Dirt Pudding for my Farmer Dad

After church this morning, I asked my dad what dessert he'd like for our Father's Day celebration.

He said Dirt Pudding.

This confused me a bit because that's NOT a dessert our family makes...ever.

But, hey, it's his day so I said OK and headed to the store for some milk, Oreos and vanilla pudding! Luckily, Walgreens has the small packs of Oreos on sale for 99 cents this week and I had a coupon for $1 off two packages. SCORE!

Then I headed home to jump on the Internet to find the recipe. I found a recipe for Dirt Cake I on allrecipes.com that looked good. Then I read the comments and found some suggestions on tweak it a bit so I took those, as well as made some of my own.

Before I got started, I had to crush the Oreos...unfortunately I don't have a full-size food processor but my mini one did the job just fine.

It took a bit longer but my mini-processor is much easier to store than the full-size ones!

Here's the final product. I added a small John Deere tractor in honor of my dad. If I had some green icing or green food coloring, it would have been fun to add a "field" to the top as well...maybe next year.

I think he enjoyed it, as did the rest of the family! So I'm sharing the recipe on here so others can enjoy it (and so I have it if I ever want to make it again).

Here's the recipe...

Dirt Pudding/Cake
3 T. butter/margarine, softened (I may have used 4 T. since I had a half stick in the fridge.)
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
2 (3.5 oz.) packages instant pudding mix
3 1/2 c. milk
2 (12 oz.) container frozen whipped topping, thawed (I used 1 1/2 containers because I NEEDED to eat the rest with a spoon right after I finished making this.)
32 oz. chocolate sandwich cookies with creme filling, chopped very fine in food processor (white cream will disappear)

Mix butter and cream cheese in bowl. In a large bowl, combine milk and pudding mix with a whisk. Then add the whipped topping. Combine pudding mixture and cream mixture together.

Layer in a trifle bowl (or a flower pot or other pretty dish), starting with cookies then cream mixture. Repeat layers. Chill until ready to serve.

If you put it into a flower pot, you can add an artificial flower or gummy worms or plastic trowel.

My Achille's Heel...in a Shiny Blue Bag

With the holidays right around the corner, the gals and I in the office decided to ressurect our weekly weigh-ins. Each Thursday, we look up and down the hallway to make sure the coast is clear and then step on the scale. Then we head to the designated whiteboard in a coworker's office and check in that we weighed in for the week. Sometimes it's a simple checkmark to say we've weighed in. Sometimes it's a smiley face if we've lost weight. And unfortunately sometimes it's a sad face, you know what that means. :(

This way we hold each other accountable while not having to share our actual weights. It works great. We can commisserate if there's a weight gain. We can celebrate when there's a weight loss.

For me, it's all about maintenance. Now, I probably could go gangbusters and really watch what I eat and start exercising regularly (or even sporadically) and lose 10 pounds and drop a pant size. But then I'd have to buy new pants and even after a major closet purge last week, I still have 30-plus pairs of dress pants and way too many jeans to have to go out and start over.

So, I'm doing this to maintain my weight, especially with Halloween candy already out; Thanksgiving pies right around the corner; and Christmas cookies a couple of months away.

We started two Thursdays ago. I was doing OK. Stopped snacking between meals. Drinking lots more water and less soda.

Then on Wednesday night I ran into the grocery store to grab a couple of things. BAD DECISION!

Kroger is having it's 10 for $10 sale. Now, overall this isn't a bad thing. You can get some really good stuff - healthy stuff - for $1. But you can also get Snack Saks of mini Oreos for $1...I love Oreos!

I don't usually allow myself to buy Oreos because a) They are expensive; b) I tend to eat way too many at one sitting.

Now, my sisters can attest to this fact...I have a huge bowl of candy sitting on my counter 365 days a year and it doesn't tempt me that much. There's still Easter candy in it. Dark chocolate Kit Kats don't last long, but even then I can eat one of those and be satisfied. Not so with Oreos.

But they were on sale so I bought some...

I bought 3 saks (I had a coupon too) of them and a Nutter Butter just to add some color. I opened the first bag when I got home and ate a third of the bag. OK, maybe closer to half the bag.

So at weigh-in yesterday I approached the scale with trepidation...but I was down half a pound! Probably a fluke, not enough time for those Oreos to really settle around my mid-section, but I didn't care.

What did I do? Let's just say there are now only 2 saks of mini Oreos in my house!