Scrappy afternoon

March 9, 2009February 6, 201519 Comments

Ayyy, I spent all day yesterday doing homework for my group presentation tonight. As I worked, I snacked. Homework and snacks are a match made in heaven. Am I right, or am I right?

I transferred Brigitte’s no-bake-cookies-and-cream birthday cake from its foil tin to covered tupperwares to allow for easier stacking. And then I licked the tin and the foil:

And I also had this little end of the 2nd to last log of cake because it “didn’t fit” in the tupperware:

I munched on a fresh pineapple core while chopping (and nibbling on) the rest:

I made crockpot oats for the week and “sampled” some of the ingredients that you see here while I prepped, because have you ever been able to resist of pile of chopped dates and toasted almonds just sitting in front of you? Didn’t think so.

After all of that food-prep snacking, dinner ended up being a pretty light (and late) affair. I had about 1/2 cup of this week’s oatmeal concoction (details to come in my next post) piping hot and straight out of the crockpot, topped with some Heather-inspired chocolate mousse and 1 tbsp vanilla-almond granola:

To make the mousse, I combined about 2/3 cup cooked whole wheat couscous (left over from roommate Tara’s lunches last week) with 1/2 an avocado, 1 tsp maple cream, 2 tbsp soymilk, and 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder:

And because I couldn’t stop and I’m a volume fiend, I also added 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1/4 cup plain yogurt, 1/4 cup healthy cream cheese icing, and 1/4 cup pumpkin. Post-immersion blending:

Hmm, looks suspiciously like chocolate frosting, right? These proportions made about 1 1/4 cups of mousse. I half-froze 1/4 cup, and that’s what I used to top my hot dinner oats. It was like an ice cream brownie sundae … except not on a brownie.

Anyway, the mousse was delicious, and I am now the world’s biggest fan of this avocado trick. Thanks, Heather!

Do you eat while you cook?

Clickity clack clickity clack

March 8, 2009February 6, 20159 Comments

That’s the sound of me typing all day long. Can you hear it?

I’ll give you one guess about the identity of my breakfast …

Yes, another Fitnessista breakfast cookie! This one was a little bit unconventional, as it involved me repurposing one portion of last week’s pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats. Last night, I stirred together a cup of the oats, 2 tbsp nonfat powdered milk, 1 chopped square of Lindt hazelnut chocolate, and 1 tbsp peanut butter. It was super wet because the oats were already cooked, so I put it in the freezer overnight and let it thaw for about 20 minutes this morning before I ate it, topped with cocoa powder and healthy cream cheese icing 😀

With soymilky black tea and extra icing on the side:

More clickity clack clickity clack until I got hungry around 11:30. Lunch was a hodgepodge of fun treats:

A bit of Rooms’ black bean salad from linner yesterday mixed with a spoonful of salsa and topped with plain yogurt and pumpkin seeds:

And an approximately 2 tbsp mix of “overflow” pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats and yogurt topped with cardamom:

And the best part: two baby raisin walnut toasts, one with homemade cashew butter (left) and one with homemade almond butter (right):

That’s right, last night I attempted production of my own nut butters!

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, especially after drooling over Heather’s recent nutty creations. Unfortunately, I think I need to concede defeat to my Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus and accept that I just don’t have the proper equipment for making nut-only nut butter. You can see the crumbly texture in the pictures above — which I love — but these butters are more the press-on-and-smush-down sort than the spreadable sort.

I know I could have added oil to pull things together, but I really didn’t want anything in there except for the nuts themslves! I finally compromised by adding a tablespoon of peanut butter (with peanuts as the only ingredient) to each batch, and the addition made my butters passably smushable — without the extra pb, they were just dry powders! Anyway, crumbliness aside, my homemade nut butters/powders are still delicious and were an excellent topping for the raisin walnut toasts this afternoon.

I was still hungry around 1, so I made a quick mix of 1/4 cup pumpkin, 2 tbsp healthy cream cheese icing, and 2 tbsp plain yogurt — topped with 1 tbsp vanilla-almond granola and 1 tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds:

And now it’s back to the books.

I have two questions for you today:

1. Are you inside or outside?

2. Does the work ever end???

Restaurant adventure; kitchen misadventure

March 8, 2009February 6, 201510 Comments

As mentioned before, I was about 40 minutes late to yesterday’s lunch. Ack! I am generally such a prompt person that I was almost in physical pain watching the minutes tick by as I waited for trains and connections and door malfunctions. But the crew patiently waited for me, even though it meant we didn’t eat until nearly 3:30!

Seven of us from college met for this linner because Rooms and Elise were in town for the weekend from DC and Pamela came up from Delaware. Of course, the typical Brooklyn four were in tow: Gina, Kate, Kareen, and me.

In honor of Pam’s vegan-ness, we met at Angelica Kitchen, a vegan restaurant in the East Village that invests in sustainable, local agriculture whenever possible. For my full review of the restaurant — including everyone’s meals! — check under the Reviews tab or right here. For this post, I’m going to stick specifically to what I ate to keep things from getting out of hand. There was a lot of food going around!

I started with a bite of Pamela’s whole grain bread and its accompanying carrot-ginger spread. This bread was delicious, moist, and filling. If you look closely, you can even see the individual grains:

I had a couple more bites, too, as the meal wore on.

Side note: You may be wondering how I was not ravenous by 3:30 after running 9 miles and buring 850 calories three whole hours earlier? The answer is easy: I made up my calorie deficit in advance of the run with all of my wild shenanigans on Friday! I was worried I might never be hungry again, but some pangs did start to kick in just as the food arrived, phew.

I can confidently say that my meal was the best out of everyone’s! I ordered Man of Lemon-cha: charmoula baked tempeh with cilantro, cinnamon, lemon, paprika, cayenne, and cumin; served with cashew-orange sauce and a millet-teff mix; accompanied by minted cucumber spears, roasted sweet potatoes, and green beans.

Oh. my. goodness. Everything about this meal was a success!! Perfect flavors, textures, portions everything .

Plus, how can you go wrong with these little guys?

In the words of the famous VeggieGirl, “SWEET POTATO!!!”

I had a couple little samples and bites of the other girls’ dishes — again, you can see them in full on the reviews page — including two bites of this yummy sweet cornbread Rooms ordered:

For dessert, Pamela, Kate, and I split two cakes between the three of us.

First was the coconut cheesecake with coconut crust and carob sauce:

We all agreed that the bites with carob sauce were the best! I loved the thick crust, but I was not crazy about the overly gelatinous filling.

Second was the vanilla layer cake with strawberry filling and hazelnut frosting:

We all loved this cake! Especially the hazelnut frosting:

I definitely made sure that no crumbs were left lingering on the dessert plates :-).

Dinner last night was the rest of Wednesday’s packed lunch, finally! I wasn’t sure that I would even get hungry again, but I did … and my leftover lunch portions offered the perfect satisfaction. I heated the cup of spinach-chickpea dal, topped it with two spoonfuls of plain yogurt, and spinkled extra cayenne, cinnamon, and cardamom:

Dessert was my last serving of “pumpkin plus” yogurt. I froyo-ed it and topped it with a some chopped date pieces:

I also had a failed basil-spice meringue kiss:

It tasted yummy, but I can’t hide the fact that something went terrible wrong in the baking process. I’ve made meringues before with a similar technique, but somehow all the sugar actually melted out of the poofy meringues while they were in the oven, resulting in trails of “caramel” all over the parchment and some seriously deflated kisses! Before and after:

This was going to be my BSI: Basil entry, but oh well. You win some, you lose some!

What have you won this weekend?

With sprinkles on top

March 5, 2009February 6, 201519 Comments

Thursday is my wake-up-to-sunlight day, and I love it! I got up at 6:30 this morning so I could enjoy a sunrise run through the park. My motivation faltered significantly when I got outside and felt how cold it was. All my muscles tightened up, and my legs just did not want to move! But I told myself I could run as slow as I wanted and turn around if I needed to, and I ended up doing a whole lap of the park plus a teeny bit extra. It was so gorgeous out there with everything all snow-covered … but it was kind of lost on me because I am ready to see some green! Stats: 4.1 miles, 45 minutes, 342 calories, average heart rate 144, max 169.

I had planned to do the 20-minute Gentle Hatha #1 yogadownload when I got home, but I just didn’t have it in me! I did a few pigeons, dogs, and child’s poses on my own instead.

Breakfast was another cup of pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats:

With 1/2 cup healthy cream cheese icing, coconut, pumpkin seeds, cumbled graham sticks, cinnamon, and ginger:

And soymilky black tea:

During class, I snacked on 1.5 black bean-salmon patties dipped in 2 tbsp peanut-butter-pumpkin-roasted-red-pepper-hummus:

Don’t judge. It was delicious.

I also ate 2 dates and 2 prunes for snack dessert:

We had advisement after class, so I brought along a full lunch to carry me through, including what I made Tuesday night when I realized how low on produce I was. After rummaging through the depths of my cabinets and freezer, I came up with a can of chickpeas, a box of frozen spinach, and a can of tomato sauce. Seemed like cause for Indian food to me! I quickly threw together this dal with some adjustments (scallions in place of the onions I didn’t have, tomato sauce in place of the tomatoes I didn’t have, cardamom plus every spice in my cabinet in place of the garam masala I didn’t have, sweet potato pieces because I did have them and thought they’d be fun in it) and added in about 3/4 cup cooked brown basmati rice. Here’s today’s one-cup portion:

With my “pumpkin plus” yogurt:

After advisement, Emily, Lisa, and I stayed on to touch base for the group presentation we’re giving next week (about infant adoption, yay!). I was thoroughly drained when it was all said and done and needed some Tasti-D stat:

I got a swirl of dulce de leche and burnt sugar (which, in reality, tasted like fancy names for vanilla and chocolate). But it was still very tasti:

With sprinkles on top, obviously, because what is ice cream without sprinkles?

I’m finally home and contemplating things like dinner and the Fridayness of tomorrow.

What do YOU put on top?

The big cheese

March 1, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

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:

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:

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:

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:

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

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.

(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:

Mid-demolition:

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:

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

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?

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: Experiments

Scrappy afternoon

Clickity clack clickity clack

Restaurant adventure; kitchen misadventure

With sprinkles on top

The big cheese

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