yogurtology Archives

Blogger Meet Up @ Piestewa Peak & La Grande Orange

March 12, 2012 · by Ari ·

Saturday after our bike ride of near death, Nicole, Carolyn and I met up with Diana, Marisa and Estela for a hike at Piestewa Peak. After the bike ride, I honestly was not really in the mood to hike anymore, but once we got going, I stopped being lame and started to enjoy myself. I’m no expert on hiking, but this one seemed…nice? You know, like a nice uphill walk with cacti 🙂 Haha, if you want to actually hear anything legit about hiking, you should just go to Diana’s blog because she’s basically an expert. In fact, she even knows all of these weird hiking rules–did you know there were rules??? Like she knew what to say to all the people we passed, and talked about things like right of way that I didn’t even know existed on a mountain!

Look! Nicole and I are hiking! And there's a mountain.

Marisa, Carolyn, Estela, Diana, Nicole & Me

**Hike photos courtesy of Marisa**

After the hike, we hopped back on our bikes and headed to La Grande Orange where we met up with Emily, Megan and Stacey. You better believe after a 30 mile bike ride I was ready for some wine! Emily and I split a bottle of pinot.

I have way too many pictures that look just like this...

As soon as we sat down, the manager sent out an appetizer for us to sample. Whooohooo, I think it was my first special foodie blogger treatment! And all thanks to Nicole for slipping that into an email to the manager 🙂

Guac, salsa, and pimento dip. All super delish!

Emily and I also split a salad with oranges, goat cheese and avocado (that I inhaled before it even occurred to me to snap a photo) and a pizza with goat cheese, tomatoes, roasted corn and avocado. Ummmm, yum.

OMG!!!! It's real pizza!!!! Probably my favorite food, but I very rarely eat it, unless it's at home and all skinnified. This was ahhhhmazing.

They even had gluten free crust!

Carolyn got the same pizza on the gf crust. I almost wished I would have ordered mine that way because I love a thin and crispy crust!

Then I insisted we take funny pictures. Naturally.

YAY!!! I got Emily to agree to a silly picture!!!

I also have a lot of pictures that look like this one.

I had such a great time with these girls! We have such an amazing group of AZ Bloggers!

Emly, Carolyn & Megan

Stacey & Nicole

Marisa & Me

Carolyn, Megan, Marisa, Stacey, Nicole, Emily & Me

**Photo courtesy of Marisa**

During dinner, Nicole and Emily announced that they have been hard at work at a super awesome new project!!!

The AZ Bloggers Network!!!

The Arizona Bloggers Network will be a place to organize, promote, and connect with other female Arizona bloggers. You don’t have to be a food/fitness blogger to join–just a woman who lives in Arizona and has a passion for blogging. You can head over and register your blog for free! So all you bloggers out there, come and join us! We like people!

After an amazing evening, Nicole’s husband Lance was kind enough to pick us (and our bikes) up @ LGO, and then we convinced him to that a Yogurtology stop was a necessity.

Husband of the year award--picking up his wife and her 2 crazy friends that were silly enough to bike from Mesa to PV.

Oatmeal cookie, salted caramel and butterfinger with graham cracker, butterfinger and nutella on top. I usually stay away from the candy toppings, but after the riding and the drinking I totally caved, haha.

fro yo shirt.”]fro yo shirt.”]Then we tried really hard to take jumping pictures…for a change.

SUCCESS!!!! Except, apparently Lance was zoned out during my lecture about how snapping a photo at any moment in time where it looks like I may have a double chin is unacceptable and grounds to end our friendship forever. Buuuuttt, we were all in the air, so I am posting my second and third chins for the world to see.

And my chins make an appearance here too, but this picture cracked me up. I don't know what I'm doing or why Nicole is a Charlie's Angel, but I find this picture to be pretty awesome.

I can’t say enough what an awesome time I had!! I’m so excited for the new AZ Bloggers Network, and thanks so much to Emily & Nicole for setting it up, and to Nicole especially for putting this whole meet up together!

Fro Yo Cake with Nutella Cookie Crust

March 12, 2012 · by Ari ·

Remember this birthday cake gem that Steve got me from Yogurtology?

That cake was perfection. More delicious than ice cream cake, but fro yo, so that makes it healthy, right? Riiiiiight.

What’s even better than a perfectly prepared oatmeal cookie fro yo cake made with love by a Yogurtology employee? One made with more love by ME!

With a butter cookie crust, layers of Nutella and TJ’s Cookie Butter, and topped with Yogurtology’s pretty much famous oatmeal cookie fro yo, this may not be the healthiest cake I’ve ever made, but when you compare to a typical ice cream cake, it definitely can at least hold up to a healthier title, and let me tell you, I would choose this over a regular ice cream cake any day of the week!

Fun fact, ice cream has always been my favorite dessert. I *almost* never eat it now, because I love fro yo so much and never really want to spend the extra calories, but I am of the opinion that if it doesn’t at least include ice cream, it’s not really a dessert. Plain cookie? That’s a snack 😉 Cookie a la mode? Mmmmm….dessert! Fro yo with cookie, Nutella and cookie butter? 3x a day for the rest of my life? Okay….If you insist….

Can we also talk about how this cake takes all of like 20 minutes to make? So easy, and ridiculously hard to mess up! Trust me, I can usually mess up anything 😉

Fro Yo Cake with Nutella Cookie Crust

yield approx 16 slices

1 package Chessman cookies (or any buttery shortbread type cookie), finely crumbled
1/4 cup apple butter
1/2 cup + 2 tbs Nutella, melted & divided
1/3 cup TJ’s cookie butter (or Biscoff spread), melted
1 quart + 1 cup fro yo of choice, softened but not melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a spring form pan with cooking spray, then wrap tin foil around the bottom to avoid fro yo dripping out.
In a medium bowl, combine cookie crumbs (reserving 1-2 tbs to sprinkle on top) with apple butter. I suggest just using your hands and getting in there.
Press cookie and apple butter mixture into the bottom of the spring form pan and bake for 8-10 min, until set.
Cool for 10-15 minutes, then spread Nutella on top. Let sit for a minute before brushing cookie butter on top of Nutella.
Use a spatula to evenly spread the fro yo on top.
Drizzle with Nutella and sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs.
Freeze for 2-3 hours until set, then serve and enjoy!

Birthday Celebration Part 2

February 8, 2012 · by Ari ·

Sunday morning, I had a very exciting date with my friend Christina for a special 90 minute spin class with Linda AKA the best spin teacher ever. I recently found out that the first Sunday of every month, Linda generally does a special 90 minute class and I was super excited! Poor Christina–it was her very first spin class! But she did so AWESOME! She was a champ and made it the entire 90 minutes, after several people had gotten up to leave–get it girl!! I ended up going 34.5 miles that class! I was soooo excited when I saw the screen pass the 30 mile point! Why oh why can’t every spin class be 90 miniutes??

After class I had a few minutes to squeeze in a cup of coffee with Christina (this girl and I have been friends since preschool!) before having to run home. Steve told me I needed to be ready to go by noon and class ended at 10:30. I like to cut things close 😉 At around noon, Hermano, Jason and Nacho arrived and I was told the plan was to ride our bikes to Dilly’s Deli. About 14 miles round trip. Well, okay then! I am not one to say no to outdoor exercise with people I like!

So we were off!

We arrived about 40 minutes later at Dilly’s for lunch. I was starving and couldn’t wait to get my hands on one of their yummy sandwiches!

And here, I am eating the sandwich. Cute, right?

After lunch, we rode home. Oh my gosh, by the end my butt was soooo sore! Sorry for the TMI, but those seats are rough! Steve and I had a little down time, so we went to Goodwill to get some props to improve our food photos, then went to Lululemon because I have gift cards and there is a skirt I’ve had my eye on! Unfortunately, they only had the skirt I wanted in one size and it was not the right one 🙁 We came home, made pb&j cookies, and then we were off to meet up with Jason, Nacho and Bethany for dinner!

Steve wouldn’t tell me where we were going to dinner. I had an idea that it would be somewhere from my list of restaurants I want to try, so I was excited when we pulled up to Gallo Blanco. Unfortunately, they decided to close for the day and not put it on their website or answering service. Jerk faces. We ended up heading to Delux Burger which has also been on my list.

I was very happy with the beer selection 🙂

In case you've never read the blog before, I like my beer dark and sweet! This was half hazlenut brown and half double chocolate stout. Like nutella. Yummmm.

I'm Ari, and this is my beer. We'll be here all night long.

Steve got some nasty frilly beer. Obviously, I am the man of this relationship.;)

The food was good, but not amazing. The fries were reallllllyyyy good. We shared a basket that came in a mini shopping cart and they were sweet potato fries with this super yummy mustard sauce. The burger however, was just good. Not bad, but if I were to go back, it’d probably be for just beer and french fries, which is super nutritious in case you didn’t know.

At the end, the waitress surprised by bringing out a sundae with a candle!

Nope, I'm not excited at all.

Luckily, everyone helped me out with this thing! I knew there was still cake at home (oy vey), and this thing was huge! Also, I almost never eat real ice cream. It’s one of those things I just can’t justify, but this was delicious and even with 5 of us, we couldn’t finish it, so I don’t feel so bad 🙂

Birthdays make me happy!

This guy also makes me happy.

Besties!

After dinner, we headed back to Jason’s house to break out the birthday cake! I had requested my dream cake months ago, and Steve remembered!! A fro yo cake from my very favorite fro yo spot Yogurtology!!! I requested their oatmeal cookie flavor with nutella–my favorite!!!

Amaaaaazzzzing!

This cake had a cookie crust, a layer of nutella on the bottom, and then the oatmeal cookie fro yo on top. It was even more delicious than I had imagined!! And you know what? It cost about $11. Friends, if you’re not going to make the cake yourself, get it from Yogurtology! I still have a couple pieces left, and I do not plan on sharing 😉

Thanks to Steve, Bethy, Jason and Nacho for an amazing friend-day!!! Love you guys!

Free Always Tastes Better

October 25, 2011 · by Ari ·

Hi friends. It’s funny, today was not a crazy work day, but it’s 8:30 pm and I feel totally wiped. I started this morning by doing some upper body weights with Kara before heading into spin class. I did 2 supersets

Bicep concentration curl (15 lbs, 3 sets of 12)

3 point shoulder lift–I don’t remember the exact name, just that it was for shoulders and my trainer at the time said something about 3 point. I remember that because I smartly remakrd “Oh then I should just use 3 lb weights!” (5 lb each hand, 3 sets of 10)

and

Pushups (3 sets of 15)

Dips (3 sets of 15)

It looks like so little all typed out, but I have sucked big time at my strength training lately and I was feeling it! Then of course spin almost killed me. It seems like every single time I am a good little spin student and push myself to up my flat road, the next class she is telling us whatever we did last time, we need to push it up one higher. The forever student in me wants to raise my hand and ask “But excuse me, what if I raised my flat road last week? Do I raise it again already? ~~Please hold my hand every step of the way and give me all of the answers.~~” Instead I gave myself a little pep talk that went something like this

“Look, quit b****ing out, and raise your flat road whether you just raised it or not! You want to look good naked!”

So apparently my new flat road is gear 11. That simultaneously sucks and is awesome. I mean I feel awesome that my flat road was 7 and now supposedly it’s 11, but let’s be honest–11 might as well be a hill!!!! It is freaking hard!! And when we go up from there?!?! At the top of the steepest hill today, the last time Linda told us to add a gear, I just looked at Kara and said “Are you Fing kidding me?!” But I love it. Every second. When sweat drips into my eyes and I feel like my legs can pedal no more, I am so happy to be there in the class and not completely suck.

After class I got an other delicious pepperminty iced coffee from The Bux. Grande iced coffee, 3 pumps SF vanilla, 1 pump SF peppermint, soy milk, light ice. Perfection. Then I came home and made some cinnamon apple oats. Steve mentioned the other day about eating one of those oatmeal packets (gross) in the cinnamon apple flavor and ever since I have had it on the brain! I used

1/3 cup slow cooking oats
2/3 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
gaala apple, cored and diced
1 tsp vanilla extract
lots of cinnamon
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
1 tsp chia seeds
1 tbs raisins
1 tbs ish PB & Co cinnamon raisin swirl

I cooked it all together on the stove over medium heat, except the raisins (which I added in almost at the end) and the PB which went right on top. It was so yummmmmy,

Tonight, we had plans to go to the state fair. We were supposed to go Saturday, but things came up and our plans changed to today. Well, we drove all the way there in rush hour only to discover the fair is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Fail. Booooooo. We figured we were all together (my dad, Hermano, Steve and me) so we might as well do something and headed for dinner at True Foods. I love love love True Foods. Steve took more pictures of the crazy fam

Then asked me to pose for a picture, but I was not looking cute so I definitely was not in the mood. He made a puppy dog face so I acted like a 5 year old, stood where he told me and scowled at him. Karma. I ended up looking crazy evil in the photo!

Scarrrrrrryyyy!!! But perfect for Halloween! PS: My shirt says “Coffee makes me happy.” So fitting.

After dinner, we went to Yogurtology for some fro yo. Seriously, if you live in Phoenix, you must go there. They have the best yogurt, hands down. Get the oatmeal cookie flavor and you will not be disappointed. I got 6 oz of oatmeal cookie with about 1/2 tbs of nutella on top. Best combo ever. Except…..

They were out of spoons. I had to use a big metal topping spoon haha. But I got my yogurt for free, so I don’t mind! Free always tastes better! I would eat it with a spatula as long as I don’t have to pay! Wow–is it politically incorrect to make fun of my Jewishness on the internet? In person it always seems so harmless because every just knows I’m Jewish so I’m allowed to make fun of myself. Here it feels so taboo, like someone will get the wrong idea and think I’m an anti Semite! I love my people, and all of our quirks and stereotypes!

Now I’m watching some Biggest Loser and gonna head to bed early because I have an early training run with Kara tomorrow am! Goodnight all!