Dirrrty

May 9, 2009February 6, 201529 Comments

Well. I just ran my first and last trail race.

(Those were my brand-new shoes. They’re broken in now.)

Erin Gunn, Sarah Whiting, and I spent the morning up at Bear Mountain for The North Face Endurance Challenge. Erin and I ran the 10k; Ting (short for Sarah Whiting) ran the half. To be more specific, while Ting was enjoying a little 13+ mile jog (just kidding — Ting, you’re amaaaaaaazing and I think maybe superhuman!!), Erin and I painstakingly tried to run 6.3 miles of hiking trail through muddy rivers, slimy rocks, and steep inclines.

I’m actually pretty pleased with how I did. I was expecting to end up walking the whole thing because I haven’t really been able to run since pulling all my leg muscles at the end of March. For this race, I focused on keeping my pace verrrrrrry slow, and the treacherous nature of the course forced me to walk for quite a bit of the race to pick my way “over the river and through the woods” while remaining upright!

** Edited 5/12 to add these pictures from the race website.

Feeling energetic early in the race:

129j_697

Finish line in sight, yet still so far away (all of 50 feet I think):

129k_1091

Happy (?) finish line dance:

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I finished the race in something like an hour and 35 minutes (I was second to last!!! I was kind of disappointed when I heard someone else finished after me. If I was going to be last, I wanted to be last), but I finished running! Surviving this race actually gave me a lot of hope for the Brooklyn half at the end of May. Ting finished about 10 minutes after I did (but to be fair, the half did begin an hour before the 10k). Here we are at the end:

There was a tent with cut fruit and peanut butter. I had many pieces:

Erin and I were cold and tired and sore and wondering how the heck Ting had roped us into over 90 minutes of voluntary torture. We agreed we don’t have to do this again next year. Ting stuck around with some of her other friends to watch the 50k runners start to come in; Erin and I busted out of there to head to her apartment for showers and lunch. Which leads us to the food …

Featured Contributions: Thursday through Saturday

Thursday’s linner: homemade tortillas with homemade chicken mole and beans left from the Parent & Me cinco de mayo event at work on Wednesday:

Ginger chew from Beryl on Friday:

A chopped apple, an orange, cool whip, and peanut butter left from Myrna and Mildred’s afternoon group:

(I had another orange and seconds of cool whip and pb later, too!)

I headed straight up to Yonkers after work, and Erin Gunn picked me up for some bridesmaid dress reconn at David’s Bridal, followed by Indian food, her treat 🙂

Papadum and chutneys:

Baingan Bhartha (eggplant):

Channa Saagwala (chickpeas and spinach):

We ordered spicy. We needn’t have. The spiciness necessitated lots of tissues and lots of rice:

Anise crunchies on the way out:

This morning, I made us pre-race breakfast cookies with the contents of Erin’s cupboards.

Each cookie included 1/2 cup oats, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1/2 mashed banana, 1 tbsp chocolate chips, 1 tbsp sweetened coconut, 1 tbsp mixed chopped nuts, and cinnamon.

The frosting involved plain yogurt and half of this baby jar of heaven:

Our post-run lunch was Indian leftovers with tons and tons of yogurt to cut the heat:

And a very very exciting treat from work yesterday:

Rosey’s mom (who I think is Puerto Rican) made pasteles — kind of like tamales but with plantain on the outside and meat on the inside — this past week, and Rosey brought them in to share on Thursday. I missed this first delivery because I don’t work on Thursdays, but Nydia gave me a couple of hers yesterday since it was my last day until June, and they all wanted me to be able to try them! I brought my tied-up package to Erin’s with me, boiled it for an hour in salted water per Rosey’s instructions, and set to unwrapping it.

In paper:

In banana leaf:

Finally ready:

Mmmm, it was yummy. I loved the texture of the plantain on the outside. Here’s the filling:

I dozed off a bit after lunch, and then Erin deposited me at the subway. Two hours later (grrr, construction), I was finally home.

Now, “vacation” is over, and it’s time to rededicate myself to the finals: one paper due Monday and one due Thursday. Then, I will be free!! (Errr, for two weeks until it all starts again …)

To conclude, here are Ting’s battle-scarred legs:

Would you ever in a million years choose to spend your day off participating in a trail race?

The bakery

May 8, 2009February 6, 201525 Comments

… aka my apartment.

It’s been a busy couple of days around here since I can’t sit still for more than 3.7 seconds. I have too much on my mind with the end of the semester, the last week of my internship (which will be followed by a three week break before my full-time job there starts), my imminent 27th birthday (doom), oh, and the 10k trail walk run up at Bear Mountain this weekend. Never mind that my hamstrings, glutes, and groin are still shot and I haven’t run more than three miles (at a 15-minute mile pace, mind you) in six weeks …

So, back to the bakery.

Featured Bakery Item #1: Raw Macaroons

On Wednesday, I brought home a hunk of fresh coconut that Jessica gave me at work. Remember this?

Between having raw coconut in my hands and all the raw talk that’s been going around lately, I had only one thing on my mind: raw coconut macaroons!

I’ve been drooling over Gina‘s Fitnessista macaroons for nearly a decade (ok, maybe only six months), so I was thrilled when Elisabeth at Jogger’s Life posted a similar recipe last week. I followed Elisabeth’s recipe with a few modifications: (1) after shredding my coconut, I only had 1/3 cup … so I halved the recipe and used (2) 1/2 cup almond flour (almonds ground in my coffee bean grinder) and (3) 1 Medjool date, chopped/mashed (I am processor-less) and (4) 1 tsp vanilla extract (I’m out of almond) and (5) nothing else, as the date was plenty sweetener for my minimized batch. (Oh, except I made half of the batch chocolate and mixed in unsweetened cocoa powder there).

I formed my batter into eight little balls.

And then, it was time to put them in the dehydrator.

Oh wait, I do not have a dehydrator! And, just as the folks at Turtle Mountain ignored my request for coconut ice cream, the folks at Excalibur ignored my request for a dehydrator. I guess I’m not worth a $300 top-of-the-line kitchen appliance. However, those of you blessed with dehydrators have nothing on me because I have an oven with a pilot light. Jealous?

Here are the little balls of delight after an overnight (nine hours!) in my off oven:

They don’t look any different, do they? To tell the truth, while the texture was actually different (they were no longer sticky in the morning), the batter tasted just as yummy as (if not better than) the finished product.

Featured Bakery Item #2: Jam-Filled Berry Mini Muffins

Today at work (aka my last day as an intern!), my department was planning to have a potluck staff breakfast. It got rescheduled, but I kept to my original baking plan anyway!

I loosely used this recipe for Jam-Filled Almond Muffins from Eating Well. Changes included: (1) halving the recipe to make 12 mini-muffins instead of 12 regular muffins, (2) using only whole wheat flour, (3) replacing the sugar, buttermilk, juice, and oil with the cup of frozen fruit-on-the-bottom from the four fruit-on-the-bottom hotel yogurts I collected a couple weeks ago, (4) using the homemade black raspberry jam from Wife, and (5) eliminating the almond extract because I didn’t have it.

Here’s the jam-filling in progress:

Topped off:

And baked:

Cross-section:

Some of them got a little too jammy, but that’s actually a benefit in my opinion.

Featured Bakery Item #3: Carrot-Berry Mini Muffins

I was (probably unrealistically) afraid that I wouldn’t have enough muffins, so I decided to bake a second batch using this recipe for Pineapple Upside-Down Muffins, also from Eating Well. Changes included: (1) eliminating the upside-down topping so the muffins became carrot muffins, (2) halving the recipe to make 12 minis instead of 12 regulars, (3) using only whole wheat flour, (4) replacing the sugar, oil, juice, and crushed pineapple with a 4 oz. Dole tropical fruit cup and 1/4 cup of the homemade black raspberry jam, and (5) putting nuts only on top instead of mixing them into the batter.

They looked a little green after baking:

But they still tasted yummy!

What’s your stance on baking substitutions?

P.S. First, I was famous for my balls. Now, it’s my eggs. What’s next?

Chocolate-dipped _______?

May 7, 2009February 6, 201517 Comments

If you guessed strawberries, you’d be right!

Featured snack recovery: Chocolate-dipped Strawberries

Earlier, I came clean about my disastrous snack failure with the pineapple cream cheese icing.

As soon as I got home on Tuesday, I went right to work doctoring this tongue-curdler. The pineapple had liquified the mixture (maybe due to the high acidity of the pineapple?), so I dumped it all into a saucepan and mixed in my new favorite thickener, ground flax meal. I brought it to a boil so the flax could do its work, and then I attacked the bitterness with all the non-bitter things I could find — dates, maple syrup, bananas, cocoa powder, peanut butter, and more ricotta — until the nightmarish taste was completely camoflauged. I froyo’d 1/2 cup of the final product and set it up like so:

(With cookie crumbs and cinnamon for extra excitement.)

My kitchen-sink froyo has done well for me on the dessert front this week 🙂

Coincidentally, while I’ve been enjoying my makeshift chocolate-dipped strawberries, Wife and her boyfriend Ted have been enjoying the real deal down in Georgia!

Featured Guest Snack: Wife’s Strawberries

Last weekend, Wife and Ted enjoyed a fun activity together in something called nature. I’m not quite sure what this nature thing is, but it looks very pretty. Here’s what Wife had to say:

We went strawberry picking bright and early. Wife, they are so big and beautiful and delicious! They taste like they’ve been injected with sugar! I’m going to chocolate dip some.

Wife sent along these pictures from their strawberry-picking adventure:

wife

field bucket

And the resulting party dessert she made for a friend’s BBQ that night:

plate

But apparently, nobody liked them:

The strawberries were really a hit yesterday. Steve was practically crying while eating them because he thought they were so delicious!

What’s the most recent food that has brought you to tears?

Pineapple bomb

May 7, 2009February 6, 201522 Comments

Featured Snack Failure: Pineapple Cream Cheese Icing

I’ve had a major food disappointment. When this Just Pineapple Powder (freeze-dried pineapples crushed into a powder with nothing added!) arrived for me from Just Tomatoes last week, the first thing that popped into my mind was pineapple cream cheese icing and how amazing it would taste slathered on a hunk of carrot cake. I never got around to making the carrot cake, but the icing simply could not wait. I followed my own instructions for healthy cream cheese icing and then mixed half the packet of this powder into it. It tasted fine in the moment — not as pineappley as I would have liked but nothing I would turn my nose up at. I packed a cup of it and planned to use it as a dip for my apple slices at work the next day.
When the appointed time arrived at work, I went to the fridge and excitedly lifted out what was going to be the best snack of the year. I could tell something was wrong immediately. Before I even opened the container, I could see that my icing had turned to complete liquid. I opened it to take a taste and nearly gagged as I was hit with overwhelming bitterness, not unlike my mom’s unfortunate pineapple-ricotta pie experiment last Hanukkah that I ended up repurposing into this. I should have known no good would come from the pineapple-ricotta pairing! Now my pineapple powder is gone, but if I had more, I would try mixing it with straight cream cheese. I have a feeling that would be more successful.

Anyway, all was not lost because I obviously had to find a way to re-use the pineapple cream cheese icing nastiness. I’ll save that story for another day.

With the other half of the pineapple powder packet, I had more success. I’ve already mentioned the pineapple-coconut- ginger peanut butter I made in some previous posts, and I’m thrilled with how it turned out. I don’t remember exactly how I did it, but I know that the process involved my coffee bean grinder, my immersion blender, some heat treatment, lots of taste-testing, and these:

(side note: I had a bite of this Peeled pineapple before I chopped the rest for the peanut butter and, ohhhhh my goodness, it was amazing. I don’t understand why it’s so hard to find unsweetened dried pineapple. It’s SO sweet on its own without anything else added.)

At first, I didn’t think the peanut butter was pineappley enough, but that may have been because I’d been taste-testing it all afternoon and had become immune to the flavor. In subsequent days, however, I have not noticed this problem. In fact, I can’t stop taking little tastes because the flavor of each ingredient comes through so deliciously!

In conclusion, I wish I had more Just Pineapple Powder. It has so much potential, but I have not been able to tap it fully yet. (And be cautious when mixing with yogurt and/or ricotta!)

Featured Contributions: Wednesday

Well, you know what I had for breakfast, you know what I had for lunch, and you know that at least one of my snacks involved a variation on an item mentioned above. All that’s left to address is the contributions!

Fresh coconut from Jessica:

I actually took a smaller piece to eat and brought this bigger one (about 2 inches by 2 inches) home for a special project that is underway as I write.

Small forkful of spicy shredded chicken from Mildred’s taco. It was too hot for her but perfect for me:

Trouble from Nydia involving between 1/4 – 1/2 cup of mixed nuts (especially brazil nuts and hazelnuts, yummmm!) and approximately seven yogurt-covered pretzels:

I decided that the nuts and pretzels were going to count as my dinner. Oh, and then I heard that there were leftovers from a belated cinco de mayo party in the Parent & Me group downstairs, so these slices (yes, plural) of coconut cake roll also became dinner:

And this piece of pecan doughnut from the famous Doughnut Plant also became dinner on the drive home when Pura passed it up to Mildred and Mildred shared with me:

(You’d have to be pretty thick in the head to turn down a Doughnut Plant doughnut. If you ever have a chance, you MUST try their tres leches doughnut. No words.)

There was also a GIANT mango from Myrna to thank me for proofreading her paper (next to 1/2 cup for perspective):

I did not eat it tonight, but I diced it and gnawed all the extra flesh off of the skin as I did so!

Have you had any snack failures recently? Where you able to rescue them?

Stress-blanking

May 5, 2009February 6, 201529 Comments

This past weekend amidst all the studying (or perhaps because of all the studying), I realized I had somewhere close to a million food items that needed my attention. You may (or may not) recall that I left dinner at Quercy last Thursday night with half a loaf of sourdough bread. I could have eaten the whole thing in one sitting without batting an eyelash, but I didn’t want to do that. I needed to instead incorporate it into a portion-controlled meal (meal = group of foods eaten together with satisfaction potential) that still let me enjoy the bread. And what is the best possible use for day-old bread??

Bread pudding, of course!

Featured Breakfast: Leftover Banana Bread Pudding

Ingredients (and sources)

– 3 cups cubed bread, not packed (obviously, I used my sourdough from Quercy)

– 3 eggs, beaten (Eggland’s Best, of course)

– 3 cups liquid (I used 1 cup unsweetened soymilk and 2 cups water)

– 1/2 cup oat bran for a nutritional boost (I used Bob’s Red Mill)

– shakes of nutmeg and cinnamon, to taste (from cabinet)

– 3 sliced bananas, separated (I used Holiday Inn breakfast buffet bananas)

– 1/3 cup-ish raisins (I used Just Tomatoes raisins.)

About these raisins from Just Tomatoes. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the package because I was unaware that raisins could be so plump and juicy. Just Tomatoes raisin on the left; SunMaid raisin on the right.

Note: You’ll notice I did not use any sweetener. I find that the bananas and the raisins make it sweet enough. If you think you need sweetener, obviously add it however you like.

Directions

Preheat oven to 375. Grease a 9×13 baking dish.
Spread bread cubes out in the dish.
In a medium bowl, beat together eggs and liquid.
Stir oat bran and spices into wet mix.
Gently stir in two of the sliced bananas and all of the raisins.
Pour this mixture evenly over the bread cubes in the baking dish.
Arrange the slices of the third banana neatly over the top.
Baked covered (you can use foil) for 20 minutes.
Remove cover, and bake 20 minutes more until “pudding” is firm. If you like things crispy on top (like I do), broil for an additional 5 minutes.

I sliced my bread pudding into seven pieces because that’s what seemed to fit.

My serving preference:

One slice of warm bread pudding on a bed of 1/2 cup yogurt/ricotta/Pb2 with a chopped Hershey’s Kiss on top and a tsp of homemade pineapple-coconut-ginger peanut butter:

Or froyo the yogurt/ricotta/PB2 and have it on the side 🙂

I’ve been waking up every morning with visions of this dessertforbreakfast in my head, and it’s literally the only thing that has been pulling me out of bed. Well, that and the news ticker of things to do that’s also scrolling through my head.

Featured Contributions: Monday

Of course, a day would not be complete without giving credit to those whose food helped power me through. This is obviously not an exhaustive list of all I ate — just the pleasant food surprises I encountered yesterday!

Tropical fruit salad (papaya, mango, pineapple, kiwi, watermelon, honeydew) from Myrna:

Wrinkly grapes I found and co-opted for myself in the work fridge:

Baby carrots from Jessica:

Class dinner: leftover lunch chicken that Mildred and Myrna gave me at work, an entire chopped cucumber and an entire pint of tomatoes (first a whole bag of arugula, and now this!) that I picked up from the grocery store (I stress-produce-shopped yesterday, too), and manchego cheese samples from the gourmet deli

Post-photo, I mixed it all together salad-style. I don’t think I actually intended to eat the entire pint of tomatoes when I bought them, but these things happen.

Are you more likely to (1) stress-cook, (2) stress-eat, (3) stress-shop, or (4) stress-sleep?

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: fruit

Dirrrty

The bakery

Chocolate-dipped _______?

Pineapple bomb

Stress-blanking

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