Dancer and prancer and donner …

April 29, 2009February 6, 201519 Comments

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 …

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

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

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

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:

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:

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:

And a piece of Jessica’s orange:

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:

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

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:

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:

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.

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:

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

April 28, 2009February 6, 201521 Comments

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:

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

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

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

Veggies make everything prettier, don’t they?

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

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:

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

Later in the afternoon, I had an orange:

And another pb-chocolate-apple parfait:

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:

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:

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!

Didn’t eat everything …

April 27, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

When I got to work this morning, there was a message waiting for me from my 11am visit: “Sarah, don’t eat lunch today. I’m cooking for you.”

And here’s the homemade mangu that greeted me when I arrived at their apartment:

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Before you get all bent out of shape, I promise I have not been manipulating my clients into giving me their food when they can barely buy enough for themselves! This mom has been trying to feed me for weeks, especially since we were planning on ending at the end of my internship (not so now, since I’ve been hired and all. It seemed to mean a lot to her that I let her do this for me, so I finally gave in, sigh.

And ohhhhhhhhh my goodness! I’ve tried (and loved) mangu two times before when my coworkers have shared with me, but I’ve never had it homemade … which actually tasted better, even though I didn’t think that was possible!

The plate on which she served the feast (above) could have been a serving plate, but it was all for me! I almost had a heart attack just looking at it. I ate about half of the mangu, all of the little sausages, and half of one of the ham(?) pieces on the side.

The mom also made salad, thank goodness! I had about two cups of this:

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As if that weren’t enough, she packed me a big container to go with what I could eat, plus a good two cups more of salad and her homemade tostones, of which I later ate two:

While we ate, I gave their three-year-old free reign with my camera, resulting in about 80 of these:

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After my heavier than heavy lunch, I committed myself to produce for the rest of the afternoon with baby carrots from Jessica and my orange:

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Umm, I meant that I committed myself to produce until Jennifer came through the office with a box of Good Humor cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream bars. I actually turned one down, but Jessica still sliced me about an inch of hers so I could take part:

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On the way to class, I stopped into the market and noticed that they had goat gouda samples today instead of the manchego. I obviously had to try:

In class, my dinner started with leftover green salad from Mildred’s lunch today mixed with about 1/3 cup edamame salad from Deborah’s lunch today:

Main course was the leftover Thai seafood curry (shrimp, scallops, calamari, white rice, coconut milk) that my mom and John brought me this weekend. Yesterday, I bulked it up with brown basmati rice and broccoli to boost nutrition and stretch it through more lunches. Tonight’s cup:

Dessert was a cup of yogurt/part-skim ricotta with cinnamon, PB2, and 1/3 chopped banana:

What I did not eat today (but will eat eventually):

the rest of the lunch I packed (more fruit and a parfait identical to the one I made last night; both still in the work fridge for tomorrow’s lunch)
2/3 cup of Vianni’s special rice (in my freezer now). OK, I had two little tastes before I put it away. It’s TOO good.
leftovers from my mangu lunch (salad‘s in the work fridge for tomorrow; mangu/tostones/ham are in my freezer)
2/3 cup Hale & Hearty chicken vegetable soup and 1/4 Hale & Hearty chicken basil tomato pesto sandwich Emily couldn’t finish in class (soup is in my fridge; sandwich insides are heading to work tomorrow to dress the salad in #3 above; bread has been broiled to crunchiness and will be joining the carb-bag-club in the freezer soon)
event leftovers that I encountered in the lobby of Hunter after class tonight: 1 cup grilled veggies extracted from the pile of mangled sandwiches and wraps (mixed into the remaining Thai seafood curry to stretch it even further), strawberries (in tomorrow’s yogurt), and two large and gooey brownies (cut into 5 pieces and in my freezer’s cake container). There might have actually been 6 pieces of brownie before one of them landed in my mouth along with all the m&ms that were garnishing it …

What didn’t YOU eat today?

It’s genetic

April 26, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

My mom and John got stuck in quite a bit of NJ Turnpike traffic last night and didn’t get to Brooklyn until around 8:30 or 9. I snacked on the orange pieces I saved from Friday’s work event while I waited:

When they did arrive, I decided we should take advantage of the car and go to a restaurant in a nearbyish neighborhood that’s a little awkward to get to on foot or on the bus. I’ve wanted to try Picket Fence for a while, so that’s where I directed us. As soon as we pulled up outside, I knew we had made the right choice. Look how charming:

Restaurants with homey charm and cozy glows are always instant hits with me. They could have fed me dog poop at this point, and I wouldn’t have noticed. OK, maybe I would have noticed a little bit.

We requested a spot in the garden since it was still in the 70s, even at the late hour!

And they brought free plain popcorn (the perfect whole grain pre-dinner snack) to the table while we waited:

Mom and I shared the apple salad with Granny Smith slices, arugula (my favorite green!), red onions, grape tomatoes, blue cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette on the side:

I ordered the special: blackened red snapper with pineapple glaze over ratatouille.

This was perfect! Geez, I’m sorry I’m being so positive. If there was one drawback to my dinner, it was that it made me think of Rudolph with that half of one grape tomato sitting on top.

I also had a teeny bite of mom’s pan-seared scallops.

Scallops are my favorite seafood, but things often go wrong in preparation. Not so with these. They were brilliantly crisped on the outside!

And a teeny bite of John’s crab cakes:

Also verrrrrrry tasty.

So, it’s safe to say we were pleased with our food (even though it took forEVER to come out):

We picked one dessert to split three ways. We almost ordered two but then decided that one would probably suffice. Take a look at these “picket fence” dessert menus. Can you guess what we got?

We actually ordered the special: banana bread pudding with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

Mmmmmmmmm, it was warm and gooey (and melty by the time I finished photographing and let the vultures have at it!):

Mom and I had a spoon Olympics battle at the end for all the drips:

I’m not used to having to compete for my plate-cleaning title! Mom did claim, however, that she is the original plate scooper, and I guess she has a point there. She did come first!

Speaking of letting nothing go to waste, mom and John have been busy raiding Holiday Inn Expresses and their continental breakfasts up and down the East Coast over the past week for all sorts of goodies to bring to me! Left to right: leftover Thai coconut seafood curry, jam/honey/pb/syrup, tea, thank you mints, skim milk, fruit cups, apples, banana, instant oatmeal, instant cheddar grits, microwave popcorn, breakfast muffins, and loads of cinnamon bun-scented hotel toiletries!

Now you know why I turned out the way I did. Thanks, mom!

Why did you turn out the way you did?

Sample satisfaction

April 23, 2009February 6, 201514 Comments

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:

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.

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.

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.

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:

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: