Tag: lunch

Need heat!

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When I got back to the office from my visit this afternoon, I knew there was no way the running club was going to happen tonight. Even though the snow had stopped, I was cold and tired and could think of nothing I wanted less than to wait around for 6:30 so I could run outside in the ice-fest. I’ll go to the gym tomorrow morning instead, once I’ve had time to forget how bitter it is out there. The whole subway ride home, I was alternately sleeping and running through potential dinner items in my head. I came up with steamed cabbage (so original, I know) topped with sofrito:

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LOVE cabbage. I also steamed the core whole (best part!) and snacked on it while I was working on this warm pumpkin mess that involved sauteeing cranberries and apples in a teeny bit of water until the cranberries popped:

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While mixing one cup of canned pumpkin (this past fall, I “picked” a 25-pound pumpkin at a pumpkin patch and spent the better part of a week roasting and pureeing it in eight sections … yet it did not hold a candle to Libby’s 100% pure pumpkin) with vanilla and loads of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. I have a very heavy hand when it comes to those three spices:

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And an egg:

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I mixed everything together and put it in a pan pancake-style on top of a little canola oil:

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My original intention was a pumpkin omelet, but I clearly used way too much pumpkin for the egg to hold it all together. It’s probably physically impossible for me to go easy on the pumpkin. Once it was cooked through, I put half on a plate and saved the other half for tomorrow. Topped with more nutmeg and a bit of yogurt:

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It would have been even more delicious with bananas mixed in, but can you believe I am already out of them??

For dessert, I thawed my last of the homemade chocolates that one of the nurses at my office made before the holiday. Can you guess what’s inside??

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Peanut butter!!!

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Lunch and a tribute to the last muffin

Lunch was definitely the same as it’s been all week (yay for Sunday preparation!):

pork & beans, sofrito rice, yogurt/fruit, muffin, carrots, orange

pork & beans, sofrito rice, yogurt/fruit, muffin, carrots, orange

Do you see that muffin way at the top of the tower?? That is the last kitchen sink muffin from the batch my mom made while I was home. I will miss them. Thanks, Mom! I took two extra pictures of the historic last muffin as a sign of respect:

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And an important reminder: You can still enter the Snacktrition nuts giveaway contest at N Her Shoes until midnight Friday. Free nuts are waiting!

Visions of sugar cookies …

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I have to say again how incredibly cold it was today, and it’s only going to get worse! My internship involves going on lots of home visits, something I love except for the part about having to go outside multiple times each day. Cold like this completely saps all of my energy, and no energy + sitting next to office candy bowl = bad combination! The first thing I did when I got home was make a giant mug (or five) of this:

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I am so excited about this. Are you excited?? Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea is probably the most delicious kind of tea ever made. Just look at these ingredients:

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I have no idea what “natural sugar cookie flavor” is, but it works very well. Drinking this tea right now is even more exciting because, if you did not notice, it is a “Holiday Tea,” meaning it is only available around Christmas. We are well past Christmas, and I have not been able to find it anywhere since mid-December. But my friend Kate stumbled upon a goldmine of Celestial Seasonings Holiday Tea at a health food store here in Brooklyn, and she got me four boxes! I’m planning to make a trip there myself this weekend to see if I can hunt down any more boxes. My goal is to keep sleighing right through to spring!

I addition to my sleigh ride, I made an omelet with the leftover veggies and cheese from the nutrition talk last night. Chopped zucchini, yellow pepper, red pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes:

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Cheese getting ready to dive in with a cute little broccoli bud garnish:

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Omelet with all of the above plus sofrito sauce, coarse sea salt, freshly ground black pepper:

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Bursting with veggies:

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And crispy on top:

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And for dessert, of course, another vitamuffin! Fudgy Peanut Butter Chip VitaTop with peanut butter (and the sleigh ride!):

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Lunch

My lunch was a repeat with a few minor adjustments as a result of my produce luck last night. I had BBQ pork and beans, sofrito rice blend, yogurt (with banana, apple, and strawberries), grapes (from last night!), and some carrots and zucchini (from last night!):

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Breakfast

I was so confused this morning when my alarm went off at 5, and I could tell it was a freezing day. I was dreading going outside to the gym, but I forced myself to do it. And it was COLD. Colder than cold really. But I lived! I did the same workout as Monday, but for some reason had a slightly lower average heart rate (141 vs. 149) and calorie burn (466 vs. 539). I wonder if the cold weather slowed things down? We’ll see what happens tomorrow (how fun that I can really do that with the heart rate monitor!) I kept thinking about the steamy bowl of oats I could have when I got back.

For breakfast, I made an oatmeal starfish:

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As usual, same ingredients but different arrangement: 1/2 cup banana bread crockpot oats, half cup yogurt, sprinkles of nutmeg and sweetened shredded coconut, strawberry, spoonful peanut butter:

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Phew, that was long. Time to go rest my eyes. Night night!

P.S. Oh She Glows is having a scrumptious giveaway contest: a whole box of Honest Foods bars!! Go enter now!

Don’t hate me because I’m boring

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Food thus far today has been (almost) exactly the same as yesterday, but I did try to mix up the arrangement for your viewing pleasure. Here’s my lunch doing gymnastics on the kitchen chair because it was tired of posing for photographs and wanted to get packed already. Pork and beans, sofrito rice, yogurt/fruit, orange, carrot sticks:

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If you’ve been following along, you already know what’s inside. What you don’t know is how many tries it took me to get the orange to stay on top.

Notice I did not pack an emergency back-up snack. That’s because today is an exercise-free day! Plus, I’m going to an alumni talk at NYU tonight about women’s health, and I believe refreshments are planned. I will of course report back if I gather any useful info … but we all know I’m really going for the food. So dinner is anyone’s guess!

Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was also the same … but different. Half cup banana bread crockpot oats, half cup homemade yogurt, sweetened shredded coconut, nutmeg, and peanut butter:

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Notice how the strawberry is whole today (it was chopped and spread around the outside yesterday) and the peanut butter is all around the edge (instead of contained in a spoon):

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I work hard for visual variety!

Shaking things up

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Today’s schedule is little wonky — I’m skipping my internship to attend a mandatory Diversity, Power, & Privilege Workshop (funnnnnnnnn) at Hunter from 10:45-5 (what is possibly going to take that long???). But it does mean that I got to sleep in for 90 extra minutes this morning!

Breakfast

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Ever since my perfect breakfast yesterday, I’ve been fantasizing about eating it again! After my Monday morning workout — 5 mins jog to gym, 15 mins arms with free weights on aerobics step, 30 mins StairMaster with gossip, 10 mins stretching/abs, 5 mins run home (stats from new HRM: time 1.06, cal 539, ave HR 149, highest HR 176) — I got the oatmeal heating in the oven while I showered. Half cup yogurt, half cup banana bread crockpot oats (reheated for 10 mins at 400), sprinkle sweetened shredded coconut, chopped strawberry, nutmeg, spoonful pb:

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So nice to have daylight during breakfast on a Monday morning!

Most Likely Lunch

Here are the snacks and lunch I packed, but if I end up encountering free food up there (doubtful), you know I’ll be taking advantage:

sofrito rice mix, classy pork & beans, orange, yogurt/fruit, carrot sticks, mini muffins

sofrito rice mix, classy pork & beans, orange, yogurt/fruit, carrot sticks, mini muffins

In case you’ve forgotten from yesterday, here’s how it looks inside the tupperwares:

pork & beans

pork & beans

Dominican rice, barley, cabbage, and sofrito sauce

Dominican rice, barley, cabbage, and sofrito sauce

The yogurt mixture today is 1/2 cup yogurt, frozen banana pieces, 1/2 small apple, 1/2 big strawberry, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger:

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It all looks mouth-watering, so I hope I get to eat it!

Pork & beans like a lady

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Teatime!

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Afternoon rolled around, my tum started growling, and I had to begin thinking about lunch for today — and for the rest of the week! After running through a quick inventory of yesterday’s purchases and my already-existing stash of leftovers, I gathered a number of things together.

Clockwise from top left: one cup cooked pork (saved and frozen after a work party six weeks ago!), Dominican rice (from the same party!) + cooked pearled barley (from mom) + sofrito sauce (from coworker Inginia), Jack D BBQ sauce (I would have made some myself, but this was sitting so tantalizingly on the fridge door), two-thirds head of cabbage (yesterday’s groceries), three cups cooked Great Northern beans (from a bag of dried beans I got at the farmers’ market last spring), and one cup chopped grape tomatoes (yesterday’s groceries):

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I thinly chopped the cabbage, steamed it, and mixed half of it with the beans, tomatoes, pork, 1/2 cup BBQ sauce, garlic, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and two Tbsp chicken stock. Then, I simmered everything in a loosely-covered pot so the flavors could mingle:

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I mixed the rice and barley combo with the other half of the steamed cabbage and added s&p and a tsp of minced chipotle chiles in adobo sauce:

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The quantities worked out perfectly: pork & beans made six 3/4 cup servings, and the sofrito grain blend made six 1/2 cup servings.

Today’s lunch with dramatic mood lighting:

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Between the Jack Daniels BBQ sauce and the teacup and saucer, this meal is practically exploding with class, don’t you think?

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And for dessert, a half cup of cantaloupe (I sprinkled on some nutmeg after the picture — soooo happy to have nutmeg again!):

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In true teatime fashion, I didn’t sit down to this lunch until about 3:30 or 4, so dinner will probably be something snackier and dessertier — can’t wait!