A Math Lesson

Thanks for all your comments...and now I think I have everything figured out.

As I said, my friends and I were going to watch a movie. Sorry Gabriela, but Titanic didn't win out with everyone...We ended up watching Pretty Woman instead, which I had never seen, so it was okay with me. I hadn't had dinner, so I cut up two sweet potatoes and went down to put them in the convection oven, but I discovered that it wasn't working. Apparently the plug it was plugged into wasn't working, so I was a bit bummed until an ROTC guy came by and offered to move the oven to a different spot for me so I could plug it in a different plug. And it worked! Always nice to have help from a hunk... ;-)

They may look dry and unappetizing, but let me tell you, underneath all that was a sweet, smooshy texture, just like how sweet potatoes are supposed to be.

And I think I must be dreaming, because the dining hall keeps having fresh berries, what is that? So I took back some blackberries for snackage.

I also bought one of these Naked juices:

Compared to a regular smoothie, it's super sweet, but I really love the thickness of it.

Remember how I said I wanted to create something? Well, this juice spurred me on. Ready for a math lesson?

+

+

=

How did it taste? Surprisingly delicious. Most chia puddings have nut milk in them, so using juice as the liquid was something quite different, but it worked. Obviously it didn't turn out creamy, but it was still good.

Yesterday  I went double shopping: clothes AND food. I'll post about it later, since I need to get some work done before church. Have a wonderful Sunday morning!

Don't forget to enter Katie's giveaway.

Averie is also having a Chocomize giveaway.

Chelsea's Barney Butter giveaway.

Race Day

I did the Turkey Trot 5k on campus here today. The weather was perfect: sunny, but cloudy, not too warm, and thankfully, NOT raining. I rested up last night and wanted some quality fuel for the race, so I decided on some chia pudding with banana.

 If that's not a powerhouse, I don't know what is! I figured I needed all the help I could get, since I haven't run in two weeks, and even then it was barely jogging. I didn't have any almond milk, so I just used water, but it still turned out pretty tasty. I'll post the recipe below.


I finished in 24:21...definitely not my best time, considering in high school I could run 22:00. I'm sure if I really trained I could get there again, haha. After the race I was going to grab the proverbial banana and bottled water, but they only had pizza and Gatorade. So I stuck around for the prizes (sadly I didn't win) and then went to get a salad. When I got back to my room and started on some research, I sat down with some straight-up chai tea (no milk or sweetener), an orange, an apple, and some coconut.


So now I'm being productive; yay!


Banana Chia Breakfast Pudding


Serves 1
Ingredients:


1 small banana
1/4 cup raw chia seeds
2 TBL of water (more or less to your liking)
1/8 tsp. stevia or other sweetener


1. Mix chia seeds, water, and sweetener together. Add half the banana and mush up till the banana is mostly incorporated.
2. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
3. Take mixture out of fridge and add remaining half banana, mushing it up slightly so it incorporates but still is chunky.
4. Enjoy!

Raw Chocolate: Attempt 1

The dining hall finally has spinach...hallelujah! I love spinach more than any other green, leafy vegetable and when there's a shortage... : ( For lunch and dinner I had a lovely spinach salad with some artichoke hearts and red cabbage slaw (it's always the luck of the draw as to what "special salads" they have down there) and a side bowl of melon. Yum.

Last night I attempted to make raw chocolate, til I realized that my cacao nibs weren't going to grind up into a fine powder. So I decided to go with carob powder instead. I mixed about a tablespoon of coconut oil in a semi-solid state with a teaspoon or so of raw agave and a tablespoon of carob powder. As I was mixing it, it sort of formed this giant, squishy ball. Not at all like the liquidy chocolate I was expecting to freeze. So I put it over my radiator to warm it up a bit, thinking that it would melt the coconut oil and make the whole concoction more liquidy. Um, no. It remained a squishy ball, only now it was a little oily around the edges. So I decided to add more carob powder. That was not so great of an idea either, as it clumped up. Exasperated, I threw in some dehydrated coconut flakes, put the thing in the freezer, and called it a day.

This morning, when I woke up, I ran to the freezer and found this:

Not that appetizing, but it was very tasty. It reminded me of the "cookies" part of "cookies-n-cream" ice cream. I got all excited and immediately started planning how to make raw cookies-n-cream ice cream when I get home in...3 months. Bummer.

To satisfy my chocolate-y cravings (since the raw chocolate thing obviously didn't work out as planned), I decided to make carob chia pudding. Except this time I was determined to make it less like tapioca pudding. So I took a long shot and attempted to grind the chia seeds into somewhat of a powder, then mixed in almond milk (unfortunately, from a box and not raw), agave, and carob powder. And guess what? It worked! It wasn't all that chocolate-y (it could have stood to have a little more carob), but it wasn't like tapioca at all. It had a much better texture, and the little chia seeds still worked their magic to thicken the concoction up. This is not a great picture, but you get the idea:

It was pretty tasty.

I am still on the quest to make raw chocolate. This week will be pretty busy, so we'll see...