I gotta do me, you do you.

Today was a big day for me n' Edles -- we went to the Bronx Zoo. We met up with a few friends with babies Edie's age, took a series of trains that ended up in a shuttle bus situation that was probably more stressful for the adults than the kids. Zoo was nice, but it ain't cheap to get in, and they nickle and dime you on everything possible, from charging extra for certain permanent exhibits to $3.25 for a bottle of soda that would be $1.75 off the grounds.

We went to the main commissary for lunch, and I ate food I brought, the CSA veg-infused pasta and a pickle, while Edie chowed down on my pasta and pickle, watermelon, blueberries, whole wheat goldfish, a little cheese and a whole mess of unsalted peanuts. The two other kids were fed breaded chicken fingers and french fries, which I understand -- it's easy, the kids like it and peace reigns in the valley. But it ain't cheap, and more than once in a blue moon can be kinda destructive. I felt  bad, a little bit snobby for feeding my child such holier-than-thou food, but I gotta do me, you do you, knowwhatamsayin'?

While we walked back slowly down Fordham Road in the heat and concrete, someone suggested slurpies at 7-11, and damn if 20oz of frozen corn syrup, phosphoric & citric acids, artificial flavor and color didn't hit the spot. In a theater, this drink would have been $6, but here it was $1.62 -- yep, I never had a slurpie at a 7-11 before. I guess I just got a little less snobby, he he.


BREAKFAST: 8am, iced green tea, 1/2 a bagel with cream cheese, .5 bowl, hunger 4/ a5


LUNCH: 2pm, greenie pasta, pickle, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 3:30pm cherry slurpie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 5:30pm, peanut butter, a few cashews, a few whole wheat pretzels, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6pm, 4 mini burritos, brown rice, water, watermelon, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
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EVENING SNACK: 9pm, 8oz chocolate ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Grenadine Ick

Woke up late, too hot to go out with Edie in the morning, just stayed in and prepped for the evening's dinner. Took Edles to our friend MAP's office in the afternoon followed by some playground int he rain. A nice evening indoors with another family from the 'hood


TODAY'S COOKING
Grenadine syrup: 2 cups pomegranate juice, 2 cups cherry juice, 4 cups sugar. I made the mistake of walking away and candied it, making a big sticky lump that hardens when hit with cold seltzer, not dissolve.  Will try again and be more careful. (I'm making this to add to seltzer and some lime juice to make an old fashioned Lime Rickey, inspired by the knish lecture I took in this past week.)
Pizza: -sigh-. First time cooking pizza since leaving the restaurant. Watching my hands stretch the (whole wheat Wholefoods) dough, topping the pies as I've seen done 1000s of times. Made margarita, a pepperoni, a white pie with a medley of vegetables I roasted earlier, a nutella pie decorated with jelly beans contributed by a 2 year old guest. It was fun to make pizzas, but it's starting to feel like something from the past already.


BREAKFAST: 10:15am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Milk, banana, good yogurt, CSA blueberries, frozen cherries & mango, ground flax, vanilla extract, salt. Pretty good, not very sweet but still balanced. Edie demanded some, sat next to me with a cup of it, and proceeded to get equal amounts in her mouth, smeared on her nude body, and the bench and walls.


LUNCH: 1:15pm, apple pork sausage, green pasta, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, assorted slices of homemade pizza, 3 small ice cream sandwiches, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Sugar Lust

Woke up early to a very energetic and very happy little girl jumping up and down on me. Legs and joints felt much better, lifted weights in the morning, took Edie out to some swings, then grocery shopping before getting her down for a nap and lunch.

Felt cravings for sugar in the afternoon, and ate some ice cream. I picked up some cherries and a zucchini from a new local farmer's market, and made a nice very green dinner. It was a bit too green, it tasted green. For whatever reason, my cravings for sugar went off the charts right after the meal, I haven't had this kind of lust in quite a while. I hoped the cherries would have dampened it, but I guess that and the pasta just primed the pump.

I think I have proper supportive mandels in my closet somewhere. Time to bust 'em out.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Pasta with CSA veg: A pound of mini wagon wheels met a cup of homemade sauce. In the woke, I stir fried some broccoli and sugar snap peas, through in the scallion and zucchini, then added the chopped swiss chard I just par-boiled. A little peanut oil and salt. Looked very healthy. Finished the dish with CSA parsley, which B informed me she finds repulsive after the fact. Oh well, off to the freezer this dish goes then.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


LUNCH: 12:45pm, breaded tilapia fillet, corn on the cob, health salad, pickle, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, fresh cherries, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, pasta with CSA veg & a little homemade sauce, pretzels with nutella, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, 5 oz of ice cream, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Knish!

Woke up with sore feet, ankles and legs. I was wearing flip flops all day yesterday, and the walk from Grand Central to home did a number on my joints, much worse than any bike ride. So though I planned to bliss-out on an 80 mile bike ride today, instead I packed up some snacks and trundled off to a well air-conditioned multiplex to catch 3 movies in a row on a single matinee ticket.

While there, my wifey found a little knish lecture at a small community outpost out in Carrol Gardens, and asked me to do it. So I did, a talk from a knish-crazed lady to about 10 random people from all over the city. It was pretty inspirational, and this week I'm gonna knock out some knishes -- can't be too hard to pass the low bar that Yonah Shimmel has been producing these days...

AM SNACK: 8:45am, a small handful of chocolate covered coffee beans


BREAKFAST: 9:45am, banana, good yogurt with honey, vanilla & peanuts, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


AM SNACK: 11:45am, pumpernickel pretzels, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 4:45pm, eggplant hero, green salad, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 8pm, a few squares of various knishes, lime rickey, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACKS: 10pm 1 mini burrito, small ramekin of cashews and chocolate chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Adventures With Edie

Woke up early and Edie & I hauled butt up to Grand Central for a train to Tarrytown, where we met up for breakfast with my old friend J and her baby. Visited a water park, then took the train back in the early afternoon while Edie slept. Walked slowly from Grand Central to home, stopping in various parks along the way for Edie's eating, Edie's playing, Edie's walking, Edie's exploring, it was pretty much an intense meeting of Edie-love and City-love.

Picked up a nice selection at the CSA - snap peas and a little lettuce and scallions again, kale, some Swiss chard, a little broccoli, blueberries and cheese.

The potatoes I cooked yesterday were good, but there was too little stuff to too many potatoes, and I could have seasoned it a bit more aggressively. I think this pound of snap peas is gonna meet a pound of potatoes later this week....

AM SNACK: 7:15am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10am, pancakes, sausage, diet coke, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 2pm, 20oz Gatorade


PM SNACK: 3:30pm, 4 cabbage & pork dumplings, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
On the epic walk home, stopped in on the new Clinton St dollar dumpling place. Good, but not really different than the chive & pork dumplings.



PM SNACK: 4pm, large wedge of watermelon, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7:15pm, sauteed curry shrimp, roasted potato & snap peas, health salad, water, 1.75 bowl, hunger 4/5 

EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, 4oz ice cream, small ramekin of chocolate chips & cashews, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 
Sugar hunger got a hold on me. This challenge is gonna take some easing into.

4th of July Challenge

The HVS and I spoke of a new challenge for the month, it's been evolving in my head for more than a week now. Though officially it's a one-month weight-loss challenge, I think this month may be for an ongoing basis:

• Limit restaurant meals to one a week and delivery meals to one a week. 
• Limit desserts to three a week total, including sweet snacks.
• Eat 75% or more of all the produce we get from our CSA on Tuesdays during the week.
• Devise at least one dish each week to be made in quantity to last beyond the week via freezer and fridge, that is both Edie-friendly and B-friendly.

I'm open to suggetions on the last one. I would love 10 recipes that I could rotate. Currently, I have two warhorses in my cannon:

1. Pasta with homemade tomato sauce.
2. Mini burritos, whole wheat tortilla filled with slow-cooked black beans, guac, cheese and sometimes rice

I'm thinking 7 or 8 recipes needs to be vegetarian, 2 or 3 can be meaty or all meat. I think making meatballs from scratch (including grinding the meat myself) is a good one. Homemade breaded fish sticks or chicken fingers might be a good one. Bread maybe, or is that more of a side utility food? Pesto? Hummus? Gnocci? Rice & beans? Rice & lentil? Falafel?

TODAY'S COOKING:
Corn on the cob: Boiled it for a spare 4 minutes, slathered on some butter and salt (olive oil for the HVS), came out perfect -- sweet, firm but not too firm, toothsome. My parents used to boil the hell out of corn, but I suppose it was genetically different back then,

AM SNACK: 9am, iced green tea

BRUNCH: 11:45pm, 2 small burritos, small amount of pasta, small cup of ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

SNICKLELUNCH:  2:30pm, rice & lentils, healthsalad, corn on the cob, pickle, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


SNICKLEDINNER: 7pm, roasted potato & snap peas with breaded tilapia, mango sorbet, lime seltzer, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, 2 ice cream sandwiches

Truffle conundrum

Got to bed around 11, woke around 9 -- I ate kinda poorly the 2nd half of the day, I wonder if that was directly responsible for my utter lack of energy after 7 or so.

B grabbed an ice cream sandwich this morning while I was churning custard, and Edie was on her lap and insisted on sharing the "papa cake". Edie later woke up cranky from her nap, and only uncrankified after her pasta lunch when given some watermelon....which instead of just eating, she would lick a bunch of times like it was ice cream before eating it properly. I wonder if the sugar of the ice cream made her cranky. I think we may need to keep letting her eat anything and everything she wants EXCEPT sweets, and we'll have to limit our own intake when around her. Learning to feed, indeed.

TODAY'S COOKING
Vanilla Ice Cream: I made this custard on Friday but forgot to freeze the barrel, so I churned this morning. The custard was in the back of the fridge, on top, and about 1/3 of it froze. Frozen custard is NOT ice cream, as it freezes while stationary rather than being constantly scraped off a cold surface. So instead of having air whipped in and crystals being so tiny as to be smooth, instead you get an icey block with long, sharp crystals. I broke it up and stirred it the best I could, but the final result still has a little bit of icy crunch to it, boooo.

AM SNACK: 9:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10:30am, toasted bagel with cream cheese, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:15am, spoonful of vanilla ice cream

LUNCH: 1:45pm, one vanilla ice cream sandwich, a few whole wheat farmer's market pretzels, a small bowl of health salad, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Putting together ice cream novelties, one ended up in my mouth. A little grazing in the kitchen before heading off to a July 4 gathering in Jersey, where I suspect there will be food.

DINNER: 6pm, creamy pasta, pizza with marscapone & prosciutto, 1 beer, 1 glass prosecco, 1.5 ice cream sandwiches, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
For a 4th of July meal, this could have been a lot worse! The pizza-thing our hosts made was redolent in truffle oil, which makes me think....hmmm, not sure whether I love or loathe truffle oil. Truffles, I love (other than the price), but truffle oil, I dunno. Something weird about it, rings a wrong note, but it does remind me of truffles.


EVENING SNACK: 10pm, whole wheat pretzels, cashews & chocolate chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5