the Reese to finish

Over the past few days I've been trying hard to finish as much of my summer work as I can, just to get it out of the way. The other day, a group of my friends came over to do the summer math assignment - like we do every year - and we found it must more straining that usual. They got to my house at about 1:30, and our goal was to finish the 30 problems by 4. Little did we know that in order to complete most of the problems, we had to teach ourselves the basic concepts from Chapters 1 and 2 of our new Statistics book. So it took a little longer than we expected. And when I say a little I mean that by 5:45 I told them all to go home because I was going out to dinner with my family and had to get ready. We didn't even finish all the problems! In addition to the Stat work, I have a whole lot of Biology work, which has been taking up most of my free time. I just finished reading and taking notes on all the 5 chapters I needed to (yay!!), and to celebrate I decided to make homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

I found a recipe on another blog for peanut butter fudge, so I changed it up a bit and made it my own in order to make these delicious little snacks. There's no added sugar, but instead a little bit of honey. I also chose to use natural peanut butter, which is a better alternative to the very processed and sweetened peanut butter choices.

Just bare in mind that today was the first day that I made these and that's why in the pictures some of the peanut butter isn't covered all the way for about half of the tin. I was still figuring out how much peanut butter to be putting in each cup! It's totally up to you though, you can always add more or use less to accommodate what you want!

These "Reese's" are a perfect size for a quick snack to pop into your mouth when you're in the mood for a mini celebration, whether you're celebrating biology accomplishments or just the fact that it's still summer!

Whatever your celebration may be, enjoy it with good food!

Here's what you'll need:
yields 24 mini-cupcake sized cups
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla 

1. Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan.

2. Mix all other ingredients in a food processor.

3. Line the mini cupcake tin with paper liners.

4. Pour enough of the cocoa mixture in each cup so that the bottom is covered. Then scoop about a 1/2 teaspoon of peanut butter into each cup. Cover the peanut butter layer with another layer of chocolate.

5. Freeze for an hour, and then keep refrigerated. Enjoy!

it's about lime [I eat some good food]!

So.. I'm back from camp now, and one of the only two things that I've been enjoying since Sunday is the food (the other one is my family). You see, every summer when I get back from camp I get into this "post-camp depression" phase, where all I want to do is stalk my own album of camp pictures of Facebook, call/text/hang out with my camp friends, and talk about camp to just about anyone I see. (Here's a hint: I'm still in that mood).

Camp this summer was amazing as always; it was my first time being a counselor, and I was lucky enough to get assigned to a great group of 12 year old girls. My bunk had so much fun all the time, and it was a great experience being able to give to these girls everything I love about camp and I already miss them all so much.

And of course I miss my best friends too. Having periods off during the day and nights off at night were the greatest times because we all got to spend them together. All of the counselors this year became really close, and we were all devastated to be leaving each other after only 6 weeks together. (No worries though because since Sunday I've already seen a whole lot of my friends three times).

But we spent a lot of our free time doing on nights off eating, and to add to the camp menu that doesn't exactly follow the eating style that I keep at home, I didn't eat as many fruits and vegetables as I would have liked. I even admit to trying a Big Mac at McDonald's on one of my nights off. I agreed to try whatever my friend was getting, thinking I'd take a bite and that'd be that just to entertain him. Instead, it turned into a whole scene with every one of my friends surrounding me videotaping or taking pictures. They were all in shock to be watching me eat anything from McDonald's, let alone a Big Mac. But I took a bite of the greasy burger to entertain everyone. One bite won't kill me, I know, I just don't enjoy so much grease and meat all put together.

Tada!! My Big Mac experience

I don't regret any of the ice cream or Big Mac bites from the summer, though. I kept my portion control pretty on target all summer and I tried my best to have as much of each nutrient a day as I could. My bunk always knew that if I was spooning out a little cup of peanut butter at a meal I wanted my protein, and I must have eaten more peaches and plums than anyone else in camp. Additionally, I woke up most mornings (at least I tried) and went for a run around camp or down the long camp road with my friend Ari, and I taught aerobics with my co counselor Alex as well (thank you Nike Training Club App for getting us through that one!!). Plus I went to all the activities with my bunk and was moving nonstop all summer.

Nonetheless, I was excited to be able to open the fridge at home and just eat an apple... or some strawberries.. or string beans.. anything! Yesterday come lunchtime, I was looking through my Pinterest and found a good quinoa fruit salad and I made it for lunch for myself. It was perfect; loads of delicious fruit and quinoa for protein and carbs (and I just found out that it has 20% DV of iron!). This honey- lime quinoa salad was so easy to make, and you can really use whatever fruit you want in it.

Here's what you'll need:
yields 1 big serving or 2 small servings
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water
juice from 1/2 a lime
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/2-3/4 cup blueberries
1/2-3/4 cup raspberries
1/2-3/4 cup strawberries
1 kiwi

1. Rinse the quinoa under cold water. Add quinoa and water to a pan and bring to boil. Boil for 5 minutes, then turn heat to low and simmer until all the water is absorbed.

2. Whisk together lime juice and honey to make the honey-lime dressing.

3. Combine cut fruit and quinoa. Pour dressing on top and mix until well combined. Enjoy!!