Tag: Leftovers

Repeats (plus a guest chef)

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Today’s lunch was pretty much the same as yesterday’s, so I won’t go into details. One tupperware with chicken/okra, one tupperware with yogurt banana, the very last of the green beans, and a mini muffin:

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To make up for the extreme boringness of that photo, I present you with Brigitte’s Pulled Pork from her dinner earlier this week:

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My roommate Brigitte is kind of like a cross between Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. She loves to cook traditional comfort foods, and you will never see her trying something sneaky like replacing the butter in a recipe with olive oil (am I right?). If the recipe calls for 1 cup heavy cream and 2 cups granulated white sugar, that is exactly what Brigitte will use, thank you very much (I, on the other hand, would be trying to concoct some crazy skim milk-banana blend).

Anyway, my lunch today may have been boring, but it certainly succeeded in using up the very last of everything in my fridge. Tonight’s dinner will be some mystery items at my office holiday party (full report to come), and I’ll be food shopping with a clean slate first thing tomorrow morning. I couldn’t have planned it better if I had tried, and I only spent a total of $5 on groceries this week!

Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was predictable, but still delicious. The last of mom’s grainmeal, a pile of frozen banana, and some forgotten wrinkly blueberries I found in the fridge (Brigitte or Tara, if those were yours, I’ll be replenishing my produce supply tomorrow morning, and you can help yourself to what I come up with!):

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Post-oven with yogurt:

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And now that all that is taken care of … new food starting tomorrow!

(Still) running (on empty)

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Because outdoor exercise in freeeeezing weather at the end of the day is just the most super fun thing in the world to do (and because we are now officially training for the 5/30/09 Brooklyn Half Marathon), Kate and I scrounged up the will to meet for another Nike training run through Central Park. We opted for the 3 mile “short” run tonight, but it was seriously like pulling teeth. Sometimes I can run 5.5-6 miles like it’s nothing, and other times, a dinky little 3 miles just does me in (perhaps knowing that I had no post-run buffet waiting for me at the end played a part, too). We did get an almost-exciting surprise when we finished, though: mini Luna bars! Here we are displaying our bounty (in all our sweaty glory):

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I actually managed to pilfer six of these minis, all in Caramel Nut Brownie, my favorite. I don’t eat Luna bars often because (1) they taste a little chemically and (2) they actually happen to be full of chemicals and ingredients removed from their natural settings (surprise, surprise). But they’ll do as a snack in a pinch, and I certainly have plenty of pinches!

For dinner, I was really getting down to the dregs of the fridge. I scrambled a lone egg I found in there with 1/2 tsp canola oil and 1/4 cup of my okra/chicken mixture from lunch today — all that was left after I packed tomorrow’s lunch. I added more sofrito and grated homemade cheddar cheese to spice it up.

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On the side, I had an oven-toasted peanut butter chip chocolate VitaTop with frozen banana (just like banana ice cream!) and real cookie crumbs I secured via my office conference room connection:

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If you look closely, you can see the melty pb chips peeking out from under the banana:

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I had a tall tall mug of jasmine green tea on the side to warm my poor hands — my fingers were all white and numb from the freezing run, and they didn’t regain proper circulation until I got in the shower two hours later!

Sneaky Snacks

The pile of holiday goodies in the office has dwindled, but it is certainly putting up quite a fight. Today, my coworker Jessica brought in a box of dark chocolate truffles that she received from a “secret admirer,” and she very generously shared one with me (a.k.a. reminded me several times that she had a box of dark chocolates on her desk until I caved):

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After the truffles, Jessica broke out a sample of some odd new Ice Breakers liquid breath freshener. She offered me one of the teeeeeeeny balls and helped arrange this photo shoot:

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Sadly, due to the ball’s lack of heft, I accidentally breathed it into the back of my throat and nearly cut off my oxygen supply. I never even got to experience the liquid part of the “liquid ice” (tear).

OK, that’s all for today. Tomorrow is Friday, yayyyy!!

Running low on color

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As you know, my mom’s turkey soup met its tragic end (in my stomach!) yesterday at lunchtime. For today’s and tomorrow’s lunches, I decided to bulk up my okra/rice/barley combo from Tuesday with more green beans and a little baggie of frozen cooked chicken (that I rescued from yet another work function a couple months back, believe it or not). Here’s everything together:

sauteeing in the pan

sauteeing in the pan

tupperwared

tupperwared

Yogurt is not worth picturing today because I’m all out of pretty! All I had left to mix in was more frozen banana, cinnamon, and cardamom. It’s delicious, but all it looks like is a mash of yellow and brown, and you don’t need to see that.

Here’s the lunch line-up of okra/chicken, yogurt/banana, green beans, 2 mini muffins, and the other half of this orange:

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Breakfast

This morning, another tragedy struck! After my shattered teapot and the elimination of food at my running club, I didn’t think it was possible. I got to the gym for my regular Thursday morning 6:30-7:15 spinning class to find that the schedule had changed while I was away! The new class is an hour-long spinning + core class with a different instructor. So sad! Maybe I can try it once classes start in a few weeks and I don’t have to be anywhere until 11. But today I am working, so I just hopped on the Stairmaster for a quick (but seemingly endless since I had been expecting spinning!) 30 mins.

Anyway, breakfast was grainmeal with lots of frozen banana bits, my last apple half, and a few dried cranberries out of desperation for color:

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I topped it with yogurt, cinnamon, and cardamom after the oven re-heat as usual:

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Short and sweet

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Last night’s lunch preparation with turkey soup (the last of it), yogurt/fruit, two mini muffins (just in case), carrots/green beans, and half an orange from yesterday’s office haul:

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Today’s yogurt had bits of frozen banana from Monday’s windfall, half of an apple, and three blueberries for color:

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Breakfast

I was up bright and early again this morning at 5:00 for the gym! I did my favorite routine: 5-minute jog to gym, 10 minutes of arms with free weights on an aerobics step, 30 minutes with Good Housekeeping Us Weekly on the Stairmaster, 10 minutes stretching/abs, and 5-minute jog back home, at which point I put the oatmeal in the oven at 375 for 30 minutes and flew into the shower. Running with an umbrella against the windy rain on a pitch-black January morning in New York is not the best part of my day, but if it’s going to be the worst, I’m glad it’s done already!

Breakfast was a repeat with LOTS of yellow since I’m all out of colorful fruit. Grainmeal with yellow bits of more frozen banana and half of a chopped yellow apple in a sunny yellow bowl:

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Topped with yogurt, cardamom, and cinnamon post-oven:

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I wonder what dangerous office treats await today …

All about the themes

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Realizing I was low on veggies, I ran into the grocery store next door to my office (it’s much cheaper than the one in my neighborhood) to see what I could find. I grabbed a bunch of green beans (to replenish my dwindling supply) and then went a little crazy and also got a pack of fresh okra (it was only $1.50!). I’ve never cooked okra before in my life and probably only eaten it a couple of times, but I thought it would keep things interesting.

When I got home, I chopped the okra into thinnish rounds and put it (and chopped green beans, for variety) in a pan with a splash of water to steam:

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And then the stroke of genius hit. I added a heaping spoonful of homemade Dominican sofrito, an amazing herby and garlicky sauce that another coworker (hi inginia!) gave me when it was leftover from a work party a little while back. Using the sofrito got me thinking about more homemade Dominican food from my coworkers, so I dug into the freezer to uncover the Dominican rice (hi mildred!) I had saved from yet another work function. I mixed it with some of the cooked barley that I brought back from MA to add a healthy whole grain punch:

Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

frozen cooked grains: Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

My plate, topped with grated homemade cheddar:
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How intricate is this okra?!

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It was a delicious experiment that went very well, and I made enough to have for dinner one more night this week, yum!

For dessert, I had the last of the grapenut pudding from MA, another big pile straight from the oven (my apartment is microwave-less, so I do all my reheating in the oven):

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Now the rush, rush, rush to make my 9pm bedtime!