Dancer and prancer and donner …

April 29, 2009February 6, 201519 Comments

And that title does not in any way refer to me actually dancing. Because you should know that I absolutely cannot dance in a way that doesn’t make me look like I need to be in a hospital stat.

Anyway, breakfast …

Breakfast was none other than the dazzler I’ve been eating all week: cinnamon bun on flax-oat bran.

This time, I put 2 tbsp part-skim ricotta in the center (instead of mixing it in) to increase visual appeal:

Part 2 was half of a sliced apple with 1/2 cup yogurt/ricotta and a tbsp PB2 (ahhh addiction alert!):

I also made it to the gym this morning. I had to walk there because of the groin issues, and it was much colder out than I had anticipated. Could have used my fleece! Anyway, once there, I did 20 minutes on the new elliptical that has an arm workout setting (yay for multi-tasking), hip ab/adductor and glutes on the Cybex, 20 minutes on the regular elliptical, stretching/abs, and the jog ouch walk back.

No shocker on my morning snack around 10:30. I had yogurt/ricotta with flax (some mixed in and some on top), PB2, and sliced banana:

At noon, we had a meeting with snacks provided. Here’s my plate (I am considering this my lunch appetizer course) with carrots, salsa, tortilla chips, and an apple:

After that, I had two more chips and two more helpings of carrots with salsa (and I also grabbed another apple to take home!).

Main lunch course was Thai seafood coconut curry with the repurposed veggies:

And a piece of Jessica’s orange:

And about an hour later, there seemed to be a second wave of lunch going on. My afternoon visit had gotten cancelled, so I joined the group with my donation salad:

In the process, Nydia hooked me up with about two cups of grapes. Obviously, they’re not all pictured.

Grapes are so easy to pop. I’ve mindlessly eaten two pounds of grapes on more than one occasion in the past … just because they’re there and so yummy. Like popcorn.

And then, Pura, the trouble-maker, came up and dropped some donated Dancing Deer cookies on the dreaded conference room table. Once again, the infamous view from my desk:

I wrapped up one of each (sugar Cookie-Lime, Chocolate-Tangerine, and Molasses-Clove) for later and then broke off a bite of each from the remaining cookies:

The cookies kept taunting me throughout the afternoon. I had this peanut butter Fiber One bar that Jessica gave me yesterday because I was actually feeling hungry (sometimes, several pounds of produce leaves me with an emptyish feeling in my stomach that I just can’t tolerate!) and I didn’t want to accidentally eat all three packages of cookies.

I won’t lie, though. I kept going back for one more bite and one more bite and one more bite until I had eaten the rest of that Molasses cookie. Eric from the environmental department came by (I can usually count on him to house food upon request when I need it to disappear from my sight) and finished off the pack of chocolate cookies. I claimed the crumbs:

When I left work at 5, there were three cookies left. Rosey, Rosalie, and Nydia forced me to take them home with threats that the cleaning lady would just end up throwing them out. I had no choice! So the pile of sugar in my freezer is now six cookies larger. It’s a rough life …

Whew, this post got really long really fast. And I still have way more to say because the food didn’t end there. I think I need to save it for tomorrow, though!

Obviously, there’s a stockpile of cookies and caked in my freezer. Do you have anything stockpiled?

Intermission

April 28, 2009February 6, 201521 Comments

I’m surfacing for just a moment to do a quick recap of the day, and then I’ll be back into the school/work/sleep abyss for the next 24 hours!

Breakfast was more cinnamon bun on flax-oat bran:

With 1/2 sliced apple and 1/3 cup yogurt for dipping, all dusted in cinnamon:

To hold me over until lunch, I had yogurt/ricotta with flax, pb2, banana, and strawberries (from Hunter’s lobby last night):

Lunch was more Thai coconut seafood curry, mixed with the veggies from Hunter’s lobby:

Veggies make everything prettier, don’t they?

I also had a spoonful of Belkis’ perfect perfect meat and rice:

And a salad composed of leftover salad bits from Mildred, Jessica, and yesterday’s mangu lunch. I topped the salad with some of the innards of the chicken, tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwich piece Emily gave me in class last night:

I have an identical salad waiting for me in the fridge for tomorow 🙂

Later in the afternoon, I had an orange:

And another pb-chocolate-apple parfait:

I also opened up my first tin (as opposed to roll) of Newman’s Own Organics peppermints. They’re so cute — just like little Altoids:

I had a bunch during the day. I did not count.

When I got home this evening, I prepped food for tomorrow and then headed out for some exercise. I jogged for 25 minutes until the pain won out, and then I switched to walking for another 20. Somewhere in there, I did 10 reps of the inchworm exercise that Olga told me about.

When I arrived back at the apt, I had a serving of the same chocolate-pb-flax custard that’s in the parfait above with a couple little slices of banana, a sprinkling of unsweetened coconut, and a tsp of pb2:

OK, off to report for bed duty so I can wake up tomorrow and do it all again. Ahh, I can’t wait until this semester is over and the papers are behind me!

A non-mentally-taxing question for tonight: How many separate things did you eat today? According to this entry, I ate 10. That might be a record low!

Layers of stress

April 27, 2009February 6, 201520 Comments

I did go out for a breather last night to combat the homework- and heat-induced hallucinations … and ended up running 3.2 miles! This was a very exciting accomplishment, 12-minute miles and all, as the chafing of my shirt against my arms was more painful than my aggravated muscles. Stats: 38 minutes, 304 calories. I hope this improvement keeps up!

I came back and made a complicated snack to keep my mind off the final paper drama. These were some of the things I used: chocolate-peanut butter-flax egg custard, a mom-gifted apple, and the rest of Vani‘s crunch time peanut butter.

Here’s the scoop on the chocolate-peanut butter-flax egg custard. My roommate Tara had three egg yolks left from her breakfast yesterday morning, so I whisked those over low heat with 1 cup unsweetened soy milk, 1/2 cup water, 2 tbsp ground flax, 2 chopped dates, 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and 2 tbsp PB2. Once the mix thickened, I ran the immersion blender through it for good measure and poured it into three small ramekins to go into the fridge.

For last night’s purposes, I used half of one of the ramekins as the inspiration for this parfait:

For the other layers, I used (1) half of the apple, shredded and mixed with the pb and (2) 1/3 cup total of yogurt mixed with part-skim ricotta and 1 tbsp pb2.

I topped it all off with a biscotti bite for fun.

That mind-blowingly delicious parfait distracted me from school stress for about 30 blissful minutes. When the bliss wore off, I pulled out this little slice of frozen cake from my mom’s birthday 🙂

And then I went to sleep since I knew I wasn’t going to get anything else done!

This morning at the gym, I did 20 minutes Stepmill, legs/chest on Cybex, and 15 minutes elliptical, along with stretching/abs and the jog/walks there and back (hurt again this morning, grrrrr). Stats: 1 hour and 16 minutes, 475 calories, 129 average heart rate, 172 max.

Breakfast was ready to go straight out of the fridge because I prepared it last night, and the day is too hot for hot oats! On the stovetop, I cooked 3 tbsp oat bran and 1 tbsp ground flax with 1/4 cup soymilk and 1/2 cup water. When it was done, I mixed in 1/4 cup part-skim ricotta and lots and lots of cinnamon. I ate it cold this morning topped with 1/4 chopped cinnamon bun from the hotel buffet and more cinnamon.

Icing!

I mixed it all up to eat:

On the side was half of a thinly sliced apple with cinnamon and a tsp of south of the border pistachio butter:

And white peony iced tea (with green in the background!!):

This week is going to be full of research madness. I may never surface again. HA, I’ll probably be back tonight. But if I seem to disappear into a black hole without warning, please don’t be alarmed. I’m just hyperventilating somewhere.

Are you hyperventilating about anything today?

FYI, you can get a free sample of KFC’s new grilled chicken today!

Time crunch, crunch time

April 26, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

I had very important hotel breakfast plans this morning.

I hopped out of bed at 7:30, threw on some running gear, grabbed an expandable bag (hotel buffets and I get along very well) and went for a nice and easy jog (1.3 miles, 15 minutes, 128 calories, average heart rate 154, max 165) up to the Holiday Inn Express where my mom and stepdad were staying so I could join them for the breakfast buffet.

While there, I had a packet of instant oatmeal with 1/2 of a chopped banana and a couple splashes of skim milk. It looked so plain that I considered sprinkling froot loops on the top for color but then thought better of it and crumbled some cranberry muffin and warm cinnamon bun (thanks for the idea, Brandi!) on top.

On the side, I had an interesting egg (it almost had a pancake texture, so I bet it the egg batter had flour or something in it as a thickener) that was folded in half with velveetaish cheese inside. I unfolded, removed the cheese, and gobbled up the remaining eggcake:

The dazzling spread:

I stuffed the other half of the cinnamon bun (plus one more for luck!) into a travel cup to bring home 🙂

Yummm, I predict more cinnamon bun oatmeal on the horizon!

Obviously, the cinnamon bun was not all I brought home. With mom’s help, I stuffed the expandable bag with more oatmeal packets, mini-muffins, oranges, apples, lots of bananas, milk, and yogurts. The buffet did have hard-boiled eggs, but I passed on them since I have enough eggs already!

Once my mom and John got all packed, they drove me (and the goods) back to my apartment, popped in for a glass of white peony iced tea and some biscotti bites, and then continued on their way back up to Massachusetts. An endless trip for them (Massachusetts to Georgia and back … in the car!), but a pleasantly short and sweet visit for me 🙂

I recently (as in four days ago) realized that the final paper for one of my classes is due a week from tomorrow instead of at the end of May (panic panic panic panic), so researching for that was first on my agenda as soon as the fam took off. Of course, I kept finding other things to do, like sweep the floor. (Sweep the floor??? I NEVER sweep the floor. Obviously, I’m desperate.)

At some point, I got hungry again. I considered my new “groceries.” I’d brought four Dannon fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts back from the buffet. I don’t really like flavored yogurt, so I opened each of the containers, extracted the “plain” yogurt part, and combined all the syrupy fruit parts in one container that went into the freezer for a future project. I mixed the still-sweet-berry-tinged “plain” parts with my authentically plain homemade yogurt to decrease the sweetness and sugar content per serving.

For my first lunch, I had 1/2 cup of the resulting yogurt mix with the rest of this morning’s cranberry-orange muffin crumbs and a dollop of the PB & Co. crunch-time peanut butter that Vani “forced” me to take home from her lunch yesterday.

On the side, I had an orange:

With white peony iced tea:

A little while later, the next installment of lunch was due. I had just cooked a bunch of brown basmati rice to mix with the leftover coconut seafood curry that my mom and John brought me yesterday (I’ll be using this curry for the week’s lunches). I had about 1/2 cup of the cooked rice left, so I mashed in half of the overripe banana mom brought yesterday along with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a splash of soymilk.

I topped my banana rice pudding with a dollop of part-skim ricotta and another dollop of Vani’s pb.

And, because I was trying to do some work for school and also trying to avoid doing it, I got “hungry” again very soon. I had three little rye toasties topped with sofrito sauce and a sliced air-damaged cheese stick that mom left behind for me. Five minutes in the broiler took care of the damage 🙂 I topped my crispy sofrito-cheese toasts with freshly ground black pepper and cayenne pepper:

Then I brought a slice of healthy cheesecake out of the freezer to let thaw. Well, I actually didn’t quite let it thaw before I started in on it.

I did keep it up on the kitchen counter though, forcing myself to eat it slowly, one bite at a time, over the next hour every time I got up to do something else.

And now, I’m trying to take slow and deep breaths and tell myself that I will get all my work done in time. I feel on the verge of insanity, so a fresh air break may be in order. We’ll see.

Is your crunch today coming from food, stress, or both?

Nuts, balls, and freebies

April 25, 2009February 6, 201524 Comments

So last, night, even through I was all caked up, I managed to have one last little snack before I went to bed: the last 1/2 cup of my chocolate peanut butter frozen yogurt (unfrozen) from a couple nights ago.

So so so so so so delicious. And there’s not even anything junky in it! Maybe I need to start having chocolate peanut butter frozen yogurt at every meal …

This morning, I woke up at 6:30 even though I had time to sleep until 8. I love waking up to sunlight because it’s so easy — I just wish the sunlight didn’t arrive until at least 7:45 on weekends! Around 8, I made a too-much-cake-upset-tummy-settling bowl of oat bran:

On the stovetop, I whisked 1 egg, 1/4 cup soymilk, and 1/4 cup water over low heat until it thickened custard-style. At that point, in went 2 tbsp oat bran, 1 tbsp ground flax, cinnamon, nutmeg, 1/4 cup pumpkin, and a chopped Medjool date. Once it got “mealy,” I immersion blended to make it creamier:

Around the outside is 1/3 cup of yogurt mixed with 1 tbsp PB2 (and sprinkled with unsweetened coconut):

With soymilky celestial seasonings almond sunset tea:

After breakfast, I headed up to Physique 57 for for the first of my two free classes with the coupon that Melissa handed out at the blogger brunch last month. I was quite a bit nervous for this class because I’ve been reading the reviews of it by some of my other NYC ladies — Ashley, Diana, Dori, Missy, Sara — and they scared me with their talk of quivering thighs and name-brand designer gym clothes! But, the class ended up being much more manageable than anticipated. Granted, I had sweat running down my face and I was certainly quivering at points throughout (I was also convinced my legs would burst into flame at any moment) but always had time to recover — and no one laughed at my four-year-old gym clothes from Target 😀 The instructors were helpful, patient, and encouraging, and I really enjoyed the class. I’m going back next Saturday for #2. Thanks, Melissa!

From Physique, I headed up to meet Vani at Penn Station, where we had planned to collect Danielle from the NJ Transit for our lunch date. Collection was successful, and the three of us enjoyed a summery (apparently, there will be no spring in ny this year??) 30-ish block walk from there to Peanut Butter & Co for lunch. Now, I’ve always wanted to eat at PB & Co. … yet I’ve somehow never managed to do so despite living in the city for nearly nine years, four of which were spent within a five-block radius of the darn place!

It was so airy and bright and cute inside:

We ordered our food and then took pictures of it (though I think the best part of this picture is the random crazy child in the background) 🙂

I got a The Heat Is On sandwich with whole wheat bread, spicy pb, pineapple jam, and pieces of chicken breast:

The sandwich came with chips and carrot sticks, but I don’t like chips so I got it with extra carrots instead:

Mmm, simple on the outside but full of bite and zing on the inside. I kept offering Vani bites by accident and then forgetting she was vegan. Even though I couldn’t share with Vani, she shared some of her sampler platter with Danielle and me:

What a great deal — all 8 flavors with plenty of extra to take home! I had some on a celery stick:

And some on a melba toast:

When we finished at PB & Co, Danielle requested we make a pit stop at Tasti-D since she’d never been. While there, I had a sample of their peanut butter flavor (because there’s no such thing as too much pb!).

Vani and I spotted some balls across the street, so we raced over to get in on that action. I ordered an unsweetened almond milk tea. We posed with our treats:

Next, we made a super-exciting stop at CVS so I could buy a box of band-aids since my feet were struggling to adapt to their first flip-flop experience of the season. Once I applied about 30 bandages, we were off again … this time to the Union Square Greenmarket. Somehow, I managed to get my hands on a million samples as we strolled the grounds. I don’t know how that happened. Scoring samples is very unlike me 😛

Vani, caught in the act:

All in all, it was a super fun day full of sunshine, perfect company, and peanutbuttery food.

In your opinion, what are the three most necessary components of an excellent day?

I’m off to take a very necessary shower and get ready for dinner. My mom and stepdad are passing through the city tonight as part of their massive East coast return road trip — Providence to Atlanta and back, all driving, stopping at several points along the way to visit family and friends — and staying overnight in Brooklyn. I need to think of a good place for us to go. Hmmm …

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: peanut butter

Dancer and prancer and donner …

Intermission

Layers of stress

Time crunch, crunch time

Nuts, balls, and freebies

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