Tag: Experiments

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!

If I didn’t have to sleep

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Last week, I bought this little bunch of “apple bananas” at a fruit shop near my office in East Harlem.

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They were the color that I normally love bananas, but apparently partly green is a no-go in the world of apple bananas. I took one bite and thought my tongue had fallen out because I could no longer feel it. Guess they weren’t ripe yet! I let them sit for the weekend and then decided to revisit one for my snack this morning. For size orientation:

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And I could actually taste the apple flavor in there!

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Inginia and I had our group this afternoon, and while Inginia put together a fun lunch spread (as usual), I worked some kitchen magic to make blue playdough for the kids:

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For lunch, I had 1.5 thin slices of French-ish bread with Inginia’s mustardy tuna salad:

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And 1/2 of a mini english muffin with peanut butter:

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A juntos (minus the extra 1/2 slice of bread and tuna):

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Some parents brought in an Entenmann’s walnut danish ring (whyyyyyyyy?), so I had two small slices (with another little dabble of pb on the side):

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The same parent also brought in a carton of Dole strawberry banana orange juice.  I usually only drink water because I’m a much bigger fan of eating than drinking, but I had to have a sip because I used to love these juices when I was little. My sip did not disappoint!

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After the group, I relieved my tuna breath with a Newman’s ginger mint, the best breath mint ever.

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I think I had four of these over the course of the day/evening.

Later in the afternoon, it was orange time! Note the neat edges on those orange peels thanks to my fancy schmancy orange peeler from Myrna:

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I also had a small handful of these pita chips from Jessica. So salty and garlicky, mmmmmmmmm:

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I had my first course of dinner right before I left work around 5:20: a cup of the pumpkin-sofrito Buitoni’s mushroom agnosomething and 3-grain tempeh that I made last night.

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My second course took place in class with variation #2 of flax pudding because Heather was looking for a tofu-free method (and because I was out of tofu AND yogurt):

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For that pumpkin pie flax pudding, I brought 1.5 cups unsweetened soy milk to a boil with 6 tbsp ground flax, cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves/ginger, and 2 chopped dates. After a couple of minutes there, I immersion blended in 1.5 cups of canned pumpkin and poured the mix into a container to chill in the fridge overnight. For my purposes, one serving equals one cup — so this recipe makes 3-4 servings.

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It would probably also work without the pumpkin because the flax seems to have incredible gelling properties. It just might come out a little bit looser.

Next up was my snack/dessert baggie with manchego cheese samples from the gourmet deli, two of mom’s kitchen sink muffins with sunflower seed butter for spreading, and sample pieces of Tate’s Bakeshop chocolate chip cookies from the deli:

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When I got home tonight, I snacked a bit while I got tomorrw’s food ready … as in I shoveled big piles of fruit salad and groatmeal into my mouth too fast to photograph them. What’s a girl to do when it won’t all fit in the container??

I was also super-excited to find that my first issue of Eating Well had arrived! I won the subscription from Brandi a little while ago, and I can’t wait to start reading it 😀 Sadly, I can’t start yet because I have to go to bed ASAP.

What would you be doing right now if you didn’t have to sleep?

Oh, one more thing (about me again, because obviously the world revolves around me) … I got hired!! Thanks to the tireless efforts of Heather, my supervisor, my amazing unpaid internship has miraculously found space in the budget to hire me full-time after the internship ends on May 8. I’ll officially start on June 1. I’ll be able to keep doing what I currently do (and what I love to do!) about 1/3 of the time; the other 2/3 will be a different more paperwork-based job but still good experience. So, not only will I continue to get my social work experience; I will also learn a new system and have a small amount of financial stability to get me through the last year of grad school. Phew!

I’m back …

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But not forever! My trip to Charlotte was perfect — as has been every trip to the “south” I have ever taken — and I am pretty confident that I’ll be heading in that direction again once I am done with grad school next year.

Wife and I woke up this morning to the sound of coffee beans grinding and pancake batter stirring! Kristin and Dustin were hard at work in the kitchen above us 🙂

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I topped my two blueberry pancakes with ICBINB and lite syrup:

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And while we’re on the topic of Kristin and Dustin’s aboveness and beyondness as hosts throughout this entire trip, there’s more! Wife’s car wouldn’t start yesterday when we were on the way to the wedding, so Dustin drove us the 30 minutes to the wedding and dropped us off so we wouldn’t be late. Later, he and Kristin drove back out with both of their cars so that they could leave one for us to use for the rest of the night!

While waiting for AAA to arrive this morning, we all relaxed in the kitchen with our tea (and coffee for the others), our pancakes, and the pretty birds right outside the balcony:

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Because Wife had to wait for the towtruck (and her car was out of commission, obviously), Kristin had to drive me to the airport. Add another star to the list of aboveness and beyondness!

I am so aware that I keep gushing about everyone on this trip … but between Kath‘s tour guiding and company on Friday, Wife’s willingness to drive up from GA and incur the wrath of the evil automobile spirits to go to the wedding with me, and Kristin and Dustin’s generous and fun hosting, I have never experienced such a hefty dose of hospitality in my life!

Once I got through security at the Charlotte airport, I finally got to enjoy some of the luxurious rocking and free wireless that I kept hearing about:

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As I rocked and blogged, I oranged with the orange that I had initially packed for Friday’s flight:

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And granola bar’d with this peanut butter granola bar that Kath and I scooped up from a free samples basket at Earth Fare on Friday:

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And chocolated with this Ferrero Rocher that Wife brought for me from GA, courtesy of Ted:

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An impressively well-rounded airport lunch if I do say so myself!

On the plane, I had a 1 oz. package of JetBlue cashews while I worked my way through Gastropolis:

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I’m a fan of the JetBlue unlimited airplane snacks deal (obviously). From the two flights, I collected four more bags of cashews and one mini-bag of chocolate chunk cookies:

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The other goodies that came back with me include a jar of PB2 from Kath and a belated Christmas present from Wife of a cupcake potholder (in the back), key lime jam (!!!) from her trip to Madison, and homemade black raspberry jam from Ted’s aunt. Thanks for the treats, ladies (and JetBlue)!

Due to the usual weekend subway delays, detours, and cancellations, I didn’t get home until about 6 and had to rush to unpack my suitcase, pack lunch/dinner for tomorrow, and make dinner for tonight. With no time to hit the grocery store, I had to rely on the freezer, a can, and a couple of promotional items I have received recently:

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While I sauteed the three grain tempeh in a pan with olive oil and minced garlic, I dumped the mushroom “agnolotti” that Foodbuzz sent into a saucepan with boiling water and half a box of frozen peas I found. I mixed everything together at the end (minus the pasta water) and then made a crazy sauce from 1/2 cup canned pumpkin, 2 tbsp sofrito, and a splash of unsweetened soymilk (for thinning). I saved most of it for the week’s lunches, but I had to sample a little scoop topped with homemade parm for dinner:

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The tempeh gave good texture and chew, and the wild mushroom flavor held its own. Plus, there’s pretty much no way to go wrong with pumpkin or sofrito separately, so why not put them together?

My main dinner event consisted of about 1 cup of fruit salad (mango, blood orange, strawberries, and blackberries), an overturned container of honey Oikos so that the honey took on an “icing” role (loved how this flavor was still plain yogurt with the honey on the bottom of the container), and a tbsp of ground flax with cinnamon:

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Now I have to race to get ready for bed. This is going to be a week for getting back on track — and it starts with getting eight full hours of sleep tonight!

What’s your goal for this week?

Magical properties

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While I had my new coffee bean grinder out last night, I obviously needed to use it to grind some of my Bob’s Red Mill flax seeds! Feeling inspired by Sarah’s flaxseed pudding (fyi, I’m talking about the hilariously entertaining Sarah and not me!), I ground three tbsp of the seeds. Half I kept aside to use for tomorrow’s breakfast, and half became part of my dinsert:

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In a small saucepan, I immersion blended the 1.5 tbsp ground flax seeds with 1/4 cup silken tofu, 1/4 cup unsweetened soymilk, 1/4 cup water, cinnamon, vanilla, and 1 chopped gooey Medjool date. Once blended, I brought the mix to a low boil for a few and then poured it into a ramekin that went into the fridge for a couple hours.

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While the pudding was setting, I snacked on three jasmine tea biscotti bites.

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Before chilling, the pudding was already pretty thick because of the tofu (I wanted to use it up before I left for the weekend), but after — wow! The flaxseeds definitely changed the consistency so that it actually set kind of like regular pudding would.

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I loved it alone but, this being dinsert and all, I needed it to be a bit more substantial. So I threw on chopped mango (Myrna gave me a whole mango at work the other day!), blood orange, strawberries, and blackberries along with the rest of the peanut roasteed chickpeas and some of my frozen Easter chocolate-caramel-nut candy.

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Mmmmmm, I am so excited about this flax seed “gelling” discovery. I never knew it had these properties, and I have a pretty full bag of them left so I can keep experimenting!

I used the other 1.5 tbsp of ground flax seeds for my breakfast this morning. I enjoyed my tofu oat bran with prune groatmeal topping for the third day in a row … with two (hmm, three four) key differences. First, I added the flax to the saucepan while stovetopping the bran last night. Second, I cooked the bran and assembled it with the groatmeal in an ovensafe bowl last night to allow for easy oven-reheating while getting ready this morning. Third, I topped it with homemade sunflower seed butter in place of my completely devoured cashew-almond butter. And fourth, I ate it in a takeout container on the subway 🙂

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In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, I’m loving the tofu oat bran! I think I could even eat it plain without any of the toppings. The fat from the tofu and soymilk add such a rich flavor to the already creamy oat bran. And the addition of ground flax made it even thicker! Such a satisfying combination.

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Despite the satisfaction, however, I got somehow hungry at 9 am while waiting for the plane in JFK (probably because I didn’t have any water to drink!) and whipped out this baby sweet batata that I baked last night:

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I’m now in the Charlotte airport awaiting the arrival of my super special local tour guide who offered to help me fill the afternoon until I meet Wife (who went wild for scones here) who’s driving up from GA this afternoon!

Have you made any magical food discoveries lately?

Danger zone

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Breakfast this morning was delicious and complex:

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But before I get into the details of this multi-layer marvel, I have to fill you in on my morning at the gym 🙂 I did my Self Challenge strength workout last night before I went to bed so that I could focus on cardio this morning and get to work on time! I did 20 minutes on the Stepmill, 12 minutes on the elliptical, and 12 minutes on the treadmill (plus the jog to the gym and back and some stretching).

This was my first time back on the treadmill since the muscle-straining incident (which occurred outside and not on the treadmill, btw). Usually, 5.5 is a very comfortable treadmill pace for me that falls on the lower end of my treadmill speed range. This morning, 4.2 was all I could handle! Anything faster than that forced me into a too-long painful stride. My range of motion is so limited. I’m not a fan of being injured, and this slow recovery makes me nervous for both the 10k I’m running on May 9 and the half marathon I’m running on May 30. I suppose the flip-side is that the injury is seemingly forcing my body to work unusually hard for cardio and I burned something like 560 calories this morning. But I’d rather be burning fewer calories if it meant I were healed :/

Anyway, back to breakfast:

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I went Bob’s Red Mill crazy on this combo. Before I went to bed last night, I pulled out the crockpot and filled it it with two cups of whey from Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk, 1/2 cup BRM whole oat groats, 1/2 cup BRM triticale berries (similar to wheat berries), 1/2 cup pumpkin muffin crumbs (from the freezer), 1/2 cup chopped Newman’s Own prunes, and a big pile of cinnamon. I cooked the whole thing on low overnight.

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This morning, I cooked 1/4 cup BRM oat bran on the stovetop with 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk and then immersion blended it with 1/4 cup silken tofu. That became my base layer.

I topped the tofu oat bran base with 1/2 cup of the crockpot prune “groatmeal” and topped that with a tbsp of cashew-almond butter and a sprinkle of unsweetened shredded coconut.

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picture-526Exciting, right? It was quite the production! I’m looking forward to doing it again tomorrow, too!

When I got to work this morning, check out what was waiting. Our very own agency Martha Stewart (aka Jessica) was inspired to bake her famous mini-cupcakes by the tray from yesterday’s mini-pumpkin muffins. She just knew it would make the perfect carrying case for her signature goodies.

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I milked these two over the first two hours of the day.

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They were the perfect morning snack!

However, the entire tray of cupcakes spent the rest of the day on the infamous conference room table. Here’s the view from my desk:

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Where is the most dangerous spot to leave treats lying around in your life?

Also, The Professional Vegan did a great review post today of a NYT article about “aspiring vegans” who follow “veganish” lifestyles. This is relevant because the subject of the article, Jeffrey Masson, was interviewed at Angelica Kitchen, a fabulous vegan restaurant in NY where I have eaten!