I started my new quarter meal plan today and it’s working SUPER well for me. I was worried I’d be hungry, but that was not the case at all! I’ll save talk about that for tomorrow’s post. Meanwhile, I want to give some life updates-lots of new things for me this quarter!

Things you may not know about me-I’m sort of obsessed with Spanish. I loved it in high school, and I have an extensive Spanish music selection. You better believe those songs make it onto my workout playlists! My prom date my senior year even brought me a sombrero because prom was on Cinco de Mayo. Best. Date. Ever. 

Thing 2: I played violin for a decent chunk of my life-5th grade through my junior year of high school. 

So…I’m joining the mariachi band! I’m actually really excited for this-I was looking for something to get involved in this quarter, and this seems perfect! Everything is directed in Spanish though…and my Spanish is a tad bit rusty…But I’m sure I’ll figure it out! (Not to mention my violining is rusty…)

New on the fitness front-I have my audition playlist! I practiced it this morning and it was awesome! I also practiced verbally teaching the class-at least mentally. I left feeling completely pumped up and excited! I followed spin with my treadmill workout-this was hard! I don’t always eat before morning workouts depending on how hungry I am when I wake up, and since I didn’t eat anything, I think I kind of ran out of steam by the end of the run! Aaaand my awesome feeling feet hurt again. At least it’s just one foot. And they might as well hurt-I have a doctor’s appointment this week!

Also new on the fitness front-I’m teaching weight lifting to the school quidditch team, and the first session is tomorrow morning! I can’t wait! In terms of my own weight lifting-I’m trying the weight lifting class at my Crossfit tomorrow-I’m a little bummed I’m doing it tomorrow just because the Crossfit workout seems like a really good one, but I’m excited to try something new! A lot of the Crossfit workouts at this Crossfit (vs my home one) just don’t click with me, so we’ll see how this is!

Now for the recipe!

In preparation of coming back to school, I wanted to have some quick breads frozen. I really wanted to make pumpkin bread, so I set out to do that. Halfway through mixing it up, I realized we didn’t have any pumpkin! How is that possible?? I tried to find anything remotely the same consistency-squash, frozen mango? Literally the only option was frozen cherries! So I figured, why not? I always wanted to try making blueberry bread in a similar way-mashing the blueberries (next time!), so i went for it with the cherries, and the result was successful! 

Black Cherry Quickbread

Ingredients:

1.25 c flour

1 c whole wheat flour

.5 T baking powder

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

1 large egg

1 large egg white

.25 c canola oil

1 t vanilla

1 t cinnamon

1.5 c black cherry puree

.25 c brown sugar*

2 heaping spoonfuls brown rice syrup*

*The recipe calls for a cup of packed brown sugar as the only sweetener, but I reduced this quite a bit, and the bread I made wasn’t that sweet, so feel free to add more or less, or add chocolate chips!

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line 9 by 5 loaf pan with nonstick foil or cooking spray. 

2. Stir up flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in large bowl.

3. To make cherry puree-thaw cherries in microwave, drain the excess liquid, and then blend in a blender.

4.Whisk together remaining ingredients, including cherry puree.

5. Stir together wet and dry ingredients until just mixed, and pout into loaf pan.

6. Bake for 50 minutes of until toothpick comes out clean. 

Feel free to experiment with other fruits, such as blueberries or mango!

I have to say, quick breads are by far my favorite thing to bake, and they always seem to come out well no matter what crazy things I throw in there!

What is your favorite thing to bake? What’s something new you want to try this year?