Tag: Exercise

Don’t fear the curd

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My oats this morning were partly overnighted and partly cooked … and they spontaneously took shape as one of my favorite desserts of all time 😀

Last night, I mixed 1/4 cup steel-cut oats with 2 tbsp soymilk, 2 tbsp water, 2 tbsp yogurt, 1 small chopped apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, and cloves.

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This morning at the gym was arms + steps/elliptical: 1 hour and 14 minutes, 392 calories, average heart rate 119, max 179. When I got home, I transferred the bowl of oats from the fridge to the oven for 30 minutes covered at 375 while I got ready.

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Post-oven, the oats went on a bed of lemon custard (1/3 cup yogurt mixed with 1 tsp lemon curd). I topped them with 2 crumbled basil-spice meringue kisses, 2 balsamic-strawberry oaties with homemade cashew-almond butter tips, and another dollop of my forbidden food:

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YUM! It was warm and fluffy and tasted like lemon meringue pie 😀

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Many of you commented that you’ve never heard of lemon curd but that it sounds gross. Leave it to the British to give something so heavenly a name like curd. However, if you like lemon pudding, lemon cake, lemon meringue pie, or any other lemon-themed dessert, really, I’m pretty sure you’d be a fan of lemon curd.

What are some foods that you love despite their off-putting names?

Giveaways of the Day:

1. YOUBars and YOUShakes at Run to the Finish.

2. Coupons for free yogurt (enter before 3pm EST) at Say Yes to Salad.

Luck of the Irish, partly

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The other part, I suppose, would be luck of the Eastern European Jewish 😛

I went festive for breakfast this morning:

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But before breakfast, it was back to the gym! I did Tina’s 45-minute treadmill run. It had been a few weeks since the last time, and I had missed it! Stats: 1 hour and 3 minutes, 511 (yay, my birthday number :D) calories, 149 average heart rate, 180 max.

I considered eating guacamole for breakfast since I made so much of it on Sunday, but then I remembered all of the spinach I brought home from work last night! I blended about 2 cups of it with 1 small chopped apple, 1 cup plain yogurt, and lots of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.

With a sprinkle of granola and a spinach palm tree shamrock:

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On the side, I had three Balsamic-Strawberry Oaties spread with about 1 tbsp homemade almond-cashew butter:

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And I’m sipping/chugging my soymilky black tea as I type!

I don’t know what my schedule is going to be like this afternoon — I’m heading up to the Bronx for a lecture about working with bilingual children — so I thought it would be fun (well, fun for me, haha) to leave you with a retrospective of  St. Patty’s Days past.

Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 2004 (senior year spring break!):

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East Village NYC, 2005 (ship-load of Irish sailors unpictured 😉 ):

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Kinsale, Ireland, 2006 (a trip with Wife to visit the restaurant/bar where we used to waitress and the boys who looked after us):

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East Village NYC, 2007 (with Gina, Wife, and Kate):

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Coney Island, Brooklyn, 2008 (not St. Pat’s since my nightlife vanished with the wind when I began grad school, but Irish-themed night at the Brooklyn Cyclones!):

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The end! Enjoy your green day 😀

To-Do:

1. Check out the new BSI info here.

2. Join Vani’s Forbidden Foods Challenge!

Renewal

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Well, today has certainly been all about recovery after my wild eating spree at the book signing last night! 1pm came along and I still wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. This is highly abnormal for me because I’m usually ravenous within one hour of waking up. I had been up since 7:30! I decided that a run was in order to speed the process along. On my way out, I grabbed a date for healthy sugar power:

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My whole body felt creaky and achey at the beginning of the run, but all my muscles and bones and joints seemed to start communicating with each other more effectively after a few minutes. I was in the mood for sightseeing, so I ran out to the mansions at Flatbush Malls — the most beautiful neighborhood in Brooklyn, according to me — and around the outside of Prospect Park. Stats: 5.75 miles, 61 minutes, 509 calories, 152 average heart rate, 182 max. I totally zoned out during the run and ended up really enjoying it. I felt so refreshed after — but alas, still not hungry!

I sorted my laundry for the ‘mat tomorrow, I dyed my hair, I did some other things on the list … and I finally felt a little bit hungry around 4pm! I did a happy dance and then whipped up the balsamic-strawberry yogurt sundae that I’ve been dreaming about ever since I created these Balsamic-Strawberry Oaties earlier this week for the BSI.

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Also involved in that sundae were 1/2 cup Greek yogurt mixed with vanilla and cinnamon, more chopped strawberries, and a drizzle of homemade balsamic syrup. Yum! Definitely lived up to my fantasy.

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Then, miracle of all miracles, I was still a little bit hungry! I re-toasted a piece of herby chicken parm toast from yesterday and covered it in 2 tsp homemade almond-cashew butter and cinnamon:

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The traces of herby tomato sauce on the bread actually complemented the almond-cashew butter brilliantly. Hmmmm, I wonder what I can do with this knowledge in the future …

I continued to give my body what it needed with a pot of Yogi Renew green tea from the samples I received last week:

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The tea actually tasted a little bit like grass. But, hey, I guess you have to suffer for your renewal, right?

At some point a little later, another mini-wave of hunger hit me. I decided it was time to break out sample #1 of PB2! I cut the packet open and tasted some of the dry powder — hmm, tasted like peanuts.

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The directions said to mix the packet with 1.5 tbsp of water … so I mixed it with 2 tbsp yogurt. Magic:

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My pb-yogurt sauce became the dressing for a cup of last night’s fruit salad:

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(I also mixed in a couple of chopped strawberries and topped it with a sprinkle of vanilla-almond granola.)

The verdict? As much as I did not want to like PB2, I have to admit that I think it has sucked me in. There are so many potential uses! Would I buy it? I’m doubtful, especially now that I’ve mastered the art of making my own nut butters from scratch. But, I have the rest of the samples to go through and an entire jar on its way from the Foods That Fit giveaway, so we’ll see how addicted I get!

In other giveaway news, you can win yet another chance to mix your own granola, thanks to Diana at Soap & Chocolate. I’d LOVE to win this one, but I really think I’ve been too lucky! I can still hope, though …

Speaking of Foods That Fit, Abbie posted a fun recipe for wheatberry salad today that I knew I had to try since I had all of those pilfered cranberries from last night.

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I made a few substitutions based on ingredient availability — I subbed a rye berries/kamut/barley/brown rice mixture for the wheatberries and cooked the grains in leftover whey from making Greek yogurt; dried apple rings and dates in place of the apricots; and chopped almonds in place of the pistacios and pine nuts. I “tested” a couple of spoonfuls when it was done — delicious!

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Just like Abbie said — perfect salty-sweet combo!

The cooking continued because I can’t stop once I start! I combined two recipes to prepare the other half of my tofu block: the coco loco tofu Emily made earlier this week and soy-lime tofu from Eating Well. I soaked the tofu slices for two hours in a marinade of 2 tbsp white rice vinegar + 2 tbsp lime juice + 2 tbsp soy sauce + 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil and then dredged each slice in unsweetened coconut and baked like this. I tested one slice on another piece of chicken parm toast with 1 tbsp almond-cashew butter:

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The coconut flavor was surprisingly strong, and that made me happy. I can’t believe I haven’t thought to put coconut on tofu before. Thanks, Emily!

For dessert, I had about 2 tbsp of half-frozen homemade chocolate mousse (freezing it seems to make it even MORE chocolate-y, if that’s possible) with a crumbled basil-spice meringue kiss and coconut sprinkles:

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Hmm, for a day of no appetite, this has been a surprisingly long post!! My tum is feeling ALMOST back to normal, so I’m hoping for a crazy appetite when I wake up in the morning :-D.

What do you prefer: big appetite or no appetite?

Subway sleeper

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Breakfast this morning was my final portion of Almond-Infused Rosemary-Lemonade crockpot oats:

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I’m really so pleased with how these turned out — I think lemon is going to be making more appearances in my oats! The long slow cook in the crockpot seemed to take away all of the sourness, leaving just a sweet, lemonade-y taste of summer — something I definitely needed this morning after my foray to the gym in weather that has returned to the 20s!

With the oats, I had 1/2 cup yogurt, 3 crumbled basil-spice meringue kisses, 1 tsp of my properly creamed homemade almond-cashew butter, unsweetened coconut, and 1 tbsp vanilla-almond granola:

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With water and soymilky black tea on the side!

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At the gym, I did my arms and steps: 1 hour and 15 minutes, 440 calories, average heart rate 126, max 165. During what was supposed to be my mini-vacation from meaningful thought on the Stairmill with Us Weekly, I got worked up about all the drama with Rihanna and Chris Brown. Sure, them getting back together sends a terrible message to all young girls out there about accepting domestic violence, but who is reporting this message??? THE GOSSIP MAGS!! Can they please quit tossing around blame and instead examine why and how they play a role in allowing the values of celebrities to dictate those of the world?

So, thank you, Us Weekly, for giving me that glorious, much-needed 30-minute mental break this morning. … Just kidding.  I had to take my mental break on the subway instead and snuggled into my scarf and coat for a solid 30 minute nap from Bleecker to 116th. Take that, trashy magazines! I will be coming after you when I wake up with no purse and no shoes …

Where and how do you take your mental breaks?

Belly respect

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Usually, I try to hold out on eating until the very very end of class because I want my lunch to carry me through until I can get home — especially if I have to stay at school a little bit later. Today, however, I knew I’d be leaving right at 1pm and coming home for a run. I’ve been reading Intuitive Eating, and I decided to take the authors’ advice and “honor my hunger” even though it came earlier than normal.

I started at 11:15 with 2 tbsp homemade guac and my last 2 Kavli crispy thin crackers:

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I waited a few, but the hunger was still around. I broke into part two at 11:30. It might make you gag even though it was delicious, so skip on ahead if odd food combos make you ill. Last night, I scrambled an egg yolk left from making the basil-spice meringue kisses with a sweet ‘n’ spicy black bean-salmon patty and frozen peas! I also mixed in half of a chopped apple and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

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I ate it cold in class … because I was in class. It was strangely satisfying, and I wanted more when I finished. But there was no more!

And 15 minutes later, I was onto the yogurt — same mix as yesterday with chopped pear, chopped banana, nutmeg, and golean crunch:

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At 12:02, I honored my real dessert craving with a chocolate heart:

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Normally, having an entire hour left of class with no food to keep me busy would make me restless to no end, but I felt so comfortable that I was able to be more focused on the discussion than I usually am. I think I will start honoring my hunger when it happens more often :-D.

When I got home at 2, I stovetop-popped a single serving bag (rescued from work!) of microwave kettle corn and sprinkled it with cinnamon and cayenne:

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Mmmmmm, kettle corn is amazing.

I had a couple bites of yogurt and granola while packing lunch for tomorrow, and then I decided to get some errands taken care off on this rare free afternoon.  I ran the long way to the grocery store — approx 4 miles out of the way around the park, to be exact. This run was perfect — it was mid-40s, sunny, not a cloud in sight, and I just enjoyed the weather and being out among the living in the middle of the day! I spent most of the run thinking up ideas for this week’s BSI: Strawberries, and I ended up going way faster than normal. I’m so glad I changed my mind about forcing a run this morning when I knew I hadn’t had enough sleep! Stats: 4.28 miles, 42 minutes, 367 calories, average heart rate 157, max 173.

Groceries included a gallon of milk, 3 lbs apples, strawberries, asparagus, brussels sprouts, avocado:

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Grocery Total: $15.57

I’ve been having a lazy afternoon/evening of cooking and baking (nibbling all the way of course), and I’ll be getting around to some dinner eventually … along with an on-time bedtime, wooooooooooot 😀

How did you honor your hunger today?