Tag: sweet potato

Misplaced birth

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The spinach oats kept me going until about 10:30 this morning — 3 to 3.5 hours seems to be the most distance I can get out of a bowl of oatmeal. Fine with me since the hunger means I get to start eating earlier 😀

I had a small chopped apple with one of the packets of Barney Butter that came in my Foods That Fit prize pack.

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It was my first time trying Barney Butter, and I was enough of a fan to pull apart the little packet post-squeeze and make sure I took care of every last one of the 90 calories in there!

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As tasty as the BB was, I don’t think I’d buy it. It has a bunch of unnecessary ingredients in it that I’d rather get from, say … cake! My nut butter can keep being made out of just nuts, thank you very much.

I was hungry again by 11:30 and decided to honor the feeling pronto with lunch #1: three more of the stuffed collard greens that I described last night and a sampling of my roommate Tara’s baby hydroponic tomatoes because she told me they were blogworthy and I agreed.

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The green ones look like mini-watermelons — so cute!

I ate real lunch at about 12:30 and, since I am once again the luckiest girl in the world with the most amazing coworkers, Myrna cooked last night and brought in a TON of food for me! I shared it with Vianni, and there was still some leftover to put toward tomorrow’s lunch. Here’s my bowl:

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My roasted veggies are in the back, and Myrna’s culinary masterpieces are in the front: rice with corn, potatoes, and chicken breast. I don’t even like potatoes, but Myrna seasoned these so beautifully that I actually ate all the skinny burnt pieces I could get my hands on.

Myrna supplemented the food she cooked with her leftover mangu from yesterday, be still my heart. I had about a cup of it.

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Next, Belkis appeared with her famous black beans and rice. I was in heaven and had about 1/2 cup:

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And for dessert, another tongue-painter candy:

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I have to say that I was kind of nervous about these “paint” candies because having a bright tongue could potentially challenge my credibility with clients, but I’m so weak when it comes to strawberry-flavored candy! Luckily, there was no lasting damage to my oral pigmentation yesterday OR today.

I had to leave for another visit around 1:40 and could tell hunger was coming back for me, so I ate my pretty yogurt before I left:

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A number of you commented yesterday about how delicious my yogurt breakfast combo looked when I ate this for a morning snack. I would just like to clarify that never in a million years would this itty bitty container with 1/2 cup fruit and 1/2 cup yogurt suffice for breakfast! It’s all about the oats 😀 That’s why they get their own post. I just use the yogurt as a tasty vehicle to keep the munchies at bay inter-meal!

And an on-the-way-to-the-visit breath freshener 😉

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When I got back to the office at 3:30, I had another super exciting treat waiting! Belkis’ cousin had stopped by with some freshly made habichuelas con dulce, YUM. I inhaled about a cup. Look at those big chunks of sweet batata!

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Perhaps I should have been born in the DR. Mom and dad, what were you thinking with the whole Massachusetts thing?

I had one more candy before calling it a day:

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I’m going to go out on a very sturdy limb and say that habichuelas con dulce is my new favorite dessert drink (my old and other favorite dessert drink is the balls of course). What is your favorite dessert drink?

Now I’m home, and I just remembered I have an assignment for class due Thursday that needs to get done stat!! Ahhhh, I’m off to go bury my head in the books … or the overpriced coursepack, as the case may be. I hate remembering things like this last minute! I’ll be back eventually with dinner because I’m 150% sure I’m about to eat in 3 …2 … 1 …

Food rich, cash poor

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I may not get paid in cash at my internship, but as you’ve all seen time and time again, I definitely get paid in food!

Before my 11:00 visit this morning, the standard morning snack came out to keep me going until lunch. I had a mug of Earl Grey to accompany my 2/3 cup yogurt with 1/2 small chopped apple, a sprinkle of vanilla-almond granola, cinnamon, and cardamom:

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Immediately after the visit, I ran down to join Inginia for our regular Monday parents’ group. Today was a special day because all of the kids in the group are turning two this month! We celebrated by making play-dough together 😀

Here I am with some ghost children and their moms (confidentiality and all …):

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The celebration continued with mac & cheese courtesy of Inginia’s culinary skills. She doctored a regular boxed mix with extra cheese, eggs, oregano, and black pepper:

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I had about two cups worth — it was so delicious! (no surprise there)

The best part of our celebration was cake-decorating!! Right before the group, Inginia baked a pineapple cake.

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We let the kids go to town with vanilla and chocolate frosting.

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I scraped the empty frosting jar clean, of course. It was ALMOST as satisfying as scraping a peanut butter jar clean 😉

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Next up were the sprinkles.

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Two! The finished product, plus the fancy custard-filled white cake one of the moms brought in:

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My small plate was bursting with pieces of each, plus more frosting scrapings from the spatulas.

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We packed up the leftover cake for the families to take home, and then I filled this cup with all the rest of the crumbs and frosting still on the plates and savored every bite.

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(You might notice some suspicious chocolate cake crumbs in that cup that don’t seem as though they match up with either of the two birthday cakes (or you might not). Good eye! I randomly found a bag of chocolate cake crumbs in one of the kitchens at work and thought it would pair splendidly with my cup o’ frosting. I was right :D)

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Afternoon snack (as if I needed it) happened when Jessica brought out her baked batata! I loooooove me some batata, so I had about half of it:

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It was around this time that the best announcement of the day came on over the loudspeaker: “Attention staff: We have collard greens available in Advocacy. Please come down if you would like some.” You know I was up and running at that one!

The food bank delivery had come in for our pantry, but the pantry will be closed tomorrow … meaning that all the extra perishable produce had to go! I went down and Pura hooked me up with two bags. On my way out of the office later, I stopped into the Advocacy kitchen one more time to make sure nothing was in danger of rotting while the department is out “advocating” in Albany tomorrow, and my timing was perfect. Lucia loaded me up with another bag of collard greens, a tightly packed bag of fresh spinach, a bag of radishes, and three enormous carrots!

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(Also worth mentioning: I survived the day with only four mints from Belkis’ candy jar! Not sure how much of a sugar success that actually is given that I ate my weight in frosting earlier …)

Straggering under my heavy bags of books and produce (not complaining!), I speed-subwayed the 40 blocks from work to class and made it just in the nick of time. The group presenting tonight did a great job with their topic of addiction … including food addiction. We talked about my blog briefly (as a healthy example, of course ;)), so welcome HBII classmates if you’re reading!

I wasn’t all that hungry for dinner (understandably), so I had about 1/2 cup mix of mac & cheese left from the group, mystery fried rice left from Vianni’s lunch, and mixed-grain salad.

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I got hungrier near the end of class, so I also ate my cup of roasted veggies:

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And this cup of cantaloupe that was also left from the parents’ group:

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And now, it’s really really time for me to go to bed. I hope I fall asleep quickly tonight — yoga was nice this morning, but I missed my gym-time!

Do you have a morning routine that helps set you up for a productive day?

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?

Sprinkles, icing, and parental advice

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As of Wednesday night, I did not feel like the week was moving quickly AT ALL. But as of this morning, I feel like it has flown! How did that happen?

Quick rewind to last night. Dinner was simple but delicious. I had a morningstar asian veggie patty (the last one — so sad!), half of a baked sweet potato dolloped with plain yogurt and sprinkled with cinnamon, and a market sample toastie with sample cheese:

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I was clearly in a frozen treat mood yesterday, so I got some homemade froyo going in the freezer while I was eating dinner. This mix included 1/3 cup healthy cream cheese icing, 1/2 cup pumpkin (for volumizing purposes), 1 tsp peanut butter, and a chopped piece of lindt hazelnut chocolate. Oh, and also a market sample almondine cookie. And light whipped cream. And more sprinkles (because my dad told me that brown foods don’t look pretty or appetizing on the blog).

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And then I had one more piece of hazelnut chocolate because I really wanted it:

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This morning at the gym, I did arms and steps and racked up the following stats: 1 hour and 14 minutes, 435 calories, 126 average heart rate, 170 max.

And breakfast was the same it’s been all week. Doesn’t taste old yet, though! (I don’t think my crockpot oats will ever taste old to me.) One cup of pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats with 1/2 cup healthy cream cheese icing, unsweetened coconut, crumbled grahams, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin seeds:

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And can’t forget the soymilky black tea on the side:

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I ate strategically to make the cream cheese icing outlast the oats because I had a plan for breakfast part 2! I mixed the rest of the icing with about 2/3 cup of canned pumpkin and the appropriate spices for a bit of pumpkin pie pudding 🙂

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On an unrelated sidenote, my mom left me a comment yesterday and said, among other things: “Wow, are you giving me such great cooking and eating ideas. I love it and you, too! Love and xoxoxoxox, om.” A second later, she left this comment: “I don’t mean the yoga om, obviously. It’s a typo. Mom.” I thought that was a very cute mom moment, and I had to share!

Funny how both of my parents showed up in this post. Have you received any useful/funny parental or family input this week?


With sprinkles on top

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Thursday is my wake-up-to-sunlight day, and I love it! I got up at 6:30 this morning so I could enjoy a sunrise run through the park. My motivation faltered significantly when I got outside and felt how cold it was. All my muscles tightened up, and my legs just did not want to move! But I told myself I could run as slow as I wanted and turn around if I needed to, and I ended up doing a whole lap of the park plus a teeny bit extra. It was so gorgeous out there with everything all snow-covered … but it was kind of lost on me because I am ready to see some green! Stats: 4.1 miles, 45 minutes, 342 calories, average heart rate 144, max 169.

I had planned to do the 20-minute Gentle Hatha #1 yogadownload when I got home, but I just didn’t have it in me! I did a few pigeons, dogs, and child’s poses on my own instead.

Breakfast was another cup of pumpkin gingerbread crockpot oats:

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With 1/2 cup healthy cream cheese icing, coconut, pumpkin seeds, cumbled graham sticks, cinnamon, and ginger:

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And soymilky black tea:

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During class, I snacked on 1.5 black bean-salmon patties dipped in 2 tbsp peanut-butter-pumpkin-roasted-red-pepper-hummus:

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Don’t judge. It was delicious.

I also ate 2 dates and 2 prunes for snack dessert:

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We had advisement after class, so I brought along a full lunch to carry me through, including what I made Tuesday night when I realized how low on produce I was. After rummaging through the depths of my cabinets and freezer, I came up with a can of chickpeas, a box of frozen spinach, and a can of tomato sauce. Seemed like cause for Indian food to me! I quickly threw together this dal with some adjustments (scallions in place of the onions I didn’t have, tomato sauce in place of the tomatoes I didn’t have, cardamom plus every spice in my cabinet in place of the garam masala I didn’t have, sweet potato pieces because I did have them and thought they’d be fun in it) and added in about 3/4 cup cooked brown basmati rice. Here’s today’s one-cup portion:

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With my “pumpkin plus” yogurt:

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After advisement, Emily, Lisa, and I stayed on to touch base for the group presentation we’re giving next week (about infant adoption, yay!). I was thoroughly drained when it was all said and done and needed some Tasti-D stat:

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I got a swirl of dulce de leche and burnt sugar (which, in reality, tasted like fancy names for vanilla and chocolate). But it was still very tasti:

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With sprinkles on top, obviously, because what is ice cream without sprinkles?

I’m finally home and contemplating things like dinner and the Fridayness of tomorrow.

What do YOU put on top?