ONE MUG AT A TIME

I'm trying to eat a healthier diet.  Don't take me too seriously, though.  I haven't completely forsaken my old bad habits.  I still like chocolate every now and again, and I don't mind indulging my inner tippler.  My choice of trail mix isn't completely healthy unless one counts M&Ms and chocolate morsels as health foods.  I figure if chocolate is good enough for the Aztecs, it's good enough for me.  I haven't quite quit processed foods yet, either.  I mean, come on: Cheez-Its come in extra-toasty flavor now.

I do eat a lot more salads now.  Okay, salads with feta and walnuts and croutons and maybe a little too much dressing, but the veggies are fresh and I mix up my greens to include lettuce and spinach.  No kale, though.  Kale is bitter.  I snack a lot on homemade oat-nut peanut butter honey granola bars (for which I cannot provide a recipe because I wing it every time).  Even my homemade blueberry muffins have gone the way of oats and unsweetened applesauce.

In other words, I'm trying.  At my age, every healthy choice is probably a wise one. But, sometimes I just need to let the chocoholic in me take over.  On Friday I let myself be tempted and completely won over at work by a slice of chocolate cake.  Then, on Saturday I ate a few Milano dark chocolate cookies. Still, though, I need more.

So, on Sunday to stop myself from thinking about chocolate, I make myself a chocolate chip mug cake.

If you've never made a mug cake, here's the one thing I can tell you: it is practically instantaneous.  From start to finish, the entire process takes less than five minutes, and that includes cooking time.  Of course, if you include time to take the ingredients off the shelf and find measuring equipment, it might take you a total of eight minutes.  Once everything is mixed together inside the mug, the mug goes into the microwave.  A few minutes later, out comes a warm, freshly-baked giant cupcake/mini cake in its own ceramic container.

Best of all, the directions say to eat the cake while it's still warm.

It's not my healthiest habit, and I don't make mug cakes very often - just in an extreme chocolate emergency.  This way I can treat myself to a piece of cake without any leftover cake tempting me to eat it all.  The chocolate chip mug cake is exactly perfect for the Marie Antoinette in all of us.  After all, when someone serves us a salad, it is probably best for them to "let us eat cake" lest we take a bite out of our salad-server when dessert time rolls around.

I'm trying to be healthy.  Really, I am.  But, let me be practical and take it one mug at a time.