Blogmas Day 13: The Best Bread Pudding Ever

Date: December 13, 2016

Author: astottler

Christmas is in less than 2 weeks. How the heck did that happen??

I have to say, I haven’t felt nearly as festive as of late (well, maybe just after spending all day in the library with Microbiology), but I’m still trying to pack in the holiday activities. And pack in the microbiology. It’s all balance, right?

Saturday I dragged my parents to the mall to do some Christmas shopping/hit all the free chocolate samples.

See’s Scotchamallow, William and Sonoma peppermint park (the best peppermint bark out there), cider, and hot chocolate, and Harry and David dark chocolate truffle.

Still working on the festive lipstick though…it’s…different.

After the mall my family and I went out to see a sort of Christmas movie (Office Christmas Party), and grabbed paninis and salad afterwards.

Sunday morning began with a run by the bay. And a walk for the crazy pup. Turns out, she doesn’t love it when I run away from her while she is walking. I didn’t have lofty pace goals when I set out, but 8:35 felt very comfortable. I picked it up for the last mile. Getting faster, and I’ll take it!

We went to Ike’s, a Northern California famous sandwich spot, afterwards to pick up sandwiches. I split a turkey and avocado on GF bread with my mom. Turns out they use Mariposa bread (the place in the Ferry building) which is insanely good. I think I need to go more often!

But on to the recipe. I actually didn’t want to post back to back Blogmas recipes, but it needs to be this way to work out with other Blogmas scheduling and logistics.

This recipe is an old family recipe. I don’t have a ton of family recipes, but this one more than makes up for that. My Grandpa used to own a restaurant, and he served this family bread pudding there.

My dad and I are both bread pudding snobs now, and turn our noses up at the dry stuff you see at most places. This is REAL bread pudding. Hot, custardy, and drenched in rum sauce. I suppose it would be pretty healthy if you made it with whole wheat bread and skipped the rum sauce, but what’s the point? DO NOT skip the rum sauce.

The Best Bread Pudding Ever

Serves 6

Bread Pudding Ingredients

2c 1/2″ day old bread cubes (8 slices with crust)

2c milk

3T butter

1/4c sugar

1/2t cinnamon

2 eggs, lightly beaten

dash of salt

1/2t vanilla

Rum Sauce Ingredients

1c light brown sugar

1T cornstarch

1/4t salt

1c boiling water

2T cold butter

1t vanilla

4T rum

Bread Pudding Instructions

1.Preheat oven to 350.

2. Place cubed bread in greased baking dish.

3. Scald milk, butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

4. Beat eggs, add a dash of salt, in a medium bowl.

5. Stir in warm milk and vanilla slowly into the eggs so that the eggs won’t curdle.

6. When blended, pour over cubed bread.

7. Place baking dish in pan containing warm water.

8. Bake at 350, about 1 hours, or until knife comes out almost clean.

Rum Sauce Instructions

Comine brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt into a saucepan and stir well.
Add 1 cup of boiling water to the mixture, stir well, and bring to a boil.
Stir constantly for 5 minutes, or until mixture starts to thicken.
Add cold butter, vanilla, and rum. If you don’t want to burn off any of the rum—you’re done! However, I highly suggest cooking the mixture another few minutes, until some of the alcohol burns off.

Top a serving of bread pudding with rum sauce, whipped cream, and a sprinkle of cinnamon!

Blogmas Day 12: Avocado Smash

Date: December 12, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Over the summer a year ago, I visited one of my best friends in New York. She took me to Bluestone Lane, home of one of the best avocado smashes in the city. And thus, a love was born.

What is an avocado smash? Basically hopped-up avocado toast. It has way more avocado than just a simple toast, and the avocado is “smashed” such that it maintains a good deal of chunkiness. I recruited the same friend to come help me out with this one.

We got super lucky in that the avocados we found happened to be the most beautiful avocados. Ever.

Avocado Smash

*Serves 4*

Ingredients:

2 avocados

4 pieces of toast

4 poached eggs

feta cheese

tahini

olive oil

cherry tomatoes

cumin

salt

pepper

*please look elsewhere for egg poaching instructions—this is not my forte!

Start by lightly mashing the avocados together with a dash of cumin, and salt and pepper to taste.

Put about 1/2 of an avocado on each piece of toast.

Lightly drizzle tahini on top.

Place a coupled of halved cherry tomatoes on top. Then, drizzle with olive oil, and a little more salt and pepper.

Carefully, place the poached egg on top (it likes to slide off!). Add another sprinkle of salt and pepper, and crumble some feta on top.

Enjoy!

Have you ever had an avocado smash?

Blogmas Day 11: Halfway Through the Holidays Sanity Check

Date: December 11, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s December 11.

Take a deep breath.

We’re 2 weeks from Christmas. About halfway through the holiday season. Let’s check in.

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This is a mental as well as a physical check in. Before Thanksgiving, I shared some ideas for feeling good through the holidays.

I want you to take a moment to check in with yourself. How do you feel? How are you doing? Be honest.

Is there anything you can change to be happier over the course of the next 2 weeks? Can you change your mindset if you’re not happy? It’s really easy to get caught up with stress and drama this time of year, but it’s also important to remember how magical this time of year can be as well. If you’re struggling, try to think about a few things you love this time of year. Even the grinch-iest of us must love something!

In the past, I’ve felt a lot of physical stress this time of year. Sometimes all the holiday food made me crazy, and left me feeling less than fabulous. First things first, it’s only a few weeks out of the year. In the scheme of things, that really doesn’t affect that much. Be kind to yourself.

If you can make a small adjustment to feel better, do it, but I really don’t recommend missing out on the best the season has to offer.

I <3 red champagne, and my dad’s photobombing.

The week after Thanksgiving, I felt myself start to feel that stress again a little bit. I didn’t feel great, and I felt like I was wasting about time, causing further stress. In the past, I would often get antsy like this over winter break, but this year, I’m not going back to school, and back to my routine after December. I’m living at home for the long haul, so I knew I couldn’t just wait it out (especially because I hate feeling like I’m just waiting for the holidays to be over and not enjoying them). I knew I had to make a change then and there, or December turns into January turns into spring, and I’d still be unhappy.

I made a routine for myself. i started on some organizational projects around my room and the house that needed to be done. I definitely feel better when surrounded by a clean space. (More on those topics in a future Blogmas post.) I scheduled a set period of time to work on my online class. I started going to the library and packing a lunch. I’ve felt much better physically and mentally with that change, because I’ve gotten so much done in the past week while doing that, and what I have to take on feels a lot more manageable. I also made some social commitments. It’s easy to put yourself in a bubble, but at least for me, getting out and feeling social helps a lot.

In terms of consumption, I had been drinking a glass of something every night, plus desserts. That’s not something I normally do, and it’s not something that makes me feel good. I personally would rather save alcohol consumption for weekends or special occasions (sometimes you have reason to celebrate and a champagne toast is necessary) because I tend to feel puffy and sluggish the next day. That’s one adjustment I was able to make, and felt better as a result.

Now that I have a better routine, I’m not wishing away the days. During this potentially stressful period, I think it helps a lot to get organized (lists are fantastic) and to maintain some type of routine. Most humans don’t love change.

Above all though, try to cut yourself some slack and enjoy this time of year. I promise there’s still magic if you’re looking for it.

Behind the Scenes of Blogmas | Galavanting in SF

Date: December 10, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Even though it’s Blogmas, real life is still going on! I wanted to share some things from non-Blogmas life. So let’s do it!

Am I Kali yet?

One of my best friends ever from college came to visit! She lives about 2 hours away, and I recruited her here to help with Blogmas. So look for that post next week 🙂

The first thing on the agenda was to take a trip back to our college campus to have dinner with our 3rd roommate from last fall. It was nice to catch up, and I don’t think I’ve had guac in like 6 months.

On the way home, we stopped at Zest, a GF bakery near me. I needed a cupcake for my Blogiversary, after all. She has a gluten intolerance, so had no problem with that stop. We shared an amazing warm cinnamon roll and lemon poppyseed loaf.

We weren’t sure what to do for the rest of the rainy afternoon, and found ourselves in the mall. A Sephora recently opened there. They apparently have some type of technology where the computer scans your skin tone and finds the perfect shade of foundation of lipstick for you, and then you can “try it on” on a computer screen. A few of my friends have had fantastic lipstick success, so I wanted to try it out to find a shade of red lipstick. Even though I’ve never worn lipstick before. Go big or go home, right?

After the mall, we made dinner, which will appear on Blogmas in a few days! I’m kind of crazy pumped about it.

That evening, we trekked 20 minutes south to see some other college friends, and so I could introduce them to Yumi Yogurt, a classic froyo place in this area. I got butterscotch! We ended up heading back to their house and chatting until late into the night. So good to be reunited!

My college friend/roomie is fantastic, and if you’ve been reading for a while, you may remember she has an orchard with incredible persimmons. I had my first persimmon in many months, and I’m so excited. Apparently Chloe is too.

We decided to spend the day (post-rush hour traffic) in San Francisco. It was so good to be back there. We went to the Ferry Building, which is one of my favorite areas (I love the Embarcadero). It was typical San Francisco weather.

The Ferry Building has an amazing farmer’s market on select days, and I had never been before on one of those days. Sadly, the farmer’s market was pretty small this time of year.

A (decaf) Blue Bottle cappuccino was necessary. I love quality coffee.

This area is so incredibly gorgeous at night too, with the Bay Bridge lit up.

We wandered in and out of the shops before grabbing lunch at Mariposa, the gluten free bakery. I had an incredible turkey, cheddar, and cranberry sandwich.

The entire time I was eating this, I kept saying, “I missed CA food so much.”

Next up was one last coffeeshop that we had been meaning to try. I had a (decaf) cafe au lait for the first time, and it was nice and milky!

We beat rush hour traffic on the way home, and watched Friends for a while, before cooking dinner. Another Blogmas feature! (Although granted, less exciting than the previous night.)

Dessert was another form of persimmon: persimmon sauce (like applesauce in the slow cooker) with vanilla frozen yogurt and an oatmeal cookie crumbled on top.

Friday morning before my friend woke up, I went to 6am Crossfit and it was a good and tough one, but I’m really happy with how I did. We did our 20 rep set of deadlifts, which I did at 150#. It actually felt better than last week’s 145# so I guess I’m getting stronger? The WOD was TOUGH. 20 minute AMRAP (yuck) of 5 power cleans at 95#, 10 toes to bar, and 15 wall balls. I was determined to do toes to bar because they definitely need work. I considered scaling the cleans, but 95 really isn’t that heavy for me, so I decided I just needed to suck it up and do it, and it was definitely the right decision. I wasn’t the fastest in the class, but I’m still proud of Rxing this workout. I got a bit over 6 rounds in.

For breakfast, I had an amazingly right hachiya persimmon.

So ripe it was bursting!

I also tried a GF garlic bagel from Mariposa. Not bad!

I brought my lunch to the library again to work on classwork, and of course it involved persimmons. Salad with cranberry chèvre, persimmons, and champagne vinaigrette.

That evening was my dad’s company Christmas party! I have never missed one yet. I decided to break out the festive red lipstick.

Before and after:

Family selfie!

This is always a fun and festive event. It’s crazy how much all the kids have grown up! (Me included, I suppose.) And I’m always on board for good food and wine.

Salad:

Dinner was family style. I had some cedar plank salmon that was absurdly good, rice pilaf, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes, and spaghetti squash.

(The plates were absurdly large.)

Dessert: flourless chocolate cake with raspberry puree. YUM.

It was a fun night, and definitely a holiday tradition.

What’s going on in your life?

Blogmas Day 10: Fitness is Sweet Tries Trendy Foods

Date: December 10, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Ok, anyone with an Instagram these days knows there are certain *unconventional* foods that everyone seems to be eating and posting these days. But are these really any good? Can you trust that the pretty foods we see online really taste decent?

There are a number of “trendy” foods I’ve seen, some for years now, and yet have never tried. So I figured, what better reason that Blogmas to try all these different things?

For day Day 10 of Blogmas, Fitness is Sweet takes on 3 food trends: zoats, sweet potato toast, and cauliflower rice.

Zoats

If you’re not familiar with this terminology, “zoats” refers to “zucchini oats.” Basically, oatmeal with shredded zucchini cooked in, which supposedly adds volume but not flavor. A little disclaimer here: I actually hate eating oatmeal for breakfast for the most part. Partly because I feel like with such a high portion of carbs, I crash pretty quickly. So I was hoping the addition of zucchini would improve my ratios a little bit.

For my oats, I cooked oats and water a little bit before adding zucchini, milk, and egg whites. Once cooked, I topped it all off with brown sugar, cinnamon, maple syrup, and vanilla.

This ended up being a fairly low proportion of oats to zucchini/egg, and it was more liquid-y than expected (so I should probably have squeezed the water out of the zucchini better), plus, it was a massive bowl.

My evaluation?

Meh. You can’t really taste the zucchini at all, so if oatmeal is your thing, feel free to try it! However, I’m just not an oatmeal person anymore. And I should have added banana because I felt like I had to add a lot of sweetener to get this to taste like anything. Zucchini REALLY doesn’t taste like anything.

Sweet Potato Toast

This food trend is not quite as mainstream, but I’ve still seen it a fair amount on Instagram. The concept is that you put thin slices of sweet potato in the toaster, and then top them with normal toast toppings. I read a few different things about how to make them, but I ended up using my toaster oven. I sliced the sweet potato thinly, and then put it in the toaster oven at 400 for 15 minutes, then topped it with normal toast toppings. I figured I would try it a few different ways.

First things first, notice the shape of my toasts: weird. As it turns out, it can be incredibly difficult to slice sweet potato that thin, although I didn’t use the best type of knife. I had trouble slicing straight, so my toasts were actually extremely thin.

So how were they? Well, they weren’t cooked enough. The sweet potato was still a bit crunchy. I’m not sure if that’s the goal or not, but I want a little more doneness, so next time I would leave them in longer. In terms of taste, it definitely didn’t taste like toast. It tasted like sweet potato with delicious toppings. Which is not a bad thing. Would I do it again? Yes. But I would try harder on my toast shape, and I would cook them longer.

Cauliflower Rice

I’m actually surprised I haven’t tried this one before. I’ve had mashed cauliflower. I guess finding pre-riced cauliflower in stores is a pretty new thing. I made this with my college roommate last week when she visited. It had been on my list, and it turned out that not only did she like cauliflower rice, she had made it before. Experience! Yes!

I wanted to make mine in the form of fried rice. So we embarked on dinner. I, um, let her do the work with cooking the cauliflower. I put myself in charge of scrambling up a couple of eggs. Eggs. I can do that. We started by cooking the rice in avocado oil, and then added in some thawed frozen peas and carrots. We also sautéed up some onion and threw that in. We added plenty of garlic, some butter, soy sauce, and a dash of sesame oil. Once it was all cooked up, we stirred in the egg.

The texture resembled rice enough that my dad knew it was something other than actual rice but had no idea what it actually was. He really thought it was quinoa.

We served it with my garlic roasted broccoli.

The texture really resembled real rice. Sautéed cauliflower doesn’t have much of a flavor on it’s own, so it’s really up to the seasonings to transform it. That being said, it may need more spices/sauces than normal rice to flavor it. Overall, this was a win.

So….trendy foods, should you try them? I say give anything a shot once, and see for yourself!

What “trendy foods” have you tried?