Today was such a rush rush rush day, but I was rushing to un-stressful things and didn’t mind! My prediction about having to use a spoon to get more fluff out of the jar came true — that just seemed like too much effort, and I contented myself with three handfuls of peanuts from the candy jar instead. Each one looked something like this:

Or this:



Lunch was the same as yesterday: 1/3 cup cooked brown rice/triticale berries mixed with 2/3 cup of the chicken caciatore mom and I made last week when I was in MA.

I also heard fifth-hand from Deborah about a barbecue happening on the patio outside the first floor, so I went down with her for a quick peek. Sadly, I had to be in like two other meetings at that very moment, so I had to grab and run. I filled a cup with baby carrots, grapes, and a superbly delicious sausage link that Sam had masterfully charred on the grill:

How cool is it that my agency randomly decided to have a mid-day barbecue?! And how sad that I couldn’t stay and take full advantage!

I was quite a sight wandering around with my water bottle, sizzling hot chicken caciatore, and spoon in my left hand and my camera, a notebook and pen, and a cup of grapes and overflowing sausage in my right hand. I was riding the elevator and scouring the stairwell (and trying to open doors more or less with my teeth) all over the place for the people with whom I was supposed to meet. When I finally made it to the room where the psychiatrist was waiting, she probably thought I was absolutely nuts. Then, we dove right into talking about the case, and I really wanted a picture of the sausage before I ate it, so I had to sit with it there taunting me through the whole meeting. Torture!

We finished with that meeting and went right into another, but I did manage to inhale my BBQ goods somewhere in between! Post-meeting dessert was chia-tapioca pudding with banana and berries:



If I haven’t mentioned that I love this pudding, I love this pudding.

Somewhere between the pudding and my next appointment, I had two Now & Laters from Belkis’ candy jar (I had to root around under the peanuts to find them!):



Finally, there was a super random salad in there that consisted of chopped cucumber (previously cucumber spears meant for a snack on Monday), TJ’s salsas (previously meant for cucumber-dipping on Monday), my last hard-boiled Eggland’s Best egg (today was its last day to be eligible for consumption!), and some feta:



Just before I left for the day, Nydia mentioned that Rosey had brought her some spaghetti (made by Rosey’s mom, of pasteles fame) that she wouldn’t be able to eat since she was going out to dinner.



I jumped on that like it was my job and packed it all into my emptied lunch tupperwares 😛 I tasted some when I got home — this spaghetti was sooooo good with all the seasonings, ground beef, and some peppers.



However, I knew I needed to expand it because it would have taken all three cups to make me full! I added spinach, roasted broccoli, roasted purple cauliflower, and feta:



Perfect! It will be ideal for dinner in class tomorrow night 😀

Do you prefer your nuts with shells or without shells? I think I prefer nuts still in their shells. They’re so much more fun to eat because it’s like opening a present each time … especially when I didn’t have to pay for them!

Well, once again, I’m glad Monday was such a soft start back to work because the real issues all came back yesterday. And the real issues make me hungry! Thankfully, there was no cake on the conference room table yesterday. Instead, there was:



WATERMELON!! 😀 Maria brought in a huuuuge bowl full of giant cut up hunks. I took another piece (plus all the juice!) from the bowl after that.



Since I was stressed, of course, I found something else in the conference room to distract me just before I had to leave for my visit.



Seriously? Yes. I found a bag of pretzels and a jar of fluff and went to town. Then, I went to my visit … and came back to the office and ate some more! Lunch was 1/3 cup cooked brown rice/triticale berries mixed with 2/3 cup of the chicken caciatore mom and I made last week for my dad and stepmom. We had extra, so I brought a couple frozen containers of it back to NY with me (I’m a lucky girl, I know!). Jessica gave me her leftover salad today, so I dumped the chicken caciatore on top of it.



I had a hard-boiled egg on the side:



And chia-tapioca pudding with berries and banana for dessert:



And, since the pretzels and fluff combo was such a tastebud delight, I decided it would be super smart to fill one of my just-emptied tupperwares with it:



Three times.

There was also a magic lollipop with “changing colors and changing flavors” from Belkis’ candy jar:



And check out the transformation that mysteriously took place in the candy jar later in the afternoon.



So I also had peanuts.

And a baby baby banana that Myrna brought around.



The conference room was definitely rocking the fruit today. Here’s what showed up later:



So grapes joined the party in my belly.

As planned, dinner in class was the giant rainbow salad I made last night alongside a perfect peach, samples of comte cheese I snagged from the deli, and a slice of tart cherry pie, courtesy of the birthday package from my sister Allie:



My 3.5 hour class was actually not so bad, and the professor said she usually tries to end 1/2 hour early, around 9. Yayy! That means I was home just after 10 and in bed by 11:15 after preparing for today and taking a giant spoonful of Samoas ice cream right from the carton 😛 Wednesdays and Fridays are going to be my days off from the gym because there is no way I’m getting up at 5 after going to bed so late! I slept in until 6:15 today and then put together my breakfast of the week: yogurt-cereal-berry mess (with hemp seeds) and carrot cake … with some soymilky yerba mate on the side.

Today should be a much more low-key day of mostly meetings and group supervision (which I need!!). Also on the plus side, I ate so much fluff yesterday that I can’t reach far enough in the jar with a pretzel to get more. That means I need to use a spoon … and the extra effort of a spoon may be enough to deter me. We’ll see!

Was fluff a part of your childhood? I grew up surrounded by peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, but I never ate them because I didn’t like sandwiches. (I pretty much would not eat anything except for pasta until I was 17.) Plus, I don’t think my mom would have allowed fluff in the house!

Since I kept my work snackage to a minimum medium yesterday, I still had room for dinner when I got home last night. Exciting news because I love dinner. I pulled all my veggies out of the fridge and set to work on a rainbow salad that involved my roasted corn and purple cauliflower, grape tomatoes, and cucumbers:



I continued my initiation into the world of tinned fish (that started here and here) with another Cole’s delicacy:



Tinning aside, this one didn’t make me nervous at all. Mackerel has never sent chills down my spine the way that sardines and canned tuna have. Plus, considering how well I did (phenomenal, really) with those scarier varieties, I feel confident stating that the tin is no longer an obstacle. Phew.

I was blown away by what I encountered when I peeled the lid off because the piripiri sauce “packing” (the label lists olive oil, red pepper, carrot, cucumber, laurel, clove, and sea salt) actually contained real, live veggies! Plus, the pieces of fish were intact and not all pre-mashed. Maybe I am misinformed, but this intactness = freshness in my book!



I took a bite of the mackerel … and this piripiri sauce is killer! The mackerel tasted great anyway, but there’s a strong clove-y essence in there with some red pepper spiciness that I looooooooved. I chopped all the fishies and sauteed the pieces in their own sauce with some onion and then tossed that sauteed pan of flavor in with the veggies to create an enormous salad, most of which I packed up (with feta interspersed throughout) for dinner at class tonight.



The rest was last night’s din:

Many of you asked me what the story is on purple cauliflower, so I did some light research and found this. Word is that scientists developed the colorful varieties of cauliflower (which also include orange and green) NOT through genetic engineering but through selective breeding of various natural strains of cauliflower to produce the new colors. As far as I can tell, purple tastes the same as white — it’s just prettier.

Aaaaaand, since I kept dinner so deliciously light, I totally had room for ICE CREAM! Edy’s Samoas ice cream to be exact 😀 I had 1/4 cup on top of 1/4 cup chia-tapioca pudding and some berries for health.



And is anyone else pumped that The Bachelorette is on at 8:00 this season?? I haven’t been able to watch trashy TV in AGES, but this is early enough for me to still make my 9pm 10pm bedtime (because apparently it is two hours long now and I had to stay up until the end!). Mindlessness is lacking in my life, and this was an excellent way to incorporate it 😛

I was up at 5 this morning for another fun workout: 15 minutes bike, cybex legs and back, 15 minutes elliptical. It feels so good to go to the gym without the pressure for cardio cardio cardio that I felt when I was training for the half. Breakfast was a repeat because it was such a success yesterday. Cacao bliss-topped carrot cake and a yogurt-cereal-banana-berry mess:

After:

After after:

I’ll be at work all day followed by my 6-9:30 class, so a blog post tonight is highly unlikely. I will, however, make sure to capture anything noteworthy so I can share it tomorrow!

How does food color affect your interest in eating it?

Well, today was my first day back at work, and in true expansion-at-work fashion, THIS arrived on the conference room table right next to my desk at 10 am:

Ummm, yes, that’s leftover red velvet wedding cake with cream cheese icing. Next to my desk. Where I sit all day. At 10 am. Always a good sign … or never a good sign, depending on who you ask. I must say, it was comforting to return to work and know that nothing had changed while I was away 🙂

Another exciting conference room arrival happened to be waiting in the wings as well, just a glance away.



So far, my office is batting a million for the day, wouldn’t you say? I made myself a little bowl with two end slices of cake (for maximum frosting coverage, obviously) and some PB&Co peanut butter pretzels.



I nibbled on the pretzels throughout the morning but somehow managed to cover the bowl with a plate and save the cake for afternoon so that I didn’t accidentally take more and more slices until I had eaten the whole thing. As it was, I ran back to the cake tray every time someone took a piece so I could collect the abandoned crumbs!

Another morning snack happened when Jessica, my desk neighbor, came back from an errand and plunked this treasure chest of fresh coconut down on my desk:



She got it from the usual man on the corner, but it was extra dry today for some reason (usually it’s hanging out in its own juice) and she wasn’t a fan … so she gave it all to me! I do not turn up my nose at fresh coconut, dry or otherwise (although I think that’s a recent development because I used to hate coconut). I tested out a small piece, and it was definitely “crunchier” than normal, but still tasty. I brought the rest home to use for a future kitchen project. Any suggestions? (I’ve already done raw macaroons — I want to try something different but still desserty!)

I spent the afternoon with Inginia in the parent and me group, and one of the moms brought this amaaaaaaazing chicken noodle soup for lunch, all spicy with Mexican seasonings:



Ummm, I had three bowls of it. Typical.

For dessert, I had an orange. And for dessert dessert, I had another orange.

When I got back up to my desk, there was no wedding cake left of the conference room table. Thank you, god of non-profit agencies! Confident that I still had my two little cake slices stashed in a bowl behind my tissue box, I polished off the peanut butter pretzels.



And concluded my snack with a spicy-sweet treat from Belkis’ candy jar:



I met my second grader for our second to last counseling session (sadly, my new position won’t allow me the extra time I had as a student!) and then came back to my desk to finish my first day back in the same way I started: with cake!

I did not even touch one morsel of the food I packed for today, so it’s waiting in the fridge at work for me to rescue it tomorrow. I could not imagine a more fitting way to come back to work after three weeks of vacation! Things will get hectic and busy soon enough (err, starting with the return of classes tomorrow night!), so it was nice to have a pleasantly soft start back, complete with welcoming office food 😀

Has anyone ever brought leftover wedding cake to YOUR office? What is the most unique work/school food contribution you have ever received?

Last night’s dinner was a repeat of my lunch salad … minus the chips and egg and plus roasted purple cauliflower! (That sentence is exclamation-worthy due to the purple-ness, duh).

On the side, I had 1/3 a corn on the cob that I wrapped in foil, husk and all, to bake for 20 minutes at 450 and then kicked up to a broil for another 15:

At which point I peeled the cob completely and broiled 5 more minutes for some char.

I thought I’d be good for the night after that, but I got hungry again around 8. I was all ready for bed and everything! But everything must halt when hunger strikes. I defrosted a slice of healthy cheesecake and had it with some chia-tapioca pudding and blueberries on the side:

(OK, maybe I didn’t defrost all the way. It’s hard to wait!)

Also last night, I set to work on a breakfasty creation inspired by my carrot pudding cake. This time, the cake involved a package of Peeled dried mango:

(Obviously, I ate some as I chopped, soooooo good.)

In addition to the mango, I used two grated carrots, 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut, splash vanilla, the 3/4 cup peppadew piquante juice left in the jar (I used the last of the peppadew for my salad), an egg, vanilla, cinnamon, a pinch of salt, about 1.5 tsp baking powder, and 2 tbsp dry millet. I baked in ramekins at 375 for 40 minutes, and four mini carrot “cakes” were born:

One of them was for breakfast, heated with Artisana cacao bliss of course.

I’m big on texture, so I think it’s important to show you that, even with no flour, the texture still gets very cakey!

I was nervous about how the peppadew juice would work because it was spicy, yikes! But I love it! There’s a small hint of heat in there, but the sweetness still comes through.

Breakfast part two was courtesy of [California’s] berry season 😛 I let 1/2 cup plain yogurt marinate with a 1/2 cup mixture of golean crunch and All-Bran Strawberry Medley and then topped it with banana, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and hulled hemp seed.

Messed:

This perfect breakfast came following my triumphant return to 5am gym trips. (It’s now light at 5am, yay!! So much has changed in three weeks!) I kept it light at the gym because I’m no longer training for a half marathon (wooooooooot!), so I did 15 minutes steps, arms (oh arms, how I’ve missed you!), 15 minutes elliptical, and stretching/abs … and then I WALKED home to enjoy my meal with a tall glass of water:

OK, it’s back to work for me today! I hope I remember how to get there 😛

Do you forget how to do easy easy things after a long break?