Put the crumbs to use

April 24, 2009February 6, 201520 Comments

When I got home from class yesterday afternoon, I had a few kitchen projects that needed addressing.

My sunflower seed butter having ridden into the sunrise with breakfast yesterday morning, I determined that it was time to inaugurate my Everybody’s Nuts “south of the border” pistachios. I sampled a few to make sure they passed the test:

Oh my goodness. These are delicious. Mildly hot, mildly sweet, and super-spiced with chilli powder and cumin. YUM. I shelled a pile for the coffee bean grinder:

And then ground away:

Beautiful, right? I can’t wait until I have a real-live, sturdy, food processor someday. The thought of making more than 3 tbsp of nut butter at a time is mind-blowing.

My coworker Mildred’s birthday was yesterday, and since I wasn’t there due to my Thursday class, I wanted to bake her a cake to bring in today. Mildred doesn’t like chocolate (crazy), so I thought some Passover sponge cake would be just the ticket, especially since the recipe called for seven eggs and I had all that potato starch left from Passover. I obviously enjoyed the cake batter immensely. While baking, some “unfortunate” leakage occurred:

The leaks conveniently doubled as taste-tests to make sure the cake was not poisonous:

All clear. Phew.

Finished with a drizzle of the homemade black raspberry jam Wife gave me in Charlotte last weekend:

I had both broccoli and smoked salmon (still from Tuesday’s egg event) on hand, so I set out to recreate one of the appetizers from Saturday’s wedding buffet for dinner.

I’m so gourmet, right?

For dessert, I knew I needed to incorporate all of these cake crumbs from the sponge cake I had just baked:

I made chocolate peanut butter froyo with plain yogurt, part skim ricotta, unsweetened cocoa powder, PB2, ground flax, and chopped dates. Immersion blend, freeze for 20, stir, freeze for 20, stir, and then it’s done! Here’s my cake and ice cream bowl topped with coconut and pieces of chocolate-caramel-nut easter candy:

Ahhhhhh, so so so so good! Even better than the Tasti-D I had earlier in the day, if you can believe that. (I also may have gone back and had several more bites of that Easter candy).

When do you prefer homemade over store-bought?

Sample satisfaction

April 23, 2009February 6, 201514 Comments

On my way home last night, I stopped into a couple of grocery stores for about $11 worth of important items — milk and yogurt for making yogurt, part-skim ricotta (because it was on sale), and broccoli (because I needed greens!). I also collected a few samples along the way to incorporate into dinner:

The plate includes a big ol’ pile of plain steamed broccoli, the rest of Myrna’s McDonald’s breakfast sandwich that she gave me yesterday when she got too full, and two little quiche samples — one sweet ham and one spinach — from Union Market.

I don’t think I’ve had a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich since I was 7. My dad and I used to go on weekend mornings because I was a crazy picky eater (what happened??!) but I loved those biscuits more than anything. I would get mine with only an egg on it because I didn’t like sausage or melted cheese. I’m still not crazy about sausage, but, even though it’s not something I ever crave, this sandwich was definitely tasty! The biscuit was as good as I remembered.

Dessert developed as I was getting the yogurt ready to go into the oven for overnight incubation. I’d picked up my two favorite brands to use as starters — Stonyfield and Ronnybrook — in fun flavors so I could play with the leftovers.

I reserved the plain yogurt parts for yogurt making but kept the flavored fun parts (cream top, coconut pieces, chocolate-on-the-bottom) for me:

I swirled in a bit of part-skim ricotta to make coconut-chocolate cheesecake yogurt and then dipped in a little sample sliver of peanut butter brownie from Union Market:

I surrounded my brownie cheesecake bowl with fruit salad and a sample piece of cherry lattice pie, also from the market:

Samples are so exciting!

For dessert #2 later, I had my leftover almond sunset tea from morning with two jasmine biscotti bites for dipping:

What’s the best free sample, food or non-food, you ever got?

Pieces

April 22, 2009February 6, 201520 Comments

I had more prune groatmeal for breakfast this morning, but I switched things up on the flax oat bran side by mixing in 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder and 2 tbsp PB2:

I sprinkled some of the dry PB2 on top and then sprinkled hot water over that to enhance the peanut-flavor prominence. I find that PB2 often gets lost when I mix it in. If you look closely, you can see a bit of marbling from this highly intricate procedure:

If you haven’t caught on already, I surrounded the oats with a ring of fruit salad and topped it all with unsweetened coconut:

I had my glass of water and some soymilky almond sunset/black tea on the side:

There was also some gymming somewhere in there: 20 mins on the Stepmill, hip abductor/adductor, glutes, and chest on the cybex, 15 minutes elliptical, stretching/abs, jogs there and back. Stats: 1 hour and 18 minutes, 519 calories, 133 average heart rate, 176 max.

I had a meeting all morning at work, so I was starving when it ended at 11. Myrna came over to donate the rest of her breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s since she couldn’t finish it. I had a couple teeny bites of sausage and then put the rest away for later:

As my official healthy snack, I brought out a cup of pumpkin pie flax pudding:

Shortly thereafter, some Reese’s pieces appeared on the fateful conference room table:

I think Myrna was the culprit? Either way, I had four small handfuls:

I had back-to-back visits planned that would keep me out of the office from 12:30 to 3:30, so I ate lunch at noon even though I wasn’t quite hungry yet. Lunch was made of leftovers and scraps, as usual.

In class on Monday night, Lisa gave me a big slice of multi-grain bread that she had left over from her Hale & Hearty soup. I sliced the bread in half “the long way” to make two thinner slices of equal surface area. I started with one slice and topped it with leftover smoked salmon salad from last night’s Eggland’s Best event:

I finished it with time to spare, and it was even more delicious than anticipated, so I ate the other half right then as well:

(Side note: For more useful egg facts, check out Missy’s recap of last night!)

Followed by a mint to address the salmon-breath:

When I got back from my visit at 3:30, I found a note from Deborah waiting for me at my desk: “Sarah, I have food left from lunch on my desk. You can come take.” Music to my ears, especially since Deborah had been waxing poetic about her mom’s stewed turkey during the morning meeting! I went to Deborah’s desk and helped myself to a bite of turkey with some of the accompanying rice and beans:

I also had another mint and this pineapple candy:

And I broke out my fruit somewhere in the 4:00 hour. An orange and fruit salad (which now includes the fruit salad I saved from the EB event last night):

I’m actually hungry for dinner tonight, so that should be coming along soon. And thanks for all the eggciting (I promise I’ll stop with the eggsaggerated “egg” usage soon — it’s so addictive) egg recipes. I can’t wait to get started 🙂

Pieces or cups? I prefer cups, but I obviously don’t discriminate against pieces!

If I didn’t have to sleep

April 20, 2009February 6, 201539 Comments

Last week, I bought this little bunch of “apple bananas” at a fruit shop near my office in East Harlem.

They were the color that I normally love bananas, but apparently partly green is a no-go in the world of apple bananas. I took one bite and thought my tongue had fallen out because I could no longer feel it. Guess they weren’t ripe yet! I let them sit for the weekend and then decided to revisit one for my snack this morning. For size orientation:

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And I could actually taste the apple flavor in there!

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Inginia and I had our group this afternoon, and while Inginia put together a fun lunch spread (as usual), I worked some kitchen magic to make blue playdough for the kids:

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For lunch, I had 1.5 thin slices of French-ish bread with Inginia’s mustardy tuna salad:

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And 1/2 of a mini english muffin with peanut butter:

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A juntos (minus the extra 1/2 slice of bread and tuna):

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Some parents brought in an Entenmann’s walnut danish ring (whyyyyyyyy?), so I had two small slices (with another little dabble of pb on the side):

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The same parent also brought in a carton of Dole strawberry banana orange juice. I usually only drink water because I’m a much bigger fan of eating than drinking, but I had to have a sip because I used to love these juices when I was little. My sip did not disappoint!

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After the group, I relieved my tuna breath with a Newman’s ginger mint, the best breath mint ever.

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I think I had four of these over the course of the day/evening.

Later in the afternoon, it was orange time! Note the neat edges on those orange peels thanks to my fancy schmancy orange peeler from Myrna:

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I also had a small handful of these pita chips from Jessica. So salty and garlicky, mmmmmmmmm:

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I had my first course of dinner right before I left work around 5:20: a cup of the pumpkin-sofrito Buitoni’s mushroom agnosomething and 3-grain tempeh that I made last night.

My second course took place in class with variation #2 of flax pudding because Heather was looking for a tofu-free method (and because I was out of tofu AND yogurt):

For that pumpkin pie flax pudding, I brought 1.5 cups unsweetened soy milk to a boil with 6 tbsp ground flax, cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves/ginger, and 2 chopped dates. After a couple of minutes there, I immersion blended in 1.5 cups of canned pumpkin and poured the mix into a container to chill in the fridge overnight. For my purposes, one serving equals one cup — so this recipe makes 3-4 servings.

It would probably also work without the pumpkin because the flax seems to have incredible gelling properties. It just might come out a little bit looser.

Next up was my snack/dessert baggie with manchego cheese samples from the gourmet deli, two of mom’s kitchen sink muffins with sunflower seed butter for spreading, and sample pieces of Tate’s Bakeshop chocolate chip cookies from the deli:

When I got home tonight, I snacked a bit while I got tomorrw’s food ready … as in I shoveled big piles of fruit salad and groatmeal into my mouth too fast to photograph them. What’s a girl to do when it won’t all fit in the container??

I was also super-excited to find that my first issue of Eating Well had arrived! I won the subscription from Brandi a little while ago, and I can’t wait to start reading it 😀 Sadly, I can’t start yet because I have to go to bed ASAP.

What would you be doing right now if you didn’t have to sleep?

Oh, one more thing (about me again, because obviously the world revolves around me) … I got hired!! Thanks to the tireless efforts of Heather, my supervisor, my amazing unpaid internship has miraculously found space in the budget to hire me full-time after the internship ends on May 8. I’ll officially start on June 1. I’ll be able to keep doing what I currently do (and what I love to do!) about 1/3 of the time; the other 2/3 will be a different more paperwork-based job but still good experience. So, not only will I continue to get my social work experience; I will also learn a new system and have a small amount of financial stability to get me through the last year of grad school. Phew!

Busier off

April 16, 2009February 6, 201518 Comments

Ack, it’s pretty late for me to be getting around to this! I always expect to have so much extra time on my days off, and the opposite always ends up being true.

Anyway, I had today off since it’s my class day and Hunter is closed for spring break 🙂 I had lots to get done because I’m leaving for the weekend tomorrow — my old college roommate is getting married in North Carolina! I woke up around 8, got my laundry started at the laundromat, and then came back for breakfast:

That’s right, exactly the same as yesterday: tofu oat bran with prune groatmeal topping! Such a pleasant-sounding name, right?

I topped it with cashew-almond butter and unsweetened coconut again today, but
I decided to go wild and throw on a sprinkle of cinnamon as well.

Lunch, even though it was my day off from work, was the usual group effort.

I had a salad made with rescued brown and leaky roommate lettuce and Heather’s leftover lunch lettuce from work yesterday; half of an abandoned zucchini that I found on the conference room table yesterday (I think it was Inginia’s?) sauteed with olive oil, garlic, and a few thawed pieces of seared tuna from the Electrolux event a couple weeks ago; peanut roasted chickpeas; Newman’s dried berry blend; grated homemade parmesan; and the rest of my sundried tomato dressing from last night’s salad.

On the side, I had one of Myrna and Mildred’s empanadas from Heather’s baby shower and Heather’s leftover guacamole from her lunch yesterday.

I didn’t know whether the empanada was chicken or cheese until I took a bite.

Chicken it was! Delicious 🙂

Lunch dessert was another tbsp of peanut roasted chickpeas and the rest of the Newman’s berries:

After laundry and lunch, I went out on a mission of many errands. I walked down to Brooklyn’s poor excuse for a mall, Atlantic Center, and picked up a new pair of sneakers (in the white/berry/storm color) from DSW on sale for $60. More money than I’m really free to spend, but the health of my knees is worth it!

I also hit up Target hoping to find a cheap dress for the wedding that suits my new, ahem, “curvier” figure (thanks to the injury-induced reduction in running). No luck, though, so I’m going to have to raid my closet! I did, however, pick up a coffee bean grinder. I don’t like coffee, but my mini-food processor bit the dust after three batches of nut butter, and I thought (rather, I called my mom and she thought) the grinder might be a good and cheap ($15!) interim solution until I can get my hands on a powerful processor. Mom was right, and I made some sunflower seed butter when I got home. Sure, it took three batches (and I had to stop the grinder after every pulse to scrape the sides) to make 1/2 cup’s worth, but I now have delicious sunflower seed butter!

I also stopped into several grocery stores on the way back to try to put a dent in my stockpile of coupons. In addition to heavily discounted produce, I also picked up a free kashi meal, free tempeh, free cereal, and free yogurt 😀 The checkout people kept doing double-takes as they rang up my coupons.

By the time I got home, I had been gone for three hours and 3.5 miles of walking. I had a quick snack of a date with my last tsp of cashew-almond butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

And then I went out for an inaugural run with the new sneakers! I could definitely feel the difference in my knees. I felt like I was running on clouds, sigh. I made it about 22 minutes until the muscles started giving me grief, so I took a 20-minute walk/run/stretch pain-break. Once things had calmed down, I resumed a solid run for the last 10 minutes. I think I usually run by wildly throwing my legs out in front of me (yeah, I’m sure that’s part of why I’m injured, too) but I noticed today that I felt a lot less pain when I focused on lifting my knees UP instead. I’ll have to make a point of this on future runs. Anyhoo, stats: 55 minutes, 421 calories, 144 average heart rate, 168 max. It was probably around 4 miles total. After the run, I did most of the 20-minute Yoga for Runners — sometimes I just can’t keep my attention on it long enough to finish!

Now I’m off to go finish dyeing my hair, do a little wedding fashion show so I can figure out what to pack, and then start packing! I will hopefully be back soon — I should have a good amount of airport downtime perfectly suited to blogging tomorrow 🙂

Are your days off busier than your days on?

Erin at I Walk In This World is going to be hosting a bake sale/auction next week to raise money for the Jimmy Fund. Go check it out!

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Tag: colleagues

Put the crumbs to use

Sample satisfaction

Pieces

If I didn’t have to sleep

Busier off

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