Souvenirs

May 15, 2009February 6, 201511 Comments

Ohh my goodness, I have so much to talk about today!

First, I ate the last serving of muffin-cauliflower oat bran for breakfast.

This was not, however, any regular old cauliflower-muffin oat bran. Something special (and I’m not even talking about the cauliflower or the muffins here) was hidden inside the creamy depths.

Lucuma powder!

Lucuma is a fruit that grows in the South American highlands. Everything was lucuma-flavored when I lived in Peru last summer: yogurt, ice cream, cookies. Proof:

(Yes, I saved all my cookie/candy/ice cream wrappers from the trip. Obviously.)

It took me a while when I was in Peru to even figure out what lucuma was. A spice? A candy? Its flavor is not particularly fruity. I finally asked my host family, as I was chowing down on my 15th lucuma cream-filled sandwich cookie, What the heck is this stuff? When I found out it was a fruit, I wanted to go hunt it down so I could see it in person, but they explained that it wasn’t really sold fresh because it’s kind of hard and inedible in its fresh form. So I have still never come across a live lucuma. However, I was super-excited when I found out that Navitas Naturals had a lucuma powder, and I immediately put in a request. And I was so happy to see such Peruvian love all over the packaging!

While lucuma is not my favorite flavor in the world, tasting it brings me back to my perfect Peruvian summer. It’s a worthy sacrifice.

I mixed 1 tbsp of the powder into the muffin-cauliflower oatbran and enjoyed it atop 1/2 cup yogurt decorated with re-hydrated goji berries. I added the last 2 tsp of Artisana madademic-cashew butter as icing for my lucuma mountain.

Ohh, memories. Dear Peru: I will be back.

After breakfast, I did some bedroom organizing/spring cleaning and then threw on my gym clothes (I plan to exercise eventually today) and went out for errands, some of which were food-related. I stopped at the grocery store because I read on Soap & Chocolate that blackberry sales in the city were in full swing. Diana was right! I got two bigger-than-normal (but still pretty small) containers for $4. I also hit up the post office to pick up some belated birthday treats from my sisters!!

They know me so well 😀 Emily sent me running sleeves (those crazy-colored things spilling out of the “sister present ball”) that I can roll up or roll down depending on the weather, and Allie sent a bunch of tasty goodies: cherry pie and cashew cookie larabars, plum-flavored gummy candies, and yerba mate. Plus this perfect birthday card:

I tried a plum gummy right away:

Yummmmmmmm.

Followed by yerba mate, which I prepared with soy milk and honey as per the recommendation on the package (gotta follow instructions, right?).

Delicious! Smoky and sweet — I love it. Thank you, amazing sisters!

Side note: the honey I used for the tea came from some Smuckers sample honey packets that my mom collected for me from various hotel breakfast buffets (like mother, like daughter). But, the point of this side note is that the baby Artisana nut butter jars are perfect holders from the honey, since I rarely use a whole packet in one go. My five packets of honey perfectly filled up two little jars, and now I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to finish that honey packet before it spills all over everything in the fridge.

This just in: Look how green the mate turns as it cools!

Also, you can get free chocolate today if you hurry (Thanks to Erin Gunn for the tip!)

What’s the craziest “souvenir” you’ve saved from a trip?

Cacao powow

May 14, 2009February 6, 201520 Comments

After my tea yesterday, I bummed around a bit (ohhh, the luxury of this new and temporary lifestyle!) and then set myself up with a bit of dinsert: Carrot “Pudding” Cake.

I finished the last of the original batch Tuesday and loved it so much that I instantly made two more. I keep surprising myself that this concoction tastes like actual carrot cake, except more moist, dense, and rich. I’ve really outdone myself here 🙂

There were a few differences between this batch and the last due to changing ingredient availability. Most notably, I used a package of Peeled Apple-2-the-core in place of whatever fruit I used last time.

In place of the strawberry cake icing that I no longer have, I used a mix of plain yogurt, molasses, cinnamon, and vanilla. To thicken it, I dissolved less than a tsp of unflavored gelatin in a tbsp of boiling water, mixed it into the icing, and let it chill for a bit in the fridge before spreading.

On the side, I had a whole strawberry in dark chocolate from Oh! Nuts:

Oh! my goodness. You can probably imagine how delicious this tasted. And with a real, live strawberry inside (the seeds, too!):

(Those are knife marks and not teeth marks. My teeth are not that perfect.)

I went to the gym this morning and came home for some muffin-cauliflower oat bran. After heating it, I had it on top of 1/2 cup of yogurt with a tsp each of Astisana macademia cashew butter and cacao bliss:

I also sprinkled coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg, and coriander on top.

And I ate breakfast with a big mug of soymilky Numi Chocolate Puerh tea after “tempting fresh water to a boil” as per the instructions:

The chocolate flavor in this tea was actually very understated. It was good, but it tasted like regular black tea to me with just a minor hint of subtle chocolateyness. Out of curiosity, though, I did lick the tea bag (shhhhh) since it actually has cacao nibs in it. That tasted like chocolate. Maybe I should break open the tea bag and dump the whole thing in next time. Hmmmmmm …

OK, time for some classssssss! Today, I get to turn in my final paper, yipEEEEEEE.

What do you get to do today?

Ancient mysteries

May 13, 2009February 6, 201515 Comments

I broke my own rule this afternoon and went for a secret run.

I know I’ve been saying (at least in my head) that I’m not going to run at all between now and the half marathon on May 30 because I need to let all of my muscles heal for real, but I couldn’t help myself. After finishing my paper, all I wanted to do was run. Perhaps because I really just needed an excuse to wear my official Endurance Challenge 2009 tech shirt:

Hello giant teeth.

(Speaking of which, I updated the race post with official mid-race pictures of me dying.)

I made it 25 minutes before the pain forced me to stop, and then I finished the loop of the park with a 30-minute walk. And now that that is taken care of, I really promise that there will be no more running until the half. Maybe.

I came home and felt hungry for a snack, so I heated up some of the leftover mangu I’ve been saving in the freezer since a mom made it for me at work a few weeks ago. Remember the mangu? I do! Here it was back then:

picture-024

And here’s my doctored version:

The doctoring took place yesterday (I actually ate some yesterday, too, but I never got around to blogging about it). I had about one cup of the mangu left, so I mashed that in with half a head of steamed cauliflower to (1) make it last longer and (2) increase the healthiness of the dish. Mangu is basically mashed plantains, but I saw how the mom was cooking it, and let’s just say that this mangu was not wanting for oil or salt! I had to spread the wealth, and cauliflower seemed the perfect way to do it 😀

I topped 1/2 cup of the revised cauliflower-mangu with one of the mom’s tostones and a little piece of her vineger-ed onion (which used to be bright purple but lost its color in the oven-reheat process):

Around this time, I also decided I was in the mood for tea. What to do, what to do … Oh wait! What’s inside this random jewelry box-ish thing?

It’s a sampler of
Numi teas! I’m sorry for the product placement that is about to occur, but the packaging excited me so much that I can’t help myself. I found out about these teas a few weeks ago when Brandi mentioned them, and I knew I had to get my hands on some, if only because the website is full of flowery prose: “Numi elevates the tea experience through quality, creativity, and authenticity.” Elevate me, please!

The sampler has all four flavors of their puerh tea which has been “picked from wild-harvested tea trees up to 500 years old.”

I’m generally not into showing labels from foods since you can just look at them yourself, but the flowery prose continued in the brewing instructions, and I had to share:

You might think I went for chocolate first, but I did not! My tum is still feeling iffy, so I opted for the mint even though I’m generally not a fan of minty teas. Also, I really wanted to “capture the full taste as the ancient mystery is revealed.”

I actually enjoyed this tea (maybe because I followed the instructions for once and only let it brew for 3 minutes as opposed to 20), and it was soothing for my belly. Though I don’t think I experienced revelation of any sort of ancient mystery.

Have you had any mysteries revealed to you lately? Most recently (as in, this afternoon), I experienced the ancient mystery of how running in a moisture-wicking shirt feels … and I must say I’m a fan!

While I’m gone

May 2, 2009February 6, 201520 Comments

Warning: this is going to be a long post! Feel free to read it in pieces over the course of several days because I might not be back for a while (ahhhhh final papers). You can even comment multiple times if you get overwhelmed. I won’t mind 😉

Yesterday was a looooooooooooong day full of unfixable issues with families. I wish I had a magic fix-it button because some things are not fair. At least my office knows the healing powers of food. I’m way luckier than I deserve! 🙂

Before the office and after the gym, I had breakfast at home and used up some things I’ve had hanging around. I toasted the little piece of ciabatta with tomato pesto (from the sandwich leftovers Emily gave me in class on Monday) and topped it with a hard-poached EB egg (and sprinkles of cayenne and freshly ground black pepper).

On the side, I mixed the apple half I forgot to eat yesterday morning with half of a banana I had languishing in the fridge and topped it with 1/3 cup yogurt-PB2 sauce and cinnamon/cardamom:

I washed it all down with soymilky almond sunset tea and iced white peony tea.

At the gym, I did 20 minutes on the new arm-y elliptical, hips and glutes on the Cybex, and 20 more minutes on the regular elliptical, plus abs/stretching and the walk there and back. Stats: 1 hour and 8 minutes, 339 calories, ave hr 116, max 155.

First snack of the day at work was my yogurt (plus ricotta, flax, and sliced banana) which, if you can recall, I had topped with the other half of my Just Fruit Munchies from Just Tomatoes when I packed lunch on Thursday.

Because I had placed this freeze-dried fruit on top of the yogurt, half stayed crunchy and half got soft. I loved the textural variety! Plus, it got all swirly when I mixed it in:

Lunch was leftovers from my dinner Thursday night. I cooked up 1/2 cup of dry lentils to mix with the cup of couscous I brought home in order to convert it into a nutritional powerhouse. I had about 1/4 cup of the couscous-lentil mix with the little piece of salmon from Gina’s meal:

Along with a cup of the veggie stew:

So good! Leftovers are the best.

Nydia also brought in a TON of beans, rice, and pork for me to taste (made by her very culinarily-gifted mom). These containers were FULL when they arrived with Nydia this morning:

I didn’t want to put off eating the salmon because fish leftovers don’t stretch as long as other foods, so I packed up a bunch of this masterpiece to take home and shared the rest with everyone else. I also had several spoonfuls. So good! You’ll be seeing more of this soon, for sure.

Beryl wanted me to take a picture of her spicy chickpeas from the Indian restaurant, so she let me have a tasty tasty tasty tasty bite 🙂

We ate lunch during the every-other-week optional staff brown bag, so desserts also made an appearance. I had a piece of cinnamon sugar muffin, a piece of chocolate-tangerine cookie (and another piece unpictured), more muffin, and a piece of oatmeal raisin cookie:

Later in the afternoon, Belkis split an extra orange and gave half to Jessica and half to me:

And Carlos came around selling chocolate bars for his son’s school. I did not buy any, but Rosalie (aka my chocolate fairy) bought two and materialized at my desk asking which I wanted: chocolate almond or chocolate caramel. That’s right — she was offering me an entire bar! I opted for half and half, so we split and shared each bar. I had a square of each (no, not the whole thing!):

The rest is now safely in my freezer 🙂

I also ate the orange I had packed. Peeler in action:

At 4:30, one of my favorite announcements of all time came over the loudspeaker: Attention staff, the informal staff gathering in the lobby has begun! I don’t know how I wasn’t aware of this one in advance (especially after the sushi success at the last one), but it was definitely news to me! I grabbed Katty, and I think it took us negative 10 seconds to fly down the four flights of steps. Here’s what was waiting:

YES, homemade taquitos (“por favor, dos por cada persona”), fresh salsa, fruit, cheese, crackers, crudite, chips, cookies …

Here’s my first plate:

And my second plate (don’t tell!):

Check out the expertly crunchy wrappage:

I also had a slice of cheddar. It was so sharp it made my jaw ache. I LOVE good cheddar.

That was obviously dinner, but I still had room for dessert (number 3?) when I got home. I finished off my yogurt (1/4 cup), my chocolate-pb-flax egg custard (2/3 ramekin), and my last bits of Holiday Inn cinnamon bun (1/2 bun). It’s a dessert jungle!

Frostiiiiiiiiiiing:

Perfecto. I spent the rest of the night sipping tea and NOT eating any leftover pieces of Easter candy or anything … Umm, right.

And a late-night snack of 1/2 cup Kashi golean crunch with 1/4 cup soymilk and water:

I’m off to my second (and last) Physique 57 class followed by free tangomonium (thanks for the tip, Kate!). From there, I’ll be disappearing for real into a black hole of final-paper-disastrousness, probably until Monday morning. Don’t miss me too much!

What will you be doing while I’m gone?

P.S. I’m famous!

Why is that thing green?

April 30, 2009February 6, 201522 Comments

As promised, the rest of the recycled balls came into play this morning for breakfast.

I had a small but loaded breakfast cookie. The overnight mix contained 1 tbsp ground flax, 1 tbsp oat bran, 2 tbsp extra thick rolled oats, 1/2 mashed banana, 1 tsp south-of-the-border pistachio butter, and 1 chopped Hershey’s Kiss. This combination made for perfectly-textured dough this morning:

I frosted the cookie with 1/3 cup PB2 healthy cream cheese icing and topped it with 1/4 of Sunday’s Holiday Inn cinnamon bun:

And, of course, the remaining balls:

I brought my cookie to the couch to eat it with the almond sunse/black tea, the white peony iced tea, and The Today Show. I forgot about the apples up on the table and then realized I wasn’t actually hungry for them. They went back in the fridge for tomorrow.

I had to be up at Hunter at 9 again this week for a workshop on government benefits. I thought I was being so clever bringing my laptop up there so I could blog at the same time … but the wireless was blocked in that room!!! The nerve. They actually want us to pay attention. Hmph.

During the workshop, I ate an orange. If you’re not sure what an orange looks like, I ate one on Tuesday, so you can feel free to backtrack if you need the visual reinforcement.

For lunch, I had the last half cup of Thai seafood coconut curry/grilled veggies from Hunter’s lobby mixed with the half cup of chicken noodle soup that also came my way Monday night at Hunter, courtesy of Emily:

You might think that’s a weird combination, but it was actually delicious. I should be using coconut milk more often in my life. Too bad Turtle Mountain ignored my request for samples to review. I could have had an official Thai coconut milk curry vs. Turtle Mountain coconut milk curry face-off. Their loss.

The exact same yogurt/ricotta with flax, Pb2, and banana that I had yesterday followed the soup.

Speaking of samples, I received a package from the more agreeable Just Tomatoes today. They sent me a variety of their products to try, the most exciting being pineapple powder … which seems like PB2 in pineapple form but better than PB2 because it’s pineapple and it has absolutely nothing added. I can’t wait to try it out. Pineapple cream cheese icing, anyone? Ohhhhhh, that would be SO good on carrot cake. But I’m getting carried away.

I opened up the mixed fruit munchies packet and used half for tomorrow’s yogurt (I’m excited to see how the freeze-dried fruit absorbs the moisture from the yogurt overnight) and half for an afternoon snack with a splash of soymilk:

Mmmm, so good. Especially the pineapple flavor that completely pops. I had a few dry, too — also delicious!

Once I recovered from the freeze-dried fruit lovefest, I headed out to the gym. Thursday is usually my outdoor running day, but running has been causing me too much pain lately and I opted for the gym machines instead (this made me sad because the weather was perfect for running). I did 30 minutes on the Stepmill, 15 minutes on the rower, and 15 minutes on the elliptical plus a bit of abs and stretching. I walked to and from the gym and did not jog because, again, jogging hurts! Stats: 1 hour and 40 minutes, 517 calories, 118 average heart rate, 162 max.

On the way home, I stopped into Union Market for samples of marinated mushrooms, Piave cheese, and these two little desserty treats:

That chocolate chip brownie piece was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. And sooo chocolate-y:

I was hoping the green thing would be marzipan-related, but it was just lime cheesecake. Still, I enjoyed every morsel.

What’s the most surprising cheesecake flavor you’ve ever encountered? Did you eat it?

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: tea

Souvenirs

Cacao powow

Ancient mysteries

While I’m gone

Why is that thing green?

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