I hope I got potluck-y

Yesterday morning, along with thousands of other high school juniors, I took the SATs. This was my second time taking them, and so the shock of the test's duration was a little less prevalent, and I was just anxious to get them over and done with. And when they were done, I was really happy. I don't know exactly how I think they went, because thinking back to all the questions I debated between A and C I think now that maybe I guessed wrong. But overall, I just hope I got lucky with my guessed answers. We'll see in 19 days when scores come out, I guess.


Anyway, I was really just happy to be done with the test. Until I got home and went straight to my midterm review packets and started studying Calculus. I couldn't complain though, because I was taking a very long study break later on to go to my friend Sophie's house for a pot-luck dinner, which is right up my friend's and my alley. For those of you who may not know what a pot-luck is, each of my friends brought something different and we all sat down for a cute dinner together. We ended up sitting at Sophie's kitchen table for a few hours just talking, it was a pretty lovely night. No matter how I did on the SATs, being with my best friends for the night was so fun (as always) and I know for sure that I got lucky finding those girls.

And oh yeah, the food was really good too. Lindsay made mac and cheese, Jess made a spinach penne (which I ended up eating all the spinach out of because I liked it so much), Sophie made salad, Zoe made bruschetta, and I made Sriracha (spicy) hummus. Let me tell you, I don't think I'll ever buy hummus in the stores again.

Our dinner table!

There are a lot of pluses to making your own hummus. One is that you know exactly what's going into it (which I always like). Also, the ingredients are really good for you! Chick peas are packed with protein, fiber, and healthy carbohydrates. Also, eating spicy food (especially for an appetizer when a delicious meal is coming right after) forces a lot of people to eat less. As good as Sriracha is, it's hard to eat so much of it at once (even for spicy-food-lovers like me), and so it causes a lot of people not to overeat.

My mom and I had a little bit of a predicament when making the hummus since we don't have a food processor (which I highly advise for this), but in the end we figured it out. Maybe we got lucky that somewhere hidden deep in the cabinet's of my laundry room there was a mini Cuisinart, but either way it saved us.

Here's what you'll need:
1 can chickpeas
2 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
lemon juice, from a whole lemon
dash of salt and pepper
2 heaping tbsp tahini
2-3 tbsp Sriracha hot sauce (depending on how hot you want it - I used 2 tbsp and it was moderately hot)

1. Drain chickpeas, mince garlic, and juice a lemon. Measure out the remainder of the ingredients.
*The tahini was a little tricky to take out of the jar since there's a lot of liquid on top, but just mix it around a bit and then scoop out the solid.

2. Add all the ingredients to your food processor or blender.
*This should work even though I had trouble with it. The recipe I used only called for 1 tbsp of lemon juice,and the blender couldn't handle mixing all the solids I had without the juice. So I ended up transferring everything to the mini-Cuisinart, but with more lemon juice the blender should work, and it still tastes super delicious!)

take one...

take two..

3. Put in a bowl and have pita or crackers or vegetables on the side to dip into. Enjoy!!

water you doing?

Anyone who knows me or sees me in school can testify that I almost always have a water bottle on my desk or in my hand. If I don't, chances are it's only because I ran out of bottled water for the day. I'm a huge fan of drinking water, and I want to share with you all the benefits of this simple addition to your day.

They say (who are they?) to drink 8 glasses of water a day, which is equivalent to about 5 regular water bottles. In reality though, how much water you should consume depends on your body. Additionally, that rule is not actually backed by scientific evidence. You should just be drinking enough water that you are never thirsty. 

*Tip: Two ways to test if you hard hydrated are to pinch the skin on your hand (gently) and hold for about 30 seconds. Then when you let go, if your skin immediately goes back to normal, you're body is hydrated. If it takes a little while to return to normal, you need to start drinking more water!
Another way to test your hydration is by looking at your urine. The clearer your urine, the more hydrated you are! 

A lot of people forget to stay hydrated, but my tip for you is to keep water by you whenever you can. Chances are, if it's in front of you, you'll drink it. 

What are the benefits of water, you may ask? There are so many reasons why drinking water is essential, but here are just a few.

1. Water helps your metabolism. When you don't have a sufficient amount of water, your metabolism doesn't work as efficiently as it should. This is connected to weight loss, and a study in the "Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism  (sorry for getting fancy with facts, I just found this interesting as I was researching)  suggests that increasing water intake daily by 1.5 L for a year can lead to a 5 pound weight loss without making any other changes. 
2. Water helps energize muscles. Water hydrates cells, which in turn avoids the shriveling of electrolytes, causing fatigue. *Tip: When exercising, the American College of Sports Medicine suggests drinking about 17 ounces of fluid within two hours of exercising and drinking at regular intervals to replace fluids lost by sweating. And keep drinking during and after a workout as well!
3. Water helps you stay full. We all get that feeling when we know it's not hunger, but food just seems so appealing. Believe me, I would eat incessantly if I could. But what I've found to suffice is drinking water. When I'm in the mood for something, but I know I'm not hungry, I fill up my water bottle and add in a lemon or strawberry and sometimes it diminishes my craving. 

More than half your body is made up of water, and it's constantly being used through sweat, urination, through your metabolism, or even due to breathing (crazy, right?). So you always need to keep replenishing! But you're in luck; around 20% of the water you need daily is found in the food you already eat! 

And I guarantee most people won't drink as much as I do on a daily basis, but there are some ways to sneak an extra water bottle into your routine.

1. Add in fruits to make it more tasteful. Did you know you can actually juice a strawberry?... Me neither - until I started cutting them up and squeezing them into a glass of water. I'll warn you the strawberries don't look so nice once they've been squeezed, but I drop them into my water and it tastes sweet and delicious. My sisters also really like putting lemon in water, and I've seen cucumber too.
2. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Aside from the other benefits of fruits and veggies, they have high water contents to add to your hydration without having to drink so much water. 
3. Keep water with you whenever you can. I bet if you kept a water bottle by you all day, you'd drink it. That's what I do, and I find that by the end of the school day my Camelback water bottle is empty and I've recycled a regular water bottle as well. I then refill my Camelback (I totally recommend this brand to everyone, I love it) whether I'm going to the gym or not. Either way, by the end of the day, I've had plenty of water. 

I know it sounds crazy that I've just babbled on about water for a while (I apologize for that by the way). But it really is essential to keep hydrated, and I just wanted to remind everyone how easy it can be to drink enough water each day. I also just think it's interesting to know all of this - I learned a lot more about water by looking it up lately and I wanted to share!

And while we're on the topic of water, I'll just tell you a funny story about a new app I got on my phone. I got the app called "How to cook everything", and it has tips on kitchen essentials, plus recipes to try on just about everything. I agreed that it would send me new recipes when they come to the app, and the other day I got this:

Turns out it's in quotations for a reason, it was a classic Mediterranean soup that's "as easy as boiling water". I had no idea though, and when I looked at the ingredients and didn't even see water listed, I was very confused. Water you expecting me to think though, I bet you'd be confused too!

References:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/457882-medical-benefits-of-drinking-water/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/414520-what-are-the-benefits-of-drinking-water-for-weight-loss/

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/6-reasons-to-drink-water?page=2

I'm on a roll

Today marks 1 week until I take the SATs again, plus midterms are coming up this week too. So I woke up today and immediately got to work in order to accomplish everything I wanted to. So far I've managed to finish The Hobbit (finally), study quite a bit, and experiment in the kitchen. The best part is, I've managed to do all of it without getting out of my pajamas (it's 4:30 right now). What can I say? I'm on a roll today.
I had found a recipe to make homemade fruit roll ups on Pinterest during the summer, but my mom suggested waiting for a day in the winter when it's cold out to make it. It has to stay in the oven for a while, so we may as well wait until winter. That totally made sense to me, and today just seemed like the perfect day to make them. I knew I was going to be home all day doing work anyway.

What's great about this recipe is that surprisingly, it's pretty good for you! All it is is fruit (which you can pick what fruit to put in) and honey. It's super simple, and really delicious! The only draw back is the amount of waiting time while it's in the oven.

Here's what you'll need:
8 ounces of strawberries
6 ounces of blueberries
1 tsp honey (unless it needs a little more sweetness)

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Blend the berries into a thick liquid. Add honey and blend again.

2. Pour the liquid onto a non-stick surface and spread the liquid around until it's about 1/8 inch thick.

3. Keep in the oven for 3 hours, then take out and let cool for a few minutes. Then flip it over carefully and put it back in the oven for another hour.

4. Take out of the oven and let it cool for a bit. Then cut it up into slices, or however you want to cut it up. Enjoy!!

You can also roll them up in waxed paper!

the results are a little crumby

For those of you who have been following my blog, I posted before the granola bites I usually make myself for a mid-morning snack in school. If you haven't read that post or don't remember it (it was a while ago) feel free to refer to it here. Anyway, this week I wanted to try something new, so I decided to make granola bars for myself. I based my bars off of this recipe from Food Network, but I used a little less of a few ingredients and changed around some as well. This might have been the cause of the unexpected result I got of very crumbly granola, or maybe I left it to cool too long / left it in the oven too long. I'm not sure. But somewhere I went wrong and the granola bars that resulted are very disfigured in shape and there are almost as many granola crumbs are there are bars.

But fear not, bloggers! The recipe came out extremely delicious, so what I did was cut as many bars as I could from the pan, and then afterwards I took all the excess granola that fell off or crumbled away and put it in a Mason jar to put on yogurt or just to munch on. It all works out well in the end, don't worry.

And what's great about this recipe is that it really does taste amazing. But what's cool (and I feel like a commercial where the mom is successfully hiding 500 servings of vegetables from her kids in a delicious meal when I say this but...) is that this recipe really is pretty good for you. There is sugar and honey and butter - yes - but they are ok to have in a snack (sugar in snacks? crazy thought!) and there are great ingredients in here as well.

One ingredient that I want to put in the spotlight is wheat germ. The germ is the small part inside a kernel of wheat that germinates and grows. It nourishes the growing grain, so wheat germ is jam-packed with nutrients. Wheat germ has protein (2 tbsp has 13% of your daily value!), essential amino acids, vitamins, fiber, and more. And in this recipe, it's completely concealed by the looks of the other ingredients, and it goes unnoticed because of the super delicious taste of this granola [bar].

Here's what you'll need:
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2/3 cup honey
1/4 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 - 1 cup add-ins (walnuts, craisins, chocolate chips, etc)

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Toast the oatmeal on a sheet pan for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.

2. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in wheat germ.

3. Reduce the oven temperature to 300.

4. Place the butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook and stir for a minute, then pour over the oatmeal mixture. Add in the add-ins.

5. Pour mixture into a 8x12in baking dish lined with parchment paper.

6. Bake for 40 minutes, then cool (I don't know exactly when the right time to cut is at this point.. my guess is check back with it in half an hour and see, if not keep checking every 15 minutes until it'll cut well without crumbling).

7. Enjoy!!

Resource: http://www.livestrong.com/article/48516-wheat-germ-nutrition-information/

what's app

As surprising as it is to many who know me, I got an iPhone last week, and I'm actually pretty into it. Which may sound crazy, because up until November I had a flip phone designed for a T-Rex. But I loved it. It worked well and it did what I needed it to, plus it was simple. Until it stopped working well and when I went to make a call it would shut off, and when I went to see a text it would freeze.

Since November I had been using my aunt's Octane (she didn't need it once she got the iPhone), and it was a decent phone. It was simple and did what I wanted it to do. But it wasn't as good as my flip phone was, and I was ready to step into the technological world and get an iPhone. I promised myself I would not become obsessed to it, and I think now that the novelty is wearing off and I'm getting used to it I'm not as distracted.

The best thing about it is that I was added to the group chat between all of my best friends from camp. But the various apps there are out there are pretty cool too. I've been Snap-Chatting all my friends, studying my vocab on the go with Quizlet, Shazam-ing songs, and of course finding good health apps.

If there was a maximum to how many free apps you could download in a day, I would have probably reached that max by 10 AM on Saturday. I've been signing up and trying out as many apps as I can in order to find the best apps (in my opinion) that are out there to track and aid in a healthy life.

What I assumed would happen is I would type in the search box in the App Store "personal trainer" and thousands of amazing apps would pop up with innumerable features to plan workouts, make goals, give tips, track food intakes, etc. What I found instead were thousands of apps that were more specific. So instead of one perfect app, I would like to share with you the various apps that I have on my phone right now that all together do everything I could possibly imagine a phone can do. I got myself an arm band phone case, and with these apps I'm ready to go.

 Nike + Running: This app tracks all your runs, whether they're outside or on the treadmill. You can pick "Powersongs" to boost you up during your workout, and you can turn on settings to give voice feedback after a certain amount of time or distance.







Recipe of the Day Free: I don't know if I'll really every use this, but it was a random healthy recipe app for when I'm feeling adventurous to try a new recipe.



LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker Lite: This app I thought was cool a few days ago when I got it, but I've already decided I'm not into calorie counting, and I also find it hard to keep track when most of what I eat is homemade and not directly from a package. I feel like I ended up guessing a lot on my recorded food logging, and it seems super inaccurate to me because of my guesses. But if you find that you're in need a calorie counting app, I think this one is one of the better ones.



Fooducate: I personally think this is one of the coolest apps I've found. It also has a tracker for food consumption and exercising and such. But besides that, this app has a scanner for bar codes. When you scan or browse for a food, it brings up a grade for it, calories per serving, and the positives about the food. It also shows negatives about a food, and alternatives if you're interested. I think for anyone who ever shops for food, this app is a must.

 Hiit: I haven't used this app yet for a workout, but it looks like it should be good. You can pick from a few different sets and lengths of the workout, and then it guides you through the workout. For those days that I just want to do some random cardio (doesn't everyone wake up sometimes and have that feeling?) I think this app will be good.



miCoach: This app is made by Adidas and it tracks and helps guide runs and strength workouts, or whatever workouts you want it to. Today I ran with it, and it guided me through with "you're halfway there!" and I put my music on in the background. My only precautions are that for me the GPS signal went in and out continuously, so it was annoying to hear "GPS lost.. searching.. GPS found" almost every minute. Plus, make sure you know what blue zone and green zone are before doing a workout. I didn't know that the different colors were different levels of intensity and so I was a bit off with my run.





Easy Abs: This app I like because they give a lot of different ideas for ab workouts, and the workouts are short (3:00!). That way I can do a few of them if I have the time, or I could not do one for a day and do abs from a different app or on my own. It doesn't track anything that you've completed, it just gives good ideas and how-to's.





Abs Trainer: This app is great. It has a whole list of exercises for abs with and without equipment, then it has workouts planned out as well. They are all different amounts of time, varying from 7 minutes to 18 minutes, and they vary in difficulty too. I have yet to do any of these workouts, but it seems great and it tracks the workouts for you! I also like that this app shows step by step pictures to follow during the workout.

looks promising, right?

look what it did to this picture!!

ABSmatic: So this one I kept for some laughs. In the app store, the picture seemed convincing that it would lead to a six pack, so I was happy to give it a try. The first thing the app asked me to do was import a picture, so I assumed it was like a profile picture as part of the registration or something. I picked the only picture I have on my phone so far, the one I set as my background on my lock screen. It happens to be a group picture of me and my camp friends (I still think our best idea ever was the photo shoot we had one day last summer). Anyway, I kept trying to find the "next" button that would lead me to the rest of the registration, but I couldn't find it. Instead, I accidentally put a huge fake six-pack over some of my friends in the picture. Well, a few minutes later I realized that the app is only a gimmick.  It's so that you upload a picture of your belly and put a fake six-pack on. Well I'll be honest, after laughing at myself, I felt slightly ridiculous.



But I do not approve of fake six-packs. With all of these apps, we can all have REAL six-packs. And what's cool is, these are only a few of the thousands out there that can cater to all of your healthy-living needs!