Tag: veggies

Chained to the computer

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Ahhh, technology is driving me insane! Hunter has this big push to make the social work program more “current” and is mandating that all courses have an online component. But the online Blackboard has SO many bugs, and it literally took me four hours to leave a comment about one of the articles I read for class. Gah!

Anywayyyyy, my quinoa salad from Friday night made its final appearance as today’s lunch. With more soymilky chocolate caramel enchantment chai (same tea bag, new water) and a stuffed tomato on the side:

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Reassembly of the quinoa salad took place in much the same way as it did yesterday: salad greens on the bottom, warmed salad “substance” in the middle, re-toasted tortilla strips on the top:

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I beefed up the salad by sauteeing the quinoa mix with the scrambled egg yolk and kale stems left from last night’s BSI adventures, 2 chopped asparagus spears, and 2 chopped mushrooms. I also mixed in 1/4 chopped cucumber and sprinkled 1/2 tbsp fat free feta on top:

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The tomato is stuffed with leftover filling from the Stuffed Kale Leaves I made last night:

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I had a little snacky mid-afternoon:

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Chopped pear and banana sprinkled with nutmeg (and eaten with a toothpick for fun):

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And a banana boat — slices of banana on a sliver of toasted flax and fiber bread with a tsp of pb and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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[Insert 10,000 of the worst expletives you can imagine directed at Blackboard right now, grrrrrrrrrrr!]

For dinner, I finally got to try a substantial amount of each of my BSI: Kale creations. Three slices of Kale-Crust Pizza and three Stuffed Kale Leaves:

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I had the stuffed leaves cold and reheated and re-crisped the pizza slices on a pizza stone in the oven.

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Both of these were so delicious. I almost feel guilty saying that since they are my recipes, but ahh, I’m so impressed! The textures, the flavors … incredible. I always get surprised when my kitchen experiments work out. Thank goodness for the BSI — if I didn’t need to be creative and crafty, I probably would have been having steamed kale for dinner tonight!

Dessert was an assortment of little tastes:

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Taste #1 was half of a small baked sweet potato with plain yogurt and cinnamon:

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Taste #2 was a mess with yogurt, kashi golean crunch, strawberries, cookie crumbs, and a chopped/crumbled piece of Lindst hazelnut chocolate:

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Taste #3 was Italian cookie pieces and the other half of last night’s Sassy Mango-Lime dark chocolate truffle:

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And now, I’ve had it with this online homework disaster!! Sorry, Blackboard, we are going to have to part ways for the night because you’re wasting my time. Ohhhhhh well. Laterzzzz. What’s the most frustrating waste of your time?

Have a good night, and enjoy these few remaining weekend hours!

The vanishing weekend

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Ahhh, it’s tomorrow already?! How did that happen?

Things kept taking longer than I expected all day long, so I didn’t even end up leaving to go to the grocery store until about 6:30. My body’s used to dinner at that time, so I had a few early evening snacks to tide me over until I could really eat.

Two small dates with 1 tsp peanut butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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The last 1/2 cup of the pumpkin-banana yogurt mix I ate at lunch with 2 tbsp golean crunch sprinkled on top (and 2 sprinkled straight into my mouth :-D):

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And a Sunsweet One:

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Good thing I snacked — due to several complications in the self-checkout line at the store (HATE self-checkout), I didn’t get home until 8:30!

Loot includes 3 lbs apples (only $1.99), kale (for the BSI of course), 2 pears, 1 red onion, mushrooms ($.99), asparagus ($1.99/lb), 5 bananas, 3 sweet potatoes, 1 cucumber, whole wheat 8-inch pizza crusts (free thanks to my coupon from the Carrots ‘N’ Cake scavenger hunt prize pack), fat free feta, eggs, tomatoes on the vine, crunchy peanut butter, canned wild salmon :

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Total: $25.62!! Great price, even by my impossibly strict standards.

I set right to work cooking … and cooking … and cooking for the BSI. I nibbled the whole time I cooked, of course, so I wasn’t all that hungry by the time I was done — and it was 11pm by that point anyway. Still, I had no choice but to sample the finished products. Kale-Crust Pizza and Stuffed Kale Leaves:

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They were both MUCH more successful than I had anticipated! I wanted to eat a lot more after these bites, but I restrained myself because I am definitely not hungry and it is l-a-t-e.

For dessert, I broke out the next truffle in line from the BSI: Spinach prize Brandi sent. I present to you the Sassy Mango-Lime dark chocolate truffle:

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Inside:

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Mmmmmm, it was SO good. As a general rule, I love anything that combines fruit and dark chocolate. And the citrusy pep from the lime perfectly complemented the bittersweet richness of the dark chocolate. I actually only ended up eating half because I don’t want my fun with truffles to end! I had the half along with some Italian cookie chunks:

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And conversation hearts:

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OK, I’m off to see how much longer my eyes can stay open. Tonight will be round 2 of eye-masking, and I hope it is just as successful as last night! Tomorrow’s plan is homework, homework, and more homework. You’ll get to hear all about it — how did you ever get so lucky, right? — since I’m sure I’ll be eating the whole time :-D.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep

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9.5 hours!!!

Yes, that is how much sleep I got last night! 10:45 pm to 8:15 am.  Normally, I am up at 7 am with the sun, but the eye mask helped me get through that last hour (thanks, John!). I felt SO well-rested when I opened my eyes. After a bit of blog-reading, I launched a surprise breakfast attack through the rose branches:

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My breakfast inspiration came from SnackFace during the morning’s blog catch-up session. She’s been going wild with pumpkin yogurt the past couple of days. Reading her posts motivated me to pull myself out of bed and whip up some of my own.

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My mix included 1/3 cup of yogurt, 1/3 cup of pumpkin, 1/2 cup chopped grapes, and a sprinkle of Kashi GoLean Crunch!

I also had 1/3 of a toasted (burnt) wheat bagel with 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 chopped date, and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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I like to eat my bagels in thirds. This is kind of a leftover habit from childhood — the slots in my toaster growing up were too skinny for a full 1/2 bagel. A third at a time is still my preference now, even though I’m sure I could easily fit 1/2 in the toaster. Vani commented on this bagel-style recently, and I thought I’d share my response with everyone! The smaller 1/3 portion not only allows me more flexibility to mix and match the bagel with other foods; it also creates a higher ratio of crunchy surface area to doughy inside. Also, because these bagels are refugees from a work event, I only have a limitied amount. Eating 1/3 bagel at a time makes them last longer. How do you like to eat your bagels?

On the side, I had soymilky decaf sweet coconut thai chai. And fun with matching dishware:

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Kate came over a little after 11 for our 8-mile run, and we just couldn’t WAIT to get started (that’s sarcasm). But I found us a charming route on mapmyrun that took us through all of the best Brooklyn neighborhoods — Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights — and the weather was perfect, so our run was quite enjoyable! Stats: 1 hour and 22 minutes, 653 calories, average heart rate 151, max 161. I got home and did my favorite post-run stretch: 20 minutes of Gentle Hatha Yoga.

Lunch was fun to assemble, thanks to last night’s leftovers. I made the cut again and split the salad down the middle (how exciting that the $8 I spent at dinner gave me enough food for three meals!):

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To reassemble the salad for today, I pulled all the salad greens out of the mix, including the side salad I swiped from Emily’s plate last night after she packed up her leftover wrap. (Side note: I don’t normally take food off the plates of people I am meeting for the first time, but an added benefit of blogger dinner was that my food companions already knew about my waste-nothing obsession!).

The greens went on a plate to wait. I separated and toasted the tortilla strips in a dry skillet to crisp them up again. While the chips were crisping, I also threw the salad in a pan to heat because quinoa, corn, and beans take kindly to warmth. I added some leftover Chinese food broccoli (after a quick roast to kill off any unsavory lurking bacteria) that my supervisor Heather rescued for me while carrying out her fridge-cleaning duties at work yesterday :-). Once heated, the salad went on top of the greens, and the tortilla strips went on top of everything:

(with water and more tea in the background)

(with water and more tea in the background)

Yum, this salad made excellent leftovers. And I still have more!

And of course, the afternoon also involved lunch dessert:

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I had 1/2 of each of mom’s treats that arrived on Thursday, heated in the oven to get the chocolate all melty:
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Along with more pumpkin yogurt that I mixed with 1/2 of this banana yogurt, also rescued from the work fridge. The sell-by date was Jan. 13, but unopened individually packaged yogurts seem to last forever. This one passed the sniff test. I topped the yogurt with a mountain of Italian cookie crumbs (still left from the work Valentine’s lunch), a piece of Blogger Secret Cupid hazelnut chocolate, and two conversation hearts:

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I know there was still sugar in all of that, but it was very controlled sugar instead of random snacking. I think this may be because, according to SweetiePie‘s comment here, I have sent the sugar monster to her house! Whoops! So sorry SP, but thank you for taking him off my hands :-D.

And now, it’s back to the great blog-catch-up of 2009! I also need to go back out at some point to buy kale so I can figure out what the heck I’m doing for
Beadie’s BSI. Back later!

Making the cut

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P.S. I forgot to mention that I ate this garlic knot from Jessica sometime between the mangu and the cake earlier today . Isn’t it breathtakingly beautiful, though?

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OK, onto the main attraction! I met Vani and Emily for dinner tonight at ‘sNice, a vegetarian cafe here in the Slope. I recognized these girls right away from their blogs (well, ok, I had also already met Vani once before for our tea swap):

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(Vani is on the left; Emily is on the right.)

The menu was amazing — so many options! It took us at least 10 minutes to decide what to get. I finally ordered the quinoa salad with corn, black beans, tortilla strips, and avocado dressing:

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It was sooooo good!! Look at the exciting whole grain deliciousness:

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As if the waitress didn’t think we were already weird enough with our cameras, we also each asked for doggie bags up front. After my cake-fest this afternoon, I wasn’t playing! I immediately halved the salad and put some in a box to bring home. Here’s the other half that I drizzled with the avocado dressing (fyi, I usually prefer my salads dry, but this dressing was sooooo avocado-y and really made the salad):

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Did I just say I wasn’t playing? Yeah, that lasted until Vani broke out a bag of Jordan almonds. I think she had 5. I had the rest (I’m estimating 23?). So it appears that making the cut only works for some things (like salad and not like Jordan almonds):

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Here’s the last almond. I photographed it as a sign of respect at Vani’s suggestion before I made it disappear.

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Thank goodness I have my 8-mile run planned for tomorrow with Kate! (cue inner groan)

Anyway, it was so fun to see (and eat with!) these ladies in person. I loved hearing about their lives and how they ended up in Brooklyn, what they do now, what their future plans are, and more. We’ll have to do it again soon!

Yay for new blog friends 😀

I got home and packed away the leftovers, ate a million conversation hearts, and now am so going to disappear under the covers forever with my earplugs and eye mask. I hope these new bedtime accessories do the trick! Can you sleep through morning sun, or do you wake up at the first hint of light?

Gourd hopes “squashed”

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As promised in my last post, dinner did involve plenty of experimentation with autumn decor:

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As part of my organization efforts over the weekend, I packed up a box full of pumpkins and gourds that came from Brigitte’s family’s farm sometime in September or October. The gourds had served us well in their provision of seasonally appropriate color for months, but I decided it was time for an update! Brig was planning to toss everything, but she knew I might take offense at that and instead handed it all over for the sake of my kitchen adventures. I got started on the process last night with the four cuties pictured above.

I chopped them all in half (except for the one with all the tumors that would not yield to the knife) and scooped out (and reserved) the seeds:

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They went face-down into a casserole dish with 1 cm water and roasted for 45 minutes at 375:

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I knew the pumpkins would be fine (my oven and I got VERY friendly with a 25-pound fresh pumpkin back in October), but I was mostly curious to see what would become of the gourds. I licked my finger after getting the seeds ready to toast and found the answer:

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Yes, the gourds went right into the trash. Along with the gourd seeds, which unfortunately contaminated all of the other seeds with their relentless bitterness. I was seriously running around the kitchen trying to get the taste out of my mouth. Note to self: no more gourds.

The pumpkins, however, met a different fate. I mixed them (skin and all) in a pot with two small chopped apples and 1/4 cup water and then simmered until it was all tender enough for an immersion blender:

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After blending, I taste-tested several times and added 3 chopped dates, 2 chopped prunes, the last 1.5 cups of my healthy cream cheese icing, and loads of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom). The result was a mildly sweet, comfort-food puree that could go either the entree route or the dessert route. I began with the entree because I like to do things in order.

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I had about 1 cup of the puree with a morningstar Asian veggie patty and half an orange:

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These flavors blended deliciously. I even dipped some of the veggie patty into the puree for fun … and it was definitely fun!

I still felt hungry after, so I decided to go the dessert route as well (did you ever doubt I would?). I had 1/2 cup of the puree (chilled) topped with Italian cookie crumbs:

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It did not let me down!

I slept well last night, relaxed in the knowledge that I had given the gourds a fair shot and that I will never need to wrestle with one again … unless you have experience with gourds and a different take on the matter? Let me know!

Be back later with brekkie and a workout 😀