Guest Post-Chocolate Scones

Well, here's Chocoholic's sister again, and I sure hope you guys liked my last post, cuz here comes another one!

So, a few days ago my sister and I made chocolate cream scones, but this time we covered them with a strawberry glaze instead of a vanilla one. It was quite delicious if I do say so myself! : )

Not only did the strawberry glaze taste absolutely wonderful, but it also made the scone pretty cute since it turned pink on top! You've gotta have your priorities, right????

The bad thing was that the glaze sunk into the scone after the first day. 

I was like: "Seriously??????"

But have no fear, other options are near!

Ok, so that was pretty cheesy, but let me just get to the point. When you couldn't taste the glaze anymore, all we had to do was put some of my mom's homemade strawberry jelly, and "Voila!" 

Well, I've got to go do some organizing in my room (it's a bit of a mess), but hopefully I'll have another guest post soon!

See ya!

My First Award Ever! :D

Heey!! So I've been MIA the past couple of days......I actually was out this morning, and my sister was going to guest post, but I gave her the wrong password, so she'll probably be on here tomorrow!!! :D
Anyway, the lovely Kat gave me my first ever award!!!!!! Such an honor!!! :D























To accept, there are a couple of questions that I need to answer! Soo here they are:


1. Favorite cartoon character: Ummm I'm going to have be uber-boring and say Bugs Bunny....:P


2. Favorite thing to photograph: It is a tie between food and other people! I just really don't like my self-portraits!!!




3. Favorite thing to cook: I bake tons of things, but my favorite thing to actually cook would probably be homemade mac n' cheese.....yup I'm southern. :D


4.Favorite way to exercise: I LOVE going to the gym, taking spin class and running!!!!! Just please don't ask me to do any strength training....:P 


5. Favorite Movies: Well, I'm pretty much all over the board with my movie preferences....let's see, I loove Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, Aristocats, 27 Dresses, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (the first one!), and Shining Through. 


6. Clothing: Well, I pretty much live in comfy clothes.......my nike tempos are my best friend! :P Here's an (old) example of something I'd wear out and about:

7. Flower: Hmm.....I really looove pink roses and lilies!

8. Breakfast: Normall I have eggs or oats.......my dream breakfast is a big, huge, Cracker Barrel style spread!! hahaha

9.Book: Well, I read a lot.......I've read all the Narnia, Harry Potter and Twilight books.......the Bible is pretty awesome :D....and I'm sure that there are tons of other books that I just can't remember!

10.What is your least favorite food? Olives. Ick.

So thanks Kat for tagging me!!! I had soooo much fun answering these questions!!!!!

There are waaay too many people that I want to tag, so, if you've already received this award, I re-give it to you, and if you haven't, I'm giving you the Amazing Blogger Award!!! :D If you want, you can answer some or all of these questions in either the comments or on your own blogs!!!!! You are ALL amazing!!!!!

See ya'll later!!!

All Over The Place

Hey!!! Hope you're weekend is going splendidly! :D Sorry about the lack of posting....I seem to do this over the weekends....and I turned into a lazy person on Friday this week too, apparently. See, here, Friday was a holiday. St. John's holiday, I believe. It is celebrated by lighting bonfires and eating extreme amounts of corn-based food. I don't mind average corn products like grits (love) or grilled corn (love even more), but we've got some weird stuff to go along with it, such as corn ice cream and canjica, which is sort of like a corn pudding w/ a jello-like consistency. Yum. Of course, not all Brazilian corn-based snacks are bad. We also have munguza, which is hominy cooked in condensed milk and coconut milk to make a creamy, yummy dessert. It may sound weird, but it is actually quite delicious....especially with cinnamon on top.
(source)

So besides being surrounded by lots and lots of corn, I've also got to do some fun stuff this weekend. Hung out w/ the family most of Thursday, Friday and yesterday. One of my best friends was home so we Skyped, which was super fun!!!! She also checked out the blog for the first time (I get nervous about telling people that I actually know that I have a blog....am I the only one?) and LOVED it!!!!! And then, last night, I went to some friends' house for a little while, and came home to watch some old family movies. Fun stuff. What have you been up to this weekend? 

Remember how the other day I said that I had 3 recipes for ya'll? One was the brownie, another one I had already made, and the last was in the oven. Well, the last one still needs some tweaking, so I can't share it yet, but I do have that second recipe right here for ya:

No Rise Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 8 tablespoons butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions:

1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
2. Stir in oil, mix until combined, stir in milk, and mix until combined.
3. Turn out dough on a floured surface, knead until smooth, roll into a 15x8 in rectangle. 
4. Spread butter over dough, combine sugar and cinnamon, sprinkle over butter.
5. Roll up rectangle from long side, pinch seams to seal. 
6. Cut into 10-12 slices. Bake in a greased dish at 400 for 15-20 minutes.

These were delicious and much easier than typical cinnamon rolls. One thing that I found was that I had too much butter and cinnamon/sugar for the filling. So, next time I make these, I will use about half of the filling in the rolls, and pour the other half on top of them once they are in the baking dish. 



As I was typing out my recipe, I came to the realization that I haven't actually shared a workout in a long time! So, here is one of my current favorites; a 30 minute killer incline jog that can be modified to fit anyone's fitness level!!!! Here ya go:

30 Minute Treadmill Jog with Incline

Minutes 1-5                  Jog, at an incline of 1, at an easy pace to warm up. 

Minutes 5-7                  Increase the speed by 1/2 to 1 mile, jog at an incline of 2. 

Minutes 7-9                  Do not change the speed, increase incline to 4.

Minutes 9-11                Keeping the same speed, increase incline to 6.

Minutes 11-13              Run at an incline of 8.

Minutes 13-18              Decrease speed by 1/2 to 1 mile and incline to 1, run at an easy pace to recover.

Minutes 18-26              Repeat minutes 5-13. 

Minutes 26-30              Reduce speed and incline, run at an easy pace to cool down. 

I loove this workout because I can customize the speed depending on how I am feeling that day or on how hard I want my workout to be. If anyone tries this out, let me know what you think!!!

So this has been an insanely long post...sorry about that. :P

Hope you have an awesome Sunday!

Attacked

Heey!!!!!! How has your week been so far??? Mine has been pretty good....I have a few recipes to share at some point!!! Two that have already been approved by my family and one that is in the oven right now. Oh and did I mention that one of them is single serving and done in the microwave? I like that one. It involves chocolate. And I don't have to share it. :D

So, yesterday I went to my faaavorite spin class!!!! I really, really love it! Of course, I am a klutz and had to go and injure myself while trying to get off of the stationary bike. Here's the damage:

The pictures aren't the best, but I think you can tell that I have a scrape that's about a foot long up my calf. And yes, my legs look like they've never seen the sun before, but see the lines on my foot? Those are from my flip flops, so this is tan for me.

Anyway, some of you might have noticed the foodbuzz stuff on the side of the blog now! I just wrapped everything up with Foodbuzz yesterday and am super excited to be a featured publisher! :D

Now, if you're still here after being subjected to pictures of my injuries, I would like to share that single serving recipe that I was talking about earlier with you!!!!! Here ya' go:

Microwave Single Serving Brownie

Ingredients:

1 T flour

1 T cocoa powder

1/2 to 1 T sugar (I like my brownie rich, so I use about 1/2 T, but most everyone else liked 1 T)

Pinch baking powder

Pinch salt

1 T milk

Directions

Combine all dry ingredients in a small microwave safe dish. Add milk. Microwave on high for about 1 minute, or until done. Top with fudge sauce (this is an order!) and enjoy!!! :D

These are so, so yummy!!!!! :D

Hope you all have an awesome Thursday!

Day at the Beach

Hey!!!!! How was your weekend?

Mine was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. :P Saturday we took a mini-family trip to the beach! For people who live on the coast, we usually only ever go to the beach if we have a work team here, so it was really nice to just get out of the house for a little while!!!! Some fun pictures were taken in the process:

Then, on Sunday, we celebrated Father's Day! My sister and I baked one of Katie's single serving cupcakes! We made a plain batter, poured half of it in the tin, topped it with brown sugar and cinnamon, and repeated with the other half. It came out a lot like monkey cake, which Dad loves!!! He's actually really lucky because Father's day in Brazil is celebrated in August, so he gets two days!! hahahaha Do you ever bake for your dad on Father's day, or do you do something different?

In some completely separate, but good news, I haven't mentioned the NSLC in a while, but I am going in July! I'll first fly in to Memphis for a few days, and then, some friends of the family will drive me up to Chicago so that I can participate in the conference!!! I am really excited and really can't believe that in less than a month, I'll be on my way!!!! It seems like it was just a couple days ago that I got my letter!!! I never thought that I'd actually get to go, but God has provided me with resources and the means to get there!!!!!! I'll have a big, busy summer, but I'm looking forward to it!!

Well, that's about it for today!!!!!!
See you all tomorrow!! :D

Quick No-Bake Summer Recipe

Heey everyone!!! Hope you are all having an amazing weekend!!! Thanks for all of the positive feedback from my last post! :D
Today, I'm just going to share a quick summer lemon pie recipe that we love to make here!!!! I'll be back tomorrow for a weekend recap!!!!!

No Bake Lemon Cream Pie

 

Ingredients

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4-1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (depending on preference and how tart the lemon is)
• Graham crackers, vanilla wafers or any other cookie that would make a good crust

Directions

1. Juice lemons and strain the juice to remove most of the pulp.
2. Combine juice and condensed milk.
3. In a small pyrex dish, layer cookies on bottom and sides to form the "crust".
4. Pour lemon juice/condensed milk mixture over the cookies. 
5. Chill for a few hours and enjoy!!!! :D 

This recipe makes a small pie, so if you're serving it to a larger crowd, you might want to double the recipe!!!

Hope you all enjoyed the recipe!!! 

How's your weekend going?

Better Late Than Never

Hey everyone!!! Hope you are all having a great week so far! Mine has been pretty crazy because we've had a guest! Its been really good and we've all had a nice time! What have you been up to?

So, the other day, I was thinking about happiness. There was a time when I would look in the mirror and only see what I didn't like. Small things like the fact that my nose is a little big for my face or that my front two teeth are crooked could actually mess up my entire day. Now, I still definitely have "bad" days, but there are less and less of them. My flaws are still there, but I'm learning to live with them, accept them, and even like them. Same goes for my relationship with food. I once saw it as an enemy, something that I couldn't truly enjoy and something that I felt I needed control of and didn't realize when it had taken control of me. 

Over the past couple of months, God has really used my friends and family in a wonderful way in my life. They haven't given up on me, and have stuck with me even through the hardest times. I truly am blessed to have them in my life. I'm still a long way from being completely healed, but I think that I'm definitely on the right track. It is a long road, but I'm grateful for such an amazing support system and such a wonderful Creator to help me through this all.

Something that I saw on Katie's blog the other day sort of inspired this post. She posted a picture of herself without any makeup on, and it got me thinking, "What is true beauty?" So now, I am subjecting you all to my musings on the subject. :D And now, I'm going to share a makeup-less pic of myself with you all:

So, this was a pretty serious post...I've got a no-bake dessert recipe for ya'll tomorrow! :P
What is true beauty to you?
 

Banana Cinnamon Cream Scones

Yep. That's what we baked yesterday! They are sooo yummy, and the best part is, they sort of make their own glaze, so you don't have another pot to wash. Maybe its just me, but after I bake something, the last thing I want to do is wash a load of dishes.....I just want to eat whatever I've baked! Also, these can easily be "healthified" by reducing the sugar and butter that are poured on top! Since the batter itself has mashed bananas, the amount of butter in that can be reduced as well! Also, you can sub milk for the cream without too much of a taste difference! The banana in this, once again, gives it a nice texture, so the cream isn't entirely necessary! Gotta love it when a recipe can either be made into a decadent artery-clogging dessert or a delicious, healthy breakfast! :D Anyway, here's the decadent dessert-style recipe for you all:
Banana Cream Scones with Cinnamon Sugar Topping

Ingredients:

Scones

• 2 3/4 cup flour
• 1 dash salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter (we actually used a lower-fat margarine, because that's more common here.)
• 2/3 cup half and half (milk works too!)
• 2 bananas, mashed (if you want to really reduce the butter, add another banana and you could get away with 1/4 to 1/3 cup butter)

 Topping (optional)

• 1/2 to 1 cup sugar
• 1 to 2 T cinnamon
• 2 T butter, melted

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 F. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Cut the butter in until the mixture resembles dry crumbs. In another, larger bowl, combine the mashed bananas and the cream and mix well. Add dry ingredients to wet, mix until just combined. Roll out, cut into desired shapes, and place on baking sheet. If you want the topping, now drizzle your melted butter on top of each scone, and then sprinkle the scones with a mixture of the sugar and cinnamon. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean and the bottoms of the scones are golden brown. 

These are sooo yummy!!! We did  some with and some without the topping, and next time, I want to play around with the recipe a little bit to see if I can really "healthify" it!!! :D 

In other news, I received an email about an article on another blog that talks about the possible health benefits of chocolate! If you want, check it out here! There's also a really cool article on running, so check that out too!! :D 

Well, I should probably head out....hope you all have a wonderful day!!!!!!! Do you enjoy "healthifying" recipes???? Personally, I'm trying to make myself step out of my comfort zone food-wise more often, because I am recovering from an eating disorder, and don't want to fall back into that. However, if there's something that I really, really love, but wouldn't be good fuel for every day, I try to tweak the recipe  to make it more nourishing!!! 

Weekend Fun

Hey everyone!!! Hope you all had an amazing weekend!!!! We mostly relaxed, and yesterday, went to visit some friends to say goodbye, because they are moving to another part of Brazil soon!!!!

So, my sister and I rented 2 Disney movies (Lady and the Tramp and Aladdin) to watch over the weekend!!! It was actually pretty fun and we're already trying to decide what the next two movies will be!!!!!! I'm personally rooting for Aristocats....hahahaha! What's your favorite Disney classic? I never liked Bambi at all.....it was too sad for me! Favorites would probably be Aristocats, Cinderella and Aladdin!!!! My sister always loved The Little Mermaid because she had red hair like Ariel. :D


Over the weekend, my mom also bought a replacement coffee pot! Guess who thought the box looked like fun? 

 

He's crazy! :D 

Also, I got my nails done by my awesome sister:

Cute, huh?

Speaking of my awesome sister, we baked something yummy this morning!! I'll share the recipe with ya' tomorrow!!!!!
Off to do some Monday chores!
What was your favorite thing about this weekend?

Day in the Life-Part 2

Heey!!! Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend so far!!!!! Today's post is just going to wrap up a day in the life in pictures. The last day in the life post featured more family things and places that I go each day, and today's will show a little bit of what I eat on a daily basis.....I didn't take pictures of everything but you'll hopefully get the idea! :D

First up, this is what I eat for a light, pre-workout breakfast most mornings, scrambled eggs (1 or 2 depending on how hungry I am) with hot sauce. I also had a huge mug of coffee (which was featured in my last post :D), some toast and some juice: 

 

Because I got to the gym later than I expected to, I also had the above granola bar to fuel me through my workout! (Completely random, but I do believe that I have perfected the "chipped and peeling" nail polish look! hahaha)

Later on in the afternoon, my sister and I had a little snack together! I had a yogurt bowl with strawberry yogurt, banana chunks, and some unpictured cinnamon and honey. I also ended up eating another little carton of yogurt later on....I was HUNGRY! hahaha

 My sister had a little frozen yogurt thing that they sell here. They're really good and hers was bubblegum flavored!!! :D

For dinner that night, we had spaghetti, which I could not make look good in a picture, so I'm just going to show you our garlic bread:

 Then, for a nighttime snack, I came up with a different version of Emily's Quick Baked Oatmeal, which I happen to love! I subbed some strawberry protein powder for some of the oats, and kept everything else the same. It was ok, I definitely prefer the original version!!!

Well, I hope you all have enjoyed my "day in the life" posts!!! I've really enjoyed making them!!!!

What are your weekend plans?

Day in the Life-Part 1

Heey!!! Glad you all like the new space and enjoyed yesterday's guest post!!!!!! My sister and I have been talking about her writing for the blog for a little while now, and I 'm so glad that she did!!!!!

I've gotten a lot of questions about what life is like here, so I decided to devote a couple of posts to answer them. This first part will consist mostly of pictures of people and places, and tomorrow's will show some of what I eat on a daily basis! Hope you all enjoy! :D

First up, here's a pic of my sister and I having breakfast:

 And of course, drinking good, strong Brazilian coffee (you're welcome for the pic of my frizzy, unbrushed hair :P):

 Here's the outside of my gym, where I go Mon-Friday. Its called HI academia, and I've really enjoyed having the chance to be a part of a gym:

 Here's me and my sister......I'm in my post-workout disgustingness phase, but we were chillin' at home and my sister says, "Hey shouldn't we take a pic for your blog?" I'm so proud!

 Aaand, because I eat a LOT, here's me eating some fresh bread that was baked yesterday at our breadstore:

Well, that's the first "Day in the Life" post!!!!!! Hope you all enjoyed it! Stay tuned for part two!

Washing Machine Troubles-Guest Post

Hi! This is Chocoholic's little sister. She asked me to do a guest post today because she's really busy this morning, and we'd been discussing me doing one of these posts for a while, so here I am. I guess. : )
   Well anyway, I don't know if my sister (Chocoholic) had mentioned yet, but we've been having some water issues. We tend to run out of water every day, and then they have to call the company to send a truck to refill the tank. Get's pretty tiring after a while... But, let's cut to the chase. So, even when we do have water, it hasn't been strong enough to get the washing machine going, and we had a medium-sized load of clothes that had been there since Monday that had gone through most of the cycle, except for the last part. The one where all the water is drained out. Either way, we needed to hang those clothes up to dry, so I spent about 15-20 minutes last night wringing out all the water I could out of all the clothes!

   By the time I was done, my hands were pretty red, and I still had to hang the clothes up to dry. Oh well. That's one thing you get used when you live in Brazil. Not wringing out all your clothes by hand, necessarily, but things never going how you planned, and definitely not when you planned them.
   You see, Brazil isn't exactly known for getting anything done in time. : ) Things happen when they happen. You're probably thinking something along the lines of "Who would want that?" or "How do you stand it?". I can ask myself that question a million time a day, but the answer's always the same. You get used to it. Simple as that.
   Rarely would you ever hear a Brazilian complain about something not happening on time. Especially weddings... But those are a whole other story. ; ) Brazilians are almost always late, no matter where they're going, and usually something unexpected, that no one could have planned, happens. But as I said before, you get used to it.
   Brazil = Crazy driving, always being late, things never going as planned, colorful, different, mind-changing, confusing, lots of headaches, land of extremes, a rainbow but somehow still a storm, a huge mess, a puzzle that's never completely solved. My favorite place in the world.  
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed my post, and got to see a little bit of what it's like to live in Brazil. And don;t worry, Chocoholic should be back to blogging later today, or tomorrow!

s2

The Coffee Maker Saga Continues....

Hey everyone! Hope you are all having a great week so far!!!! Mine has been pretty busy! Mom is getting back tomorrow, and we're all excited about that! Can't believe that it has already been a week since she left....

Also, since a week can't go by without something crazy happening, yesterday I broke the coffeepot.......that actually hasn't kept me from drinking coffee! I learned that in one cycle, the machine brews enough coffee for one mug, so I let it brew, turn it off, and then drain the coffee straight into the mug! hahahaha Whenever someone gets coffee now, I like to say that its "specially made" just for them! :D My dad is looking for a replacement pot though, which would probably be a good thing!

So, today's post is going to be short because I am in the process of moving my blog (maybe). I don't think that I'll have my own domain or anything, but I am super interested in the Foodbuzz programs, and unfortunately they do not work with the free version of Wordpress. I'm looking in to alternatives today, and I'll be sure to post on here if I do change my url! I'm also going to try to transfer everything from this blog to the new one, so that all of my recipes and other posts from here will be there, too!

How has your week been so far?

I  might post again later today....we shall see! :D

 

Breathe.

Hey! Hope you all have been having a wonderful weekend! What have you been up to? My sister and I hung out at home all morning, and then went with my dad to a Saturday night service at the church in the community! Today, we're going to hang out some more and go to church later on.

Well, I have officially finished my sophomore year of high school! I honestly can't believe how fast this year has flown by! In a little over a month, I'll be heading to Chicago, and by the time I get back, I'll be starting school again, and our family will receive another mission team from our church in the States!

This weekend, I have really had a great chance to just relax a little bit. This past week I've run around like a crazy person trying to get things accomplished, and I believe that I needed to just breathe and relax this weekend. It has been good for me and already I feel re-energized! :D

I also wanted to share one of my new favorite snacks.....that no one else in the family will eat! :P I looove avocados, and in an effort to get some healthy fats in my diet, my mom purchased one for me. I made a spread by combining the avocado, 3/4 c milk (a little bit less, actually), some garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste. I then blended everything together and created a yummy, easy avocado spread/dip! :D

[caption id="attachment_581" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Yummy Green Food! :P"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_582" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="All for me!"][/caption]

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the weekend!!!

See ya' tomorrow!

 

Takin' Care of Stuff

Heey! I've been a bad blogger recently.........tests have really been taking up a lot of time! So sorry! I'm finishing my LAST final today, so I should be back to my normal bloggin' self soon!

So, my mom had to go on a week-long trip to resolve some mission stuff. She'll be back on Tuesday, so in the meantime, my sister and I are doing a lot of the stuff that she normally does. Like for example, did you know that here you have to sweep and mop every day? Well, you do. And we don't use dishwashers or drying machines, which means that dishes are handwashed and clothes are hung out to dry. I don't really mind doing these things, especially since I don't really have a full workload of school. To me, being productive beats sitting around being bored! :D Except for when it comes to cleaning bathrooms......which is my least favorite chore!! What is your least favorite thing to do around the house? 

One thing that I do love to do is cook. I was going to make a soup last night, but the chicken broth that we had was homemade, and wasn't edible any more, so we created a plan B. Dad ordered a steak from a restaurant up the street, and we had leftover rice, beans and pasta. I also made some biscuits to go with our meal. It was a super-simple and quick recipe, which is great because I had less than 30 minutes to whip them together! :D

Dinner Biscuits (from Taste of Home)

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 cup milk


• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil


• Half-and-half cream or milk, optional


• Butter and/or honey

Directions

• In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Combine milk and oil; pour over dry ingredients and stir just until moistened.


• Turn onto a floured surface; knead 5-6 times. Roll out to 1/2-in. thickness; cut with a floured 2-in. biscuit cutter. Place on a greased baking sheet.


• Brush tops with cream if desired. Bake at 425° for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with butter and/or honey. Yield: 6 biscuits.

I actually only ended up with 5 biscuits, but they were delicious and fluffy. Plus, a quick way to round out our meal!

I've been loving going to my Wednesday spinning class, however yesterday the teacher couldn't make it. I ended up spending some quality time on the treadmill.....watching CSI! haha It was the only way I could have possibly stayed on there, and I didn't have my cardio circuit workout written down with me. Do you have any staple cardio circuits? If so, please share!!!

Well, I should get goin' on the studying!

See ya' tomorrow!!!!