Wow, this past week was A LOT. No tests, but tons of lectures and time spent in class/lab! Thankfully, this weekend was a chance to catch my breath and gear up for another long week! I’m going to do a day in the life post this coming week, if you’re curious! For today, I’ll give your daily (weekly?) dose of animal adorableness, share my Halloween costume, and catch you up on what I’ve been baking and eating!

Cuteness, feat. my the kittens my friend is babysitting, my sister’s new kitten, and of course Rina (who sadly has not been feeling too well lately, but seems better today thankfully!)

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The great thing about vet school is you are always surrounded by adorable animals.

As for my costume, I did something new and different this year! I’ve been a baseball player a majority of the last 10 years, so it was time to switch it up. I was a Tasmanian Devil! Are me and Yindi twins?

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We had a vet school Halloween party this weekend, so that was my chance to get dressed up!

Since this is a fitness blog or something, in terms of workouts, this past week was more running than normal, Crossfit, and weights on my own. Plus a soccer game! I’m getting stronger with weights, which is awesome. I’ve been pushing myself more on cleans at Crossfit, and I’m seeing and feeling it pay off!

Unfortunately, I’m having pain around the bone on my ankle when I run. I traced it back to starting right after a run where I both wiped out and then rolled my ankle, so I’m not sure what is going on with that, but it’s still bothering me a month later, so I’m going to take the whole next week off of running and see if I can work it out! The stinky part is I feel like I’m getting into much better running shape with soccer!

Ok. Food? Food.

As you may recall, I got tons of apples last week, so that’s quite a theme here! Plus zucchini. Always zucchini. This week it was $0.69 a pound and they were HUGE. I actually think after I finish this batch I’m going to take a break and branch out to other foods.

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Baking

I made a mini-apple breakfast bake for the week. I based it off of another recipe I’ve made before, but kind of winged it. I mixed up 2 eggs, half a cup of milk, and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. Then, I tore up 3 pieces of GF bread and put that in the bottom of a loaf pan. I poured my egg mixture over it, and then placed 2 slices apples on top. Finally, I topped it with about 2 tablespoons of cinnamon sugar.

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I put everything in a pan the night before, and then in the morning, I put it in at 400 degrees while I went for a run. When I got back, it was ready! It baked for about 30 minutes.

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My next project was Blueberry Zucchini Bread. The funny thing is, when I got my school laptop, when I opened Safari when I first got it, one of the “favorites” bookmarks was a recipe for blueberry zucchini bread that I swear I’d never seen before. Well, it looked pretty good, so I finally had to make it happen! I made a few adjustments: I used 1/3 of a cup of both the sugars (2/3 total) and reduced the oil to 1/3. And my zucchini was a little bit larger than what it called for. It came out great!

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Finally, tonight I made a super simple oat flour banana bread. After eying this recipe on Instagram, I made it happen. Healthy 5 Ingredient Flourless Banana Bread. This recipe would have been super easy if my blender was a single person blender (aka tiny) so that was interesting. I added 2/3c of chocolate chips, and then topped it with an additional banana for style points.

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I really love the texture of oat flour based breads, and this was delicious!

Breakfast

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This is the only one I have a picture of. I got unsweetened apple butter last weekend and it’s AMAZING. This is cottage cheese with apple butter and sunbutter.

Lunch 

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Subway salad. I learned that the carved turkey is seasonal, and it’s back! I get my salads with carved turkey, provolone, and oil and vinegar, salt and pepper as the dressing.

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This may be my last peach salad! I also LOVE the Trader Joe’s cranberry chèvre, especially in salads. I used some grilled chicken from the freezer this week.

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Same thing, but with Bosc pear.

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Chicken, fig, and goat cheese salad. Lately I have been packing rice cakes with my salads at lunch, but they really don’t keep my full. I recently transitioned back to crackers and it makes a noticeable difference!

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Yesterday I went to Panera to study, and I had a bowl of the butternut squash soup. It tastes like fall! We’ll forget the fact that it was 85 degrees outside. I brought some rice cakes to eat with it, and had an apple on the side.

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Today’s lunch! I wanted something light before my soccer game so I made a variation on the weird salad I do, and it was really good! Lettuce, American cheese, guacamole, a drizzle of ketchup, and an egg. No shame.

Dinner

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My favorite Trader Joe’s Salad! It kale kale, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, and chicken.

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This was a weird combination of flavors, but I was STARVING and didn’t want to take the time to bake tofu. I had zucchini noodle with butternut squash pasta sauce, and teriyaki tofu on the side.

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More zoodles with butternut squash pasta sauce, and a scrambled egg on the side.

Check out how many zoodles this one zucchini made!

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Zoodles with smokey seasoning, Trader Joe’s Harvest salsa, Mexican cheese blend, and avocado. Scrambled egg+1 egg white on the side.IMG_0054

Zoodles stir fried with garlic and soy sauce, and then topped with teriyaki tofu.

Dessert

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This was a masterpiece. Baked apple (microwaved…I’m impatient) with cinnamon, vanilla ice cream, and caramel sauce.IMG_0040

And apples with caramel sauce. YUM.