Spring Rolls and SAT

Good morning! Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day!

So last night, we had some leftover Chinese stir fries with fresh fried rice and....homemade spring rolls!! It was actually my very first time making them, but they turned out really well!!!! And the fact that I enjoyed eating them too was awesome...because they were fried; something that just a short while ago would have kept me from eating them! Anyway, I did get a pic, not a great one, but at least I'm remembering to take the pictures now! hahaha Here's the recipe:

Homemade Spring Rolls

Wrappers

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 2-4 tablespoons of water (start with 2 and add more 1 at a time if necessary...I needed 3)

Filling

Ingredients:

• About 2 cups assorted chopped or diced veggies (I used a mixture of onion, bell pepper and carrot because that's what we had)
• 2 tsp oil
• soy sauce to taste
• pepper to taste 

Directions:

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, egg and 2 tablespoons of the water. The dough should not be too sticky, but should hold together when pressed, almost like a pasta dough. If it is too dry, add water one tablespoon at a time until it reaches the right consistency. 
2. Split the dough into fourths. Roll out one of the fourths into a rectangle about 10 in long and 6 wide on a surface heavily dusted with cornstarch (don't use flour because it will get worked into the dough and make it thicker and tougher). The dough should be very thin. Cut the dough into 4 strips. Set aside onto a plate dusted with cornstarch and repeat with the remaining sections of dough. You will have 16 wrappers. 
3. Make the filling by combining all of the ingredients in a small skillet and cooking over medium-low heat until softened. 
4. Spoon a couple of teaspoons of the filling into each wrapper, topping with a thin slice of cheese if desired. Fold the long edges of the wrappers in to cover the filling and roll from the short end. To seal, brush a small amount of water on the end of the wrapper and finish rolling it. 
5. Heat about 2 inches of oil in a pot or wok until the spring rolls sizzle as soon as they go in. Cook up to three at a time for about 2 minutes on each side or until they are golden. 

So there ya have it....homemade spring rolls!! I don't know how great my instructions are about the whole rolling process, so if you have any questions, just let me know! :D

Anyway, something else I've got going on is the SAT this Saturday. There's an American school here in Recife, and Saturday morning I'm going there to take the SAT again. I took it as a sophomore a couple of years ago when we were in the States, but I'm retaking it to see if I can do better than I did last time...especially on the math part. As a sophomore, there were a lot of math principles and formulas that I didn't know yet. So I'm curious as to how I'll do on the test.

Well, other than that, not too much going on around here....

Hope everyone has a nice day!

Aaand the winner is...

Congrats, Jordan!!!!!

Please email me your address so I can get you your peanut butter! :D

Hope everyone has an awesome weekend!

This is so exciting! (Giveaway)

Heeey everyone!!! I know I just posted yesterday, but I have an announcement to make:

Musings of a Healthy Chocoholic is hosting a giveaway (for the second time!)!!!

A couple of weeks ago I learned about PB Crave through another blog, Bess Be Fit and was immediately interested in trying out all of their fun peanut butters. So I contacted them about maybe hosting a giveaway on here and the very next day, got an email back with all the info I needed about hosting a PB Crave giveaway. My samples won't get here for a while....waiting on a group to come visit later on this year, but I will review the pb once I do get it, and one reader is going to get the CoCo Banana Variety pack:

CoCo Bananas: "A tropical blend of yummy bananas, cocoa and wild honey, this peanut butter adds a taste of island paradise to any kitchen."

Cookie Nookie: "A mouth-watering mix of chocolate chips, cookie dough flavor, wild honey and premium peanut butter-it's two classics together as one." (I happen to be super excited about trying this one out.....I'm thinking maybe it tastes like a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie!)

 Razzle Dazzle: "A twisted blend of red raspberry, wild honey, cool white chocolate and rich dreamy darkness-this peanut butter offers a magical mix of deliciousness."

Those are the flavors that one of you will get to try out!!!! 

PB Crave is a very interesting company. Not only are their peanut butters all natural and made without artificial preservatives or hydrogenated oils, they also donate a percentage of all sales to Project Peanut Butter; an nonprofit organization that works to feed undernourished children around the world. Cool, huh? :D

So, to enter you must:

1) Like PB Crave on Facebook  and leave a comment telling me that you did

You will get extra entries for doing each of the following and leaving separate comments telling me that you did:

2) Following PB Crave on Twitter

3) Follow or repin PB Crave on Pinterest

4) Tell me what flavor of PB Crave you want to try the most.

5) Follow Musings of a Healthy Chocoholic on Facebook.

6) Retweet this giveaway: "I want to win PB Crave from @GenniferDeLille!" 

I'll announce the winner on Saturday! :D

Back to Blogging

Hey everyone!

So you might have noticed that over the past couple of weeks I've completely "checked out" of the blogging world; no commenting, no posting. I really needed some time off....not only did I just finish a bunch of finals, I also wanted to take some time off to think about where my blog has gone and where I would like it to go.

It is just so interesting to me how what started out as mostly a fitness blog with some recipes has turned into the opposite : a recipe blog with some fitness thrown in here and there. I don't really mind that....I actually think that this change shows that I've gotten more comfortable with baking new things, which was something that, due to my eating disorder, I wasn't when I started this blog.

However, I also feel like when I first started blogging, I shared a little bit more about my actual life than I do now. I always love reading about what is going in in ya'll's lives and really don't want to become a "tired blogger". Basically, I don't want to get to the point where I'm posting recipes or workouts just because I feel like I should because I always feel like that sort of blog or that sort of post lacks real heart and feeling. I realize that not everyone necessarily looks for heart and feeling in a blog, but it is something that is important to me. I started Musings of a Healthy Chocoholic as a way to talk about my struggles and triumphs in relation to my eating disorder and to chat about life in general, sharing recipes and workouts along the way. While I am doing so much better emotionally, I think that maybe I've gotten away from the initial intent of this ol' blog.

I may not write the most popular blog, but I do want to write about what is important to me: my friends and family, God, and yes, cooking and fitness in general. So, to sum things up, I'm so glad to be back and am looking forward to this new blog phase!!!

So, before I go, I have a couple of questions for you guys:

I'm seriously considering doing a vlog soon.....what would you like to hear about? Life or would you like to see me make one of my recipes?


I've recently really switched up my workout routine...doing a lot more bodyweight circuits and seeing some cool results. Would that make an interesting post????


Also, I'm thinking about doing a day in the life post again, should that be in Vlog form or picture form?


Thank you all for your patience over these past weeks!!!!

God bless!!

Where I've Been

Heeey everyone!!!! So I realize that I did not post at all last week....Tuesday was a holiday, so I wanted to hang out with the family, and the rest of the week I put into getting ready for tests this week! It is my last week of school!!! So I took some time off from blogging in order to get ready! What have you been up to in the past couple of weeks?


Besides school, not a whole lot has really been happening....another reason I didn't blog. I just really haven't had a whole lot of stuff to talk about....hahaha I'm so boring! :D I actually hadn't really baked anything until this morning! My sister and I did try out a new recipe yesterday (red velvet fudge! :D) and it turned out wonderfully!! I got the recipe for that off of another site but we modified it slightly so if ya'll want, I'll post the recipe!!!!  I'm going to share this morning's recipe with ya'll today....muffins! :D

Banana Lemon Muffins
makes 12

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 medium ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium sized bowl. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs, banana and lemon zest, stir to combine. Pour the butter/sugar/banana mixture into the flour mixture, stir gently. Pour the milk and vanilla into the mixture as well, stir until everything is combined.
3. Divide batter between 12 greased muffin tins, bake for 25-30 minutes or until muffins test done with a toothpick. 

These muffins turned out pretty banana bread-like and the lemon isn't extremely strong, so if you want a more lemony muffin, feel free to add in some more zest!!! As is, the recipe is like a banana bread muffin with a slight lemony flavor to it!!!! 

Sooo I have some fun news....I am now on Instagram..finally! :D You can find me here. We actually just got wifi, so now I'm going to attempt to do a better job at taking pics....if not always for the blog, at least on instagram! :D 

Well, I gotta get studying...

What do you have going this week?