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?

Buzzzzzzzzzzz

March 13, 2009February 6, 201516 Comments

That’s what my oven sounded like all night last night! I’ve had so many kitchen adventures in the past 12 hours, and they’re all starting to pile up on me. Here’s a long and time-consuming quick recap.

I baked my BSI: Strawberries entry (recipe to come soon) yesterday afternoon and had to taste-test half of one right out of the oven:

Mmmm, I have so many ideas for how to incorporate these into my meals/desserts! I also had plenty of the batter while mixing. The batter may have even tasted better than the finished product 🙂

Next, I tried my first ever RiceWorks brown rice chip in Sea Salt flavor while I packed tomorrow’s lunch — it was tasty enough, but I probably wouldn’t ever spend money on a bag of these (I got the bag for free with a coupon).

Dinner last night was all courtesy of my trusty oven. I slathered half a block’s worth of tofu slices with Country Bob’s all-purpose sauce and baked until crispy. I had half of the tofu I cooked with half of a grilled portalbello mushroom cap that roommate Tara asked me to take care of for her before it went bad (the other half of each will make an appearance in my lunch later today … I think), quartered and roasted brussels sprouts, a few salvageable chunks of Brigitte’s romaine from the crisper, and a sprinkle of my homemade parmesan

Blackened edges are my favorite!

Dessert was a compilation of treats. I toasted the end slice of Brigitte’s gram’s zucchini bread and topped it with 2 tbsp chocolate mousse and 2 chopped strawberries.

On the side I had the other half of my BSI: Strawberries creation.

How rich does this look?? (And it tasted even richer!)

Oh, and remember when I conceded defeat to my cuisinart mini-prep plus when all it gave me was nut dust (delicious nut dust, to be fair) instead of the butter I was after?? Reading Heather’s post last night got me inspired to try again. I roasted up a load of cashews and almonds and threw them back into the processor — this time for nearly 10 minutes (I had to hold the button down the whole time because that’s how fancy my kitchen appliances are), as per Heather’s instructions — and it actually worked!! Look at the creamy nut butteryness:

Thank you, Heather, for helping me emerge victorious from the food processor battle. Never again will I pay too much money for nut butter that cannot possibly compare to homemade.

I had to try some right away on top of a date. I swear there’s a date hiding somewhere under there. (And yes, you still see some nut dust — it’s from the side of the processor bowl that I obviously scraped clean before washing because crumbs are not allowed to go down the drain.)

And I probably also had a small spoonful of vanilla ice cream with a chopped Hershey’s Kiss right before I went to bed …

Today’s biggest news is that, oh my goodness, I have giveaways coming out of my ears! A rundown:

Click here if you like donuts because Food Snob has two dozen of them!
And click here if you’re hangry because you’re out of juice and want to be able to make your own.
Click here if you’re feeling short on southern charm (or if you just really like New Orleans cuisine).
Click here if you’re into granola customization (and who isn’t?).
Click here if you love seasonal produce, especially of the sort that means spring is here!!
And finally, click here if you are not opposed to birthdays and chocolate

Phewwwww, I’m ready to go back to bed after explaining all of that! But, alas, it is time to go to work :-). I’ll be back later with breakfast, a workout, and potentially some surprise food encounters.

How have your kitchen appliances come through for YOU?

I figured it out!

March 11, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

Ahh, this post is going to take me forEVER! I’ve had such a variety of nibbles today. Somehow, eating other people’s food never gets old 😛

I had my yogurt at around 10 this morning during our department meeting. In addition to 1/2 cup plain yogurt, the mix included chopped pear (wrinkled and rescued from roommate who got it for free with an order of sushi!), chopped banana (from Belkis yesterday), nutmeg, and 1 tbsp or so of golean crunch:

I was already hungry again when the meeting ended at 11:30, so I dove right into my cup of fresh pineapple — topped with about 1/4 cup of my supervisor Heather’s leftover Nature’s Path granola that didn’t fit in her yogurt during the meeting:

We broke for lunch around 12:30. I had the last cup of my spinach-chickpea dal:

Plus about two cups of the grilled chicken salad that Myrna couldn’t finish:

Dessert was a Ghirardelli 60% dark chocolate square from Rosalie:

Afternoon snack #1 was two teeny pieces of pineapple cake that Belkis made:

Belkis was very excited to share her cake because she just learned how to bake (she’s a master chef of bean-based Dominican dishes as you may recall, though). She made the cake all by herself from a boxed mix and was super proud that it worked and tasted good. She was especially pleased to see me licking the foil:

And then a mom came through the office selling candy to raise money for her kids’ school. I did not buy any, but plenty of my coworkers did. Inginia bought a snickers bar and sliced off this little piece for me:

I know it looks enormous, but it really was less than an inch long …

When I got hungry again around 3, I had this 1/2 cup of veggies left over from Mildred’s lunch:

I went out for a great visit immediately post-veggies. I’m doing a video project with one family that involves videotaping the parents interacting with the 7-month-old baby in 10-minute segments for us to watch all together later. They had so much fun being movie stars!

When I got back at 4:15, I had my final-ish work snack of 3 Kavli crispy thin crackers spread with 1/2 mashed banana (also left from Mildred’s lunch) and 1/4 cup chocolate mousse:

(Dad, I’m sorry it’s so brown!!! But chocolate tastes too good to eliminate based on color alone 😀 )

Also, I think Brach’s candy should start paying me, because all of this found its way from Belkis’ candy jar to my mouth at some point today. Chocolate mint, ice blue mint, cinnamon, star mint, and orange center hard candies:

Dinner started early tonight. Mildred and I picked up Pura on our way out of the office, and Pura happened to mention that they had just celebrated Kathy’s birthday … and had leftover rellenos! Mildred and I both snapped to attention when we heard that, so Pura set us up.

We each had a slice of rellenos maduros (sweet plantain relleno stuffed with ground meat, yummmmm!):

And split this slice of rellenos de papa (potato relleno stuffed with ground meat):

On the walk to my apartment from the subway, I stopped into the gourmet market for 3 miniscule sample cubes of cheese, samples of marinated mushrooms, and an entire ginger-lemon cookie’s worth of sample pieces:

And, waiting for me when I got home, I found more samples (what a day, right??). New tea flavors are so exhilarating:

I proceeded to make myself dinner #1273 which consisted of 2/3 of a sliced apple toppped with cinnamon and 2 tbsp chocolate mousse:

I can’t get enough of that mousse!

I may have also eaten a little chunk of chocolate while preparing (spoiler alert!) tomorrow’s breakfast, and I definitely nibbled on all the components of tomorrow’s lunch as I got that ready, too. My belly is so content!

Oh, I almost forgot! I figured out what went wrong with the basil-spice meringue kisses the other day! They collapsed because I did not add any cream of tartar, duh. I decided not to use it at the last minute when the whites whipped up so fast and sturdily, but I think the “mix-ins” were too heavy to keep the meringues afloat while they baked. I tried it again tonight with 1/4 tsp cream of tartar, and they held their form! I sampled one right out of the oven:

Perfect! I’ll get the recipe up a bit later. Of course, the BSI: Basil ship has sailed (and very deliciously, I might add, thanks to Brandi’s basil-strawberry scones), but I still have time to get in my entry for the Eggland’s Best Egg Recipe competition! 😀

Phew, are you sick of reading about all my food yet??

It would be so amazing if I could go to bed right now, but alas, I have to go pretend to read an article for tomorrow’s class enough to write a passable summary of it, blech. I’m planning on an 11pm bedtime so I can get up at 7 for a run before I have to leave. And the clock starts ticking NOW!

** If you could use a little comfort in your life, click here for a chance to win it!**

Stories of inflation

March 9, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

Hahaha, wordpress just advertised that I could make this blog “narrativeofincrease.com” for only $15. I guess they’re big into synonyms?

The first hunger pangs hit around 10:30, so I had a cup of freshly cut pineapple:

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Don’t worry — that’s not mold on the pineapple. Just some bits of skin (?) that I didn’t quite cut off!

And I also had this bite of a raspberrry entenmann’s danish that was left from a meeting:

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I know it looks enormous in that picture, but it was only about an inch or so long. I also had all of the icing crumbs out of the box once the danish itself had disappeared (thankfully, someone else took care of eliminating the remaining danish before I had a chance to) …

We ended up cancelling the parents’ group today because of torrential rain, thereby putting me a meal short for the day since I usually eat lunch with the group. The same thing that happened last Monday because of the snow! Dear weather: Please stop messing with my lunch plans and food budget. Thanks.

So my planned dinner became my lunch instead. I ate the last of Rooms’ black bean salad from Saturday’s lunch (mixed with avocado and salsa — great idea, Gina!) with five broken tortilla chips from Wednesday’s lunch:

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Second course was a mix of 1/2 cup of yogurt and 1/2 cup of my leftover pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats from last week:

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My 2pm visit wasn’t home when I called to confirm at 1:40, so I went back into the conference room to keep lunching with the ladies. The continued lunching involved three Kavli crispy thins with 1/2 tbsp office pb (I meant to bring guac for these but forgot!):

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After that, I had mint #3 (of 5 total) for the day in order to keep my mouth busy:

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I was expecting to go into a counseling session at 3:30, so I had another cup of pineapple (also left from the morning meeting) around 3:15 to carry me through:

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But my client never came! My tummy was feeling a little empty still (maybe not enough fat/protein in my lunch?), so Jessica poured a box of Honey Bunches of Oats down my throat handed me a box of Honey Bunches of Oats. I had about 1 1/2 cups:

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I left work at 5 to head down for my class — and my group presentation! We presented for the first hour of class (when I normally eat my dinner), so I was pretty hungry when we finished (but yay, we finished!). As I mentioned before, the group lunch cancellation bumped dinner into the lunch slot, so my actual dinner was more of a haphazard affair.

Manchego cheese samples from the market as my appetizer:

(Yes, those are cookie crumbs coating the cheese samples . I do all of my sample-grabbing with the same skilled fist …)

My dinner main course was half of a giant raisin-nut muffin (also left from the morning meeting at work) with 1 tbsp office pb (in an attempt to impart some nutritional value) and cookie-crumb samples:

The peanut butter is all bubbly because I microwaved the muffin and toppings for 90 seconds in the school cafeteria to get it melty. But since I couldn’t eat it while I was presenting, it lost the warm and gooey immediately-post-microwave effect and gained the hard and crunchy microwaved-an-hour-ago effect. I still enjoyed it, though. It felt like a giant cookie.

Dessert was another one of these guys:

Like I’ve said before, bars are good in a pinch, but not something I need to incorporate into regular grocery rotation.

I was hungry again 10 minutes later (no surprise there with all the empty carbs and sugar), so I ate the other half of the muffin.

Obviously, I overdid it with the added sugar. I suppose I kind of overdo it most days, but due to the limited food options today, the sugar overage was actually planned. Tomorrow’s food is going to be much heavier on healthy fats and proteins to make up for it (or at least that’s true of the lunch I packed …).

When I got home from class around 9, I quickly got all of tomorrow’s food ready (nibbling at it as I packed) and then had a small treat to coat my belly with health and reassure it that it was well-nourished for the long night (of sleep) ahead. A half cup of plain heated pumpkin topped with a spoonful of chocolate mousse:

Ahh, that mousse is SO good. And my belly is now SO happy.

So … thoughts? Does “Narrative of Increase” strike a chord with you? 😛

Sleep tight!

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: cookies

Winnings

The beginning

Buzzzzzzzzzzz

I figured it out!

Stories of inflation

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