Stories of inflation

March 9, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

Hahaha, wordpress just advertised that I could make this blog “narrativeofincrease.com” for only $15. I guess they’re big into synonyms?

The first hunger pangs hit around 10:30, so I had a cup of freshly cut pineapple:

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Don’t worry — that’s not mold on the pineapple. Just some bits of skin (?) that I didn’t quite cut off!

And I also had this bite of a raspberrry entenmann’s danish that was left from a meeting:

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I know it looks enormous in that picture, but it was only about an inch or so long. I also had all of the icing crumbs out of the box once the danish itself had disappeared (thankfully, someone else took care of eliminating the remaining danish before I had a chance to) …

We ended up cancelling the parents’ group today because of torrential rain, thereby putting me a meal short for the day since I usually eat lunch with the group. The same thing that happened last Monday because of the snow! Dear weather: Please stop messing with my lunch plans and food budget. Thanks.

So my planned dinner became my lunch instead. I ate the last of Rooms’ black bean salad from Saturday’s lunch (mixed with avocado and salsa — great idea, Gina!) with five broken tortilla chips from Wednesday’s lunch:

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Second course was a mix of 1/2 cup of yogurt and 1/2 cup of my leftover pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats from last week:

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My 2pm visit wasn’t home when I called to confirm at 1:40, so I went back into the conference room to keep lunching with the ladies. The continued lunching involved three Kavli crispy thins with 1/2 tbsp office pb (I meant to bring guac for these but forgot!):

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After that, I had mint #3 (of 5 total) for the day in order to keep my mouth busy:

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I was expecting to go into a counseling session at 3:30, so I had another cup of pineapple (also left from the morning meeting) around 3:15 to carry me through:

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But my client never came! My tummy was feeling a little empty still (maybe not enough fat/protein in my lunch?), so Jessica poured a box of Honey Bunches of Oats down my throat handed me a box of Honey Bunches of Oats. I had about 1 1/2 cups:

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I left work at 5 to head down for my class — and my group presentation! We presented for the first hour of class (when I normally eat my dinner), so I was pretty hungry when we finished (but yay, we finished!). As I mentioned before, the group lunch cancellation bumped dinner into the lunch slot, so my actual dinner was more of a haphazard affair.

Manchego cheese samples from the market as my appetizer:

(Yes, those are cookie crumbs coating the cheese samples . I do all of my sample-grabbing with the same skilled fist …)

My dinner main course was half of a giant raisin-nut muffin (also left from the morning meeting at work) with 1 tbsp office pb (in an attempt to impart some nutritional value) and cookie-crumb samples:

The peanut butter is all bubbly because I microwaved the muffin and toppings for 90 seconds in the school cafeteria to get it melty. But since I couldn’t eat it while I was presenting, it lost the warm and gooey immediately-post-microwave effect and gained the hard and crunchy microwaved-an-hour-ago effect. I still enjoyed it, though. It felt like a giant cookie.

Dessert was another one of these guys:

Like I’ve said before, bars are good in a pinch, but not something I need to incorporate into regular grocery rotation.

I was hungry again 10 minutes later (no surprise there with all the empty carbs and sugar), so I ate the other half of the muffin.

Obviously, I overdid it with the added sugar. I suppose I kind of overdo it most days, but due to the limited food options today, the sugar overage was actually planned. Tomorrow’s food is going to be much heavier on healthy fats and proteins to make up for it (or at least that’s true of the lunch I packed …).

When I got home from class around 9, I quickly got all of tomorrow’s food ready (nibbling at it as I packed) and then had a small treat to coat my belly with health and reassure it that it was well-nourished for the long night (of sleep) ahead. A half cup of plain heated pumpkin topped with a spoonful of chocolate mousse:

Ahh, that mousse is SO good. And my belly is now SO happy.

So … thoughts? Does “Narrative of Increase” strike a chord with you? 😛

Sleep tight!

Clickity clack clickity clack

March 8, 2009February 6, 20159 Comments

That’s the sound of me typing all day long. Can you hear it?

I’ll give you one guess about the identity of my breakfast …

Yes, another Fitnessista breakfast cookie! This one was a little bit unconventional, as it involved me repurposing one portion of last week’s pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats. Last night, I stirred together a cup of the oats, 2 tbsp nonfat powdered milk, 1 chopped square of Lindt hazelnut chocolate, and 1 tbsp peanut butter. It was super wet because the oats were already cooked, so I put it in the freezer overnight and let it thaw for about 20 minutes this morning before I ate it, topped with cocoa powder and healthy cream cheese icing 😀

With soymilky black tea and extra icing on the side:

More clickity clack clickity clack until I got hungry around 11:30. Lunch was a hodgepodge of fun treats:

A bit of Rooms’ black bean salad from linner yesterday mixed with a spoonful of salsa and topped with plain yogurt and pumpkin seeds:

And an approximately 2 tbsp mix of “overflow” pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats and yogurt topped with cardamom:

And the best part: two baby raisin walnut toasts, one with homemade cashew butter (left) and one with homemade almond butter (right):

That’s right, last night I attempted production of my own nut butters!

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, especially after drooling over Heather’s recent nutty creations. Unfortunately, I think I need to concede defeat to my Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus and accept that I just don’t have the proper equipment for making nut-only nut butter. You can see the crumbly texture in the pictures above — which I love — but these butters are more the press-on-and-smush-down sort than the spreadable sort.

I know I could have added oil to pull things together, but I really didn’t want anything in there except for the nuts themslves! I finally compromised by adding a tablespoon of peanut butter (with peanuts as the only ingredient) to each batch, and the addition made my butters passably smushable — without the extra pb, they were just dry powders! Anyway, crumbliness aside, my homemade nut butters/powders are still delicious and were an excellent topping for the raisin walnut toasts this afternoon.

I was still hungry around 1, so I made a quick mix of 1/4 cup pumpkin, 2 tbsp healthy cream cheese icing, and 2 tbsp plain yogurt — topped with 1 tbsp vanilla-almond granola and 1 tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds:

And now it’s back to the books.

I have two questions for you today:

1. Are you inside or outside?

2. Does the work ever end???

Restaurant adventure; kitchen misadventure

March 8, 2009February 6, 201510 Comments

As mentioned before, I was about 40 minutes late to yesterday’s lunch. Ack! I am generally such a prompt person that I was almost in physical pain watching the minutes tick by as I waited for trains and connections and door malfunctions. But the crew patiently waited for me, even though it meant we didn’t eat until nearly 3:30!

Seven of us from college met for this linner because Rooms and Elise were in town for the weekend from DC and Pamela came up from Delaware. Of course, the typical Brooklyn four were in tow: Gina, Kate, Kareen, and me.

In honor of Pam’s vegan-ness, we met at Angelica Kitchen, a vegan restaurant in the East Village that invests in sustainable, local agriculture whenever possible. For my full review of the restaurant — including everyone’s meals! — check under the Reviews tab or right here. For this post, I’m going to stick specifically to what I ate to keep things from getting out of hand. There was a lot of food going around!

I started with a bite of Pamela’s whole grain bread and its accompanying carrot-ginger spread. This bread was delicious, moist, and filling. If you look closely, you can even see the individual grains:

I had a couple more bites, too, as the meal wore on.

Side note: You may be wondering how I was not ravenous by 3:30 after running 9 miles and buring 850 calories three whole hours earlier? The answer is easy: I made up my calorie deficit in advance of the run with all of my wild shenanigans on Friday! I was worried I might never be hungry again, but some pangs did start to kick in just as the food arrived, phew.

I can confidently say that my meal was the best out of everyone’s! I ordered Man of Lemon-cha: charmoula baked tempeh with cilantro, cinnamon, lemon, paprika, cayenne, and cumin; served with cashew-orange sauce and a millet-teff mix; accompanied by minted cucumber spears, roasted sweet potatoes, and green beans.

Oh. my. goodness. Everything about this meal was a success!! Perfect flavors, textures, portions everything .

Plus, how can you go wrong with these little guys?

In the words of the famous VeggieGirl, “SWEET POTATO!!!”

I had a couple little samples and bites of the other girls’ dishes — again, you can see them in full on the reviews page — including two bites of this yummy sweet cornbread Rooms ordered:

For dessert, Pamela, Kate, and I split two cakes between the three of us.

First was the coconut cheesecake with coconut crust and carob sauce:

We all agreed that the bites with carob sauce were the best! I loved the thick crust, but I was not crazy about the overly gelatinous filling.

Second was the vanilla layer cake with strawberry filling and hazelnut frosting:

We all loved this cake! Especially the hazelnut frosting:

I definitely made sure that no crumbs were left lingering on the dessert plates :-).

Dinner last night was the rest of Wednesday’s packed lunch, finally! I wasn’t sure that I would even get hungry again, but I did … and my leftover lunch portions offered the perfect satisfaction. I heated the cup of spinach-chickpea dal, topped it with two spoonfuls of plain yogurt, and spinkled extra cayenne, cinnamon, and cardamom:

Dessert was my last serving of “pumpkin plus” yogurt. I froyo-ed it and topped it with a some chopped date pieces:

I also had a failed basil-spice meringue kiss:

It tasted yummy, but I can’t hide the fact that something went terrible wrong in the baking process. I’ve made meringues before with a similar technique, but somehow all the sugar actually melted out of the poofy meringues while they were in the oven, resulting in trails of “caramel” all over the parchment and some seriously deflated kisses! Before and after:

This was going to be my BSI: Basil entry, but oh well. You win some, you lose some!

What have you won this weekend?

Layers upon layers upon layers

March 7, 2009February 6, 201513 Comments

Remember when I was panicked earlier in the week about not having enough food due to lack of grocery shopping? Yeah … I needn’t have worried.

The lunch I’ve been carrying around since Wednesday got pushed to the side again today for some more urgent delights :-). Vianni brought in her famous shrimp, veggies, and rice for me to sample. I had about 1/2 cup:

She also brought me the actual seasoning packet that she uses to flavor many of her dishes (featured here and here and here). I’m so excited that I can now Viannify my food!!!

Next, Belkis gave me an entire chicken and salsa fajita left over from a meeting yesterday! It was very cutely cut into little pieces like sushi:

I ate it cold because the microwave was otherwise occupied, but it was delicious and very filling!

All of this eating took place as part of a new “event” my agency is trying out to build community amongst employees: brown bag staff lunches every other Friday. You bring your own lunch (or the lunch with which your amazing coworkers have provided you) to the meeting, and a few people also bring desserts (like the angel food cake here) and snacks to share.

I did my part to make sure that no snacks went to waste. Multiply what you see here by about three (or more!). I had honey pretzel twists with spinach dip, cheez-its with spinach dip, cinnamon nut rugelach with nutella, and coconut cookies with more nutella (again, x3!):

In my parents’ group with Myrna, I continued the streak by taking part in group snack: apples and peanut butter! I probably had the equivalent of one chopped apple and 1 tbsp peanut butter (unpictured):

After all of this, I was able to control the sugar insanity for the duration of the afternoon. I only ate two mints today, a record! Around 4:00, instead of going for the candy jar, I went for my dates and prunes:

After I left work, I headed downtown to meet Erin Gunn (yes, of German food fame!). I was early and decided to go find samples kill some time in Whole Foods. I sampled buttered Irish soda bread, a handful of wasabi peas, 2 sandwich cookies, cashews, and cucumbers in miso dressing. I also bought the pineapple (only $2.99!), cashews, and almonds to the right. The dates, avocados, and cocoa powder came from Morton Williams where I stopped on my way home post-Erin Gunn. These foods are more expensive than what I normally buy, but again, I only spent $5 on groceries last week, so I have a little wiggle room this week! Grocery total so far: $22.

Since I was the farthest thing from hungry ever, Erin and I split a pot of tea and a salad at teany (review to come shortly) and then headed over to Kenny’s Castaways for the main event: a show by her friend’s band, Wesley Jeremiah.

Erin had beer; I had water (pretty standard unless there’s karaoke involved …):

(Keep in mind that, throughout all of this, I was lugging around a pineapple, among other things. I felt kind of like Baby with her watermelon.)

I got home around 10:30, just in time to help my roommate Brigitte with the first of her birthday celebrations (her birthday is on Thursday). Brigitte’s friend Katie is staying with us and made a surprise birthday cake for tonight.

I “agreed” to have just a little teeny piece. Until I realized that this was not just a regular cake but rather a no-bake chocolate-wafer-and-whipped-cream cake … aka a giant log of oreo goodness. I added another little piece to my little piece. And another little piece to those pieces.

Here’s my tower:

There were chocolate and peanut butter shavings on top …

And layering perfection:

Good thing Kate and I have 9 miles planned for tomorrow morning :-D.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday night!

With sprinkles on top

March 5, 2009February 6, 201519 Comments

Thursday is my wake-up-to-sunlight day, and I love it! I got up at 6:30 this morning so I could enjoy a sunrise run through the park. My motivation faltered significantly when I got outside and felt how cold it was. All my muscles tightened up, and my legs just did not want to move! But I told myself I could run as slow as I wanted and turn around if I needed to, and I ended up doing a whole lap of the park plus a teeny bit extra. It was so gorgeous out there with everything all snow-covered … but it was kind of lost on me because I am ready to see some green! Stats: 4.1 miles, 45 minutes, 342 calories, average heart rate 144, max 169.

I had planned to do the 20-minute Gentle Hatha #1 yogadownload when I got home, but I just didn’t have it in me! I did a few pigeons, dogs, and child’s poses on my own instead.

Breakfast was another cup of pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats:

With 1/2 cup healthy cream cheese icing, coconut, pumpkin seeds, cumbled graham sticks, cinnamon, and ginger:

And soymilky black tea:

During class, I snacked on 1.5 black bean-salmon patties dipped in 2 tbsp peanut-butter-pumpkin-roasted-red-pepper-hummus:

Don’t judge. It was delicious.

I also ate 2 dates and 2 prunes for snack dessert:

We had advisement after class, so I brought along a full lunch to carry me through, including what I made Tuesday night when I realized how low on produce I was. After rummaging through the depths of my cabinets and freezer, I came up with a can of chickpeas, a box of frozen spinach, and a can of tomato sauce. Seemed like cause for Indian food to me! I quickly threw together this dal with some adjustments (scallions in place of the onions I didn’t have, tomato sauce in place of the tomatoes I didn’t have, cardamom plus every spice in my cabinet in place of the garam masala I didn’t have, sweet potato pieces because I did have them and thought they’d be fun in it) and added in about 3/4 cup cooked brown basmati rice. Here’s today’s one-cup portion:

With my “pumpkin plus” yogurt:

After advisement, Emily, Lisa, and I stayed on to touch base for the group presentation we’re giving next week (about infant adoption, yay!). I was thoroughly drained when it was all said and done and needed some Tasti-D stat:

I got a swirl of dulce de leche and burnt sugar (which, in reality, tasted like fancy names for vanilla and chocolate). But it was still very tasti:

With sprinkles on top, obviously, because what is ice cream without sprinkles?

I’m finally home and contemplating things like dinner and the Fridayness of tomorrow.

What do YOU put on top?

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: lunch

Stories of inflation

Clickity clack clickity clack

Restaurant adventure; kitchen misadventure

Layers upon layers upon layers

With sprinkles on top

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