Food

Wall O' Peeps (Photo credit: urtica)

I was reading a Freshly Pressed blog about Peeps and it got me started thinking about seasonal candy and how it seems to have taken over store shelves — not to mention my life. The more I thought about it the more I realized that it’s time to take a stand — I’m not a fan of Peeps. There! I said it.

When it comes to chocolate covered marshmallow eggs, though, now that’s a whole different obsession.

For awhile I bought into the theory that seasonal candy was not bad for you. (Now, I just buy it without wasting time thinking about it.)

I mean it only comes around once a year, right?

Wrong! Seems like it’s always some season or other that brings — you guessed it — candy. Half the year is candy season!

Candy? (Photo credit: KyuubiTamer)

Not convinced, let’s take a quick look …

It starts with Halloween. Candy, candy, and more candy.

No sooner do we get past that calorie laden fiasco than “the holidays” are upon us and the candy just explodes all over the place. There’s peppermint candy canes, and fudge with nuts, and fudge without nuts, and divinity, and, my personal favorite, chocolate covered cherries. Yum!

Just when I feel grateful for surviving another year’s candy laden holiday season, here comes Valentine’s Day followed closely by St Patrick’s Day, chocolate shamrocks and all.

Right on the heels of Cupid‘s favorite holiday comes Easter with chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs, and Peeps!

So whose fault is this?

I blame it on Hershey. You see, they nabbed me years ago when they started putting Hershey’s Kisses in different color wrappers. I can’t resist them.

Hershey's Kisses (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

I love the little Halloween Kisses in their Fall colored wrappers and Christmas Kisses in their red and green wrappers. And, let’s not forget the red and silver wrappers for Valentine’s Day and — for Easter — the pastels.

I am convinced that if they’d stop with the holiday wrappers, I could go the rest of my life without eating a single Hershey’s Kisses.

That doesn’t mean I would give up chocolate covered marshmallow eggs or chocolate covered cherries.

I’m not completely nuts!

I should be fixing myself something for dinner right now but it’s one of those nights when I just can’t figure out what I want. You know what I mean?

Nothing strikes me as the least bit appetizing and, besides, my cat Emily is sitting between me and the keyboard purring up a storm. I don’t want to upset her apple cart but I am beginning to get hungry. I guess I could nudge her off the desk and slyly mosey on into the kitchen but not much gets past Emmie and I still don’t know what I want to eat.

Well, that’s not completely true. I want a big bowl of mac and cheese and some scramble fried potatoes and about a gallon of ice cream.

Can’t have it.

Sigh.

When my daughter was small, and was a very picky eater by the way, she loved mac and cheese and green beans. Sort of an odd combination in my book. Anyway, she wouldn’t eat much else for about a year. One day she decided she didn’t like green beans and then it was mac and cheese and applesauce. That lasted for about a year too. After that, it was mac and cheese and broccoli. (Her taste buds were maturing.)

She went through a spaghetti phase too so I cooked that about three times a week for a year or so. One night she wanted spaghetti and I’d run out of canned tomatoes so I ended up sauteing some sliced mushrooms with butter and garlic salt and poured them over the spaghetti. She took one look and said, “What is this? Where is the red stuff? I’m not eating this.”

So, I made her sit there while I ate. I must have made a really good show of loving that stuff because she finally started eating and even wanted seconds. Mushroom spaghetti became a staple at our house and we both still love it.

Mushroom Spaghetti:

1 lb. of Sliced Mushrooms
8 oz. of Spaghetti
2-4 Tbsp. of Butter
Garlic Salt

Heat 4 cups water until boiling. Add spaghetti and cook until tender (but not too soft). In the meantime, melt butter in a saute pan then add mushrooms. Add garlic salt to suit your taste. Saute over medium-high heat until they look like they’re supposed to.* Stir to keep from burning. When done, add spaghetti to mushrooms and mix thoroughly. Serve with french bread and steamed broccoli. Serves one adult and one slightly starved 7-year-old.

Enjoy!

*Supposed to means no longer white or hard. You know, it means just the way you like them.

Gosh, I’m hungry now.