I woke up this morning to this view from my window:
Children’s swing set, for perspective:
It’s about 20 degrees out now, up from the 8 this morning. Brrrrrrrrrr.
I started us off with some cozy bowls of custard oatmeal with apples and bananas. Fruit, mid-chop:
Final product, topped with cinnamon and peanut butter:
Mine's the baby bowl in the middle!
Closer:
There is never a more perfect breakfast than oatmeal, but I think it is even more perfect on a snowy day!
When 5:30 pm came around and the key dinner ingredient still had not arrived from the grocery store, I broke into the pile of freshly baked muffins to tide me over.
warm mini muffin with a dab of melty almond butter, mmmm
At around 7pm, stepdad made his triumphant arrival with three of these beauties:
LOBSTER!!!!
I felt a little bit guilty watching their quivering antennae poking out of the boiling water — as soon as this picture was done, I ducked my head and closed my eyes and sort of dove under the table so I wouldn’t have to watch — but clearly not guilty enough. My plate (with appropriate tools in the background):
Did you know that lobster is not very photogenic? I suppose you do now. I just could not figure out how to get a good, eye-free photo. So I focused on the veggies instead. Cauliflower and kale, first steamed and then sauteed with garlic and olive oil:
vegetables make everything look better 🙂
For dessert, we each had another square of the leftover apple-cranberry pie with a couple spoonfuls of a part-skim ricotta/nonfat plain yogurt/cinnamon mixture and three plump and juicy cherries!
Have you ever seen anything more perfect??
Good night!
Between my cooking, my mom’s cooking, and the mountain of leftovers, I don’t think the oven has been off for more than 10 minutes all day! At one point, I went into the freezer to retrieve some frozen turkey carcasses for mom’s turkey soup, and I happened upon these little treats:
When I was visiting over the summer, I found a bottle of lavender syrup left over from a family trip to Canada when I was about 16 (over 10 years ago!). Thinking the syrup might be stale, I simmered it a bit and then spooned quarter-sized drops onto wax paper to make little lavender candies. Apparently, they’ve been sitting in the freezer for the past six months, layered in their wax paper. I snacked on three today, and they taste as good as new!
While waiting for lunch to cook, I also snacked on quite a bit of the batter and ingredients for these muffins while mom was hard at work on them.
For lunch, I scanned the fridge for anything nearing the end of its lifespan, as usual. I came up with these:
wrinkly peppers, eggplant, carrots
Which became this:
Roasted at 450 for 40 minutes with olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper:
Steaming, on top of lettuce (the very very last of it!), and sprinkled with feta and toasted walnuts:
With three more “latkes” on the side:
PHEW! The oven and I are going to take a little rest now. Check back later for a very exciting dinner!!
For breakfast this morning, the leftover pineapple-ricotta-pie-turned-pumpkin-pie-pudding made yet another appearance! Mom and I decided that it might work well in oatmeal pancake form, so I added 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup fat free cottage cheese, the rest of the candied ginger, a bit of baking powder, and an egg white. Lest you worry that the yolk went to waste, I fed it to the cats (my mom has 5!) for their breakfast dessert:
I used two cookie sheets with canola-sprayed foil and baked the pancakes at 400 for 30ish minutes. Here they are just out of the oven:
Set up on our plates with half an orange each and a ramekin of eggnog sauce (plain yogurt + splash of light eggnog + sprinkle of nutmeg) for topping:
My plate, sauced:
It was just too pretty, and I couldn’t stop taking pictures:
This food photography is addictive! There were about 6 pancakes left, so I bagged them (eating lots of “crumbs” along the way) and put them in the freezer to take back to Brooklyn with me this weekend. Expect to see these guys again sometime soon!
I woke up the morning after Christmas bright-eyed and ready to listen to my body’s hunger cues, yayyyy! I started with a mug of Celestial Seasonings Nutcracker Sweet tea (mmmm!) with skim.
My dad was planning to pick me up on his way to the gym around 11, so I just had a light snack when my stomach started to get a little rumbly:
grapes!
My mom and stepdad decided last minute to come along for the gym excursion. Here I am during the cardio portion of the workout with mom and dad:
Back at the house, my mom heated up some of her special oatmeal for brunch:
with yogurt and cinnamon on the side
She can never remember what’s in her oatmeal since she just throws in whatever she can get her hands on, but we’re pretty sure it contained the following: bananas (obviously), pears, oat groats, quinoa, millet, walnuts, cumin (try it!), pumpkin pie spice, turmeric, allspice, fresh cranberries, and an itty bit of masala curry powder. It was delicious!
There’s always such an abundance of produce when I’m visiting home, so I went back and refilled my bowl with some freshly cut pineapple:
We had big plans to go to my dad’s house for a very blended family dinner (dad, stepmom, dad’s sister Mary, mom, stepdad), so I just had a couple of snackies throughout the rest of the afternoon:
apples and cinnamon with a T of almond butter
fresh veggies with Hannukah well underway in the background
Next up: one crazy family dinner!
Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition 