A Day Indoors

Woke up to a nice snow cover, but unfortunately it cancelled out plans for a family outing to Staten Island to visit friends. Took Edie outside and hit up a local joint for lunch, tried to stay out side for a while but Edie was wearing water-absorbing clothes, so we had to get back in doors pretty quick. Neighborhood friends came over in the evening for Chinese food, which was nice, but not the healthiest.

AM SNACK: 8am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 8:45am, good granola with organic dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:15pm, eggplant hero, house salad, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 4pm, momma salad with babaganoush, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 5:45pm, Chinese food, grape soda, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, Chinese leftovers, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Mayo Reconsidered

Woke up tired, but it's not Edie's fault -- for the third night in a row she slept through the night with out drama. Lifted weights while juggling Mil. Feeling the need to bike, I miss riding for hours outdoors.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Mayonnaise: As a Jew, I'm not a fan of mayo, but I wanted to have some sardines for lunch, and I didn't have most of the ingredients on hand to do exactly as Alton Brown does. The main supplementary ingredient to mash in with the sardines is avocado, a creamy fat. My mom used to make horrible tuna sandwiches, tuna mashed up with jarred mayo. In c-school, making mayo of different varieties was a lesson, and an important example of emulsification (which I still teach to my students.) Making mayo is easy.

Cheesecake Brownies: As we are invited to a Sabbath dinner in the 'hood with fellow parent friends, and excursioning out to Staten Island tomorrow to visit friends, thought these would be a good take-along. Used my standard go-to brownie recipe (but doubling salt, replacing extract with 3 scrapings)  but jazzed it up with a middle layer -- 16 oz of cream cheese beaten with 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 eggs and 2 vanilla bean scrapings. It's kinds Paula Deen-esque in it's crapitude, but it's fresh and industrial-BS-free.

Into the work bowl of the mixer, 1 egg, 1 yolk, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp mustard powder, 1 tsp white vinegar. Turn whisk on high, slowly drizzle in one cup of peanut oil, one cup of olive oil. In a few minutes, a big light yellow mound of fluffy mayo. It might have been a little brighter with more vinegar, or fresh lemon juice instead. I know jarred mayo in the fridge will last forever, not sure how long this will last, I guess as long as raw egg out of the shell will last....


AM SNACK: 8am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10am, smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Did a standard smoothie (banana, fresh grapes, frozen blueberries, mango, cherries & peach, Greek yogurt, organic dead milk, salt, vanilla, flax) but added a new ingredient I picked up with HVS while getting fresh brussels: spirulina. A dark green powder, it's some sort of ground up dried algae that's supposedly good for you in all sorts of ways. Years ago, I used to eat some puffed corn snack that was covered in the stuff which I enjoyed. I added a teaspoon to the smoothie and....it looked ugly, mottled, a grey-blue like there were too many different colors thrown in. Flavor-wise, it's actually very nice. A very subtle vegetal note that adds complexity. All the fruit's sweetness covers it's potential bitterness, leaving only a very quiet spinach-grass note.

LUNCH: 12:15pm, sardines & mayo on wholewheat toast, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
I liked this much more than I thought I would. Unlike my mom's sandwich, the whole wheat has some nutty flavor, the sardines are tastier than any tuna, and the mayo...fresh mayo tastes honest, jarred stuff is a little, ummm, jar-ry.


AFTERNOON SNACK: 5pm, slice of streetza, scraps of cheesecake brownie, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
On the way home with Edie from the playroom, found myself uncomfortably hungry and got a slice. A few minutes later, at home I took the freshly baked brownies out of the freezer and portioned them, but with the delicacy and crumbliness, a lot went to "waste", a.k.a. into my mouf (and into a scrap container.)

DINNER: 6:45pm, a small piece of salmon, a small amount of wholewheat pasta salad, half a glass of wine, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Over for Sabbath dinner with friends, my appetite ruined by the sweets.


EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, potato chips, small amount of brownie, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Hussle with the Brussels

Everyone in Brooklyn got sick, so my plans for the day were cancelled. Spent the morning making baba, road the big bike around the tip of Manhattan to catch some fresh air and had a nice vegany lunch with T. We went to a hippy dippy supermarket together and I picked up some fresh brussels to make B happy, and a jar of spirulina to experiment with my smoothies.

Still sore from Tuesday's work out, particularly my pecs and inner thighs.  Looking forward to pushing it again tomorrow.

TODAY'S COOKING
Baba Ganoush: No recipe, just winged it. Roasted a 1.5 lb eggplant at 400 for 40 minutes, along with a head of garlic going bad soon. In the food processor 1/2 cup of tahini, 2 lemons juiced and zested, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp cumin, a couple of glugs of olive oil, 3 raw cloves of garlic minced. Eggplant dunked in ice water for 10 minutes to make skinning easy. Roasted garlic squeezed into the bowl. Blended finely, chilled.

Roasted brussels: Split, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, 400 for 20 minutes. Their faces got nicely charred, the bodies soft and tender, really good. Gotta make these more often.

AM SNACK: 8am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10am, 2 pancakes, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


SNICKLELUNCH: 1:30pm, vegan Cesar salad, cup of dahl, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6pm, momma salad with baba, Roasted brussels & sauteed shrimp with soy yogurt curry sauce over tabouli, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, peanuts & chocolate chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, potato chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Thought more than usual before eating this. I intended the chocolate to end my eating day, but I felt oddly hungry, ready for more, desiring not sweet but savory/salty. I guess all the healthy food I've been eating just has less calorie density.

An Easy Day's Night

Woke up very sore, which I'm very happy about -- upping the work out close to pre-Mil levels was hard, but effective. But even better than that, I slept pretty much undisturbed from midnight to 8:30am, which was pretty refreshing and miraculous. If the sleeping baby next to me didn't wake up needing a bottle, I probably could have slept another 2 hours, but I'll take it!

Went out with Y&K to dinner in the East Village in the evening, left out around 7 and home around 9:30, and Mil was strapped to me all bundled up -- didn't even peep, so fast asleep. Gotta do more of that before he's too big and awake!

TODAY'S COOKING:
Pumpernickel bagelchips, roasted red & orange peppers: B had an old friend visit this afternoon, so we put out a spread that included the carrot dip and tabouli. I elevated the tabouli a little by roasted a few peppers on the stove top, letting them steam then cleaning and chopping them once cooled.

AM SNACK: 8:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10am, reheated hardcore oatmeal, banana, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 1pm, 1.5 donut, a few bagel chips, a pickle, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, momma salad, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 6pm, bite of chocolate, handful of potato chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 8pm, mixed boiled perogies, brownie with ice cream, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Hardcore Oatmeal

Lifted weights after B&E left for school, the baby sleeping, the laundry in process. I was disappointed last week -- the first session after the 2 month pause left me pleasantly sore for two days, but the second session of equal intensity did nothing. So this morning I ratcheted it up, 40 push ups, 20 sit ups, close to what I was doing before, and it hurt, felt good.

I've been keeping a healthier diet lately, definitely feel a benefit already. The trick now is to keep a balance of sweets/unhealthy food to stop from getting bored.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Hardcore Oatmeal: I tossed the Wholefoods brand steel cut oats, even toasting them to increase cooking time didn't do much, and still didn't taste right. I bought a tin of McCain's Irish Steel Cut the other day, and not the quick cooking kind -- the only way to cook these is 30 minutes on the stove top. So while I worked out and the baby slept, the oatmeal gurgled away. Four cups of boiling water, 1 cup of oats, 1 tbsp of butter, 1 tbsp of brown sugar, a heavy pinch of salt, a heavy pinch of cinnamon, a small glug of vanilla extract. I checked on it every 10 minutes or so, and indeed by the end of the 30 minutes it started sticking on the bottom of the pan. I let it cool for 10 minutes and it thickened nicely.

Taste and texture are equally important for steel cut oats. Taste was spot on, oaty and natural and no weird chemical or metallic tastes. Seasoning was good, maybe a little more brown sugar, but pretty much there. The texture was close, I think I need to cook it lower for a little longer, to soften the grains a bit but there was nice creaminess surrounding the kernels, which were almost too stuff but gave nicely when chewed.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, hardcore oatmeal, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, lamb sausage sandwich with fried potatoes, babaganoush & hummus with a little pita, roasted butternut squash, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 6:15pm, momma style salad, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, tabouli with mini bagel wrapped hot dogs, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
The original plan was to saute some shrimp with some interesting dried herbs and condiments, but with B&E in bed and Mil on the edge of sleep & crankiness, I needed something fast. This was my first meal off the tabouli -- I found it a little bit underflavored, could use more lemon, more spice, a little more salt, more everything, but the simple wholegrainy bulgar wheat flavor did ring true. Not so much a good main, but a nice base for something better like a saucy shrimp!


EVENING SNACK: 10pm, nutella with ritz crackers, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Potato Chip Vegan

Another night o' kiddies, another night of not enough sleep. B went out in the morning and MAP & D came over. While D amused Edie and Mil slept while strapped to me, I taught MAP how to cook pancakes -- a while ago, she complained on Facebook that she could not cook pancakes without burning them, and I had been itching to guide her ever since. So technically I did not do today's cooking, MAP did, as I just put everything out and let her at it. We stuck to the C-School recipe, though when the batter came out too thick, we tossed in an extra cup of milk.

After eating, we had a nice extended dance party with Edie in the bedroom, MAP & D left, B came home slightly re-energized, and we met the C's for dinner at Veg Dim Sum. Yep, vegan dinners two nights in a row, I gotta go get some ass-blasting burgers in me stat! (I keed, I keed)

Skipped weights today, as Edie was off from school and there was chaos. It shall resume tomorrow.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


AM SNACK: 8:15am, 1.5 bananas

BRUNCH: 11:45am, pancakes, bacon, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 3pm, 2 cupcakes, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
When B got home from her re-energize time, she brought me cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine. They instantaneously jumped down my neck without any say from me. I spoke to B later, hopefully if she wants to bring me home thank-you gifts of a casual sort, in the future it can be something other than food. Perhaps mon-keys, cook books, a weird unusual or fancy ingredient to cook with (Irish butter, cough cough). Hrumph. Or just a hug and a smile, I don't need much when my luvin' wife gives me so much already!



DINNER: 5:15pm, vegan dimsum, tea, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 8pm, potato chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Continuing the theme of the potato chip vegan....

Snickleconference 2012

A hard night with the kids waking up at various times in various combinations, at various volumes. We rolled out and visited a neighborhood family in the late morning, then I struck out to Wholefoods in the cold in the afternoon to retrieve supplies for the evening's vegan feast with the HVS. Got to bed (relatively) early, exhausted.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Roasted Brussel Sprouts: Betsy has been asking for brussels for a while, but stubbornly refuses to make them herself. So here is a detailed description how to make them:

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. If using frozen, place entire package in microwave safe brown with a tablespoon of water, zap on high for 3 minutes.
3. Slice each brussel in half length-wise, through the root end.
4. Place in work bowl, toss with a few glugs of olive oil, a few sprinkles of salt and a few turns of the pepper shaker.
5. Spread brussels on a baking sheet, cut sides down, spread out so none are touching
6. Bake 20 minutes. When taking out of the even, immediately use a spatula to lift them off the pan into a little pile. Serve.

Morrel Brown Rice: Threw short grain brown rice in the rice cooker with water, olive oil, salt and a few bay leaves. In addition, took a small pack of dried morrels, smashed them up into lil' bits, and threw that in. Came out pretty fragrant.


Curry Carrot Dip: Betsy had a similar recipe she got from a friend, but I found this version in the Veganomicon which was superior, mostly due to the addition of sunflower seeds. Food process 1/2 cups unsalted roasted sunflower seeds until crumbly. Add 1 lb boiled carrots (10min), 2 cloves minced garlic, tablespoon of curry powder, teaspoon of cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, process until smooth, chill. It had the right note of sweetness vs. spice.

Pumpernickel Bagel Chips: No recipe, just common sense. Had some pumpernickel bagels in the freezer that have been sitting around too long. Sliced them thin, tossed with olive oil and salt, spread em out on baking sheets, 200 for 30 minutes, came out pretty good. Next time less oil, a little longer in the oven.


Tabouli: For the cost of 12 oz prepared, I made about 3/4 of a gallon. 3 cups of bulgar boiled with salt, lemon juice and zest, chopped seeded cucumber, chopped scallion, salt, olive oil, fresh parsley and mint.


AM SNACK: 9:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10am, oatmeal, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Couldn't stand the thought of cooking ungood steel cut oats for 20 minutes, so went with old fashioned rolled oats, micro for 6 minutes. Added butter, salt, cinnamon and some honey, as out of brown sugar. Made me appreciate what brown sugar brings to the table, a woodsy earthy sweetness that is severely lacking in flat honey.

AM SNACK: 11:30am, chocolate pastry thing, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


AFTERNOON SNACKING: 3-5pm, sunflower seeds, bits of carrot mush, freshly baked bagel chips, spoonfuls of tabouli, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


SNICKLEDINNER: 6:15pm,  roasted brussel sprouts, morrel brown rice, curry soy yogurt sauce, curry carrot dip & pumpernickel bagel chips, vegan chocolate chip cookie, seltzer, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 10pm, potato chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Got hungry, though not for sweets. I guess I truly am a potato chip vegan.