Tag: fruit

Chained to the computer

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Ahhh, technology is driving me insane! Hunter has this big push to make the social work program more “current” and is mandating that all courses have an online component. But the online Blackboard has SO many bugs, and it literally took me four hours to leave a comment about one of the articles I read for class. Gah!

Anywayyyyy, my quinoa salad from Friday night made its final appearance as today’s lunch. With more soymilky chocolate caramel enchantment chai (same tea bag, new water) and a stuffed tomato on the side:

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Reassembly of the quinoa salad took place in much the same way as it did yesterday: salad greens on the bottom, warmed salad “substance” in the middle, re-toasted tortilla strips on the top:

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I beefed up the salad by sauteeing the quinoa mix with the scrambled egg yolk and kale stems left from last night’s BSI adventures, 2 chopped asparagus spears, and 2 chopped mushrooms. I also mixed in 1/4 chopped cucumber and sprinkled 1/2 tbsp fat free feta on top:

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The tomato is stuffed with leftover filling from the Stuffed Kale Leaves I made last night:

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I had a little snacky mid-afternoon:

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Chopped pear and banana sprinkled with nutmeg (and eaten with a toothpick for fun):

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And a banana boat — slices of banana on a sliver of toasted flax and fiber bread with a tsp of pb and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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[Insert 10,000 of the worst expletives you can imagine directed at Blackboard right now, grrrrrrrrrrr!]

For dinner, I finally got to try a substantial amount of each of my BSI: Kale creations. Three slices of Kale-Crust Pizza and three Stuffed Kale Leaves:

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I had the stuffed leaves cold and reheated and re-crisped the pizza slices on a pizza stone in the oven.

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Both of these were so delicious. I almost feel guilty saying that since they are my recipes, but ahh, I’m so impressed! The textures, the flavors … incredible. I always get surprised when my kitchen experiments work out. Thank goodness for the BSI — if I didn’t need to be creative and crafty, I probably would have been having steamed kale for dinner tonight!

Dessert was an assortment of little tastes:

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Taste #1 was half of a small baked sweet potato with plain yogurt and cinnamon:

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Taste #2 was a mess with yogurt, kashi golean crunch, strawberries, cookie crumbs, and a chopped/crumbled piece of Lindst hazelnut chocolate:

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Taste #3 was Italian cookie pieces and the other half of last night’s Sassy Mango-Lime dark chocolate truffle:

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And now, I’ve had it with this online homework disaster!! Sorry, Blackboard, we are going to have to part ways for the night because you’re wasting my time. Ohhhhhh well. Laterzzzz. What’s the most frustrating waste of your time?

Have a good night, and enjoy these few remaining weekend hours!

The most important meal

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Well, the eye mask and ear plugs carried me through until 9 am. Which would have been impressive if not for the fact that I went to sleep after 2! I think I was expecting a miracle, but at least I didn’t wake up at 7 …

I put together a slammin’ spread for breakfast:

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Chocolate caramel enchantment chai with soymilk and an Earl Grey Biscotti Bite on the side:

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img_4460This little strawberry Activia yogurt came my way during the big cleanout of the fridge at work on Friday. There’s no date on it, but it was unopened and passed the sniff test, so all systems were go. Fruity flavored yogurts are too sweet for me these days (yeah, yeah, but 5,000 pieces of candy are not?), so I mixed it with two cups of plain yogurt and scooped about 1/2 cup of that blend into into my teacup along with a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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Plus half of a pear with nutmeg and the last of mom’s goodies. I heated them in the oven until they got all crispy on the outside (partly on purpose and partly because I was distracted doing other things), but it worked out scrumptiously because it created a vigorous crunch on the outside and an almost creamy texture on the inside of her phenomenal oat bake. And just look at all of the seeds and grains and the big layer of dark chocolate on top of this kitchen sink muffin heart:

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Thanks, mom! Please continue to send your care packages my way any time you get the urge :-D.

I’ve just refilled a giant mug of tea for the 3rd time (I upgraded teacup size post-picture because big isn’t always beautiful), and I feel sufficiently fueled to buckle down on the homework for the next, errrrr, 10 minutes or so? We’ll see how long I can stay put! What’s your attention span for work that requires sitting still?

The vanishing weekend

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Ahhh, it’s tomorrow already?! How did that happen?

Things kept taking longer than I expected all day long, so I didn’t even end up leaving to go to the grocery store until about 6:30. My body’s used to dinner at that time, so I had a few early evening snacks to tide me over until I could really eat.

Two small dates with 1 tsp peanut butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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The last 1/2 cup of the pumpkin-banana yogurt mix I ate at lunch with 2 tbsp golean crunch sprinkled on top (and 2 sprinkled straight into my mouth :-D):

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And a Sunsweet One:

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Good thing I snacked — due to several complications in the self-checkout line at the store (HATE self-checkout), I didn’t get home until 8:30!

Loot includes 3 lbs apples (only $1.99), kale (for the BSI of course), 2 pears, 1 red onion, mushrooms ($.99), asparagus ($1.99/lb), 5 bananas, 3 sweet potatoes, 1 cucumber, whole wheat 8-inch pizza crusts (free thanks to my coupon from the Carrots ‘N’ Cake scavenger hunt prize pack), fat free feta, eggs, tomatoes on the vine, crunchy peanut butter, canned wild salmon :

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Total: $25.62!! Great price, even by my impossibly strict standards.

I set right to work cooking … and cooking … and cooking for the BSI. I nibbled the whole time I cooked, of course, so I wasn’t all that hungry by the time I was done — and it was 11pm by that point anyway. Still, I had no choice but to sample the finished products. Kale-Crust Pizza and Stuffed Kale Leaves:

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They were both MUCH more successful than I had anticipated! I wanted to eat a lot more after these bites, but I restrained myself because I am definitely not hungry and it is l-a-t-e.

For dessert, I broke out the next truffle in line from the BSI: Spinach prize Brandi sent. I present to you the Sassy Mango-Lime dark chocolate truffle:

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Inside:

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Mmmmmm, it was SO good. As a general rule, I love anything that combines fruit and dark chocolate. And the citrusy pep from the lime perfectly complemented the bittersweet richness of the dark chocolate. I actually only ended up eating half because I don’t want my fun with truffles to end! I had the half along with some Italian cookie chunks:

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And conversation hearts:

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OK, I’m off to see how much longer my eyes can stay open. Tonight will be round 2 of eye-masking, and I hope it is just as successful as last night! Tomorrow’s plan is homework, homework, and more homework. You’ll get to hear all about it — how did you ever get so lucky, right? — since I’m sure I’ll be eating the whole time :-D.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep

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9.5 hours!!!

Yes, that is how much sleep I got last night! 10:45 pm to 8:15 am.  Normally, I am up at 7 am with the sun, but the eye mask helped me get through that last hour (thanks, John!). I felt SO well-rested when I opened my eyes. After a bit of blog-reading, I launched a surprise breakfast attack through the rose branches:

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My breakfast inspiration came from SnackFace during the morning’s blog catch-up session. She’s been going wild with pumpkin yogurt the past couple of days. Reading her posts motivated me to pull myself out of bed and whip up some of my own.

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My mix included 1/3 cup of yogurt, 1/3 cup of pumpkin, 1/2 cup chopped grapes, and a sprinkle of Kashi GoLean Crunch!

I also had 1/3 of a toasted (burnt) wheat bagel with 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 chopped date, and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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I like to eat my bagels in thirds. This is kind of a leftover habit from childhood — the slots in my toaster growing up were too skinny for a full 1/2 bagel. A third at a time is still my preference now, even though I’m sure I could easily fit 1/2 in the toaster. Vani commented on this bagel-style recently, and I thought I’d share my response with everyone! The smaller 1/3 portion not only allows me more flexibility to mix and match the bagel with other foods; it also creates a higher ratio of crunchy surface area to doughy inside. Also, because these bagels are refugees from a work event, I only have a limitied amount. Eating 1/3 bagel at a time makes them last longer. How do you like to eat your bagels?

On the side, I had soymilky decaf sweet coconut thai chai. And fun with matching dishware:

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Kate came over a little after 11 for our 8-mile run, and we just couldn’t WAIT to get started (that’s sarcasm). But I found us a charming route on mapmyrun that took us through all of the best Brooklyn neighborhoods — Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights — and the weather was perfect, so our run was quite enjoyable! Stats: 1 hour and 22 minutes, 653 calories, average heart rate 151, max 161. I got home and did my favorite post-run stretch: 20 minutes of Gentle Hatha Yoga.

Lunch was fun to assemble, thanks to last night’s leftovers. I made the cut again and split the salad down the middle (how exciting that the $8 I spent at dinner gave me enough food for three meals!):

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To reassemble the salad for today, I pulled all the salad greens out of the mix, including the side salad I swiped from Emily’s plate last night after she packed up her leftover wrap. (Side note: I don’t normally take food off the plates of people I am meeting for the first time, but an added benefit of blogger dinner was that my food companions already knew about my waste-nothing obsession!).

The greens went on a plate to wait. I separated and toasted the tortilla strips in a dry skillet to crisp them up again. While the chips were crisping, I also threw the salad in a pan to heat because quinoa, corn, and beans take kindly to warmth. I added some leftover Chinese food broccoli (after a quick roast to kill off any unsavory lurking bacteria) that my supervisor Heather rescued for me while carrying out her fridge-cleaning duties at work yesterday :-). Once heated, the salad went on top of the greens, and the tortilla strips went on top of everything:

(with water and more tea in the background)

(with water and more tea in the background)

Yum, this salad made excellent leftovers. And I still have more!

And of course, the afternoon also involved lunch dessert:

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I had 1/2 of each of mom’s treats that arrived on Thursday, heated in the oven to get the chocolate all melty:
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Along with more pumpkin yogurt that I mixed with 1/2 of this banana yogurt, also rescued from the work fridge. The sell-by date was Jan. 13, but unopened individually packaged yogurts seem to last forever. This one passed the sniff test. I topped the yogurt with a mountain of Italian cookie crumbs (still left from the work Valentine’s lunch), a piece of Blogger Secret Cupid hazelnut chocolate, and two conversation hearts:

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I know there was still sugar in all of that, but it was very controlled sugar instead of random snacking. I think this may be because, according to SweetiePie‘s comment here, I have sent the sugar monster to her house! Whoops! So sorry SP, but thank you for taking him off my hands :-D.

And now, it’s back to the great blog-catch-up of 2009! I also need to go back out at some point to buy kale so I can figure out what the heck I’m doing for
Beadie’s BSI. Back later!

The sugar monster is back

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Ahhhh, must get a grip on the sugar craze!

My morning snack was this delicious strawberry Trio bar (once again from Tina’s Carrots ‘N’ Cake Valentine’s day prize package).

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This bar definitely tasted as good as it looks … real strawberry essence and packed with satisfying nuts and seeds and crunch:picture-026

In addition to my soup and yogurt, Myrna gave me some of her mangu (salted mashed plantains) and fried cheese, yummmmmm:

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And then, because there’s always something to celebrate at my office, I had three slices of angel food cake with thick thick chocolate fudge icing and chocolate-covered strawberries:

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And that totally set me off on a sugar binge for the rest of the afternoon! Before my visit, I had a Riesen and two big lollipops:

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And after my visit, I ate the grapes I packed and the rest of Heather’s skittles:

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Again, I need to get a grip. Hopefully all the sleep I get this weekend with my new eye mask will help bring back my sanity and self-control!!

Now, I’m off for a mini-blogger dinner with two lovely ladies: Emily of Super Caloric Chalk Dust and Vani from Fit for Free. You can be sure you will hear all about the meal when I get back!

Who has battle tips for fighting the sugar monster??