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Non-DC Cupcakes

Hello! I hope everyone’s week is going well. I started my morning with an early spin class, followed by a nice long post-breakfast nap.

For breakfast, I was planning on having this:

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I’ve seen it around the blog and twitter world a bit-it’s a soft cheese that is eaten like yogurt but it doesn’t have the tangy taste. I had high hopes.

Well, it was terrible. I couldn’t eat more than a bite. It tasted like chemicals. It was sweetened with both sugar alcohols and stevia, so from the start I wasn’t a fan of the ingredient list. And sugar alcohols taste especially weird in dairy. On the plus side, there were real chunks of pineapple. As far as the whole soft cheese concept, I think I’ll reserve judgment until I try the plain flavor with no sugar alcohols or stevia.

Instead, I had a coconut Chobani with sunflower seed butter and a side of roasted carrots. I’ve been looking for coconut Chobani for no less than a year at every grocery store I’ve gone to and I finally found it!

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For lunch, I had leftover BBQ chicken with cumin roasted purple cauliflower (that color is so much more exciting!) along with some unpictured grapes and crackers.

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After lunch, I was looking something up on the internet and I found a reference to what was supposed to be an amazing cupcake place near my home that I had never heard of. Given all my DC cupcake expertise,I felt it was my duty to taste them. I feel like my entire summer was preparing me for that moment. So off I went with the company of my mom.

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Here’s the thing about going with your mother. It’s much more socially acceptable to get more cupcakes. The cool thing about this place is they had three sizes-mini, normal, and large. So she suggested we get one of each mini cupcake to try. I have absolutely no problem with that, and this way we got to try all the flavors since my family split the minis. The place was called Libby’s-it’s in a sort of industrial area at the edge of downtown, and mostly does cupcake orders but they have a ton of “extras” you can just buy (which is what we did).

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Appearance and flavor selection were on point. To name a few, we got red velvet, key lime, cookie dough, salted caramel, dulce de leche, buttercup, snickerdoodle, and carrot cake. I think my favorites were salted caramel and cookie dough. The frosting on the cookie dough tasted just like cookie dough, but it was light and fluffy. The verdict? Definitely going back.

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For dinner, we had butternut squash macaroni and cheese from Cooking Light. This recipe is amazing and the only one we ever made-it uses butternut squash for some of the creaminess and you’d never know it!

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In terms of entertainment, I have a couple of things to share. First is this book-The Price of Inheritance, by Karin Tanabe.

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The author is one of my friends from run club in DC, so I was excited to find her new book at the bookstore. I’m really enjoying it so far, and highly suggest you go out and buy it! It’s really well written and I love her writing style.

Another fun thing-has anyone seen the Cropfit Subway commercial? I love it-it’s especially funny because some of those things are a lot like some of the stuff we do. Now where can I find a giant pumpkin?

Here’s the link.

What book are you reading now?

New Schedule

Hey everyone! 

I hope you had a great Wednesday! Mine was pretty boring. I’m going to just fly through my meals today. 

Breakfast:Image

Smoothie with 3/4 of a banana, soymilk, plain yogurt, and frozen strawberries and peaches. I topped it with peanut butter. On the side I had some granola, plus half a whole wheat english muffin with strawberry and plain cream cheese. 

I ended up going back for more food.Image

But halfway through I was full so I stopped. The pancakes are never as good as I expect them to be. Probably because I skipped out on syrup (dining hall syrup=disgusting, plus today was my experimental no sugar, sleep better day).

Lunch:

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A turkey sandwich with pesto, plus a salad I made for myself last night. The salad had mixed greens, artichoke hearts, tofu, and olive oil and vinegar. I decided to skip the tofu because it was bland and I already had another protein source. I ended up adding the lettuce from the salad to my sandwich to make it more interesting.

Snack:Image

Peanut Butter Vanilla Protein bars from yesterday.

Dinner was boring, I just ate some food in my room. Peanut butter sandwich:

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x2 plus frozen blueberries. I also snacked on some whole wheat crackers and this trail mix:Image

This trail mix is really interesting. I failed to read the label the first time I tried it and was definitely surprised by the spiciness! This trail mix would probably make a great salad topper as well.

How was my day? I managed to read almost an entire book on my phone today. Which, by the way, is a bad idea. I walked around in a strange daze all day and I felt an intense pull to continue reading, so I couldn’t stop! That will probably be my last for pleasure read of the quarter though because I always really involved in books, and can’t put them down. Plus, reading on a tiny screen for however many hours kind of messes with one’s eyes/brain. I also missed a workout which, long story short, is really bad because it was assigned and we had to report times…I’m definitely going to make ti up but it made me realize I have to be better about scheduling my workouts.

Tomorrow is going to be a death workout early in the morning. It’s a series of mini races on the rowing machine, and it has been known to make people sick. I’m not too concerned bout that happening to me, but I’m still going to eat very light beforehand. I’m glad I had a bland dinner as well, and guess what? No desserts! So it will be interesting to see the impact it has on my sleeping. I’ve also been hydrating like crazy in preparation!

What else is new with me? As I try to work out my new schedule, I’m realizing a few things. Since my meal plan allows me 14 meals a week, I get 2 meals in a dining hall per day (on average). Last quarter, I never came close to using all my meals, partly because I didn’t realize that I had enough time between classes to go to a dining hall for lunch. However, with my new schedule, I’ve realized a few things. 1. The dining hall food is probably worst at dinner time. 2. Smoothies are delicious, and I’ve started to crave them for breakfast over oatmeal in my room. 3. By the time I get back from practice in the evening, all my dorm friends have already eaten so it’s not like dinner is a social event. 4. It’s way harder for me to resist sweets in the dining hall at dinner than at lunch.

So, taking all this into consideration, I think I’m going to plan on fending for myself more for dinner. This will take some planning and a lot of creativity, so hopefully I can give you all some delicious recipes that use pantry/fridge staples! I already have a few ideas. 🙂

Have a great day everyone!

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