Back on the Wagon

Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoyed a weekend filled with joyful times and love.

I don't know about anyone else, but my body is screaming for me to get back to better nutrition. The amount of junk I have consumed over the past 5+ days is completely cringe-worthy. I had my last bite of leftover dessert yesterday. We still have a half a pecan pie left on the counter so I'm going to have to exercise some serious willpower. (Does anyone else's family overdo the desserts for holiday dinners? More on that later…)

This morning, I woke up ready to start fresh. It's not January 1st yet but there is no harm in starting a few days early! I resolve to eat wholesome foods and exercise regularly (because did I mention there hasn't been much of that, either?!) and get my body to like me again. 

Two meals in, and we are doing well. Baby steps, right? Breakfast consisted of coffee (duh), sprouted cinnamon raisin bread, and almond butter. Lunch was avocado toast with a squeeze of lemon, and cucumber and red pepper slices. 

And lucky for me (said with sarcasm), the weather is looking dreary again this week (read: no running), so the girls and I will be putting some On Demand or old exercise DVDs to use. They need to get some energy out as much as I need to get moving! Who's with me?

How do you feel after the holidays? Did you let yourself indulge or did you abstain from overdoing it? Join me in a fresh start so that by the time January 1st comes around, you already feel better! It's amazing what even just a few days of healthy living will do.

Weekly Meal Planning for December 13-20

The closer it gets to Christmas, the less inspired my meal planning seems to be. I'm just trying to survive the afternoons and early evenings while crossing off to-do list items! Am I the only one feeling this way these days? In any case, here is our plan for this week:

Sunday: dinner at FIL's
Monday: southwestern vegetarian chili with quesadillas
Tuesday: crockpot whole chicken with potatoes and green beans 
Wednesday: spinach and mushroom lasagna
Thursday: leftover chicken and veggies
Friday: leftover lasagna
Saturday: Christmas party
Sunday: Christmas party

What's on your menu?

Christmas Cookies

It's time to start baking Christmas cookies! We don't generally do the traditional sugar cookie shapes and decorations, (though I'm sure my kids would love to). But we do have some regulars that end up in the cookie jar year after year. We don't have cookies or dessert around all the time so this is a big exception for me! But it's something my husband grew up with and we started baking cookies annually before we even got married. Here are a few "Christmas cookie" staples at our house:

One of the easiest is the cranberry-white chocolate. We LOOOVE this cookie. This year, I mixed in some chocolate covered toffee bits in about a third of the dough, too. It's a great base with so many options!

The next favorite is one that my mother-in-law used to bake, and I got the recipe from her. This one is very similar to her recipe. I love this cookie, as it has a lot of different flavors and depth. But it takes a little more effort and time to bake. 

Here is another one my mother-in-law used to make, one of my favorites and this is great with some afternoon coffee or tea. It's a simple recipe with a couple of different steps. My husband and his brothers grew up calling these "butt cookies" - mature, right? ;) They're called Baci di Dama cookies, or lady's kisses. This David Lebovitz recipe is very similar except I usually sub almond for the hazelnut.

This is one of my husband's favorites. It's the classic peanut butter blossom cookie. There are so many different ways to make it but the version we make is usually this one.

These aren't baked at my house, but my mom usually makes at least one batch of Iraqi cookies called kletcha. They're more savory than traditional American Christmas cookies but my girls and I love helping out, and having some. I have a handwritten recipe that I jotted down as she made them several years ago, but this one is very similar.

Which cookies do you bake during the holidays?

Weekly Meal Planning for December 6-12

Since apparently staying busy in "real" life means completely neglecting this blog, I thought I'd try to get a few posts going in this next week. We had a wonderful fun-filled week of Thanksgiving, and a great start to the Advent season last week. I came up with this week's meal plan on a whim at the grocery store, as I had very little inspiration! But here we go:

Sunday: black bean nachos
Monday: beef stew
Tuesday: a meal delivery trial whose food I sampled on Saturday 
Wednesday: leftover chili before my youngest's preschool Christmas program
Thursday: white bean and kale pasta
Friday: at a Christmas party
Saturday: leftover pasta

What's on your menu this week?

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