Month: March 2009

I’m addicted …

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… to spinach oats! How weird is that?

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And the gym actually WAS open this morning! I didn’t except any probs today, though, since they’re actually open 24 hours during the week, starting Monday at 5am. Someone’s alarm must have forgotten to go off yesterday. It happens. Anyhow, today I tried to listen to my old-lady achy joints and did 30 minutes on the elliptical followed by a thorough stretching session (plus the jog there and back). Stats: 1 hour and 1 minute, 338 calories, 122 average heart rate, 171 max.

I prepared today’s oats the same way I had them yesterday, except that I mixed the granola sprinkling with a bit of trail mix:

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And my standard soymilky tea in front of the pretty window photo:

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I’m off to do some serious work! Are you working or pretending to work right now?

By the way, there are like a million amazing giveaways (thanks to An Apple a Day for putting them all in one convenient post for me to steal!) going on right now:

1. Too much fun stuff to mention at Missy Maintains.

2. Almonds up the Wazoo at Melissa’s Journey.

3. Ahhhh, a brand-new Vita-Mix (!!!!!!!!!) at Jumbo Empanadas.

4. Barney Butter at The Hungry Yogini.

5. A variety-filled goodie bag at meloncauliflower.

6. And another Quaker spa prize pack at Run, Eat, Repeat.

Good luck!!

Longer than necessary

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Ahhh the trains today were out of control! Delays all morning, delays all night. Reason #56498 to leave NYC. Alas, I’ve got many months of grad school to go.

My morning fruit ‘n’ yog was so pretty that I had to take a picture of it from the side:

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My 1/2 cup of fruit salad was the same combo I’ve been eating all weekend — pineapple, mango, banana, plum, strawberries, grapes — and I topped it with plain yogurt + lemon curd + cinnamon and a sprinkle of golean crunch.

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Mmmmm, yogurt perfection.

Plus a pre-visit sugar fix:

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While on my visit this morning, the mom basically deposited a hefty square of tres leches cake onto my lap. How could I refuse? Obviously, I couldn’t.

I love tres leches cake — it’s probably the most moist cake you can imagine, given that it’s soaked in condensed milk and all. Mmmm, again. Unfortunately, I don’t take my camera with me to visits, so I didn’t get to capture the beauty on film/memory card/whatever it is. However, Beryl was just about to tuck into a banana-rum mini-bundt cake when I got back to the office, and she generously offered to let me take a picture before she demolished it. So, in lieu of the tres leches cake I did eat, here’s the banana-rum cake I did not eat:

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Lunch during the parents’ group today was a low-key affair since only a couple moms came in. I had a cup of raisin bran with 1/2 cup 1% milk and a few banana pieces:

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And then, I ate the rest of the banana smothered with about 2 tbsp peanut butter (aka perfection) and an orange:

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I probably ate another orange’s worth of wedges after that, too. Girl loves her fruit 🙂

A boredom lollipop:

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Later in the afternoon, I broke into the Quackers samples that Melissa brought to yesterday’s blogger brunch:

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Ooooh, they were so good! I made a little dip for them out of goat cheese, plain yogurt, dried basil, and freshly ground black pepper. Perfection again (there was lots of it going around today, apparently).

A breath-freshening mint:

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I inhaled pretty much all my dinner right at the start of class tonight. The spread included a cup of roasted veggies:

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With manchego cheese samples from the gourmet market:

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Two stuffed collard greens leaves:

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I made these with the same method I used for my Stuffed Kale Leaves, and I stuffed them with some of the mixed-grain salad I made last weekend.

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Hiding under the stuffed collard greens is some scrumptious roast chicken left from Mildred’s lunch today:

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The chicken couldn’t have come at a better time because I was feeling a little bit low on protein!

Dessert was a few banana and orange pieces left from the parents’ group this afternoon.

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And look what was waiting for me when I got home!

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My prize package from Abbie’s Foods That Fit giveaway!! I’m so excited for all of these treats: cocoa java almonds, 2 oatmeal squares, PB2, single-serve nutella, single serve Barney Butter (which I’ve never tried!), and sugar cookie sleigh ride (just as I’m running out of my last box of it … SO perfect) 😀

I was stilla bit hungry, so I actually broke into the almonds as part of this little snack set:

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The ramekin on the left has two more stuffed collard greens, and the ramekin on the right has 1/2 cup fruit salad with a mix of above-mentioned almonds, trail mix, and vanilla-almond granola.

But I wasn’t quite done! Last treat of the night:

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A chocolate macaroon from One Lucky Duck, another of the samples Melissa brought to lunch yesterday. Ahhh, this was so dense and chocolate-y. I want 10 more of them now.

But what I really really want more than anything else is go to bed. So that’s what I’m off to do!

And make sure you go check out julie golean because she is giving away HER favorite things, and her favorite things look pretty tasty 😀

Just call me Popeye

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Breakfast this morning was another new and exciting (to me!) creation:

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I got up at 5 to go to the gym, got all my layers on, jogged there in the 30 degree weather … and found six other people waiting outside the locked and gated entrance! My gym is supposed to open at 5am on Mondays, and it was definitely 5:20 by this point, grrrrr. I gave it a few minutes, but every moment counts at that time of day, so I eventually gave up and jogged my creaky crunchy knees back home. It probably worked out better anyway since it gave me time to do the beginning Yoga for Runners #1 from yogadownload.com — my knees needed the rest!

So back to breakfast, yet another work of art inspired by Heather and her spinach oats!

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If you recall, I brought home a giant packed bag of fresh spinach leaves last week when we had extra in the food pantry at work. Despite diligently incorprating the spinach into salads all weekend, I barely made a dent! So last night, I made 1/2 cup stovetop oats custard-style and also added about four cups of spinach, half of a giant grated carrot, and a chopped apple. When everything was wilted and cooked, I immersion-blended my heart out. With the heat off post-blending, I mixed in another 1/2 cup oats (for texture), 1/2 giant mashed banana, 1/2 giant chunked banana, vanilla, cinnamon, 2 tbsp lemon curd, and 2 tbsp unsweetened coconut. The whole thing made just under 4 cups of oatmeal.

This morning, I heated 3/4 cup of the mix, set it on a bed of lemon yogurt (yogurt + more lemon curd + cinnamon), and topped it with strawberries, vanilla-almond granola, more coconut, and a big ol’ spoonful of homemade almond-cashew butter:

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And you know the soymilky black tea was not far behind:

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Thanks for yet another delicious breakfast idea, Heather!

I’ll be back much much later tonight because I’ve got class after work. Can I just say how much I love these endless Mondays??

Where do you go when you leave work at the end of the day?

Weekend remainders

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More photos from yesterday …

Taken by photographer/organizer extraordinaire Melissa: Ashley (reader), me,
Dori, Missy, Danielle, Ashley, Gena (the Raw Foodist and soon-to-be-blogger), Mark, Heather, Shane, Emily, Amelia, Vani, Olga

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And waiting in the subway station with Vani and Emily, my fellow slopers:

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I eventually got around to another salad-infused dinner last night and finished up the contributions that I got from Inginia and Nydia Friday at work.

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This salad had greens, peppers, cranberries, corn, garlic-lemon juice, goat cheese, strawberries, roast chicken, s&p, and a drizzle of Annie’s Lite Gingerly Vinaigrette:

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Dessert came in the form of another salad!

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This combo of fruits made me feel like I was in Costa Rica, sigh. My fruit salad contained pineapple, mango, plum, grapes, strawberries, orange, and banana. I topped it with a mix of plain yogurt, lemon curd, and cinnamon. Plus a sprinkle of coconut and vanilla-almond granola because I couldn’t stop.

And yes, I did balance the bowl on the TV so that I could capture the last whimpers of natural sunlight for the day:

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I cooked a few things for the week (and nibbled on them, too, obv), including the latest oatmeal which will be along in my breakfast shortly!

Did you make any new friends this weekend?

Munchy brunchy bunch

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I’m back from the blogger brunch — what a fun group of girls (and boy)! We met at Counter, an East Village vegetarian restaurant. While the service left quite a bit to be desired — at least five orders got messed up, and poor Dori didn’t get her food until after pretty much everyone else had finished eating! — the company was wonderful and my meal at least tasted delicious. My people-photography skills are lacking, but here’s what I was able to get.

Left to right: Danielle, Ashley, Melissa, Gena (the Raw Foodist and soon-to-be-blogger), Mark, Heather, and Shane

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Left to right: part of Amelia‘s eye, Vani, Olga, Amie, reader Ashley, me

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Not pictured but also there: Dori, Missy, and Emily

I ordered the Moroccan Tagine: poached eggs in a rich tomato-pepper stew & grilled flatbread. The flatbreads came haphazardly tossed on a separate plate, so I arranged them around my stew dish for better visual effect:

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This. was. SO. GOOD. If you ever go to Counter (which I’m not sure I’d recommend after experiencing their lousy service, even taking into account that there were 16 of us), you must order this dish.

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The stew was spicy and flavorful and thick, and the flatbreads complemented it perfectly. (I also ate one of the flatbreads with a smear of strawberry butter because I could not pass that up when I saw it!)

I inhaled my food because it was yummmmmy and I was hungry (the accidental 10.5 miles was starting to catch up with me), but everyone else was still eating and I was jealous. I checked out the spread and noticed a meal down at the other end that I couldn’t quite identify:

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It almost looked like a big hunk of steak, but I thought that was highly unlikely with us being at a vegetarian restaurant and all. I called down to Danielle to see what she had ordered. FRENCH TOAST!! She offered me a bite, and my spoon and I were down at her plate in under 5 seconds 😀

Of course, once I successfully filled my spoon with gooey French toast delight, I started talking to Heather (who also accidentally ran 10 miles this morning!! we’re so going to wipe the floor (is that even an expression?) with the Brooklyn Half Marathon) about Providence and waving my spoon all around. I ended up dropping my gooey French toast bite onto Missy! (Sorry, Missy!) Should have seen that one coming …

Danielle immediately offered up another bite of her French toast because she’s AMAZING (Danielle, I’m so bummed we didn’t get to chat — I call dibs on the seat beside you at the next blogger event!) and then she offered me the REST of her plate because she was FULL. How could I refuse??

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It tasted like it looked: DELICIOUS. Warm, dense, gooey, maple-y, banana-y. From the menu: a delicious vegan twist on classic French toast with banana flambe. Yummmmmmmmmmmm.

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(I’m pretty sure I smeared strawberry butter all over this guy, too )

Thanks again, Danielle! That French toast definitely bumped me up into the “satiated” category!

Vani, Emily, Missy, and I headed down toward the F train when we left the restaurant at 3:30 (yes, we were all there gabbing for over 2 hours! Sooo glad I wrote my midterm yesterday. Olga still has one to write tonight, ack. You can do it, Olga!!). Emily needed gelato, so we stopped into Sugar where I drooled over the dessert case and then got scolded by management for taking this picture (and about 12 others):

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I also tried a bite of the pannacotta gelato, which Emily ended up ordering. Mmmm, it was good. Next time!

When we left Sugar, I crossed the street too fast, as usual, and the smarter and safer girls were left behind on the other side:

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Once back in the Slope, Emily and I peer-pressured Vani into trying the balls at Hanco’s. I think she’s going to be hooked! Emily boldly ordered the egg yolk soda:

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I took a couple sips — it was kind of like a cross between egg nog and and egg cream. It was definitely yolky, but also sweet and a little fizzy. It was different, but I liked it.

I ordered an unsweetened milkless coconut tea:

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(It was still milky and sort of sweet because I’m pretty sure the coconut tea powder they use has both milk and sugar already built into the blend.)

I got home and took stock of all the goodies that Melissa and Missy were able to procure for us. Weil bars, a Z-bar, treats from One Lucky Duck, and free passes for fitness classes in the city:

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This little guy was so cute that I had to sample him right away:

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And now I think I’m already getting hungry again for dinner! Hmmm, what to eat, what to eat …

What is your worst restaurant service story?