Tag: dinner

The big cheese

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Wellllll … I did not so much work on the group presentation today. As usual, I took a quick break from homework to do one thing in the kitchen, and now it is three hours later. While preparing my yogurt for the week’s lunches, I helped myself to some of the overflow:

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The yogurt has fresh pumpkin, dates, prunes, banana, apple, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, whole cloves, almond extract, and golean crunch mixed in. And pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top, of course.

Quesadillas were in order for dinner. I made my tortillas the same way I made whole wheat wraps here, but I used half whole wheat flour and half blue cornmeal. (I love this blue cornmeal that I have because it is very coarsely ground and adds texture and crunch to everything. It’s especially amazing for coating chicken or fish before browning in a pan, mmmmmm.)

Anyway, once the tortillas were done, I layered on the filling:

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  • last 1/4 cup salmon
  • last 1/4 cup black beans
  • salvaged rotten roommate scallions and grape tomatoes, sauteed in canola
  • last 2 oz. fat free feta

The other tortilla went on as a lid, and everything went into the oven for a melting session.

Meanwhile, I decided it was time to disrobe my parmesan cheese!! I have a small dairy-making hobby with weekly yogurt (which you know already), occasional cottage cheese and ricotta, and even more occasional hard cheese. Yesterday, I finally finished the round of blue cheese cheddar that I made in the fall. I call it blue cheese because it tasted sort of like blue cheese and had a penchant for turning blue from mold. Nothing a damp paper towel can’t fix, though. Before and after:

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Making your own cheese will do wonders for your mold tolerance.

Anyway, the blue cheese/cheddar was a thing of the past, so it was time to move onto bigger and better things with my parmesan! This parmesan has been aging in my fridge for nine months. That’s right — it takes at least as long to make parmesan as it does a baby! When I made the cheese last summer, I remember thinking that it would never be ready, but the day has finally come! Here it is pre-wax removal and post wax-removal:

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Of course, I had to taste a hunk right away:

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Success!! It’s salty like the Dead Sea, probably from all the brining it had to survive, but quite tasty. And very hard and crumbly, mmmm, perfect for grating. So that’s exactly what I did! It went on top of my quesadilla, along with salsa left over from a work meeting last week, steamed asparagus, and freshly ground black pepper.

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(Btw, that’s 1/2 the quesadilla. The other half is planned for tomorrow, depending on what kind of food I come across throughout the day.)

Inside:

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Mid-demolition:

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Dessert was more homemade fro-yo — I’m hooked! This mix contained scrapings from the batch of pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats I made today, plain yogurt, and a tsp of peanut butter. Mmmmmmm! Again, I topped it with light whipped cream, toasted pumpkin seeds, sprinkles for flair, and a baby raisin walnut toast:

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And then, because I needed some extra love to pump myself up for the week, a chocolate heart:

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I’m in bed now with a mug of sugar cookie sleigh ride tea and a book, and I am pretty sure that sugar plums will start dancing through the room any second …

What’s your hobby? And is it food-related?

A Sandwich-y day … plus BSI entry!

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Aaaaaand, once again, Saturday has completely vanished!!

Lunch this afternoon was blogworld-inspired and beyond delicious.

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I’ve been thinking about this sandwich combo ever since SnackFace featured it in wrap-form earlier this week. The only difference is that I didn’t have apple butter, img_4806so I used fresh apple instead.

And check out this individually wrapped slice of whole wheat bread. My coworker Jessica comes into work every morning with about 7 slices! Apparently, the school her daughter attends gets donations of food and encourages parents to take any extra.  Jessica’s file cabinets had started to overflow with bread, so she gave me a few slices last week with instructions to “go home and make a sandwich.” So, Jessica, that’s what I did! My coworkers are feeding me even on the weekends, haha :-).

So back to the sandwich. Two slices of whole wheat toasted with mashed banana on one half and a tbsp chunky pb on the other:

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And slices of sweet potato and apple in between:

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I also added a sprinkle of cinnamon because, as we know, I’m an addict.

img_4812My sandwich went into the oven for about 10 minutes to melt everything together (the pb slice of toast was on top so the pb would drip down as it melted and infiltrate everything). Ahhhhhh, DEEELICIOUS! I ate the sandwich with steamed asparagus on the side.

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On the side, I ate a bowl of toasted pumpkin skins:

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My afternoon snack consisted of 1/3 cup fresh pumpkin, 1/4 cup plain yogurt, the holy trinity of spices, a chopped date, and toasted pumpkin seeds:

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Afternoon snack #2 consisted of gouda samples from the market by my apartment (I saved the chocolate samples for later):

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And then I got crackin’ on this week’s BSI: Black Beans. As usual, I wasn’t about to spend money on anything new, so I gathered every potential ingredient I could find in the fridge and cupboards and came up with Sweet ‘n’ Spicy Black Bean-Salmon Patties. And thanks to suprising twists from the apple, balsamic vinegar, blue cheese, feta, and adobo, these aren’t your usual black bean patties, let me tell you!

For dinner, I had a patty on 1/3 toasted sundried tomato bagel with a dab of forty spice hummus and cucumber slices:

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With grape tomatoes and more sliced cuke on the side:

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Dessert #1 was the chocolate samples I saved from my gourmet market trip earlier. I had samples of Brooklyn Fudge in — are you ready?? — dark orange almond, dark cinnamon almond, and dark wasabi pecan (there’s also a little piece of dried mango and a dried mulberry on the side). Mmmmmmm:

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Dessert #2 was “ice cream”: a mix of 1/2 cup fresh pumpkin, 2 tbsp soymilk, vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, 1/4 mashed banana, 1 tsp peanut butter, and cacao nibs (from above). I topped the ice cream with a squirt of light whipped cream, sprinkles, and a toasted piece of raisin walnut bread (from the event I attended in this post):

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Dessert # 3 was my long-anticipated Aztec Gold truffle, the last of the prize-pack of truffles Brandi sent for my BSI: Spinach win. Clearly, I love the spicy-sweet combo, so I’ve been looking forward to this guy like crazy!! Look at the gold sparkle:

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And inside:

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See that big chunk of candied orange peel? Yummmmmmm. This truffle did not let me down! I’m so sad that I have none left now :-/.

For my final snack of the night, I had a prune and a dark chocolate heart:
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I’ve been so lazy ever since my run this morning. Soooo, I have no choice but to buckle down on the schoolwork for real tomorrow. Does your to-do list ever seem so long that it’s impossible to start?

Only food can make me move

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Well, I finally dragged myself off of the couch last night and got around to some food, food of course being the only thing that could have made me move any sort of muscle. I threw together a random smattering of things to make some approximation of a salad:

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The bowl had sauteed mushrooms, onions, and asparagus; a chopped sun-dried tomato; an egg yolk (leftover from something my roommate Tara made with egg whites earlier in the week); a bit of chicken (leftover from someone’s lunch at work); fresh cilantro and spicy red and green sauces (leftover from the taco my coworker Nydia gave me earlier in the week); chopped cucumber, fat free feta, dried basil and oregano, freshly ground black pepper, and drizzles of truffle oil and balsamic vinegar.

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Then, while slaying a pumpkin, I snacked on some more things, including some golean crunch clusters with a drop of soymilk, the teeny ends of a sweet potato I had just baked, more centerpiece conversation hearts, and bits of pumpkin flesh/skin/seeds as they were ready to taste:

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Because it was Friday night, I had more peanut butter frozen yogurt just like I made it on Thursday. This time, I topped the fro-yo with sauteed apple and banana. Loooooove that carmelized fruit:

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After finishing the night with fro-yo, I finished it a little more thoroughly with hazelnut chocolate:

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And then, it was time for bed. Tara gave me a fresh pair of earplugs, and they were amazing again! I hadn’t realized how much power the others had lost, but the difference was like night and day … literally, haaaaaaaa.

Also, go visit Lucky Taste Buds! if you’re in the market for free Barney Butter (and who isn’t??).

Dinner in phases

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My meal schedule tends to evolve based on when and where I come into contact with food! While walking home from the subway station yesterday afternoon around 3:30, for example, I stopped into Union Market (purely for the samples, of course) and came upon dinner part 1, which I brought home and arranged prettily on a plate with decaf soymilky sweet coconut thai chai:

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Findings included the sampler cup of antipasti, cheddar chunks on baby toast squares (I actually had 3 of these), and 3 cookies:

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The cookies deserve a closer look:

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Sandwich cookies are my favorite!

I also had a package waiting for me when I got home. (Is there anything as satisfying as interesting mail?) It was the Country Bob’s sauce I won from Allison at Green Dog Wine:

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I have big plans for this sauce and a block of tofu. Just wait!

Dinner part 2 was 3/4 cup of the delicious soup that my coworker Nitza made for me along with my last 3 slices of kale-crust pizza (:-( so sad to see it go):

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Hearty chunks of health:

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Kale-crust pizza, I hope we meet again soon:

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Dinner part 3 happened a couple hours later and was inspired by Heather who was inspired by Sarah to make peanut butter frozen yogurt. I followed Sarah’s procedure with 1/2 cup yogurt, 1 tsp peanut butter, and a drop of vanilla. But I couldn’t stop, so I also mixed in 1/3 mashed banana, 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and sprinkle of cinnamon and cardamom. I froze it for 20 minutes, stirred, and froze it for 20 more. Voila!

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I considered sprinkling chocolate pieces over the top but decided against it in light of my cookie spree earlier in the afternoon. I had more fruit salad (also with cinnamon and cardamom) on the side instead:

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Perfect way to end the night!

Also, congrats to Lindsay at For the Love of Oats on her one-year blogiversary!! To celebrate, she has some pretty exciting (and lucrative!) contests lined up, so go check it out!

I’ll be back after work with today’s food … followed by a serious movement to catch up on sleep!

Do you prefer to eat all at once or in pieces?

Restaurant Review: Kiku

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After work last night, Gina, Kate, Kareen, and I met for our regular (ummm, does every six months count as regular still??) Brooklyn girls dinner night. Gina and Kate have made several blog cameos, but Kareen can be a bit harder to pin down!

We ate at Kiku, a sushi restaurant mere blocks away from my apartment. Yay for convenience! I’ve ordered takeout from Kiku before (back in ancient history when I still had an income), but I’ve never actually eaten inside.

Here’s Kareen modeling her edamame appetizer:

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I totally made her pose for that picture, so blame me if she looks slightly more scary than cute!

Kareen’s edamame made the rounds, and I had a couple small handfulls:

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I instantly felt the sugar haze from earlier in the day starting to recede. What a relief!

Gina ordered the hot & sour miso soup as her appetizer. I didn’t have any, but the camera couldn’t stay away:

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The restaurant was QUITE chilly, thanks to a pair of sluggishly closing doors, but we had fun nonetheless. While waiting for our main courses to arrive, we got to watch the artists at work:

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I really wanted to try some fancy sushi concoctions, but I decided to play it safe after the day of food I’d had already! I ordered seaweed salad:

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I love love love seaweed salad. It’s another one of those foods with the perfect balance of crunch and chew.

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I also ordered a tuna roll with brown rice:

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As much as I enjoy elaborate sushi rolls (especially when they involve avocado), there’s something so alluring about a simple tuna roll. It never lets me down! I ate everything (of course), including all the ginger and most of the wasabi. Sushi always reminds me of my senior year of college when I had a weekly Wednesday night sushi date. Mmmm, sushi. We don’t spend nearly enough time together these days.

Gina received a beautiful tower of spicy tuna and asparagus rolls and another kind (maybe tuna and avocado?) I can’t quite remember:

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Kate got a tuna roll and a tuna and avocado roll (I think), and Kareen got a spicy tuna roll and a spicy tuna and avocado roll (maybe?):

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Kiku does actually make sushi that does not involve tuna. Clearly, we had a prior arrangement with each other to be tuna twins (quadruplets?) last night.

And just for the sake of accuracy and all, I had to chop up a giant Hershey’s Kiss when I got home from dinner (someone brought it into the office yesterday) so I could put it in my chocolate bag in the freezer instead of eating it. I did, however, eat the crumbs (plus a piece of my blogger secret cupid lindt hazelnut chocolate that somehow managed to jump out of the chocolate bag and into the pile of crumbs):

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And that just about does it for yesterday. How do YOU feel about sushi?