Category: Food

Tales of Expansion: Finding a Home for Every Last Crumb

Dates ‘n’ oats

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Update: Blogger Secret Ingredient — Dates

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Remember that today is the last day to submit your recipes! You must email either your recipe + photos OR the link to your BSI post to talesofexpansion@gmail.com by midnight tonight. I will judge the entries tomorrow based on creativity and potential deliciousness. The winner of the contest will receive:

– TWO boxes of Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride Tea

– one dozen Earl Grey Biscotti Bites

– plus a couple more little mystery prizes

Here are the submissions I have received so far:

Think you can top those?? Send your recipe to me TODAY!

Breakfast

I could think of nothing but oats when I got up this morning. I got my laundry going at the laundromat and then raced back to start preparing this week’s edition of crockpot oats: gingerbread spice oats! I had to run to the store for eggs and ginger root (and cheese samples!), bringing this week’s grocery tally to $31. The oats are gurgling away in the slowcooker as I write. Can’t wait to eat them tomorrow! This batch includes:

– 1 cup steel-cut oats

– 1 cup unsweetened Silk Soymilk

– 1 cup water

– 3 eggs

– 1 tsp vanilla

-4 small shredded apples

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– 1/2 bag fresh cranberries

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– 1 inch grated fresh ginger root

– 1/2 tbsp powdered ginger

– 1 tsp coarsely chopped whole cloves

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– 1 tbsp molasses

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Since I got such an early start, I decided to do the authentic slow-cooking five-hour method.

For today’s breakfast, I made a batch of stove-top Strawberry-Banana Cardamom Oatmeal with 1/4 cup old-fashioned oats, 1/4 cup unsweetened Silk, 1/4 cup water, 3 chopped strawberries, 1/3 mashed banana, coarsely chopped seeds of 3 cardamom pods, tsp vanilla, dash sea salt. I mixed in 1/4 cup plain yogurt and topped the oatmeal with 1 chopped almond toasted in dry skillet, cinnamon, and unsweetened coconut:

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So creamy!

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So laundry’s done, gingerbread spice oats are cooking in the crockpot, belly’s satisfied, and now it’s time to move on to studying. Be back later!

Almost like Italy

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(Submit your BSI recipes. Submit your BSI recipes. Submit your BSI recipes.)

I’ve been craving homemade pizza for a while now. Thanks to my successful food week, I finally had the necessary ingredients on hand! Hunger, however, was another complication. I did a number on my appetite with the peanut butter fest at Fairway earlier this afternoon. I started feeling some almost-hunger pangs around 9:30 and immediately popped up to get going on my mini-pie. I made the crust the same way I make whole wheat wraps, except that I used my hands to flatten the dough rather than a rolling pin because I didn’t want my pizza crust quite so paper-thin:

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When the wrap finished cooking in the pan, I put it on a pizza stone in the oven to broil for a few more minutes until it was crispy enough.

Meanwhile, I sauteed the zucchini rescued from Thursday night’s lecture along with 1 tsp of minced garlic:

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When the crust was ready, I topped it with tomato sauce, the zucchini, cheese (also from Thursday night), and toasted/burnt butternut squash seeds:

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The pizza went back in to broil for another five minutes until everything was heated and the cheese started to brown:

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Ready to go with my pizza tools (thanks, dad!):

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I used the roller to cut the pizza into four slightly-larger-than-bite-sized pieces:

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Hit the spot! For dessert, I had a spoonful of my frozen cake from last week at work:

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And I also did quite a bit of “taste-testing” of a secret baking project that will hopefully turn into part of the BSI prize.

Speaking of which, submit your BSI recipes!!!

All is not lost

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** I’m bookending this post with BSI reminders since we’re getting right down to the wire! Check here for more info. If you missed my announcement earlier, the BSI prize will include, amongst other things, two boxes of the RARE Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea, the best tea in the world. Are you not ridiculously excited right now??? **

I woke up around 8:00 this morning, and Erin and I set out (in her car!) to hunt down a location for our five-mile run (half marathon, here we come!). The first trail we checked was completely covered in snow and ice, but we lucked out with the second: a paved bike trail in Tibbetts Brook Park. The clear-enough-to-run portion of the trail was just over two miles long, so we ran the length and back plus did a little bit extra to make it a full five. While the trail was not completely covered in ice, we still had to “ballet run” over several slippery sections, slowing us down significantly. Stats: 57 minutes, 457 calories, 149 average heart rate, 164 max heart rate.

Back at the condo, I got started on breakfast:

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img_2776I popped two Nutrigrain waffles in the toaster and set out to develop some oatmeal pancakes! I found a packet of oatmeal in the cupboard that I recognized from the post-race goodies we received at Race for the Cure in September. I mixed the oatmeal with an egg, a splash of water, and some baking powder and baking soda. I Pam’d a pan and poured the batter in:

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Flipped when set:

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And spatula-ed the pancake into four pieces when it was done so that we each had two pancake quarters and a waffle. For the topping, I mixed some banana pieces I had saved from my mommy’s group at work yesterday with the last of Erin’s frozen blueberries and 1/4 cup plain yogurt.  A drizzle of real maple syrup and a dollop of berry jam from a local farm joined the yogurt topping:

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Delicious, if I do say so myself!

After breakfast, Erin and I continued our productive streak with more suburban car errands (yay!!). Accomplishments of the day: Erin’s car passed inspection, she successfully redeemed a Bed, Bath, & Beyond coupon, and I found another little mystery goody at Target to include as a BSI prize. Erin, the most generous hostess ever, capped this string of accomplishments with an offer to drive me allllll the way back to Brooklyn (saving me a 90-minute subway ride!), including a stop at Fairway, my favorite grocery store in the world!! If you live in this city, you know that the combination of a car + Fairway is pretty much a New Yorker’s dream come true. I only wish I hadn’t had so much food still left from last week in my apartment — if I had more fridge/freezer space, I would have taken advantage of the car to buy enough groceries for the next six months!

Once we arrived at Fairway, I wanted to capture the beauty of this foodie heaven with a photo, but when I tried to turn my camera on, nothing happened! I may have actually said the f-word (something I never do!) when I realized I had forgotten the battery/charger in the wall back up at Erin’s house. Ahhhhhhhh!! After all of that productivity, I was going to have to go all the way back to Yonkers with her to collect the battery and then take the subway home. DISASTER. Regardless, we forged on with the shopping. Expecting that I wouldn’t be home until at least 6:30 pm, I did my favorite trick of turning samples into lunch. I had cheese, mini pumpernickel rounds with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and one of the best samples I’ve ever encountered: magic pop rice cakes with freshly ground (still warm!) almond butter, peanut butter, and honey roasted peanut butter. I piled the nut butter onto three different magic pop pieces and may have had approximately 1/2 cup of freshly ground goodness before I was through. Obviously too much, but I was feeling stressed and it was soooooooooo delicious.

Post-shop, Erin and I made the quick drive from the store to my apartment so I could at least drop everything off. Once at my apartment, however, roommate Brigitte saved the day– first with an offer to let me use her camera and second with the genius idea to transfer the memory chip from my camera into hers (which seems like an obvious enough solution, but I had been thinking I’d have to wait to get my battery to get all of my pictures back!). Erin, as if she hadn’t been generous enough already, promised to overnight ship the battery and charger back to me on Monday. So all is not lost :-).

I had a successful shop at Fairway (where it is impossible to have an unsuccessful shop). I got a gallon of skim (for yogurt), 5 bananas, 3 lbs Fuji apples, a big bag o’ oranges, Medjool dates in honor of my BSI choice, a baby butternut squash, and tons of grains from Fairway’s bulk bins — steel-cut oats, quinoa, millet, yellow corn grits, and raw wheat germ:

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Total cost: $27. Gooooooooooooooooooooo Fairway!!!

I’ll be back later with dinner. In the meantime …

** SUBMIT YOUR BSI entries!! Deadline is end-of-day Sunday (aka TOMORROW), and I will announce a winner Monday evening. Check here for more details. I’m so excited to see what you all come up with that I bought that container of dates at Fairway so I can try some of the recipes next week :-). **

So complicated

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Complication #1 involves my camera, and you all were thisclose to not finding out what I ate yesterday. But since I’m determined not to ruin anyone’s weekend by keeping my food secret, I have found a temporary solution! More on that eventually …

Complication #2 involves my computer. After nearly 4.5 years of flawless charging, my power adapter has decided it wants to ruin my life. It’s been steadily declining all week but has reached a new low today. Because I have to hold the cord to the computer in a crazy gymnastics formation, I am forced to type with only the index finger of my left hand … and I’m a righty. I never learned how to type correctly, so my pointer finger is the only one that knows where all the keys are. So please forgive me for making this post light on words and heavy on photos!!

Rewinding to Friday morning …

7:20 am breakfast – last cup zucchini-lime cheesecake oatmeal, 1/3 cup healthy cream cheese frosting, 2 chopped strawberries, two crumbled graham sticks unsweetened coconut, cinnamon:

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12:30 pm lunch –

GC baked tofu + roasted veggies:

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Yogurt with ricotta, apples, banana, strawberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger:

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Veggies from Thursday night:

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Half cup tabbouleh salad from coworker Nitza:

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Two candies from the candy jar:

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2:30 pm snack – apple with pb:

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4:30 pm snack – giant orange (look at all the babies in front!!)

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I lost my mind for the last hour of work while I was catching up up notes and engaged in a little candy madness. I’ve been overdoing it on the candy this week, but there’s an explanation! Before Christmas, I stashed/hid a whole bunch of candy (left over from the parties we held for the families) in the empty tissue box on my desk and immediately forgot about it … until I accidentally discovered it again this week! And ate it all. Here’s SOME of what happened yesterday afternoon:

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Now that the tissue box is empty, the candy problem should be solved …

(Ahhhhh, my computer charger now will not work AT ALL. I hope the new one arrives soon! Switching to roommate Brigitte’s computer …)

6:30 pm dinner – Pizza & Brew

After work, I subwayed up to the Bronx where Erin Gunn and her boyfriend Mike picked me up and took me out to dinner (thanks, guys!!) at Pizza & Brew, an Italian restaurant in Yonkers. I was ravenous and ate the lemon wedge from my water AND the lemon wedge from Mike’s water:

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I know you’re not supposed to eat these lemon wedges in bars/restaurants anymore because they’re full of germs, but when hunger calls …

My entree came with a side salad that had chickpeas — how exciting!

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I ordered Bluefish Marechiare (fresh fillet sauteed with capers, olives, and mushrooms in pomodoro sauce served over linguini) but asked for it with polenta instead of pasta. Yummmm, it was so good! And enormous:

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I almost cleaned my plate, except for a little sauce and some of the olives:

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Oh wait, never mind. I DID clean my plate. Crusty bread always saves the day:

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I really don’t know how I finished this. I was a bottomless pit yesterday!! It was probably enough food for three meals, but I didn’t even feel stuffed when I was done — just perfectly satisfied.

Erin got Fettuccini con Funghi (homemade noodles with sauteed assorted mushrooms in a light pink cream sauce):

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And Mike got Catfish Caruso (sauteed fresh fillet with vodka lobster sauce and baby shrimp served over rice primavera):

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Erin and Mike could not finish their meals (lightweights) and had to take over half home.

We had initially planned to go to bowling and karaoke, but our lazy grandma-ness set in (and Erin’s car getting a flat tire validated our laziness) and we just wanted to do nothing.  While waiting for AAA to arrive at Erin and Mike’s condo, we watched Mike do some yoga on Wiii (is that the correct number of i’s?) Fit:

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And I shared my next Quaker True Delights bar with them: Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia Nut. This one had much more even (and heavy!) distribution of nuts, though I think chunks of real banana would have been a good addition (instead of what seemed just some essence of banana spread throughout):

so many nuts!

so many nuts!

look, it's glowing!

look, it's glowing!

Later, when Erin went out to meet AAA and get her tire taken care of, I snuck into the fridge and found a jar of Hershey’s Hot Fudge which I quickly put to use with a bit of pb:

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Isn’t that a beautiful sight??? We were in bed by 11:15, and I ended up sleeping for over eight hours for the first time in … well probably since the last time I was at Erin’s since she always sets me up with light block curtains :-). It was glorious. To be continued …

Remember me?

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While I work on a marathon post of the last 36 hours (and simultaneously conquer myriad technical difficulties), please allow this photo of jumbo Israeli Medjool dates to inspire your Blogger Secret Ingredient creativity:

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Soooooo, please submit your BSI: Dates entries ASAP! Sunday (tomorrow) is the DEADLINE. The contest is open to everyone, even if you don’t have a blog. Check here for more information and a running list of submissions. Please help by spreading the word on your blogs!!

I’m still tweaking the prize a bit more, but to whet your appetite, I do know that the winner will definitely receive TWO boxes of the hard-to-find Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea, featured here and elsewhere on the blog. If you’ve never tried this tea, you have to trust me that it is the most delicious flavor ever to grace the planet. The winner of this contest is going to be one lucky chef!!