Tag: cookies

Danger zone

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Breakfast this morning was delicious and complex:

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But before I get into the details of this multi-layer marvel, I have to fill you in on my morning at the gym 🙂 I did my Self Challenge strength workout last night before I went to bed so that I could focus on cardio this morning and get to work on time! I did 20 minutes on the Stepmill, 12 minutes on the elliptical, and 12 minutes on the treadmill (plus the jog to the gym and back and some stretching).

This was my first time back on the treadmill since the muscle-straining incident (which occurred outside and not on the treadmill, btw). Usually, 5.5 is a very comfortable treadmill pace for me that falls on the lower end of my treadmill speed range. This morning, 4.2 was all I could handle! Anything faster than that forced me into a too-long painful stride. My range of motion is so limited. I’m not a fan of being injured, and this slow recovery makes me nervous for both the 10k I’m running on May 9 and the half marathon I’m running on May 30. I suppose the flip-side is that the injury is seemingly forcing my body to work unusually hard for cardio and I burned something like 560 calories this morning. But I’d rather be burning fewer calories if it meant I were healed :/

Anyway, back to breakfast:

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I went Bob’s Red Mill crazy on this combo. Before I went to bed last night, I pulled out the crockpot and filled it it with two cups of whey from Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk, 1/2 cup BRM whole oat groats, 1/2 cup BRM triticale berries (similar to wheat berries), 1/2 cup pumpkin muffin crumbs (from the freezer), 1/2 cup chopped Newman’s Own prunes, and a big pile of cinnamon. I cooked the whole thing on low overnight.

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This morning, I cooked 1/4 cup BRM oat bran on the stovetop with 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk and then immersion blended it with 1/4 cup silken tofu. That became my base layer.

I topped the tofu oat bran base with 1/2 cup of the crockpot prune “groatmeal” and topped that with a tbsp of cashew-almond butter and a sprinkle of unsweetened shredded coconut.

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picture-526Exciting, right? It was quite the production! I’m looking forward to doing it again tomorrow, too!

When I got to work this morning, check out what was waiting. Our very own agency Martha Stewart (aka Jessica) was inspired to bake her famous mini-cupcakes by the tray from yesterday’s mini-pumpkin muffins. She just knew it would make the perfect carrying case for her signature goodies.

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I milked these two over the first two hours of the day.

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They were the perfect morning snack!

However, the entire tray of cupcakes spent the rest of the day on the infamous conference room table. Here’s the view from my desk:

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Where is the most dangerous spot to leave treats lying around in your life?

Also, The Professional Vegan did a great review post today of a NYT article about “aspiring vegans” who follow “veganish” lifestyles. This is relevant because the subject of the article, Jeffrey Masson, was interviewed at Angelica Kitchen, a fabulous vegan restaurant in NY where I have eaten!

Con dulce, por favor

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It’s been another sugary day around these parts!

Someone brought in Whole Foods mini-pumpkin muffins this morning and planted them right on the conference room table (aka an inch away from my desk). These muffins never really tempt me, though, since the ingredient list is right there and sugar is first on it. I always get so disappointed in WF when I see that. I did, however, take up a crumb collection and eat that once all the muffins were gone:

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Just before lunch, Myrna came around handing out a fun new food tool to everyone that Tupperware sent her because she started doing Tupperware sales. I had packed the perfect snack to test it out. Just watch the magic here:

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Pretty amazing, right? So I’m now the proud new owner of an orange peeler 🙂 I shared some orange and ate the rest:

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For lunch, I had another mama creation that came home with me from MA on Sunday: a cup of chicken, kielbasa, and root vegetable casserole.

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I also had another bite of Vianni’s tuna noodle salad:

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And 1/2 cup of Myrna’s rice and beans:

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And pulled a teeny bit of Myrna’s taaaaaaasty saucy chicken off of this bone:

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I also had my fruit salad + yogurt + golean crunch (from MA, too — I go grocery shopping in my mom’s fridge at the end of every visit):

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img_7938The star of the meal, however, was clearly Mildred’s husband’s habichuela con dulce (a traditional Dominican dessert drink that appears between Ash Wednesday and Easter and that I’ve raved about here and here). I definitely refilled my cup three times. The best comparison I can come up with is that it is like drinking liquid pumpkin pie. In other words, habichuela con dulce is delicious beyond your wildest dreams.

Two of my afternoon visits ended up canceling, so I accompanied Mildred on hers. Both happened to take place in excruciatingly hot apartments. When we finished, Mildred decided that she needed ice cream and that I did, too. Here’s my kiddie scoop of Rocky Road, courtesy of today’s sugar fairy:

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Now, I have not had Rocky Road ice cream in forever, and I’ve probably never had it from Baskin Robbins, but I have to say that this was the best Rocky Road I’ve ever had. It was amazingly creamy, and what’s more, the marshmallows were perfect little pockets of fluffiness! Every other time I’ve had Rocky Road, the marshmallows have been so frozen and mixed in that they weren’t even identifiable as such.

Around 3:30, I broke out another of the cheese sticks that mom sent back to NY with me. The m&m mug and I fought over who would get to eat it, but I won of course. It was no contest, really.

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In my final sugar hurrah of the work day, I heard Jessica whispering something about chocolate cake from down the hall. I got up to investigate, and she informed me that it was Cleo’s birthday in Preventive and they were struggling with a cake overage. We went upstairs together to assist.

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Cake rescued; crisis averted.

Umm, this spoonful of whipped vanilla frosting is on my camera for some reason. I don’t know why? 😛

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I got home and prepped a necessarily light dinner of salad, jasmine tea biscotti bites, and leftover almond sunset tea from this morning. Dinner enjoyed the company of my new Easter decorations: a straw bunny from dad and stepmom, a Lindt dark chocolate bunny from step-grandma, and a spread-eagle bunny planter also from step-grandma:

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The salad contained lettuce, arugula, 1 tbsp Newman’s dried berry blend, 1 tbsp peanut roasted chickpeas, grated homemade parmesan, and a drizzle of Annie’s lite gingerly vinaigrette:

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A few more tbsp of the chickpeas went directly from jar-to-mouth 🙂

What sweet things did you eat today?

Cake and cookies

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After the exercise class last night, I was only slightly hungry (and mostly tired) so I put together a little snacky plate with healthyish cheesecake, peanut roasted chickpeas, and prunes and apricots with PB2.

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There’s also a little piece of the caramel-nut-chocolate candy (on the stick) that my step-uncle gave me for Easter yesterday.

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As I mentioned, I took the Open Cardio Gyrokinesis class last night at the Madison Park location of kinespirit, a fancy gyrotonic studio, with the coupon that Melissa from Fitness NYC brought to the blogger brunch last month. Melissa very accurately reviewed and described the class here.

My experience was pretty much identical to Melissa’s (although my instructor was Christina). I was exhausted yesterday after work and almost didn’t go to the class at all, but I’m so glad I did! It was gentle and easy on my body and my poor strained glutes and hamstrings, yet it somehow snuck in a vigorous abs and arms workout I didn’t even realize I was getting. As Melissa explains in her review, gyrotonic seems sort of in the same family as pilates, although it is definitely NOT pilates. I was apprehensive going into the class because I don’t normally frequent this type of out-of-my-budget small private studio, but Christina and the rest of the staff were very welcoming, and I felt comfortable right from the start! Definitely check out Melissa’s review that I mentioned above and go experiment with some gyrotonic if it sounds good!

This morning …

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I’m quite enjoying this almond sunset tea! I probably need to rename it almond sunrise tea.

My breakfast cookie was such a success yesterday that I replicated it exactly for today’s breakfast:

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In case anyone is struggling with breakfast cookie texture, I’ve noticed a few key tricks that seems to help tremendously in solidifying the cookie in the fridge overnight:

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(1) As you mix the “cookie dough” the night before, it should be as close as possible to the consistency of real cookie dough. You should be able to pick up all the dough in your hands, roll it into a ball, and flatten it onto a plate. (For me, this involves adding no more than 1/2 tbsp of liquid, if even.)

(2) The addition of dried fruit works wonders because it helps the oats soak up all the moisture.

(3) Frosting makes everything better.

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I had a boat egg on the side again as well.

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Brandi asked yesterday why I called it a “boat egg.” Does anyone else do this? I thought it was a common thing, but maybe it’s just a weird family thing! My parents always called hard-boiled eggs sliced this way “boat eggs” when I was little. I think they did this for two reasons: (1) they sort of resemble little canoes in looks and in the way they slide around the plate (right?) and (2) it made the eggs more exciting for me to eat, along the same lines as “broccoli trees.”

Do you remember fun food names from your childhood that helped motivate you to eat?

Icy toes

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Brrrrr, my toes feel like they’re about to fall off! Why is it sooo cold again?! I had to return to all the layers for my jog to the gym this morning. Once there, I just did 25 minutes on the Stepmill since I got the strength out of the way in MA yesterday. Then, it was time to come home for breakfast!

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img_7853I had a perfect breakfast cookie waiting in the fridge this morning. No need to freeze this one! The cookie included 1/3 cup of Bob’s Red Mill extra thick oats, 1/3 mashed banana, 1 tbsp almond-cashew butter, 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tbsp Newman’s dried berry blend, and the teeniest splash of soymilk. On top, I spread 2 tbsp PB2 (reconstituted with a splash of soymilk) and some nuts from the Easter candy my step-uncle gave me yesterday:

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For extra staying power, I had a boat egg on the side with spray butter and freshly ground black pepper:

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Plus another exciting new tea! I emailed Celential Seasonings a while back to say that I couldn’t find their dessert teas anywhere, so they sent me an entire box of Almond Sunset. I know this is breakfast time and not dessert time, but I had to try it out right away. I’m glad I did!

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And now, it’s time to head back to work. I always feel so out of sorts after extra days off. It’s hard to re-adjust! Plus, I’m fuh-reeeeeeeeeeeezing.

Do you go out in search of day-after-Easter candy sales?

Last chance for safe pistachios! Get your entry in by 6pm tonight.

Theatrical tea

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While Emily napped yesterday (for four hours!), I took care of some business of my own … and snacked of course!

Jasmine tea biscotti bites (with soymilked yogi mexican sweet chili tea in the kitty mug):

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And the last 2 tbsp of my Total Cranberry Crunch sample with splash of soymilk:

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I also got this recipe for peanut roasted chickpeas (from The Peanut Butter Boy) underway after my developmentally delayed chickpeas took nearly 24 hours to cook. I’ve never had that happen before. Once the chickpeas were finally tender, the roasting took an hour and a half (twice the amount of time in the recipe!), probably because my oven is old and slow. They also weren’t tasting peanutty enough, so I added lots of extra PB2 and a big pile of cashew-almond butter.

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They still weren’t all that peanutty once they were done and crunchy, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t addictive! I snacked on about a tablespoon of them. Three or four times.

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I’m pretty sure there was also some straight-out-of-the-jar cashew-almond butter action 🙂

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I roused Emily from her slumber around 12:30 so she could start getting ready for the afternoon while I pulled together a sister lunch for us. We started on arugula salads with Newman’s dried berries, chopped dates, fat free feta, peanut roasted chickpeas, and Annie’s Lite Gingerly Vinaigrette:

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I also made us steak and spinach wraps. I made the wraps from scratch as usual (for 2: 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1 tbsp olive oil, dash salt, teeny bit of water to pull it all together). I gave the perfect one to Em, but mine got a little extra toasted — fine because I love the crunch, but troublesome because it wouldn’t wrap.

For the wrap filling, I sauteed the last 1/3 cup of leftover steak Nydia gave me on Friday with about 3 cups of spinach, 1/2 a baby onion, and 1 tbsp of the sofrito I made the other day. I split the sauteed mix between the two wraps and added a teeny bit of gouda to each, a bunch of grated homemade parmesan, and a huge pile of arugula:

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For dessert, Emily and I split one of the little tangerines she’d brought for airplane snacking:

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We hung around and chatted for a bit, and then we headed to Gramercy to drop her luggage off at her friend’s apartment. From there, we walked down to the Lower East Side in the general direction of dinner #1 (yes, there was more than one dinner on the agenda last night). We were running a little bit ahead of schedule, so Em asked if I’d like to stop into Whole Foods for samples. She knows me so well!

Pistachio ice cream and camembert (not in the same bite obviously):

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Cranberry granola and maple granola (and unpictured similar cups of blueberry granola and berry medley granola):

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For dinner #1, we met Emily’s friend Yan at Stanton Social. We ate way too much in light of the fact that we were going to head right off to another dinner, but what else is new? I’ll have a full review of the dinner and the expansion coming along shortly.

After that first dinner, we took a walk around the block to “burn it off” and, while doing so, to sample a peanut butter cookie piece and an m&m cookie piece from Sugar:

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We still had about 30 minutes to kill — and I had a camera battery in need of charging — so we stopped into teany for a spot of tea. We ordered a performance by tea #33. Watch the process:

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Fully charged and partially digested, we left teany around 9:30 to go meet Emily’s friends Megan (the birthday girl!) and Aimee at Apizz for another expansion-inducing festival of deliciousness. I’ll have a full review of this one coming along shortly, too. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of the night. The waiter asked if we’d like more bread for the table, and Megan responded:

Why not? I’m trying to get in as many calories as possible before I turn 40 in an hour and a half!

So we got more bread 😀

I’ll be back with like 10,000 more food updates eventually, so brace yourselves.

In the meantime, what’s the most exciting tea you’ve ever experienced?

And remember to enter this giveaway by Monday for the chance to win your very own stash of safe pistachios!