Book 11 - The Man Who Ate Everything

I was doing really well the first half of the year, then just stopped reading apparently! But I do have one more book to add to my empty shelf for 2017 - The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten. I found out about this book because the author is a frequent judge on Chopped, & I love cooking competition shows!
This book started out with him saying he had to start learning to eat anything, he did not want to be a picky eater. So he learned to cook anything! Then each chapter is a diary entry of sorts talking about learning to make a type of food. It was interesting! I would recommend it to a foodie!

I do want to continue the empty shelf in 2018! I want to read more!! If you want to join, just clear off a shelf and then fill it with books as you read them!!
Happy New Year! Be safe!

Cheeseballs for the New Year!

Back in October my sister had her 30th birthday! Which clearly brings to mind that I've written far to little these last few months!

For her party she wanted my homemade cheeseballs made into a "30". I was very nervous about how it would turn out, but was very pleased in the end!

I wanted to share the recipes for my cheeseballs with you, in case you were in need of a snack idea for New Year's Eve!

The first cheeseball is a recipe handed down to me from Hubby's grandma.

Beef & Cheeseball

3 pkg Budig brand beef (if you can't find Budig brand beef, I have substituted Ham and it work's fine. The only place I can find the Beef is WinCo if you have one by you)

2 blocks Philadelphia cream cheese

1 Tbsp Accent seasoning

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

5 green onions chopped

Open all 3 pkg of beef & stack, then chop the beef into small squares & put half of it on a plate spread out liberally. Combine the other half of the beef & the remaining ingredients. Using your hands squish it all together until very well combined. Form into a ball & cover in the remaining beef. Serve with crackers.

This second cheeseball is my sisters favorite :)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheeseball

8 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 Tbsp light brown sugar

3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

1 cup crushed chocolate cookies or extra peanut butter & chocolate chips to cover the cheeseball.

With mixer, beat cream cheese, butter, & peanut butter until creamy. Stir in sugars, cocoa, peanut butter chips, & chocolate chips. Form in a ball & roll in the crushed cookies or remaining peanut butter & chocolate chips. Serve with graham crackers & cookies.

If you would like to make the cheeseballs into a "30" like I did, then split the first cheeseball into 2 pieces, one a little more than the other. Roll the bigger piece between your hands like making a fat snake & set it down in a "c" shape. Then form the second half the same way as you see above.

Then mold the 2 pieces together

And cover it in the remaining beef (I used ham for this one).

With the second cheeseball leave it in one piece & roll it out in a long snake & lay it down in a "0" & mold the ends to meet. Then cover it in the crushed cookies or as I did the remaining chocolate chips & peanut butter chips.

Then serve both cheeseballs with crackers & cookies :) if you are brave & try this with other numbers I would love to hear about it! You could even make a "2014" for tonight!

Happy New Years! Have a wonderful night!

Hate New Years Resolutions

I always try to not set specific New Years Resolutions. I've heard people say that if you don't set a goal then you won't accomplish anything, and I can understand where that sentiment is coming from. But if I start out the year saying "This Year I will..." (& it will always be something I haven't been doing yet because otherwise why would I need the goal) then when I mess up or forget, I feel like I have failed for this year & stop trying. This is an awful way to start new habits!
The only goal I stared for this year was that I wanted to take a picture a week for the photo challenge I joined. As you know I forgot to post my photo 2 weeks ago, well this week I completely forgot to take the photo! Last year when I tried to join a different photo challenge & forgot to take a photo, I didn't see the point in continuing. I had messed up, I had not taken a photo a week for 2011, so I stopped. Well if I never build a habit of taking a photo a week then I will never actually complete this challenge, no matter how many years I try. Therefore, I am going to continue. This weeks photo theme is Blue, this week I am going to take a picture of something blue & post it! Then the week after that I'll post, and the week after that...and if I forget again then I will pick it up the next week. This year I will build the habit so that next year I can actually post a photo every week!
Another habit I am going to build is healthy eating habits. Based on The South Beach Diets way of thinking I am going to start eating healthier. If I mess up & eat something very unhealthy then the next day I will eat healthy. In the past when I have started trying to eat healthy as soon as I ate one thing that I knew was bad for me I said I had failed, & therefore could start eating lots of unhealthy things since that one unhealthy food had obviously automatically destroyed my diet. This is not a healthy way of thinking & it is definitely not how The South Beach Diet teaches you to think. The purpose of The South Beach Diet is to build a healthy eating lifestyle. I will never build that lifestyle if I don't make it a habit, and I will never make it a habit if I don't pick myself back up after I have fallen.
I also want to build a habit of working out. In May I am going to Disney World! But if I go in the shape I am in I will die :( That would be a sad trip. I want to start working out so I can really enjoy our trip! I had begun working out and did it five days in a row, which for me was quite an accomplishment! Then I missed one day, and never picked it back up again :( That's really sad that I let myself out of things so easily. Reading back over this I see how bad it looks, but I'm thinking I'm probably not the only one. And that is why I wanted to share my failures with you, so I could encourage you to build habits. And so I could ask for your encouragement while I am building habits. Instead of Resolutions for 2012, lets build habits for our life! What habits are you going to build?