Con dulce, por favor

April 14, 2009February 6, 201527 Comments

It’s been another sugary day around these parts!

Someone brought in Whole Foods mini-pumpkin muffins this morning and planted them right on the conference room table (aka an inch away from my desk). These muffins never really tempt me, though, since the ingredient list is right there and sugar is first on it. I always get so disappointed in WF when I see that. I did, however, take up a crumb collection and eat that once all the muffins were gone:

Just before lunch, Myrna came around handing out a fun new food tool to everyone that Tupperware sent her because she started doing Tupperware sales. I had packed the perfect snack to test it out. Just watch the magic here:

Pretty amazing, right? So I’m now the proud new owner of an orange peeler 🙂 I shared some orange and ate the rest:

For lunch, I had another mama creation that came home with me from MA on Sunday: a cup of chicken, kielbasa, and root vegetable casserole.

I also had another bite of Vianni’s tuna noodle salad:

And 1/2 cup of Myrna’s rice and beans:

And pulled a teeny bit of Myrna’s taaaaaaasty saucy chicken off of this bone:

I also had my fruit salad + yogurt + golean crunch (from MA, too — I go grocery shopping in my mom’s fridge at the end of every visit):

The star of the meal, however, was clearly Mildred’s husband’s habichuela con dulce (a traditional Dominican dessert drink that appears between Ash Wednesday and Easter and that I’ve raved about here and here). I definitely refilled my cup three times. The best comparison I can come up with is that it is like drinking liquid pumpkin pie. In other words, habichuela con dulce is delicious beyond your wildest dreams.

Two of my afternoon visits ended up canceling, so I accompanied Mildred on hers. Both happened to take place in excruciatingly hot apartments. When we finished, Mildred decided that she needed ice cream and that I did, too. Here’s my kiddie scoop of Rocky Road, courtesy of today’s sugar fairy:

Now, I have not had Rocky Road ice cream in forever, and I’ve probably never had it from Baskin Robbins, but I have to say that this was the best Rocky Road I’ve ever had. It was amazingly creamy, and what’s more, the marshmallows were perfect little pockets of fluffiness! Every other time I’ve had Rocky Road, the marshmallows have been so frozen and mixed in that they weren’t even identifiable as such.

Around 3:30, I broke out another of the cheese sticks that mom sent back to NY with me. The m&m mug and I fought over who would get to eat it, but I won of course. It was no contest, really.

In my final sugar hurrah of the work day, I heard Jessica whispering something about chocolate cake from down the hall. I got up to investigate, and she informed me that it was Cleo’s birthday in Preventive and they were struggling with a cake overage. We went upstairs together to assist.

Cake rescued; crisis averted.

Umm, this spoonful of whipped vanilla frosting is on my camera for some reason. I don’t know why? 😛

I got home and prepped a necessarily light dinner of salad, jasmine tea biscotti bites, and leftover almond sunset tea from this morning. Dinner enjoyed the company of my new Easter decorations: a straw bunny from dad and stepmom, a Lindt dark chocolate bunny from step-grandma, and a spread-eagle bunny planter also from step-grandma:

The salad contained lettuce, arugula, 1 tbsp Newman’s dried berry blend, 1 tbsp peanut roasted chickpeas, grated homemade parmesan, and a drizzle of Annie’s lite gingerly vinaigrette:

A few more tbsp of the chickpeas went directly from jar-to-mouth 🙂

What sweet things did you eat today?

Nut safety (and a winner!!)

April 13, 2009February 6, 201516 Comments

First things first. It’s time to announce the winner of the Everybody’s Nuts Pistachi-YES giveaway! Random.org has made its selection from the 93 entries (including comments, link-backs, and emails from non-bloggers), and the winner is #78:

Amie: The nut recall makes me sad because then nuts get a bad name.

Amie, I will be emailing you soon to arrange for delivery of some safe and disease-free nuts 😛

Onto the food!

As I was sipping my sugar cookie sleigh ride tea at 9:23 am this morning, I noticed one of the nurses set a promising foil-wrapped platter down on the other end of the conference room table, along with a pile of plates and knives. This could only mean one thing: cake. I didn’t want to seem too eager, so I whispered across to Rosey that there was cake in the conference room, and she hopped right up and headed down to get the ball rolling. And it turned out to be banana walnut, yum! Here’s my piece, heated in the microwave and then slathered in whipped vanilla frosting that I found in the fridge:

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The cake kept me going until lunchtime, when I broke out another fun treat: butternut squash, ground beef, and eggplant shepherd’s pie from mom! She packed this big slice in the food bag I brought home from MA yesterday.

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I think there’s kale in there, too? I had it on a bed of arugula. It was perfect and yummy and tasted like mom’s cooking because that’s what it was. I wish I had more!

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I also had a bite of Vianni’s tasty tuna macaroni salad:

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And finished Mildred’s salad for her:

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And two of Mildred’s daughter Adriana’s chicken nuggets:

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I haven’t had chicken nuggets in years! Somehow, they tasted better than I remember …

Post-lunch was a blood orange. I shared half with my coworkers (finally, they liked the looks of something I brought in!) since they were intrigued by the color. None of them had ever seen or heard of a blood orange before.

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I also had some blurry yogurt art made from fruit salad and yogurt that traveled from MA to NY with me yesterday:

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I was hungry again by 2:30 and had a cheese stick, also courtesy of mom:

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The final mom treat of the day came at 4:30. I broke up two of mom’s kitchen sink muffins (she sent me home with a ton yesterday!) and spread about a tbsp of cashew-almond butter over them before microwaving to get it all melty, YUM:

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It’s probably worth mentioning that I left my Newman’s mints at home by accident, so lots of other candies made their way into my belly throughout the day.

I stayed late at work because I was planning to go to the 6:30 gyrotonic class at Kinespirit with the free coupon Melissa gave out at the blogger brunch last month. I was somehow still feeling a little bit underfed when I left work and knew I would need to last until I got home at 8:30, so I had an emergency spoonful of the office’s extra chunky Skippy:

That did the trick!

I was very unsure of what to expect from the gyrotonic, but it ended up being just what I needed tonight. I’ll have to talk about it more in my next post because I’m too tired now!

What’s the best exercise class you’ve ever taken?

Phew, that was close!

April 12, 2009February 6, 201520 Comments

Today had the potential to be yet another monster of an expansion day, but my tummy is kind of relieved that it was not!

When I got up this morning, I went downstairs (ohhh, to live in a multi-level house again …) to the living room so I could do my Self Challenge 2009 workout. What can I say … I’m serious about fixing my legs! I can feel my poor little muscles getting stronger again, too, and I was able to do some of the exercises that hurt too much to do last week, yay!

My dad picked me up a bit after 11 am, and we headed over to LA Roberts, a NaMA (that’s coolspeak for North Attleboro, MA) restaurant, to enjoy Easter all-you-can-eat brunch with Rae Ann (my stepmom) and her family.

Some background on LA Roberts: it was the fanciest place in town in 1987. In 1987, I distinctly remember that the all-you-can-eat brunch included yogurt because it was the only thing I would eat. The famed LA Roberts brunch seems to have devolved over time because there was no yogurt this morning, hmph. Nor was there cereal, toast, peanut butter, or jam.

The brunch did, however, come through with lots of lukewarm serve-yourself buffet platters full of foods that are not my favorite: ham, sausage, hash browns, other potato things, scary quiche. Because I’m good at scavenging, however, I put together a lovely little big spread.

Let’s play a game. I’ll show you a picture of the item, and you see if you can guess what it is. I’ll provide the answers at the end.

Item #1:

Item #2:

Item #3:

Item #4:

Item #5:

How do you think you did?

The answers, clockwise from the beans: (1) baked beans (I found them in a tin between the maple syrup and the whipped cream, hmmm), (2) broccoli (I spooned out all the broccoli from a giant vat of chicken penne alfredo), (3) fruit salad topped with apples in syrup (I found this teeny bit of fruit salad on a table by itself in the corner, floating in a flood of its own juices … or the juices of its originating can), (4) piece of berry scone (yes, the scones were pre-cut into fourths, but that ended up being fine with me since it was actually too sweet, if you can believe that coming from me, the cake queen. I ate half and gave the other half to my dad), and (5) the star of the show, a slice of French toast with thawed frozen strawberries.

I think I managed to do pretty well for myself, and I was pleased the the food was good enough to eat but not good enough to lead to further expansion.

The company was also quite enjoyable. My step-uncle (?) David brought bunny ears for everyone to wear. My dad was serious about arranging his perfectly. It was clearly a multi-step process:

As soon as we finished eating and the bunny ears were properly arranged, we all headed back to my dad and stepmom’s house to relax for a few before I had to leave to catch the bus. I received some fun Easter goodies that will surely be making an appearance quite soon.

At 2:15, dad and I left to go pick up my mom so they could both take me to the bus station in Providence. I heard through the grapevine that, after the big drop-off , my mom went back to my dad’s house to hang out with my stepmom’s family and they all passed a lovely afternoon together.

What a whirlwind trip! It’s relatively easy to get to MA from here, but I so rarely have the time and it always ends up being very rush rush rush. I hope I can go back for a more leisurely visit this summer!

As you know already, my bus came equipped with Wi-Fi. So excited that Peter Pan is moving with the times! If only my computer could have lasted longer without a charge …

On the bus, I ate my packed “snunch” of 1/2 cup matzo muesli with 1/2 cup plain yogurt and a cup of fruit left from yesterday’s chocolate fountain. Pardon the blur. We had some bumpy roads, and I wasn’t about to wait for smoothness to dive into this!

I got back to my apartment just before 8 and made a little snacky plate while I raced around to get ready for the week. The plate included the final two pieces of pumpernickel baguette with cashew-almond butter and coconut, a pile of peanut roasted chickpeas, and some overflow fruit salad from home that I couldn’t fit into a container for the fridge.

I also had this itty bitty piece of a slice of my mom’s birthday cake.

She saved and froze (now you know where my dessert-freezing compulsion comes from) the slice for me from her birthday celebration with my step-dad’s family. Wallen, step-grandpa (I’m realizing I’ve never had to explain these family members in writing before, so I’m suddenly having to concoct labels I’ve never actually used!), makes the most amazing chocolate fudge frosting from scratch, so my mom requests it on yellow cake every year.

I’m in bed now and it’s wayyyyyyyyyy past my bedtime — not how I wanted to start the week! — so I need to hit the sheets stat.

What is your favorite activity when traveling as a passenger in any kind of vehicle? Sleeping is mine.

Don’t forget about the pistachios!

It’s raining chocolate

April 12, 2009February 6, 201518 Comments

Happy Easter!

I’m blogging live from the Peter Pan bus back to NY … as long as my battery lasts (which is probably not much longer). What an exciting new development for the world of bussing.

Yesterday seems like about 10 years ago, but I’ll try to remember. It would be a tragedy to leave out any details. I got home from dinner(s) with my sister on Friday night around 12:30 and spent the next hour or so packing. After four whole hours of sleep, my alarm went off at 5:40 am, and I crawled out of bed to get moving so I could catch the 7:30 am bus up to Providence from Port Authority. At 10ish, I had my packed bus breakfast with 1/2 cup matzo muesli soaked in 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk overnight:

Doesn’t it look like cat food?

I dumped a cup of fruit salad (strawberries, pineapple, plum) on top:

My dad picked me up at the bus terminal in Providence at 11:15 and dropped me off at my mom’s house. As soon as I walked in the door, she instantly stuck one of her just-baked famous kitchen sink muffins into my mouth. It was obviously delicious even though I was still stuffed from all my dinners the night before.

I spent the next hour sleeping blogging, and we headed off to my aunt and uncle’s house for our seder at 1:30. I snacked on two teeny pretzel sticks before we got started:

After some chatting time, we all took our (assigned) seats to carry out our super abbreviated version of a seder. We’re pretty informal in my family, and now that there’s a new generation of babies around, we have to move quickly! Here’s some of the Haggadah we’ve been using since I was teeny. I think my grandma wrote it all out way back so that it would be easy for young ears to understand. It’s very cute:

Here’s the seder plate (decorated by my cousins in their younger years!). These foods are all there for symbolism, so we don’t actually eat what’s on this plate. It just sits there taunting us the whole time 😛 There’s charoset, maror, karpas, an orange, a hard-boiled egg, and a lamb shank:

And of course, we had some Manishewitz going. It’s the only type of wine I like!

As we went around the table reading the Haggadah, we pinky-dripped wine drops onto a plate to represent each of the 10 plagues, plus a list of modern plagues we added in to keep things relevant. Here’s my cousin Joshua pinky-modeling:

As I mentioned, each food has a meaning, and we finally get to start eating each thing as we get to it in the Haggadah. Here’s the legend:

Charoset is my FAVORITE part (well, maybe tied with my mom’s matzo balls) of Passover. My Aunt Sherye makes it each year — basically mashed up apples, honey, wine, walnuts, etc. Once we hit it in the Haggadah, I always end up inhaling pretty much the table’s whole bowl. So consider this photo a small token of my pre-meal meal of charoset.

The maror is the red — horseradish mixed with some beet juice. I hated it when I was younger, but I love it now. The heat and bite of the maror mixes perfectly with the sweet charoset. Seriously, picture me eating an entire box of matzo topped with mountains of maror and charoset. Because that’s what happened.

Gefilte fish … another Passover staple that I hated when I was younger. I don’t know why I love it so much now since it’s just kind of a reformed patty of mashed random white fish. But I’m claming my love. Gefilte fish, I love you.

And mama’s matzo ball soup!! No two batches are ever the same. This year’s batch was light and fluffy and delicious … and mom is sending me home with a whole container full of them so that Passover can keep giving and giving over the next several months 🙂 I had two bowls:

And then it was time for the main meal. Because the five meals’ worth of food I had just eaten were simply teasers. We had turkey with cranberry sauce:

Eggplant parmesan:

And lots and lots of salad with balsamic and olive oil:

We took a little breather to digest. I played with my first-cousins-once-removed, Lilly and Jonah. We built things with blocks and then bulldozed them:

And then, it was time for dessert! Well, time to prepare dessert since my mom was learning how to set up the chocolate fountain she’s had sitting brand-new in the box for a few years. While the fountain’s motor was revving, we all snacked on the candy fruit slices I bought during my Jewish shopping spree the other day. I had at least one of each:

And then we got the fountain running!!

I managed to snap this picture during the 7.59 seconds it was running before the motor gave out and the chocolate fountain became chocolate fondue. We didn’t have a problem with that. Melted chocolate is melted chocolate 🙂

I had at least three huge plates full of chocolate and all the fixings: strawberries, oranges, pineapple, pears, apples, bananas, and cubes of the blood orange Passover sponge cake I made the other day:

When the chocolate got low, dipping got hard and it was time to resort to finger-swiping and licking. Uncle Jim and mom in action:

I pounced on the spoon:

And made short work of the dregs.

Once there was really nothing left, I stopped and sat for a while alternately holding my belly and playing with the kids. It was so fun to visit with my cousins and have some family time since it’s pretty rare we all get together. I wish we could do it more often!

dd_protal_07 At 6, my mom, stepdad, and I had to race out of there and head to Boston for our evening engagement: Dirty Dancing On Stage!!

I literally grew up watching
Dirty Dancing — I remember coming home from first grade every day and immediately popping the VHS in the player. I knew every word … and apparently I still do! The musical was SO TRUE to the video, and I loved it! If you have any special place in your heart for Dirty Dancing, you need to do everything in your power to go see it right now! The music, the dancing, the story … it was all perfect (except for Johnny’s native Australian accent that kept popping out every so often).

I was still stuffed from the big seder when we got home at night, so there wasn’t much more eating going on. Oh, except for when my mom offered to squirt half a can of whipped cream into my mouth while my fingers were busy typing … and I accepted. I did take photos, but believe me when I say they are totally not blog-appropriate!

Today was the big Easter buffet with my dad and stepmom’s family, so I’ll report bag later with all of that once I’m back home in Brooklyn. My battery’s going to give out pretty soon!

Did you feel expanded at any point during this weekend? Was it worth it? My expansion was definitely worth it, but I’m also really looking forward to getting back to normal eating tomorrow!

Remember, tomorrow (Monday) is your last chance to enter the pistachio giveaway. Get your entries in by 6pm!

Who loves her new dishes?

April 10, 2009February 6, 201510 Comments

I do!

Dinner last night was the other half of my out-of-this-world caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza:

And dessert was a pile of strawberries, blood orange pieces, and fresh pineapple topped with 1/4 cup of plain Oikos, nutmeg, and unsweetened coconut (with 1/2 of a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie from the freezer bag):

New plate love:

There may have also been some Hershey’s spears dipped in cashew-almond butter:

And some crumbs from the Passover sponge cake I made:

I just got back from the gym where I did the same workout as Wednesday so that I will soon be running pain-free with hip adductors of steel. Stats: 1 hour 28 minutes, 416 calories, 114 average heart rate, 172 max.

I am now patiently awaiting the arrival of my sister Emily. She took an overnight
flight from San Francisco and should be here momentarily. I haven’t seen her in over a year! She’s coming for the weekend in honor of her best friend’s birthday, but her trip sadly coincides with me needing to get a bus at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to head up to MA for Passover with mom and Easter with dad. But we’ve got all day today to visit, yay!

Are you going to see any long-lost family members this weekend?

Win pistachios!

Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition

A Natural(ish) Parenting & Food Blog

Tag: veggies

Con dulce, por favor

Nut safety (and a winner!!)

Phew, that was close!

It’s raining chocolate

Who loves her new dishes?

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