sugar, oh honey honey

Due to my work/gym schedule, most of the cooking and/or baking happens on the weekend. One weekend I was craving something sweet. What exactly I was craving were Chris's moms butter cookies but those were long gone from the Christmas holiday. I stumbled upon a recipe for chewy sugar cookies by milk & mode and had everything I needed already in the apartment so it was a win-win situation. Needless to say, these cookies did not last very long. The sweet, salty taste was addicting. I laid in bed on Sunday reading and popping these suckers into my mouth one after another. Re-posting the recipe below as a bookmark for myself and in hopes that some of you will try it out. Trust the recipe, do not bake more than 10 mins… they are plenty baked and are chewy and delightful. Enjoy!

Chewy Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature 

1/2 cup granulated sugar 

1/4 cup light brown sugar 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

1 large egg 

1 1/2 cup all-purpose unbleached flour

1/2 teaspoon sea salt 

1/4 teaspoon baking soda 

1 cup turbinado sugar, or coarse sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line two large sheet pans with parchment paper. Cream butter and sugars for 1 minute. Scrape sides of bowl. Continue beating for another minute. Scrape bowl again.

Add vanilla. Beat for 1 minute. Scrape sides of bowl. Add egg. Beat for 1 minute. Scrape sides of bowl. Add flour, salt and baking soda. Beat 1 minute. Scrape sides of bowl and beat for another minute.

Make small balls of dough to be dotted with course sugar. I skipped the course sugar and used rainbow sprinkles instead. Do not press the balls down. This will ensure a chewy middle. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, turning and reversing pans midway through baking. Resist the urge to bake your cookies longer, or they won’t be chewy. The tops don’t get much color, but the bottoms will be nicely golden.

Place pans on cooling racks. When cool, store cookies in air-tight containers.

p.s. this is quite humorous coming after the +8 post ;)

the weight of getting older

So here's the thing about turning 27. You turn the corner on being able to eat whatever the hell you want. I'm telling you now so that when you get here, you know it ahead of time. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to make it to 28 or unlucky enough that 26 is when it happens but for me, it is 27.

I've always considered myself an active person. I run, lift weights, spin and even did boxing for about a year. Suddenly though out of no where I gained about 8 pounds and no matter how much I do or don't eat, no matter how hard I run myself into the ground, that scale will not move. 

So I tried "dieting." Quotes because I'm not a person who can diet or further more wants to. I hate being the person that eats salad while everyone else enjoys pasta. I don't like saying no to candy and I really hate not being able to visit my favorite bakery on 23rd street. So my diet was this; replace lunch with a green juice, drink more water, no more candy or bakery goods and no butter. Simple right? Sort of… except, nothing changed. Except my attitude which was annoyed and aggravated because all I could think about was rose macarons. So what do you do?

You stop looking at the scale. 

I run. I run really freaking hard and long on some days. I bike. I have a nifty single speed bike that means I can't cheat on hills with gears. I lift weights and jump around like a nut. I think you can classify this as CrossFit. I twist and bend in yoga. And I have stopped looking at the scale. After 5 days straight at the gym some weeks I feel like a brand new woman and what can ruin that moment isn't a cookie but that damn number.

But my jeans still fit the same and I still trot around in a bikini of vacation so at the end of the day, do those +8 pounds matter? Sometimes. Sometimes they bug me and make me select the non-fat yogurt rather than the 2%. But most of the time, they don't. Because I can eat macaroons with the understanding that I'm going to ride my bike a bit harder that day. That's okay with me. Because of all the vices I could have, +8 pounds isn't so bad.

where have you been

I'm such a hypocrite sometimes. There are a few blogs that I follow that I check, recheck and refresh and when there hasn't been anything updated for more than say, a day or so… it really bugs me. Yet here I am typing away and I haven't been updating suddenly lovely at all. Hopefully those of you who check back every once and a while haven't removed me from your bookmarks and care to know that I'm still here. 

I was away for a week in Florida. Enough sun and warmth to carry me through the rest of the 'winter' (I suppose technically it's spring). It was great but I was so happy to get back to NYC. I love the beach and water but at the end of the day, I love Manhattan more. I rode my bike down Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg smiling ear to ear. I went to yoga, stopped by Marlow and Sons for a honey scone and coffee and rode the rest of the way home not even minding the cold.

I've been working on freelance. I've been lucky enough to work with several awesome people who have shared their weddings, babies and bat mitzvahs with me. The best part is handing over the final piece and seeing their faces get all goofy and excited. Get goofy, it's such an awesome feeling.

I am back to running. I joined a gym and try to go after work during the week and at least once on the weekend. I was starting to drive myself crazy when I got home from work and all I would talk about was work and what was going well or more likely, not well. I could hear myself blabbing and just couldn't stop. Now going to the gym I get it out of my system by physically exhausting my emotional self. At the end of the day, it's just perfume and makeup.

One last note before I sign off and probably head to bed. I received the most lovely cards from friends this past birthday. For those of you who sent me little notes, thank you from the bottom of my heart.