Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Swagless Christmas

I had intended to get this post up last week, but the combined forces of Pete being on vacation and a mean germ that has been leaving me feeling quite cruddy completely disrupted my normal routine.  But  now the New Year has begun, my husband is back at work, and hopefully that mean germ will be taking its leave soon as well.

But back to Christmas.  To me, a huge part of Christmas is baking Christmas cookies.

Christmas Cookies
Over the years, my “must bake every Christmas” list has grown and it now includes some candy treats as well.  I look forward to my Christmas goodies, but home-baked goods are a bit trickier to bolus for without that handy nutrition label to consult.  This year, I decided to fix that problem and banish the Christmas Swagging for good!

First, I made an Excel spreadsheet with a tab for each Christmas recipe.  I listed the ingredients, and then used Calorie King to look up the carb counts.  This was time consuming and mind-numbingly boring, but I knew it would be worth it in the end.  (I also looked up the calorie counts.  Scary, but necessary because I am determined to log my calories and lose weight in 2012.)  I added a row in my Excel spreadsheet to tally up the carbs (and calories - ugh).  I then typed in how many cookies each recipe made, and let Excel do the math again.  Voilà, carb counts for my Christmas treats!!

Swagless
I typed all of the information into a table and printed out a few copies.  One goes with my “Christmas Cookie Recipe Packet” so it’s ready and waiting for me each year.  One went on the dining room table where all of the treats were stored.  And one went in the drawer of our coffee table, just in case.  And my blood sugars thanked me for putting in the effort and making this a Swagless Christmas!

11 comments:

  1. YOU ROCK. And can I just say this is a fantastical idea!

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  2. Great idea and thanks for sharing!!

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  3. wow! look at you go!

    i only did math for the reese's cookies. and the cupcakes i already had figured. i tend to write carb counts on the actual recipe. #likeyoudo

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  4. What a great idea!!!! You've got all my favorite desserts on that list I'm afraid, hehehe.

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  5. I need to do the same. Just the thought though is enough to make me not wanna do it.
    I miss baking and eating cookies, etc...

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  6. What a terrific-sounding list -- Just saying them out loud makes Christmas come back into the room. I had a creeping crud, too -- but for the first time, I wasn't angry, or sad -- just sick. That's a new one for me. Happy 2012!

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  7. This is the coolest tool i've ever found... enter all the ingredients in your recipe and it does all the calculations for you http://www.eatracker.ca/recipe_analyzer.aspx and... it's totally FREE to use, yipee.
    Maybe Calorie King does the same but looks like you have to subscribe.
    I curse the tools though, somethings are better not knowing!

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  8. Thanks for the tip, MelMur!! I wanted to find an on-line recipe calculator but my Google search came up empty. Can't wait to check this one out!! :)

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  9. livestrong.com has a really good calculator also, and gives detailed analysis of everything (sugar, fibre, etc). Saves me printing out and losing a sheet of paper!

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  10. I have some that I did in Excel too. I did one though that I regret doing that for – the carb and calorie counts were really bad, but the cake was really, really good (chocolate peanut butter meltaway cake).

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  11. dude, i LOVE this idea! and your cookies look delish too! :)

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