Tag: dessert

All about the themes

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Realizing I was low on veggies, I ran into the grocery store next door to my office (it’s much cheaper than the one in my neighborhood) to see what I could find. I grabbed a bunch of green beans (to replenish my dwindling supply) and then went a little crazy and also got a pack of fresh okra (it was only $1.50!). I’ve never cooked okra before in my life and probably only eaten it a couple of times, but I thought it would keep things interesting.

When I got home, I chopped the okra into thinnish rounds and put it (and chopped green beans, for variety) in a pan with a splash of water to steam:

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And then the stroke of genius hit. I added a heaping spoonful of homemade Dominican sofrito, an amazing herby and garlicky sauce that another coworker (hi inginia!) gave me when it was leftover from a work party a little while back. Using the sofrito got me thinking about more homemade Dominican food from my coworkers, so I dug into the freezer to uncover the Dominican rice (hi mildred!) I had saved from yet another work function. I mixed it with some of the cooked barley that I brought back from MA to add a healthy whole grain punch:

Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

frozen cooked grains: Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

My plate, topped with grated homemade cheddar:
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How intricate is this okra?!

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It was a delicious experiment that went very well, and I made enough to have for dinner one more night this week, yum!

For dessert, I had the last of the grapenut pudding from MA, another big pile straight from the oven (my apartment is microwave-less, so I do all my reheating in the oven):

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Now the rush, rush, rush to make my 9pm bedtime!

Temptation central

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At the agency where I intern, I sit directly next to the conference room. And the conference room table is where my coworkers put all their leftover sugary holiday foods so they don’t have to keep them in their own houses. So, alllllll day long today, I was sitting next to this:

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I restrained myself and grabbed one of these to have for dessert after lunch (they are authentic Austrian chocolates that a coworker bought in Prague over the holiday, so I had to have one for cultural exploration purposes):

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I also managed to score another orange (which I brought home for use at a later time):

-)

if you can't tell, my desk calendar doubles as a placemat at work 🙂

And then, something very exciting happened while I was eating lunch! One of my coworkers (hi myrna!) had extra sancocho, a Dominican soup/stew that seems to have everything under the sun in it, so she let me sample some:

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It was sooooo good. She said the soup is thickened with a puree of plantains and pumpkin, two of my very favorite foods. I am going to have to look into how I can make this myself. Does anybody know?

As promised, I broke into my authentic four-layer Austrian chocolate ball after lunch:

dark chocolate, praline paste (!!!), more chocolate, and marzipan with pistachios (!!!)

out to in: dark chocolate, praline paste (!!!), more chocolate, and marzipan with pistachios (!!!)

And there’s more! A little bit later, Myrna (again) came around with some Godiva dark chocolate-covered almonds. I had these two:

I'm really enjoying my calendar as a photography background!

I must say that I am enjoying my calendar as a photography background.

Dinner will be along shortly …

Mad dash …

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… in more ways than one!

I ended up eating both of my “emergency snack” mini muffins today around 5pm (along with a Russell Stover orange cream-filled chocolate from the box that materialized in the conference room right next to my desk) because Gina, Kate, and I decided that we would, in fact, meet for our 3.5 mile run through Central Park with the NIKE Running Club. We try to go a couple times each week, mainly because NIKE provides heaps of fresh fruit, bagels, muffins, and pastries after each run. I always stuff as much fruit as I can into my mouth (and sneakily pack more into my empty lunch tupperwares) and intercept the staff as they’re throwing out the leftover bread products so I can hand them to homeless people on the subway.

But tonight, we got bad news: no more food!!!! Gina, Kate, and I looked at each other in horror because that meant we had to run 3.5 miles, not only with no promise of food waiting at the end, but also with an hour + commute on the other side before we could get home for dinner. On the subway ride, we split an orange (also courtesy of the conference room at my work), but needless to say, I was ravenous when I got home at 8:45. But before eating, I had to prep tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch and also deal with this windfall of 13 overripe bananas I scored from a work donation:

bananas BEFORE ... not appetizing, I know

bananas BEFORE ... not appetizing, I know

bananas AFTER, chopped for freezing ... still not appetizing!

bananas AFTER, chopped for freezing ... still not appetizing!

I filled two 32 oz. yogurt containers. I know they don’t look great now, but they are going to make amazing banana bread oatmeal someday … just wait!

I had to think fast for dinner, since it was nearing 10pm. Even though I don’t have to get up at 5 tomorrow since I got my workout in tonight, I still need to be sleeping by 10:30 in order to be functional tomorrow. I stuck a dark chocolate pomegranate VitaTop in the oven for 15 minutes to get the chocolate chips all gooey, and then I sauteed half an apple and half a banana (I found some slightly less mushy pieces from tonight’s haul) in a tsp of canola oil until golden brown:

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pre-work

step 1

step 1

step 2

step 2

step 3

step 3

Everyone knows that VitaTop + yogurt + fruit = brownie sundae!!

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And now it is time for the mad dash to my bed. Good night!

A little too much …

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I wanted to save the rest of the turkey soup from MA to have for lunch this week, so dinner tonight was more fun with crudites! I mixed the cauliflower from home with two Tbsp of herb hummus (also from home), sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and grated homemade cheddar cheese (thanks to my cheesemaking kit):

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I roasted the cauliflower on BROIL until the smoke alarm went off, about seven minutes:

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On the side, I had about a half cup of homemade yogurt (procedure to come :-)) with blueberries and cherries:

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And another mini muffin. All together:

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Dessert was a pile of grapenut pudding:

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I actually was not hungry at all for dessert and probably should have had half as much as I did, but I’m planning to go to the gym at the crack of dawn tomorrow and I don’t want to be hungry while I’m there (and the pudding tasted too good to stop!).

Bedtime!

Midnight snack

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My mom was on a roll last night with the cooking. She couldn’t stop (now you see where I get it). After dinner, she started throwing together ingredients for a grapenut pudding recipe she recently discovered.

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The recipe supposedly comes from Paula Deen, but I couldn’t find it anywhere online. As usual (and as is necessary when you’re working with a Paula Deen recipe and don’t want to die of a heart attack tomorrow), mom made several adjustments. The recipe called for four cups of milk — mom used two cups of skim and two cups of light eggnog (to finish the carton, yay!). The recipe called for four eggs — mom used two eggs and two egg whites. Finally, the recipe called for one cup of sugar — mom used 1/4 cup of her mixture of erythritol and xylitol because the eggnog already added sugar and also because no one really needs that much sugar anyway.

A crazy chemical reaction sort of thing happened when she added the ‘itols and the vanilla. The whole mixture started bubbling and swirling, almost like that baking soda volcano you made in 3rd grade:

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Finally, after two hours of baking (mom doubled the recipe, so the custard needed twice as much time to set), the pudding was done!

mmm, perfectly golden brown

mmm, perfectly golden brown

look at all that custard!

look at all that custard!

I had to sample some right away:
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And then I scraped all of the “crumbs” from the baking dish and ate them, too. Soooo good. You can bet I packed some to-go containers of this to bring back to NY with me!