College House Eating

Date: September 26, 2015

Author: astottler

Hello! I’m happy to report that I’m feeling much better than last time I checked in-fingers crossed I don’t have more flares. I just finished my first week of senior year, and am figuring out my new schedule for the quarter.

I’ve been continuing half marathon training, teaching lots of spin (back to back classes on Wednesday night-oof), and soaking up time spent with good friends!

This year, I’m living in a house with about 40 girls-it’s not a sorority house but I suppose it’s a similar idea? We have a chef who cooks lunch and dinner for us 5 days a week, and an open kitchen to fend for ourselves for breakfast and weekends. I wanted to share some of the things I’ve been eating this week!

My first Sunday night scavenging dinner-the fridge is cleaned out Sunday morning so Sunday night can be difficult!

Lunch-salad with chicken, fruit salad, and AMAZING avocado salad. Do you see how much avocado there is there??

Tupperware lunch-I packed up a few salads before leaving home last weekend, so I had a few of my typical peach/date/goat cheese/chicken salads throughout the week!

Because I taught back to back spin classes (unexpectedly) I missed dinner so had to scrounge around again. Deli turkey may become a big part of my life, for better or for worse…

Salad with a homemade veggie slider, homemade potato chips, and amazing fruit salad with banana, mango, peach, papaya, and more.

Mexican dinner-super good. I made a salad with Mexican spiced chicken, black beans, and guacamole, plus rice and a rice crispy treat!

Breakfast post 3 mile run of Siggi’s vanilla, banana, and sun butter.

This past week has been a little interesting on the eating front. Because I was so sick earlier, I haven’t been getting sufficient calories, especially to fuel my activities. I’ve been trying to add extra calories here and there (dried mango anyone?) and after hitting 2000 calories on Thursday I seriously felt like a new woman. Today, I’m trying to eat as much as my stomach allows to fuel up for tomorrow’s 12 mile run-we’ll see how that goes!

What is your favorite way to eat avocado?

WIAW-Hawaiian Vacation!

Date: September 16, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! Since WIAW last week was so much fun, how about we do it again?

Since I just got back from my Hawaiian vacation (recaps here and here), why not take a peek at Monday’s vacation food for WIAW?

I will say that Monday’s meals were a bit different from the rest of the week. I think at this point we were all sort of burned out on rich food and meat, so towards the end of the vacation we stuck to lighter meals.

Breakfast:

Thanks to all my food restrictions, I ended up scrapping together a meal that included a Starbucks mango orange smoothie, fruit, and crackers with goat cheese from the goat dairy we visited. We had a harder goat cheese, mango chèvre, and herbed chèvre.

Plus some guava and papaya:

Lunch: Joy’s Place, a little healthy cafe we passed a few times earlier on the trip and I wanted to check out! They had gluten free bread and rice wraps, so I had a turkey and avocado wrap on rice paper, which was fun! Plus coleslaw on the side.

I was excited to finally get some Hawaiian avocado. We had gotten one earlier in the week, but the hotel fridge froze it! Hawaiian avocado is big and a bit denser/more solid than California avocado.

(Throwback to my last trip to Hawaii 2 years ago!)

Dessert: Although we had already driven to Lahaina to visit the gluten free bakery (Maui Sugar Shop) on Friday, we decided it was necessary to make another stop. I had to go with the chocolate cupcake with lilikoi (passion fruit) icing again, but we also shared bites of a cream puff, lemon bar, and pineapple upside down cake.

Dinner:

That afternoon, my stomach flared up so I went for a simple, light dinner that my body could tolerate. We went to Whole Foods and picked up some food to eat there. I had some gluten free crackers.

Plus some vegetable soup with quinoa, topped with nutritional yeast.

And a couple of bites from the hot bar-mashed potatoes and a carrots.

Back at the hotel, I was feeling better and had a splash of wine with my lilikoi goat cheese truffle.

As well as a piece of chocolate covered pineapple. The chocolate covered pineapple was excellent-I haven’t gotten it here before, and it’s the same type of chocolate as the chocolate covered macadamia nuts that I am now allergic to, which was exciting!

I was hoping to have a bit more of an interesting and fun day of food to share, but I really wasn’t feeling well, but that’s life and sometimes that happens!

I still have one more vacation post to come!

What is your favorite vacation food?

Coming Home

Date: August 16, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I am currently sitting in an apartment in New York City! It’s my first time here, and I’m visiting my college BFF.

I just got in tonight and my friend has doe work to do, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to catch up! I came to New York from a daily trip in DC. We had a family reunion trip for my grandma’s 80th birthday, and of course I suggested DC. I got to play the guide for the weekend and shepherd the group through the metro. Also-I had $20 on my metro card from last summer and I actually remembered to bring it! Score!

Last summer, I fell in love with DC. When my plane landed at DCA, I felt like I was coming home. I can’t explain the feeling, but I feel like I left my heart here and this is where I belong. I’ve never felt such a strong pull to a place. Last summer was the best summer of my life, and I knew I’d be back.

The first thing I did on Friday morning was take a short jog. We stayed in Pentagon City, so I only saw the Washington Monument from a distance.

The first stop of the trip was the zoo-my grandmother and grandfather went on their first date there, so our family sort of originated from that!

How’s this for a little transformation Tuesday? Last summer there were baby pandas, and I believe this is the same panda, now 1 year old.

After the zoo, we stopped at a restaurant on the way to the metro where I got a delicious beet salad with goat cheese, avocado, and chicken. I’m trying very hard to make myself enjoy beets, and I think this salad helped bridge the gap!

Next up was the American history museum, which was one I didn’t spend much time at last summer.

And finally, we went on a moonlight tour of the monuments.

(Free champagne in the lobby with my cousin!)

The monuments at night are beautiful, and I loved getting the history and background of various spots.

The rest of the night was spent catching up with family, including my long lost sister who I don’t see enough!

Saturday morning was another early day-we started with the botanical gardens before it got too hot.

Followed by the Air and Space museum. That might be my favorite Smithsonian. I didn’t really explore Space last summer because I got too burned out on Air (I had my long training run that morning+the Natural history museum on that day), so it was cool to see that stuff! I really like all the space stuff. In middle school I actually thought I might want to do aerospace stuff as my career (that didn’t last though-I am no engineer).

In the afternoon, we went to high tea at the Ritz.

Apparently high tea is a big thing in DC!

They treated us very well, and brought all kinds of extra food. I’m avoiding wheat right now (which is insanely complicated and probably deserves its own rant) so I ate the innards of the sandwiches, plus a few bites of the current scone (which was fantastic). The sandwiches were egg salad, lobster, and cucumber with herbed cream cheese. A lot of the desserts had nuts, so they brought out a special plate for me that was nut free, including lemon creme brûlée!

We had a nice dinner planned late that evening, but the rest of the afternoon was dedicated to an important task. There were 2 things I wanted to do on this trip. Run the monuments, and get cupcakes. I consider myself a DC cupcake expert. For our poison of choice, I chose Baked and Wired. I’m not about that line at Georgetown Cupcakes, and Baked and Wired is spunky and unique. We took the Metro to Foggy Bottom (my favorite area of DC) and then walked to Georgetown so I got to show my family my old stomping grounds!

One of the necessary qualifications of a cupcake shop in my book is having dietary restriction friendly fare, and Baked and Wired has several gluten free options (as well as vegan options). I went with a gluten free chocolate strawberry, which was chocolate cake with strawberries in the batter, topped with vanilla buttercream.

For dinner, we got all fancied up and went to a French American place near L’Enfant, Central.

If you go there, ORDER THE CHEESEPUFFS. Amazing. I only had a few bites, but amazing. I shared a delicious goat cheese caesar salad with my dad for dinner and had the rotisserie chicken, which was perfectly cooked. I also pretended to be classy and had a glass of Rosé.

Sunday morning began with my other goal for the trip, a monument run. I had originally planned to run from Arlington metro stop across the bridge to the monuments, but the blue line metro was about a 20 minute wait, so we instead got off at L’Enfant and made our way to the National Mall, past the Washington Monument and Lincoln, and over the bridge to Arlington Cemetery and back. It was a fun run-I managed to drag 4 other family members with me, which is a definite first! It was getting bit warm though at 10am!

Our last stop of the trip was the Native American History Museum. The cafeteria there was Native American food, and it was delicious!

Blue corn creed, cedar plant salmon with beet puree, and root salad with heirloom carrots.

Quinoa plantain cake with a dulce de leche center.

Then, it was off to NY!

This DC trip was awesome, and it made me even more sure that I want to spend my gap year here. This weekend, my fears of graduating and only having one year left of college melted away because I know there’s something amazing to look forward to after college. (That being said, should I do a life plans update post at some point??)

What city do you call home?

On Order and Blogging

Date: August 9, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello again! I’m currently enjoying my only day off in 8 days-to be fair, it’s because I’m traveling later this week, but it’s nice to get a chance to relax for a little bit!

I was just thinking about one of the things I like the most about blogging-the order. I’m naturally a person who likes neatness and order-not to say that I always succeed in the neatness and order, but I thrive off the routine and feel better when things are organized.

I definitely have a habit of grazing on food throughout the day, but I would love having all my food organized and captured in one place-I think this is what I liked so much about blogging, especially day to day.

Another thing-I feel like I actually enjoy things that happen in my life more when blogging because it gives me a chance to reflect on them and put the memories down and make them into something tangible.

So-today I’ll go through a couple of days of nearly complete meals, and talk about some life stuff.

1. I went on a run this morning with Crossfit. It was so fun-I actually felt pretty good, and it’s my favorite trail!

2. I finally went to the farmer’s market today and it was glorious. I stocked up on figs. YUM.

3. I’m in 2 slow pitch softball leagues. One league finished last week, and we won the championship! It was quite the stressful game, but a big rally at the end secured us the victory. In my other softball league, I got to play in the all star game (like I did 2 years ago) and it was awesome as well! I got the chance to make some plays and had a big hit. Playoffs for that league just started and unfortunately we lost our first game-but it’s double elimination!

4. I like reading old blog posts. I miss writing like that and I feel like my posts have kind of gone downhill-partly because I’m always catching up, I kind of breeze by the interesting details.

5. Not to brag, but I think my puppy is the prettiest Aussie on the Internet.

So here we go!

Pre-workout: part of a BoBo’s Oat bar. I freaking love these.

Breakfast-Siggi’s 4% vanilla+figs. I’m currently obsessed with summer fruit. I really liked the 4% too! It was smooth and not super sweet. I also like the smaller size because I can never finish a big yogurt.

Lunch-my typical salad (minus the bar-my picture from this day wasn’t as pretty). My salad is chicken, goat cheese, date, nectarine, and champagne vinaigrette. Plus some Mary’s crackers. I have this most days of the week.

Dinner: Quesadilla on a gluten free spinach tortilla-stuffed with mozzarella, broccoli, corn, and a sprinkle of garlic powder. Plus carrots and guac.

Dessert: Cinnamon pie. My mom made this once a few years ago after watching a Psych episode featuring cinnamon pie. It’s a custard based pie.

I love this picture because you can see Charlie sneaking around the background!

And here is a second day of food (Saturday):

I started work at 7am, so no workout, and no cooking!

Stonyfield blueberry fruit on the bottom yogurt, a banana with sunflower seed butter, and some more oat bar.

Lunch:

Same old, same old. Salad+crackers.

Snack:

Dinner: Chipotle! I’ve only been a handful of times for some reason, and I met up with a friend there so I was looking forward to it all week! I got a salad with chicken, and of course guacamole!

For dessert back home, I think I had some chocolate, and maybe either a granola bar or ice cream?

Since Chipotle was next to Petsmart, we made a trip in. My friend recently got 2 adorable kittens, and with all the babies (kittens+puppy), we pretty much always need supplies! Here are her kittens:

(Picture shamelessly stolen from my friend’s Snapchat.)

My puppy Chloe is…difficult. She’s really high energy, really smart, and very nippy. We constantly are on the lookout for new, interesting toys-anything to keep her amused! I got the green light from my mom to get anything that might keep her occupied. Needless to say, I ended up with an armful of squeaky and adorable dog toys.

I felt like quite the crazy puppy lady walking around the store with all that!

So far, the new toys have been a hit though!

What kinds of toys keep your dogs amused?

Old Habits/ My Puppy is Growing Up

Date: August 5, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So I know I haven’t blogged much lately. Part of it has been business, part of it has been I feel like I don’t have that much new to contribute! Either way, despite my hiatus, I’m still in the habit of taking food pictures, so I thought I would share some of them, because why not?

These are spinach and cheese pupusas, and I’ve been sort of obsessed lately. They come frozen, and are basically spinach and cheese in a cornmeal shell.

Super simple dinner: BBQ chicken, spanish style rice, and green beans cooked in the same style as my garlic roasted broccoli.

Lunch at Le Boulange-salad with balsamic, chicken, dried cranberries, and gorgonzola.

Chicken and dumplings with a salad on the side.

I’m obsessed with this salad-I actually have it for lunch most days. Chicken, goat cheese, dates, nectarine, tossed in a champagne vinaigrette.

Funfetti pancakes with the family. For the pancakes I just did the banana+and egg trick in the blender and threw in some oats.

Cooking Light’s lemon parmesan risotto, with a salad on the side. The awesome thing is that this recipe is made entirely in the microwave, so it’s half the work on regular risotto!

Last weekend I went out to brunch with my friends. I got an egg white omelette with turkey burger, spinach, and cheddar inside (topped with avocado of course!).