Watermelon and Feta Summer Salad

Date: September 22, 2014

Author: astottler

Hey guys! Today I have another recipe to share with you all-another Sweetgreen copycat recipe! This one is of their August seasonal salad, and it features fresh mint, feta cheese, and watermelon.

Here’s their version:

And mine:

Serves 3

Ingredients:

3 handfuls of arugula and baby kale or kale

1 medium heirloom tomato, chopped

1.5 cups fresh watermelon, chopped

1 cucumber, chopped

1/4 cup spicy sunflower seeds

1/3 cup feta

8 oz chicken

1/2 cup fresh mint, chopped

Champagne Vinaigrette

Toss all ingredients together and enjoy!

Don’t know how to cube a watermelon? Be on the lookout for a tutorial!

Guacamole Salad

Date: September 18, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I sincerely wish I had an amazing and exciting recap for you guys, but in reality all I’ve really done this week is start packing for school. Somehow I accumulated an insane amount of junk in my dorm room last year, so the goal this year is to simplify and streamline what I’m taking! I guess as a consolation for my boring life right now, I have a recipe to share today! I’m trying to make more of an effort to actually keep track of the recipes I make! On a related note, I FINALLY gave my recipe page a much needed facelift, so check it out!

In other photo worthy food news, I’m enjoying the last of the summer’s figs! I LOVE figs, and I’ve had a lot of fig eating to cram into the last 2 weeks I’ve been home in CA. Yesterday morning, I enjoyed them with fancy vanilla yogurt.

If it’s in a jar, it’s automatically fancy. Fact. But then the jar was tiny and I couldn’t fit enough figs in, so I poured everything into a bowl and topped it with sun butter. Perfection.

Minus the recipe, nothing has really been photo worthy. This may have something to do with a new Costco purchase-sea salt caramel and chocolate pretzel clusters. Oh yes. Buy them. Or don’t. It’s a huge bag and so, so addictive.

One thing photo worthy I suppose is my shoes.

I think I kind of like that model of shoes, you think? I decided to take a family photo because my oldest two pairs are going off to the Goodwill. I actually got a new pair when I went to the running store because my foot doctor told me I needed good shoes. After a full running/walking/shape of my foot analysis, they brought out…the same shoe I’ve loved for years. Seriously-I’ve worn these shoes since my sophomore year of high school (almost 5 years if you’re keeping track). I had no idea they were the same model when I got my first pair of this year’s version, and was shocked to find the new shoes I had loved were the same as my old ones I loved! I’ve had at least 3 running store workers analyze me and pick out the same shoes so I think it’s safe to say they’re good for me!

Ok. I promise I’ll get to the recipe now! This recipe is a knock-off of one of the Sweetgreen’s salads I had all summer. I don’t even feel a little bit bad about copying their recipe given the nearest Sweetgreen is 3000 miles away. This salad is based off of the Guacamole Greens salad they had, which was the one I got most often. I tasted like fresh guacamole!

Here’s their version:

And mine:

Guacamole Salad

Serves 3

Ingredients:

8 oz cooked chicken (two small breasts)

1 medium tomato

1/4 c chopped cilantro

1 small red onion

1.5-2 avocados

1 c crushed tortilla chips

3 handfuls of lettuce

For the dressing:

3 T lime juice

2 T olive oil

1 t salt

1/2 t pepper

Shred the chicken, mash the avocado, mix up the dressing, and toss all ingredients together.

Throw on a sombrero and enjoy!

Chocolate Muffins with Ricotta Filling

Date: August 30, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Guys. I have a recipe. I know, it’s been a while, right?

But first, a couple of things.

1. I’m trying to do some work on the blog. Does a right sidebar appear when you view my blog? It should be there but I can’t get it to come

up on my computer and I can’t figure out why…

2. I have some food pics first.

I had the best morning yesterday-I went to Crossfit and had my baking in the oven by 9am. I love jet lag. My before Crossfit breakfast was

random but functional. A biscuit+roasted carrots+watermelon.

Lunch was a hummus veggie wrap-whole grain wrap, red pepper hummus, lettuce, tomato, cucumber. Delicious. Plus more watermelon. And

muffins.

And then dinner was take out-terikayi chicken tacos.

And homemade guac and salsa.

Also-I haven’t unpacked yet. You want to know WHY I haven’t unpacked yet?

They were on it ALL day.

Ok-recipe time! This recipe can be used in parts or all together.

Chocolate Muffins with Ricotta Orange Filling

The ricotta filling is from a recipe we used when I went to a culinary bootcamp for school lunch cafeteria workers for work. It originally was

used as a fruit dip. The recipe makes a bit more than necessary for the muffins so I recommend dipping some watermelon or oranges!

Ricotta Orange Filling

Ingredients:

15 oz reduced fat ricotta

1/4 c orange juice

3 T honey

1 1/2 t orange zest

1 1/2 t vanilla

1/4 t cinnamon

Instructions: Beat all ingredients together in a medium sized bowl until smooth.

For the chocolate muffin:

I used the recipe for my double chocolate banana bread (I swear you won’t taste the banana here so it won’t

clash, I promise!), although I only used 3 bananas.

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas

1 egg (or 2 whites)

2 T oil (I used canola)

1/3 c milk

1 t salt

1 t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 c cocoa powder (I used dark chocolate, hence the color)

1 c flour-I used whole wheat pastry

1 T honey

1/3 c bittersweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Mash bananas and mix all ingredients besides the chips.

3. Stir in chips

4. Line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cups. I also highly recommend greasing the tin so that the oversized muffins come out more easily.

5. Divide the batter into the 12 cups.

6. Place a heaping table spoon (more or less if desired) of the ricotta orange filling on top of each muffin.

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Enjoy!

3000 Miles Later…

Date: August 29, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello, hello! I’m back in CA!

Everyone has been complaining about how “hot” it is. It’s 82 and dry. That’s cute. I ran in long sleeves yesterday morning!

In terms of travel, everything went pretty smoothly. I enjoyed one last Sweetgreens salad.

And one last Georgetown cupcake. These are salted caramel and chocolate birthday cake.

The cupcake competition in DC may require its own post.

After packing my bags, I lugged 125 lbs of luggage through the cobbled streets of DC. That, my friends, is why I do Crossfit. Needless to say I had to pay quite a bit in overweight baggage fees…

Immediately upon arriving home, I became a furry mess, as I will continue to be for the next 3 weeks.

Besides cuddling my kitty, I’m going to be putting some work into this blog in the next few weeks. I haven’t had much time to do much with it lately other than throw up posts-my race page is sorely outdated. So be on the lookout for a fun recipe tonight!

In terms of the last few days, yesterday morning I tried out my current pre-run breakfast. Yogurt with cocoa banana and sunflower seed butter.

Then, I headed out for my run. I went out to the bay and my mom walked while I ran. I guess I got a bit faster this summer-it’s really nice to run when a) it’s 20 degrees cooler and b) not 5am and I’m just rolling out of bed to the street.

Lunch out with my family afterwards was a cobb salad with chicken and avocado.

For snack, I had some pumpkin yogurt. Yes, I know it’s too soon. It was good though.

In the evening, I went to my home Crossfit! I’m so happy to be back there! We worked on pull ups, and then the WOD included lots of tire flips. My arms hurt.

For dinner, I made a copycat Sweetgreens seasonal salad.

I also utilized my new knife skills I learned at a culinary bootcamp in DC that I went to for work to cut the watermelon.

The salad included arugula, baby kale, fresh mint, feta, watermelon, cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, spicy sunflower seeds, chicken, and champagne vinaigrette.

It came out really well!

And because we need to end on a cat picture clearly:

WIAW-The Battle of the Can

Date: July 8, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! Thanks for your feedback on length of posts-I’ll try to Goldilocks it and have it juuust right-not too long or short!

Thanks to Jenn for helping us celebrate this day!

My morning began with a hazy 5:30am wake up call. I’m pretty sure I was hungry when I woke up but too dazed to realize it. I’ve had the worst time falling asleep lately so I’ve been dragging a bit!

Somehow I made it out the door…but managed to drop my iPod on the cement twice. The on/off button jammed down and it turned itself off…indefinitely. Hopefully it can be fixed!

The first run of the week was a 3 miler. I’m going to run the same 3 mile route for a while to compare paces.

And you can’t beat this view! It never gets old.

My pace this week was 30s/mile faster than last week, which is much closer to where I need to be! My legs have still been feeling sort of off though!

Breakfast was a quick fruit bowl with a beautiful glob of sunflower seed butter.

…And then coffee at work.

I had a lunchtime meeting thing at work so I didn’t have time to buy anything there, and I got back too late last night to deal with cooking anything. So I grabbed what I could.

I swear, this was the crunchiest lunch ever! Everything was SO loud, in a very quiet room. Whoops!

After work, I headed to Crossfit. It hasn’t been anything too crazy the past couple of days. Today we worked on split jerks, which really needed work for me. For the past 3 years, I’ve had my left leg forward as my dominant leg. Today I learned I’m much better on my right leg now. Go figure…

The WOD was a 10 minute EMOM of 10 double unders (or 20 single unders if you are me) plus 2* russian kettle bell swings. Except every minute, the amount of swings increases by 2, so the last set had much less rest time!

As soon as I stepped outside, I could tell a storm was coming. It was INSANELY windy, and also dark! I wasn’t worried about getting rained on though because every time I’ve carried my umbrella, the rain has held off. And I had my umbrella. I literally got back 2 minutes before the storm started.

While it was all dark and gloomy outside, I whipped up a new to me recipe. Anne’s “Cheesy” Mushroom Quinoa. I added extra kale in place of boo choi (I could’t find it) and olive oil in place of coconut oil because I couldn’t rationalize buying an entire jar of it. I also had a nice little moment when I realized my beans were in a can and I lacked a can opener. I got it open, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend my methods! But I still have all my fingers so I guess it’s all good!

This was such a good dish for a gloomy evening, and i’m already looking forward to leftovers!

I also whipped up some more banana bread! This is the third time since I’ve been in DC! It was lemon-blueberry banana bread, but the recipe is not ready to share yet.

It tasted good still, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting the lemon flavor to come through. Any suggestions? I used the juice of a lemon, lemon rind, and 1.5 teaspoons of lemon extract. More lemon juice? Maybe lemon concentrate? Is that a thing?

And there’s my day!

What was the best thing you ate this week?