Germ in your life!!!

Who: My name is Megan German, but people have called my sisters and me 'Germ' our whole lives. I'm a 4th year med student living in Galveston (but not for long! hopefully...). I have 3 weeks left until I find out where I will be doing my Ob/Gyn residency!

Why: I am one week away from being done with med school forever! Then I will have 4 months off before I start residency, aka mylifeisover. I am going to have tons of free time and I wanted to at least have something to show for it. This will make me actually do the things I have been saying I would do like paint and make an herb garden.

What: A blog. duh. Here are some things I will be blogging about (I really hate that word blogging, btw). Food, traveling, arts and crafts, photography, gardening, EVEN working out (gasp!)... these are some of my "hobbies" that I haven't actually touched in a while. Disclaimer: Most of you know my sense of humor, but if you do not, just remember this: if you think I'm being sarcastic, I most likely am. If you think I'm being rude, I'm probably being sarcastic. If I sound cheesy, I'm being sarcastic. But who am I kidding? No one I don't know is going to read this. Heck, no one at all will probably read this.

When: The plan is to write as much as possible in these next 4 months. We will see what happens after that...

First Post:

I've been cooking everything these days from recipes on pinterest. I'm really big into healthy, cheap (duh, I'm half Jewish) and easy things. When I find a new recipe and I have every ingredient already it makes me incredibly, weirdly happy. This first recipe isn't like that. I made 2 batches of these and found out some things that might be useful to anyone wanting to make these. Also, I gave up sweets for Lent so I tweaked the ingredients a bit so I could eat them.

No-Bake Energy Bites

I did not take this picture. Obviously. Here is mine:

Ingredients:

1 cup (dry) oatmeal (I used old-fashioned oats)

1 cup toasted coconut flakes

1/2 cup dried fruit or chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup ground flaxseed (this is pricey! I'm going to have to find recipes to use this in now bc I have a ton!)

1/3 cup honey

1 tsp. vanilla extract or almond extract

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Directions:

Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until mixed.  Let chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. Try to go longer if you can because I found that the longer you wait, the less messy it is to roll them.  Once chilled, roll into balls of whatever size you would like.  (Mine were about 1″ in diameter.)  Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Makes about 20-25 BALLS.

Tips:

 --I'd never toasted coconut: Lay it out flat on a baking sheet, put oven to 350 and bake for ~20 minutes while stirring it up every 5 minutes.

--I made 2 batches: 1 with dried cranberries and 1 with dried cherries, and I chopped up the fruit pretty well. I used almond extract in the batch with the cherries because I thought "Cherry Almond" sounded good. This batch was definitely my favorite. 

Hope you like these!

-Germ