2 Recipes!

Date: September 16, 2014

Author: astottler

Hey guys! Since my Internet has been down lately, I’m getting ahead on catching up (?) and sitting at Starbucks right now. Not sure if I really need caffeine right now but it is what it is. This morning I went to 7am Crossfit and it DEMOLISHED me. I ate when I got home, but I was feeling sort of light headed so I got a pumpkin muffin to go with my (plain) latte.

The aforementioned killer workout? First we found 1 rep max of squats. I was stupid and didn’t bring my lifting shoes (which add about 20 lbs to my 1 rep max) so I was about 15 pounds of my max, but at least I lifted a tiny bit more without lifting shoes than I have before, so I’ll take it! The WOD though. Whew.

10 rounds:

15 wall balls (20/14)

3 cleans (135/95)

I did this Rx with 14 lb wall balls and 95 for the cleans. Sadly, the cleans were actually the resting portion of this workout. The wall balls killed me, and I was sucking air immediately. Wall balls really get your heart pumping! I don’t always eat before morning workouts-not usually before morning runs or spin, but I was glad I ate a little something before this class or I would have actually passed out. WHEW.

In terms of food lately, I have a couple of recipes to share! The first was one of the veggie salads from the culinary bootcamp I went to for work in DC.

This dish is the first time I’ve ever actually enjoyed eating beets. And I could eat it by the plateful. I even had some for breakfast this morning.

Gingered Root Veggie Salad

Ingredients:

.25 oz fresh ginger (1/2 tablespoon)

4.75 oz carrots

4.5 oz beets

4.5 oz parsnips

1.5 T honey

1.25 T lemon juice

1 T tarragon

1/8 T salt

Peel ginger, carrots, beets, and parsnips. Shred them in either a food process or a grater (I used a grater). Mix up the remaining ingredients in a small pour, and then toss everything together.

We had this with turkey burgers and roasted sweet potatoes. While I’m certainly not Paleo, I had a Paleo phase about a year ago, and discovered that I actually prefer turkey burgers in a lettuce leaf, rather than a bun!

Recipe #2 is another fall dish. I was craving pumpkin, and just happened to find a jar of Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter in the pantry from last year so I decided to experiment a bit. I’ve perfected banana custard (I still need to post that recipe), so why not pumpkin? This fall dish is light and fluffy, and the flavor is a bit subtle. This is healthy enough to eat for breakfast, and is packed with protein. If you want more pumpkin, feel free to add more pumpkin butter or add some cinnamon/pumpkin pie spice.

Pumpkin Spice Custard

Ingredients:

2 cups fat free milk

1 cup egg whites

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 T butter

1 t vanilla extract

4 T pumpkin butter

1. Heat milk until boiling. Meanwhile, in a medium size bowl mix together cornstarch and egg whites.

2. Once the milk is boiling, add it to the bowl (and not the pot it was in). Add milk slowly, stirring the mixture constantly. If possible, pour the milk on edge of the bowl to avoid cooking the egg on contact (i have yet to mess this up so don’t worry!).

3. After stirring the milk and egg mixture in the bowl, return to the pot and cook on medium high, stirring constantly,

4. Cook until the mixture thickens to a custard texture.

5. Once off the heat, stir in butter, pumpkin butter, and vanilla.

What pumpkin items have you enjoyed so far this fall?

Yoga Wednesday

Date: July 22, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

This title is a bit deceptive, seeing as the yoga actually happened on Monday and Tuesday, but we’ll get there!

Monday and Tuesday mornings both started out with the same breakfast-banana custard with blueberries!

I used the recipe for Boston Cream Pie filling, and subbed bananas in for the sugar. This was good but would have been better if I had modified it with low fat or fat free milk because it’s pretty rich! Good, but not great.

Lunches were also the same. Cumin roasted cauliflower and a green bean salad.

The green bean salad had a balsamic dressing with sunflower seeds and dried cranberries.

Plus some yogurt because otherwise this would hold me over for about 2 seconds. The thing about plain, full fat Greek yogurt is that it’s so thick. My experience eating it was a combination of really liking it and trying to choke it down. Beautiful.

On the workout front, Monday night I went to Crossfit and PRed my front squat! Not a huge PR, but I don’t have my lifting shoes with me this summer which help a ton, so I know if I had them I could have lifted more! Also, I love that we have a PR gong at this Crossfit. I’m going to need to take that idea back home to my Crossfit box there!

The WOD was a quick one:

21-15-9-15-21

Heavy kettle bell swings (I used 53#) and wall ball sit ups (throw the ball against the wall while doing a sit up). I finished in 7:42. After class, I did a couple of sets of single leg RDLs in an effort to strengthen my hamstrings-NOT a night before running! Plus, it was the perfect time killer before a much needed yoga class. This class was great-it was subbed by a girl in my Crossfit classes, and it was the best class I’ve been to in a long time. I left feeling awesome, and my calves were noticeably looser today, hence the need to do yoga.

Tuesday morning, I did a quick Nike Training Club app workout. Unfortunately, the end was kind of disjointed because my WiFi cut me off and it cut out.

Tuesday evening was a highlight if the week for me. I wanted to do something explorer-y, and after much deliberation, I decided to try out a yoga class in Alexandria, mostly so I could spend some time wandering the streets there.

The yoga studio was a 15 minute walk from the Metro, and I had some time to kill before class. When I saw a cupcake shop, I had to try it. You know, “research.”

It was definitely a good cupcake. A solid effort, but not the best ever. I did appreciate the dark chocolate cake part though. The good news is I happened across another cupcake place that I think is supposed to be THE ONE. But I was already a cupcake in at that point!

I had just enough time to make it down to the water.

Alexandria is an adorable town, and I think it would be just perfect in the fall. I’m really disappointed that I am missing fall in DC!

Finally, it was yoga time!

The class was called “Core and Stretch.” I didn’t love the class-it wasn’t a bad class, but like I’ve said before, I’m much more of a power yoga person. Still though, it was a good experience. I loved the studio.

Afterwards, on the way back to the Metro, I grabbed dinner. It ended up being my first sit down dinner by myself! Granted, the restaurant was a bakery type of place and I didn’t realize it was the type of place where you get seated, but it was fine. And I had a delicious turkey and avocado tartine (basically a fancy open faced sandwich.)

And I’ll leave you with that beautiful image!

Workout Log #1 and Still Eating All the Fall Things

Date: October 31, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone had a fabulous Halloween! I’m currently taking a study break. I’ve been studying HARD for Bio. I actually feel much more confident about the material and life now than I did after a mini meltdown I may or may not have had earlier today. I actually opted out of flag football for…you guessed it-studying! I’m kind of bummed I missed it because we only have 4 regular season games, but I did get a lot done, so there’s that. Before getting to some eats as of late, I thought I’d post a little workout log for the week. This week is a little bit different than normal because I’m not following any sort of running schedule, but I will starting next week, so ~~if we make it there~~ when we get there I’ll go over that with you guys! My schedule varies a lot week to week-it depends on what workouts are what days for Crossfit-I love that they post the week’s workouts so you can pick and choose. This week was a little lighter on the workout front though because I had more going on. I’ve also been trying to squeeze in one on my own spin workout in preparation for certification, but as you’ll see this week, that doesn’t always happen.

Workouts for Week of 10/28

Monday: AM- easy pace 5 mile hill run

-nothing too crazy, but I wanted to keep my running going a little bit in preparation for Saturday’s long run

PM- Crossfit: Strength was clean and jerks with a front squat

WOD: 300 jump ropes

30-20-10 kettlebell swings/ sit ups

300 jump ropes

I felt the jump ropes in my calves 2 days later!

Tuesday: AM- 45 minute spin class plus 1 mile treadmill run

-I wanted to get a mile in at a decent pace. It was harder than I expected. I have a lot of work to do before attempting to PR my 5k!

PM- Crossfit Strength was 3 rep max push press-I got to 100 pounds, and 2 reps at 105.

WOD: 10 minute ladder (3-6-9-12…)

Push press/pull up

OW. Can I just say, OW. My shoulders are STILL super sore from doing a million and three push presses. I had every intention of working on clean and jerks Wednesday morning, but nothing overhead is going to happen for a looong time. My abs are even sore.

Wednesday: AM- Lifting on my own. I worked on dead lifts and cleans. I set a few goals for November, and some of those include PRing on my cleans and deadlifts, so those will be one of my bigger focuses. I also did some rowing and weighted planks.

PM- I had every intention of practicing a spin class, but I was so sleep deprived I couldn’t see straight, much less make up a class on the go. I ended up calling it quits after about 25 minutes and going to my dorm to take a nap. The good news is I still worked up a pretty good sweat, which I take as a good sign for my ability to make up a spin workout.

PM- Pumpkin carving! That counts as a workout, right…?

Thursday: AM- Crossfit. Strength was practicing Turkish Get Ups. I’ve done something similar in the past, which turned out to be more like half of a Turkish Get Up, but the movements still felt pretty intuitive. I was even able to try it with a (light) barbell, which is hard because you have to balance it with one hand.

WOD: 12 Minutes as many rounds as possible:

6 squats

12 weighed sit ups (overhead)

200 m run

I actually ended up getting the second most rounds! Go figure.

PM ~~Flag Football~~

Friday: Likely rest, maybe some abs or yoga

Saturday: Long run-we’ll see how long it actually turns out. I have a specific number in mind but we’ll see.

Sunday: Probably rest, maybe take a tour of the NEW GYM OPENING ON CAMPUS TOMORROW. I’m so excited-it’s supposed to be super nice, and it will have an actual spin studio (not just some bikes thrown in the corner of the weight room…) and nice spin bikes that actually show speed. The current gym is literally right next to my dorm, and the new one is way across campus, so I probably won’t go there a ton besides for spin, but I’m hoping the current gym will be half as crowded! Also, I know the new gym will be having spin classes on top of the ones that are still going on at the old gym, so maybe this is an awesome opportunity since I’m getting certified soon?

Ok enough exercise talk. Let’s move on to the good stuff, some food from the past few days.

I think I put a little too much weight in the prophetic abilities of the amount of milk foam in my cappuccino. Yesterday’s? AMAZING. TONS of milk foam-going to be a great day. Today’s? Not so much.

Someone shook my kombucha! Speaking of which, I need to get more…

Cottage cheese, spinach, and pesto- #strangebutgood or just #strange? I’m going to go with the latter-this was way too salty. Not a fan.

Love.

Mystery bread as a study snack.

Pumpkin soup take 2! This was really good! The pumpkin soup was kind of boring plain, so one of the twins suggested I add rice to it. I loved the idea! I went to the dining hall in search of brown rice, but all they had was a mushroom barley mix, which was absolutely perfect! I also added some grilled chicken and spinach-YUM.

The other day my mom brought me some pants from home and dropped them off in my car-but she really is the best-she also thought to bring me some other clothes-which I discovered lat last night as I was trying to muster up the energy to do laundry. The best care packages are the ones that let you put off laundry another day. But anyways, she clearly know me way too well because she included tons of dried fruit.

This coconut was really delicious! I’ve never had YOUNG dried coconut!

But she also left me THIS.

A caramel apple! WAY better than Halloween candy!

I wanted some protein on the side-clearly it was not overkill to eat a caramel apple with apple butter, right?

Cottage cheese. Apple butter. Sunflower seed butter. Perfection. I’ve actually hopped off the pumpkin train-I’m ready to move on to other fall items-apples, cranberry bread, and (soon) gingerbread. My roommate and I are currently drowning in apples from our CSA box. She brought a slow cooker, so we’re planning on chopping a bunch up and throwing them in there with some apple pie spice. Which would be awesome on yogurt. I’ve been wanting plain yogurt so much lately, and I don’t have any! Sad.

My study buddy! Filled with chai tea. I was trying to decide if I should use almond milk or water to brew my tea in. Then I realized I’d have to get up and walk all the way down the hall to the bathroom for water. Guess which I decided to use?

Spinach buddies! I was actually planning on going to the dining hall for dinner…and then I was browsing twitter and saw on the local news that my University has had some horribly outbreak of a “mystery illness,” some type of food poisoning and probably norovirus from the food at one of our dining halls. 51 students were sick, and some hospitalized. Umm, no thank you-I’ll stick to my room! I’m just mad I had to hear about this on the news-no one told us students about it!

So on that cheerful note, I shall leave you. Have a great day!

What did you do for Halloween? I’d love to live vicariously through all you guys!

Sweater Weather

Date: October 9, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! It’s currently 9pm, and I’m camped out in the lounge blogging because my roommate is sleeping. I’m not sure if she’s asleep for the night or just napping, but I thought I’d give her some peace and quiet. I’m currently trying to burn off a sugar high-and if you know me at all, this likely means I won’t be sleeping for the next 3 days. Me+sugar=bad combo.

But let’s start from the top, shall we?

I woke up bright (well, dark) and early for a morning gym workout. The workout was 10 minutes working on snatches, followed by a WOD of 21-15-9-9-15 deadlifts and squat jumps. The workout originally called for burpees, but that would have taken me much more time than I had. The bar was SO ROUGH. My poor hands were getting torn up so badly! I looked around-and there’s only one bar out of like 8 like that at the gym, but they were all full. I then did 5 rounds of 250m row/7 rdls, and finished with some abs. This workout was nothing too crazy-just something to get my blood flowing!

When I walked out of the gym, I was greeted by this:

The weather is starting cool down a little too-it’s sunny but with fall skies and a little bit of bite in the air. I had a long day ahead of me, and it was chilly, so on the way back to the gym, I stopped for a cappuccino.

BEST. THING. EVER. So worth the extra trip-and I went before getting ready instead of on my way to class, so there was no line.

I seriously love this weather-Sweater Weather! Do you guys know the song Sweater Weather? I think that’s going to be stuck in my head any time I wear a sweater. What I wore today was basically the epitome of fall-boots, a sweater, and a scarf.

I’ve been feeling so put together lately in terms of my outfits (ok, technically I’m still wearing leggings…), and I really do think it makes a difference on my outlook of the world. Here’s a sunny selfie of yesterday’s scarf.

Yes, I live in California. Yes, 70 degrees is considered cold.

Today was just such a productive day, and I feel so much better about my classes. I love Mondays and Wednesdays because I have all afternoon to hole up in a library or cafe and just accomplish things. I actually am not minding problem sets-minus Physics. I don’t mind spending hours working things out-as long as I eventually get it. I’ve said it before, but this is really something I was missing last year.

After class, I tried this new to me yogurt.

I saw it on Beth‘s blog a while ago, and have not been able to find it anywhere! Needless to say, I was super excited.

It was delicious! I ended up throwing a couple of dates I had packed for snack on top, and those really complemented the flavors perfectly. Next time, I would throw chopped dates on top.

Here’s a shot of the cafe. Kind of a basement, but cozy and quiet. Several study snacks happened as well.

Like my placemat? I really need to stop eating ON my school things.

Pumpkin bread. Because we know I’m obsessed.

After finished most of my work, I headed back to my room for a run. Since it was in danger of getting dark, I threw on the only long sleeve neon shirt I had. Is it too soon? I don’t think so.

So I set out for 4 miles-I was really in the mood to run. The weather was perfect, I was feeling great…until like .2 miles in when my calf reminded me that I did 600 jump ropes yesterday…and doing that many after not jumping rope in a month will make me sore. I immediately turned back-with my history of calf issues, I was NOT going to push anything this close to the race. So not worth it. I switched gears and went to dinner instead-not a bad alternative!

A really delicious turkey burger, salad, polenta, and fruit. I love turkey burgers. I should seriously just get 2 turkey burgers and veggies and call it a day-and not mess around with the other suspect items.

Paella-it tasted really fishy, so not really my cup of tea. Oh well, can’t win them all.

Then, tonight I had a sorority recruitment event-cookie decorating. Hence the sugar high. It’s the worst kind too-store bought cookies and store bought icing=my body hates me. Eh, live and learn. Here’s my first creation. Not my best work.

And now let’s talk running. Let’s talk races. Let’s talk about the future. I (obviously) have my next half in ELEVEN DAYS. I am SO incredibly excited-and I feel strangely prepared. It helps I’m not injured (knock on wood) right before the race…But being the overeager person that I am, I’m starting to think about what comes next. Life after half marathon training? Huh? First off-I know if I’m not training for a race I’ll never run. It just won’t occur to me. I’m doing a 10k Turkey Trot in November (obviously), and then I’m doing a Santa Run in mid December. This one is a 5k, and I’m racing it to PR. To be fair, I’ve only done one 5k (last year’s Santa Run). And I hadn’t run in a long time-I was in really good shape from rowing, but there wasn’t a ton of running happening. After my half, I’ll be focusing a ton on running fast. I obviously want to PR, but I THINK if I work hard between now and then, I can break 24:00. We shall see.

So…then what? I want to do the Giant’s race….in August. Maybe the Nike women’s again if I like it. But before then? There’s an abyss! BUT. BUT. I think I found a race-and I’m this close to signing up. Rock n Roll San Francisco on April 6. It should be a fun one-it goes across the Golden Gate bridge! I think it would be a good warm up for the Giant’s race, which is a much flatter course and therefore a better one to run hard for a PR. The timing is pretty good too. So…thoughts? GAHH I’m so excited about everything right now!

It’s almost race day!

What’s the best race you’ve done? Suggestions? Favorite part of fall?

WIAW-And What I Miss Wednesday

Date: October 8, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Heyyyy happy Wednesday! We’re halfway through the week…although my school work is very end heavy this week so that’ll be interesting…But it also means…time for What I Ate Wednesday! Thanks so much to Jenn for hosting.

Today’s post is going to be a little different…My eats haven’t been crazy exciting lately (thanks #dormlife), so I’ll give you guys an idea of what those are looking like, as well as what’s new with me. Then, I’ll move on to some of my favorite foods from home that I seriously miss eating.

I went on a late night boba run with my sister for some sisterly bonding. This was a jasmine milk tea, and it was phenomenal! I know a lot of people are obsessed with boba around here, but I actually haven’t had it that much. I’ve always liked it when I’ve gotten it though!

This morning I went to a spin class and then ran 3 miles. I had to show you guys a picture though because I <3 this shirt!

And without further ado-here are some of my random dorm eats.

Raspberries and sunflower seed butter, with a side of chocolate milk post workout.

Soo funny story about that egg. I almost made a huge mistake with that egg…in that I grabbed an egg from the fridge, and it felt funny. I kept shaking it, and something felt wrong. But I kept convincing myself nothing was wrong…I finally went back to the fridge to check where I got the egg from…yeah, it was clearly a raw egg. That I was about to throw loose into my backpack. Whew.

Eats from the last couple of weeks. Half of the above came from my freezer-can you guess which?

And pumpkin-y snack-y goodness:

Cottage cheese with pumpkin butter=BEST THING EVER. Seriously-go try it. To kick it up a notch, add sunflower seed butter, cinnamon, or apple chips (pictured below).

Also…there’s an open can of pumpkin pie filling in my fridge right now…a soon to be empty can of pumpkin pie filling. Ok, maybe it’s not the healthiest option, but it has to be healthier than eating an actual pie, right? It’s crustless! (And oh so delicious.)

But here’s the thing. I came back from class STARVING today, so I stuffed my face with pumpkin goodies…less than an hour before Crossfit. This is not a good combination my friends. My stomach was definitely off when I left, and I debated skipping dinner but in the end decided it would probably be best to just eat. Does anyone else have the problem of when their stomach feels off, they overeat because they have trouble telling how full they are? I kinda had that issue. I think I’m really thirsty too…huh.

Also-somehow my dining hall managed to mess up corn on the cob. I mean, come on! How is that possible??

And on that note-here are the things I miss most that I just don’t have access to anymore. Cue the violins.

Fig and goat cheese salad with grilled chicken.

Green protein smoothies.

Turkey burgers and zucchini fries.

Hummus salads with runny yolked eggs.

Spaghetti squash and turkey meatballs.

Confession: after looking through my food pictures from the summer, I’ve concluded that a lot of the things I miss so much I could easily eat…if I planned ahead a little and wasn’t so darn lazy! I miss my smoothies so much…so I should just deal with the pain of cleaning my blender, and actually make ice cubes. There are a lot of salads that were so delicious I enjoyed this summer-and with a little planning, I can easily have all the ingredient necessary. Wow, this post ended up being pretty educational to me! That’s all I have for you today-have a great Wednesday!

What summer foods do you miss? I miss mangoes. A lot.