Category: Food

Tales of Expansion: Finding a Home for Every Last Crumb

Piece(s) of cake

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But first, a BSI update:

The Blogger Secret Ingredient contest is now up and running, and the ingredient of the week is dates! I love dates. Especially first ones because I generally don’t have to pay for dinner when I’m on them :-). JOKE (sort of). Anyway, Tri to Cook has gotten the ball rolling with a re-submission from a former BSI: Date & Butternut Squash Puree. What are your date tricks?

Now, onto the cake …

That’s right, more cake arrived on the conference room table right next to my desk today! When it rains it pours. I still had last night’s post-sugar reaction in the front of my mind, so I decided to take a moment and decide how to proceed instead of losing my head and going into my free-food survival mode.

The best way to contemplate this type of decision is with a healthy and hearty snack. I carefully sliced my apple into many pieces, spread peanut butter on each individual slice, and stuck the raisins one-by-one on top of the peanut butter as I glared at the cakes out of the corner of my eye and sent them this message via brain waves: Cake, you don’t bother me and I’m in no rush to see you because I am savoring a beautiful snack without your help right now:

ants on apples

ants on apples

I’m sorry, cake. You can’t hold a candle to this crunchy peanut butter bliss:

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I thought a little bit harder while working on this mini chocolate ball from Belkis:

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And then I stopped pretending that I don’t love cake. Because I do love cake, and I wouldn’t be me if I let this opportunity slip by. I got one plate of cake. And then another. And then another. In the end, I collected three plates of cake (one piece of peach cake and two pieces of real authentic carrot cake):

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But score one million for me because these beauties went right into my emptied lunch tupperwares rather than into my belly! Right now, they’re resting comfortably in my freezer so that they are ready for their next assignment when I am.

Lest you think that I’m a saint, immune to refined sugar in all its forms (though how you could think that if you read this blog, I don’t know), this end of a piece did go into my belly:

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It is carrot cake, after all. And nothing beats carrot cake with real cream cheese icing … except maybe my oatmeal-turned-carrot-cake.

I followed the carrot cake with a palate-cleansing mini candy cane because I hadn’t already eaten five pillow mints or anything:

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Next up was running club, and ohhhh man, did my legs feel like lead tonight! I was lagging wayyyy behind the rest of the group, and this super classy dude to my left kept spitting every 10 seconds. I almost told him to swallow it, but instead, I let myself lag even more to get some distance. Do you know how unnerving it is to have a constant spitting sound three inches away from your left ear? Ick, I’m getting chills thinking about it. At least I finished the run! Stats for four miles plus an additional seven-minute warm-up/jog: 51 minutes, 415 calories, average heart rate 150, highest heart rate 173.

On the subway ride home, I dove into the giant orange I had packed plus my first Quaker True Delights bar sample: Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond. Before I say anything else, this bar was DELICIOUS. It did not have the vague berry-ness of other granola bars but rather a very specific and natural raspberry flavor enhanced by the visible raspberry (and dark chocolate, of course) chunks:

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However, I couldn’t help but notice that this Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond bar was lacking the critical almond component — I couldn’t even detect any essence of almond flavor. And I was looking! In fact, not until the very last bite did I discover any evidence at all:

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Again, the bar was delicious, but it needs either renaming or more almonds (obviously, my preference is the latter!).

After the subway, I raced home, packed (and nibbled on) tomorrow’s lunch, showered, and now it is finally bedtime. This week has been going non-stop, and it’s only Tuesday, ahh!

Good night!


Shhhh … top secret BSI info here

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This is just a quick quick post — I’ll be back for real much later tonight — to express how excited I am to be the host of this week’s Blogger Secret Ingredient contest!! HUGE thanks to Biz at Biggest Diabetic Loser for bestowing this honor upon me :-).

In case you’re not familiar with the BSI contest, I am going to announce a (not so) secret ingredient, and you get to create an original recipe starring that ingredient. You can enter the contest by (1) posting the recipe and photos on your blog and emailing the link to me at talesofexpansion@gmail.com OR (2) if you don’t have a blog, by emailing the recipe and photos to me to post for you. The deadline for this contest is this Sunday, February 1, 2009. I will announce the winner of the contest (and of a marvelous to-be-determined prize) on Monday, February 2.

I’m still trying to come up with a good prize, but in the meantime, I wanted to give you all a heads up on the ingredient. So, enough rambling. The ingredient is …

DATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We all love dates (especially Medjool, mmmm) as snacks just as they are, but I’m looking for creative and innovative ways to work them into more substantial meals and side dishes. (And if you don’t know what a date is, allow Wikipedia to help you.) So put your cooking caps on, and let’s see what you can come up with!

Entries:

I’ll be keeping a running list of submissions here as the contest goes on so we can all keep track.

  1. Submitted 1/27 by ttfn300 at Tri to Cook: Butternut Squash & Date Puree
  2. Submitted 1/28 by Meghann at The Inner Workings of a College Graduate: Perfectly Portioned for One Roasted Eggplant, Date, & Kale Curry
  3. Submitted 1/29 by Denise at Denise’s Kitchen: Pork Candy (aka Stuffed Dates with Goat Cheese & Prosciutto
  4. Submitted 1/31 by Brandi at Bran Appétit: Barley Date Pudding
  5. Submitted 2/1 by Kate: Mystery Date Muffins
  6. Submitted 2/1 by Emily at Sheila Moon/Big Swingin’ Cycles Team: Powdered Sugar Coated Date, Walnut, & Butter Balls
  7. Submitted 2/1 by Vani at Fit for Free: Whole-Wheat Coffee Cake Muffins with Date-Nut Streusel
  8. Submitted 2/1 by Victoria at The Idle Loaf: Banana Date Coffee Cake
  9. Submitted 2/1 by Kath at Kath Eats Real Food: Blue Cheese, Date, & Pecan Stuffed Pork Tenderloin
  10. Submitted 2/1 by Tina at Carrots ‘N’ Cake: Oatmeal Date Cookies
  11. Submitted 2/1 by Biz at Biggest Diabetic Loser: Date Wontons
  12. Submitted 2/1 by Andrea at Bella Eats: Peanut Butter Date Blondies
  13. Submitted 2/1 by my mom: Date, Feta, & Toasted Nut Stuffed Butternut Squash

    Eating my cake

    6 Comments

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    Mmmmmhmmmm, there was leftover birthday cake hanging around my office yesterday, so I packed a piece and brought it to class last night to round out my apple/pb/raisins/mini-Luna dinner! I also found manchego cheese samples at the gourmet market next to Hunter, so those made the dinner cut, too. Here’s the spread all together:

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    Now, let’s talk about this cake for a moment. img_2492In social work, we use something called a strengths-based perspective, and I like to apply this perspective to food from time to time … or all the time. As I worked my way through the cake during class, I noted three major strengths: (1) it had pineapple bits!, (2) the frosting tasted like whipped marshmallows!, and (3) the texture of the sugar flowers on the cake reminded me of meringue!!!

    The third strength is the most noteworthy, as sugar flowers on cakes can sometimes have a bitter taste and a rock-like texture that indicates they perhaps were not meant to be eaten. But these flowers were so airy and lightly crunchy that I felt like I was floating on a sea of frothy egg whites. Unfortunately, I developed fuzzy, swirly sugar-head syndrome immediately upon finishing and had a hard time focusing on my class for a few. I ate some bites of roasted vegetables when I got home as I prepped today’s lunch, and that seemed to help, but the fuzz didn’t go away for real until I woke up this morning. I just can’t do sugar like I used to!

    After the gym this morning (legs and stairs stats: 1 hr, 15 mins; 434 cals; 125 ave hr, 163 highest), I heated up a cup of my BSI entry: Zucchini-Lime Cheesecake Oatmeal. I may not have won the competition — sushi obviously ranks over oatmeal! — but this meal is still a champ as far as I’m concerned :-). I topped it with 1/3 cup of my healthy cream cheese “frosting”:

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    This frosting is sooooooo good. It makes everything taste like carrot cake!

    Lunch/evening snacks today are going to be exactly the same as lunch/evening snacks yesterday … with one exception. In place of the mini-Luna bar, I will be taste-testing this beauty:

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    That’s right, my Quaker True Delights samples — all six of them! — arrived from Foodbuzz last night. Here they are, marching across my floor:

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    And there’s no better time to try one out than on double workout day, right? I should probably be trying a different flavor first since Allison at Green Dog Wine already gave this one rave reviews, but come on, dark chocolate raspberry almond??? Who can resist that?

    I’ve got another long day with the running club tonight, but I’ll be back eventually to report on any extra nibbles that appear along the way!

    Lunch does not grow on trees

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    But first, thanks to everyone who sent some yoga motivation my way last night. I will try again eventually. Second, the ear plugs were phenomenal last night, yay sleep! And third, breakfast this morning was something old and something new. My last piece of carrot cake:

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    And spicy cinnamon peanut butter hot chocolate because I needed something to zap me into the Monday spirit!

    I made the hot chocolate with 1/3 cup unsweetened Silk, 2/3 cup water, 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp sugar in the raw, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and just under 1 tbsp pb. This was my first time putting pb in cocoa, and it was soooooo good!

    And, of course, I hit the gym before brekkie for arms + StairMaster. Stats: 1 hour, 10 minutes; 479 calories; 136 average heart rate; 167 highest.

    Lunch

    As usual, I did my Sunday cooking yesterday to unwind and get myself ready for the week. I’ll take you right through the process with me.

    I finally found tofu for a decent price (at Whole Foods, of all places) on Friday, and I immediately put it in the freezer when I got home that night. When I’m planning to eat tofu in actual pieces (as opposed to pureed or disguised somehow), I always always freeze it first — I find it does wonders for the texture. I took the tofu out of the freezer yesterday, sandwiched it between layers of paper towels and two pizza stones, topped it with more oven-safe heavy dishware, and put it in my off oven (remember, I have a pilot light, so it stays warm in there) to thaw and drain. Once it was thawed enough (maybe two hours later), I sliced it into very thin pieces and returned it to the sandwich setup:

    thaw/press part 1

    thaw/press part 1

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    When the tofu was thoroughly thawed and drained, I followed Gliding Calm‘s brilliant tofu rub process. I love tofu cooked in restaurants, but this is the only home-cooking method I’ve found that works just as well. For my rub, I mixed honey, Thai red curry paste, chili powder, olive oil, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, white rice vinegar, and maybe more:

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    I coated the tofu:

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    And baked until perfectly crisped:

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    Or a little too crispy (what else is new?) as I discovered upon flipping:

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    But still delicious! Meanwhile, I chopped broccoli, kale, red cabbage, and carrot and mixed it with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, coarse sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper for roasting:

    BEFORE

    BEFORE

    AFTER

    AFTER

    I mixed the roasted veggies with the leftover sofrito rice/barley/cabbage from the past two weeks (don’t worry, I roasted this also to kill off anything spooky) and the tofu for my lunch “entree”:

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    Here’s an overview of the entire lunch spread which also includes yogurt with banana/apple/strawberries/spices, an orange, carrot sticks, an apple, tbsp pb, tbsp raisins, and a mini Luna:

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    Consumption of the apple, pb, raisins, and mini-Luna is entirely dependent on my level of success with nosing out extra food throughout the day that could qualify as dinner since I’ll be in class until 8. We’ll see what happens!

    Geographical stress

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    Yay groceries! Here’s what I got this afternoon:

    kale, broccoli, apples, unsweetened coconut, raisins, oranges, pumpkin, carrots, part-skim ricotta, strawberries

    kale, broccoli, apples, unsweetened coconut, raisins, oranges, pumpkin, carrots, part-skim ricotta, strawberries

    Total cost: $23!! That brings the week’s grocery total up to $35, leaving me with $5 of wiggle room for the rest of the week :-).

    I stopped into the gourmet market by my apartment on the way home to pretend to shop so that I could get samples of cheese, Portuguese sweet bread, and toast dipped in fancy olive oil. We all know how much I love my free food!

    While almost getting into several fistfights trying to maneuver my way through the grocery crowd shopping, I was on the phone complaining to my mom about NY living. I want three things that are impossible here: (1) my own apartment, (2) a car to drive to places like, say, the grocery store, and (3) grocery store aisles wider (just slightly, that’s all I ask) than my hips. I’ve been here for 8 1/2 years, and I’ve had enough!! Except that I have 1 1/2 years left of grad school …

    I got home and went to town preparing lunch for the week (details to come tomorrow) and dinner for tonight. I had a teeny bit of Belkis’ beans left in the fridge (I froze the other half), so I mixed them with 1/2 cup pumpkin and 1/3 cup guacamole to increase the volume to my liking:

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    With butternut squash seeds, grated homemade cheddar, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a dollop of yogurt:

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    Macro love:

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    For dessert, I had 1/4 cup cream cheese frosting (greek yog, part-skim ricotta, vanilla, maple cream, cinnamon, raisins, unsweetened coconut) with a few strawberries for dipping:

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    And now it’s just about bedtime! I have a long day planned for tomorrow (5am gym + work + 1st class (blech) + commute home until 9pm), so I’m trying out some earplugs because this is Brooklyn, walls are thin, and most people over the age of six are still awake now. Maybe I will get some good sleep!

    What do you wish you could change about where you live?