Renewal

March 14, 2009February 6, 201510 Comments

Well, today has certainly been all about recovery after my wild eating spree at the book signing last night! 1pm came along and I still wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. This is highly abnormal for me because I’m usually ravenous within one hour of waking up. I had been up since 7:30! I decided that a run was in order to speed the process along. On my way out, I grabbed a date for healthy sugar power:

My whole body felt creaky and achey at the beginning of the run, but all my muscles and bones and joints seemed to start communicating with each other more effectively after a few minutes. I was in the mood for sightseeing, so I ran out to the mansions at Flatbush Malls — the most beautiful neighborhood in Brooklyn, according to me — and around the outside of Prospect Park. Stats: 5.75 miles, 61 minutes, 509 calories, 152 average heart rate, 182 max. I totally zoned out during the run and ended up really enjoying it. I felt so refreshed after — but alas, still not hungry!

I sorted my laundry for the ‘mat tomorrow, I dyed my hair, I did some other things on the list … and I finally felt a little bit hungry around 4pm! I did a happy dance and then whipped up the balsamic-strawberry yogurt sundae that I’ve been dreaming about ever since I created these Balsamic-Strawberry Oaties earlier this week for the BSI.

Also involved in that sundae were 1/2 cup Greek yogurt mixed with vanilla and cinnamon, more chopped strawberries, and a drizzle of homemade balsamic syrup. Yum! Definitely lived up to my fantasy.

Then, miracle of all miracles, I was still a little bit hungry! I re-toasted a piece of herby chicken parm toast from yesterday and covered it in 2 tsp homemade almond-cashew butter and cinnamon:

The traces of herby tomato sauce on the bread actually complemented the almond-cashew butter brilliantly. Hmmmm, I wonder what I can do with this knowledge in the future …

I continued to give my body what it needed with a pot of Yogi Renew green tea from the samples I received last week:

The tea actually tasted a little bit like grass. But, hey, I guess you have to suffer for your renewal, right?

At some point a little later, another mini-wave of hunger hit me. I decided it was time to break out sample #1 of PB2! I cut the packet open and tasted some of the dry powder — hmm, tasted like peanuts.

The directions said to mix the packet with 1.5 tbsp of water … so I mixed it with 2 tbsp yogurt. Magic:

My pb-yogurt sauce became the dressing for a cup of last night’s fruit salad:

(I also mixed in a couple of chopped strawberries and topped it with a sprinkle of vanilla-almond granola.)

The verdict? As much as I did not want to like PB2, I have to admit that I think it has sucked me in. There are so many potential uses! Would I buy it? I’m doubtful, especially now that I’ve mastered the art of making my own nut butters from scratch. But, I have the rest of the samples to go through and an entire jar on its way from the Foods That Fit giveaway, so we’ll see how addicted I get!

In other giveaway news, you can win yet another chance to mix your own granola, thanks to Diana at Soap & Chocolate. I’d LOVE to win this one, but I really think I’ve been too lucky! I can still hope, though …

Speaking of Foods That Fit, Abbie posted a fun recipe for wheatberry salad today that I knew I had to try since I had all of those pilfered cranberries from last night.

I made a few substitutions based on ingredient availability — I subbed a rye berries/kamut/barley/brown rice mixture for the wheatberries and cooked the grains in leftover whey from making Greek yogurt; dried apple rings and dates in place of the apricots; and chopped almonds in place of the pistacios and pine nuts. I “tested” a couple of spoonfuls when it was done — delicious!

Just like Abbie said — perfect salty-sweet combo!

The cooking continued because I can’t stop once I start! I combined two recipes to prepare the other half of my tofu block: the coco loco tofu Emily made earlier this week and soy-lime tofu from Eating Well. I soaked the tofu slices for two hours in a marinade of 2 tbsp white rice vinegar + 2 tbsp lime juice + 2 tbsp soy sauce + 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil and then dredged each slice in unsweetened coconut and baked like this. I tested one slice on another piece of chicken parm toast with 1 tbsp almond-cashew butter:

The coconut flavor was surprisingly strong, and that made me happy. I can’t believe I haven’t thought to put coconut on tofu before. Thanks, Emily!

For dessert, I had about 2 tbsp of half-frozen homemade chocolate mousse (freezing it seems to make it even MORE chocolate-y, if that’s possible) with a crumbled basil-spice meringue kiss and coconut sprinkles:

Hmm, for a day of no appetite, this has been a surprisingly long post!! My tum is feeling ALMOST back to normal, so I’m hoping for a crazy appetite when I wake up in the morning :-D.

What do you prefer: big appetite or no appetite?

The beginning

March 14, 2009February 6, 201513 Comments

Ooooooheeeeee, I’ve had quite the day of food! I kept wondering how I was going to blog about it all since there was just SO much, but then I remembered the best part about food blogging: the chronology is set 😀 All of this has happened already, so I can just start at the beginning!

We sat down for lunch around 12:30, and as planned, I ate the rest of the dinner I made last night. I heated the 1/2 portobello cap and the BBQ tofu (with some homemade parmesan in between the layers) in the work microwave and then stuck a lettuce leaf in the middle of each “sandwich” for color:

On the side, I had a salad of the items that wouldn’t fit in the portobello-tofu “sandwich”: 2 more slices of tofu (broken into pieces), more romaine, and roasted brussels sprouts.

Plus, Myrna surprised me with a chicken parm sandwich as a thank you for the help I gave her with a paper. I ate the filling of the half pictured (minus one piece of chicken) and brought the rest home to save for another use! (Other leftovers I brought home today: Nydia’s leftover half of her grilled chicken salad and Mildred’s leftover half banana. You’ll be seeing these foods shortly, I’m sure!)

For dessert, I had my 1/2 cup Greek yogurt mixed with chopped apple, chopped banana, 1 tbsp vanilla-almond granola, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger:

Along with this oatmeal cookie from Mildred:

At around 2:30, my last cup of pineapple (with another tbsp vanilla-almond granola) surfaced to go on a field trip to my mouth:

Next up was 2 tbsp homemade guacamole with a serving of Sea Salt RiceWorks:

And since no day can pass candy-free and I want Brach’s to start paying me and I needed to address the guac-breath, I also had a strawberry hard candy (the kind with a gooey strawberry center, mmmm). And about 4 mints, of course!

Early dinners have been a trend for me this week. At 4:30, my agency had an “informal” staff gathering in the lobby with light refreshments. And by light refreshments, they meant SUSHI!!! And there commenced dinner #1. Here’s the spread:

And my first plate with broccoli, grape tomatoes, a california roll, a spicy salmon roll, a spicy crab roll, shrimp, grapes, apple slices, two cheddar cheese slices, and a triscuit thin crisp:

Yum, I was in heaven! (After I finished my plate, I noticed a sign by the sushi that said, “Please only take two pieces per person.” Whoops!)

And just because sushi is so pretty:

Love:

And my second plate with more crudites:

And salsa!

As we left, I grabbed another California roll (shhhhhh), about three more slices of cheese with apple slices, and a small handful of carrots — all of which I ate during the walk across the street to Mildred’s car 😀

And like I said, that was only dinner #1!! Dinner #2 will be along shortly …

How many meals do you eat per day?

Belly respect

March 12, 2009February 6, 201510 Comments

Usually, I try to hold out on eating until the very very end of class because I want my lunch to carry me through until I can get home — especially if I have to stay at school a little bit later. Today, however, I knew I’d be leaving right at 1pm and coming home for a run. I’ve been reading Intuitive Eating, and I decided to take the authors’ advice and “honor my hunger” even though it came earlier than normal.

I started at 11:15 with 2 tbsp homemade guac and my last 2 Kavli crispy thin crackers:

I waited a few, but the hunger was still around. I broke into part two at 11:30. It might make you gag even though it was delicious, so skip on ahead if odd food combos make you ill. Last night, I scrambled an egg yolk left from making the basil-spice meringue kisses with a sweet ‘n’ spicy black bean-salmon patty and frozen peas! I also mixed in half of a chopped apple and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

I ate it cold in class … because I was in class. It was strangely satisfying, and I wanted more when I finished. But there was no more!

And 15 minutes later, I was onto the yogurt — same mix as yesterday with chopped pear, chopped banana, nutmeg, and golean crunch:

At 12:02, I honored my real dessert craving with a chocolate heart:

Normally, having an entire hour left of class with no food to keep me busy would make me restless to no end, but I felt so comfortable that I was able to be more focused on the discussion than I usually am. I think I will start honoring my hunger when it happens more often :-D.

When I got home at 2, I stovetop-popped a single serving bag (rescued from work!) of microwave kettle corn and sprinkled it with cinnamon and cayenne:

Mmmmmm, kettle corn is amazing.

I had a couple bites of yogurt and granola while packing lunch for tomorrow, and then I decided to get some errands taken care off on this rare free afternoon. I ran the long way to the grocery store — approx 4 miles out of the way around the park, to be exact. This run was perfect — it was mid-40s, sunny, not a cloud in sight, and I just enjoyed the weather and being out among the living in the middle of the day! I spent most of the run thinking up ideas for this week’s BSI: Strawberries, and I ended up going way faster than normal. I’m so glad I changed my mind about forcing a run this morning when I knew I hadn’t had enough sleep! Stats: 4.28 miles, 42 minutes, 367 calories, average heart rate 157, max 173.

Groceries included a gallon of milk, 3 lbs apples, strawberries, asparagus, brussels sprouts, avocado:

Grocery Total: $15.57

I’ve been having a lazy afternoon/evening of cooking and baking (nibbling all the way of course), and I’ll be getting around to some dinner eventually … along with an on-time bedtime, wooooooooooot 😀

How did you honor your hunger today?

I figured it out!

March 11, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

Ahh, this post is going to take me forEVER! I’ve had such a variety of nibbles today. Somehow, eating other people’s food never gets old 😛

I had my yogurt at around 10 this morning during our department meeting. In addition to 1/2 cup plain yogurt, the mix included chopped pear (wrinkled and rescued from roommate who got it for free with an order of sushi!), chopped banana (from Belkis yesterday), nutmeg, and 1 tbsp or so of golean crunch:

I was already hungry again when the meeting ended at 11:30, so I dove right into my cup of fresh pineapple — topped with about 1/4 cup of my supervisor Heather’s leftover Nature’s Path granola that didn’t fit in her yogurt during the meeting:

We broke for lunch around 12:30. I had the last cup of my spinach-chickpea dal:

Plus about two cups of the grilled chicken salad that Myrna couldn’t finish:

Dessert was a Ghirardelli 60% dark chocolate square from Rosalie:

Afternoon snack #1 was two teeny pieces of pineapple cake that Belkis made:

Belkis was very excited to share her cake because she just learned how to bake (she’s a master chef of bean-based Dominican dishes as you may recall, though). She made the cake all by herself from a boxed mix and was super proud that it worked and tasted good. She was especially pleased to see me licking the foil:

And then a mom came through the office selling candy to raise money for her kids’ school. I did not buy any, but plenty of my coworkers did. Inginia bought a snickers bar and sliced off this little piece for me:

I know it looks enormous, but it really was less than an inch long …

When I got hungry again around 3, I had this 1/2 cup of veggies left over from Mildred’s lunch:

I went out for a great visit immediately post-veggies. I’m doing a video project with one family that involves videotaping the parents interacting with the 7-month-old baby in 10-minute segments for us to watch all together later. They had so much fun being movie stars!

When I got back at 4:15, I had my final-ish work snack of 3 Kavli crispy thin crackers spread with 1/2 mashed banana (also left from Mildred’s lunch) and 1/4 cup chocolate mousse:

(Dad, I’m sorry it’s so brown!!! But chocolate tastes too good to eliminate based on color alone 😀 )

Also, I think Brach’s candy should start paying me, because all of this found its way from Belkis’ candy jar to my mouth at some point today. Chocolate mint, ice blue mint, cinnamon, star mint, and orange center hard candies:

Dinner started early tonight. Mildred and I picked up Pura on our way out of the office, and Pura happened to mention that they had just celebrated Kathy’s birthday … and had leftover rellenos! Mildred and I both snapped to attention when we heard that, so Pura set us up.

We each had a slice of rellenos maduros (sweet plantain relleno stuffed with ground meat, yummmmm!):

And split this slice of rellenos de papa (potato relleno stuffed with ground meat):

On the walk to my apartment from the subway, I stopped into the gourmet market for 3 miniscule sample cubes of cheese, samples of marinated mushrooms, and an entire ginger-lemon cookie’s worth of sample pieces:

And, waiting for me when I got home, I found more samples (what a day, right??). New tea flavors are so exhilarating:

I proceeded to make myself dinner #1273 which consisted of 2/3 of a sliced apple toppped with cinnamon and 2 tbsp chocolate mousse:

I can’t get enough of that mousse!

I may have also eaten a little chunk of chocolate while preparing (spoiler alert!) tomorrow’s breakfast, and I definitely nibbled on all the components of tomorrow’s lunch as I got that ready, too. My belly is so content!

Oh, I almost forgot! I figured out what went wrong with the basil-spice meringue kisses the other day! They collapsed because I did not add any cream of tartar, duh. I decided not to use it at the last minute when the whites whipped up so fast and sturdily, but I think the “mix-ins” were too heavy to keep the meringues afloat while they baked. I tried it again tonight with 1/4 tsp cream of tartar, and they held their form! I sampled one right out of the oven:

Perfect! I’ll get the recipe up a bit later. Of course, the BSI: Basil ship has sailed (and very deliciously, I might add, thanks to Brandi’s basil-strawberry scones), but I still have time to get in my entry for the Eggland’s Best Egg Recipe competition! 😀

Phew, are you sick of reading about all my food yet??

It would be so amazing if I could go to bed right now, but alas, I have to go pretend to read an article for tomorrow’s class enough to write a passable summary of it, blech. I’m planning on an 11pm bedtime so I can get up at 7 for a run before I have to leave. And the clock starts ticking NOW!

** If you could use a little comfort in your life, click here for a chance to win it!**

B ‘n B

March 10, 2009February 6, 201516 Comments

Yup, I’m fully blogging in bed right now — in my pjs, under the covers, teeth brushed, mouth guard in place, contacts out, glasses on, earplugs in, and ready to pass out as soon as I hit publish. Can’t wait 😀

But let’s do a little review of the day first, shall we? I walked into the office at 9:20, and the first thing Belkis said was, “Sarah, there’s bread in there.” [Gestures to conference room right next to my desk.] And bread there was!

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Belkis had brought in a whole loaf of bakery-fresh Dominican bread. The thought of saying no never crossed my mind. I cut off a big slab, about an inch thick, and dipped it in my milky earl grey tea. I think that might be a little weird. I dunk everything — cookies, crackers, bread. How do you feel about soggy carbs?

After my big slab o’ bread, I went back for the end pieces:

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I’m not crazy about the heels of regular sandwich loaves, but they’re always my favorite part of any kind of fresh bread or baked good … brownies from the edge of the pan, yum!

After that loaf-fest, I didn’t really get hungry again until about 2pm! As an appetizer, I had two of these little balls that Inginia (of the pumpkin kibbi fame) brought in. She slaved away all weekend making them for a party and wanted to share the wealth:

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This is also from some Middle-Eastern dish, and I’m not sure of the exact ingredients. I think Inginia is going to bring me the recipe, but in the meantime, they were basically fried bulgur dumplings with some ground meat and seasonings inside:

picture-172

Very tasty! Once I get the recipe, I’ll see how I can go about healthifying them — I think they’d also be delicious baked.

Lunch was a cup of spinach-chickpea dal:

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And a one-cup mix with 1/2 yogurt and 1/2 pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats:

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(I sprinkled some of Jessica’s Honey Bunches of Oats on top for visual variety.)

Around 3:00 I had my packed cup of fresh pineapple (same deal with the cereal):

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And then I heard some paper rustling suspiciously. I followed the sound with my eyes and saw this:

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That’s Nydia and Jose bent in deep contemplation over a pile of Valentine’s chocolate!

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I took one of the pink hearts for later 😀

Around 3:45, I had three Kavli crispy thin crackers with 1/3 cup homemade guacamole (1/3 mashed avocado, 2 tbsp salsa, juice from 1/4 lime):

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And the guacamole necessitated a mint (my first of the day!):

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I went into a session a little after 4, and when I got back to my desk after, this sight greeted me:

Yes, two potatoes mysteriously showed up on my desk. Apparently, I am now the designated recipient for anonymous food drops (but I’m not complaining!). Potato donor, reveal yourself!! Even though potatoes are the one food that I seriously dislike (this rule does not apply to sweet potatoes, obvi), I am clearly the best person to take on the task of finding them a new home. At this moment, I imagine the potatoes are journeying into the depths of Brooklyn with Gina … and I have full confidence in Gina’s ability to use them appropriately!

Because I was planning on running club at 6:30, I decided to have an early 5pm dinner at work. Especially since the club no longer gives free food after (grrrrrr!), I have found that this dinner-first arrangement works well (at least it has worked well all two times that I’ve done it, haha) to keep me energized through the run and not wanting to gnaw my arm off after. The dinner I packed for tonight was 1/3 wheat bagel with 1/4 cup pumpkin-pb spread (1 T peanut butter, 3 T pumpkin) and two black bean-salmon patties:

I toasted the whole thing in the work toaster oven, and it was so delicious and saucy, mmm:

Dessert was a given: the Dove chocolate heart from Nydia:

I followed that advice and had another mint as I walked out the door :P.

Gina, Kate, and I met at 6:30 for running club and did 4 sort of stop-and-go miles in Central Park, including a loop around the reservoir, one of the most beautiful places to run in the city at night! But Kate and I were talking after about how these running club runs just seem to drag for ages. We ran over 9 miles on Saturday with minimal struggling, but 4 miles at running club always does us in! I wonder if it has to do with the time of day …. Anyway, stats for the run: 49 minutes, 357 calories, average heart rate 140, max 156.

In the subway station post-run, I broke out the breadstick and marinara sauce that Jessica and Nydia brought back for me from Pizza Hut because they couldn’t finish it at lunch. Kate, Gina, and I split the bounty between the three of us after Kate and Gina hand-modeled the goods for me:

I had my final snack of the night when I got home: 1/4 of a broiled banana (the banana also came from Belkis today) topped with 1/4 cup chocolate mousse and a tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds:

While I was washing dishes and before I was able to drag my mouth to the toothbrush, I may have also peeled off one whipped cream-soaked cookie from Brigitte’s remaining log of birthday cake and eaten one or two pieces of Lindt hazelnut chocolate …

News of the Day:

1. Heather, the queen of raw chocolate-avocado mousse herself, is definitely NOT giving away anything you’d want to try to win here.

2. Neither is Itzy here.

3. There’s a new BSI contest this week, and it’s a good one! Get more info here.

4. I was reading the January issue of Self while I was on the elliptical this morning, and I found a little blurb in there about the dangers of resting your laptop computer directly on your lap — I think it mentioned causing irritation to your thighs and emitting radiation that can lead to cancer (like everything does) and suggested using some sort of lap tray between your legs and the computer. (As I type this, of course, my laptop is directly on my lap.) Does this worry you? Where do you rest your laptop? Do you put something between your legs and the computer?

5. And remember the most important question of all: How do you feel about soggy carbs?

6. There’s a 99.999% chance I’m sleeping as you read this.

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: lunch

Renewal

The beginning

Belly respect

I figured it out!

B ‘n B

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