Tinypliny's Journal

05/24/2009 11:27 #48738

The Confessional Carrot and Apple Cake
Category: eating in

The big confession is that this is my first time baking or even cooking with eggs. The results are surprisingly rather pleasant.

I really expected some kind of hard sedimentary rock - considering my former eggless ventures but this one sliced pretty easily and didn't stick to the glass.

Though the recipe called for a truckload of butter (

), quite possibly, this might be the one of the more healthful cakes I have ever eaten.

I tossed in a granny smith, some almonds and peanuts in addition to the carrot so it is slightly on the more-moist side. Oh, and I freaked out last minute about using only oatmeal flour so I tossed in some toasted bulghur wheat - the fibre value might have gone up 50% because of that. Hehe

According to the label on the package, the hens were apparently running around in a carefree manner eating vegetarian organic poultry feed when they produced the light brown eggs that I bought.

The carrot-tag claimed that they were grown in an "certified" organic environment and the almond-pack says they are from a "green practices" farm. The butter is organic too. The Coop made a killing business out of me yesterday. Hahaha

The oats were packaged and sold by a ubiquitous brand that has a cheruby and probably gouty old man as its mascot. The bulghur wheat is from Lebanon.

The peanuts and apple, unfortunately, didn't have any special qualities listed. I am assuming the spices are pretty generic as well.

As usual, I had no sugar at hand so I used only honey. As a result the cake is very mildly sweet. One slice contains less than 1/2 a teaspoon of honey. If you are looking for a sugar-overload, this is not it.

I think I might be bringing it to the BBQ tonight (is it still on?)

Notes:
(e:Terry): Less eggs
(e:leetee): More flour.
(e:Paul): Ripe bananas
(e:libertad): More honey
James (I think or was that Robert?): Dates as a binding agent

I love you all. :)

heidi - 05/29/09 22:34
[green with envy]

tinypliny - 05/25/09 12:00
Thanks (e:metalpeter)! That humongous camera was like a gym weight. No wonder (e:southernyankee) has such a well-defined and toned upper arm. ;) (e:southernyankee) is so indescribably cool - its hard to put into words how much I loved meeting you Shanille(?)!

I had an enormous amount of fun as well. Thank you so much (e:paul), (e:terry) and (e:matthew) for hosting the BBQ.

One other (e:peep) went from being virtual to real: (e:uncutsaniflesh). (e:leetee), you are such a BIG hoot. I think I might have choked from all the jokes at one point. :)

AND OMG (e:brit) is like a superstar juggler!

I got a lot of good tips from everyone for future baking. I am going to add them to the post. Overall it was a very productive evening. I had so many personal and nice conversations. (e:Matthew), you are officially appointed my culture-politics icon.

metalpeter - 05/25/09 11:33
It was a really Nice time (e:Jenks), (e:tinypliny) was awesome and a lot of fun as usual, she wasn't the only one. She or is that you looked so Natural with that Huge camera. My camera feels so small and week, HA. Seriously though we have different kinds of cameras (me and (e:southernyanke) [maybe I spelled it right]) so comparing them isn't even fair. If I ever take classes for photogrophy that is the kind of camera you want. (e:tinypliny) if that is what you brought I can say it was pretty good.

jenks - 05/25/09 08:26
crap! I thought it was today (monday). Shoot. Sorry I missed it. :( Hope you had fun though!

paul - 05/24/09 12:39
Its today and its still on at 1:00pm.

05/23/2009 00:15 #48726

The BBQs of this planet can take a hike.
Category: eating in

My Lemon and Coconut flavoured Green Lentil Power Dinner.

metalpeter - 05/23/09 09:48
I have heard of BBQ Vegie Burgers and other thing not sure how that works though

jason - 05/23/09 09:15
Looks, um, healthy. Heh heh.

joshua - 05/23/09 01:25
Wow - very green! I'm sure it was delicious - whatever you bring to a party is always great. If I were making that, I'd have to char the peppers or risk BBQ withdrawal.

05/19/2009 20:46 #48700

What am I eating?
Category: eating in

I have been keeping watch over what I eat for the past two days using the CRON-o-meter.

It's an experiment to see if I am eating a balanced diet and where my macro and micro nutrients are coming from. The whole exercise is pretty involved. It's like maintaining a food diary but you get immediate nutrient data read-outs.

[box]On May 18 I had
1. Milk, nonfat, fluid, with added vitamin A (fat free or skim) 3 cups
2. Chickpeas (garbanzo beans, bengal gram), mature seeds, cooked, boiled, with salt 80g
3. Nuts, almonds 15
4. Apples, raw, with skin 1 large (3-1/4" dia)
5. Chewing gum, sugarless 1 piece 5.4
6. Water, tap, municipal 1.8 liter
7. Bananas, raw 1 medium (7" to 7-7/8"long)
8. Tea, brewed, prepared with tap water 3 cup (8 fl oz)
9. Oranges, raw, all commercial varieties 1 large (3-1/16" dia)
10. Bread, pita, whole-wheat 28.5 g
11. Peppers, sweet, green, raw 40 g
12. Onions, raw 30 g
13. Hummus,c ommercial 2 tbsp
14. Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, CHEERIOS 5 g

A total of 963 calories, with 45g proteins, 172g carbohydrates and 16g lipids with around 90% vitamins and minerals.[/box]

[box]On May 19 I had
1. Nuts, almonds 18
2. Apples, raw, with skin 2 large (3-1/4" dia)
3. Apricots, dried, sulfured, uncooked 1 half
4. Dates, deglet noor 3 date, pitted
5. Cookies, oatmeal, prepared from recipe, with raisins 3 cookie (2-5/8" dia)
6. Cream, fluid, half and half 1 container, individual (.5 fl oz)
7. Coffee, brewed from grounds, prepared with tap water 1 cup (8 fl oz)
8. Milk, nonfat, fluid, with added vitamin A (fat free or skim) 2 cup
9. Peanuts, all types, raw 5 g
10. Milk, dry, nonfat, instant, with added vitamin A 4 tsp
11. Chewing gum, sugarless 1 piece
12. Bread, pita, whole-wheat 28.5 g
13. Macaroni, dry, enriched 16 g
14. Mustard Greens and Vegetable Saute 0.75 of full recipe
15. Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, CHEERIOS 5 g
16. Water, tap, municipal 1.8 liter

A total of 1476 calories, with 65g proteins, 254g carbohydrates and 31g lipids with around 100% vitamins and minerals.[/box]

Strangely, I have begun to feel guilty every time I eat a random almond or down a cookie just because I am recording them all in the software. It will be really interesting to see whether my diet actually changes because I am watching it.

In other news, I am volunteering for a cancer prevention campaign called "Spit for the Cure" on June 13.

My department at Roswell is collaborating with Susan G. Komen's race for the cure on June 13, 2009 at Delaware Park Rose Gardens. We are hoping to recruit as many people from the community as possible to donate their spit (saliva) for cancer prevention research at this race.

If anyone is interested in participating and giving 15 minutes of your time and spit for a noble cause, this is a perfect opportunity! :) Swing by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute's Spit for the Cure tent on June 13 from 7:30 AM to 1:00PM.

pmrk - 06/10/09 17:06
I'll be participating in the event and will try to stop by the tent to give some spit.

libertad - 05/23/09 10:02
I'll see if I can come and spit for you on the 13th. Your dinner looks good but certainly can't replace the BBQ in my opinion. I like to BBQ veggies too especially mushrooms.

tinypliny - 05/21/09 02:12
@(e:libertad): It would be wonderful if you could come around to our collection tent on June 13th!! If not, I can ask my advisor if I can come around to collect your spit. :)

I know. My eating habits border on the "crszy".

@(e:metalpeter): Good point. I wouldn't know how much an ice cream is and it does take a lot of fun out of it. However, the point of the exercise is developing a fair idea about how much nutrient value you get from everything you eat. I do think that keeping a record will alter my eating habits. I am hoping that they change for the better.

If you think about it, this sort of record-keeping does not mesh well with eating with wild abandon. Maybe, in this day and age of an obesity and poor health epidemic, what we all need is a cognizance of what we are actually eating.

metalpeter - 05/20/09 18:11
The thing about doing this is that, I don't think there is any way that it is really correct. The reason I say that, it the recording of what you eat does effect what you eat. Say for example a go grab a big bowl of ice cream, how on earth am i going to know how much ice cream that is. Ice Cream is something you eat for pleasure so measuring it takes a lot of the fun out of it. I know it isn't going to be exact but that fact that you are keeping track of what you eat will effect what you eat, hopefully not to much though.

libertad - 05/20/09 18:06
If you want to come and get some spit from me an analyze it just shoot me an email.

I would die of starvation nearly if I ate what you ate in a day.

tinypliny - 05/20/09 09:43
The 2000-2500 kcal "standard" diet intake is standardized for a ~70kg 25 year old male. Everyone's calorie needs differs by their sex, age and current BMI. You can calculate your energy needs here: :::link:::

My calorie needs fall at around 1700 calories. Even by that standard, 963 is somewhat low. That is exactly why I am keeping this diary. I need to correct my random eating habits. This past Sunday, I think my whole diet consisted of raw vegetables and fruits with no balancing staple carbohydrate sources. :/

zobar - 05/20/09 09:01
I thought the standard recommended intake was ~2000-2500kcal? 963 seems frighteningly low.

- Z

tinypliny - 05/20/09 08:06
I am so glad you asked that question. We will be using the spit to extract your DNA and sequence it. Then we will compare your sequence to the sequences of people who have cancer and see if there are any significant differences in the sequences in addition to the normal variation.
This will tell us if there are any specific gene variants that may be contributing to the cancer state.

If we know the gene variants, we can often deduce the function of these variant genes, the proteins they translate to, the effects they have on other genes and on your metabolism. We can identify pathways and targets that can be modified to nullify or accentuate the effect of the gene. These modifications can be either lifestyle changes or therapeutically targeted changes (eg. targeted drugs).

In short, from the results of our research(if our research is successful), if you have the gene variant that makes you susceptible to get cancer later in your life, we can recommend modifications that bring down your risk of developing cancer or bring down your risk to a less aggressive "treatable" cancer.

@(e:James): I know! Self control is the TOUGHEST part!

heidi - 05/19/09 23:45
How does spitting help cancer prevention research?

james - 05/19/09 22:45
I found that site very useful when I was trying to keep my macronutrients at a specific ratio. But, not matter how much I wanted to succeed it is impossible to resist eating a whole avocado.

05/16/2009 08:24 #48679

Bufwiki
Category: buffalo

Bufwiki is alive!

Someone (David Monroe) who came to Buffalo from Rochester started a Bufwiki. :)

Sign up and start wiki-ing your Buffalo experiences and reviews! I am so glad Bufwiki is finally here.

tinypliny - 05/16/09 15:48
Yeah, I know. But I only located it today because I was checking Rocwiki for some reason.

paul - 05/16/09 12:16
It looks like it has been there for a while.

05/13/2009 20:23 #48661

Obsessed with pastry making tips
Category: the odes

Though I am never ever going to be able to make myself use this much butter or finely milled flour in ANY of my cooking, I can't help but dream about making pastry and pie crusts.

Its a completely insane and impractical obsession.
Aaaargh.

tinypliny - 05/16/09 11:41
The flour idea does sound practical because you would be using a tonload of that for the crust anyway. It would be hypocritical to criticize the flour in the blueberry filling if you are loading the entire thing into a flour-butter pastry shell.

If I were not being a hypocrite I would just criticize the whole pie and think about eating the blueberries fresh. This constant and discrepant anxiety about random little things demonstrates I am hypocritical even when building pastries and pies in thin air. Yikes.

tinypliny - 05/16/09 11:35
Yeah - that's doesn't sound good at all. The poor blueberries will be twice cooked that way and I am sure that will take away a lot of "freshness" and "sharpness" in the blueberry taste. What about using honey instead of sugar? Would that make a difference?

janelle - 05/16/09 11:34
I meant to add that I don't know that I would use cornstarch and I don't know much about arrowroot.

Just use the flour. It's only 1/4 cup. And I've used a 50/50 whole wheat flour, regular flour mixture before to make blueberry pie and it turns out fine. So maybe that would make you feel better.

janelle - 05/16/09 11:33
cornstarch or arrowroot are also thickening agents.

A REALLY unhealthy way of creating a thickening agent is to cook your blueberries down before hand with sugar which will thicken it up.

tinypliny - 05/16/09 11:14
My obsession continues. Some perfect pie crust recipes. :::link:::

I think the key is pea sized frozen butter mixed with dough. I have heard that tip several times now from various sources.

And this is for blueberry pie: :::link:::
Apparently you have to use some kind of thickening agent for the blueberry filling. I am not happy with that idea. Can you think of an alternative to cornmeal or flour as a thickening agent?

tinypliny - 05/16/09 10:45
We totally want photographs! Do you use cornmeal for your blueberry filling? :)

janelle - 05/16/09 10:31
You get your best blueberry pie from me. I make a really good pie from blueberries that I pick in the summer and freeze.

Today, I am going to attempt to make a lemon custard tart. I'm a little nervous because me and handmade dough don't go together. I think I'm going to buy pie crust as a back up and use that for the tart if I fail miserably and making a good dough.

libertad - 05/13/09 22:24
I really enjoyed watching that. A little too much. It must be nice to have marble counter tops. He was really good at showing and explaining how to make a pie crust which I never have from scratch. I don't think I'm ready to start making them.

I agree, I will always use butter over hydrogenation products.

tinypliny - 05/13/09 21:55
Where in downtown (and around) can you get the best blueberry/blackberry pie? :)

Somehow, I am more comfortable with the idea of using butter than vegetable shortening - possibly because I find the hydrogenation element unsettling.

I don't like cherry much either. Have no idea what blackberry pie tastes like...

heidi - 05/13/09 21:04
I've always made pie crust with butter-flavor Crisco and no sugar, but I think I'd like to try it with butter sometime. I used to pick blackberries & blueberries and then make the pie ... mmmmmmm. Blackberry is my fav! Apple is good too. I'm not real fond of cherry.