Citrus Blueberry Green Smoothie

I have no time. Yet I also probably have bronchitis, so I better start making some time.

The fast paced nature of college has led my eating habits down a very bad path.

I've been trying to combat this. I cook, I try to eat healthy.

But, pizza always seems to be hovering over me like a dark cloud. Not that there is anything wrong with pizza. I love pizza.

But I feel like everyone in college needs Cookie Monster to drop by and remind them that pizza is a sometimes food.

Maybe that's the solution.

All of this thinking about nutrition and my new Christmas blender has gotten me looking into green smoothies.

"Try a green smoothie!" the internet exclaims. "You can't taste the spinach!"

So, I places some of the frozen spinach we had in the freezer in the microwave to steam it, then I let it cool.

After adding greek yogurt, berries, and a tangelo, I could still taste the spinach. So could Code Boyfriend. It kind of coated our tongues in a vegetable, dirt taste. 

Needless to say, that was thrown out.

But I wanted to try again.

So, I tried celery. Hallelujah! 

A vegetable I could mostly cover up in a smoothie. If you think about it, celery has an almost fruity taste anyways. 

If you can get past the stringy texture. But my emersion blender made quick work of that! 

So here it is, a "green" smoothie that I can actually drink. I hope you can to.

No offense to anyone who likes spinach in their smoothies. I'm trying again with fresh, baby spinach  Wish me luck.

Citrus Blueberry "Green" Smoothie

• 2 Small Stalks of Celery
• 3/4 of a Cup of Frozen Blueberries
• 1/2 of a Cup of Vanilla Greek Yogurt (Mine is non-fat, but go with what you feel)
• 1 Whole Tangelo, minus the skin and seeds
• 4 Ice Cubes, not necessary, but nice for the texture

Combine all ingredients in your blender carafe, mine is just a large cup.

I have no idea why neither the yogurt nor the ice is in this picture... Derp.

Blend until smooth and pour into a pretty glass. I felt fancy so I made myself a heart garnish out of the tangelo peel. 

Cran-Blueberry Citrus Smoothie

What are you doing to me, Rochester??

Isn't it hard enough to stay focused on studying for my Biochem exam tomorrow in the dead of winter? Now you have to go and dangle spring in front of my face?

If you haven't been paying attention, today the weather in Rochester, NY was supposed to hit 68 degrees.

The past few weeks it's barely been above freezing and I've been bundled up to my eyebrows with a down coat and flannel lined pants.

For no reason at all, today the temperature skyrocketed, and this was the beautiful spring view out my back window.

January 13th... are you freaking kidding me?

In response to everything I've come to understand about the unforgiving, unyielding East coast winters being thrown out the window, I decided to take a little siesta from my homework and celebrate by using my new blender.

And something wonderful happened. A nutritious, thick, fruit smoothie from only things that were lying around my house.

I will say that Code Boyfriend thought the mixture of the cranberry and the citrus juice made the smoothie a little to tart for him, but I thought it was extremely balanced with the creaminess of the yogurt. If you would like a more mellow flavor, substitute apple juice for the cranberry.

Cran-Blueberry Citrus Smoothie
Makes 1 serving

• 1 - 6 oz container of Greek Yogurt - I used Wegman's Vanilla
• 1/2 Cup of Frozen Blueberries
• The Juice from 1 Tangelo, you can easily substitute lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, or any other citrus you have, but I had tangelos that were about to go bad.
• 1/4 Cup of Real Cranberry Juice
• 4 Ice Cubes

Layer all of your ingredients into a large cup, or in a blender.

I got an awesome new Cuisinart emersion blender for Christmas  This is the cup that comes with that because I have no other glasses wide enough to fit the mouth of the blender.

Blend until everything is homogenous, which took me about 45 seconds. (Please notice how my blueberry smoothie matches my epic purple blender)

Pour into a fancy cocktail glass, and garnish with a slice of whatever citrus fruit gave its life for your smoothie.

I felt the need to add a bendy straw. Your mileage may very, but what is a smoothie without a bendy straw? 

First Day as a TA

I TA'd my first lab today.

A teaching assistant for Tissue Culture. Not where most Bio related TA's start, but the only subject I've ever liked enough to want to spend more time with.

With a full 4 hour lab behind me, I wanted to share what I learned.

1. They'd rather ask you than the professor.

I was really concerned I was going to seem like I didn't know what I was doing, or no one was going to want to talk to me. Neither happened.

It's hard to ask a professor a little question, that's what you're there for. Be sure to answer the silly little questions when you can.

2. You aren't the professor.

In my case, a new professor was placed in charge of the lecture since I had taken the class the previous year. Along with the regime change came new lab notebook requirements, lab reports, and even some new experiments I've never done.

It's not my job to know exactly how to do each experiment, that's the professor's. It's less important to know all the details. Just listen to what the professor says and try to answer the questions they have about that. And they will have plenty of questions about exactly what the professor said.

3. You remember more than you think you do.

I took Tissue Culture a full year ago, and with the exception of a couple times at work over the summer, haven't touched the subject since. I was shocked at how much came rushing back to me as soon as I stepped into that lab.

I remembered where everything was, how to use the inverted microscope, as well as the little tricks I had picked up in my class.

4. They are that much younger than you.

Most students at my school take Tissue Culture as a sophomore. As a senior, I was afraid I wouldn't have the authority to lead anything, much less a lab setting. As it turns out, those two years make a difference. I stand out, even if it is just because I'm calmer than they are.

I hope these insights into my first day help someone else's TAing experience.

Unfinished Objects

As week 10 ends and the quarter winds down, I'm beginning to try and wrap up loose ends so I can start new things next quarter.

Then I looked at my knit-list. I have no idea how it happened. I used to be perfectly content with a single knitting project. I would work on it until it was finished, then I'd move on.

Those days are now long gone.

I'm starting to pack for my Thanksgiving trip back to Colorado and the sweater vest for my mom is about 3 hours of knitting from done... and has been for about 4 months now.

The pair of socks I started to be able to not feel like such a poser as the president of Hooks and Needles....

 I've been about 2 inches from finishing the second sock since June.

I just keep getting distracted. My best friend from high school is pregnant, so I selected a beautiful pattern to knit for a blanket and it keeps me busy now.

If you would also like to knit up a great, albeit bulky baby blanket, follow this link to the Norma blanket on Knitty.

I'm 9 rows from starting the edging. Only problem is it's too large to carry around in my backpack. When am I going to work on it now??

At least I can curl up with my new distractions from the Winter Sale.

I'll have a more detailed post about how to make Fuzzums, like Clyde here, as soon as I can get home in the day light to take some better pictures of the group.

The only project I've finished in the past 6 months has been for Hooks and Needles. The snowboarding team asked us to make hats.

To recreate this hat to be more specific. 20 times. After many, many hours of loom knitting (not my favorite activity, but a great place to start crafting) all 20 are done.

I need to buckle down and finished some of these projects. I want to start new ones! Well, I guess I'm doing that either way.

Week Ten Needs to End

It is the end of Week 10. And I did nothing exciting today.

I got up, took an extremely hard test.

Went to a lecture.

Came home.

Watched How I Met Your Mother in yoga pants.

Then I went to the Hooks and Needles meeting.

We have a problem with one of the guys who has joined the clubs. He's recently showed up at one of my members other club meetings... That's no good when you are super creepy.

So my life got way more complicated... But it was the last meeting of the quarter.

Next quarter we are painting a mural, having our winter sale, knitting a sweater for our college's mascot, and preparing for Imagine RIT.

Last year, our club yarn bombed a wall.

This year we are adding too it... I think sometimes I take on too much. But how do you say no to things you enjoy doing? I love Hooks and Needles and I am so excited to be a TA for the Tissue Culture class.

I think I'll just need to get used to being tired.

A Nice Change in Scenery

This blog is supposed to be about cooking good, fast, cheap food in a college apartment. I am a Biotech major, so I'm busy beyond all reason, and get asked how I find the time and money to cook. So, it's blog time...

But, alas, the first chance I have to post and I am not in my college apartment. I'm in Colorful Colorado until after the New Year.

This means no quick dinners for the boyfriend and myself, no friend's birthdays giving me a prefect reason to make a cake, and no early morning classes to prepare breakfast for on the weekends.

But with this lack of a college scene, comes a bit of time to make Christmas cookies. I receive with my present from my good friend Amber several awesome cookie recipes, so I decided to jump in and try one. Just a simple sugar cookie recipe - from Pillsbury - but my loving friend Amber modified it.

So, off I run to my mother's kitchen, armed with a real stand mixer (something our apartment is lacking) to try it out...

Amber's Sugar Cookies

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter (softened)
• 3 oz of cream cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I didn't have almond extract, so I used 1 teaspoon of vanilla)
• 1 egg yolk 
• 2 cups of flour

1. In large bowl, (I got to use the lovely stand mixer for this. Happy Panda.) combine all ingredients except the flour. Beat until light and fluffy.
2. Add the flour and mix well. This took my dough a while, but Colorado does have an altitude problem...
3. Shape dough into 3 disks, wrap in whatever packing material you have handy, I used plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour if you want any hope in the world for them to roll our properly.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. If you try and use Celsius, please show me your oven, cause that would be a pretty epic oven.
5. On a flour surface, roll our one disk of your dough to a little more than an 1/8 on an inch think. (The original recipe said an 1/8 of an inch, and I got very, very thin cookies.)
6. Cut out into whatever shapes you want. I used a circle cutter because I believe my mother got rid of all of the other cookie cutters.
7. Bake for 6-10 minutes, or until golden brown. (I like my cookies chewy, so I only baked mine until I very mostly certain I wouldn't die of salmonella from the egg.)
8. Frost or decorate with whatever you wish, and enjoy. (My sister loves store bought icing... It's a solid idea.)

This is a picture of the final product... after my family had eaten several. I know, I know, boring decorating job. Hey, I'm on break. I didn't want to spend 3 hours decorating cookies. Sue me.

These cookies are amazingly tender, sweet, and the dough came together in no time. They take a little too much effort with the rolling and cutting, not to mention the extra equipment that took to make in a college kitchen, but it nice to splurge a little at home.

Tasty, tasty cookies. :)