sweet, sweet sugar

Lately I've had a bad sweet tooth. As in, I wake up craving cookie dough for breakfast, and then by lunch I'm ready for a milkshake. And since dessert after dinner is non-negotiable, I'm pretty much perpetually tripped out on sugar. My poor baby. Lydia literally does somersaults after each round of sugar therapy, and I'm beginning to worry that she'll emerge a sugar addict, like her mom. But I can't stop!

So I had this great idea. Find a recipe so sickeningly sweet that my body says, "That was soooo gross!! I give up!! No more, no more sugar, please! Just spinach and quinoa from here on out, and I'm good."

Brilliant, right? Enter dream bars. I found this gem of a recipe in Joy of Cooking--and it even beat out the Martha Stewart cookie section entitled, "For Hedonists."

The heading for this treacly item from Joy boasts that many copies of its cookbook have been sold on the strength of this one recipe alone.  It calls for toasted sweetened coconut, toasted nuts, lots of sugar, and a cloying lemon glaze.  I improvised and added two cups of chocolate chips for good measure. The result? Sweeeeeeeeet. After merely sampling the glaze alone, I retired moaning to the couch while Lydia did a series of flips inside my belly. When the actual pan of bars came out of the oven, I dumped the entire bowl of glaze on and escaped to another room while the sugar set. Then, once everything was cool, I sampled a bar:

It is now 20 minutes later, and Lydia is still kicking vigorously. She is only this active when I've OD'd on sugar. I'm still trying to figure out what that means...

Also, since we're on the subject, Merry Christmas!! We celebrated Thanksgiving a week early, so I've started listening to Christmas music and putting up decorations. Mrs. Claus is happily camped out on my couch:

 

And when you enter our home, two very happy snowmen look quite pleased to greet you!

 

And the most important part, of course:

 

More soon. I can't wait to get some poinsettias and a tree! (And of course, all of those Christmas cookies are just dying to be baked...I guess my strategy could use some tweaking.)