The tooth - THE SWEET ONE

Finally!  We come to the part where the grip meets the road.  The sweet tooth.  I eat desserts maybe once or twice a month, if even that, so I honestly don’t care if that baaaaaad thing is a sugar slash chocolate slash butterfat invasion.  There are zillions of dessert recipe books out there, and I’m not out to compete with any of them.  These recipes aren’t based on calories (high or low), health (as if), price (it’s kinda up to you) or awards.  They’re just delicious and different, somewhat easy to make, and something worth trying and adding to your recipe book.

Moderation -- slow and steady wins the race. Just eat a tiny bit and give the leftovers to your guests to take home with them (a good idea to stock up on ‘to-go’ containers to fit).  I know it’s real tough when you KNOW that there’s a ‘goodie’ in the pantry or fridge.  Don’t put temptation out there to haunt you.  The rest of that month I enjoy fruits, sweet veggies, flavored waters, un-sugared gelatins or a cookie or two when I have a sweet craving.

I’m not a huge fan of overly sweet foods.  When following dessert and cookie recipes I find online or from friends – I usually cut the sugar content requested in half (or at least substantially reduce the amounts) and the recipe is just fine to me.  I certainly don’t care for overly-sweet fruit dishes, or why even use fruit?  It’s the fruit I want to taste.

The sugar hype is just that, hype.  We can lower our need for ‘sweet’ by consuming less of it in small doses at a time. You WILL find that you become accustomed to the new taste intake, and are satisfied with that new, lesser ‘sweetness’.  It will happen!  Promise.

I try to eat my sweets and rich foods as early in the day as possible, so that the fats and sugars don’t enter a placid body, but an active body.  Most of the time my ‘sweets’ are bakery things at breakfast, and juices, and I try to focus my rich main meal courses -- the fatty meats, sausages and butters -- at breakfast or lunchtime for the same reason.  Dinner I try to keep with salads, soups, non-fried or lower-fat meats and sides.  Like I said, slow and steady wins the race.

I sure say ‘try’ a lot.  But don’t beat yourself up if that effort happens only sixty percent of the time.  Hey, that’s better than it used to be, right?  Just keep being aware, and act on that awareness whenever you can.

In preparation, there are a few helpers in using extracts, herbs and spices.  With sweet preparations, mixing powdered spices or citrus zestings well with the dry sugar ingredient of the recipe makes the distribution of the spices more even, as the pure powdered doses can ‘clump’ when shaking off a spoon.  The same if using a powdered or crushed savory spice, mix it with the flour content of the recipe prior to distributing in the ingredients.  With potato, macaroni or shellfish salads, the most delicate part of the salad is the star of the show.  The dressing shouldn’t be the end of the road for texture in these dishes.  I greatly recommend mixing the condiments and mayonnaises together well first, before folding in with the delicate ingredient.  Crab cakes can be ruined with the mashing of the mustard and minced ingredients into the mayonnaise after it’s all sitting on top of the flaked crab chunks.  And in that same stream of thought, if using liquid concentrates and flavor extracts, add them to the liquid ingredients like milk, cream or wine prior to mixing with the recipe as well.  If using a vanilla bean, and not needing it after it has been simmered, sautéed or baked -- after all is said and done, don’t throw it away, but instead rinse and dry it lightly and add it to your container of sugar.  It will perfume the sugar nicely.  You can even use the bean again if stored this fashion.

Keep all your spices away from heat and light, and store them in their largest natural presentation (buds, whole leaves, grains or nuts, bulbs, seeds or bark curl) as is possible; then shred, grind, pulverize, chop or crush as they are needed. Keep them in a well-sealed container, and if there’s room, keep them in the freezer or fridge well-sealed (like several in a larger zip-lock bag), especially if you know you’ll be out of town or away from cooking for a while.

                                                                                 

All that health stuff aside, I have acknowledged that my dessert recipes aren’t anywhere close to health food.  Not even in effort, but they are delicious.  They offer a different perspective on ‘dessert’ and definitely are memorable.  Just eat a sensible small portion,

and do a hundred lunges.  Ha!