Tag: dinner

Intermission

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I’m surfacing for just a moment to do a quick recap of the day, and then I’ll be back into the school/work/sleep abyss for the next 24 hours!

Breakfast was more cinnamon bun on flax-oat bran:

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With 1/2 sliced apple and 1/3 cup yogurt for dipping, all dusted in cinnamon:

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To hold me over until lunch, I had yogurt/ricotta with flax, pb2, banana, and strawberries (from Hunter’s lobby last night):

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Lunch was more Thai coconut seafood curry, mixed with the veggies from Hunter’s lobby:

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Veggies make everything prettier, don’t they?

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I also had a spoonful of Belkis’ perfect perfect meat and rice:

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And a salad composed of leftover salad bits from Mildred, Jessica, and yesterday’s mangu lunch. I topped the salad with some of the innards of the chicken, tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwich piece Emily gave me in class last night:

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I have an identical salad waiting for me in the fridge for tomorow 🙂

Later in the afternoon, I had an orange:

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And another pb-chocolate-apple parfait:

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I also opened up my first tin (as opposed to roll) of Newman’s Own Organics peppermints. They’re so cute — just like little Altoids:

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I had a bunch during the day. I did not count.

When I got home this evening, I prepped food for tomorrow and then headed out for some exercise. I jogged for 25 minutes until the pain won out, and then I switched to walking for another 20. Somewhere in there, I did 10 reps of the inchworm exercise that Olga told me about.

When I arrived back at the apt, I had a serving of the same chocolate-pb-flax custard that’s in the parfait above with a couple little slices of banana, a sprinkling of unsweetened coconut, and a tsp of pb2:

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OK, off to report for bed duty so I can wake up tomorrow and do it all again. Ahh, I can’t wait until this semester is over and the papers are behind me!

A non-mentally-taxing question for tonight: How many separate things did you eat today? According to this entry, I ate 10. That might be a record low!

Didn’t eat everything …

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When I got to work this morning, there was a message waiting for me from my 11am visit: “Sarah, don’t eat lunch today. I’m cooking for you.”

And here’s the homemade mangu that greeted me when I arrived at their apartment:

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Before you get all bent out of shape, I promise I have not been manipulating my clients into giving me their food when they can barely buy enough for themselves! This mom has been trying to feed me for weeks, especially since we were planning on ending at the end of my internship (not so now, since I’ve been hired and all. It seemed to mean a lot to her that I let her do this for me, so I finally gave in, sigh.

And ohhhhhhhhh my goodness! I’ve tried (and loved) mangu two times before when my coworkers have shared with me, but I’ve never had it homemade … which actually tasted better, even though I didn’t think that was possible!

The plate on which she served the feast (above) could have been a serving plate, but it was all for me! I almost had a heart attack just looking at it. I ate about half of the mangu, all of the little sausages, and half of one of the ham(?) pieces on the side.

The mom also made salad, thank goodness! I had about two cups of this:

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As if that weren’t enough, she packed me a big container to go with what I could eat, plus a good two cups more of salad and her homemade tostones, of which I later ate two:

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While we ate, I gave their three-year-old free reign with my camera, resulting in about 80 of these:

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After my heavier than heavy lunch, I committed myself to produce for the rest of the afternoon with baby carrots from Jessica and my orange:

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Umm, I meant that I committed myself to produce until Jennifer came through the office with a box of Good Humor cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream bars. I actually turned one down, but Jessica still sliced me about an inch of hers so I could take part:

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On the way to class, I stopped into the market and noticed that they had goat gouda samples today instead of the manchego. I obviously had to try:

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In class, my dinner started with leftover green salad from Mildred’s lunch today mixed with about 1/3 cup edamame salad from Deborah’s lunch today:

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Main course was the leftover Thai seafood curry (shrimp, scallops, calamari, white rice, coconut milk) that my mom and John brought me this weekend. Yesterday, I bulked it up with brown basmati rice and broccoli to boost nutrition and stretch it through more lunches. Tonight’s cup:

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Dessert was a cup of yogurt/part-skim ricotta with cinnamon, PB2, and 1/3 chopped banana:

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What I did not eat today (but will eat eventually):

  1. the rest of the lunch I packed (more fruit and a parfait identical to the one I made last night; both still in the work fridge for tomorrow’s lunch)
  2. 2/3 cup of Vianni’s special rice (in my freezer now). OK, I had two little tastes before I put it away. It’s TOO good.
  3. leftovers from my mangu lunch (salad‘s in the work fridge for tomorrow; mangu/tostones/ham are in my freezer)
  4. 2/3 cup Hale & Hearty chicken vegetable soup and 1/4 Hale & Hearty chicken basil tomato pesto sandwich Emily couldn’t finish in class (soup is in my fridge; sandwich insides are heading to work tomorrow to dress the salad in #3 above; bread has been broiled to crunchiness and will be joining the carb-bag-club in the freezer soon)
  5. event leftovers that I encountered in the lobby of Hunter after class tonight: 1 cup grilled veggies extracted from the pile of mangled sandwiches and wraps (mixed into the remaining Thai seafood curry to stretch it even further), strawberries (in tomorrow’s yogurt), and two large and gooey brownies (cut into 5 pieces and in my freezer’s cake container). There might have actually been 6 pieces of brownie before one of them landed in my mouth along with all the m&ms that were garnishing it …

What didn’t YOU eat today?

Layers of stress

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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 🙂

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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.

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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!

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I mixed it all up to eat:

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

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

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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!

It’s genetic

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My mom and John got stuck in quite a bit of NJ Turnpike traffic last night and didn’t get to Brooklyn until around 8:30 or 9. I snacked on the orange pieces I saved from Friday’s work event while I waited:

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When they did arrive, I decided we should take advantage of the car and go to a restaurant in a nearbyish neighborhood that’s a little awkward to get to on foot or on the bus. I’ve wanted to try Picket Fence for a while, so that’s where I directed us. As soon as we pulled up outside, I knew we had made the right choice. Look how charming:

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Restaurants with homey charm and cozy glows are always instant hits with me. They could have fed me dog poop at this point, and I wouldn’t have noticed. OK, maybe I would have noticed a little bit.

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We requested a spot in the garden since it was still in the 70s, even at the late hour!

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And they brought free plain popcorn (the perfect whole grain pre-dinner snack) to the table while we waited:

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Mom and I shared the apple salad with Granny Smith slices, arugula (my favorite green!), red onions, grape tomatoes, blue cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette on the side:

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I ordered the special: blackened red snapper with pineapple glaze over ratatouille.

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This was perfect! Geez, I’m sorry I’m being so positive. If there was one drawback to my dinner, it was that it made me think of Rudolph with that half of one grape tomato sitting on top.

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I also had a teeny bite of mom’s pan-seared scallops.

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Scallops are my favorite seafood, but things often go wrong in preparation. Not so with these. They were brilliantly crisped on the outside!

And a teeny bite of John’s crab cakes:

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Also verrrrrrry tasty.

So, it’s safe to say we were pleased with our food (even though it took forEVER to come out):

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We picked one dessert to split three ways. We almost ordered two but then decided that one would probably suffice. Take a look at these “picket fence” dessert menus. Can you guess what we got?

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We actually ordered the special: banana bread pudding with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

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Mmmmmmmmm, it was warm and gooey (and melty by the time I finished photographing and let the vultures have at it!):

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Mom and I had a spoon Olympics battle at the end for all the drips:

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I’m not used to having to compete for my plate-cleaning title! Mom did claim, however, that she is the original plate scooper, and I guess she has a point there. She did come first!

Speaking of letting nothing go to waste, mom and John have been busy raiding Holiday Inn Expresses and their continental breakfasts up and down the East Coast over the past week for all sorts of goodies to bring to me! Left to right: leftover Thai coconut seafood curry, jam/honey/pb/syrup, tea, thank you mints, skim milk, fruit cups, apples, banana, instant oatmeal, instant cheddar grits, microwave popcorn, breakfast muffins, and loads of cinnamon bun-scented hotel toiletries!

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Now you know why I turned out the way I did. Thanks, mom!

Why did you turn out the way you did?

A thousand cakes

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

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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:

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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:

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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:

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

Moving on, I had some Jewish cake and kugel:

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And then I had seconds of each:

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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:

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And a couple of spoonfuls of Mildred’s gandules:

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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.

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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!

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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 …

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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? 😀

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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.

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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!