Tag: pumpkin

Stories of inflation

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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:

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(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:

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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:

img_5479Like 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:

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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!

Scrappy afternoon

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Ayyy, I spent all day yesterday doing homework for my group presentation tonight. As I worked, I snacked. Homework and snacks are a match made in heaven. Am I right, or am I right?

I transferred Brigitte’s no-bake-cookies-and-cream birthday cake from its foil tin to covered tupperwares to allow for easier stacking. And then I licked the tin and the foil:

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And I also had this little end of the 2nd to last log of cake because it “didn’t fit” in the tupperware:

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I munched on a fresh pineapple core while chopping (and nibbling on) the rest:

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I made crockpot oats for the week and “sampled” some of the ingredients that you see here while I prepped, because have you ever been able to resist of pile of chopped dates and toasted almonds just sitting in front of you? Didn’t think so.

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After all of that food-prep snacking, dinner ended up being a pretty light (and late) affair. I had about 1/2 cup of this week’s oatmeal concoction (details to come in my next post) piping hot and straight out of the crockpot, topped with some Heather-inspired chocolate mousse and 1 tbsp vanilla-almond granola:

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To make the mousse, I combined about 2/3 cup cooked whole wheat couscous (left over from roommate Tara’s lunches last week) with 1/2 an avocado, 1 tsp maple cream, 2 tbsp soymilk, and 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder:

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And because I couldn’t stop and I’m a volume fiend, I also added 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1/4 cup plain yogurt, 1/4 cup healthy cream cheese icing, and 1/4 cup pumpkin. Post-immersion blending:

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Hmm, looks suspiciously like chocolate frosting, right? These proportions made about 1 1/4 cups of mousse. I half-froze 1/4 cup, and that’s what I used to top my hot dinner oats. It was like an ice cream brownie sundae … except not on a brownie.

Anyway, the mousse was delicious, and I am now the world’s biggest fan of this avocado trick. Thanks, Heather!

Do you eat while you cook?

Clickity clack clickity clack

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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 …

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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 😀

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With soymilky black tea and extra icing on the side:

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

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

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

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

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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

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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!

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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:

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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.

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

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

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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:

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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:

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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:

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We all loved this cake! Especially the hazelnut frosting:

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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:

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

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I also had a failed basil-spice meringue kiss:

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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:

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

What have you won this weekend?

A good excuse

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Ohhhhh my goodness, this morning feels like 10 years ago. Thanks for sending so much running energy my way. I really felt it while I was out there!!

Before the run, I had to make sure I was sufficiently fueled of course 😀

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Breakfast was 2/3 toasted sun-dried tomato bagel topped with the 2 tbsp peanut-butter-pumpkin-roasted-red-pepper hummus and 1.5 black bean-salmon patties that I have been carrying around and trying to eat for lunch since Wednesday. On the side, I had 2/3 chopped apple (rescued from work yesterday!) with cinnamon and soymilky almond tea from last night. I actually got two more decently strong pots out of that one tea bag!

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And ok, ok, I couldn’t resist having one more little bite of Brigitte’s no-bake cookies and cream birthday cake log:

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And then it was time for the run!! (Well, it was time for the run about 75 minutes later — digestion is key.)

Kate and I had lunch plans pretty soon after the run, so I worked out a route for us that would streamline the process, allowing her to run the 2 miles from her apartment to mine to pick me up and avoid any subway drama. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. I can’t believe we went from snow to tank-top weather in under a week!

From my place, we did a loop of the park and ran through industrial Brooklyn (breathtaking) to Red Hook. Kate tried to stop and walk after the park loop (to be fair, she had already run nearly 6 miles by this point), but I told her she wasn’t allowed and we would be beginning our downward slope any minute. She powered through like a champ, and her feeling of death became a distant memory.

Kate split off around my mile 6 to run home, and I continued on through the projects and exhaust-filled highways to more charming neighborhoods (including my own) to complete my own 9 . .. or 9.4 to be exact :-D. Yay, I’m so proud that I did it all!! Things got so much easier after the first 4 miles, and mile 7 was actually the easiest of the bunch. I remember thinking that I felt like I could run the whole things three times over and that the half marathon in May would be no biggie! That feeling only lasted for a mile 7, though. The last 2 miles were tough, but I ran by a lot of smiley babies (welcome to Saturday morning in the Slope) that kept me going. Stats: 1 hour and 36 minutes, 848 calories, average heart rate 157, max 178.

When I got home, I settled in for some Gentle Hatha #1 from yogadownload. Wow, yoga never felt so good! I’ve done this class several times, and this is the first time I wasn’t watching the clock and waiting for it to end. And then I ran around like a mad woman trying to get ready and ended up 40 minutes late for the lunch (details to come), whoops!! I used to be so prompt, but at least I had a semi-decent excuse.

What makes you late?