Search and Replace: Goldfish to Sweet Potatoes

I am famous around our house for getting really geeked up about something and then promptly losing steam. Projects abandoned. Great ideas shelved. Blogs ignored for months. Hmmmmm. Thankfully, I have a spouse that finds this somewhat endearing and harmless. However, it's really staring to bother other people. Namely, me. 

I read a great book recently called The Power of Habit that delves into the fascinating world of human habits. One revelation that emerged was that the habits we develop are never truly gone, we just replace them with other habits. For instance, maybe you always eat a candy bar at your desk around 4pm (and your gut is the proof), and you want to get rid of that habit. So you decide to take a brisk walk outside every time 4pm rolls around. Eventually you replace your 4pm Candy Habit with a 4pm Walk Habit. This is grossly oversimplified and that doesn't sounds like a great trade to me but you get the idea.  It's an empowering way to view habits. 

Like most people, I have some stale and unhealthy habits that I'd like to replace with some fresh ones. With that in mind, this kicks off a weekly post about some small change that I'm attempting to implement in the New Year. I am trying to feed my family more real food these days and cut back on the processed stuff that has slowly but surely crept into our pantry. This week's "Search and Replace" is for the beloved snack of small children (and me): Goldfish. Man, I love 'em. They are cute and crunchy and deliciously salty. But along with their cute little fishy faces comes a pile of preservatives and junk that tiny bodies (or not-so-tiny-mom-bodies) do not need. So out they go.

This was a pretty easy switch. Here is their replacement: Sweet Potato "Cookies." Equally delicious. Equally salty (the way I make them). Equally orange. And just look how thrilled Judah (below) is to see them hot out of the oven!! Ok, he was seriously skeptical but he stuffed his face shortly after this picture was taken. Here's the recipe.

Baked Sweet Potato Cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 400

2. Peel sweet potatoes and slice into 1/4 inch rounds

3. Toss with olive oil

4. Put on cookie sheet in a single layer

5. Sprinkle with sea salt 

6. Bake for 12 or so minutes (when they start to smell good, they are done!)

7. Let them cool for a few before handing them off to tiny people

They are seriously good. I ate way too many. But I have absolutely no weight loss goals in the new year so that's nice. Not because I'm at some ideal weight - far from it. But who knows, maybe all of my "excess" weight was just Goldfish weight. We shall see. 

Let me know if you have anything you want to find a good replacement for and we can be in this together! 

Happy New Year.