Tag: veggies

Don’t hate me because I’m boring

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Food thus far today has been (almost) exactly the same as yesterday, but I did try to mix up the arrangement for your viewing pleasure. Here’s my lunch doing gymnastics on the kitchen chair because it was tired of posing for photographs and wanted to get packed already. Pork and beans, sofrito rice, yogurt/fruit, orange, carrot sticks:

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If you’ve been following along, you already know what’s inside. What you don’t know is how many tries it took me to get the orange to stay on top.

Notice I did not pack an emergency back-up snack. That’s because today is an exercise-free day! Plus, I’m going to an alumni talk at NYU tonight about women’s health, and I believe refreshments are planned. I will of course report back if I gather any useful info … but we all know I’m really going for the food. So dinner is anyone’s guess!

Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was also the same … but different. Half cup banana bread crockpot oats, half cup homemade yogurt, sweetened shredded coconut, nutmeg, and peanut butter:

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Notice how the strawberry is whole today (it was chopped and spread around the outside yesterday) and the peanut butter is all around the edge (instead of contained in a spoon):

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I work hard for visual variety!

Shaking things up

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Today’s schedule is little wonky — I’m skipping my internship to attend a mandatory Diversity, Power, & Privilege Workshop (funnnnnnnnn) at Hunter from 10:45-5 (what is possibly going to take that long???). But it does mean that I got to sleep in for 90 extra minutes this morning!

Breakfast

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Ever since my perfect breakfast yesterday, I’ve been fantasizing about eating it again! After my Monday morning workout — 5 mins jog to gym, 15 mins arms with free weights on aerobics step, 30 mins StairMaster with gossip, 10 mins stretching/abs, 5 mins run home (stats from new HRM: time 1.06, cal 539, ave HR 149, highest HR 176) — I got the oatmeal heating in the oven while I showered. Half cup yogurt, half cup banana bread crockpot oats (reheated for 10 mins at 400), sprinkle sweetened shredded coconut, chopped strawberry, nutmeg, spoonful pb:

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So nice to have daylight during breakfast on a Monday morning!

Most Likely Lunch

Here are the snacks and lunch I packed, but if I end up encountering free food up there (doubtful), you know I’ll be taking advantage:

sofrito rice mix, classy pork & beans, orange, yogurt/fruit, carrot sticks, mini muffins

sofrito rice mix, classy pork & beans, orange, yogurt/fruit, carrot sticks, mini muffins

In case you’ve forgotten from yesterday, here’s how it looks inside the tupperwares:

pork & beans

pork & beans

Dominican rice, barley, cabbage, and sofrito sauce

Dominican rice, barley, cabbage, and sofrito sauce

The yogurt mixture today is 1/2 cup yogurt, frozen banana pieces, 1/2 small apple, 1/2 big strawberry, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger:

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It all looks mouth-watering, so I hope I get to eat it!

Pork & beans like a lady

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Teatime!

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Afternoon rolled around, my tum started growling, and I had to begin thinking about lunch for today — and for the rest of the week! After running through a quick inventory of yesterday’s purchases and my already-existing stash of leftovers, I gathered a number of things together.

Clockwise from top left: one cup cooked pork (saved and frozen after a work party six weeks ago!), Dominican rice (from the same party!) + cooked pearled barley (from mom) + sofrito sauce (from coworker Inginia), Jack D BBQ sauce (I would have made some myself, but this was sitting so tantalizingly on the fridge door), two-thirds head of cabbage (yesterday’s groceries), three cups cooked Great Northern beans (from a bag of dried beans I got at the farmers’ market last spring), and one cup chopped grape tomatoes (yesterday’s groceries):

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I thinly chopped the cabbage, steamed it, and mixed half of it with the beans, tomatoes, pork, 1/2 cup BBQ sauce, garlic, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and two Tbsp chicken stock. Then, I simmered everything in a loosely-covered pot so the flavors could mingle:

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I mixed the rice and barley combo with the other half of the steamed cabbage and added s&p and a tsp of minced chipotle chiles in adobo sauce:

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The quantities worked out perfectly: pork & beans made six 3/4 cup servings, and the sofrito grain blend made six 1/2 cup servings.

Today’s lunch with dramatic mood lighting:

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Between the Jack Daniels BBQ sauce and the teacup and saucer, this meal is practically exploding with class, don’t you think?

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And for dessert, a half cup of cantaloupe (I sprinkled on some nutmeg after the picture — soooo happy to have nutmeg again!):

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In true teatime fashion, I didn’t sit down to this lunch until about 3:30 or 4, so dinner will probably be something snackier and dessertier — can’t wait!

Repeats (plus a guest chef)

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Today’s lunch was pretty much the same as yesterday’s, so I won’t go into details. One tupperware with chicken/okra, one tupperware with yogurt banana, the very last of the green beans, and a mini muffin:

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To make up for the extreme boringness of that photo, I present you with Brigitte’s Pulled Pork from her dinner earlier this week:

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My roommate Brigitte is kind of like a cross between Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. She loves to cook traditional comfort foods, and you will never see her trying something sneaky like replacing the butter in a recipe with olive oil (am I right?). If the recipe calls for 1 cup heavy cream and 2 cups granulated white sugar, that is exactly what Brigitte will use, thank you very much (I, on the other hand, would be trying to concoct some crazy skim milk-banana blend).

Anyway, my lunch today may have been boring, but it certainly succeeded in using up the very last of everything in my fridge. Tonight’s dinner will be some mystery items at my office holiday party (full report to come), and I’ll be food shopping with a clean slate first thing tomorrow morning. I couldn’t have planned it better if I had tried, and I only spent a total of $5 on groceries this week!

Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was predictable, but still delicious. The last of mom’s grainmeal, a pile of frozen banana, and some forgotten wrinkly blueberries I found in the fridge (Brigitte or Tara, if those were yours, I’ll be replenishing my produce supply tomorrow morning, and you can help yourself to what I come up with!):

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Post-oven with yogurt:

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And now that all that is taken care of … new food starting tomorrow!

(Still) running (on empty)

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Because outdoor exercise in freeeeezing weather at the end of the day is just the most super fun thing in the world to do (and because we are now officially training for the 5/30/09 Brooklyn Half Marathon), Kate and I scrounged up the will to meet for another Nike training run through Central Park. We opted for the 3 mile “short” run tonight, but it was seriously like pulling teeth. Sometimes I can run 5.5-6 miles like it’s nothing, and other times, a dinky little 3 miles just does me in (perhaps knowing that I had no post-run buffet waiting for me at the end played a part, too). We did get an almost-exciting surprise when we finished, though: mini Luna bars! Here we are displaying our bounty (in all our sweaty glory):

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I actually managed to pilfer six of these minis, all in Caramel Nut Brownie, my favorite. I don’t eat Luna bars often because (1) they taste a little chemically and (2) they actually happen to be full of chemicals and ingredients removed from their natural settings (surprise, surprise). But they’ll do as a snack in a pinch, and I certainly have plenty of pinches!

For dinner, I was really getting down to the dregs of the fridge. I scrambled a lone egg I found in there with 1/2 tsp canola oil and 1/4 cup of my okra/chicken mixture from lunch today — all that was left after I packed tomorrow’s lunch. I added more sofrito and grated homemade cheddar cheese to spice it up.

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On the side, I had an oven-toasted peanut butter chip chocolate VitaTop with frozen banana (just like banana ice cream!) and real cookie crumbs I secured via my office conference room connection:

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If you look closely, you can see the melty pb chips peeking out from under the banana:

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I had a tall tall mug of jasmine green tea on the side to warm my poor hands — my fingers were all white and numb from the freezing run, and they didn’t regain proper circulation until I got in the shower two hours later!

Sneaky Snacks

The pile of holiday goodies in the office has dwindled, but it is certainly putting up quite a fight. Today, my coworker Jessica brought in a box of dark chocolate truffles that she received from a “secret admirer,” and she very generously shared one with me (a.k.a. reminded me several times that she had a box of dark chocolates on her desk until I caved):

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After the truffles, Jessica broke out a sample of some odd new Ice Breakers liquid breath freshener. She offered me one of the teeeeeeeny balls and helped arrange this photo shoot:

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Sadly, due to the ball’s lack of heft, I accidentally breathed it into the back of my throat and nearly cut off my oxygen supply. I never even got to experience the liquid part of the “liquid ice” (tear).

OK, that’s all for today. Tomorrow is Friday, yayyyy!!