Monthly Archives: September 2014

First Week Back

Well, I had my first weekend back at school, and it was pretty fabulous. It ended up being jam packed, and I think I managed to see almost all of my school friends!

It’s good to be back.

Friday night, I convinced my friends to drink kale juice, and everyone liked it! Technically it was kale-pineapple, but I still consider it a victory.

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Saturday morning, I was up early to go to the Farmer’s Market to get more fancy sunflower seed butter. I ended up just getting maple, but the vendor lets you request specific flavors by email so maybe next time I’ll do that! I also got some of the last fruit of summer.

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For brunch, my dorm’s RFs (a family that lives in the dorm) invited us over to hang out and meet their pets. They have the same type of dog that I do, and she was quite the food-stealing ball of energy! That sounds about right!

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They also have a cat, which I’m pretty excited to visit.

Following brunch, I taught a spin class for some of my friends. They seemed to enjoy it, and everyone got a great workout in! After torturing them for 45 minutes though, I drove some of us to froyo to refuel. My favorite froyo place is about a 5 minute drive from where we live now. I had salted caramel pretzel and pumpkin pie this time.

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On the way back, we stopped to check out a pumpkin patch. From my last few posts, it may be clear that I’m a tad bit fall obsessed. This was awesome.

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And I also reenacted the Cropfit commercial.

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After a quick dining hall dinner, we cleaned ourselves up for my friend’s housewarming party. It was quite the classy affair-I brought some fancy cheese to add to the collection-goat brie! That’s definitely one of my favorite cheeses.

After staying up a bit later than I should have chatting, I went to one last spin class with my favorite instructor Sunday morning. It was great and fun, as always. I’ve done a ton of spinning lately since I’m not running, and I think my calves are actually sore from it!

I spent the afternoon doing work and now I’m coding. For dinner, it was my dad’s birthday so we went out to a seafood place.

My dish of choice was a stir fry tofu with brown rice.

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After eating, we went to my sister’s apartment for German Chocolate cake.

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Happy Birthday!

Overall, it was such a fun weekend, and I got to see lots of my favorite people!

What did you do this weekend?

 

 

Pumpkin Emergency

I’m aware it’s been way too long since I’ve posted but sometimes life gets in the way, and that’s a good thing! Anyways, Thursday evening after I finished my 3 hour lab, I walked into my room and said “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m having a pumpkin emergency. We need to go RIGHT NOW.”

So, my attempts at waiting to get ALLTHEPUMPKIN until October failed and I gave in. We headed to Trader Joe’s. I proceeded to spend much too much time looking for the perfect pumpkin.

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(But he is perfect, isn’t he?)

Then, I proceeded to clear the shelves pick out several items. My noteworthy purchases were pumpkin butter, pumpkin cream cheese (my favorite!), pumpkin spiced pumpkin seeds, and cinnamon apple chèvre (goat cheese). Also noteworthy finds that I restrained myself from purchasing were pumpkin mochi, pumpkin cranberry granola, pumpkin pop tarts, and some really, really delicious pumpkin cranberry crackers (they were the free sample with honey chèvre).

It was so fabulous. In terms of other non-pumpkin life events, Wednesday morning I went to an insanely early spin class which was awesome, and then proceeded to over caffeinate myself with this latte:

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Thursday morning I did the Crossfit workout that was posted just in the gym at school, which was pretty quick. I did 10 minutes of 3 snatches at 65% on the minute, and then 9 sets of 250m sprints on the rowing machine.

Friday morning I spun a little on my own, and then went to Crossfit in the evening, which I am already sore from. The strength was back squats with a pause at the bottom, which gets me every time! My legs were already done before the conditioning portion, which was a 15 minute amrap of 20 front lunges (65#), 15 burpees (blech), and 20 single arm dumbbell snatches.

In terms of food, I haven’t broken into the pumpkin THAT much. The pumpkin seeds are delicious, but my current favorite way to eat pumpkin is crackers with pumpkin cream cheese and pumpkin butter. I also tried the pumpkin Chobani-it’s good! I would recommend it.

For breakfast, yogurt bowls are nothing new. Sometimes in my room, sometimes in the dining hall. Always with sun butter.

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Here are a couple more meals:

The last of my packed lunches.

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Spinach salad with pasta from the dining hall, plus cabbage and chicken masala.

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A non-yogurt breakfast of egg whites, spinach, and cheese.

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And a perfect nectarine from the Farmer’s Market, eaten before brunch opens here.

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And just for fun, let’s end with a little progress picture.

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There’s a garden right outside my window and this little guy is making some progress right before my eyes!

What pumpkin product are you most excited for? What’s something I must try?

WIAW-College Year 3

Happy Wednesday! How crazy is it that I started this little blog when I was a freshman and now I’m a junior? Craziness. I should do a throwback WIAW at some point to compare the years. But for today, we’re doing WIAW with this week’s food!

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First of all, I want to give a little update on my plantar fasciitis. It’s been 4 days now with no running and my feet are feeling sooo much better. Yesterday, I felt like they had returned to their normal pain levels and the outside of my foot wasn’t really hurting, but today they actually felt good. I think there were a number of factors that went into the improvement. Not running was a big one, but I think also returning to a normal routine with my normal shoes also helped. Plus, I’ve tried to cut back on sugar lately because I was hoping that would help reduce inflammation-I know it’s a long shot but I wanted to try everything! So maybe it helped. I’ve also been wearing the night brace which means I wake up feeling better. I can tell I’m getting better flexibility in my ankle/achilles as a result as well.

Ok-onto the food!

In terms of breakfasts, yogurt bowls have been the name of the game. The first one was plain yogurt with canned peaches and sun butter. I’m really loving that the nut-free dining hall nearby has sun butter!

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Yogurt bowl #2 was back in my room and was plain yogurt (whole milk, non-greek) with sun butter, raspberries, and a drizzle of brown rice syrup.

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In terms of other food, I packed some lunches from home before I left.

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Each one contains grilled chicken, cumin roasted yellow cauliflower, and brown butter sage mashed sweet potatoes.

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As I have said before, the dining hall closest to me now is the best one on campus. The food actually has flavor, which is pretty revolutionary. For one meal, I had a mediterranean salad with grilled chicken and some cream of spinach.

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The cream of spinach was so, so delicious.

I also tried the dining hall’s most famous dish-Death by Chocolate.

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Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan. It was a little too much for me. It was super rich chocolate cake covered in fudge, and it’s fairly dark chocolate.

Another thing I’ve been making is chocolate milk for post workout.  Well, technically it’s hot chocolate. I got some really good quality whole milk from my favorite local dairy at Whole Foods. It even comes in a bottle. Butttt it’s non-homogenized, which means the fat isn’t really mixed in. In other words, it’s full of chunks of fat. It really freaks me out. I have to drink it hot to really mix it all up. My chocolate post-workout drink is milk, cocoa powder, and brown rice syrup!

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But hot, it’s so delicious! Although I may have consumed enough cocoa powder to make me a bit jumpy.

What kind of milk do you buy?

Watermelon and Feta Summer Salad

Hey guys! Today I have another recipe to share with you all-another Sweetgreen copycat recipe! This one is of their August seasonal salad, and it features fresh mint, feta cheese, and watermelon.

Here’s their version:

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And mine:

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Serves 3

Ingredients:

3 handfuls of arugula and baby kale or kale

1 medium heirloom tomato, chopped

1.5 cups fresh watermelon, chopped

1 cucumber, chopped

1/4 cup spicy sunflower seeds

1/3 cup feta

8 oz chicken

1/2 cup fresh mint, chopped

Champagne Vinaigrette

Toss all ingredients together and enjoy!

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Don’t know how to cube a watermelon? Be on the lookout for a tutorial!

Moved In

Well, I’m all moved into my dorm and sort of ready for school to start! I also only sort of have Wifi so there’s that…It has been so nice to catch up with friends these past couple of days!

In terms of fitness, I went to my last class at my home Crossfit on Saturday morning. The workout was tough, and I barely made the 20 minute time cap! It was the following:

10-1(start with 10 reps of each, then 9, then 8, etc.)

overhead squats

chin ups

-Between each round: 5 strict press and 10 pistols

I used 55# for the overhead squats and 45 for the press. I’m definitely sore today!

This morning, in lieu of a 9 mile run, I took the opportunity to squeeze the last bit out of my gym membership by going to one of my favorite spin classes, and it was fantastic!

Foodwise, I just had my first dining hall meal. My closest dining hall this year is known for having the best food, and it’s also nut free! They even have sunflower seed butter!

Dinner was veggies with a vegetable pot pie:

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Plus plain yogurt, rice chex, raisins, and sunflower seed butter.

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In terms of other food, brunch after spin was from Whole Foods because I needed to buy dairy there. I had huevos rancheros and fruit.

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Breakfast the other day was eggs and berries-I love this plate! It used to be at school but I ended up taking my DC dishes to school.

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The other noteworthy food was roasted plantains that we made at home. My parents ate them with brown sugar and cinnamon, but I went to sea salt route because they were cooked in butter and it seemed just right!

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In foot news, I’m trying to treat them well. One thing that was recommended to me was getting a night brace. This keeps your foot in the flexed position so there isn’t so much stiffness in the morning. The one I got is basically just a sock with a strap that connects the knee and toes. I sort of feel like it’s a foot straight jacket. And I’m sure some night I’ll get up in the middle of the night and run into someone in the hallways, and said person will think I’m insane.

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But it seems to be helping!

In the next few days, look for another recipe post and a little tutorial on watermelon cutting!

How was/is your dining hall food?