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Healthful Living / Natural Treatments
Today's Goals-Week of 12/1
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 218703" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Fran, you said, "Do any of you have a hard time looking through recipes when you are trying to eat on the low calorie side of life? My mouth was literally watering. Yum. It's going to be hard to keep some discipline."</p><p></p><p>I get obsessed with recipes and cooking. However, I find cooking special meals for others (not always healthy, but often healthier than usual) can make me feel better. I also tend to play with healthy recipes more, especially using lots of fresh herbs from the garden. I've got some unusual herbs (like salad burnet, purple basil, chocolate mint) which each have their own recipe that tastes fabulous with their special touch.</p><p></p><p>What REALLY works well for me when I'm dieting - like today, I make fancy biscuits. I have special shape cutters and have fun playing, using a biscuit dough that doesn't have any baking powder or self-raising flour in it. Just plain flour (aka all-purpose flour). I make two to three batches, each one a different colour/flavour and also decorate with choc chips, silver cachoux, any other things like those sugar snowflake shapes or butterfly shapes.</p><p>I put the biscuit dough in the fridge, rolled into a long cylinder shape (each flavour separate). When it's cold and hard I cut thin slices, then I use the cutters to cut out different shapes. I like to have cutters in different shapes, such as stars or hearts in three different sizes. You then cut say, large hearts in two different flavours and put them side by side. Then get the next size down and cut shapes out of the two large hearts. Swap them over so you have two-tone biscuits. If you have a third smaller heart, do it again. You end up with concentric hearts in alternating flavours. I use a skewer to make a small hole in each biscuit before baking, so I can thread string through them afterwards.</p><p></p><p>A tip - once you slice the dough, put the biscuits on baking paper (or silicone baking sheet). That way you don't have to move them once you start playing with different flavours. Any dough you cut away, roll it into a ball and put it back in the bag to put back in the fridge.</p><p></p><p>I prepare a tray of biscuits at a time, often with different shapes and different treatments. Any leftover dough will keep for weeks. You can freeze the dough or freeze the biscuits.</p><p></p><p>Today I got some sugar snowflakes (each one smaller than my little toenail) and used them as buttonholes on my tiny teddy bear shapes. Another fun trick - a larger teddy bear shape with a smaller person shape cut out from the middle, like the bear ate someone. And silver cachoux or choc bits for eyes.</p><p></p><p>When you're low on dough you roll it all out (each one) into a flat sheet. Sandwich the sheets together then roll them up. Put them in the fridge again then when hard, slice across. You should have pinwheel biscuits which you can decorate with cachoux. I'm also cutting out leaf and flower shapes and pressing on the leaves with a skewer to make indentations for the veins of the leaves. I put green colouring in those ones and also made some flower biscuits to match, using cachoux for the centres of the daisy shapes.</p><p></p><p>They take a little longer but keep my busy without me wanting to eat any. It's like I'm testing myself, then I enjoy making other people happy with a packet of fancy biscuits.</p><p></p><p>Another fun trick you can try - cut circles, then cut out a smaller shape from every second circle (you can bake the smaller shapes too). Then use a butter cream to sandwich the biscuits together, with a 'window' on one side. You can sandwich the tiny cutouts too, as baby biscuits. Or you can put some chopped up boiled sweets inside the cutout biscuit (using silicone or baking paper) and it should melt into toffee during baking, so it's like a stained glass effect filling the hole. These also look good hanging on the tree (hence make a thread hole before baking).</p><p></p><p>It's fun to play.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 218703, member: 1991"] Fran, you said, "Do any of you have a hard time looking through recipes when you are trying to eat on the low calorie side of life? My mouth was literally watering. Yum. It's going to be hard to keep some discipline." I get obsessed with recipes and cooking. However, I find cooking special meals for others (not always healthy, but often healthier than usual) can make me feel better. I also tend to play with healthy recipes more, especially using lots of fresh herbs from the garden. I've got some unusual herbs (like salad burnet, purple basil, chocolate mint) which each have their own recipe that tastes fabulous with their special touch. What REALLY works well for me when I'm dieting - like today, I make fancy biscuits. I have special shape cutters and have fun playing, using a biscuit dough that doesn't have any baking powder or self-raising flour in it. Just plain flour (aka all-purpose flour). I make two to three batches, each one a different colour/flavour and also decorate with choc chips, silver cachoux, any other things like those sugar snowflake shapes or butterfly shapes. I put the biscuit dough in the fridge, rolled into a long cylinder shape (each flavour separate). When it's cold and hard I cut thin slices, then I use the cutters to cut out different shapes. I like to have cutters in different shapes, such as stars or hearts in three different sizes. You then cut say, large hearts in two different flavours and put them side by side. Then get the next size down and cut shapes out of the two large hearts. Swap them over so you have two-tone biscuits. If you have a third smaller heart, do it again. You end up with concentric hearts in alternating flavours. I use a skewer to make a small hole in each biscuit before baking, so I can thread string through them afterwards. A tip - once you slice the dough, put the biscuits on baking paper (or silicone baking sheet). That way you don't have to move them once you start playing with different flavours. Any dough you cut away, roll it into a ball and put it back in the bag to put back in the fridge. I prepare a tray of biscuits at a time, often with different shapes and different treatments. Any leftover dough will keep for weeks. You can freeze the dough or freeze the biscuits. Today I got some sugar snowflakes (each one smaller than my little toenail) and used them as buttonholes on my tiny teddy bear shapes. Another fun trick - a larger teddy bear shape with a smaller person shape cut out from the middle, like the bear ate someone. And silver cachoux or choc bits for eyes. When you're low on dough you roll it all out (each one) into a flat sheet. Sandwich the sheets together then roll them up. Put them in the fridge again then when hard, slice across. You should have pinwheel biscuits which you can decorate with cachoux. I'm also cutting out leaf and flower shapes and pressing on the leaves with a skewer to make indentations for the veins of the leaves. I put green colouring in those ones and also made some flower biscuits to match, using cachoux for the centres of the daisy shapes. They take a little longer but keep my busy without me wanting to eat any. It's like I'm testing myself, then I enjoy making other people happy with a packet of fancy biscuits. Another fun trick you can try - cut circles, then cut out a smaller shape from every second circle (you can bake the smaller shapes too). Then use a butter cream to sandwich the biscuits together, with a 'window' on one side. You can sandwich the tiny cutouts too, as baby biscuits. Or you can put some chopped up boiled sweets inside the cutout biscuit (using silicone or baking paper) and it should melt into toffee during baking, so it's like a stained glass effect filling the hole. These also look good hanging on the tree (hence make a thread hole before baking). It's fun to play. Marg [/QUOTE]
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