Old Habits/ My Puppy is Growing Up

Date: August 5, 2015

Author: astottler

So I know I haven’t blogged much lately. Part of it has been business, part of it has been I feel like I don’t have that much new to contribute! Either way, despite my hiatus, I’m still in the habit of taking food pictures, so I thought I would share some of them, because why not?

These are spinach and cheese pupusas, and I’ve been sort of obsessed lately. They come frozen, and are basically spinach and cheese in a cornmeal shell.

Super simple dinner: BBQ chicken, spanish style rice, and green beans cooked in the same style as my garlic roasted broccoli.

Lunch at Le Boulange-salad with balsamic, chicken, dried cranberries, and gorgonzola.

Chicken and dumplings with a salad on the side.

I’m obsessed with this salad-I actually have it for lunch most days. Chicken, goat cheese, dates, nectarine, tossed in a champagne vinaigrette.

Funfetti pancakes with the family. For the pancakes I just did the banana+and egg trick in the blender and threw in some oats.

Cooking Light’s lemon parmesan risotto, with a salad on the side. The awesome thing is that this recipe is made entirely in the microwave, so it’s half the work on regular risotto!

Last weekend I went out to brunch with my friends. I got an egg white omelette with turkey burger, spinach, and cheddar inside (topped with avocado of course!).

That evening, I went to a Latin restaurant with friends and got delicious salmon over rice.I loved the fruit salsa on top!

Another Cooking Light gem was this lemon marinated chicken, with a side of feta rice. Super fast and simple, but so flavorful!

I’m obsessed with figs. Don’t you love summer?

Now-puppy picture overload!

Easter+Everything

Date: April 7, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Wow, things have been crazy here lately. I’m in a sorority, and this week is our big formal recruitment!

I think I owe you all some food pictures, especially with my fantastically limited diet. As for how that’s going-I’m not ready to start adding things back yet, and I’m feeling ok. I sometimes feel bad, but it’s pretty good and lately hasn’t been a problem. So I’m feeling PRETTY good.

So-the weekend! I worked on Friday afternoon instead of Saturday because I had a recruitment workshop. I had to pick up my employee key tag from the gym I’m going to start subbing at (which looks exactly like my membership key tag from when I was a member).

And the gym was right across from Whole Foods, so I grabbed dinner there.

Turkey meatloaf, quinoa salads, and normal salad. The real highlight though was raiding the dairy free/gluten free bakery area. I picked up this AMAZING brownie which I think was made with garbanzo beans?

Saturday’s meal schedule was really strange since I had my workshop, but I had a super early dinner of sushi-type of things, which I dipped in vinaigrette. Yeah…

Then, my sister and I got full body massages! I had never had one before, and it was so nice! Although the next day I felt a little bruised. Afterwards, we went out for Pho, because rice noodles are one of the few things I can eat!

Then, I went home for Easter! Yes, we are in our 20s and still do egg hunts.

Also-know what is gluten and dairy free? Jelly beans. YUM. I had so many! Because Easter is one of the times where candy mid-morning is 100% acceptable.

After the hunt-we ended up not finding anywhere near all of them, although we found one with a giant hole far from where it started so maybe animals played a hand-we met up with my grandma and uncle for brunch at a fancy hotel.

I actually managed pretty well to avoid gluten/dairy/nuts.

I brought my own soy sauce in my purse that was gluten free. Cute. Sushi, smoked salmon, salad, chicken.

Corn taco with beans, guac, rice, and salsa. Plus more sushi and jasmine rice.

I also had some dessert. I had a few bites of gluten/dairy containing things, but I think it was ok, especially since I’m doing a full other week of total elimination. My favorite was peach crisp!

After brunch, we did some egg dying!

Which is what I will be eating for the next week straight. These are all for me:

In other news, I did my last major long run of half training yesterday. It was 9 miles, and it was a mix of great and really, really sucky. Saturday-Monday I was dealing with really bad allergies (that always occur the week of formal recruitment), so my lungs felt disgusting. My stomach was kind of off so I felt gross. And my new shoes are definitely not ready to be raced in. HOWEVER. My legs felt fantastic! They weren’t even tired, so I’m taking that as a good sign! That being said, I still have no expectations for race day. It will definitely depend on how I feel!

What did you do for Easter?

Food as of Late

Date: February 15, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I hope everyone had a fantastic Valentine’s Day! I apologize for the radio silence lately. I haven’t been feeling very good lately, so I haven’t been feeling the blog!

I don’t know why I’ve been feeling bad-I think something I’m eating is making me sick, but I don’t know what, and if I don’t eat the exact right thing at the right time in the right amount, I feel sick. And I don’t know what the right thing, time, or amount is. I’ve mostly felt better the last couple of days but it feels kind of rocky. It’s just really frustrating!

On that lovely note, I have some pictures of food! Yay!

For Valentine’s Day….I was working. I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but I recently started working at a vet. It’s a lot of fun!

Afterwards, I ended up stopping by home for dinner and kitty time.

Dinner was BBQ chicken with mashed sweet potatoes and green beans.

Plus bread pudding for dessert! The bread pudding is insanely good-it has rum sauce! It’s a family recipe-would anybody be interested in it? If so I can post it!

In terms of food as of late, it’s been a little bit different. Sort of carb heavy-not why I would necessarily normally eat but you gotta do what you gotta do.

A veggie panini with pesto aioli and a baby salad.

Tea with a blueberry scone. I met up with my sister for tea on her birthday instead of lunch because I wasn’t feeling well earlier, but by the time we went out, I was starving!

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Baked potato, glazed salmon, and salad.

Simple breakfast of eggs+carbs.

I can buy this with meal plan dollars which means it’s basically free. I’m not complaining.

Salmon burger.

This is Thursday morning’s breakfast. I do track workouts on Thursday mornings, and since the track is on the opposite side of campus, I went to a different dining hall for breakfast! They have far superior pancakes. That scrambled egg looking mixture is actually scrambled tofu!

Flatbread, brown rice, and teriyaki bass.

Turkey with salsa and guacamole with a salad, plus mashed root veggies.

Keeping it very simple the morning of my rat dissection…which I survived!

Another dining hall breakfast (brunch technically!)

How was your Valentine’s Day?

Easter 2014-Mind Blowing Revelations in Bread Pudding

Date: April 20, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone had a Marvelous Easter!

I definitely had a fabulous day. First thing in the morning, I prettied myself up and drove home for an Easter Brunch with my family.

After a few obligatory pictures, we were off to a fancy hotel for a snazzy Easter feast! I really tried to pace myself this year. My family takes buffets really seriously, and I think I committed a foul by filling up on cookies the previous day and having reduced stomach space today. And yes, we even had a conversation about how you can “win” a buffet. Ohh my crazy family.

First course-I guess I’ll call it the appetizers? Blueberry bread, fancy cheeses, watermelon, a cauliflower salad, and the star-a cheese blintz.

Course 2: real food. Mahi mahi, jasmine rice, a whole wheat roll, and bread pudding part 1. It was a sampler, ya know?

Course 3 was real dessert. My mom and I got some things to share (although you better believe that the bread pudding was all for me.) Super rich chocolate cake, berry rhubarb pie, baby chocolate eclair, a petit 4, and of course, bread pudding. My family certainly has a thing for bread pudding. We have an amazing family recipe (which I should totally post if we make it again. I could even try a healthier version?), and normally I don’t go for other types. But this, my friends, was amazing. It was made with croissants. CROISSANTS! What a revolutionary idea! Seriously, SO good. So buttery and custardy, with a deliciously creamy custard sauce. This definitely stole the show today! After waddling away from brunch, it was time to search for Easter baskets and then embark on the annual Easter egg hunt!

We found them all this year! Nothing like finding little plastic eggs in July…

After some Easter candy and a subsequent food coma, I headed over to my neighbors house for a conversation in Spanish. I had to record it for a class, but it was a lot of fun! Sadly, my understanding of Spanish is far superior to my speaking ability-but that’s just something to work on! Another Easter tradition happened as well-dying of eggs! We didn’t do anything too crazy this year, but I think they turned out quite well!

So now I basically have a million colorful eggs to eat! There are certainly worse problems to have! Somehow I ended up taking them ALL back with me. So expect nothing but eggs on here for the next week. But actually… I hope everyone has a fabulous Monday! What are your Easter traditions?

MIMM-Chocolate and Friends

Date: February 16, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday. Who has the day off? My weekend has certainly been marvelous so far!

Marvelous is..

Oatmeal! x2. Banana oats topped with strawberries, sun butter, and a dollop of plain yogurt.

Marvelous is…

An iced chai! I had every intention of spending the day working at a coffeeshop so I got a big chai tea! The only problem was that I for somer reason woke up much too early that morning and could barely keep my eyes open so I left for a nap…whoops. There went my productivity!

Marvelous is…

Trying a different dining hall for lunch! It was actually really good! They had about 9 types of cream cheese, which looked homemade. I tried the cinnamon raisin, triple berry, basil and olive, and chive and onion.

Marvelous is…

A dessert party! My sorority had a Valentine’s themed party on Saturday, so I got to dress up and eat delicious things. Fun fact-there are 3 girls in my sorority who seriously want to go to culinary school-let’s just say that we eat well!

Marvelous is…

A kick butt run! There’s no question I’ve gotten in better shape and faster in the last few months. I did the same run I’ve done a couple of times before-it’s one of my absolutely favorite places to run because it’s SO pretty! There’s a fairly big hill in the middle-the last time I was proud I kept my pace until 11:00 for the hill. I ended up powering up the hill around a 9:00 pace! And it wasn’t death!

Marvelous is…

A reunion with my best friends from high school! We actually went the same place the same weekend last year! (Sadly, it was the last day before I was sick for 2 months…)

Last year: