Weekly Wrap Up and Gooey Bars

I know this is very delayed- things got crazy here! But for my diligent readers: on Tuesday, I had my weekly weigh in and discovered I lost 1.4lbs. Yay! Somehow...

It will be interesting to see 1)  if I can keep it off and 2) if it was actually "real" weight loss...

Food planning has been manageable. Obviously some days were better than others, but I think if I am going to have long term success in managing my weight/calorie intake this is an appropriate amount of time that I would want to spend thinking about my food intake :) So let's hope it was actual weight loss and I can do it...

I am still finding myself baking and cooking when I get stressed out. Take last night for an example: I roasted a chicken, made a mushroom barley risotto (yum!), and dangerously--- Gooey Bars.

Gooey bars are a "13yo Liz and AJ creation." I don't think I have made these since I was 13, but for some odd reason I was feeling nostalgic and really wanted to try to recreate them. So I did it from memory.
This is a very basic baked good. Something a 13 year old would find truly amazing.

Here is the gist of it:

Brownies from a box (baked according to the "fudgy" instructions), and underbaked about 15min
Once they have been mostly baked, remove pan from oven and top with:
mini marshmallows
chocolate chips
peanut butter chips
pretzels (I remember using Cheerios back in the day...)
and then drizzled, all over the top, with sweetened condensed milk
Place back in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the marshmallows are toasted and the sweetened milk is caramelized.

How is that for a healthy, diet friendly recipe?! I am doomed this week!

My coworkers love/hate me for bringing the gooey bars in to work today. One of our new students, astutely asked- "How is it fair that you are on a diet, Liz, and bringing US these Gooey Bars?!"

It is not fair.... But I reassured everyone here at work that this weekend I am learning how to knit a scarf for my latest hobby. It is my attempt to try to break the cycle of "comfort cooking...."

I wonder how many scarves I am going to need to make... :)