Tag: fruit

Sources

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Well, one paper down!!! I still have two more to get done before I can breathe for real — one due on the 11th in honor of my 27th 17th birthday and one due on the 14th — but the worst is behind me. The hardest and most tedious part of the whole paper was compiling the bibliography. APA format has made an enemy for life.

Here’s something that made me laugh amidst all the stress:

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In honor of finishing paper #1, I present you with a food bibliography of the weekend’s highlights in Expansion-format. Expansion-format does not require exact times and locations, nor does it require total inclusion of all consumed (which would be impossible, given the sheer quantity). For example, I do not need to provide you with photographic evidence of how I stress-ate through an entire bag of arugula like it was popcorn (concerning, but not particularly damaging) or through my freezer stash of Dancing Deer cookies like I found them on the black market (also concerning and decidedly less healthy) among other things.

Saturday’s breakfast: French Toast

Sources: grainy & seedy slice of bread discovered abandoned (possibly by Jennifer) on the conference room table at work last Monday; egg from Eggland’s Best event; banana from Holiday Inn breakfast buffet last Sunday mashed with PB2 from Kath

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Saturday’s free treat: Tangomonium frozen yogurt with Ghirardelli dark chocolate bits

Sources: Bleecker St. location of Red Mango; Kate’s tip-off about “free tangomonium with one topping” day [Note: Using my finely tuned dessert translation skills, I decided that tangomonium = tangerine, mango, lemon. I was a fan.]

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Saturday’s leftovers: Couscous chicken merguez from Thursday night

Sources: Quercy restaurant in Carroll Gardens, my leftovers, Kareen’s leftovers, Just Veggies from Just Tomatoes

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Saturday’s second (pictured; 20th if we were to count unpictured) treat: UliMana raw Chia Moon Drop

Sources: UliMana, maker of the most delicious rawbutyouwoudln’tevenknowit chocolate truffles in the world; Elisabeth at Jogger’s Life who blogged about these treats and made me need some of my own.

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Sunday’s snack: Apples and pretzels with homemade pineapple-coconut-ginger peanut butter

Sources: spelt pretzels from Newman’s Own Organics; green apple from Physique 57’s waiting area; red apple from work meeting last week; peanuts from Trader Joe’s, dried pineapple rings from Peeled; magic pineapple powder from Just Tomatoes [note: the powder was out of control pineappley (aka delicious) straight, but it got kind of hidden in the peanut butter, even though I used half of the package. I was disappointed.]; ginger from my cabinet; coconut from my fridge.

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Also, congrats to Heather for winning the previous post’s leave-multiple-comments challenge. Heather put the pedal to the medal and left not two, not three, but five comments (plus one more that she accidentally left on another post)!

My blogging format over the next couple of weeks is probably going to be spotty and inconsistent as I scramble to get everything done by May 14. I expect to be back soon, however, with some featured meals [I’m completely phrase/format-stealing from Vani here. She knows what she’s doing!] for the week along with a run down of surprise foods that make an appearance.

What are your featured meals this week?

While I’m gone

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Warning: this is going to be a long post! Feel free to read it in pieces over the course of several days because I might not be back for a while (ahhhhh final papers). You can even comment multiple times if you get overwhelmed. I won’t mind 😉

Yesterday was a looooooooooooong day full of unfixable issues with families. I wish I had a magic fix-it button because some things are not fair. At least my office knows the healing powers of food. I’m way luckier than I deserve! 🙂

Before the office and after the gym, I had breakfast at home and used up some things I’ve had hanging around. I toasted the little piece of ciabatta with tomato pesto (from the sandwich leftovers Emily gave me in class on Monday) and topped it with a hard-poached EB egg (and sprinkles of cayenne and freshly ground black pepper).

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On the side, I mixed the apple half I forgot to eat yesterday morning with half of a banana I had languishing in the fridge and topped it with 1/3 cup yogurt-PB2 sauce and cinnamon/cardamom:

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I washed it all down with soymilky almond sunset tea and iced white peony tea.

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At the gym, I did 20 minutes on the new arm-y elliptical, hips and glutes on the Cybex, and 20 more minutes on the regular elliptical, plus abs/stretching and the walk there and back. Stats: 1 hour and 8 minutes, 339 calories, ave hr 116, max 155.

First snack of the day at work was my yogurt (plus ricotta, flax, and sliced banana) which, if you can recall, I had topped with the other half of my Just Fruit Munchies from Just Tomatoes when I packed lunch on Thursday.

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Because I had placed this freeze-dried fruit on top of the yogurt, half stayed crunchy and half got soft. I loved the textural variety! Plus, it got all swirly when I mixed it in:

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Lunch was leftovers from my dinner Thursday night. I cooked up 1/2 cup of dry lentils to mix with the cup of couscous I brought home in order to convert it into a nutritional powerhouse. I had about 1/4 cup of the couscous-lentil mix with the little piece of salmon from Gina’s meal:

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Along with a cup of the veggie stew:

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So good! Leftovers are the best.

Nydia also brought in a TON of beans, rice, and pork for me to taste (made by her very culinarily-gifted mom). These containers were FULL when they arrived with Nydia this morning:

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I didn’t want to put off eating the salmon because fish leftovers don’t stretch as long as other foods, so I packed up a bunch of this masterpiece to take home and shared the rest with everyone else. I also had several spoonfuls. So good! You’ll be seeing more of this soon, for sure.

Beryl wanted me to take a picture of her spicy chickpeas from the Indian restaurant, so she let me have a tasty tasty tasty tasty bite 🙂

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We ate lunch during the every-other-week optional staff brown bag, so desserts also made an appearance. I had a piece of cinnamon sugar muffin, a piece of chocolate-tangerine cookie (and another piece unpictured), more muffin, and a piece of oatmeal raisin cookie:

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Later in the afternoon, Belkis split an extra orange and gave half to Jessica and half to me:

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And Carlos came around selling chocolate bars for his son’s school. I did not buy any, but Rosalie (aka my chocolate fairy) bought two and materialized at my desk asking which I wanted: chocolate almond or chocolate caramel. That’s right — she was offering me an entire bar! I opted for half and half, so we split and shared each bar. I had a square of each (no, not the whole thing!):

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The rest is now safely in my freezer 🙂

I also ate the orange I had packed. Peeler in action:

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At 4:30, one of my favorite announcements of all time came over the loudspeaker: Attention staff, the informal staff gathering in the lobby has begun! I don’t know how I wasn’t aware of this one in advance (especially after the sushi success at the last one), but it was definitely news to me! I grabbed Katty, and I think it took us negative 10 seconds to fly down the four flights of steps. Here’s what was waiting:

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YES, homemade taquitos (“por favor, dos por cada persona”), fresh salsa, fruit, cheese, crackers, crudite, chips, cookies …

Here’s my first plate:

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And my second plate (don’t tell!):

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Check out the expertly crunchy wrappage:

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I also had a slice of cheddar. It was so sharp it made my jaw ache. I LOVE good cheddar.

That was obviously dinner, but I still had room for dessert (number 3?) when I got home. I finished off my yogurt (1/4 cup), my chocolate-pb-flax egg custard (2/3 ramekin), and my last bits of Holiday Inn cinnamon bun (1/2 bun). It’s a dessert jungle!

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Frostiiiiiiiiiiing:

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Perfecto. I spent the rest of the night sipping tea and NOT eating any leftover pieces of Easter candy or anything … Umm, right.

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And a late-night snack of 1/2 cup Kashi golean crunch with 1/4 cup soymilk and water:

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I’m off to my second (and last) Physique 57 class followed by free tangomonium (thanks for the tip, Kate!). From there, I’ll be disappearing for real into a black hole of final-paper-disastrousness, probably until Monday morning. Don’t miss me too much!

What will you be doing while I’m gone?

P.S. I’m famous!

Why is that thing green?

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As promised, the rest of the recycled balls came into play this morning for breakfast.

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I had a small but loaded breakfast cookie. The overnight mix contained 1 tbsp ground flax, 1 tbsp oat bran, 2 tbsp extra thick rolled oats, 1/2 mashed banana, 1 tsp south-of-the-border pistachio butter, and 1 chopped Hershey’s Kiss. This combination made for perfectly-textured dough this morning:

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I frosted the cookie with 1/3 cup PB2 healthy cream cheese icing and topped it with 1/4 of Sunday’s Holiday Inn cinnamon bun:

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And, of course, the remaining balls:

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I brought my cookie to the couch to eat it with the almond sunse/black tea, the white peony iced tea, and The Today Show. I forgot about the apples up on the table and then realized I wasn’t actually hungry for them. They went back in the fridge for tomorrow.

I had to be up at Hunter at 9 again this week for a workshop on government benefits. I thought I was being so clever bringing my laptop up there so I could blog at the same time … but the wireless was blocked in that room!!! The nerve. They actually want us to pay attention. Hmph.

During the workshop, I ate an orange. If you’re not sure what an orange looks like, I ate one on Tuesday, so you can feel free to backtrack if you need the visual reinforcement.

For lunch, I had the last half cup of Thai seafood coconut curry/grilled veggies from Hunter’s lobby mixed with the half cup of chicken noodle soup that also came my way Monday night at Hunter, courtesy of Emily:

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You might think that’s a weird combination, but it was actually delicious. I should be using coconut milk more often in my life. Too bad Turtle Mountain ignored my request for samples to review. I could have had an official Thai coconut milk curry vs. Turtle Mountain coconut milk curry face-off. Their loss.

The exact same yogurt/ricotta with flax, Pb2, and banana that I had yesterday followed the soup.

img_9000Speaking of samples, I received a package from the more agreeable Just Tomatoes today. They sent me a variety of their products to try, the most exciting being pineapple powder … which seems like PB2 in pineapple form but better than PB2 because it’s pineapple and it has absolutely nothing added. I can’t wait to try it out. Pineapple cream cheese icing, anyone? Ohhhhhh, that would be SO good on carrot cake. But I’m getting carried away.

I opened up the mixed fruit munchies packet and used half for tomorrow’s yogurt (I’m excited to see how the freeze-dried fruit absorbs the moisture from the yogurt overnight) and half for an afternoon snack with a splash of soymilk:

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Mmmm, so good. Especially the pineapple flavor that completely pops. I had a few dry, too — also delicious!

Once I recovered from the freeze-dried fruit lovefest, I headed out to the gym. Thursday is usually my outdoor running day, but running has been causing me too much pain lately and I opted for the gym machines instead (this made me sad because the weather was perfect for running). I did 30 minutes on the Stepmill, 15 minutes on the rower, and 15 minutes on the elliptical plus a bit of abs and stretching. I walked to and from the gym and did not jog because, again, jogging hurts! Stats: 1 hour and 40 minutes, 517 calories, 118 average heart rate, 162 max.

On the way home, I stopped into Union Market for samples of marinated mushrooms, Piave cheese, and these two little desserty treats:

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That chocolate chip brownie piece was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. And sooo chocolate-y:

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I was hoping the green thing would be marzipan-related, but it was just lime cheesecake. Still, I enjoyed every morsel.

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What’s the most surprising cheesecake flavor you’ve ever encountered? Did you eat it?

Dancer and prancer and donner …

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And that title does not in any way refer to me actually dancing. Because you should know that I absolutely cannot dance in a way that doesn’t make me look like I need to be in a hospital stat.

Anyway, breakfast …

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Breakfast was none other than the dazzler I’ve been eating all week: cinnamon bun on flax-oat bran.

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This time, I put 2 tbsp part-skim ricotta in the center (instead of mixing it in) to increase visual appeal:

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Part 2 was half of a sliced apple with 1/2 cup yogurt/ricotta and a tbsp PB2 (ahhh addiction alert!):

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I also made it to the gym this morning. I had to walk there because of the groin issues, and it was much colder out than I had anticipated. Could have used my fleece! Anyway, once there, I did 20 minutes on the new elliptical that has an arm workout setting (yay for multi-tasking), hip ab/adductor and glutes on the Cybex, 20 minutes on the regular elliptical, stretching/abs, and the jog ouch walk back.

No shocker on my morning snack around 10:30. I had yogurt/ricotta with flax (some mixed in and some on top), PB2, and sliced banana:

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At noon, we had a meeting with snacks provided. Here’s my plate (I am considering this my lunch appetizer course) with carrots, salsa, tortilla chips, and an apple:

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After that, I had two more chips and two more helpings of carrots with salsa (and I also grabbed another apple to take home!).

Main lunch course was Thai seafood coconut curry with the repurposed veggies:

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And a piece of Jessica’s orange:

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And about an hour later, there seemed to be a second wave of lunch going on. My afternoon visit had gotten cancelled, so I joined the group with my donation salad:

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In the process, Nydia hooked me up with about two cups of grapes. Obviously, they’re not all pictured.

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Grapes are so easy to pop. I’ve mindlessly eaten two pounds of grapes on more than one occasion in the past … just because they’re there and so yummy. Like popcorn.

And then, Pura, the trouble-maker, came up and dropped some donated Dancing Deer cookies on the dreaded conference room table. Once again, the infamous view from my desk:

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I wrapped up one of each (sugar Cookie-Lime, Chocolate-Tangerine, and Molasses-Clove) for later and then broke off a bite of each from the remaining cookies:

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The cookies kept taunting me throughout the afternoon. I had this peanut butter Fiber One bar that Jessica gave me yesterday because I was actually feeling hungry (sometimes, several pounds of produce leaves me with an emptyish feeling in my stomach that I just can’t tolerate!) and I didn’t want to accidentally eat all three packages of cookies.

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I won’t lie, though. I kept going back for one more bite and one more bite and one more bite until I had eaten the rest of that Molasses cookie. Eric from the environmental department came by (I can usually count on him to house food upon request when I need it to disappear from my sight) and finished off the pack of chocolate cookies. I claimed the crumbs:

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When I left work at 5, there were three cookies left. Rosey, Rosalie, and Nydia forced me to take them home with threats that the cleaning lady would just end up throwing them out. I had no choice! So the pile of sugar in my freezer is now six cookies larger. It’s a rough life …

Whew, this post got really long really fast. And I still have way more to say because the food didn’t end there. I think I need to save it for tomorrow, though!

Obviously, there’s a stockpile of cookies and caked in my freezer. Do you have anything stockpiled?

Intermission

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I’m surfacing for just a moment to do a quick recap of the day, and then I’ll be back into the school/work/sleep abyss for the next 24 hours!

Breakfast was more cinnamon bun on flax-oat bran:

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With 1/2 sliced apple and 1/3 cup yogurt for dipping, all dusted in cinnamon:

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To hold me over until lunch, I had yogurt/ricotta with flax, pb2, banana, and strawberries (from Hunter’s lobby last night):

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Lunch was more Thai coconut seafood curry, mixed with the veggies from Hunter’s lobby:

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Veggies make everything prettier, don’t they?

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I also had a spoonful of Belkis’ perfect perfect meat and rice:

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And a salad composed of leftover salad bits from Mildred, Jessica, and yesterday’s mangu lunch. I topped the salad with some of the innards of the chicken, tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwich piece Emily gave me in class last night:

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I have an identical salad waiting for me in the fridge for tomorow 🙂

Later in the afternoon, I had an orange:

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And another pb-chocolate-apple parfait:

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I also opened up my first tin (as opposed to roll) of Newman’s Own Organics peppermints. They’re so cute — just like little Altoids:

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I had a bunch during the day. I did not count.

When I got home this evening, I prepped food for tomorrow and then headed out for some exercise. I jogged for 25 minutes until the pain won out, and then I switched to walking for another 20. Somewhere in there, I did 10 reps of the inchworm exercise that Olga told me about.

When I arrived back at the apt, I had a serving of the same chocolate-pb-flax custard that’s in the parfait above with a couple little slices of banana, a sprinkling of unsweetened coconut, and a tsp of pb2:

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OK, off to report for bed duty so I can wake up tomorrow and do it all again. Ahh, I can’t wait until this semester is over and the papers are behind me!

A non-mentally-taxing question for tonight: How many separate things did you eat today? According to this entry, I ate 10. That might be a record low!