WIAW-Last Wednesday at Home

Date: September 17, 2013

Author: astottler

Aaaand here we are already at Wednesday! I swear this week is flying by. This could have something to do with the fact that it’s the last week before school starts. And I’ve managed to save any and all errands until now. Other problem-I ordered a bunch of things online recently that probably won’t get here until school starts. Whoops.

BUT before life get’s crazy again, let’s celebrate the party that Jenn hosts every week!

Monday for lunch I made a “throw everything in a bowl” kind of salad. The flavors worked pretty well, but not sure I would do it again.

It’s basically a Greek salad-except I used Thai Coconut Curry hummus, which was just a little too strange for this mix. I had the idea that it would make really awesome fried rice though!

While at the grocery store the other day, I passed by the pastry counter (because who doesn’t?) and saw this guy. My mom and I decided I should have one last celebration before I go back, so this was it! Since I’m starting a Mini Whole30 (just 7 days) on Friday, this was the right time. Carrot cake it was!

Ok, I know I keep going on about how everything I own is the same color so I’m ALWAYS matching, but I just had to document the evidence YET AGAIN.

I wore this to Spin the other night. Some exciting news-I talked to my Spin teacher after class the other night about becoming a Spin teacher. She directed me to the certification she used, as well as recommended some gyms to interview at. I’m excited about this-now that I’ve talked to her, I’m really gonna do it and get certified. My goal is to be certified (and hopefully teaching!) by the end of the year, although I’m going to wait until after my half marathon in October.

Guess what Monday was?

NATIONAL GUACAMOLE DAY! You better believe I was all over that.

The best part? I planned this meal before even realizing that it was that particular National holiday. #guacaddict

I celebrated in the form of a taco salad. I love this particular salad-the dressing is simply a mix of salt, pepper, olive oil, lime, and tomatoes. The meat on top (turkey) gives it plenty of flavor. I also subbed in chopped celery for the beans the recipe called for.

Tuesday morning I was up bright and early for a treadmill run. Which I really should never do; treadmill+early+tired=lazy run. I only made it 3 of the 4 miles slowly before giving up. I think I’ll add in some hill sprints tomorrow (which I’ve been meaning to do) to make up for it.

After my run, I was pretty tired during yoga, so I grabbed a cappuccino from Peet’s, who makes one of my favorite cappuccinos.

Check out the milk foam on that baby! The sad part? I haven’t had coffee much at all this summer, plus I’m sensitive as it is, so I couldn’t drink much of this before feeling like it would be too much. I hate wasting good coffee!

I then headed to Whole Foods to stock up for the school year, as well as prepare for my baby Whole30. I decided soup will be a staple for me this fall-although I could only find 2 soups (yes, in all of the store) that were totally Whole30 friendly.

After drooling over the scones in the pastry case, I compromised and got some of their delicious vanilla granola over fruit, along with chinese chicken salad and a vegan taquito for lunch.

After lunch I went to buy a water belt for running. Has anyone else thought that running belts are basically glorified fanny packs? Haha. I’m not thrilled with the one I got, since it holds just a large water bottle-I’m worried it will be too heavy. The ones with smaller bottles kind of interfered with my arms though…

I also saw this mug at Marshall’s and had to have it!

I also stopped at a craft store for some fall decorations for my dorm…and was met with an onslaught of Christmas. Really?? It’s September! But I’m not going to complain about all the fall stuff being 50% off!

Speaking of fall, try this recipe for microwave friendly Baby Pumpkin Pie! I just posted it yesterday!

And here’s an afternoon snack.

Ok, I’m going to get some outrage for what I’m about to say, but I’m officially done with Quest bars. For a while, I couldn’t decide if I really liked them or really disliked them-probably because the flavors are good but I just don’t like the taste of stevia. But they have kind of a lot of nuts, so my face breaks out. And they mess up my stomach. I had a piece of one today and my stomach immediately cramped up. It might be because of the sugar alternatives (like sugar alcohols)? Obviously everyone is different,t and most people love them, which is great but they just don’t work for me!

Aaand back to what I actually ate. A REAL Greek salad (as in, no weird hummus, just red pepper).

And a dessert of figs and a granola bar. I love that these bars now come in non-peanut butter, because then I don’t have to worry about my skin. Did I ever mention what happened in Hawaii when I ate a ton of Macadamia nuts? Yikes-I got weird lumps all over the back of my legs.

That’s all I have on the food front for you guys today, but I have to share with you what I worded on today. I have the Nike Women’s half coming up in October, so I wanted a special shirt to wear for the occasion. I made a Fitness is Sweet tank earlier this summer, but it’s just going to be too cold for that.

Since avocados are kind of the theme of my blog, I wanted to do something similar, but maybe a little more running related. I tried to find pictures of avocados running on the Internet, but luck. Who wouldn’t want to look at pictures of avocados running? I mean, come on! I found some pictures of other vegetables/objects running, so I decided to try my own hand at it. I started by tracing the legs and face.

I then drew an avocado to fit the arms and face. I decided the eyebrows looked to much like antennae, therefore making my avocado look like a colorful green beetle, so I scrapped those.

I then spent time designing the perfect shirt, only to find out at checkout that I could only have 2 colors on the shirt. I looked at a few other sites, but I had already fallen in love with the font. SO. After a ton of fooling around, here’s the end product, which I just ordered! It says “fitnessissweet.com” on the back.

I’m so excited!

What is your favorite fall produce? Have you ever made a shirt?

Fig and Goat Cheese Salad

Date: September 13, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Friday! I have about a week left before I have to move back in. While I had a great summer, at the same time, I’m ready. I can’t wait to see my friends again. If it weren’t for the blog world, I would have gone crazy this summer. My school friends all went home and my home friends all stayed at school for the summer session. Awesome.

Yesterday was my second to last day at the kitten nursery. I worked with 2 litters, and they were all black. I LOVE black cats. The litter of 4 was so sweet-all they wanted to do was climb on me and cuddle. At one point, all four of them had climbed onto me. I had to syringe feed them, which was difficult when at least two kittens were hanging off me at a time. One little girl loved climbing up my arm, onto my head.

And now-a recipe! I’ve made this once before, but never bothered posting the recipe for some reason. If you look on my recipe page, you’ll notice a lot of the recipes are some type of salad with chicken. What can I say-I love them!

This recipe is sort of a variation of my Grilled Peach and Chicken salad. That salad is a little more summery; this one is more fitting for fall. Especially since I recently learned that fig season in California lasts until December. Yay!

Fig and Goat Cheese Salad

Serves 3

Ingredients:

6 fresh figs

1 bag of lettuce

3 heaping T goat cheese

3 small chicken breasts (grilled)

Dressing (from Cooking Light):

3 T balsamic vinegar

2 T olive oil

1 T minced shallots

1 T chopped fresh parsley

1 t Dijon mustard

1/8 t salt

1/4 t black pepper

1 garlic clove

Instructions:

Mix up dressing.

Toss together lettuce, figs, chicken, and dressing.

Top with goat cheese.

Enjoy!

For this recipe, you could use rotisserie chicken, but the slightly smoky flavor of grilled chicken compliments the tart balsamic and sweet figs better.

Goat cheese is my newest salad obsession. Slightly tart, but very creamy, it’s the perfect complement to the sweet figs in this salad. Share the love-try this out!

What do you like in a salad?

WIAW-A Taste for Coffee

Date: August 27, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Phew. I am pooped right now! I have to wake up in 6 hours, but I really couldn’t miss out on the What I Ate Wednesday party-hosted by Jenn! This seriously does make Wednesday so much more fun!

First, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading your comments on yesterday’s post. It was really interesting to hear all your perspectives!

Today was a really relaxing day. Kind of. I’m trying to cure my social media addiction before school starts, as well as soak in the last bits of summer. Therefore, I’m trying to spend more time outside and ditch the technology a little more. Yesterday I felt like I was in a computer-induced fog all day. When I spend too much time with my technology, time passes in a blur and I don’t really experience anything!

Anyways, I started my morning by waking up before my alarm (yay!) and heading to the gym for my first ever tempo run! I was a little nervous. Which was actually really silly-the run was only 3 miles, the splits being 10, 8:30, 10. And I know I can run 3 8:00 miles…so not sure why I was worried. I then spent the rest of the time before yoga doing some of my all time favorite lifts-back lunges off a step and single leg RDLs.

I walked out of yoga feeling fantastic and totally at peace. It wasn’t quite lunch time, so I stopped into Peet’s for a cappuccino. Yes, I actually chose to drink coffee without desperately needing it! This is probably my favorite cappuccino-the milk foam was so smooth! It’s all about the milk foam with me 🙂

I wish they sold extra small coffees though. I can never finish it-I was a low caffeine tolerance, and a high caffeine awareness. I was sad I couldn’t finish this, but realized my heart would be racing if I had tried. Sad. You better believe I cherry picked all the milk foam though!

To say I developed a taste for coffee is an exaggeration. I’ve developed a taste for cappuccinos….Which could become an expensive habit….

After sipping my drink and reading in the sunshine, I stopped by Whole Foods for some protein bars for my trip (I have quite a few training runs while on vacation, and vacation food before a training run=bad idea) as well as lunch from the hot bar. I had some lackluster Chinese vegetables, a chicken potsticker, avocado and kale salad, and sweet potato polenta. I wish I had skipped the Chinese food though-the kale salad stole the show. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t like the citrusy salad, but it was perfectly light and summery.

I couldn’t find ThinkThin Divine bars (which are chocolate and coconut), so I had the taste for chocolate and coconut. I happened upon these bars-they’re also gluten free!

They fit into my sugar standards for a granola bar (only 8 grams!) as well, so I was sold. These far exceeded my expectations-they tasted just like fresh coconut! The perfect sweet finish to my meal.

Confession: I wanted to sit outside of Whole Foods to eat, but I opted to sit inside because my pictures would look bad outside. #bloggerproblems

I then sat outside on a bench to read some more. This was my view. Isn’t this a cute little neighborhood?

Later in the day, I changed into shorts for a walk with my audiobook.

So here’s a question-did I purposefully match my outfit perfectly or are those the only colors I own?? I’ll let you guess the answer to that one.

I’ve been really enjoying these walks lately-I like my book!

Afterwards, it was time for a snack before a possible softball doubleheader.

I had a delicious farmer’s market nectarine, carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow, and one of these guys.

I’ve fallen in love with the peanut butter flavor in the past, but the cranberry orange was just as good. If you see these guys- BUY THEM.

My softball game went well-it’s the playoffs, so we play until we lose. We won both games tonight, and were pretty hungry afterwards. My sister, her boyfriend, and my mom and I all went out for Bermese food in downtown Palo Alto.

You know you’re underdressed when the waiters pull out your chairs for you and place a cloth napkin on your lap…whoops.

The food was delicious though!

We were right next to a gelato place…Let’s just say it’s taking a little time to wrap my head around eliminating sugar for good. In good time my friends.

But for now-caramel chocolate and creme brulee FTW.

And since this is supposed to be What I ATE Wednesday, not what I DID, here are some more fun things from the past few days.

Ask and you shall receive-the recipe for banana chocolate chip custard is here.

I’ve been loving my snack plates lately-this one is an Asian pear from the farmer’s market, a fig, and carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow. This is my first time trying the flavor, and I must say-I’m a fan!

Dinner last night was a good one as well-Asian Lettuce Cups from the Cooking Light app, served with steamed snap peas and garlic and herb brown rice and quinoa.

And lastly-one of my favorite meals from the week. We bought green onion pancakes from the farmer’s market (seeing the theme here?), and served them with a fig and goat cheese salad (with leftover chicken).

As you may have noticed, I’ve been kind of obsessed with figs this summer.

And I’ll leave you with that. Have a great day!

Do you like Farmer’s Markets? Favorite find? Do you ever unplug for a day? Are you addicted to social media?