Tag: cookies

Layers of stress

20 Comments

I did go out for a breather last night to combat the homework- and heat-induced hallucinations … and ended up running 3.2 miles! This was a very exciting accomplishment, 12-minute miles and all, as the chafing of my shirt against my arms was more painful than my aggravated muscles. Stats: 38 minutes, 304 calories. I hope this improvement keeps up!

I came back and made a complicated snack to keep my mind off the final paper drama. These were some of the things I used: chocolate-peanut butter-flax egg custard, a mom-gifted apple, and the rest of Vani‘s crunch time peanut butter.

img_8777

Here’s the scoop on the chocolate-peanut butter-flax egg custard. My roommate Tara had three egg yolks left from her breakfast yesterday morning, so I whisked those over low heat with 1 cup unsweetened soy milk, 1/2 cup water, 2 tbsp ground flax, 2 chopped dates, 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and 2 tbsp PB2. Once the mix thickened, I ran the immersion blender through it for good measure and poured it into three small ramekins to go into the fridge.

For  last night’s purposes, I used half of one of the ramekins as the inspiration for this parfait:

img_8780

For the other layers, I used (1) half of the apple, shredded and mixed with the pb and (2) 1/3 cup total of yogurt mixed with part-skim ricotta and 1 tbsp pb2.

img_8782

I topped it all off with a biscotti bite for fun.

That mind-blowingly delicious parfait distracted me from school stress for about 30 blissful minutes. When the bliss wore off, I pulled out this little slice of frozen cake from my mom’s birthday 🙂

img_8784

And then I went to sleep since I knew I wasn’t going to get anything else done!

This morning at the gym, I did 20 minutes Stepmill, legs/chest on Cybex, and 15 minutes elliptical, along with stretching/abs and the jog/walks there and back (hurt again this morning, grrrrr). Stats: 1 hour and 16 minutes, 475 calories, 129 average heart rate, 172 max.

img_8785

Breakfast was ready to go straight out of the fridge because I prepared it last night, and the day is too hot for hot oats! On the stovetop, I cooked 3 tbsp oat bran and 1 tbsp ground flax with 1/4 cup soymilk and 1/2 cup water. When it was done, I mixed in 1/4 cup part-skim ricotta and lots and lots of cinnamon. I ate it cold this morning topped with 1/4 chopped cinnamon bun from the hotel buffet and more cinnamon.

Icing!

img_8788

I mixed it all up to eat:

img_8793

On the side was half of a thinly sliced apple with cinnamon and a tsp of south of the border pistachio butter:

img_8790

And white peony iced tea (with green in the background!!):

img_8786

This week is going to be full of research madness. I may never surface again. HA, I’ll probably be back tonight. But if I seem to disappear into a black hole without warning, please don’t be alarmed. I’m just hyperventilating somewhere.

Are you hyperventilating about anything today?

FYI, you can get a free sample of KFC’s new grilled chicken today!

Time crunch, crunch time

15 Comments

I had very important hotel breakfast plans this morning.

img_8746

I hopped out of bed at 7:30, threw on some running gear, grabbed an expandable bag (hotel buffets and I get along very well) and went for a nice and easy jog (1.3 miles, 15 minutes, 128 calories, average heart rate 154, max 165) up to the Holiday Inn Express where my mom and stepdad were staying so I could join them for the breakfast buffet.

While there, I had a packet of instant oatmeal with 1/2 of a chopped banana and a couple splashes of skim milk. It looked so plain that I considered sprinkling froot loops on the top for color but then thought better of it and crumbled some cranberry muffin and warm cinnamon bun (thanks for the idea, Brandi!) on top.

img_8745

On the side, I had an interesting egg (it almost had a pancake texture, so I bet it the egg batter had flour or something in it as a thickener) that was folded in half with velveetaish cheese inside. I unfolded, removed the cheese, and gobbled up the remaining eggcake:

img_8754

The dazzling spread:

img_8755

I stuffed the other half of the cinnamon bun (plus one more for luck!) into a travel cup to bring home 🙂

img_8757

Yummm, I predict more cinnamon bun oatmeal on the horizon!

Obviously, the cinnamon bun was not all I brought home. With mom’s help, I stuffed the expandable bag with more oatmeal packets, mini-muffins, oranges, apples, lots of bananas, milk, and yogurts. The buffet did have hard-boiled eggs, but I passed on them since I have enough eggs already!

Once my mom and John got all packed, they drove me (and the goods) back to my apartment, popped in for a glass of white peony iced tea and some biscotti bites, and then continued on their way back up to Massachusetts. An endless trip for them (Massachusetts to Georgia and back … in the car!), but a pleasantly short and sweet visit for me 🙂

I recently (as in four days ago) realized that the final paper for one of my classes is due a week from tomorrow instead of at the end of May (panic panic panic panic), so researching for that was first on my agenda as soon as the fam took off. Of course, I kept finding other things to do, like sweep the floor. (Sweep the floor??? I NEVER sweep the floor. Obviously, I’m desperate.)

At some point, I got hungry again. I considered my new “groceries.” I’d brought four Dannon fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts back from the buffet. I don’t really like flavored yogurt, so I opened each of the containers, extracted the “plain” yogurt part, and combined all the syrupy fruit parts in one container that went into the freezer for a future project. I mixed the still-sweet-berry-tinged “plain” parts with my authentically plain homemade yogurt to decrease the sweetness and sugar content per serving.

img_8760

For my first lunch, I had 1/2 cup of the resulting yogurt mix with the rest of this morning’s cranberry-orange muffin crumbs and a dollop of the PB & Co. crunch-time peanut butter that Vani “forced” me to take home from her lunch yesterday.

img_8762

On the side, I had an orange:

img_8763

With white peony iced tea:

img_8758

A little while later, the next installment of lunch was due. I had just cooked a bunch of brown basmati rice to mix with the leftover coconut seafood curry that my mom and John brought me yesterday (I’ll be using this curry for the week’s lunches). I had about 1/2 cup of the cooked rice left, so I mashed in half of the overripe banana mom brought yesterday along with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a splash of soymilk.

img_8768

I topped my banana rice pudding with a dollop of part-skim ricotta and another dollop of Vani’s pb.

img_8766

And, because I was trying to do some work for school and also trying to avoid doing it, I got “hungry” again very soon. I had three little rye toasties topped with sofrito sauce and a sliced air-damaged cheese stick that mom left behind for me. Five minutes in the broiler took care of the damage 🙂 I topped my crispy sofrito-cheese toasts with freshly ground black pepper and cayenne pepper:

img_8770

Then I brought a slice of healthy cheesecake out of the freezer to let thaw. Well, I actually didn’t quite let it thaw before I started in on it.

img_8773

I did keep it up on the kitchen counter though, forcing myself to eat it slowly, one bite at a time, over the next hour every time I got up to do something else.

And now, I’m trying to take slow and deep breaths and tell myself that I will get all my work done in time. I feel on the verge of insanity, so a fresh air break may be in order. We’ll see.

Is your crunch today coming from food, stress, or both?

A thousand cakes

13 Comments

There was more work with eggs to be done this morning!

img_8619

I made french toast with two slices of whole wheat bread that my coworker Jessica gave to me earlier in the week and a batter that consisted of an EB egg, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a splash of soymilk. I turned the french toast into a sandwich with a tbsp of the spicy “south of the border” pistachio butter I made yesterday:

img_8622

Salty, sweet, and spicy … my favorite combination!

On the side, I immersion blended 1/2 cup yogurt, just under 1/4 cup part-skim ricotta, 1/2 cup pumpkin, the usual spices, and one chopped date. Joining the pumpkin yogurt this morning was a tbsp of ground flax and a sprinkle of unsweetened coconut:

img_8627

One at work, I broke out my Passover sponge cake and, coincidentally, Heather had brought in some farfel kugel that she had made from leftover Passover ingredients as well. Our second Passover took over the conference room. Here’s the view from my desk:

img_8629

Have I mentioned that the agency where I work was started by nuns?

Moving on, I had some Jewish cake and kugel:

img_8632

And then I had seconds of each:

img_8633

Since I sit right there, I kept taking more teeny pieces of each all day long. I don’t even want to guess how much of that is in my belly right now!

Lunch was my last serving of the mushroom agnostuff:

img_8637

And a couple of spoonfuls of Mildred’s gandules:

img_86392

And a piece of her bollo, which is made of cornmeal and milk, among other things. The texture was like polenta, but the taste was more like slightly sweet cornbread to me.

img_86411

And the piece of cheesecake flan that Vianni made and brought in yesterday in honor of Mildred’s birthday. I had asked her to save me a piece since I knew I would miss it!

img_8642

It was amaaaaazing. I shared a couple bites with Deborah, but mostly I inhaled the whole thing.

After lunch, I headed downstairs to work on an event I had helped organize. Some volunteer moms and their children came to the agency to do an art project with our families. At the end, we had snacktime with oranges and Girl Scout cookies …

img_8645

I had two plates like that … and then about four more of those little cookies in the background. Out of control, I tell you!

When I came up from the event, Mildred had put out leftovers of her actual birthday cake from her celebration at home. I know, does it ever end? 😀

img_8649

It was a pineapple cake with marshmallow frosting and sugar flowers. Maybe I’ll be sick of cake someday, but it hasn’t happened yet!

When I got home tonight, I had the final piece of sponge cake (I rescued it from its solitary perch on the conference room table as I walked out of the office) with the pumpkin banana yogurt I brought to work today but never got a chance to eat. The yogurt turned the cake healthy by association.

img_8651

And to end this post on a slightly healthier note, I did go to the gym this morning. I have special strength plans for tomorrow, so I focused on cardio today with 20 minutes on the Stepmill, 10 minutes on the rower, and 15 minutes on the elliptical (plus the usual jogs there and back, stretching, and abs). Stats: 1 hour and 16 minutes, 536 calories, 137 average heart rate, 174 max.

While at the gym, I did some interesting reading. Did you know that you would have to eat 11 pounds of rhubarb leaves in order to die of rhubarb poisoning? That’s word on the street, according to The Oprah Magazine. I had always kind of envisioned taking one bite of rhubarb leaf and collapsing unceremoniously to the ground. I guess I was wrong. Interesting fact #2 from the same magazine: apparently, the fatty acids that are stored in hip fat aid fetal brain development. So, ummmm, let’s get the fat flowing. Enjoy your cake!

Sample satisfaction

14 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:

img_8545

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.

img_8538

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.

img_8541

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.

img_8548

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:

img_8552

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:

img_8559

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

img_8557

img_8563

Samples are so exciting!

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

img_8564

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

If I didn’t have to sleep

39 Comments

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

img_7955

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:

picture-002

And I could actually taste the apple flavor in there!

picture-001

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:

picture-004

picture-006

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

picture-012

picture-010picture-011

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

picture-008

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

picture-007

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):

picture-014picture-017

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!

picture-018

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

picture-019

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:

picture-021

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

picture-023

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.

img_8382

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):

img_8388

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.

img_8393

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:

img_8390

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!