Food Prep Fail

Date: January 5, 2015

Author: astottler

Here I am, sitting in my room at school blogging! Today, I wanted to talk a bit about the food prep I did before returning.

First, roasted carrots, as usual.

Then, prepared lunches. Half of these will go in the freezer for future use! Grilled chicken, brown butter-sage mashed sweet potatoes, and either cumin roasted cauliflower or balsamic roasted brussels sprouts.

I also make my recipe for banana cranberry bread.

I also made a cranberry orange quick bread from a cookbook that I boosted by using whole wheat flour.

The recipe called for buttermilk, which I had to make from milk+lemon juice. Somewhere in the process, I sort of messed up big time. As in, I added 3x the buttermilk as the recipe called for. 2 cups, not 2/3 of a cup. I realized this when I poured it into a pan and it was super liquid-y! Whoops.

By some miracle, it sort of turned out.

Notice how many cranberries there are? It’s because the batter was so liquid-y that all the fresh cranberries floated and all the dried cranberries sunk.

Shockingly though, it does resemble bread. Super, super moist bread, but I’ll take it!

Other noteworthy eats as of late?

A whole wheat quesadilla with cheddar, mozzarella, avocado, and tomato.

A half veggie/half brown rice teriyaki grilled salmon bowl.

THE BEST GUAC EVER at Reposado in downtown Palo Alto.

And a rotisserie chicken tostada salad with cilantro lime dressing.

That’s it for today! I’m teaching spin on Tuesday so I need to go and make a playlist! I hope your Monday is treating you well!

NYE Recap

Date: January 3, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Here I am, blogging from home for the last time this break!

I never did a NYE recap! Well, better late than never!

This year, 2 of my closest high school friends came over to spend the night.

Somehow we managed to accumulate 200+ pictures again.

I ended up keeping the food for the day and night fairly light. Lunch was black bean soup again.

And post Crossfit dinner before they came over was some eggs and fruit.

Our main delectables for the night included a veggie tray with hummus and with ranch dip-this was devoured. I love that I have friends I can eat veggies with! We used to have veggie parties back in high school.

I also picked up so healthy-ish looking kettle corn which was good! The main request for the night was ice cream sundaes. I got slow churned brownie fudge and cookies and cream. Slow churned is slightly healthier, right? I was actually shocked by how much lower in calories it was!

We then topped that with a fresh warm brownie, caramel sauce, chocolate fudge sauce, and whipped cream.

I honestly wondered what we would do all night, but as it turns out, if you put 3 old friends in a house together, it’s not hard to find something!

We had fun talking, breaking out old yearbooks, and playing with the kitties.

And of course, right at midnight, we turned on the TV to watch the ball drop.

And I got my New Year’s kiss.

Then, it was snack time again. This time-whole wheat quesadillas!

(Me on spatula duty.)

And here’s a #transformationtuesday for ya!

It was a great night, and I couldn’t ask for better people to spend it with!

Despite staying up until 4am talking, I dragged myself to noon Crossfit to start 2015 off strong! It was a bodyweight partner workout so nothing too crazy, but it felt great to get moving before settling in on the couch to watch football all day. PAC-12 represent! I honestly never thought I’d root for Oregon, but of course I’ll root for PAC-12 teams-so under appreciated as a conference.

To watch the Rose Bowl, we made baked Brie for the first time. (Remember back when I went to the Rose Bowl?)

I cut off the top and side rinds, topped it with cranberry-apple butter, and then threw it in the oven at 350 until it was completely melted and bubbly.

It turned out really well! I liked that the cranberry cut the sweetness a bit. I enjoyed it with some crackers.

During both the Rose of Sugar Bowls, I also enjoyed the company of a certain orange kitty.

A certain sleepy orange kitty.

Dinner later in the day was thrown together from the depths of our freezer. Trader Joe’s sweet potato gnocchi with sage butter sauce (really good and tender), Trader Joe’s mushroom medley, and a basic side salad.

The random dishes ended up complementing each other well!

I hope you all had a fantastic New Year’s Eve!

What did you do for NYE?

2014

Date: December 31, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I wasn’t planning on doing a year in review post because it was recently my blogiversary, but after seeing so many I thought I should. I think reviewing the year helps bring out the positives!

Although fair warning, I am typing this with one hand because cat.

In 2014 I:

Started teaching weight lifting to the Stanford quidditch team.

Went to Tahoe and had a beautiful frozen run.

Started “The Project” and learned how great I felt cutting out processed foods.

Won a 5k.

Participated in the Crossfit Open.

Went to Monterey with my family.

FINALLY went self hosted and gave my blog a facelift.

Found out decisively that I’m allergic to nuts and need to cut them out entirely.

Ran the hilliest half ever (Rock n Roll SF)

Reflected on how I’m calming down in my old age.

Celebrated my Birthday.

Ran Bay-to-Breakers for the first time!

I started #365daysofselfies

I moved to DC for an internship for the summer.

I saw my cousins for the first time in YEARS.

I ran the Giant Race half marathon.

I did my first Crossfit competition.

The Giants won the world series! And I went to the parade.

I had a Halloween party with dry ice.

I taught my first real spin class.

I celebrated Christmas with the family.

I figured out what I want to do with my life. This is a big one, and something I’ve been stressing about for a while. I promise you guys a post on this soon because it’s likely going to affect my blogging a bit!

Overall, 2014 was a pretty great year. For some reason I had a negative impression, but really, it was solid. 2013 was a mess-between killing myself with rowing and schoolwork, mono, and the hardest quarter of my life in the fall, I really can’t complain about 2014!

Have a fantastic New Year and stay safe!

Working the Calves

Date: December 30, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How’s that for a title?

I haven’t blogged about anything since Christmas, and here we are, almost at New Year’s Eve!

I’m going to be super lame and do a basic food+fitness post for the period after Christmas!

I guess I might as well link up to WIAW?

Since we had Christmas dinner (lunch) out, we didn’t have any Christmas leftovers. I mean, besides all the desserts!

The day after Christmas, my family went up to a big mall in SF and I had a Chinese Chicken salad from the food court. Nothing like a giant plate of veggies post-Christmas!

On Sunday post-workout, my family stopped at Whole Foods on the way home to get lunch at the hot bar! I got some rice with Chicken Masala, with a side of salad-y things and some little rice filled balls (that I couldn’t really tell you what they are).

Homemade key lime pie with FRESH key limes. My sister made this for my mom as her Christmas present, and it was amazing! She squeezed about 30 key limes herself to make this!

Black bean soup topped with cheese and avocado.

Banana “ice cream” AKA frozen bananas in the blender. It really is amazing how creamy bananas can get! Topped with chocolate sauce.

More black bean soup, but this time with cornbread.

Leftover blueberry cheesecake. YUM.

Citrus glazed carrots, garlic sautéed spinach, and BBQ chicken.

Chipotle chicken salad! Fun fact-I think this was only the 3rd time I’ve been there? But that is some quality guac.

And now to workouts.

Saturday, I went to Crossfit. The WOD was essentially Cindy with some jump ropes mixed in. (Cindy is various rounds of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats). Sunday, my calves were pretty sore!

Sunday morning, I went for a 6 mile run by the bay. It was SO beautiful out…but freezing!

It was a solid run-nothing crazy! Just working on finishing my audiobook.

Monday morning I went to the track to do a stadium stair workout. It’s one I used to do as part of agility training for softball. After warming up, I completed three sets of the following:

hop up on one foot (one stair at a time)

hop up on other foot

hop up with both feet (like squat jumps-skipping a stair with each jump)

2 sprints up the stairs

25 scissor abs

Things I learned: my left calf? Incredibly weak. Like, super super. It was shaking after one set. My left side is significantly weaker than the right. My leg plantar fascia is also my bad side. I think the lack of strength may be contributing to the pain. The next day, my calves were really sore, but my foot felt perfect. I ran 4 miles of hills and my foot felt really good. So I guess that means I need to do some more jumping work!

Speaking of my run, I used my new Garmin for the first time!

My old one is….old. This has so many features! Like showing my mile splits. Plus it’s so lightweight!

The other noteworthy exercise?

I went for a walk/yoga with one of my friends by the bay. It was WINDY.

The cool thing is you can see this hill from the track I was at that morning!

I enjoyed my first yoga session in about 5 months and it was in about 30 mph wind!

And when the sun set…my lips turned blue. Cute.

What are you eating post-holidays?

Christmas Eve+Christmas

Date: December 28, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone has had a great holiday season so far! It’s been a looong time since I’ve gotten a post up, but I’ve been busy enjoying the holidays with family!

I’m currently blogging with my kitty snuggled in at my side. My mother likes to keep the house FREEZING so we’re both cold! So, let’s get to the holiday recap, shall we?

Christmas Eve morning started with a workout. I got up at 5am to go to a spin class….only to find that the gym didn’t open until 7 (the class was supposed to be at 5:45am)…despite the fact that the class appeared on the schedule! I ended up going to Starbucks for coffee and hanging out there for an hour or so.

I ended up getting a killer workout in-treadmill intervals, single leg RDLs, and abs! I left feeling great and ready for the holiday to get started! Blasting Spanish Christmas music during the workout helped too 🙂

My family got all dressed up and headed to Benihana, a Japanese steakhouse. I wore my seasonably appropriate Christmas sweater.

We started with a ginger salad and mushroom onion soup.

But we all know the best part is the fried rice!

I don’t know why I’ve never tried to make fried rice myself-it doesn’t seem that hard!

For my main course, I kept it on the lighter side by ordering steamed veggies (which came with a small tofu appetizer). I failed to take pictures, but it included all kinds of goodies like mushrooms and butternut squash.

We had several other ideas for things to do with the rest of the day, but we ended up just lounging around. Later in the evening, we watched my favorite Christmas movie-The Year Without a Santa Claus!

And then it was time to hang the stockings and put out the cookies and carrots (for reindeer!).

Not a bad looking tree this year! Fun fact-all our ornaments are unbreakable because my kitties like to chase each other around the tree.

Christmas morning we awoke and opened stockings and pet presents.

Billy enjoyed his new reindeer! It came in a little chimney with another reindeer and Santa!

Then, it was time to dig into breakfast! We got a TON of food gifts this year, and especially breakfast foods!

My dad make scrambled eggs (not pictured) and I dug into blueberry coffeecake and a blueberry English muffin (other half didn’t make the picture).

Then, my parents and I opened presents. Which, of course our kitties loved.

After getting prettied up, we were off for Christmas lunch with my grandparents.

My grandparents live in Berkeley, so we met up at a restaurant in the marina with views of the Golden Gate bridge from afar!

The room we were seated at had an insane view!

Lunch was a full buffet with all kinds of delicious food!

Course 1:

Crab salad, Greek salad, pasta salad, and cheese with bread.

Course 2:

Traditional Christmas fare! Half a biscuit, a small piece of cornbread, turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce, and candied yams.

Dessert:

Creme brûlée, bread pudding, and chocolate dipped pineapple and rice crispie treat. There was a chocolate fountain! I HAD to try that!

After lunch, we climbed the hill to my grandmother’s house to open presents and have dessert.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time for dessert because we had to come home and take care of my dog, but she sent us home with some beautiful cakes!

Chocolate mocha cake.

Amazing blueberry cheesecake.

Once I rallied a bit from my food coma, I dove in!

So delicious! It was a great day, spent with great people, although I had a bout a 3 day food coma! So thankful for this family!