Run Down

Woke up at 9:30, stuffy nose. Back feels even better, but still a little bit sore. Skipped weights, and will probably sacrifice them next week, too. After pancakes, Betsy went to work to get on top for her last week coming up before officially leaving to give birth, and I watched Edie while doing some knish-related chores. Got to bed a little after 9pm, feeling run down and hopeful I'll feel better for tomorrow's Tour De Bronx.


TODAY'S COOKING
Pancakes: Trying to empty out the fridge (milk, eggs, yogurt), and stock the freezer for this coming week's knish onslaught. No buttermilk on hand, but a half cup or so of the full fat Fage had a similar effect.

Burgers: Grated onion, Worcestershire, salt and this time some  garlic powder. Better distro through the meat than if using fresh. It was good.

BREAKFAST: 10am, iced green tea, pancakes, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, breaded shrimp, cheese tortellini in olive oil & garlic, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:30pm, 2 burgers on whole wheat buns, potato chips, butternut squash soup, milano cookies, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Ramping up

Spent the day getting smaller details of next week's knish table done, stuff I may forget or overlook when I'm in the heat of multiple days of production . My back feels better, though still not 100%. Was going to lift weights, but think perhaps to wait another day rather than risk a recurrence.

Nose is getting stuffier, head a little heavy, better be careful or my weekend will be 86ed.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 9am, toasted onion bagel with cream cheese and whitefish, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 1:15pm, 2 slices streetza, grape soda, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 4:30pm, black cherry soda, a beer, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a 2yr old's party.



DINNER: 6:15pm, butternut squash soup, large green salad, mashed potatoes, a little sliced turkey, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Zoo

Woke up with an achy back, but not as bad as last night, which is a relief -- it's muscular, not spine-related or torn-something. Edie had off from school, so we rode over to the Prospect Park Zoo in the morning. Visited an auntie in Park Slope in the afternoon, and had a nice rollicking evening with the ladies after.

Looking over today's eating, it's a bit of a roller coaster. Super healthy breakfast, super evil lunch, super healthy dinner, then rather crappy snack-explosion in the evening. I guess 50% is better that 0%, but I do know I can do better.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Milk, yogurt, banana, blueberry, cherry, mango, peach, flax, salt, vanilla, a small dash of sugar. Used a frozen banana and made the whole thing too thick to blend, had to add extra milk. Still had to eat it with a spoon!

LUNCH: 12 noon, quarter pounder with cheese, fries, diet coke, 2 mcnuggets, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 4pm, rice noodle & fishball, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, breaded tilapia, butternut squash soup, green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9:15pm, popcorn, peanuts & chocolate chips, 5 chicken nuggets, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Backy back

Spent the morning riding in the rain taking care of some chores. In the afternoon, taught and rode home in the rainy dark with 50+ lbs of borrowed equipment that'll help with the knish-production next week.

I'm not sure what caused it, but during class my back started hurting really bad, making it hard to lean over - maybe I lifted a large pot of water the wrong way? I'm not sure. It continued to hurt on the ride over, and by the time I got home, it hurt to stand from a sitting position, and I needed to just lie down and be still -- good thing, because that's my main activity in the evening nowadays?

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10:45am, good granola with organic dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45am, butternut squash soup, green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


SCHOOL SNACK: 3pm, chocolate covered pretzels, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


SCHOOL EATS: 6:30pm, grilled chicken, mashed potato, swiss chard w/caramelized onion & olives, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 9:15pm, mini cheese raviolis with homemade sauce, whole wheat ritz with nutella, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Soup n' Sweet Knishes

TODAY'S COOKING
Various Cheese Knishes: Due to scheduling of life n' shiz, today was my last chance to experiment with some knish making. Desert-centric cheese knishes tend to be an afterthought, so there is two good things -- no one expects much, and the definition of what a sweet cheese knish must be isn't as codified as the savory potato.

I was not that thrilled with the apple-cheese knishes from last week, so for inspiration (and to dispose of 12+ lbs of CSA apples) over the weekend, I baked off 5 apple pies & crumbles. The essence of the pie is the flavorful liquid of the fruit that cooks out and becomes a thick, gelatinous sweet jam-like substance. How that happens is simple -- the fruit is tossed in flour, sugar and a little salt, and between the gluten of the flour and the pectin of the fruit, when the juices cook out it becomes that wonderful goo. I don't want to make pocket pies, but I want some of the wonderful goo in my fruit-cheese knishes.

So I scavenged around the kitchen and got myself a line up o' fruit: for the fresh team, we had banana, apple and pear, for the frozen team, blueberries, cherries & mangoes. I did up a mise-bowl of equal parts flour, sugar and a little salt, and dredged the fruit handful by handful before inserting them into the open mouths of plain and chocolate knishes. Everything except bananas I paired with the plain sweet cheese, threw the bananas in the chocolate.

I tweaked the recipes as I went, the main change was doubling the sugar in the plain cheese, as it just wasn't sweet enough before. This made the batter noticeably looser, which reminded me of what I was taught in c-school: sugar is always considered a wet ingredient, not a dry. Now I appreciate that more -- it dissolves or gets slushy in the presence of wet, adding to wet's mass.

Upon baking, it came clear that for the wetter fruit (everything but the banana), the fruit sweated enough to make a slight to large amount of gooey goodness on top of the cheese layer. As for the banana layer, the jury is still out, it may need some more thought.

Another thought is that the chocolate-hazelnut is not hazelnutty enough. I'm depending on nutella, but amping it with dutch cocoa powder. I may go full on cocoa powder and hazelnut butter for production....

Butternut Squash soup: I got some butternut squash, leeks and fresh apples from the CSA, so a quick blender soup seemed to make sense. The B-nut-S soup I made last week kinda rocked my world, so I had high hopes for this one, but it came out strictly...bleah. I did lots different with this one, and the end product couldn't be more different. Sauteed the chopped leeks in olive oil, put in a half head of minced garlic at the end of saute, then deglazed with some white wine I had in the fridge. Boiled up the processed squash with 2 apples instead of 2 sweet potatoes. Blended it all together, finished it with what I had on hand -- sour cream instead of plain ol' cream. Seasoned with salt and...fneh. The wine, the tart apples and the sour cream all added to a sligthly vinegary overtone, which made the garlic pop, but it was....vinegary. On the other hand, if I served this soup at a high-falutin' pretentious over-priced restaurant, people would probably think it was very sophisticated n' refined. Fneh.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 9:30am, pumpernickel bagel with creamcheese and smoke white fish, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Bought some kippered white fish form WF on a grocery run this morning. Reminded me a bit of when I lived in England -- salty, tough, and not very good.

LUNCH: 1pm, 5 falafel balls with hummus, pickle pint of grenadine soda, pear & apple knish, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Was gonna also have salad, but smelly funky and the cuces went icy.

DINNER: 6:45pm, breaded shrimp, large green salad, butternut squash soup, 2 chocolate knishes, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, kraft dinner, mini waffles, peanuts & chocolate chips, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Rotten Avocado

Spent the day working on Knish PR and taking care of the Edie. Got notice my new iPhone should arrive on Thursday, made me oddly excited.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea


LUNCH: noon, sardines on homemade wholewheat, green salad, multigrain chips with school salsa, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Few things more disappointing then cutting open an avocado and finding it completely rotten and stinky.

DINNER pt 1: 5pm, meat tortellini in homemade sauce, 5 falafels w/hummus, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER pt 2: 8:15pm, Stouffers French Bread pizza, chocolate chips & peanuts, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

I didn't eat it, it just jumped in my mouth and made me swallow.

Woke up early, and some pie jumped down my throat. Did a slow 30 mile bike ride in relatively cold weather, fueled by junk food, and when I got home, more pie attacked me and jumped down my throat. On top of that, my momma-in-law was around in the afternoon and they ordered in Chinese, and low and behold, a bunch of greasy carbs jumped down my throat...twice! How did that happen?!


BREAKFAST: 6:45am, iced green tea, apple pie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


BIKE SNACK: 10:15am, gatorade, potato chips, peanut butter cups, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 1:30pm, apple pie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 5:45pm, beef lomein, pork fried rice, egg roll, grape soda, .75 bowl hunger 4/5


DINNER pt 2: 7:30pm, beef lomein, pork fried rice, veg dumplings, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5