Month: January 2009

Don’t hate me because I’m boring

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Food thus far today has been (almost) exactly the same as yesterday, but I did try to mix up the arrangement for your viewing pleasure. Here’s my lunch doing gymnastics on the kitchen chair because it was tired of posing for photographs and wanted to get packed already. Pork and beans, sofrito rice, yogurt/fruit, orange, carrot sticks:

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If you’ve been following along, you already know what’s inside. What you don’t know is how many tries it took me to get the orange to stay on top.

Notice I did not pack an emergency back-up snack. That’s because today is an exercise-free day! Plus, I’m going to an alumni talk at NYU tonight about women’s health, and I believe refreshments are planned. I will of course report back if I gather any useful info … but we all know I’m really going for the food. So dinner is anyone’s guess!

Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was also the same … but different. Half cup banana bread crockpot oats, half cup homemade yogurt, sweetened shredded coconut, nutmeg, and peanut butter:

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Notice how the strawberry is whole today (it was chopped and spread around the outside yesterday) and the peanut butter is all around the edge (instead of contained in a spoon):

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I work hard for visual variety!

Garnishes make good snacks + Dinsert

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The workshop today was almost worthwhile. Except I kept thinking of 10,000 other things I could have been doing instead. The highlight was when I noticed the dregs of a breakfast buffet (muffins, donuts, bagels, danishes) from an earlier session on a table in the back. I went closer, and everything looked like insta-diabetes except for … the garnish! While the lecture went on in front, I sneakily grabbed an empty coffee cup:

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And set to filling it with every last strawberry and orange slice I could find:

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I saved this fruit for after lunch, and it helped me stretch out my snacks perfectly so that I stayed fueled through meeting Kate and the running club for 3.5 miles in the park (33 minutes, 320 cals, 167 ave hr — yayyy, HRM!) and the 45 minute commute home to dinner (or, more accurately, dinsert). Central Park, though freezing, was gorgeous tonight — we felt like we were running through a Christmas card with the snowy hills, ice skaters, and horse-drawn carriages … you know the deal.

When I finally got home, I was sleepy and needed food stat, so I whipped up another dinsert (aka dinner-dessert or dessert-for-dinner). I had a teacup of cantaloupe with nutmeg and apple with cinnamon:

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And a toasty Chocolate Fig VitaTop slathered in a heaping T of melty pb:

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Yum, that pb is literally cascading over the sides! And here’s a cute little fig peeking through:

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And right now, my body is saying, “Dear Sarah, Thank you so much for making me burn 839 (!!!!!!) calories today so that I could enjoy peanut butter for breakfast AND dinner. Now, put me to bed!”

P.S. I’m not saying that I’m only allowed to eat peanut butter when I burn 839 calories … just that 839 seems an impressive number and I wanted to brag ;-). Thank goodness tomorrow is a rest day. No wasting away happening up in here!

P.P.S. Make sure to go visit Jess at Model Behavior because she is giving away some delicious-looking chewy fruity vitamin-candies. That means for free! Hurry!!!

Shaking things up

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Today’s schedule is little wonky — I’m skipping my internship to attend a mandatory Diversity, Power, & Privilege Workshop (funnnnnnnnn) at Hunter from 10:45-5 (what is possibly going to take that long???). But it does mean that I got to sleep in for 90 extra minutes this morning!

Breakfast

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Ever since my perfect breakfast yesterday, I’ve been fantasizing about eating it again! After my Monday morning workout — 5 mins jog to gym, 15 mins arms with free weights on aerobics step, 30 mins StairMaster with gossip, 10 mins stretching/abs, 5 mins run home (stats from new HRM: time 1.06, cal 539, ave HR 149, highest HR 176) — I got the oatmeal heating in the oven while I showered. Half cup yogurt, half cup banana bread crockpot oats (reheated for 10 mins at 400), sprinkle sweetened shredded coconut, chopped strawberry, nutmeg, spoonful pb:

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So nice to have daylight during breakfast on a Monday morning!

Most Likely Lunch

Here are the snacks and lunch I packed, but if I end up encountering free food up there (doubtful), you know I’ll be taking advantage:

sofrito rice mix, classy pork & beans, orange, yogurt/fruit, carrot sticks, mini muffins

sofrito rice mix, classy pork & beans, orange, yogurt/fruit, carrot sticks, mini muffins

In case you’ve forgotten from yesterday, here’s how it looks inside the tupperwares:

pork & beans

pork & beans

Dominican rice, barley, cabbage, and sofrito sauce

Dominican rice, barley, cabbage, and sofrito sauce

The yogurt mixture today is 1/2 cup yogurt, frozen banana pieces, 1/2 small apple, 1/2 big strawberry, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger:

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It all looks mouth-watering, so I hope I get to eat it!

Dessert + dessert + dessert = dinner

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Bananas and pb twice today … what could be better??

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Because I had such a late lunch (and because most of my dinner-type food is earmarked for this week’s lunches), I was in the mood for something sweet tonight.

I mixed 1/2 cup yogurt with a drop of vanilla and topped it with cinnamon, nutmeg, and 2 chopped strawberries. On the side, I had a warm Banana Fudge VitaTop with a 1/2 Tbsp peanut butter:

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For dessert (because that was my dinner, you see), I had another homemade chocolate from one of the nurses at my office. This one was like a mini-butterfinger … and it certainly gave last night’s coconut cup a run for its money!

intact

intact

cross-section

cross-section

And that about does it for today! See you on the other side …

Pork & beans like a lady

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Teatime!

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Afternoon rolled around, my tum started growling, and I had to begin thinking about lunch for today — and for the rest of the week! After running through a quick inventory of yesterday’s purchases and my already-existing stash of leftovers, I gathered a number of things together.

Clockwise from top left: one cup cooked pork (saved and frozen after a work party six weeks ago!), Dominican rice (from the same party!) + cooked pearled barley (from mom) + sofrito sauce (from coworker Inginia), Jack D BBQ sauce (I would have made some myself, but this was sitting so tantalizingly on the fridge door), two-thirds head of cabbage (yesterday’s groceries), three cups cooked Great Northern beans (from a bag of dried beans I got at the farmers’ market last spring), and one cup chopped grape tomatoes (yesterday’s groceries):

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I thinly chopped the cabbage, steamed it, and mixed half of it with the beans, tomatoes, pork, 1/2 cup BBQ sauce, garlic, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and two Tbsp chicken stock. Then, I simmered everything in a loosely-covered pot so the flavors could mingle:

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I mixed the rice and barley combo with the other half of the steamed cabbage and added s&p and a tsp of minced chipotle chiles in adobo sauce:

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The quantities worked out perfectly: pork & beans made six 3/4 cup servings, and the sofrito grain blend made six 1/2 cup servings.

Today’s lunch with dramatic mood lighting:

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Between the Jack Daniels BBQ sauce and the teacup and saucer, this meal is practically exploding with class, don’t you think?

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And for dessert, a half cup of cantaloupe (I sprinkled on some nutmeg after the picture — soooo happy to have nutmeg again!):

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In true teatime fashion, I didn’t sit down to this lunch until about 3:30 or 4, so dinner will probably be something snackier and dessertier — can’t wait!