Tag: lunch

All is not lost

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** I’m bookending this post with BSI reminders since we’re getting right down to the wire! Check here for more info. If you missed my announcement earlier, the BSI prize will include, amongst other things, two boxes of the RARE Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea, the best tea in the world. Are you not ridiculously excited right now??? **

I woke up around 8:00 this morning, and Erin and I set out (in her car!) to hunt down a location for our five-mile run (half marathon, here we come!). The first trail we checked was completely covered in snow and ice, but we lucked out with the second: a paved bike trail in Tibbetts Brook Park. The clear-enough-to-run portion of the trail was just over two miles long, so we ran the length and back plus did a little bit extra to make it a full five. While the trail was not completely covered in ice, we still had to “ballet run” over several slippery sections, slowing us down significantly. Stats: 57 minutes, 457 calories, 149 average heart rate, 164 max heart rate.

Back at the condo, I got started on breakfast:

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img_2776I popped two Nutrigrain waffles in the toaster and set out to develop some oatmeal pancakes! I found a packet of oatmeal in the cupboard that I recognized from the post-race goodies we received at Race for the Cure in September. I mixed the oatmeal with an egg, a splash of water, and some baking powder and baking soda. I Pam’d a pan and poured the batter in:

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Flipped when set:

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And spatula-ed the pancake into four pieces when it was done so that we each had two pancake quarters and a waffle. For the topping, I mixed some banana pieces I had saved from my mommy’s group at work yesterday with the last of Erin’s frozen blueberries and 1/4 cup plain yogurt.  A drizzle of real maple syrup and a dollop of berry jam from a local farm joined the yogurt topping:

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Delicious, if I do say so myself!

After breakfast, Erin and I continued our productive streak with more suburban car errands (yay!!). Accomplishments of the day: Erin’s car passed inspection, she successfully redeemed a Bed, Bath, & Beyond coupon, and I found another little mystery goody at Target to include as a BSI prize. Erin, the most generous hostess ever, capped this string of accomplishments with an offer to drive me allllll the way back to Brooklyn (saving me a 90-minute subway ride!), including a stop at Fairway, my favorite grocery store in the world!! If you live in this city, you know that the combination of a car + Fairway is pretty much a New Yorker’s dream come true. I only wish I hadn’t had so much food still left from last week in my apartment — if I had more fridge/freezer space, I would have taken advantage of the car to buy enough groceries for the next six months!

Once we arrived at Fairway, I wanted to capture the beauty of this foodie heaven with a photo, but when I tried to turn my camera on, nothing happened! I may have actually said the f-word (something I never do!) when I realized I had forgotten the battery/charger in the wall back up at Erin’s house. Ahhhhhhhh!! After all of that productivity, I was going to have to go all the way back to Yonkers with her to collect the battery and then take the subway home. DISASTER. Regardless, we forged on with the shopping. Expecting that I wouldn’t be home until at least 6:30 pm, I did my favorite trick of turning samples into lunch. I had cheese, mini pumpernickel rounds with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and one of the best samples I’ve ever encountered: magic pop rice cakes with freshly ground (still warm!) almond butter, peanut butter, and honey roasted peanut butter. I piled the nut butter onto three different magic pop pieces and may have had approximately 1/2 cup of freshly ground goodness before I was through. Obviously too much, but I was feeling stressed and it was soooooooooo delicious.

Post-shop, Erin and I made the quick drive from the store to my apartment so I could at least drop everything off. Once at my apartment, however, roommate Brigitte saved the day– first with an offer to let me use her camera and second with the genius idea to transfer the memory chip from my camera into hers (which seems like an obvious enough solution, but I had been thinking I’d have to wait to get my battery to get all of my pictures back!). Erin, as if she hadn’t been generous enough already, promised to overnight ship the battery and charger back to me on Monday. So all is not lost :-).

I had a successful shop at Fairway (where it is impossible to have an unsuccessful shop). I got a gallon of skim (for yogurt), 5 bananas, 3 lbs Fuji apples, a big bag o’ oranges, Medjool dates in honor of my BSI choice, a baby butternut squash, and tons of grains from Fairway’s bulk bins — steel-cut oats, quinoa, millet, yellow corn grits, and raw wheat germ:

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Total cost: $27. Gooooooooooooooooooooo Fairway!!!

I’ll be back later with dinner. In the meantime …

** SUBMIT YOUR BSI entries!! Deadline is end-of-day Sunday (aka TOMORROW), and I will announce a winner Monday evening. Check here for more details. I’m so excited to see what you all come up with that I bought that container of dates at Fairway so I can try some of the recipes next week :-). **

Ding ding ding ding!

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(That’s the sound of the food jackpot bell ringing.)

*** Hurry up and submit your BSI: Dates entries! The contest is open to everyone, even if you don’t have a blog. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check here for more information and a running list of submissions. Please help by spreading the word on your blogs!!***

And welcome to all of my new readers! This is my first time at the computer since I left this morning, so it might take me a couple days to get to everyone’s comments. It’s past my bedtime!

I’ve been on a free food roll this week, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Excellent news for the budget, but I don’t know how long I can keep up this pace — I feel like I’ve only had about 30 waking seconds in my apartment all week. I’m going to work on zooming through today’s food recap. It’s a long one!

I left class on the Upper East Side at 1 to head to a doctor’s appointment in Bay Ridge for 3 (basically opposite ends of the earth, if you’re not familiar with NY). Since I was going to be switching trains at Union Square anyway, I decided to turn my oatmeal-for-$1 coupon into lunch at the Jamba Juice there. With tax, the oatmeal actually came to $1.08, but since I found $1.50 on the ground in a subway station yesterday (I know!! Who drops $1.50 in quarters and dimes and leaves it???), I’m considering it free. I got the banana oatmeal with brown sugar crumble:

img_2643img_2644Needing a place to sit and eat, I strategically maneuvered myself (and my oatmeal) over to the Whole Foods next door where I knew side-dish-potential would be high. And oh my goodness, did I hit the jackpot!! I sneakily collected samples in a container meant for the fresh-ground almond butter and then parked myself in the cafe upstairs to enjoy my complete and balanced meal. Clockwise from top left: maple ham, veal scallopini, grapefruit slices, orange slices, ginger snap pieces, lemon snap hearts:

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And the real winner: drinking chocolate!

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Because I like to live on the wild side, I retrieved the peanut butter from my stash of what-if-I-can’t-find-free-food backup snacks (carrots, apples, pb, and raisins).

Can you guess what I did??? Banana brown sugar oatmeal + pb + drinking chocolate:

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Yum yum yum yum yum yum.

On my way out of WF, I discovered that two new samples had surfaced. I didn’t want them to feel left out, so I got one of each. Pumpkin-seed black bean burger and buffalo chicken with blue cheese:

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I hopped back on the subway to continue the odyssey to Bay Ridge. At the doc’s office, I had a blue raspberry mini candy cane from the receptionist’s desk to mask my buffalo-breath:

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After the doc, I headed back into the city (eating my carrots and apples on the way) to meet my friend Rami for tea at Grey Dog in the village. Rami and I became friends in an NYU elevator in September 2001 when I discovered he was studying abroad here from Australia … where I was planning to study the next semester! Here we are dancing at his wedding this past summer (he’s second from left):

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And here’s Rami’s grilled chicken press:

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And my Earl Grey with skim and 1/2 pack of sugar in the raw:

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If you know any baby boomers in need of boomer-related services, Rami can help at Boomerater.com :-). And, a special shout out to Rami’s wife Ali who also reads the blog. Hi Ali!

When Rami and I finished catching up, I met Gina and Kate a few blocks away for yet another NYU Alumni event: a workshop on age-defying fitness by Marilyn Moffat. In the interest of time, I’m going to skip a review of the talk’s content and just cut right to the food. My plate included broccoli, grape tomatoes, red and yellow pepers, cauliflower, carrots, pineapple, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, cantaloupe, almonds, triangle of swiss cheese, 3 cubes of cheddar, goat cheese crusted with freshly ground black pepper, and raisin walnut bread:

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The goat cheese and the raisin walnut bread were definitely the stars:

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So I spread one on top of the other, added the final backup snack of raisins, and had three more slices:

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Plus plate #2 (bread pictured is part of the 4 slices total):

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I ate several more handfuls of unpictured produce plus this cookie that made me miss fall:

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And since I’m always thinking of the future, here’s what I brought home:

goat cheese, cheese chunks, almonds, bread (now in the freezer), carrots/peppers/cauliflower for work snacks tomorrow, and zucchini for cooking

goat cheese, cheese chunks, almonds, bread (now in the freezer), carrots/peppers/cauliflower for work snacks tomorrow, and zucchini for cooking

So like I said, it’s been a long and busy day — academically, socially, gastronomically, transportationally, etc. — but I’m no poorer than I was yesterday!!

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post tomorrow since I’m going straight up to Yonkers after work to visit Erin Gunn (one of my oldest friends from home and my other half-marathon-training partner) for bowling, karaoke, and a Saturday morning 5-mile run. I’ll be back with a full report later on Saturday, along with a special announcement about the prizes I have selected for the BSI contest. The submissions list is growing, so get your entries in ASAP!

Happy lunch thwarted

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… by an even happier lunch!!

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*** But first, remember to get cracking on your date recipes for those BSI submissions. The contest is open to everyone, even if you don’t have a blog. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check here for more information along with a running list of submissions.***

Now back to lunch. Upon her arrival at work this morning, my coworker Vianni made a beeline for me and immediately started unloading tupperwares onto my desk, before she even took off her coat: “Sarah, I have food for you!” Do I not have the most amazing coworkers ever? I left my tofu and veggies in the fridge to eat on Friday (no internship tomorrow because I have class) and replaced them with Vianni’s home cooked meal. She made gandules guisados:

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And this amazing spicy (as in very seasoned — not spicy hot) chicken:

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It was delicious. Thank you, Vianni!

Danger, Danger, Danger

Then, my very sweet yet evil coworker Jessica broke out this canister of candy cane caramel corn that she had gotten as a Christmas gift.

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I started out conservatively by crumbling a few pieces on top of my yogurt. From there, things started to deterioriate very rapidly. Here’s a quick photo recap of some damage:

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Next up was the candies: lots of pillow mints from the candy jar, a random iced tea flavored candy (that tasted exactly like iced tea!), and a mini candy cane:

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After work and a whole lot of subway drama, I made it downtown to the NYU career center to be an informal mentor for an hour to give advice about grad school and working in the non-profit arena. But I think the students were giving me more advice than I was giving them, haha! While there, I snacked on two more mints and a chai tea (made with skim milk and 1/2 pack of sugar in the raw) and swiped four bags of mini honey grams for another time:

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From there, Kate (of running club fame) and I hopped over to a nearby organic restaurant for the first event of NYU’s Green Alumni Network. We had a delicious and free dinner that will be showing up in restaurant review form shortly!

After dinner, I got home and made a little desserty snack of two broken pieces of the new honey graham sticks and a tablespoon of my healthy cream cheese icing:

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And now I’m finally done for the night. Sleep tight!

Happy lunch

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** PSA: Remember that the Blogger Secret Ingredient contest is back in full swing. Submit your date recipes by Sunday to talesofexpansion@gmail.com! **

No gym this morning, so I slept until 7am, whaaaaaat. While I raced around getting ready, a cup of Zucchini-Lime Cheesecake Oatmeal was heating in the oven. Here it is getting steamy with 1/3 cup healthy cream cheese icing and two chopped strawberies:

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As you can see, lunch was super-pumped to get eaten today:

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Key

Hair = enormous navel orange (I ate all its babies last night while packing)

Left eye = 1/2 cup yogurt with banana, apple, strawberries, almond extract, 1 tbsp part-skim ricotta, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger

Right eye = GC-style baked tofu and roasted veggies

Nose = 1/3 cup Wholly Guacamole (it was 1/2 cup until I ate some while packing) for carrot-dipping

Mouth = carrot sticks

Tonight is going to be another late night full of surprise foods. I’m going to be a mentor at an NYU career services event (because I know all the answers, obviously) and then maybe an NYU alumni happy hourish thing. I’ll be back later to report!

Eating my cake

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Mmmmmhmmmm, there was leftover birthday cake hanging around my office yesterday, so I packed a piece and brought it to class last night to round out my apple/pb/raisins/mini-Luna dinner! I also found manchego cheese samples at the gourmet market next to Hunter, so those made the dinner cut, too. Here’s the spread all together:

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Now, let’s talk about this cake for a moment. img_2492In social work, we use something called a strengths-based perspective, and I like to apply this perspective to food from time to time … or all the time. As I worked my way through the cake during class, I noted three major strengths: (1) it had pineapple bits!, (2) the frosting tasted like whipped marshmallows!, and (3) the texture of the sugar flowers on the cake reminded me of meringue!!!

The third strength is the most noteworthy, as sugar flowers on cakes can sometimes have a bitter taste and a rock-like texture that indicates they perhaps were not meant to be eaten. But these flowers were so airy and lightly crunchy that I felt like I was floating on a sea of frothy egg whites. Unfortunately, I developed fuzzy, swirly sugar-head syndrome immediately upon finishing and had a hard time focusing on my class for a few. I ate some bites of roasted vegetables when I got home as I prepped today’s lunch, and that seemed to help, but the fuzz didn’t go away for real until I woke up this morning. I just can’t do sugar like I used to!

After the gym this morning (legs and stairs stats: 1 hr, 15 mins; 434 cals; 125 ave hr, 163 highest), I heated up a cup of my BSI entry: Zucchini-Lime Cheesecake Oatmeal. I may not have won the competition — sushi obviously ranks over oatmeal! — but this meal is still a champ as far as I’m concerned :-). I topped it with 1/3 cup of my healthy cream cheese “frosting”:

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This frosting is sooooooo good. It makes everything taste like carrot cake!

Lunch/evening snacks today are going to be exactly the same as lunch/evening snacks yesterday … with one exception. In place of the mini-Luna bar, I will be taste-testing this beauty:

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That’s right, my Quaker True Delights samples — all six of them! — arrived from Foodbuzz last night. Here they are, marching across my floor:

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And there’s no better time to try one out than on double workout day, right? I should probably be trying a different flavor first since Allison at Green Dog Wine already gave this one rave reviews, but come on, dark chocolate raspberry almond??? Who can resist that?

I’ve got another long day with the running club tonight, but I’ll be back eventually to report on any extra nibbles that appear along the way!