snack it to me- PB&J granola bites

I love to cook and I am also a big time stress cooker. Finding a new recipe and completing it helps me calm down and feel somewhat accomplished before big tests or events. Usually I pick things I can take places so not to tempt myself or be stuck with a ton of food around the house. This batch of last finals I picked out 3 new recipes to try out and this one is so scrumptious I had to share! I was looking for something to use as some brain fuel before finals and snacks to bring camping.

PB&J granola bites are super easy to make and are excellent little snacks for on the go. I found the recipe at onesweetappetite blog , but as always I fiddle with the original recipe a bit. The first batch was a bit too sweet for my taste and the second didn't stick together as much..third time's the charm I guess!

PB & J Granola Bites
  Prep: 15-20 min   Chill: 4 hours   Yields: approx 30 bites

  Ingredients                     

·      2 ½ cup oats

·      1/3 cup honey

·      1/4 cup peanut butter

·      2 TBS brown sugar

·      1/2 tsp vanilla

·      1/4 cup jelly (or preserves)

·      1/4 tsp salt

·      1/2 cup chopped craisins

 Instructions

1.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spread your oats onto a cookie sheet in an even layer. Toast in the oven for six minutes.

2.  While oats are cooking chop craisins into small pieces and set aside

3.   In a medium sauce pan, combine honey, peanut butter, brown sugar, and vanilla. Heat until melted, stirring until mixed.

4.   Add the oats to your peanut butter mixture and stir to evenly coat.

5.  Microwave the jelly for 15 seconds. Pour it over the oats, add salt and craisins. Mix until combined.

6.   Press mixture into an 8x 8 inch pan with the back of a spatula.

7.   Refrigerate approx 4 hours (or less… can’t ruin them).

8.  Cut into 1x2 inch squares and enjoy!

One batch I used a toaster oven just because I didn't want to heat up whole house. Seemed to work fine in 2 groups

Stir well be sure to use low heat so it doesn't burn

Chop up craisins into small bits

Adding oats, salt and craisins

add jelly (this was sugar free strawberry preserves) and mix! 

push into 8x8 pan making sure its fairly even and allow to set in fridge

Cut into bite sized pieces and enjoy!

Happy Birthday Hubble!

I just wanted to give a birthday shout out to the Hubble Space Telescope. Today marks it's 25th anniversary! Thanks to this telescope that was launched on April 24, 1990 we've been able to capture amazing images from our solar system and learn a lot more about the universe.  These photos are a few of my favorites.

Hubble's Greatest Hits- in my opinion

Some fun facts about Hubble:

• It transmits 120 gigabytes of data weekly- WOW!!!
• There has been  4 service missions since it's launch 
• It is  travelling about 17,500 mph
• It takes only about 97 min to orbit Earth 
• Hubble is about the size of a school bus
• It's solar powered
• It's named after astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble whos was nicked named the "pioneer of distant stars"  

You can find out more about of Hubble's amazing achievements at these links:

Hubble Space Telescope from NASA

Hubble's Discoveries from hubblesite.org

50 Best Hubble Images from Time Magazine

If you are looking to do something locally the Great Lakes Science Center is showing the Hubble movie in Imax daily at 2pm through the Sunday. I really like the movie still and that says a lot after I've seen probably over 20 times while working there. It follows the astronauts on one of the repair mission of Hubble. Trailer is below

Dark Skies

It seems like lately every day/week/month has some obscure celebration connected to it. It makes it very hard to keep up and I almost slipped noticing that this weekend wraps up the end of International Dark Skies Week!

Never heard of it? Well it celebrates one of my favorite things: star viewing and also fights to limit light pollution.  It's amazing how much light we emit into the night sky. It's not just places like Times Square or Vegas that blocks star viewing it's also coming from your own yard and street.  Some might say so what if you can't see big burning balls of gas trillions of miles away but light pollution also is threatening the future of some nocturnal species. Some easy things you can do to help is installing lighting fixtures that reduce skyward light emissions. 

such a difference lights make

 I'll never forget camping with my 6th graders in a ridge of the Appalachian mountains and being able to actually see the Milky Way! Most of the students living in the city had never really seen any stars. We were all in awe of how gorgeous the night sky was. It was amazing to be able to actually see the stars and planets in nature rather than having use my planetarium to show the constellations. 

Doesn't everyone have an inflatable planetarium?

Now in case you missed you missed celebrating International Dark Skies Week, fear not Clevelanders you are in luck. Did you know that just a short drive away is 1 of only 22 certified dark sky parks in the world?

Observatory Park is just about an hour east and is part of the Geauga county park system in Montville.  It's open daily 6AM-11PM with some programming throughout the week and extended hours during astronomical events. Its a green space with cute little walking trail of the solar system, telescope pads/electrical hook ups and special hooded red lights to help with night time viewing.

view of the buildings

 As you would expect since it is a sanctioned dark zone there is not much around the area. It's also a fairly small park, it's main purpose is for night viewing so there are limited picnic tables and trails.  Don't expect to find much in way of restaurants and night life in a 15 mile radius. Observatory park is conveniently located within a 20 minutes or so drive from a lot of  the wineries.

 W and I finally made the trek to the park after taking a wine trail tour. A win- win combination of daytime events.  We made it to park just near dusk with plans to stay for nighttime viewing but a massive thunderstorm cut our trip short. I will say the bathroom building was a great little place to wait out tornadic weather!

check out those angry clouds

 Every time I've attempted to make the journey to Observatory Park at night it's been cloudy or stormy weather. Kind of like this week the Lyrid meteor shower is peaking and it's expected to rain Ugh oh well I'm looking forward to the next time I can visit the park and until then I'll just have to enjoy the shows at local planetariums.

Beauty DIY: Dry Scalp Oil treatment

This is the winter that just won't quit...it actually snowed today! I have pretty sensitive skin but the winter wrecks complete havoc on it. Usually I have combination skin and don't have issues with a dry scalp.  With the heat going our house gets so dry and it just zaps moisture out of everything. We have humidifiers running constantly but still is not enough! Once the temperature starts to fluctuate I sometimes get a flaky scalp yuck not attractive especially when 90% of my wardrobe is dark colors. I saw this DIY hot oil treatment on pinterest and figured why not try it. What is the worst that could happen I smell like an antipasto tray?

• Heat up about 1/4 c of oil, be sure not to get it too hot, I used the double boil style method. 
•    Original post said any kind works (grape seed, veggie, olive, etc) I picked olive oil because it was handy, I don't mind the smell and working in a pizza place during high school I know my skin won't have a reaction to it. 
• Part hair starting on top in the middle and gently rub in to scalp using fingers or sponge. Continue every 1/2 inch or so making parts. Be sure to get all the way in the back and around nape as this is where my hair seems to dry out the most.  
• This step was a bit tricky and I only used one had to apply and one to part so I didn't turn into a giant oily mess.

now the waiting

• Wrap hair in shower cap or saran wrap and wait a minimum of 30 min. to let oil soak into scalp
• I got caught up in a task so I waited 2 hours but you you can go for even longer than that
• Wash hair and style as usual
• I had to wash it twice to get all the oil out, but my hair smelled fine
• Recommended to repeat once to every other week if needed

Overall my hair did not smell like olive oil and my scalp was not as dry but wasn't an oil slick either. So maybe this does work after all I'll see how the week goes!

this Crane cool mist is my go to humidifier
we have them all over the house!

DIY Rose Sugar Scrub

Happy Valentine's Day! Being in the middle of yet another snow storm and having my fill of cheesy love movies for the day I was looking for something to help me procrastinate from studying. A craft project seemed just the thing!

I've been eyeing DIY scrub pinterest projects for a long time and today seemed like the perfect day to try it out. As I didn't dare to venture out to get odd ingredients that most scrubs seem to require I was looking for one that items I had on hand. I found one that only had 3 easy ingredients: sugar, baby oil, and rose petals.

W and I celebrated Valentine's a week early so the roses he got me were starting to get a bit ragged. Making a scrub out of some of the petals seemed the perfect way to continue to enjoy them and get some silky smooth skin!

DIY Rose Sugar Scrub
     yields approx 1 cup of scrub

1/8 cup baby oil
3/4 cup sugar
6-12 rose petals

Add ingredients to food processor and blend until well mixed. Scrub is more on the dry side. Apply about 1 teaspoon of scrub to wet hands and rub it all over hands. Rinse off and you should be left with silky smooth skin. Store it in airtight container.


Step by step photos

I used the magic bullet instead of a food processor and it worked wonderfully.  I layered sugar, then oil, then petals ripped in half. You may need to stop halfway through to mix it up a bit as some of the rose petals were still in larger chunks after a minute or so. 

When it is all mixed up it  the red petals made this gorgeous shade of lavender pink! Depending on the number of petals you add you may get variable color results. It's more of a dry scrub, I know others are more gelatinous. Add some water to your hands before spreading it out.

In total it takes about 5 minutes to make and yields about 1 cup of scrub.  This would be an excellent gift and you could find super cute mason jars to store it in! I think this might have just been my gateway scrub in to making all sorts of others...who knew it was this easy!

Just as a FYI the baby oil smell for sure takes over at first and then you are left with faint rose. It's not horrible and I happen to like the smell of baby oil, but I think for next time I might search for a different oil to use or add an essential oil for a different fragrance profile. My skin was so soft after using this and I will for sure be keeping some in a jar next to the sink for use after washing dishes. Plus it's such a cute shade it'll help brighten up the dreary weather.

ugh I know it's nothing like Boston but I needed
 something to brighten up this overcast day

Fun science fact: Did you know sugar is a natural exfoliate? It contains glycolic acid a type of alpha hydroxy acid (AHA) which helps breaks down the glue like substance that keeps dead skin cells attached to the epidermis (top layer of your skin). The sugar grains are abrasive so that helps too. Your skin cells naturally shed but as you age you might need to help it along a bit. Exfoliating a few times a week especially in winter helps  moisturizers penetrate deeper and keep your skin hydrated longer.

#3.11 Salsa baked fish

Baked Tilapia with Peach Mango Salsa

Are you ready for the easiest recipe ever? When I am a busy bee and this is my go to recipe that is quick and easy...not to mention tasty and healthy. I usually make this in the toaster over so I don't even have to wait for the oven to preheat!

All you need is mild fish I like to use either Mahi Mahi or tilapia, old bay seasoning and fruit salsa (pineapple, peach or mango and the chunkier styles work really well).

1) Place fish on cookie sheet or foil lined pan. Spray with cooking spray
2) Sprinkle old bay seasoning on top (or for a bit of kick cajun spices)
3) Spoon salsa over fish about 2-3 Tbsp each filet. Make sure most of fish is well covered.
4) Bake at 350 for 20 min or so depending on fish thickness.

While that's cooking I usually steam some fresh veggies and serve with cous cous (it takes only 5 minutes to make). Ta Da dinner made in 25 min or less!

#27 paint night

With our new found freedom for next two weeks a couple if girls in my program and I were able to schedule an evening of fun at Wine & Canvas in Strongsville. I've never painted a picture before and I had a blast. Definitely one of my favorite completed list items.

adding the cardinals

I'm not sure how it is at other places but this was all you no penciled in shapes but some guidance through out the composition! I was surprised at how large the crowd was and quite the mix of ages. The wine was flowing and people seemed to be having a blast no matter what the end product looked like. I will for sure be doing this again soon!

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