My Name is Lisa, and I'm a Bake-aholic

As a follow-up to yesterday’s simple vs. complex carbohydrates conversation, I have to admit to a dirty little secret:  I  live for dessert.  Especially desserts of the ooey-gooey, home-baked chocolatey goodness variety.  No meal is complete without a little something (little, in my book, meaning slightly-less-than-a-slab) sweet, and that includes breakfast.  There was a time in my life when strawberry shortcake, on homemade poundcake, was a perfectly sensible breakfast.  If I have a little cheese-and-crackers snack, I have to have a bite of chocolate to send the “finished” signal to my brain.  And lunch and dinner:  well, it goes without saying that a cookie or brownie or sliver of pie is a given in my world.

I like my brownies fudgy, cookies warm, cakes moist, and ice creams with a sauce.  I rarely like crunchy bits, but always like melty bits.  More than anything, though, I like to make my own.  Sometimes, at the end of a particularly stressful day, I’ll clean up after dinner, send the children off to do homework or make trouble or whatever keeps them out of my hair, and I’ll hole up in the kitchen and make a pan of brownies, just for the therapeutic effect of combining butter and sugar and chocolate.

The problem with this addiction is the resulting piles of baked goods.  Needless to say, pounds of butter and dozens of eggs are not high on anyone’s list of heart-healthy foods.  And let me tell you–this was one of the hardest realities that I had to come to terms with after Lee’s surgery.  The idea of giving up my favorite hobby was devastating.  I needed to figure out how to get my baking fix without killing us all.

So here’s my solution:  I just get rid of the end result.  I bake as much as I want, then I give it away.  The kids in our carpool LOVE me, because I always have treats.  The people at Lee’s office are thrilled when I send stuff to them.  I always volunteer for bake sales and class parties and teacher appreciation luncheons.  The softball team (and their parents!) think I’m some sort of baking genius.  And my brother (who has a wife and four daughters) is always happy to detour by my house on his way home from work to pick up whatever I’m trying to offload.

You will find, if you live with someone who has heart disease, that you sometimes have to come up with creative solutions to get everyone’s needs met–including your own.  When you feel like you’re up against a dietary/exercise/medical roadblock that leaves you feeling like you’re giving up your own life, stop and think about how you can continue to be yourself without compromising the healthy lifestyle that is so important to your whole family.  Actually, now that I think about it, the same holds true for families that don’t have heart disease:  we all have to find ways to co-exist without killing each other.

My contribution to Delaney’s softball team party last weekend, from top to bottom:

Chocolate dulce de leche bars
The world’s best brownies
Brown butter toffee blondies
Apricot-orange shortbread bars
Seven layer bars