Home again Home again jiggly jig.

Well, I am back in the good ol' ATL.

I tell you what. It's pretty difficult to eat healthy all the time with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years all in a row and in between being near your families that are happy to give you free food whenever you want. Eric and I came back to Atlanta (after a great run with the Shakespeare Festival, funny-fun times with our families over the holidays, a super time with Shaun, Melissa, and Jaime over New Years with a short but oh so sweet stop in on the cousins: Zetti and Jason on the way home) on January 1st feeling pretty grossly not healthy and determined to change that. Our budget is a little tighter right now so here's what we've done:

We went to the grocery store and bought lettuce and a few other fresh veggies that were on sale that week. A bag of chicken and some turkey-hot dogs. I immediately went home and washed the lettuce, tore it into salad size pieces and put it in a big bowl with a lid in the fridge. I cut up the other veggies and put them into smaller containers next to the lettuce. There's easy-to-put-together salad which we've been eating usually at least one meal out of the day. The chicken I've used for different meals here and there. Hot dogs are always an easy meal though probably not quite so healthy. There just cheap, which is good right now.

One thing we had waaaaaaay too much of over Christmas was sweets! We have cut way back on those but it's nice to have a little something every now and then. So here's a recipe for some cookies which are very tastey but a little better for you than most cookies. It's a recipe my mom found on the internet, she modified it a little and I modified it a little more and here you have it:

Mmm, Mmm, OatMmmeal Cookies

• 1 cup butter softened
• 1 cup white sugar (usually I will use about 3/4 cup white sugar and about 1/8 cup Splenda)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon (and a dash of nutmeg if you're feeling adventurous)
• 3 cups oats
• Cinnamon-sugar (optional)
  

1. In medium bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in eggs one at a time, stir in vanilla.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir into creamed mixture.
3. Mix in oats. Cover and chill for one hour (this step is optional).
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
5. Form dough into small round balls and place on pan.
6. Bake 7 minutes.
7. At this time take out of oven and squish the cookies down slightly with a spoon then sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on top.
8. Put back in oven for another 1 minute and 22 seconds.
9. Take out of oven and allow to cool for 3 minutes and 49 seconds.
   
10. Eat while warm, gooey, and squishy! Or you can eat them later too.

You can always use more Splenda and less white sugar but sometimes that leaves a funny aftertaste. I like substituting some Splenda while keeping that real cookie taste. The original recipe calls for white flour but the whole wheat actually tastes great in this cookie and gives you some extra fiber, even while eating desert!

PS - I make cinnamon sugar: 1 part cinnamon, 1 part white sugar, 1 part splenda.

PPS - Cinnamon has been shown in some studies to help fight early stages of diabetes (so if you're eating it in cookies... maybe they just cancel each other out -- don't you love my brilliant mind?)