Blog Archives
Summer’s Ending, Make Frozen Yogurt
It’s already the middle of September, and the Pumpkin Spice Latte is already back at Starbucks. I guess that means summer is wrapping up, huh? Well it hasn’t completely started cooling down yet, so I think we can get away with one more batch of frozen yogurt before switching pumpkin-and-apple-flavor-everything.
This weekend has been the most productive couple of days… There was the first home football game of the season, a complete shut out by our boys! My suitemates switched up roommates, (lots of heavy furniture moving involved) and now I have a wonderful new roomie! The Price is Right Live show was a fun and different way to start a Saturday night, but I sadly walked away empty handed. Then there was my first strength training workout, my first James Bond movie (a homework assignment- I would rather be watching old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy) and a ridiculous amount of homework plus some other fun stuff here and there. I wasn’t ready for this Monday morning alarm clock but here I am, hair curled and all, ready to share a super-healthy-super-sweet-summer-dessert : )
You will need:
1 1/2 Cups Vanilla non-fat Greek Yogurt
1 Cup fresh strawberries, diced
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 chocolate bar, broken into pieces
6 graham crackers, broken not crushed
*An ice cream maker
1. Heat diced strawberries, water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until they start to soften. Drain and refrigerate until cool.
2. Once the strawberries are cold, stir in the greek yogurt.
3. Pour yogurt mixture into the ice cream maker and allow to mix together in the machine for 20 minutes.
4. By hand, mix in the graham cracker and chocolate pieces; place the whole bowl in the freezer for at least 60 minutes before serving.
If you like greek frozen yogurt, you may also want to try: Peach n’ Pecan Greek Frozen Yogurt
Now we can welcome autumn. Onto all things cinnamon & spice :)
Pin this recipe here! 
Perfecting the Homemade Pizza
Last night I had a failed attempt at making a dorm room dinner-style mini pizza. The cheese didn’t melt, the crust wasn’t right…there was much room for improvement. While I work on perfecting that, I will share an already-exceptional recipe for my family’s homemade pizzas!
If you are a thin-crust person, you will not like this recipe. These are the fluffiest, thickest pizzas I’ve ever had and I just love it! Plus the blend of white and wheat flour makes them so hearty and adds just the right texture.
For the past year, my family has experimented with pizzas, trying every version you can think of: spicy Thai pizza, pesto shrimp pizza, cheeseburger pizza, BBQ chicken pizza. But what we’ve really perfected is the Crust:
It all sort of happened by accident. You see, 1 teaspoon of yeast was mistaken for 1 Tablespoon and while I would normally expect that kind of baking error to result in some sort of catastrophe, that extra 2 teaspoons of yeast created the lightest and fluffiest, best pizza crust we’ve ever had. From then on, we triple the yeast :P
In a bread maker, combine:
10 oz Water
3/4 tsp salt
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 cups white flour
2 cups Whole wheat flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons dry active yeast
Let it work in the bread maker for 90 minutes, then roll out onto a surface sprinkled with cornmeal and top with your favorite toppings. On this pizza, we piled regular pizza sauce with thick-cut black forrest ham, cashews, pineapple chunks, and fresh mozzerella (I LOVE how the mozzerella chunks look). Cook on a pizza stone (or cookie sheet if you do not have a pizza stone) at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the crust is golden. And get ready for the softest pizza crust of your life:
In other news… Today, I will be hitting the pool after my classes in my first “workout” since returning to school! So I am one happy camper. It has been 55 days since surgery, nearly two months. While some progress has been made, there’s still a lot of swelling to go down and we are waiting for the fat graft to soften before I can return to normal running. So swimming it is!
If you have a different favorite pizza recipe or topping, please share! I love trying new ingredients. Also, are you a Pinterest addict like me? Follow me on Pinterest and Pin this here: 
Sunday Brunch with a View
Sunday morning seems like the perfect time to whip up a lovely brunch with to enjoy with the view from an outdoor terrace. Luckily my residence hall has a pretty fantasic outdoor balcony with a view of the campus. (It’s amazing how quiet a college campus is at 10am…I think it was just me and the squirrels awake at that hour.)
Last week, I got my very first care package of the year, complete with all sorts of goodies from my mom. Including funky cupcake holders and a cinnamon coffee cake mix! So yesterday, I walked over to Target (pronounced “Tar-jaaaaay ”) and bought myself a cupcake pan. I decided it would be best to make the coffee cake into muffins for A) Portion Control and B) so I could share with some girls in my hall!
Baking anything with cinnamon just smells heavenly, and I waited not-so-patiently for these cute little coffee cake muffins to come out while sipping on some coffee and reading up on Economics for a quiz I get to look forward to tomorrow. ;)
Sliced fruit brought some nutritional balance to the brunch. I sliced up a pretty medley of raspberries, strawberries, and bananas (snacking as I went!)
Bananas, Strawberries, Raspberries, oh my!
With a fresh cup of coffee, this brunch was enjoyed from the second floor terrace in central campus with the peacefulness of a quiet Sunday morning. It was delicious!
Balcony Brunch View – where are all the people!?
And now for an equally serene walk to get my “workout” in before my afternoon plans. Enjoy the day!
