SWEET!

I love sugar. Way, way, way too much. Some nights after the kids go to bed, I'll be struck with a craving for sweetness that leaves me rummaging about the cupboards for a stray chocolate chip or any other morsel containing sugar. But I know this is an unhealthy love affair. I need to break it off. I've found a new love- stevia.

Now, stevia and I have done our little dance before, but I have always looked at it as a less than satisfactory replacement for sugar. This is mainly because I was always trying to sweeten my coffee with it. This is not the best way to get to know stevia. For whatever reason, the bitterness of the coffee and the bitter undercurrent in stevia make for a steaming hot mug of nastiness. But since I drink at least one cup of coffee everyday with sugar, and am trying to slim down a bit, I decided to try again with stevia. No luck. Stevia in coffee still sucks ass. But it's rather good in tea! I knew that! How could I forget?! I've often thought that it would be worth moving to the south just to have sweet tea available at every restaurant. But the massive amounts of sugar in that tasty beverage would probably be enough to kill a small child. So stevia and I began to see each other more often- behind sugar's back. My tea was wonderfully sweet without the extra calories from sugar or honey.

Then I started thinking about sweetening desserts with stevia. That has always seemed very daunting since stevia is so much sweeter than sugar, therefore the mass is much less. How would that effect baked goods? Well, I still don't know about that, but I am definitely going to experiment after the great success I had this morning.

The kids and I were very hungry when we woke up today. As usual. I had NOTHING with which to make a standard breakfast- no oats, no bread, no eggs. What I did have was some raw milk and frozen pumpkin puree. Hmmmm.... I thought about pumpkin muffins, and then remembered that I had no eggs. I recalled a very easy and tasty recipe that Amy had turned me onto some time ago. It was a chocolate pudding made with cornstarch that takes very little time to make. What the hell, why not? I got out a pan, dumped in some cornstarch and stevia, poured milk on top, and added the pumpkin. I whisked like mad as it heated to avoid lumpiness. It thickened nicely, and I finished it with some vanilla extract and plenty of spicy Vietnamese cinnamon. The moment of truth...............

Holy crap! It was delicious! Smooth and creamy, sweet and spicy. Perfect. I poured it into bowls, and after a brief stint in the freezer to take the edge off the heat, gave it to the hungry little munchkins. Boy, were they impressed! Ronan even called Scott to tell him that I had invented a new food, and that it was really good. Sweet success. Next time, I'm going to try to pay attention to how much of everything I use and write it down. The world needs this recipe! I'll be back with more of my stevia exploits. Just don't tell sugar. I'm going to keep it around just in case.