Who Stole My Twinkie?

By now you have heard the news - the Twinkie, Ding Dong, HoHo, Suzy Q, Chocolate Cupcake - GONE!  Yeah, we've been hearing rumors for a while now that Hostess was closing forever and taking the Twinkies with it.  But I never thought I'd see the day when these important parts of my childhood weren't there for my children. {sigh}

Tonight, I went on a noble quest to find the last Twinkie.  It was an odyssey that took me through six grocery stores, a big box store, a drug store and a convenience store.  Epic.

First stop - Target.  They're big, gotta have it, right?  Nope.

That's it.  Strawberry Cupcakes?  Chocolate Cream Twinkies?  WTH?  Little did I know I was looking at the best selection I would see tonight.  I scooped up the box of Suzy Qs and moved on.

Next stop - Frys (Kroger for those of you in different parts of the U.S.).  Gotta be more, right?

More chocolate cream Twinkies!?!  They don't even look good on the box!  These were the last Twinkies I would see.  Meanwhile, Little Debbie was right there to mock me.  Check out these Cupcake, HoHo and Ding Dong wannabes:

Fresh & Easy - ummm, no.  I don't think Twinkies ever showed up there.

Safeway (Vons for the California crowd).  I had high expectations.  Too bad for me - crickets.

AND more mocking:

At this point I was running out of big supermarkets.  I gave Albertson's a chance.

I knew it was over.  No Twinkie stockpile.  No Ding Dong stash.  Only fake Cupcakes and HoHos in the future.  There had to be a place where there would be something!  Time to go to the K

I picked up a cherry pie and trudged to the door.  At least I got to taste that salty cherry filling in the sugar glazed crust.

I heard that Hostess is going to sell the Twinkie name and recipe, so I'm sure we will see our old friends again.  Let's just hope they don't look like bad cosmetic surgery.

cindy

Fit Friday - One Day at a Time

I'm in an intentional holding pattern right now, just trying to maintain what I've lost for a while before I continue on down the road.  I should be talking more about exercising, but I'm still stuck on food.  I've had a couple days now where I haven't been eating as I should and I have gained a couple of pounds.  (This is why I weigh myself every day so it doesn't get out of hand.)

A friend of mine who has lost about 100 pounds recently put about 40 back on.  It's hard to watch that, especially when I remember how she worked out like a fiend to get that weight off.  She's getting back on the wagon, though, so I think she's a great example.  I have this success/failure mindset - if I haven't completely succeeded, I've totally failed.  This is a dangerous game in weight loss.  I'm trying to address this head on and stay positive.  As I told my friend, this weight gain is not a failure, just a temporary setback.  That sounds so much better.

With Valentine's Day and my husband's birthday, it's been tough not to eat lots of sugar (my cryptonite).  If it's there, I eat it and I feel compelled to eat it so it won't be there anymore.  Hmmm, two problems with this:  (1) I have an issue with "wasting" food; and (2) I have made myself the human garbage disposal.  So many of us grew up with the "clean your plate" mentality, it's just painful to throw things away until they turn green in the refrigerator (although I've never seen sweets do that at my house).  Those poor children in Bangladesh may be starving, but they definitely won't be eating that leftover cake in my refrigerator!  The first problem leads to the next - eat it so it will go away.  This causes binge eating for me - not good.  I think I need to practice throwing away sweet things and then escort them out of the house into the curbside garbage can.

This is all part of the process for me - understanding why I do what I do and addressing it - one day at a time.  After all, there are no failures, only setbacks.

Have a great week and be healthy!  I'm linked up at Fit Club.  Visit there on Mondays to read all of our stories.

cindy

Pinterest Challenge - Part 2

The other day I took the Pinterest Challenge to create several of the items I saw on Pinterest.  Over the weekend, I tried a muffin/cupcake recipe:

You start with a box cake mix and a 15 ounce can of pumpkin (or you can buy the 29.5 oz can and two cake mixes).  You add - NOTHING!  That's right, two ingredients.  No eggs, oil, water or vanilla extract - NADA!

I could not believe what I was reading when I saw this recipe.  There must be more ingredients.  The result is probably dry.  The whole thing will taste like pumpkin.  NOPE.  You can use any kind of cake mix you want.  I wanted to make a bunch of cupcake/muffins, so I tried spice, yellow and devil's food cake mixes.  (If you read my other posts about weight loss, these were a bit of a downfall.  However, I understand these are considered fairly healthy and even have a Weight Watcher point value somewhere.)

Just mix the pumpkin and the cake mix with an electric beater

Spoon into muffin/cupcake tins lined with cupcake papers, and after 23 minutes at 350 degrees, you get this for the spice muffins:

And this for the chocolate/devil's food cake (these are actually pre-baking):

As for taste - excellent!  You can taste the pumpkin in the spice ones, but not at all with the yellow and devil's food cake mixes.  If you want an even more flavorful spice version, try adding a little cinnamon or a dash of nutmeg to the mix.  We also added chocolate chips to the chocolate cupcakes/muffins, which was just awesome.  You can also add cream cheese frosting to the spice or yellow muffins.  A note - I keep referring to these as muffins/cupcakes because the consistency is a cross between both.  It's not a cake, but a very moist muffin.  The best part for me was that they were so quick and easy to make, and the yield is about 18 cupcake/muffins.

Success!  One Pinterest Challenge down, three to go!

cindy