Sample satisfaction

On my way home last night, I stopped into a couple of grocery stores for about $11 worth of important items — milk and yogurt for making yogurt, part-skim ricotta (because it was on sale), and broccoli (because I needed greens!). I also collected a few samples along the way to incorporate into dinner:

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The plate includes a big ol’ pile of plain steamed broccoli, the rest of Myrna’s McDonald’s breakfast sandwich that she gave me yesterday when she got too full, and two little quiche samples — one sweet ham and one spinach — from Union Market.

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I don’t think I’ve had a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich since I was 7. My dad and I used to go on weekend mornings because I was a crazy picky eater (what happened??!) but I loved those biscuits more than anything. I would get mine with only an egg on it because I didn’t like sausage or melted cheese. I’m still not crazy about sausage, but, even though it’s not something I ever crave, this sandwich was definitely tasty! The biscuit was as good as I remembered.

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Dessert developed as I was getting the yogurt ready to go into the oven for overnight incubation. I’d picked up my two favorite brands to use as starters — Stonyfield and Ronnybrook — in fun flavors so I could play with the leftovers.

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I reserved the plain yogurt parts for yogurt making but kept the flavored fun parts (cream top, coconut pieces, chocolate-on-the-bottom) for me:

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I swirled in a bit of part-skim ricotta to make coconut-chocolate cheesecake yogurt and then dipped in a little sample sliver of peanut butter brownie from Union Market:

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I surrounded my brownie cheesecake bowl with fruit salad and a sample piece of cherry lattice pie, also from the market:

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Samples are so exciting!

For dessert #2 later, I had my leftover almond sunset tea from morning with two jasmine biscotti bites for dipping:

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What’s the best free sample, food or non-food, you ever got?

Pieces

I had more prune groatmeal for breakfast this morning, but I switched things up on the flax oat bran side by mixing in 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder and 2 tbsp PB2:

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I sprinkled some of the dry PB2 on top and then sprinkled hot water over that to enhance the peanut-flavor prominence. I find that PB2 often gets lost when I mix it in. If you look closely, you can see a bit of marbling from this highly intricate procedure:

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If you haven’t caught on already, I surrounded the oats with a ring of fruit salad and topped it all with unsweetened coconut:

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I had my glass of water and some soymilky almond sunset/black tea on the side:

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There was also some gymming somewhere in there: 20 mins on the Stepmill, hip abductor/adductor, glutes, and chest on the cybex, 15 minutes elliptical, stretching/abs, jogs there and back. Stats: 1 hour and 18 minutes, 519 calories, 133 average heart rate, 176 max.

I had a meeting all morning at work, so I was starving when it ended at 11. Myrna came over to donate the rest of her breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s since she couldn’t finish it. I had a couple teeny bites of sausage and then put the rest away for later:

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As my official healthy snack, I brought out a cup of pumpkin pie flax pudding:

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Shortly thereafter, some Reese’s pieces appeared on the fateful conference room table:

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I think Myrna was the culprit? Either way, I had four small handfuls:

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I had back-to-back visits planned that would keep me out of the office from 12:30 to 3:30, so I ate lunch at noon even though I wasn’t quite hungry yet. Lunch was made of leftovers and scraps, as usual.

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In class on Monday night, Lisa gave me a big slice of multi-grain bread that she had left over from her Hale & Hearty soup. I sliced the bread in half “the long way” to make two thinner slices of equal surface area. I started with one slice and topped it with leftover smoked salmon salad from last night’s Eggland’s Best event:

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I finished it with time to spare, and it was even more delicious than anticipated, so I ate the other half right then as well:

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(Side note: For more useful egg facts, check out Missy’s recap of last night!)

Followed by a mint to address the salmon-breath:

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When I got back from my visit at 3:30, I found a note from Deborah waiting for me at my desk: “Sarah, I have food left from lunch on my desk. You can come take.” Music to my ears, especially since Deborah had been waxing poetic about her mom’s stewed turkey during the morning meeting! I went to Deborah’s desk and helped myself to a bite of turkey with some of the accompanying rice and beans:

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I also had another mint and this pineapple candy:

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And I broke out my fruit somewhere in the 4:00 hour. An orange and fruit salad (which now includes the fruit salad I saved from the EB event last night):

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I’m actually hungry for dinner tonight, so that should be coming along soon. And thanks for all the eggciting (I promise I’ll stop with the eggsaggerated “egg” usage soon — it’s so addictive) egg recipes. I can’t wait to get started 🙂

Pieces or cups? I prefer cups, but I obviously don’t discriminate against pieces!

Eggspansion

Last night, I attended a Foodbuzz event spotlighting Eggland’s Best eggs at Beacon Restaurant. Interestingly enough (or not), the PR agency that spearheaded the egg event last night, Weber Shandwick, was the same one that organized the Electrolux ICON event (remember the chocolate lava cakes? mmm, I do!) a couple weeks back.

Anyway, here’s the table I chose, complete with EB table decor (and my bellini, of which I drank half):

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Joining me at the table were Kerry of French Revolution (her egg recipe won the recipe contest last night!), Missy of Missy Maintains (the most competent product reviewer around), Megan of Runner’s Kitchen (she had JUST run the Boston Marathon the day before!!), Maya of My Feasts (and her husband), Jennifer of The Mama Chronicles (she is a Twitter whiz), and Bart of EB’s quality control team.

The theme of the event was breakfast for dinner (and eggs, obv), so there was a very well-stocked omelet station:

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With a number of possible toppings:

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I ordered my omelet with tomato, spinach, mushrooms, onions, asparagus, chicken, parmesan, and gruyere:

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There was also quite an array of breakfast extras:

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Here’s my plate:

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Omelet and bacon slice:

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Smoked salmon salad with capers and lemon juice:

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Chocolate croissant and almond-roll:

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Fruit!

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Scrambled eggs (I thought it was going to be polenta when I scooped it up — why would there be more eggs at the buffet station if the main course was already an omelet?!):

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I ate it all and then went back for more (obviously). Seconds on salmon salad:

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As well as a strawberry jam croissant and seconds on fruit:

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Probably didn’t need that third pastry but it was deliciously flaky and jammy:

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I ate all of the second plate. It left me teetering on the edge of uncomfortably full … but not quite there yet. I liked the feeling and was satisfied enough to stop nibbling with no qualms 🙂

Charlie (since we go way back and are on a first-name basis and all) gave a presentation about how EB chickens are fed food that is healthy for them and free of animal by-products:

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He asked for volunteers. I raised my hand (I thought there might be extra food in it for me!). He told me to crack an egg on my plate and then use my hands to lift the yoke out of it to show how strong and healthy the EB eggs are:

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Mission accomplished.

I also learned that the smaller the egg, the higher the quality. Actually, I learned more about eggs than I ever thought possible, but that’s the one fact that stood out.

At the end, I asked if I could take home the eggcelent centerpieces and got approval. Twenty-two eggs later, I was contemplating renaming my blog Tales of Eggspansion.

What came home with me: 22 fresh eggs, 2 bags (1 dozen) of hard-boiled eggs, coupons for 2 dozen free EB eggs, a cup of salmon salad, a cup of fruit salad, a tote bag, an umbrella, a stuffed “animal” egg, a spatula, a folder full of egg facts, a 2 GB external drive (!!!!!), and a coupon for a complimentary cocktail next time I am at Beacon.

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To fuel me through that labor intensive photo shoot, I had a couple pieces (maybe what’s pictured times 3) of chocolate-caramel-nut Easter candy and then called it a night.

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Tell me your favorite thing to do with eggs. Please?

Throw it away

Eek!! Just kidding. You know I’d never ever recommend that you throw anything away. Except for maybe this post. I’m just going to slap down everything I ate today so that I can hurry and get to the main event: my eggcelent dinner! (That was a hint.)

Morning snack was a cup of pumpkin pie flax pudding:

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I heated it today — still yummy, but I think I like it better cold. It really tastes/feels just like pumpkin pie filling. I guess that makes sense since flax is a known substitute for eggs, and the only thing I’d do differently to make pumpkin pie would be to add eggs and bake …

Lunch was a cup of mushroom agnoblahblah with tempeh and pumpkin-sofrito sauce:

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Green salad from Inginia:

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Fruit salad (mango, blood orange, orange, strawberries, blackberries) from me:

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And a sponge bob santa claus lemon chewy attached to a lemon candy cane:

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And a mini blue raspberry candy cane:

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And two gooey strawberry-filled candies:

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Eeek, what happened today?! Back on the candy wagon! (Not to mention four Newman’s ginger mints.)

I got hungry in the afternoon again and had two kitchen sink mini-muffins heated with just under 1 tbsp homemade sunflower seed butter: img_8435

And two small handfuls of Jessica’s pita chips:

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And a spoonful of office pb just before I left:

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And then I was off to Free Cone Day. Just kidding! I got to the B&J at Rockefeller, but the line was way too long for me to make it through in the 10 minutes I had before my eggstatic dinner event, so I had to skip the ice cream. Tear.

Did you get a free cone today? If yes, what flavor? If no, what flavor would you have liked to get?

Endless groats and clothing mishaps

Breakfast this morning was more prune groatmeal (could that name get any more appetizing?!) with flax oat bran:

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I added a sprinkle of fruit today to pretty things up.

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Plus the usual sunflower seed butter and unsweeetened coconut:

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img_8415And soymilky almond sunet/black tea combo and water on the side.

I love this flax oat bran combination. It thickens up so much over night that it’s almost hard to eat; I have to go slow so my mouth doesn’t get tired! And anything that makes me slow down when eating delicious food is my friend 🙂

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My pre-breakfast gym trip involved 20 minutes of bicycle, some arms and back on the cybex, 15 minutes on the precor elliptical, stretching/abs, and the jogs there and back. Stats: 1 hour and 17 minutes, 459 calories, 126 average heart rate, 162 max.

Also, for the past two mornings in a row, I have had wardrobe malfunctions that have required me to get out a needle and thread and sew things together that are already on my body while I’m racing arond to get ready. I am not impressed by this, and I hereby demand that my clothes start behaving, especially during the early morning hours. What was your most recent apparel crisis?

OMG, I almost forgot. Today is FREE CONE DAY!!!!! Going to look up closest Ben & Jerry’s now …