Food, doldrums, and a tale

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Dinner last night was quick and easy because I was rushing to finish up that assignment. I had two more stuffed collard greens leaves:

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And two Sweet ‘n’ Spicy Black Bean-Salmon Patties with a thick layer of cinnamon-cayenne peanut butter between them:

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I see those weird looks you’re giving me, but come on, you know you want to try it!

Halfway through I remembered about the radishes and lettuce in the fridge I should be using, so they got inserted into the middle. Less pretty but more nutritious:

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Dessert was about 1/3 cup of my tropical fruit salad (look at that juice!) with a dollop of part-skim ricotta mixed with lemon curd and a sprinkling of granola/trail mix/cocoa java almonds:

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And dessert dessert — the One Lucky Duck blonde macaroon sample from Sunday’s brunch:

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This was delicious and made me think about how I really need to get into the macaroon-making business.

This morning, I slept in until 6 and then did the 20-minute Morning Flow #1 yogadownload. On top of feeling achy, I’ve been feeling unmotivated about the gym and just stretched too thin in general all week. The yoga was a good way to combine extra sleep with more gentle exercise … but I also keep finding myself trying to make deals in my head, i.e. you didn’t do cardio this morning, so no cake today if some shows up. I need to stop that!

I’m going to try to find some time this weekend to revamp the exercise routine because I think the biggest problem is that I’m getting bored.

And, of course, spinach oats yet again for breakfast! (Click here for the process.)

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Topped with strawberries, homemade almond-cashew butter, granola/trail mix, and unsweetened coconut:

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And I’ll leave you this morning with a mini Tale of Expansion from my good friend Wife, who you met in a couple photos here. Wife is in the process of getting her PhD (!!!!!) in Athens, GA, but she recently spent spring break in Tucson with her boyfriend. Here is what she had to say about that:

Ted and I went for high tea at the Tohono Chul Tea Room in Tucson over spring break. Not nearly as official and elaborate as the three tier Harrod’s affair when we were in London, but as you can see the scones still make me go crrrrraaaaaazzzzy.

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What makes YOU go crrrrraaaaaazzzzy?

Misplaced birth

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The spinach oats kept me going until about 10:30 this morning — 3 to 3.5 hours seems to be the most distance I can get out of a bowl of oatmeal. Fine with me since the hunger means I get to start eating earlier 😀

I had a small chopped apple with one of the packets of Barney Butter that came in my Foods That Fit prize pack.

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It was my first time trying Barney Butter, and I was enough of a fan to pull apart the little packet post-squeeze and make sure I took care of every last one of the 90 calories in there!

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As tasty as the BB was, I don’t think I’d buy it. It has a bunch of unnecessary ingredients in it that I’d rather get from, say … cake! My nut butter can keep being made out of just nuts, thank you very much.

I was hungry again by 11:30 and decided to honor the feeling pronto with lunch #1: three more of the stuffed collard greens that I described last night and a sampling of my roommate Tara’s baby hydroponic tomatoes because she told me they were blogworthy and I agreed.

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The green ones look like mini-watermelons — so cute!

I ate real lunch at about 12:30 and, since I am once again the luckiest girl in the world with the most amazing coworkers, Myrna cooked last night and brought in a TON of food for me! I shared it with Vianni, and there was still some leftover to put toward tomorrow’s lunch. Here’s my bowl:

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My roasted veggies are in the back, and Myrna’s culinary masterpieces are in the front: rice with corn, potatoes, and chicken breast. I don’t even like potatoes, but Myrna seasoned these so beautifully that I actually ate all the skinny burnt pieces I could get my hands on.

Myrna supplemented the food she cooked with her leftover mangu from yesterday, be still my heart. I had about a cup of it.

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Next, Belkis appeared with her famous black beans and rice. I was in heaven and had about 1/2 cup:

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And for dessert, another tongue-painter candy:

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I have to say that I was kind of nervous about these “paint” candies because having a bright tongue could potentially challenge my credibility with clients, but I’m so weak when it comes to strawberry-flavored candy! Luckily, there was no lasting damage to my oral pigmentation yesterday OR today.

I had to leave for another visit around 1:40 and could tell hunger was coming back for me, so I ate my pretty yogurt before I left:

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A number of you commented yesterday about how delicious my yogurt breakfast combo looked when I ate this for a morning snack. I would just like to clarify that never in a million years would this itty bitty container with 1/2 cup fruit and 1/2 cup yogurt suffice for breakfast! It’s all about the oats 😀 That’s why they get their own post. I just use the yogurt as a tasty vehicle to keep the munchies at bay inter-meal!

And an on-the-way-to-the-visit breath freshener 😉

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When I got back to the office at 3:30, I had another super exciting treat waiting! Belkis’ cousin had stopped by with some freshly made habichuelas con dulce, YUM. I inhaled about a cup. Look at those big chunks of sweet batata!

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Perhaps I should have been born in the DR. Mom and dad, what were you thinking with the whole Massachusetts thing?

I had one more candy before calling it a day:

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I’m going to go out on a very sturdy limb and say that habichuelas con dulce is my new favorite dessert drink (my old and other favorite dessert drink is the balls of course). What is your favorite dessert drink?

Now I’m home, and I just remembered I have an assignment for class due Thursday that needs to get done stat!! Ahhhh, I’m off to go bury my head in the books … or the overpriced coursepack, as the case may be. I hate remembering things like this last minute! I’ll be back eventually with dinner because I’m 150% sure I’m about to eat in 3 …2 … 1 …

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?