Monthly Archives: April 2015
Pineapple Boats Recipe & Tuesday Tangents
Yesterday wasn’t too bad for a Tuesday. When my alarm went off at 6:02am, I negotiated with myself for a good fifteen minutes about going to my first class. I have never skipped a class, and got about 5 hours of sleep the night before. I was really tempted to play hookey, but of course I talked myself into getting up, turning on the coffee pot and jumping in the shower. There’s no turning back after that!
Rather than a lecture, a digital marketing professional who recently launched her own digital marketing consulting agency gave a guest speaker presentation. Right away, she encouraged us to “tweet” anything we found interesting from her presentation. (I had to join the Twitter-verse a couple months ago for my digital marketing class.) At the end of the presentation, she selected 2 “tweets” to win a Starbuck’s giftcard. Who won? Moi. Moral of the story: when you resist temptation to skip your 8am, you will be rewarded. ;)
That gift card was burning a hole in my pocket for all of 4 hours so I naturally stopped in for a pick-me-up before my last class of the day. I used the caffeine in my iced americano to fuel a 7 mile run on the treadmill. New music actually made it fly by, and I’m loving that it is still light outside at 7:00pm. :) Makes me stall going back to my apartment for the evening.
Anyways, I’m bringing up the Pineapple Boats again because they were worth sharing the recipe. With one little side note:
Kerri came up with the Pineapple Quinoa Stir Fry idea. As far as a recipe, we pretty much just “winged” it. I’m such a goof ball and the whole time we were making “Stir Fry” I was thinking “Fried Rice.” So I added a few eggs and cut up the vegetables very tiny. I didn’t realize until three days later, typing this post that “Stir Fry” and “Fried Rice” are not the same thing. (Insert monkey-with-hands-on-eyes emoji here). Regardless, the stir fry/fried rice hybrid was delicious and so I will just refer to it as “fried quinoa” from now on.
Pineapple Boats with Fried Quinoa Recipe:
Serves 2
- One very ripe pineapple, cut in half length-wise (with leaves still on if you’re up for it)
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa
- 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
- 1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
- 1 small head of broccoli, diced
- 1/3 purple onion, diced
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1/2 ripe mango, diced
- 1 whole egg + 5 egg whites
- seasonings of choice
1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add quinoa and cook like normal.
2. Cut out the “meat” of the pineapple halves; discard the hard center and keep the remaining juicy pineapple to add to your fried quinoa.
3. In a large skillet, saute the bell peppers, broccoli, onion, garlic, and mango.
4. Add in eggs and egg whites once vegetables are softened; after eggs are cooked through, add the quinoa to the egg and veggie mixture.
5. Fill the hollowed pineapple halves with the quinoa-veggie mixture and top with remaining pineapple pieces. We had avocado on the side.
Nothing compliments this tropical plate like a good ole’ ponderosa pine tree in the background…
Today I have my last major exam for my senior capstone course, and once that’s over I hope to repeat yesterday’s long-ish run. Guess who made it into the workout playlist rotation this week…?
REBA! Gosh, does this woman ever age!?! I love how happy she always looks :)
Happy Tax Day, friends. Catch ya here tomorrow :)
You have a finite number of college weekends!
There are approximately 128 weekends in your college career.
There are currently 3 left in mine.
In marketing, we learned about the “scarcity phenomenon.” When a product or service is presented as “limited time” or “limited quantity,” consumers tend to feel a larger sense of urgency or need that they wouldn’t otherwise feel to demand that product.
When the number of weekends left in college is in the single digits, the scarcity phenomenon sets in.
Like most college kids, we begin freshman year with the idealistic goal of making as many new friends as possible. And as we change and develop new priorities, that initial number of friends typically decreases. But the quality of those existing friendships only strengthens.
Friends from freshman to senior year have been a part of some of your best memories, seen your embarrassing moments, know your habits, and love you anyways. We are spoiled by the fact that all of our friends are in a concentrated little area by the university, all within a one-mile radius. We took complete advantage of this sunny and gorgeous April weekend to cram in as much of our favorite activities as possible.
I love making dinner with friends, probably more than I like going out to dinner. The whole process is fun and active, rather than sitting at a table and waiting. I’ve made Pineapple Boats before, but Kerri hadn’t and she added a quinoa stir-fry twist. This dinner paired with decaf coffee, the best study playlist, homework session around my dining room table, healthy dessert = one of our college night staples.
The next day we dressed up to go downtown, shopping, dinner with friends from cross country, then to frozen yogurt and the new movie The Longest Ride.
CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT THE LONGEST RIDE FOR A MINUTE?
I saw the trailer while watching McFarland, USA with friends. Right when the “Waiting” song by Banks came on, I was intrigued. A chick flick about a college girl and a cowboy, set in North Carolina and flashing back to the 1940s and 50s…..it is quite perfectly my dream life. (And 4 million other girls’, right?)
We knew that a Nicholas Sparks movie would have a predictable level of cheese but Scott Eastwood makes that completely forgivable ;) I would honestly rate this as one of my top 3 Nicholas Sparks stories. I would go see again for sure!
After the amazing sushi rolls and sinful frozen yogurt, I am feeling quite motivated to get out there and do my long run today. ;) But it was another college weekend for the (scrap)books.
All of these pictures from the last four years make me happy. A colorful life = a good life. I’m not sad or nostalgic that my college days are coming to an end, just pointing out the fact that when you have a limited amount of time left, you have to make time for the important stuff!
And because social media is the new resume and my current profile picture makes me look like a Backstreet Boy, Kerri and I made a pit stop for one last Flagstaff sunset picture while we were all dressed up. Immediately we had to laugh at this one…..I didn’t know what to do with my hands! #AwkwardCurtsy
Hope you had a fantastic weekend :)
XOXO Kenz