Emotional Baking

2 posts in one day?! Wow - you guys are so incredibly lucky.

I'm in a better mood since earlier. I was feeling so down after work that I came directly home. I skipped my workout today. And you know what? I don't feel so bad about it. I think the enormous pressure I put on myself to lose the weight quickly by going to the gym everyday, even when I'm not mentally, physically, or emotionally prepared makes me feel like a prisoner. Today, I escaped my workout prison and it feels good. Good enough that I know I'll be back to it working out tomorrow. It's nice to refresh every now and then.

When I got home, I immediately put on my apron and got to work on making dinner for myself. I made chicken enchiladas with a sour cream sauce. It ain't no "Rio Grande" but it was delish enough for me (and pretty easy to make). After dinner, I decided to make some cupcakes. Well, truthfully, I decided to make cupcakes even before I left work today.

Lately, cooking and baking have been cathartic. I've come to really enjoy doing it. If you told me I would feel this way a year ago, I would have laughed in your face. I used to hate cooking. I think it was more the prep and the aftermath. I hated the chopping, measuring, and cleaning. And now, I find it quite relaxing. But only if I'm cooking for me and the hubs. If I have to cook for other people, I break into a cold sweat. I'm a strict recipe follower. Because my love of cooking and baking is so new, I'm not confident enough to start experimenting on my own. And when my food doesn't taste or look the way I want it to, I get disappointed. And I'm also a perfectionist, so having other people disappointed makes me even sadder.

But I digress. Back to the cupcakes. I have yet to eat one - but I will of course (just one!). I made light vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I did tweak the frosting based on some of the reviews and added a lot less sugar than it called for. I wanted to make these rainbow cupcakes but I only had blue and green food coloring so I made "Mediterranean Sea" cupcakes since that's what the colors of the cupcakes remind me of. I think they turned out pretty. Here they are without frosting.

But let's face it, cupcakes without frosting are not complete. So I had to frost them. I bought a new frosting "gun" from Home Goods a little while ago and finally got to use it. And I found out, I am no cupcake artist. Sigh. Oh well, at least the frosting made it to the cupcakes! I guess I'll just need some practice. I ran out of frosting (I only made about half of the recipe) so two lucky (or unlucky depending on how you feel about frosting) people will get very pretty cupcakes.

Like I said in my last post, I will not let myself be an emotional eater any longer. But I think I am now an emotional baker. Some people paint, some people read, some people nap, others exercise but I bake. And when we get our own house, whenever that may be, maybe I'll craft too. The funny thing is, now that the baking is all finished and the overwhelming emotion I was feeling earlier has passed, I have no desire to eat the cupcakes...ok, well, maybe just one.

BTW, I am only 26. But this post makes me feel like I'm 26 going on 40.