Rollin'

Just rollin' with B's family. Asleep by 10 to wake up early for a bike ride.

BREAKFAST: 10:30am, mini dutch pancakes, half a shrimp roll, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Spent the morning at the Hester St. Fair with my fatherinlaw. The "poffertjes" were almost exactly like the Chinese egg cakes sold on street corners, small round things, golden brown, eggy and puffy. These were dressed in powdered sugar and butter. Fneh. The shrimp roll was from the same peeps who make the lobster rolls, pretty good.

LUNCH: 2:45pm, 1 quesedilla, baked ziti, ginger ale, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
B's poppa and bro in the house, I was going to offer just quesedillas, but the ziti was so popular from yesterday they demanded a repeat performa...uh, left-overs. Needed sugar, so had half of one of B's ginger ales.

PM SNACK: 5:45pm, watermelon
After 2 hours in the heat with Edie, getting her some run around time at a playground where she would not get interested in the water portion at all, this large slice of cold watermelon was pretty much love in edible form.

DINNER: 8pm, sweet & sour shrimp with pork fried rice, egg roll, wonton soup, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Drinking

Spent the day with B and her fam, we hit up the Jewish History Museum downtown, an eatery on Wall Street. At home in the afternoon, cooked up some ziti before taking Edie out to the park briefly.

In the evening took off and met up E and a few friends to take a boat to a floating bar-barge docked in the harbor by Ellis Island, it was a pleasant diversion. After we strolled over to a nice restaurant in Tribeca for a meal of shared small plates before heading home.

TODAY'S COOKING
Baked Ziti: Pretty much a standard baked ziti, done without a recipe. Two boxes of ziti, boiled to just past crunchy. 8 cups of homemade tomato sauce out of the freezer. Bechemel with nutmeg made. Three things mixed together, put in pans, topped with moz and a little extra sauce, baked at 375 for an hour until a nice crisp crust formed. As it was damn hot out, I let it sit for a few hours and it came together nicely.

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, multi-grain sushi, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 5pm, baked ziti, half a chocolaty thing, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNORT: 7:30-9pm, 2.5 beers, diet coke
I haven't drank more than one alcoholic drink at once in quite a while, and cut myself off at 2.5, surprisingly buzzed. I thought my large dinner would have prevented this, but there ya go.


DINNER 2: 10pm, bread & butter, mussels, spatzle, 2 different kinds of wurst, fries, kraut, trout pate, brussel sprouts, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Friends continued to drink, but I skipped it.

Too Smooth

The pops I set to freeze yesterday remains soft and smooth at this cold temp, hmmmm. I guess the blend of smooth peanut butter, coconut milk, banana, sugar and particular a shot of high-proof vanilla extract and a dash of salt not only inhibited crystallization, it inhibited freezing to a rock, so when you pull the pop out of the form, only the stick comes out! Huh. Tastes good, a tad too sweet, gonna re formulate with less sugar and more fruit next time.

A good friend has come up with an idea for a dinner club, similar to a book club but with dinner parties instead of books. TBD.

TODAY'S COOKING
Cookies n' Creme Ice Cream: It's always satisfying when a churn goes well -- the custard is thick and cold enough to take on air quickly, and it rises to the top of the barrel. When it reaches the top, I poured in the ground up oreos to mix it in properly.

AM SNACK: 9:30am, small amount of coco-peanut-banana "ice cream"

LUNCH: 12:15pm, hot dog, health salad, potato salad, pickle, greeny pasta, large slice of watermelon, 3 oreos, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Almost like a trawl through the fridge to finish things before they went bad.

DINNER: 5:30pm, pizza, homemade ice cream, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5 
B ordered in pizzas from Lombardis because her pop and brother were over.

Kookin' in the Kitchen

Dammit, no nips in the supermarket.

Spent the morning chilling, met up with B for a nice lunch near her office, but cookies kept me from being hungry so I just nibbled. Investigated the farmer's market then hit up the supermarket for a big shop, planning a few big dishes for the next week or so.

TODAY'S COOKING
Guacamole: 4 avocados, one whole Valencia onion minced, one head of cilantro minced, juice of 2 limes, large pinch of salt. Very oniony, but purposefully because I wanted an onion presence in the dish this was going into.

Quesidilas: Had to put my ton of rice & beans to use. I bought mini corn tortillas instead of flour, and found that no amount of steaming or microwaving would make them flexible enough to make burritos, so I laid them out, spread on the loose rice n' beans on one, guac on another, and a sprinkling of grated cheddar in the middle.


Vanilla ice cream base: B's family is over tomorrow, and B refuses to allow me to cook, but she let me do some ice cream, and a family favorite is cookies n' cream, so had to make this base now so I can churn and mix ground up oreos into it tomorrow. The usual, pint of cream, pint of milk, heated with 1 cup of sugar, 3 vanilla beans scraped. 12 egg yolks tempered into it, strained into an ice bathe once thick.

Coco-peanut frozen bars: Edie has been going nuts for "ice cream", frozen treats on stick. We have a set of molds and B has been making one-off frozen smoothies with a lot of fruit, and this morning I poured off enough of my own smoothie to make a pop for her. Rather than one offs, I made a set from pantry stuff. 12 oz of coconut milk. 6 ounce of natural-style peanut butter, 4 ounce of cane sugar cooked until comes together and smooth. Into a blender with banana, a large shot of vanilla extract and a large pinch of salt, blend to smooth.  Into 6 molds and into freezer. I calculate that is about 2 tablespoons of sugar per pop -- depending on how they taste, I may cut the sugar in half and consider other fruit to the coconut milk-peanut butter-banana base. Also, I wonder how the consistency will be -- maybe I should try to run it through my ice cream machine to whip air into it and avoid crystallization? Hopefully the salt and extract will help stay soft and relatively smooth in the frozen state.

BREAKFAST: 6am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Milk, good yogurt, banana, frozen blueberries, cherries and mango, flax, a pinch of salt. Very thick.

AM SNACK: 10:30am, 5 cookies, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30, an arancini, an avocado toast, a little moz, a bit of sandwich, a few potato chips, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK 4:30pm, a few failed mini burritos, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:15pm, a quesadilla, 3 ears of boiled corn, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, handful of Oreos

Nip

Stayed in doors with Edie to beat the heat in the morning, took an adventure to Staten Island in the afternoon to visit a friend with child. I had a Rolling Rock "nip" with lunch today when we were out, I think it was about 8 oz -- hmmm, just the right amount for having with a nice lunch. I'm going to look for this or better beer in this size bottle in the supermarket, as only every once in a while do I want beer with lunch, and usually in this quantity.

Picked up CSA. New cabbage head gonna be a cabbage knish. Basil, garlic going and a few fresh tomatoes into a baked ziti. Salad greens and a few more tomatoes for green salad. Parsley, not sure what to do. One singular squash blossom given to Edie as a flower. Blueberries & peaches into Edie's maw, cheese into B's maw.

TODAY'S COOKING
Spinach: Bought a huge 5 lb bag of frozen chopped spinach last week to increase my greens intake. Sauteed some garlic in olive oil, threw in the spinach, some onion powder, a little salt, a splash of water then covered it and let it heat up on low until the rest of dinner was ready, about half an hour.


BREAKFAST: 9:30am, 3 small pancakes, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH 1: noon, bowl of pasta with CSA veg, 5 cookies, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Pasta from freezer, last week's dish. Freshened up with a sprinkle of freshly grated parm and a dash of olive oil.

LUNCH 2: 3pm, pizza, 1 small beer, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
In Staten Island, went to Lee's Tavern for bar-pizza, a midwestern style that is oddly popular on SI. Really enjoyed it, made me feel like I was 1000s of miles away when I was just in NYC's strangest borough.

DINNER: 7:45pm, breaded tilapia, cooked spinach, rice & beans, cookies, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Rice & Beans

Monday blahs, camped out in a movie theater for the first part of the day, went to the supermarket to pick up ingredients for dinner, and spent the rest of the day cooking. Put me in a much better mood.


TODAY'S COOKING
Rice & Beans: An experimental batch, and a large batch. The short grain brown rice says 1 cup of rice to 2.5 cups of water, I used 4 cups of water. For the first time, I took a pound of dry black beans and rehydrated them instead of using canned. In the bean reconstitution process, I threw in half an onion, half a green pepper, bay leaves and salt to give them some base flavor. Made sofrito with 2 onions sauteed to soft, threw in chopped green peppers and softened. Added half a head of minced garlic for a minute, then threw into a blender with a whole bunch of cilantro and blended to smooth. Put beans, rice, water and sofrito into one large pot and simmered about an hour until the rice had absorbed much of the liquid. Salted as I went a long, added a shot of hot pepper sauce and some ground black pepper. Final dish was milder in flavor than I thought it would be, but good. It's currently vegan, but I think a ham bone or something would have done a lot to deepen the flavor.

Chocolate Chip Cookies: After a low-eating day, craved sugar after dinner, so whipped out a bunch of chocolate chip cookies. B bought a mess of Nestle's Morsels a while ago for something I never ended up cooking -- they're hard to eat by themselves because they don't taste that good, chalky, not very chocolately, just fakey, but when put into a cookie with real brown sugar, real butter, real vanilla and real eggs, it kinda saves them.


AM SNACK: 9am, banana


AM SNACK: 11am, wholewheat pretzels, good peanut butter, pickle, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 1pm, handful of cashews, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, health salad, pickle, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:30pm, shrimp, rice & beans, cookies, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

A Day of Rest

The challenge I set for myself early this month is going well in some aspects, poorly in others.

• Well -- I've cut down on restaurant food and delivery drastically, increased my consumption of home-prepared food equally, and definitely feel my diet has increased for the better. Also, I'd say 90% of the CSA food is being put to good use. 
• Poorly -- restricting sweets. Still hitting up sweets once or even twice a day, though maybe in smaller quantities and usually matched with something healthy-ish to make it seem like it's more than it is.

Around 7:30pm last night, I ate the remainder of the pork loin despite eating a lot of meat earlier in the day -- I was worried that my body would not recover fast enough from the day's ride to be ready for the next. I was asleep by 8pm, and when I woke up at 4am, my fears were confirmed -- assorted muscles felt beat up and tired, but most importantly my legs and thighs were sore. I intended on riding around 50 miles yesterday, but due to fun-related things, ended up doing about 75 in some relatively hilly Connecticut terrain.

I got up, ate a bowl of cereal, sprayed on sunblock (the opposite of a spray tan, I assume) and started to put on my cycling gear. Bike was ready in the hall, day bag already packed. As I lifted my legs to put them into the spandex, I was thinking about the day ahead -- on one hand, it was to be perfect weather, the route I had not seen since a year ago, and the food at the rest stops should be good. Psychologically, I was good, and 8 hours of sleep helped. On the other hand, my legs hurt, my body shouted for rest despite 8 hours sleep, and if I were to embark on this trip then quit early (or worse, given my lowered sharpness), it would be very depressing. So despite being on schedule and 90% ready to go, I paused, stripped out of my stuff and hopped back into bed with B. I woke up at 9:30am -- 13.5 hours of sleep, badly needed.

Legs hurt at 4am, but now they are just pleasantly sore, recovery in full effect. Sad I didn't do the Hudson Valley Century, but I made the right choice. Took the morning to lay on the couch and read the paper, in the afternoon wandered over to the local playground with the family to take in the neighborhood at it's most social. Spent the evening on the couch with the TV. A good day.

BREAKFAST: 4am, organic chex with organic dead milk, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5


BRUNCH: 10am, kraft dinner with sauteed veg, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1pm, health salad, pickle, handful of multigrain pretzels, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Made the health salad on Friday from a CSA cabbage -- added CSA scallion because I had to do something with it. Don't like it, the onion-ness of the scallion doesn't play well with the tangy-sweet dressing and the more vegetal ingredients.


PM SNACK: 2:45pm, slice of cheese knish, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Despite B wolfing down most of this baked item I made last week, a small sliver was found tucked away in the freezer. Recipe definitely needs work.


PM SNACK: 4pm, slice of streetza, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 6:15pm, half a slice of streetza, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 7:15pm, breaded tilapia, kraft dinner with sauteed veg, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, a few squares of chocolate, a few multigrain pretzels