Food rich, cash poor

March 16, 2009February 6, 201518 Comments

I may not get paid in cash at my internship, but as you’ve all seen time and time again, I definitely get paid in food!

Before my 11:00 visit this morning, the standard morning snack came out to keep me going until lunch. I had a mug of Earl Grey to accompany my 2/3 cup yogurt with 1/2 small chopped apple, a sprinkle of vanilla-almond granola, cinnamon, and cardamom:

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Immediately after the visit, I ran down to join Inginia for our regular Monday parents’ group. Today was a special day because all of the kids in the group are turning two this month! We celebrated by making play-dough together 😀

Here I am with some ghost children and their moms (confidentiality and all …):

The celebration continued with mac & cheese courtesy of Inginia’s culinary skills. She doctored a regular boxed mix with extra cheese, eggs, oregano, and black pepper:

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I had about two cups worth — it was so delicious! (no surprise there)

The best part of our celebration was cake-decorating!! Right before the group, Inginia baked a pineapple cake.

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We let the kids go to town with vanilla and chocolate frosting.

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I scraped the empty frosting jar clean, of course. It was ALMOST as satisfying as scraping a peanut butter jar clean 😉

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Next up were the sprinkles.

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Two! The finished product, plus the fancy custard-filled white cake one of the moms brought in:

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My small plate was bursting with pieces of each, plus more frosting scrapings from the spatulas.

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We packed up the leftover cake for the families to take home, and then I filled this cup with all the rest of the crumbs and frosting still on the plates and savored every bite.

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(You might notice some suspicious chocolate cake crumbs in that cup that don’t seem as though they match up with either of the two birthday cakes (or you might not). Good eye! I randomly found a bag of chocolate cake crumbs in one of the kitchens at work and thought it would pair splendidly with my cup o’ frosting. I was right :D)

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Afternoon snack (as if I needed it) happened when Jessica brought out her baked batata! I loooooove me some batata, so I had about half of it:

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It was around this time that the best announcement of the day came on over the loudspeaker: “Attention staff: We have collard greens available in Advocacy. Please come down if you would like some.” You know I was up and running at that one!

The food bank delivery had come in for our pantry, but the pantry will be closed tomorrow … meaning that all the extra perishable produce had to go! I went down and Pura hooked me up with two bags. On my way out of the office later, I stopped into the Advocacy kitchen one more time to make sure nothing was in danger of rotting while the department is out “advocating” in Albany tomorrow, and my timing was perfect. Lucia loaded me up with another bag of collard greens, a tightly packed bag of fresh spinach, a bag of radishes, and three enormous carrots!

(Also worth mentioning: I survived the day with only four mints from Belkis’ candy jar! Not sure how much of a sugar success that actually is given that I ate my weight in frosting earlier …)

Straggering under my heavy bags of books and produce (not complaining!), I speed-subwayed the 40 blocks from work to class and made it just in the nick of time. The group presenting tonight did a great job with their topic of addiction … including food addiction. We talked about my blog briefly (as a healthy example, of course ;)), so welcome HBII classmates if you’re reading!

I wasn’t all that hungry for dinner (understandably), so I had about 1/2 cup mix of mac & cheese left from the group, mystery fried rice left from Vianni’s lunch, and mixed-grain salad.

I got hungrier near the end of class, so I also ate my cup of roasted veggies:

And this cup of cantaloupe that was also left from the parents’ group:

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And now, it’s really really time for me to go to bed. I hope I fall asleep quickly tonight — yoga was nice this morning, but I missed my gym-time!

Do you have a morning routine that helps set you up for a productive day?

Nuts for salad + laundry debacle

March 15, 2009February 6, 201510 Comments

My second PB2 experiment took place this morning when I decided on the world’s best oatmeal combo: pb-chocolate-banana.

In the pot, I cooked 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats with 1/2 cup unsweetened silk, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 whipped banana, 1/4 chunked banana, dash salt, and 1 packet chocolate pb2. The cooked oatmeal went into the bowl on a bed of 1/2 cup yogurt, and I garnished with 2 sliced strawberries, unsweetened coconut, 1.5 chopped pieces of lindt hazelnut chocolate, and unsweetened cocoa powder.

Yum! But, I couldn’t really taste the pb2 chocolate and peanut flavors that strongly. If I were to make this bowl of oatmeal again, and I probably will, I would mix cocoa powder into the pot to cook with the oatmeal and save the pb2 to pour on top. Mixing it in led to too much flavor dilution!

For lunch, I had the grilled chicken/chicken parm leftovers salad that I brought home from my coworkers on Friday. I actually only used half of the chicken that was on the salad and saved the other half for tomorrow. I bulked up the salad with the grape tomatoes, radishes, chopped endives, and cheese cubes from Friday night and topped it with a drizzle of Annie’s lite gingerly dressing I found in our fridge + freshly ground black pepper.

Post-picture, I decided I needed more crunch and added two chopped and toasted almonds to the top 😀

My eyes were bigger than my stomach (as my dad would say), and I made a second course that consisted of the rest of the chicken parm toast with homemade almond-cashew butter + the last cup of Friday night’s leftover fruit salad and a sprinkling of vanilla-almond granola.

I ate the toasts and realized I felt full, so I held off on the fruit salad for another hour or so until I was ready.

Here’s another picture, just because I’m not looking forward to going back to my paper as soon as this post is done.

I’m leaving in a little while to meet the comm girls for coffee in honor of Diana’s recent ENGAGEMENT :D, and then it will be back home and to the books!

In unrelated news, I went to do my laundry this morning only to find the big metal gate down and the laundromat dark and empty. I spotted the manager parked a few cars down and went to inquire. Apparently, the metal gate was broken and he couldn’t get in! He told me to leave my clothes with him and come back tonight to get them. I was caught off guard, so between that and the language barrier, I got flustered and agreed. But now I’m thinking: (1) Is he going to wash my stuff for me and then charge me by the pound (which will undoubtedly cost more than I normally pay to do it myself)?; (2) Are all my clothes going to shrink because he doesn’t know what can go in the dryer and what can’t?; and (3) Was I completely off-base, and did he just mean he would hold onto my laundry until later so I didn’t have to drag it all the way back home, and I’ll still need to do it myself tonight?

Yes, I could just go back over there and check, but I’m feeling lazy and the suspense is more fun. What do YOU think will become of my laundry?

Winnings

March 14, 2009February 6, 201517 Comments

So, as you may recall, last night’s sushi was only the beginning of my dinner!

Gina, Kate, and I met at NYU at 6pm to attend a panel discussion, book signing, and reception to celebrate the release of a new book titled Gastropolis: Food and New York City.

I have a special plan for telling you more details about this amazing event (and the food that was there!), so for now, I’m just going to stick with what I ate (and ohhh man, what DIDN’T I eat??), what I brought home, and what I found waiting for me when I got home 😀

I only took a photo of plate #1 because things got a little hazy (the amazing spread kind of went to my head!) after that.

This pile includes hummus, carrots, cucumber, jicama, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, roasted red pepper, a mountain of feta, hunks of parmesan and blue cheese, apple slices, grapes, dried cranberries, dried apricots, dried figs, almonds, and so much more!

Oooh, here’s another plate picture. Maybe it’s the same? Maybe it’s different? Who knows. Either way, I ate it all!

I started so honorably with mostly veggies, but I probably went back for about a pound more of feta (I haven’t had feta this delicious since Greece!), lots of parm, goat cheese, dried cranberries, almonds, a couple crackers, TONS more veggies, and maybe 3 full bunches of grapes? Ohhhh, the expansion is right!

I also took one of each dessert to wrap in a napkin and save for later.

From top to bottom:

– Pumpkin-spice loaf

– Lemon-poppyseed loaf

– Chocolate-frosted chocolate brownie

– Oat bar with berry jam layer

– Chocolate rugelach

– Chocolate chip blondie

This napkin plan was super smart, right? Until I ate at least one of each dessert anyway via nibbles over the course of the evening …

Because the event was focused on New York food, they also had samples of something I’ve always wanted to try: chocolate egg creams! They used NY-produced chocolate syrup, of course:

Pretty sure I had enough of these to equal at least a full cup (and maybe 2).

As the night wore on and I saw that there were still piles of food left that might end up getting thrown out, I started slying “packing” some things away for later in my empty containers and bags left from lunch 😀 I unloaded when I got home.

Here’s the haul:

Fresh produce (mushrooms, broccoli, green cauliflour, endive leaves, asparagus spears, carrots, snow peas, white cauliflower, radishes, grape tomatoes, yellow squash, 2/3 of a pear, and a bunch of grapes!)

Sweets and treats (desserts you’ve seen already plus 2 cookies, 3 apples rings, 2 cubes of gouda, 1 hunk of parmesan, and about 2 tbsp dried cranberries)

Most of the desserts went into my “carb bag” in the freezer where I keep all of the breads/cookies/cakes I come across but know I won’t be able to eat fast enough … and I don’t want to feel like I have to eat them all right away before mold starts to grow, either! As stuffed as I was, however, I did have one last little piece of lemon poppyseed loaf:

I also brought home a selection of lunch leftovers from earlier in the day, if you recall.

I dismantled the rest of the chicken parm sandwich that Myrna gave me. A few minutes in the oven turned the soggy bread into herby and delicious toast. Before and after:

I scraped the breading off of the chicken pieces. Before and after:

And added them to the rest of Nydia’s grilled chicken salad. Before and after:

Lastly, I chopped the half banana left from Mildred’s lunch with the grapes and pear from the book signing and the 1/2 apple I had sitting in my fridge to make a pretty cinnamon-topped fruit salad:

So, all in all, I’d say I’m pretty well-stocked on food this week? 😛

On top of all the food excitment yesterday, I also had some mail excitement waiting when I got home because …

My BSI: Kale prize for the Kale-Crust Pizza had arrived from Beadie!! Meet the most beautiful earrings ever:

Can you believe these are completely handmade by Beadie herself?

I can’t wait to wear them. Thanks, Beadie!!

I also had another package, but it was kind of anti-climactic after my new jewels. Gina from Bell Plantation sent me these samples of PB2 and chocolate PB2 to try. Yum!

And in the biggest news yet, I am the winner of Abbie’s Foods That Fit giveaway! Abbie is sending me a package of all of her favorite things (including more PB2!), and I can’t wait to try all the new goodies 😀

We’ll see how long my luck holds out — I’m crossing my fingers for the awesome magazine subscription giveaway that Brandi’s hosting here!

And now, I must get moving on the day! I wonder if I will ever get hungry again?

The beginning

March 14, 2009February 6, 201513 Comments

Ooooooheeeeee, I’ve had quite the day of food! I kept wondering how I was going to blog about it all since there was just SO much, but then I remembered the best part about food blogging: the chronology is set 😀 All of this has happened already, so I can just start at the beginning!

We sat down for lunch around 12:30, and as planned, I ate the rest of the dinner I made last night. I heated the 1/2 portobello cap and the BBQ tofu (with some homemade parmesan in between the layers) in the work microwave and then stuck a lettuce leaf in the middle of each “sandwich” for color:

On the side, I had a salad of the items that wouldn’t fit in the portobello-tofu “sandwich”: 2 more slices of tofu (broken into pieces), more romaine, and roasted brussels sprouts.

Plus, Myrna surprised me with a chicken parm sandwich as a thank you for the help I gave her with a paper. I ate the filling of the half pictured (minus one piece of chicken) and brought the rest home to save for another use! (Other leftovers I brought home today: Nydia’s leftover half of her grilled chicken salad and Mildred’s leftover half banana. You’ll be seeing these foods shortly, I’m sure!)

For dessert, I had my 1/2 cup Greek yogurt mixed with chopped apple, chopped banana, 1 tbsp vanilla-almond granola, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger:

Along with this oatmeal cookie from Mildred:

At around 2:30, my last cup of pineapple (with another tbsp vanilla-almond granola) surfaced to go on a field trip to my mouth:

Next up was 2 tbsp homemade guacamole with a serving of Sea Salt RiceWorks:

And since no day can pass candy-free and I want Brach’s to start paying me and I needed to address the guac-breath, I also had a strawberry hard candy (the kind with a gooey strawberry center, mmmm). And about 4 mints, of course!

Early dinners have been a trend for me this week. At 4:30, my agency had an “informal” staff gathering in the lobby with light refreshments. And by light refreshments, they meant SUSHI!!! And there commenced dinner #1. Here’s the spread:

And my first plate with broccoli, grape tomatoes, a california roll, a spicy salmon roll, a spicy crab roll, shrimp, grapes, apple slices, two cheddar cheese slices, and a triscuit thin crisp:

Yum, I was in heaven! (After I finished my plate, I noticed a sign by the sushi that said, “Please only take two pieces per person.” Whoops!)

And just because sushi is so pretty:

Love:

And my second plate with more crudites:

And salsa!

As we left, I grabbed another California roll (shhhhhh), about three more slices of cheese with apple slices, and a small handful of carrots — all of which I ate during the walk across the street to Mildred’s car 😀

And like I said, that was only dinner #1!! Dinner #2 will be along shortly …

How many meals do you eat per day?

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: colleagues

Food rich, cash poor

Nuts for salad + laundry debacle

Winnings

The beginning

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