And the Zucchini Obsession Continues…

Date: September 24, 2017

Author: astottler

It’s totally normal to celebrate the end of a test by buying 5 pounds of zucchini, right?

This time I didn’t even try to get a smaller bag because I’m confident I’ll go through it!

Today, I’m going to catch up on all the delicious (often zucchini-based) meals I’ve been eating, and also talk about a little fitness!

The fall weather has me craving longer distances, running-wise. My foot (post stress fracture a year ago) is starting to feel really solid. My tendonitis is feeling better….although it seems to have been replaced by my old plantar fasciitis….

Anyways, I think I’m going to slowly and carefully start building a little more distance. Maybe do another half, if everything feels good. Not soon, I’d be shooting for the spring or even next fall. But for now, I would love to do a 10k! I’m a faster human than I was before when I was doing more runs. So I’m going to play around with it, and see what happens! I miss my Sunday morning long run tradition! I actually don’t think I’ve really run more than 3 miles since last November, when my foot got pretty sore for a while after a 5 mile run. So we shall see!

Otherwise, I’ve been doing basically all Crossfit lately. I need to get back to spin classes, and yoga. While Chloe was here, I didn’t run at all (just walked a ton!) in an effort to get my plantar fasciitis to feel better. It’s not bad, but I’m trying to really take care of it!

So let’s go through, shall we?

I finally made zucchini lasagna! It tasted great, but presentation left a little to be desired.

I had 2 layers of zucchini noodles, with a ricotta-parmesean-+1 egg in the middle, with tons of pasta sauce, and topped with mozzarella. I froze most of it for when things get crazy (or I get lazy).

Pumpkin smoothie! I genuinely thought this was going to be disgusting, but it was actually delicious! I blended up half a packet of Flapjacked vanilla smoothie mix, half a frozen banana, half a cup of milk, half a cup of canned pumpkin that I had leftover, plus tons of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Yum!

In other zucchini news, once I bought another large batch of zucchini, I invested in a more legit spiralizer and it was the best decision. 100% worth it, and I love it.

SO I’ve been making tons of zoodles.

This was a great combo: parmesan, mozzarella, chicken, garlic, lemon juice, and salt and pepper.

And then there’s the classic marinara. Similar to spaghetti squash, in my opinion the key is to get the squash tasting good before you put sauce on. I used various seasoning blends and salt and pepper.

I’ve also been into non-green green smoothies lately. Mango juice, frozen berries, and spinach.

When Chloe was here, I got a few Trader Joe’s salads because cooking with her was hard, and she was time consuming, and I had to run home in the middle of the day and shove food in my face while entertaining her. This one is my favorite. I used to eat it a lot in undergrad, especially when I was sick because it doesn’t have anything I’m allergic to. Broccoli slaw, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, kale, chicken. YUM.

More healthy pumpkin bread from the freezer. I think I’m going to make more soon because I have a lot of ripe bananas.

My go-to BBQ chicken salad has been making a comeback! Dressing is just salt, pepper, olive oil, and lime. Then I tossed together corn, tomato, and lettuce, and topped it with BBQ chicken, cheese, and guacamole. A break from zucchini—what??

I love the pumpkin yogurt-fig-sunbutter combo. Plus a peach. The peaches are good, but I can tell they’re reaching the end of the season. Apples season is coming, my friends!

I went to the weekend farmer’s market, and they had a gluten free bakery that comes to our market back home! The best part is I already know what things I’m not allergic to. Naturally, I had to pick up a flour less chocolate torte.

I did my Wednesday night farmer’s market thing as well and of course picked up a tamale. This week was chicken! I had some of my favorite fall harvest salsa on the side, plus a salad tossed with Bolthouse cilantro ranch.

Dessert of chocolate Halo Top and fancy caramel sauce.

I ate the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner Saturday and Sunday without even realizing it! For my lunches, I had my favorite salad. I admit this is super weird, but I like it and it’s quick and easy. Lettuce, American chess,e deli turkey, chopped with scissors, and then dressed with guacamole and topped with ketchup.

Dinners were a zucchini scramble with reduced fat alouette. I realized that it is going to expire extremely soon, so I repeated the meal Sunday.

Served with a peach one night and GF cinnamon raisin toast the next.

Here are a couple of other fun (seasonal!) things from this weekend:

I found this pumpkin wheat beer and of course had to try it! Sipped while cuddling with the cat on the couch and streaming Stanford-UCLA football. Fall feels like football season, and I hadn’t caught a game yet. It was a good one! We came out on top! It made me nostalgic for my alma mater for sure though!

My Starbucks fall drink of choice: decaf cappuccino with one pump pumpkin spice.

And FINALLY. FINALLY, I made zucchini bread. After buying probably 20 pounds of zucchini over the past month and a half. I made pumpkin-zucchini chocolate chip bread, so it’s also seasonably appropriate! I love this recipe: just 1/3c honey as the sweetener!

Check back in next time for more zucchini adventures. I probably have at least 3 pounds left! I’m trying some different things this week. I’m thinking teriyaki stir-fry, Mexican style, and pad thai!

Full Day of Eating: First Day of Fall!

Date: September 21, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello friends! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

It’s been a WILD week. I have a TON of pup adventures to share, but for now, I have a test tomorrow so I’m just going to bust out a quick fall day of eating as a little study break.

Rina even has her fall look going on with the pumpkin-colored bow:

(It should be noted that she has since forgiven me for said full week of pup adventures…)

Pre-Workout:

You know it. I love this flavor of Cheerio in general, and was eating them way into the new year this year thanks to ordering a few boxes at the end of the season.

Workout: I wasn’t feeling the Crossfit WOD. Plus I’ve been doing CF a lot lately and wanted something a little different. I’m still doing my squat program, and with the influx of undergrads to campus this weekend, I figured going early on a weekday morning to the campus gym to try and get a squat rack would be wise.

Breakfast:

Pumpkin spice Siggi’s+sunbutter+figs. Mango on the side.

Lunch:

I had a 3 hour gap around lunch time and was SO tired. I debated napping, but I really needed to study so I went the caffeine route. I got a small black tea, and only drank half of it but got the buzz I needed! (I’m super caffeine sensitive.)

My actual meal was a fig and goat cheese salad with deli turkey, plus BBQ rice cakes.

Snack:

Dinner:

I made a salad with dried cranberries, parmesan, roasted sweet potato, and a balsamic drizzle. On the side, I had Trader Joe’s BBQ pulled chicken.

Dessert:

And study snack:

Another study snack may happen later on as well.

Back to the books I go!

The Craziest Museum+Surprising Cooking Win

Date: September 25, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.

I kicked off my wild Friday night with some coffeeshop studying. I was sitting next to some pre-meds working on a chem lab report. Felt like home. I went there for dinner, which was a Mediterranean salad, with delicious warm GF bread on the side. Plus a GF cookie. I’ve had so few GF baked good since coming here, so I went to that coffeeshop just for that.

I had been putting off a quiz for my online class, and decided I just needed to bite the bullet and take it Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, I taught my usual 8am spin and then headed to the store. My Target trip had 2 highlights: lightbulbs (my room was super dark) and these cookies:

I don’t care if you’re GF or not, you should buy these cookies. They’re AMAZING. I’ve had this brand in other flavors (a highlight is the key lime), so I was expecting nothing less! I guess my post-spin 10am time is turning into my “try new pumpkin products” time? Last week it was pumpkin ice cream. I only have one serving of these cookies left, they’re that good.

For lunch, I made a simple egg sandwich with cheddar, and a side of extra bread, an extra egg, and asparagus.

That afternoon, I walked down to a strew festival happening in my neighborhood. There was a bouncy house, and a bunch of local restaurants selling food and drinks. Since it was scorching out, I got salted caramel ice cream from a microcreamery.

The main event of the weekend though was a trip to City Museum with my coworkers. We went downtown and trapped dinner at Pi Pizza first.

This was super delicious. I can’t even remember the last time I had pizza!

Then it was time for City Museum.

This is certainly not your typical museum. It’s usually described as a giant playground for adults. There is an indoor and outdoor portion that consists of all kinds of structures and tunnels to climb through and lots of slides, including a 10 story slide.

This included climbing through caged tunnels many stories off the ground. It was a workout, and involved a certain level of strength to pull yourself up through tight spaces. I think the most terrifying thing was actually the 90 degree drop slide. It wasn’t that crazy high, but you had to essentially drop straight down into a hole, and couldn’t see what the slide looked like on the bottom.

We unintentionally ended up pursuing tickets to the roof portion, so we climbed the 200+ stairs and 12 stories to the top.

We enjoyed the view of the city while waiting in line for the ferris wheel.

Being on a ferris wheel 12 stories up was also slightly terrifying. Again, amazing views though.

After the museum, we went back to one of the intern’s places and watched a horror movie, since I had never seen one before. Honestly, I didn’t find it scary because it seemed so incredibly unrealistic. It was an exorcism type of movie, and it just seemed a little ridiculous to me. I think I would find a psychological horror movie much more frightening.

Sunday morning I lounged around a bit before heading to Forrest Park to run. Honestly, it was not a good run. My legs felt like bricks. Possibly from all the stairs and crawling/climbing the previous, night, I don’t know!

For lunch after 3 miles, I made a simple egg white omelette with garlic and herb laughing cow, and had it with a nectarine and of course some more of those pumpkin cookies.

That afternoon, I went out for coffee and to work on my online class. I’m playing around with a few different study methods to see if I can increase efficiency. I figure this is a good time to play around with these things, before grad school. I went to another coffeeshop on the list, Park Avenue Coffee.

It was a little disappointing. Not bad, but not on the same level as my top contenders. I would rank this second to last on my list. It should be noted though that this wasn’t their original location, so it’s possible it’s different? Also it definitely needs to be noted that they have tons of delicious looking kinds of gooey butter cake. Gooey butter cake is a St. Louis thing (that and pork steak?), and while I haven’t tried it, I think it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like! It looked amazing.

After working for an hour or so, I ran some errands and braved the Sunday night grocery crowd. I was a little frazzled by the crowds, and apparently had some major slip ups.

For dinner Sunday night, I planned on totally winging a ginger chicken soup recipe. Basically, through things in a pot and hope. Slip up #1 was forgetting to buy spinach. Slip up #2 was buying cucumber instead of zucchini, which I realized when I started to cut it. The sad/embarrassing thing is, this isn’t the first time I’ve done that. Also, I really hate cucumber…

So instead, I worked with what I had on hand, and it surprisingly turned out amazingly well.

Here’s what I did:

I started out by boiling a bag of carrots and a little asparagus I had on hand in chicken broth. Meanwhile, I sautéed mushrooms in olive oil, garlic, and soy sauce. Protip: you can buy garlic paste in a tube, as well as other herbs, and it’s amazing. I also got tubed ginger (it’s fresh still), because I want to keep all my gingers an dither’s no way I could mince it finely enough to pull off.

Then, I shredded up rotisserie chicken, and added everything together, along with squeezy ginger, the juice of a lemon, pepper, and soy sauce.

It tasted SO good. The ginger gives it the perfect amount of spice, and despite the unplanned addition, the carrots really worked. And, I have TONS of leftovers!

For dessert, I mashed up half a banana with cocoa powder and served it with vanilla Halo Top and whipped cream.

It’s also possible I found my way back to the pumpkin cookie bag. So good…

That was my weekend! I’m excited for some actual cooking this week. Also on the menu is vegetarian chili, which I also will be winging.

What’s your favorite kind of soup?

Why is Running So Hard?

Date: September 17, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I’m so glad to be caught up on posts! Sort of.

So….I have a half marathon in 3 weeks. Yeah. Originally I was gunning for a big PR in this race, but I’ve decided I’m most definitely not going to do that. Thanks to foot issues, I’m probably not going to be in the best shape. Plus I’m tired of dying at races, so I’m going to go out very conservatively. My plan is to go out around a 10:00 pace, and my goal is to run a sub-10:00 last mile. 10:00 is on the slow side for me for races, but I want to keep a steady pace and have something left at the end, which is how I know I will have paced well. On that note, after about a week off of running, my foot is feeling much better and it’s time to get back at it. Since I was in Berkeley all weekend, and another recovery day couldn’t hurt, I did a long run on Monday. Technically 3 weeks out from my race I should have done a 12 mile run, but I opted for a 10 miler instead.

I had what seems to be my current pre-long run food (I can’t believe I’m eating yogurt pre-long run…)-plain yogurt, a banana mashed with cocoa powder, and sunflower seed butter.

I was super casual about this run and didn’t head out until around 12 (definitely couldn’t have done this in DC) so it was pretty warm, but a BEAUTIFUL day. The trail I ran on offers views of what I consider one of the most beautiful parts of Northern CA.

(Old pic-it was the perfect day so it was even more beautiful!)

I ran 2 more miles into this trail than I have before, and the scenery changed completely. I reached the edge of the reservoir and then was running through a wooded forest. At the 5 mile turnaround, I was shocked when the trail opened up to a beautiful lake/other reservoir! It was amazing! I also took my gu here-I finally tried the mint chocolate I’ve had FOREVER and it was SO delicious! It was a very warm day so it was nice and melty, like peppermint hot fudge! (Note: I still don’t recommend using goo as hot fudge on a sundae-it’s not THAT good.) The only problem was it made me cough like crazy-I guess I won’t be switching over anytime soon!

This run for me was more to get the miles in than anything else, so the pace was what it was. This was hard! Why is running so hard? It’s amazing how fast you get out of shape. Between tapering and a week off after my race, my legs did not have anywhere near the volume of mileage that I would normally have at this point in training.

But I finished and then gobbled down some leftovers-a turkey burger and sweet potato.

And then made pumpkin custard.

Dinner that night was Grilled Peach and Chicken salad. One of the peaches we used was absolutely amazing.

Plus some pita chips on the side.

For dessert, I tried Pumpkin Spice english muffins! They are SOOO good! I had mine toasted with butter and cinnamon sugar. I think they’d also be fantastic with cinnamon Laughing Cow or cream cheese. Yum!

Do you find you get out of running shape quickly?