Yummy Christmas Food!

Why is it that we wait until Christmas to bring out all the yummy stuff?!!


Here is the recipe from taste.com.au that I am making this year. 


Christmas Cookies

Makes

24

Ingredients

• 125g butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (115g) caster sugar
• 1/4 cup (60ml) milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup (70g) custard powder
• Silver and gold sparkling cachous, to decorate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
2. Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Beat in milk and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour and custard powder.
3. Press the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to rest.
4. Divide the dough into manageable portions. Roll out one portion on a sheet of non-stick baking paper to about 1cm thick. Use Christmas cookie cutters to cut shapes and place on the trays. Decorate with cachous.
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until light golden. Cool for 5 minutes on the trays before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

Notes

• Children cooking should be supervised by an adult.
  
  
  The rest of my Christmas cooking plan looks like this:
  - Jars of homemade Lemon Curd 
  - Peppermint rock (this was such a hit with everyone last year and so, so easy.  Tutorial to come!)
  - My very special version of Rocky Road
  
  
  Notice how the recipes are simple and I won't be slaving for days on end. I'm looking forward to a relaxed cooking day! 
  
  
  What are you making this year?

A Reminder For the Peace

Taking Peacetime in the Christmas Season

My Sister-In-Law and Cousin

Take some peace time today. 

Sit and watch God's creation and wonder at the love of three-is-one that sent the Son to die for us fallen ones. 

 ⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” ~ Luke 2: 8-11

May God bring you a sense of peace in the busyness today. 

Christmas-less-ness

Last year I looked around the room after the Christmas hub-bub and thought "Right, I better find a place for all this new stuff."  The problem was, there really wasn't much space. 


Apartment living is cramped. Even in a fairly average size apartment like ours.  And I also had this nagging feeling I might have missed the boat with my gift giving in some circumstances too. Did Aunt Mildred really need a new tea cosy?  Really? 


So this year we are working towards Christmas-less-ness. Here is what we are doing;

• Meeting up with friends for events/dinners where everyone brings part of the meal instead of gifts. Time spent together, especially with people we don't see often, is worth more than the gifts. 
• Joining my Mum and Dad, and Brother and Sister in law for a weekend away as a family rather than buying gifts for each other. Each couple pays their own way and we get to spend time together.
• Making and Baking rather than buying
• Buying things that are usable, useful and thoughtful rather than cheap and convenient. I make my list before I go to the shops rather than looking around 'window shopping'. That way it is quicker and less painful in the pre-Christmas rush at the shops. I also look online at a stores website to get the best price and plan around upcoming sales. 

Maybe one day I will feel confident to buy all our gifts here and here. I'm praying that it will be so. 

How do you avoid Christmas craziness? 

Catching Up on Life

Well we are nearing the end of the year and it has been too long between posts. Nov/Dec is always a tricky time for me work-wise, with many extra hours, as well as lots of training. Blogging became something difficult to focus on. 


Christmas Prep:  I am starting to move towards a Buy Nothing Christmas.  At the moment, my effort is token at best due to office Kris Kringles etc. But I am working on it. I will post about our Christmas gift giving this year later in the week, but food for thought - I would love to move towards this kind of Christmas...  
I am working through this free Jesse Tree devotional each day during advent. 


Fitness:  I have completed the 12 week program and have made a total loss of 4.5 kg from my heaviest weight. I still have a bit to go, and will be continuing to train 3-4 mornings a week.  I just need to go to bed earlier to compensate!!


Married Life:  Mr. Awesome and I are still enjoying the wonderful change that his current job affords us. We live just a two minute walk from his work and enjoy shorter hours, more time together and the financial benefit of only one car. We are looking forward to a little time off early in 2011 for our 2nd wedding anniversary. 


Church Life: Mr. Awesome and I have let a few other ministries go this year to focus on music ministry within our service. God has answered our prayers for more musicians and singers in the last few weeks and we are now able to step back a little in our time spent. Its a great thing! We are looking forward to what GOd plans for us next year. 

Fitness Update!

Here is an update! 


I have been working out as part of a group fitness program for 6 weeks now. 


I have just started to loose some weight (now 2kgs from the beginning of the challenge - which isn't a lot, but given everything going on with my family and the addition of PCOS, its pretty good start!) - but I have lost cm everywhere!! I will have my half way measurements to post shortly. 


I have been enjoying getting out in the mornings and doing new things like boxing (sooo hard but great!) and fitball (hilarious!) as well as lots of cardio/running and interval training.


Here is this week's fitness plan:


- Monday 6am Strength/Boxing
- Tuesday 5:45am Cardio/Outdoor Interval Training
- Wednesday Rest Day
- Thursday 6am Fitball/Core and Stretch
- Friday 6am Shunt Cardio/Weights 6:30pm Zumba Class (I did this with friends a few weeks ago and loved it!)
- Saturday 6:15 am (90 mins) Outdoor Boot Camp 9am Dance Teaching (2.5 hours)
- Sunday Rest/Quiet walk


Hmm... looks from that like I'm some fitness nut gym junkie! Not the case. I am usually always last in the running, shuffling along at the end of the line. Back row struggling to figure out the coordination! I have always danced but these movements are all so different to dancing!! The biggest thing is that I am enjoying it! Even the hard stuff. I'm loving being outside and pushing myself.  


So what am I working towards?  Well... there are a number of things:


1. Stabilising my weight:
I have let my weight fluctuate dramatically over the last 5 years and its wrecked havoc on my health and PCOS symptoms. 


2005: 60.5kg
2006: 70kg
2007: 78kg
2008: worked to bring back to 72kg in time for...
2009: Wedding weight 72kg
2010: July - heaviest ever weight of 83.5kg


As a percentage of my lightest adult weight - I put on over 30% body weight in 2 years. The effects of this have been enormous. My PCOS symptoms have become more pronounced, and I am a very good candidate for Type 2 Diabetes right now. But its not about getting back to my 2005 weight.
At 60.5kg, for my height, I was quite underweight and suffered low blood pressure, dizziness, headaches and constant muscular and back pain as I had very little muscle to protect my skinny frame (and at the time I thought I was huge!! Isn't silly how we berate ourselves!). So I have no desire to be back to that unrealistic weight. 72kg is my current goal and one that I will be able to maintain. 


2. Honour my husband by being the woman he fell in love with.
Now, before I get flamed for that sentence, can I please point out, that my husband loves me even more today than he ever has. He has always been 100% supportive and appreciative of my no matter what the size or shape of my body and he has seen me at every weight above. He has never 'weighed in' on what weight I should be, but supports my goal to be healthier to support my PCOS and to hopefully avoid a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes. I want to honour him by having the energy and vitality that I had when I was not overweight.  


3. Lessen the symptoms of PCOS and infertility
Its not something I blog about much, but one of the effects of the PCOS has been infertility.  Along with trusting that God has a plan for our family, I have been pursuing the 'natural' methods of dealing with PCOS such as cleaning up my diet, eating more LowGI wholefoods and loosing weight. I am hoping this will also help with cycle regularity and hirscitism. 


So... I don't want to look like this: 



At my heaviest



At my skinniest (58.5kg in 2003)


But healthy like this:

At our wedding!




I am going to slog it out hard over the last 5 weeks of the challenge and I will post a photo of my progress!