Brownie Anyone?

There is another reason why I run other then the fact that I enjoy it, and I am trying to set a good example for my children. I run because if I didn’t then I would surely weigh close to 500 pounds. Why you might ask? Because I am addicted to the Foodnetwork channel. Yes I confess that I spend hours and hours viewing various shows on the Foodnetwork. Some of this time has been spent in frustration i.e. Croquet Monsieur is really just a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. I’ve been making those quite regularly for 10 years. I don’t need a detailed TV show to give me the how to’s on that one. Yes, that was a half hour of my life that I will never get back.

Now when I worked outside of the home both full time and part time, my family would regularly ask me if I could bake some brownies or cookies or cupcakes, etc. I was working and when I wasn’t working then I was usually trying to take care of more important household things like laundry and house cleaning. I didn’t have time to bake. If I did bake then most of the time it came from a boxed mix I bought at the grocery store on sale that week.

Since I am no longer working outside of the home, I do have time to bake for my family. Tom mentioned one night that brownies sounded good. I was elated. The next day I opened my computer and clicked on the Foodnetwork website and found a recipe for brownies which I made from scratch. From scratch people! Did you even know that was possible? I didn’t. I thought brownies were something that Duncan Hines and Pillsbury made up and boxed the mix. Those homemade brownies were fantastic if I do say so myself. I noticed that Tom and the girls enjoyed them very much too which made me happy.

A few days later, Hailey was complaining that there are “never any snacks in the house.” So the next day I set to work on cookies, followed a few days later by more brownies, and then 2 kinds of cupcakes with, wait for it…real buttercream frosting! When I tasted that frosting, I thought I was going to pass out it was so good. I got that recipe from the Foodnetwork website too. It was heavenly.

The problem is that I guess the novelty of homemade baked goods has worn off because every hour when I get up off the sofa to go get another treat, I notice that there is the exact same number of treats as the last time I had my hand in the cookie jar. What am I saying? I am the only piggy in this family! The three people who used to hound me for homemade cookies and brownies when I was working full time and had no time or energy to bake, now don’t seem so interested in all the homemade goodness that Foodnetwork and I have to offer. Well isn’t that just a kick in the hay? I am trying very hard to control myself with the sweets but have you ever had homemade buttercream? For a moment I thought I should just package the cupcakes up and take them to the girl’s school and put them in the teacher lounge, but I wasn’t ready to part with such sweet goodness. I pack the goodies in the girls’ lunches, but I noticed that they are not eating them. When they get home from school and I open their lunch bags the sweets are still in the bag. What is wrong with this picture? When I was a kid the first thing I ate in my lunch box was the dessert. Only my children would choose carrot sticks over a chocolate cupcake.

The other option is that I could gorge myself on the sweets. My parents pop kettlekorn at arts and crafts festivals in the summer. They have been doing this for a number of years now. When they first started working the festivals, I went with them and helped out with the popping and bagging of the kettlekorn. I took home big bags and ate it like my life depended on it. The result is that I can not even look at kettlekorn now without my stomach turning. I am sick of kettlekorn. So maybe I could apply this concept to cupcakes with buttercream frosting, brownies, and cookies. Except that I just found homemade buttercream and it seems a shame to end our relationship so soon after meeting. I think I better give it some further consideration before I make any hasty decisions. I mean there is just no going back after a good gorging. No, there just don’t seem to be any viable options at this time. Perhaps I should just sit down with a plate of brownies and a cup of tea and ponder my options. Brownie anyone?