Short and sweet

January 7, 2009February 6, 2015Leave a comment

Last night’s lunch preparation with turkey soup (the last of it), yogurt/fruit, two mini muffins (just in case), carrots/green beans, and half an orange from yesterday’s office haul:

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Today’s yogurt had bits of frozen banana from Monday’s windfall, half of an apple, and three blueberries for color:

Breakfast

I was up bright and early again this morning at 5:00 for the gym! I did my favorite routine: 5-minute jog to gym, 10 minutes of arms with free weights on an aerobics step, 30 minutes with Good Housekeeping Us Weekly on the Stairmaster, 10 minutes stretching/abs, and 5-minute jog back home, at which point I put the oatmeal in the oven at 375 for 30 minutes and flew into the shower. Running with an umbrella against the windy rain on a pitch-black January morning in New York is not the best part of my day, but if it’s going to be the worst, I’m glad it’s done already!

Breakfast was a repeat with LOTS of yellow since I’m all out of colorful fruit. Grainmeal with yellow bits of more frozen banana and half of a chopped yellow apple in a sunny yellow bowl:

Topped with yogurt, cardamom, and cinnamon post-oven:

I wonder what dangerous office treats await today …

All about the themes

January 6, 2009February 6, 20152 Comments

Realizing I was low on veggies, I ran into the grocery store next door to my office (it’s much cheaper than the one in my neighborhood) to see what I could find. I grabbed a bunch of green beans (to replenish my dwindling supply) and then went a little crazy and also got a pack of fresh okra (it was only $1.50!). I’ve never cooked okra before in my life and probably only eaten it a couple of times, but I thought it would keep things interesting.

When I got home, I chopped the okra into thinnish rounds and put it (and chopped green beans, for variety) in a pan with a splash of water to steam:

And then the stroke of genius hit. I added a heaping spoonful of homemade Dominican sofrito, an amazing herby and garlicky sauce that another coworker (hi inginia!) gave me when it was leftover from a work party a little while back. Using the sofrito got me thinking about more homemade Dominican food from my coworkers, so I dug into the freezer to uncover the Dominican rice (hi mildred!) I had saved from yet another work function. I mixed it with some of the cooked barley that I brought back from MA to add a healthy whole grain punch:

frozen cooked grains: Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

My plate, topped with grated homemade cheddar:

How intricate is this okra?!

It was a delicious experiment that went very well, and I made enough to have for dinner one more night this week, yum!

For dessert, I had the last of the grapenut pudding from MA, another big pile straight from the oven (my apartment is microwave-less, so I do all my reheating in the oven):

Now the rush, rush, rush to make my 9pm bedtime!

Temptation central

January 6, 2009February 6, 20152 Comments

At the agency where I intern, I sit directly next to the conference room. And the conference room table is where my coworkers put all their leftover sugary holiday foods so they don’t have to keep them in their own houses. So, alllllll day long today, I was sitting next to this:

I restrained myself and grabbed one of these to have for dessert after lunch (they are authentic Austrian chocolates that a coworker bought in Prague over the holiday, so I had to have one for cultural exploration purposes):

I also managed to score another orange (which I brought home for use at a later time):

if you can't tell, my desk calendar doubles as a placemat at work 🙂

And then, something very exciting happened while I was eating lunch! One of my coworkers (hi myrna!) had extra sancocho, a Dominican soup/stew that seems to have everything under the sun in it, so she let me sample some:

It was sooooo good. She said the soup is thickened with a puree of plantains and pumpkin, two of my very favorite foods. I am going to have to look into how I can make this myself. Does anybody know?

As promised, I broke into my authentic four-layer Austrian chocolate ball after lunch:

out to in: dark chocolate, praline paste (!!!), more chocolate, and marzipan with pistachios (!!!)

And there’s more! A little bit later, Myrna (again) came around with some Godiva dark chocolate-covered almonds. I had these two:

I'm really enjoying my calendar as a photography background!

I must say that I am enjoying my calendar as a photography background.

Dinner will be along shortly …

Same old, same old

January 6, 2009February 6, 2015Leave a comment

Lunch and breakfast today were pretty much the same as yesterday, so I won’t bore you with too many details. Here’s lunch last night stacked and ready:

the lineup: turkey soup, yogurt/fruit, apple, carrots/green beans

Notice there’s no emergency backup snack for today. That’s because I have no evening workout planned. Yayyyy, rest day!

Pretty yogurt:

Breakfast

Again, today’s breakfast was similar to yesterday’s (1/2 chopped banana, 1/3 chopped apple), with one slight difference: no more cherries! So I used blueberries instead:

Topped with yogurt and cinnamon, post-oven:

And I forgot to mention yesterday that this batch of grainmeal mom sent was also cooked with eggs and milk, so it’s got a good protein boost to it :-).

Now, you may have noticed that I rarely use a whole banana in one sitting, and you may actually be worried about all those leftover banana halves and quarters floating around (or you may not care). I am about to put your mind at ease with the most dazzling invention to ever grace the planet, a Christmas gift from my roommate Tara who has long sympathized with my plight. I present to you the Nana-Clip:

It clips right onto the cut end of a banana, thereby preventing it from turning brown. Brilliant!

Mad dash …

January 5, 2009February 6, 20155 Comments

… in more ways than one!

I ended up eating both of my “emergency snack” mini muffins today around 5pm (along with a Russell Stover orange cream-filled chocolate from the box that materialized in the conference room right next to my desk) because Gina, Kate, and I decided that we would, in fact, meet for our 3.5 mile run through Central Park with the NIKE Running Club. We try to go a couple times each week, mainly because NIKE provides heaps of fresh fruit, bagels, muffins, and pastries after each run. I always stuff as much fruit as I can into my mouth (and sneakily pack more into my empty lunch tupperwares) and intercept the staff as they’re throwing out the leftover bread products so I can hand them to homeless people on the subway.

But tonight, we got bad news: no more food!!!! Gina, Kate, and I looked at each other in horror because that meant we had to run 3.5 miles, not only with no promise of food waiting at the end, but also with an hour + commute on the other side before we could get home for dinner. On the subway ride, we split an orange (also courtesy of the conference room at my work), but needless to say, I was ravenous when I got home at 8:45. But before eating, I had to prep tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch and also deal with this windfall of 13 overripe bananas I scored from a work donation:

bananas BEFORE ... not appetizing, I know

bananas AFTER, chopped for freezing ... still not appetizing!

I filled two 32 oz. yogurt containers. I know they don’t look great now, but they are going to make amazing banana bread oatmeal someday … just wait!

I had to think fast for dinner, since it was nearing 10pm. Even though I don’t have to get up at 5 tomorrow since I got my workout in tonight, I still need to be sleeping by 10:30 in order to be functional tomorrow. I stuck a dark chocolate pomegranate VitaTop in the oven for 15 minutes to get the chocolate chips all gooey, and then I sauteed half an apple and half a banana (I found some slightly less mushy pieces from tonight’s haul) in a tsp of canola oil until golden brown: