Tag: party food

Chocolate everywhere

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This afternoon, I received the package from my Secret Blogger Cupid … and fellow New Yorker apparently! Nicole from Another One Bites the Crust sent these fun goodies:

GIANT Lindt milk chocolate hazelnut bar, conversation hearts, and chocolate-covered pretzel

GIANT Lindt milk chocolate hazelnut bar, conversation hearts, and chocolate-covered pretzel

I’m most excited about this:

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Some broke off during the photo shoot (whoops), so I had to eat it:

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I’ve done ok on my to-do list today but not as well as I’d hoped! Where does the time go?

1. run/yoga

2. CVS/library/grocery store

3. work homework

4. grad school homework

5. hair dye

6. BSI

7. contribution to work Valentine’s lunch

8. sorting student loan confusion

While out erranding, I got some unexpected groceries! After sampling a mozzarella ball and marinated mushrooms at the gourmet market, I went to the cheap grocery store and CVS for the following:

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2 library books, tp, 3 boxes of hair dye (on sale for $2.50 each!), pumpkin, vanilla, sunsweet ones (.75 off coupon), strawberries, molasses (because I used up roommate's last week!), oranges (for BSI), bear naked vanilla almond granola ($1.50 off coupon)

Total: $35. Food total only: $20!

While I worked on my BSI (keep reading for recipe), I did a bit of snacking. The hazelnut bar came at just the right time :-).

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(Ummm, I had quite a bit more than pictured, but I quickly broke it up into small pieces and put it in the freezer before too much damage was done!)

Also, had to “clean up” after myself while cooking and scrape all bowls (with my tongue):

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Dinner needed to be (somewhat) light. I had  steamed asparagus with a bit of grated homemade cheddar:

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Along with 1/3 of a wheat bagel and 1/3 of a nut and seed bagel with 1 tbsp peanut butter, a chopped date, and cinnamon:

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For dessert, I had the mini-version of my BSI submission (which also happens to be my contribution for the work Valentine’s lunch tomorrow and my entry for the Quaker True Delights recipe contest): Orange-Cranberry Dark Chocolate Heart Tart:

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Holy yum!! That’s right, VeggieGirl, I said it :-).

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And now back to the battle for a timely bedtime! Am I the only one who feels like every night is a race against the clock?

Bed without dinner

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That’s right — I’ve sent myself to bed without dinner! And I’ll show you why …

I was hungry hungry the second I got to work today. I ate grapes and drank sugar cookie sleigh ride tea before the meeting at 9:30:

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Mid-meeting, I couldn’t hold out any longer and had to break open the yogurt. Today’s combo included 1/2 cup yogurt, 1/3 chopped banana, 1/2 chopped apple, 1 tbsp raisins!, 2 tbsp pumpkin!, cinnamon, ginger, and 1 tbsp Kashi Golean Crunch!:

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I wasn’t even hungry again yet, really. But I needed something to wake me up! It was sooooo hot in that room.

Post-meeting, I caved to a candy craving:

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And another one:

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And then these chewy strawberry fangs attacked my phone and I had to act fast to carry out a successful rescue:

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Plus, I ate a few regular mints and a few more sugar-free mints. Ahhh, this candy habit is becoming troublesome!! I probably could have halted the trainwreck had I known what was coming later in the day …

But before sugargate #2, I had lunch. A mix of Belkis’ habichuelas, Inginia’s gandules, and Vianni’s vegetable rice:

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The last 1/3 cup of my kale and date curry:

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And many tastes! A bite of lentils with turkey (this was AMAAAAAAZING, bursting with flavor) that Belkis’ cousin made:

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A tortilla chip from Wendy and a bite of spaghetti with meat sauce from Jessica:

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And a chicken and cheese taco that Deborah’s mom made, mmmmmm!

outside

outside

inside

inside

I had an apple with some work pb (Jiffy) around 2:

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And green beans before meeting #2 at 3:15:

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And then, T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Delicious trouble, but trouble nonetheless. If you’re sensitive to photographs of ridiculous dessert, you should probably run away from the computer very fast.

In honor of a coworker’s 10th anniversary with the agency, a surprise celebration was planned to take place during the meeting. Involving this:

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Again:

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That is MOCHA frosting, in case you’re not an expert on this sort of thing.

Sadly, Rosalie wasn’t able to come in today, so we had to have the celebration without her!! We saved her some of this amazing cake, and I documented everything with the camera of course. I love this picture because you can literally see the cake vanishing into thin air:

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I had TWO enormous pieces (I’m really not exaggerating), plus lots of frosting
that I scraped off the cardboard. I couldn’t stop. Everything about this cake was amazing. Even though it was from a bakery, it still tasted homemade. And the coffee flavor kept it from being so overbearingly sweet. And the texture, ahh!! Perfectly moist. It all went something like this:

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So, for this reason, I am in bed without dinner!! One of my friends from home has been reading the blog and emailed me today to say, “You must weigh about 10 pounds! I have been following your blog, you are crazy healthy!” Kerri, this is why I do not weigh 10 pounds! (and thank goodness for that :-))

I came home and ate a very very quick palate cleanser to remind myself how wonderful healthy tastes (although that cake was so goooooooooooooooood). Two spoonfuls of pumpkin, two spoonfuls of yogurt, cinnamon, and grapes:

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I felt very wholesome after that.

And then I spent a few minutes playing with a special treat that arrived today:

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Yes, MY PRIZE from being one of the lucky winners of Tina’s Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt! Look at all of the goodies Tina sent:

z-bar, pria bar, trio bar, adora calcium disks (!!), $5 off Boboli coupon, Tazo teabags, Burt's Bees lip treatments, chocolates, AND candy bracelets!!

z-bar, pria bar, trio bar, adora calcium disks (!!), $5 off Boboli coupon, Tazo teabags, Burt's Bees lip treatments, chocolates, AND candy bracelets!!

THANKS, TINA!!! This is such a variety-filled, fun package. I can’t wait to play more with all of my new treats :-).

AND, I have the day off tomorrow!!! I’m feeling so relaxed right now. My goal is 12 hours of sleep tonight. Do you think it is possible?

I’ll have to resume productivity mode as soon as I get up, but it’s nice to have a few unrushed minutes right now. Tomorrow’s agenda includes: a sweaty run (because did you see all the cake I ate?), errands to CVS and the library, preparing my contribution to our work Valentine’s lunch on Friday, figuring out what to make for this week’s BSI, work homework, grad school homework, hair dye, sorting out student loan confusion, and more! Are there even enough hours in the day?

P.S. Go visit Meghann to participate in her brilliant Gracie’s Gear giveaway!

Restaurant Review: Gusto Organics

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Last night after the NYU mentoring session, Kate and I headed over to Gusto Organics, NY’s first USDA certified organic restaurant, for an event hosted by NYU’s new Green Alumni Network. NYU has really been pushing the school spirit lately with all these food-containing events! While I didn’t actually have to pay for anything at this restaurant, my experience last night definitely made me want to return.

The latest craze in restauranting seems to be food with a philosophy. Gusto has jumped right onto that bus with the motto, “changing the world one meal at a tiime.” The decor was warm and peaceful with a candlelit feel and natural accents:

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Kate and I had some of everything. We split four delicious empanadas, the flavor complexity of which no photo can possibly capture:

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1/2 bruchetta-filled empanada; 1/2 ground meat-filled

1/2 cheese-filled

1/2 cheese-filled

'nother 1/2 meat-filled

'nother 1/2 meat-filled

pretty exterior

pretty exterior

And a square of verrrrrrrry thin crust cheese pizza:

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And two squares of grilled veggie pizza with zucchini and eggplant, mmmm:

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I had two more squares after this. And then I was on a roll, so I peeled the veggies off of probably 5 more slices and ate them :-). Gusto also had free sangria for the event!!

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I drank about half of this before I remembered I don’t like wine. So I poured out the liquid and ate the fruit. And did the same for another glass:

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So anyway, with such prompt service and quality taste for a free event, I can’t imagine the possibilities for an actual paid meal! My NYU undergrad degree may be the reason I’m poor, but that school is certainly doing its part to keep me from starving now :-).

On the way out, I found a box full of pins for all different ny neighborhoods … including mine! Now I can rock my slope pride in style:

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The meal plan today is wayyyy up in the air since my schedule involves a lot of commuting (slope to upper east side to bay ridge to village and back to slope) until 9ish again with food appearing at various junctures along the way. I’ll come back eventually to let you know how it all pans out!

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!

Piece(s) of cake

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But first, a BSI update:

The Blogger Secret Ingredient contest is now up and running, and the ingredient of the week is dates! I love dates. Especially first ones because I generally don’t have to pay for dinner when I’m on them :-). JOKE (sort of). Anyway, Tri to Cook has gotten the ball rolling with a re-submission from a former BSI: Date & Butternut Squash Puree. What are your date tricks?

Now, onto the cake …

That’s right, more cake arrived on the conference room table right next to my desk today! When it rains it pours. I still had last night’s post-sugar reaction in the front of my mind, so I decided to take a moment and decide how to proceed instead of losing my head and going into my free-food survival mode.

The best way to contemplate this type of decision is with a healthy and hearty snack. I carefully sliced my apple into many pieces, spread peanut butter on each individual slice, and stuck the raisins one-by-one on top of the peanut butter as I glared at the cakes out of the corner of my eye and sent them this message via brain waves: Cake, you don’t bother me and I’m in no rush to see you because I am savoring a beautiful snack without your help right now:

ants on apples

ants on apples

I’m sorry, cake. You can’t hold a candle to this crunchy peanut butter bliss:

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I thought a little bit harder while working on this mini chocolate ball from Belkis:

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And then I stopped pretending that I don’t love cake. Because I do love cake, and I wouldn’t be me if I let this opportunity slip by. I got one plate of cake. And then another. And then another. In the end, I collected three plates of cake (one piece of peach cake and two pieces of real authentic carrot cake):

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But score one million for me because these beauties went right into my emptied lunch tupperwares rather than into my belly! Right now, they’re resting comfortably in my freezer so that they are ready for their next assignment when I am.

Lest you think that I’m a saint, immune to refined sugar in all its forms (though how you could think that if you read this blog, I don’t know), this end of a piece did go into my belly:

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It is carrot cake, after all. And nothing beats carrot cake with real cream cheese icing … except maybe my oatmeal-turned-carrot-cake.

I followed the carrot cake with a palate-cleansing mini candy cane because I hadn’t already eaten five pillow mints or anything:

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Next up was running club, and ohhhh man, did my legs feel like lead tonight! I was lagging wayyyy behind the rest of the group, and this super classy dude to my left kept spitting every 10 seconds. I almost told him to swallow it, but instead, I let myself lag even more to get some distance. Do you know how unnerving it is to have a constant spitting sound three inches away from your left ear? Ick, I’m getting chills thinking about it. At least I finished the run! Stats for four miles plus an additional seven-minute warm-up/jog: 51 minutes, 415 calories, average heart rate 150, highest heart rate 173.

On the subway ride home, I dove into the giant orange I had packed plus my first Quaker True Delights bar sample: Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond. Before I say anything else, this bar was DELICIOUS. It did not have the vague berry-ness of other granola bars but rather a very specific and natural raspberry flavor enhanced by the visible raspberry (and dark chocolate, of course) chunks:

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However, I couldn’t help but notice that this Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond bar was lacking the critical almond component — I couldn’t even detect any essence of almond flavor. And I was looking! In fact, not until the very last bite did I discover any evidence at all:

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Again, the bar was delicious, but it needs either renaming or more almonds (obviously, my preference is the latter!).

After the subway, I raced home, packed (and nibbled on) tomorrow’s lunch, showered, and now it is finally bedtime. This week has been going non-stop, and it’s only Tuesday, ahh!

Good night!