The Art of the Bagel: NYC breakfasts

This morning after my run, I walked with my mom to pick up a big bag of bagels ("Are they fresh?" "Of course, Lady"), a clay-like brick of fresh cream cheese, and 4 kinds of smoked salmon (nova, gravlax, pastrami, and regular salted lox).
Sadly, I was feeling the aftermath of yesterday's indulgence, and all I really wanted was a nice big bowl of yogurt, cottage cheese, and grapenuts.
All the same, I appreciated that artistically inspiring image that is the bagel with lox and cream cheese, especially with a bite taken out of it. My cousin made fun of me to no end, but can you not see the beauty here?

Yummy eggs and cucumber

Apologies for not blogging yesterday! I had to rewrite my english paper for the THIRD TIME, and also had two hours of piano yesterday-- Wednesdays are busy!
Yesterday's eats:
Breakfast: oats with 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup oat milk, 1 whole banana, almond extract, almonds, and almond butter.
and a pear.

Lunch: I made the MOST delicious wrap (I guess it was more of a burrito) with leftover kale and mole. I also had carrots, hummus, and an apple.

I came home right after school and got to work on my paper. I was pretty hungry before leaving for piano, and knew I wouldn't get to eat till around 8, so I had a big snack of (what else is new?) cottage cheese, greek yogurt, grapenuts, and blueberries.

Dinner was very fast and light: my dad made shrimp wonton soup that was very authentic: lots of seaweed, cilantro and vegetables. My one concern: the wontons have MSG... At first I refused to eat them, but then my dad got kind of annoyed and did all this research about how it isn't that dangerous. What are your views?
Big bowl and small bowl (him and me):


Dessert: an apple

Today--
Breakfast, which I pretty much had to wolf down: oatmeal with 1/2 oats, 1/2 cup soy, stevia, 1/2 banana, vanilla, cinnamon, candied walnuts, flax, and peanut butter.
A tangerine
A chai latte using the rest of our milk... WE MUST GO GROCERY SHOPPING ASAP!



For some reason, I really needed a snack between breakfast and lunch... so I had a honey graham z-bar, which I didn't take a photo of.

Lunch was pretty light but satisfying: leftover wonton soup, more carrots and hummus, and an apple.

After lunch, my dad and I had a funny arrangement: he had a meeting, so he picked up my school stuff and clothes, and I went for a run by the lake and ran straight to my house afterwards! It was a really clever plan. At first I was nervous about running alone, mainly that I would get bored or slip on ice, but it was such a gorgeous day that I couldn't wait to get going! When I got to the lake, I just wanted to stare at the sky all day: the moon was out in the day time, and it was streaked with purple and pinkish blue. At one point, I ran through a huge flock of Canadian geese and got a little freaked out. Anyways, this was a very long run for me to do on my own, even though it wasn't that long: I ran from school to the playground on 43d, then back to my house instead of all the way back to school. I stopped and stretched at the playground, but I'd say I still did a good 3 miles without stopping at all. All in all, the run was probably about 5 miles, and I felt mentally and physically great the whole time: I got into a rhythm, I was with my thoughts, and I felt happy to be outside.
I got back and had the same snack I do every day, and I'm almost embarrassed to put it up: cottage cheese, yogurt, blueberries, pumpkin butter, and a combination of GoLean Crunch and Mighty Bites.

My dad made a fast dinner: stir-fried eggs and cucumbers. I know it sounds weird to eat cooked cucumbers, but when they're not too watery they taste just like zucchini. This dish is so delicious! He also defrosted some unagi (eel) for himself... it's already prepared Japanese-style. I took some, but didn't end up eating it. I usually like it, but it wasn't in the mood. Guess we've been in a defrosting mood lately, considering there is no food in the house! I defrosted some pumpkin and lentil stew and had that on the side. I ended up eating a lot because I was really hungry (probably because of my run)-- I had seconds on rice and ate half the plate of eggs (2 eggs per person).



I feel so excited to have gotten my urge for running back! I go through phases: swimming phases, workout machine phases, etc. I try to vary my workouts, but I also enjoy seeing results as I improve specific sports.
By the way, I'm so excited that I'm getting more comments on the blog! If you've been reading, I just want to thank you and encourage you to comment! It really does make my day, and I would love to see your websites too!
EDITED to add dessert:
a pear and the last spoonful of my Snickerdoodle ice cream

Home Alone

Well, I'm alone this week! Not exactly... my dad left today, is coming back tomorrow, leaving the next day, and my aunt is coming to stay with me during the weekend.
I'm pretty excited... planning on cooking for her and dragging her to see TWILIGHT! 3rd time's a charm (for me-- page has already seen it 4 TIMES!).
I actually enjoy being home alone. the only annoying thing is that I can't drive, so it's the bus and walking in this terrible weather.
Breakfast: For some reason I just haven't felt like oats as much, although I plan to have them tomorrow.
I had 2 pieces of toast with 3 tsps of peanut butter total... I know I'm a moron, but how many tsps in a tbsp? is it 4? I might just look it up. Anyways, there was half a sliced banana on the toast.
I also had 1/2 cup of cottage cheese with blueberries and wheat germ.
Plus Chai tea because I was tired, which I had with STEVIA! I can't believe that this is all natural... not that it doesn't taste natural... but why doesn't it have calories?
Snack once again was carrots, but with celery this time. I find that I just need something to munch on, and this does the trick.
Lunch: leftover eggs and tomatoes over brown rice with more string beans. And an apple.

I got home from school on the bus and it was gorgeous outside, but way too slippery for me to even consider running (I saw my friends' running, but I was afraid they might accidentally fall and kill themselves). Instead, I went home and worked out on the elliptical. That's 3 days in a row that I've done the same machine! Normally I HATE machines... but since I'm getting a workout, I won't complain, although I wonder what caused this sudden change. Because I was finding it a little hard to read actual books, I took some cookbooks and leafed through all the pictures. The time went by super fast! I did 40 minutes doing not exactly intervals, but every five minutes I would go up a level until I was almost on the highest level. I burned 380 something calories. Then I felt I hadn't cooled down, so I walked for 11 or so minutes on the treadmill. Then I did some upper body weights and some bicycle sets.
When I got back I had a pear.

For dinner I couldn't wait to cook! What's awesome about home alone is that I can cook whatever I want... weird vegan things my parents would find strange, make pancakes, whatever!
I decided to experiment with some more Western-style tofu and make a kind of oven-baked tofu, like oven-baked chicken, which is the healthy version of fried chicken.
This was mainly because we have buttermilk in our fridge that I would like to get rid of... I didn't end up using all of it, though. I combined a couple recipes: one from Running with Food and an Ellie Krieger one. I was stupid, though! I took Ellie's idea of using grape nuts and crackers, but I didn't crush them first, so of course they wouldn't stick to the tofu! I dipped the tofu in a combination of buttermilk, mustard, honey and egg whites, but because the coating didn't stick, it became more like a crunchy topping, that was still pretty good.
And this was the most exciting part of the whole evening: KALE CHIPS! I have heard so much about these, but I've always been skeptical. I just baked them for a little under ten minutes with olive oil, salt and pepper, and they actually tasted exactly like potato chips! I haven't even really been craving potato chips, but if I had been, this would have satisfied that craving. I wonder if I could eat them with some vinegar to bring back salt 'n vinegar memories...
I ate the chips and tofu with ketchup.


I really wanted to bake a potato or something, but we don't have any! :( I thought my usual brown rice would make this seem to Asian, which was the opposite of what I was going for, so I resorted to canned butternut squash, which I heated up with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, maple syrup, and salt. The problem was that I always overdo the ginger, which gave it a slight bitter aftertaste... but no big deal.
What a fun dinner! Very unlike the things I usually cook... I used to cook very mushy, soupy food-- mainly bean-based soups and stews. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is more interesting. I've gotten back in the groove!
And because I didn't really have any substantial snacks today I thought it was justified to satisfy my sweet tooth: hence, a nice bowl of the last of the vanilla frozen yogurt and some more Purely Decadent Snickerdoodle.

Good night!
The house is quiet.

Classic comfort staples

This will be short because there are only a few more weeks before winter break and that means TONS of tests, papers, and projects!
Last night I made a yummy sundae with vanilla frozen yogurt, mango, half a banana, cinnamon, and a sprinkle of coconut. YUM.

Breakfast: went for 1/2 cup of oats because during the week, I need a more substantial breakfast: 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup of that weird maple flavored oat milk (i might have to throw this out...), 1/2 cup water, 1/2 banana, some blueberries, flax, and Greek yogurt.
Snack: I nibbled on carrots! It was nice to have this instead of a bar because my mid-morning hunger isn't so severe that I need something THAT calorie dense.

Lunch: I made a delicious wrap, although it got so flattened that it looked more like a sandwich. It had baby spinach, rapini, avocado, a Laughing Cow, and hummus. SO GOOD! Plus leftover broccoli and an apple.

It was practically a blizzard all day! I love snow, but that cancels out all possibilities of running outside. I decided to come home after school and try a different approach- save the homework for LAST, because then you really can't procrastinate. Right when I got home, I changed and went down to the workout room for some elliptical stuff. I did intervals today... 5 minutes warm up, 1 minute hard, 2 minutes easy for 25 minutes, then another 10 minutes of moderately paced training. Intervals definitely make things more interesting! I don't usually trust the calorie burn, but it was about 390 calories.
I went upstairs and had a snack of 1/2 cup cottage cheese, the other half of my banana, and 1/8 cup of grapenuts with cinnamon.

This definitely tided me over till dinner! I practiced an hour of piano and did some homework while my dad made the fastest dinner in the world.
THIS IS COMFORT FOOD TO ME. Pure Chinese homestyle cooking: scrambled eggs and tomatoes and stir-fried string beans.

The eggs, which I need to make sometime, are really simple: you scramble eggs in vegetable oil, then add garlic, ginger, salt, soy sauce, and tomatoes, and stir-fry it and then reduce the heat. The tomatoes burst and the whole thing becomes sweet and soupy-- in fact, many restaurants serve this as a sauce for noodles!
Seconds on eggs:

OH YUM YUM...
and I feel a dessert/fruit craving coming on.
Had hot chocolate, a pear, some grapes, and a small whole grain graham cracker square that tasted like cardboard.

NOTE THE AWESOME ROBOT MUG.

Good night!

Saturday

I SLEPT ALMOST 12 HOURS. THAT NEVER HAPPENS.
I went to bed at somewhere between 11:30 and 12, woke up at 9:40, then fell asleep until 11:30 because it was too bright. I had really wanted to go for a run, and decided I still wanted to. Besides, I wasn't hungry. I ran to the playground on 43d and back along the lake (it was actually really hot for what I was wearing!): about 3.5- 4 miles? I have to say, though, running was NOT fun today. I felt like I was literally trudging along, and I just couldn't wait for it to be over. I was bored, even with the pretty surroundings. I couldn't focus and get a rhythm, but I'm glad I got some exercise in.
By the time I was done showering, I had to leave for music school soon. I wasn't even that hungry, but I decided to make a kind of brunch spread for myself:
Grapenuts, banana and yogurt

Toast: 1 piece with pumpkin and smooth PB, the other with banana and crunchy PB
Carrots and celery with hummus

Music school was great-- I told my theory teacher about Twilight and he recommends some book called Interview with a Vampire-- better check it out.
Quartet went well, and so did duet.
Afterwards my dad and I went to Whole Foods-- It's amazing how much money we spend without my mom... how does she do it?
I was feeling kind of queasy... actually, I've had a headache for the past week and also have an earache. I hope I don't have an infection.
BUT I COOKED TONIGHT AND IT WAS GREAT, if I do say so myself. I made the Charmoula tempeh kabobs from the Flexitarian Kitchen because we've never been able to cook tempeh right.
The charmoula was blended parsley, cilantro, cumin, paprika, cayenne, coriander, salt, garlic, and olive oil, like a more liquidy pesto.
I diluted it and simmered the tempeh in it until all the liquid had been absorbed, then grilled the cubes on skewers with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and zucchini.
My dad stir-fried some string beans and we had brown rice.




The tempeh was SO ADDICTIVE. It really is pretty meaty, and the chewy texture was great. I think the depth of flavor this time came from the juices that it absorbed. I loved the charcoaled cherry tomatoes, which burst and were ultra-sweet. I ate two whole skewers :)
And now I'm hungry, so I might go back for some dessert.