few and far between. For instance I recently opened a letter from my homeowners insurance with big red letters stating CANCELLATION NOTICE, and just for a moment I panicked, then I noticed that I still had time to make the payment so I called my agent and found out that I had forgotten to call them with my new ATM card number and they had tried to take the money out of my account using the old card number. They quickly took my payment over the phone, set my auto pay back up using my checking account and that was that!

My sister stays up nights worrying about my bill paying method and meanwhile I am sleeping like a baby! She has told me many a time "You should just take care of each piece of mail that comes in right away so that then you don't have to worry about it". Ummm, hello? I don't worry. I was born without the worry gene, in fact dear sister, I think I gave that gene to you and you got a double batch!

I always tell her, "Why worry? You worry every day the minute you open that letter and now you have to pay it or call someone or look up something to see if it was paid or taken care of. If you had just set that aside and gone to read a book or watch TV or write a blog post you would be more like me and not spend every day stressing!" My method of bill paying is Stress Management, not Procrastination!



But the world would be a boring place if we were all the same, so I will let my sister continue to lose sleep over bills and mail and whether her sister is procrastinating and in the mean time I will enjoy posting and sleeping and reading a good book.

Which type of person are you? Maybe there's a third kind of person I don't now about. Let me know! Inquiring minds and all that you know! And yes, I procrastinated during my lunch hour to write this post and didn't pay my bills, but I'll do it after work, no one is standing over me "whip in hand".
            

Monday, January 11, 2016

Still Low Carb in 2016 and Loving It!

It’s a New Year and time for an update on my low carb/high fat (LCHF) way of eating (WOE). Yes...I'm still low carbing! Yay me!

I’m happy to say that I have been LCHF since July 7, 2015 and I am down 27 pounds!!! That’s just 3 pounds away from actually losing 30! I am so jazzed people! You just can’t comprehend how jazzed I am!

I was a bit worried about the holidays because there is so much yummy traditional food available and I not only am surrounded by it, but I also had to help cook much of it. But I made it without one bite of Tamales, Biscochos, Chocolate Covered Cherries, Christmas Cookies and Candies, Walnut Bread, and Ice Cream.

I have also learned to say “I don’t eat that” instead of “I can’t eat that”. I can eat it, I can eat all I want and I can put myself into an early grave…I am making a choice to NOT eat that.

When people want to know what diet I am doing I tell them it’s not a diet, I’ve changed my WOE and I explain to them what things I choose not to eat and they say, “I can’t live without bread!”, I can’t live without pasta!”, “I can’t live without ice cream!” Well you know what… you can. It’s not easy, but it can be done and thankfully there are a lot of yummy alternatives out there. This isn’t just about eating Eggs and Bacon people! That’s what everyone thinks of when they hear low carb. Nope, this is about making small changes and eating yummy things like this:

Low Carb Coconut Pancakes - Recipe from Low Carb Yum


Eggs in a Cloud - Recipe from The Cooking Jar


Random Treats from my sister Lisa, Deviled Eggs, Black Olive, Meat and Cheese Tray and Jalapeno Poppers. She had me over to help her decorate her house for the holidays and she prepared low carb foods we could snack on. Best deviled eggs ever!


One of my favorite meals - Pork Chops with Broccoli Slaw - Recipe for Broccoli Slaw


And how about this Low Carb Taco Pizza? It started out as a Low Carb Quesadilla, but the tortilla got too crunchy before I could finish adding the toppings, so I just let it continue to cook slowly on both sides until it was crisp then I added cheese, ground beef, lettuce, salsa, more cheese and black olives then sliced it with a pizza cutter. This was amazing!



I am trying to mix it up so that I am not always eating the same thing, even though I'm not that picky and I can eat the same thing day after day. But they say variety is the spice of life, so I'm trying to be creative.

Just as soon as I post this I am making a new recipe my sister sent me today for Paleo Tortillas. If they come out ok I'll share the pictures and recipe. Wish me luck!

  

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Books Read in 2015

I've been keeping track of books that I've read each year since 2009. From 2009 until 2012 I kept track on my own and on my blog, but in 2012 I signed up for Goodreads and they keep track for me. So here's my countdown: ( you can click on each year to go to that post and see my list of books if you so desire)

2009 - 24 books
2010 - 24 books
2011 - 29 books
2012 - 26 books - Goal was 30 books
2013 - 18 books - Goal was 30 books
2014 - 33 books - Goal was 20 books

and drum roll please ......

Of all those years that I have been keeping track I only met my goal one year, in 2014 and then I far exceeded it. I blame Facebook, television and my iPhone for distracting me from reading as much as I should and used to read!

But, instead of beating myself up I'm setting the same goal for 2016, 35 books and forging ahead to try to meet or beat this goal!

Goodreads has done this cute little page that not only keeps track of how many books, but also, how many books and how many pages...


It tells me which of my books was the shortest and the longest...


Which of my books read was the MOST popular with Goodreads and also which was the LEAST popular...


And which of those 19 books was the highest rated on Goodreads, (which I entirely agree with, it was an awesome book!)


Here's the books I read in 2015:


To help me meet or beat my goal, I will be starting with these three books that I was able to find yesterday after a successful Goodwill shopping trip with my mom:


Excellent books that I was so lucky to find! Schindler's List has 4.34 stars on Goodreads, The Red Tent has 4.14 and A Beautiful Mind has 4.09. Have you read any of them? Which would you recommend I start off with?

Happy reading in 2016 and let me know if you have any recommendations of books that I should add!