Tag: eggs

Yuck

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I did not like that Ecto experiment at all. I’m not sure I can continue with the trial! I am reposting the regular way because it is prettier …

Breakfast this morning was another slice of french toasted kitchen sink muffin. It was also the last slice, sadly, since my first attempt today resulted in the toast falling in that scary space between the oven and the counter. I almost cried.

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(I topped the toast with Artisana cacao bliss (I will be very sad when this jar ends), unsweetened coconut, and cinnamon.)

After that, I popped two more ibuprofen for dessert (gotta keep the swelling down!) along with my vitamins and headed to the gym for some leg strength and cardio. Oh wait, I was moving so slowly to get ready for the gym that I got hungry again. Pineapple and watermelon (from MA) topped with hulled hemp seed:

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Then I went to the gym, came back, and made this random lunch:

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Key players included a heated Eggland’s Best hard-boiled and peeled egg (getting down to the wire on these, so I need to use them fast!) sprayed with Smart Balance and sprinkled with fresh black pepper:

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A Peppadew salad with strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, and feta from home:

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The TJ’s rice and bean chips that Elisabeth sent:

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With fresh Union Market salsa (thanks, Tara!):

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And Peppadew Mango Salsa:

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Speaking of this mango salsa … I love it! Probably because it tastes like dessert. It would be delicious over yogurt.

Now,  I’m off to get more memory (birthday present from my parents!) installed in my little old computer and to pick up my official race packet on the Upper East Side (aka the other end of the earth) for Saturday’s half!

Have you ever used Ecto or another blog-editing software for Macs before? What do you think? I would love a time-saver, but not if it means I have to deal with ugliness!

Toasted

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I’m back in New York today, but I definitely fixed myself a Massachusetts-inspired breakfast this morning! I just can’t let go 😛

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Mom sent me home on the bus yesterday with a bunch of her famous kitchen sink muffins (among several other food items). Most of the muffins were minis, but she also sent one jumbo:

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Inspired by the cinnamon bun french toast I tasted out at breakfast on Saturday, I decided to french toast the jumbo muffin! I sliced it into thirds to soak in a batter of 1 egg, cinnamon, vanilla, and a splash of unsweetened soymilk. I had one of the slices for breakfast topped with a schmear of Artisana cacao bliss.

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Yummmmmmmmmmmmm.

On the side, I had the rest of the chia pudding I made last week (and left in my freezer while I was gone) topped with sauteed cinnamon and cardamom apples:

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The perfect warm and cozy breakfast (at 1:00!) for such a dreary day.

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Pre-breakfast, I hit the gym for some vigorous and intense cardio, as I want to make sure that my heart can handle 13 miles on Saturday even if my legs can’t! (I also went to the Y gym with mom yesterday morning in MA for more cardio and lots of leg muscle machines, and I’ve got more leg strength planned for tomorrow. Between that and the steady-stream-of-ibuprofen regimen I started yesterday, I am keeping my fingers crossed for the Brooklyn Half!)

I’m not really going to get into yesterday’s food because yesterday is all done now, but Alison did ask me for my mom’s recipe for the pumpkin-grapenut pudding that we made for my dad and stepmom … some of which I conveniently did snack on yesterday, heated and topped with warm chopped apples, cinnamon, and cardamom:

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Unfortunately, my mom doesn’t ever really follow a recipe. The general idea for the grapenut pudding is a custard base (eggs, milk, sweetener, vanilla, spices … and, in this case, pumpkin) that gets sprinkled liberally with grapenuts pre-baking so that they absorb the moisture and spread their flavor as they sink to the bottom during the cooking to form a “crust.” Comfort food at its best 🙂 More info about my mom’s grapenut pudding can be found in this post.

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(Also, some of you asked if I was serious about my mom’s body-building days, and it’s true! She did used to be a competitive bodybuilder (a side hobby to her full-time psychotherapizing) when I was really young. Maybe someday she will let me post some of her competition pics, haha!)

And because it’s too pretty, here’s breakfast yesterday morning:

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Can you identify the components?

And lastly, check out what just arrived from Elisabeth at Jogger’s Life!

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She sent me a beautiful care package, thanking me for showing her ways to stop wasting food (sigh, I have now achieved life satisfaction :-D). The highlight of the box? Another package of UliMana raw chocolates!

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Thank you Elisabeth — this made my day!!!

If you could french toast anything (and you can!), what would you choose?

Going local

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Before I left for the party last night, I engaged my mom and John in a little bit of product reviewing. I had brought my packages of Newman’s Own Organics Champion Chip cookies in orange chocolate chip and double chocolate mint chip to my last class celebration on Thursday. Due to the high quantity of fresh Italian cookies, my little Newman’s Owns got lost in the shuffle. I felt confident, however, that they would not survive two nights in my mom’s house, and I was right!

Here’s a little slide show of mom in action.

Contemplation:

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Meditating on the deliciousness:

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The cookies were totally demolished within 10 minutes — and I’m pretty sure both bags were at least halfway full when I brought them out! John loved the crunch, and both preferred the orange chocolate chip cookies (the chocolate mint were the first to disappear, though). Success! (And thank goodness I’m off the hook from eating them. They were just too too too good to have lying around.)

This morning, Steph and Dan picked me up again on their way out of town so that we could go for a quick breakfast. We went to the hot spot of all hot spots in downtown NA: the Town Restaurant. I used to go there for breakfast with my dad when I was little for their amaaaaaazing grilled muffins. Today, I went wild and ordered the special omelet — spinach, tomato, and mushroom — with egg whites.

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It came with sweet potato fries and toast, but I skipped the toast and got extra fries instead. (Actually, I asked for fruit instead of toast, but the waitress told me that there was no fruit on the premises.) I don’t like regular potatoes, so the chance for sweet potato fries is rare, and I had to take advantage!

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Steph got the cinnamon bun French Toast. It was literally an iced cinnamon bun sliced into thirds and French Toasted. Yummmmmm:

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While there, the town Memorial Day Parade went by outside. All the brownies and cub scouts and high school bands and policemen with antique rifles went marching by. It was verrrry exciting because some family members of parade participants happened to be in the restaurant at the same time. We felt like we got in on some prime behind-the-scenes action. (Sort of.) Too bad I did not get a picture! We did, however, get free baby American flags that someone from the downtown association came around to hand out. I think I lost mine in the excitement? Hmmmm …

Back to breakfast, Steph tried to save her frosted bites for last, but she got too full. I had to finish them. It’s important to take one for the team.

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I’ve done cinnamon bun oatmeal, but now I think I may need to start including cinnamon bun french toast in the rotation!

Is there a breakfast hot spot in your hometown?

Something new

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I woke up super late today (10:00!!) for the third morning in a row — I think my mind is finally recovering from racing all semester long! I’m not sure if this is a good thing, though, since it is going to need to resume racing faster than ever in June.

Because it was so late, I put together a different and very simple breakfast:

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I sliced an apple in half, cored it, and baked it covered in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes:

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The apple got transferred to a plate, and I filled its core with a tsp or so of Artisana almond butter (which, strangely, tasted sort of chemically to me, even though almonds are the only ingredient. Maybe it’s the rawness?) and then sprinkled unsweetened coconut and cinnamon over the top:

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It was sooo yummy and did the trick to hold me over for the hour or so I needed until lunch.

Sadly, I’m out of greens (I ate them all yesterday!) and don’t want to buy more since I’m tentatively planning to go visit my parents in MA this Thursday night through Tuesday. I put together a fun snacky plate on a cutting board so I could transfer it to the couch with me for TV time (oh, this is the life!) post-photo.

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The spread included carrot sticks with humbecuemole (2 tbsp my hummus, 1 tsp Country Bob’s BBQ, and 1/8 mashed avocado):

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An Eggland’s Best peeled and hard-boiled egg, heated and topped with spray butter and  freshly ground black pepper:

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And a contribution from these new finds:

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Last week, my roommate Tara alerted me to this new fruit called Peppadew that she had discovered in the course of researching catering options for a work event. I found it a little strange that this fruit is actually owned, but I still had to test it out regardless. For now, I think Peppadew is only available from the online store, though the Chop’t restaurants in NY have a salad with it.

Spicy and sweet (just like me, haaaaaaa):

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They were both pretty tasty — kind of a pickle-y sweet pepper taste with more of an apricot texture. The spicy one had a yummy zing to it, but I wouldn’t call it hot-spicy. I got adventurous with a sweet peppadew and added it to my yogurt:

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But it looked lonely with that hole, so I stuffed it with some Artisana cacao bliss 🙂

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The yogurt also had lucuma powder, goji berries, 1/3 sliced banana, blackberries and BRM hulled hemp seeds:

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Before this, I had never tried hemp seeds. I was pleasantly surprised. They had a toasty (probably because I toasted them in a dry pan first!) and nutty flavor that I loved. I hope I can get around to some baking experiments with them soon.

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What is the latest produce item you’ve tried for the first time?

Missy’s got free bread on her hands! Go check it out 🙂

And Coconutgal has free Coconut Bliss ice cream, YUMMMMMM!

Humbangu

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Hummmmmm, what does that title mean?

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Wellll, I’ve been wanting to try Bender’s humbecue sauce forEVER, and today seemed as good a time as any! Except, I didn’t have any hummus. What I did have, however, was a serving of collard greens and BBQ baked beans in the freezer from ages ago.

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I also had a serving of cauliflower-mangu left, and that’s kind of the texture of hummus, right?

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I had initally planned to immersion-blend everything, greens and all … but then one of the greens jumped into my mouth and tasted so good that the rest followed. So, I just blended the BBQ beans and the mangu.

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Next, I broke out some fancy tuna in olive oil.

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I’ve been noticing this Cole’s brand of tuna (and other fishies) in some gourmet grocery stores lately because the packaging is so pretty. I recently starting liking canned tuna, and I only discovered this from being fed foods that contained it. So I don’t think I’ve ever actually opened a can of tuna myself. Until today.

I was so impressed with the quality of the tuna in this can! It wasn’t mushy at all and was so tightly packed that it flaked apart almost like a piece of tuna steak:

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Very promising. I dumped the can of tuna (minus the olive oil, which I drained into a baby Artisana jar for another time because tuna-infused olive oil might come in handy at some point!) into the humbangu sauce:

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Since I combined three meals to make this tuna humbangu, I incorporated 1/3 of the total mix into my lunch. Here’s my finished salad on a bed of arugula with the mangu’s hammy bits, some blackberries, the last of the tostones, and a teeny dollop of plain yogurt for presentation’s sake:

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It was so so so so tasty!

IMG_9811Eventually, I made my way to the gym for some bicycling (no running!) and arms. When I got home, I decided that I needed to remedy the no-hummus situation. I cooked a bunch of chickpeas from dry and combined about 1/2 cup of them with a piece of roasted red pepper, Italian seasoning, a whole garlic clove, coarse sea salt, and 1/2 a baby jar of Artisana tahini.

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After immersion-blending, I fork-mashed another 1/2 cup of chickpeas to mix in because I like it a little bit rough:

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To fuel myself through the ever-so-grueling hummus work, I pulled out the rest of the yerba mate that I brewed this morning and left in the fridge. It had gotten even greener!!

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Does anyone know how that happened?? You can see how white it was when hot in the previous post, and making it cold completely converted it to this vivid sea foam color. I love it.

I also had the last 1/4 cup of chickpeas that didn’t fit in the hummus:

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Anyway, I got around to dinner eventually and mixed about 2 tbsp of my fresh roasted red pepper hummus with a chopped hard-boiled egg (once again, thanks to Eggland’s best for doing the boiling and peeling for me!). I had my egg salad atop a bed of arugula (lots of mushy arugula salads today, right?) with 1/8 chopped avocado, sprinkles of paprika and black pepper, and a few crushed Newman’s spelt pretzels:

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For dessert, I had a slice of healthy cheesecake alongside half an Ulimana raw chocolate hemp brownie and 1 tsp pineapple-coconut-ginger peanut butter.

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Yes yes yes, absolutely holy-yum worthy! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Ulimana definitely knows its way around a raw dessert … or any dessert for that matter!

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Do you do anything wild with hummus?