Chocolate Chip Cookie Day With Nielsen-Massey Vanilla {Giveaway}

by Emily

Did you know that May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day (NCCCD)?! In theory I think food-based holidays are flipping wonderful, but I don’t manage to celebrate as many of them as I would like.

Thanks to Nielsen-Massey Vanillas though, I’ve got Chocolate Chip Cookie Day covered this year.

Please note – the vanilla was sent to me free of charge to review. I was also given the opportunity to host a giveaway for you guys. I was not provided further compensation for this post.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe courtesy of Nielsen-Massey Vanillas and Renee Hartzler.

1 ½ c. butter, softened
1 ¼ c. white sugar
1 ¼ c. brown sugar
1 T. Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract
2 eggs
4 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 ¾ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cream of tartar
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips. (2 c.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs in large bowl. Stir in flour, soda, salt, baking powder and cream of tartar. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop with a #40 scoop (looks like a metal mini ice cream scoop) or a rounded measuring tablespoonful about 2 inches apart onto an ungreased insulated baking sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until light brown. Cool slightly: remove from baking sheet. Cool on wire rack. Makes about 4 dozen crackly, chewy-crispy bakery-style cookies.

I did a mix of milk and dark chocolate chips but other than that I followed their instructions. This recipe was legit; many cookies have been consumed!

here are some other chocolate-chiplicious recipe ideas:

almond butter ccc – Sally’s Baking Addiction

beth t’s brown butter ccc – Eat, Live, Run

chewy ccc – Eating Chalk

cc mug cookie – No. 2 Pencil

single-serve ccc – No. 2 Pencil

For a chance to win your own 2-ounce bottle of Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract just in time for NCCD, simply leave a comment on this post before 6 pm EST on Monday, May 5th.

Those of you who don’t win the contest can all be winners by making yourself a batch of cookies! If you want to participate with Nielsen-Massey use the hashtag #NMVCCCDay to communicate with them on their Facebook or Twitter account.

29Apr2014

My Top Ten From NYC’s Green Festival

by Emily

This past weekend I attended the NYC Green Festival, the largest and longest-running festival on sustainability and green living. This year’s festival featured nearly 100 food exhibitors specializing in local, artisanal-crafted foods, vegan/vegetarian cuisine and organic food products, a sustainable beer and wine garden, and a vegan food court.

Note – I received a complimentary invite and Adam and I attended free of charge.

We tried a lot of tasty things, too many to catalog –

So instead of going through them all, I’ve chosen my top ten favorites.

My Top 10 Favorites from Green Fest

1. Coco Jack coconut opener works like a charm. You use the mallet to hammer in the jack and in just a few steps you have an opened Thai young coconut.

I opened this bad boy all by myself, without making a total mess.

2. Coconut Bliss is the best vegan ice cream we’ve ever tried. It is made of coconut milk and is free of soy, dairy, and gluten.

Adam was in love with his chocolate salted caramel and the mint galactica was the best mint chip, vegan or otherwise, I’ve ever tasted.

3. All of the vegan options from Daiya impressed us. Also dairy, soy, and gluten free. Adam thought the cheddar style slices tasted fairly “real.”

And he loved all of the pizzas.

The strawberry cream cheese style spread was identical in texture to the original. It would be great on sandwiches.

4. Dang Caramel Sea Salt Coconut Chips were crunchy and sweet.

I’ve been eyeballing up this item at Whole Foods for months, now it is actually going into my cart.

5. Explore Asian’s Mung Bean Fettuccine is gluten-free but the texture was perfect. Each 2 oz serving has 25 grams of protein and 11 grams of fiber for 182 calories.

6. Gardein’s Mandarin Crispy Chick’n had nice texture as well. I thought this tasted better than traditional orange chicken. Each serving has 150 calories, 7 grams of protein, and no saturated fat.

7. Gnosis chocolate is made with {organic, vegan, kosher, ethically sourced} raw cacao.

This was one of those wonderful dark chocolates that magically has a milkiness to it. Even Adam, a proclaimed dark chocolate hater, enjoyed the Fleur de Sel.

8. Alive and Radiant’s Hibiscus and Pink Peppercorn Kale Krunch had a fun pink tinge.

The floral and spice balanced each other nicely and these were crunchy but didn’t shatter to bits when you tried to take a bite.

9. Nib Mor is a start-up from Long Island that uses organic, non-GMO, Fair Trade and gluten-free ingredients.

The 72% Dark Chocolate Mint bar was delightfully cool and minty. And I am practically going to die if I can’t get my hands on their drinking chocolate immediately.

10. Soom Tahini is a family business, started by the three Soom sisters.

This was the perfect note to end on because the Soom chocolate sesame butter was my favorite bite of the entire day!

This was basically a jar of liquid halvah – aka my heaven.

Apparently I’m into coconut, mint, and chocolate – not a big surprise!

28Apr2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Oh, Sugar, Sugar

by Emily

I don’t have a ton to share from this weekend but every thing I do have a photo of was super tasty. My sweet tooth was certainly satisfied by the past three days!

Greek yogurt, strawberry, and chia from The Epic Seed.

The packaging here was very neat. The flavors were tasty, and I plan on buying this again, but I think I would have preferred this with regular, thinner yogurt because it was very thick and a bit difficult to eat.

Strawberry milk slush from Kung Fu Tea.

Adam took one sip and declared “this is the best drink I’ve ever had!” We both loved it and want another immediately. The texture was perfection; a great replacement for the granitas we used to adore in Park Slope.

Easy dinner at home.

A sandwich – smoked trout mashed with miracle whip and smoked paprika, on rye pumpernickel swirl with swiss cheese, cooked in butter – with baby carrots on the side.

A trip to Momofuku Milk Bar‘s Williamsburg location.

We shared a cereal milk shake that was fine but not too exciting. Corn flakes don’t exactly do it for me, I want the bottom of a bowl of Lucky Charms.

And a slice of crack pie.

This was teeth-achingly sweet, aka fantastic.

And next-door to Milk we discovered a tiny, hole-in-the-wall Thai spot that is our new favorite.

My tofu Pad See Eiw was chewy and wonderful. The tofu was perfectly seasoned.

While we were in Manhattan for the Green Fest (<– more to come on that tomorrow) we discovered H Bake Shop.

We got the Lilac, a berry cupcake with lavender frosting.

This was fabulous, the first cupcake ever to rival the greatness coming out of Sugar, Sweet, Sunshine. The price was a teensy bit higher than SSS, but this was also the prettiest dessert I’ve ever had.

What’s missing from this post? Another migraine (boo!), grocery shopping with giant coffees, a burger for Adam and fried pickles for me from SmashBurger, lunch at the Green Fest, and a trip to the movies for the newest “Captain America” (we liked it!).

What was sweet about your weekend?

25Apr2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Eggs And Easter Candy

by Emily

I’m bouncing back from a bad migraine this afternoon so this post might be lacking my usual witty prose (<– just go with it). I don’t want to think that too much sugar may have been a potential trigger for the migraine, but it will probably be hard to convince you otherwise once you finish the post 🙂 Also, upon completion I am forced to note that 90% of these pictures are pretty god-awful. The food was yummy though, I swear!

lunch

Oatmeal Monday.

Apple on the side.

Quaker Summer Berry Oatmeal,

topped with Reese’s eggs.

I read the egg carton further that night and discovered that they contain trans fat, dun dun dun! – so I had to throw the rest out. My only hard and fast nutrition rule is never eat trans fats.

Spicy Sandwich Tuesday. A whole wheat Sandwich Thin with Applegate Farms Herbed Turkey, Fontina cheese, strawberry jam, and pickled jalopeños that seemed to have retained a lot of their heat.

I cooled down with cinnamon applesauce.

And crunched through kale chips.

Worst. Photo. Ever.

Egg Salad Wednesday.

This batch of egg salad was made with tons of caramelized onions, miracle whip, smoked paprika, and raisins. It was fabulous stuffed inside a Pocket Thin.

With the rest of the kale chips and an apple.

Leftovers Thursday.

See more of this casserole down in dinners.

With a wonderfully crisp Lady Alice apple and Haribo colas.

Last of the Egg Salad Friday, aka today.

This time with a slice of Fontina.

dinner

Stir fry night.

Served on top of packaged Kung Pao noodles.

My ‘fry contained edamame, bamboo shoots, straw mushrooms, and pineapples, cooked in pineapple juice and green curry paste.

I usually try to put too much into my stir fries and I end up hating them; this simple version was fantastic.

Stir fry leftovers.

My veggies, plus steamed sweet potato chunks, and fish sauce and soy sauce, cooked in evoo, with an egg at the end.

A winning new recipe.

Turkey Reuben Casserole.

Click here for the recipe.

Plus spinach and baby kale sautéed with evoo and dried blueberries.

Let’s be real, I pretty much choked down those greens.

Chipotle post-migraine.

Brown rice with peppers, chicken, lettuce, cheese, and lots of mild salsa.

snacks, aka Easter candy

I made a Cadbury Cream Egg Cream. What?!

It actually didn’t work all that well, I felt like my eggs got burnt in the microwave, but I salvaged it with a bit of chocolate milk. Adam and I were both pretty pleased with the final result.

Speaking of candy eggs, these Ferrero ones from my basket were sure gone in a hurry.

Just like a Rocher but without the nut in the center.

Grape Crush licorice.

When I veered away from the Easter goodies my snacks went horribly awry. I got an email from Dunkin that a Coolatta would earn me 25 bonus points and, sucker for loyalty rewards that I am, I had to get one.

Disgusting. It wasn’t homogenous at all; the coffee, milk, and sweetener separated into terrible layers.

That was a bad note to end on, but overall it was a tasty week.

23Apr2014

Insta-Wrap-Up; VI

by Emily

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! Whether you celebrate or not, the start of spring is always a nice time for family fun and lots of chocolate. Our nieces were so adorable hunting for eggs. Most of the family decorated some of the hard-boiled variety – versus the candy filled plastic kind – as well. Check out this great egg Adam made –

Other Virginia fun included a quick trip to the farm just down the road from Adam’s parent’s house. We got to pet the goats!

Here is some of what you missed on the food front during my skipped weekend post…

This egg really did taste like a slice of mushed-up cake.

The strawberry diet coke at Sonic still rocks my face off. After I finished my drink, I poured a new can of soda over the leftover berries and ice and was thrilled all over again.

The husband and I tried the vanilla date shake frozen yogurt at Yogurtland and we very impressed with it. There was just enough creaminess to back up the date flavor.

Heading back further in time…

How awesome is this Buffalo street art? All of the traffic light boxes along Elmwood were painted.

This good advice comes courtesy of Ashker’s Juice Bar.

Here are Webster and I on one of our first warm day walks.

And here is the evidence I’m compiling for my potential divorce proceedings. You’ve got to take grammar/spelling/syntax issues seriously!

Finally, back up to present… Spring has sprung!

Is the weather getting nice where you live?

18Apr2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Have A Hoppy Easter

by Emily

Who else has been hitting the chocolate eggs this week? Easter candy abounds! We are spending the holiday with my in-laws – all three of our nieces! – so I’m going radio-silent on the blog front this weekend to focus on family time. I’m planning on skipping my weekend post, I’m not even packing a camera, and I’ll be back with a weekly wrap-up next Friday.

breakfast

Iced Americano with chocolate milk.

I tried the cafeteria breakfast.

Scrambled eggs with turkey and veggie sausage. The coffee cup held wonderful Cisse milk chocolate vanilla bean hot chocolate.

lunch

Oatmeal.

Quaker Honey and Almonds with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

And an apple.

Plus I snagged this delicious, thick!, strawberry lemonade from the cafeteria.

Egg salad.

We made awesome egg salad for lunches this week; medium-boiled eggs, finely chopped celery and green and red pepper, miracle whip, pickle relish, mustard, and dill. Packed in a whole wheat pocket thin.

Plus wasabi seaweed and grapes.

The next day was chicken salad. A whole wheat bagel thin with chicken salad, fontina cheese, and pickled jalopeños.

Plus an apple to take away some of the heat. Peppers were the perfect addition to that sandwich.

I packed cookies, but I put them aside for a treat my coworker brought it, an Easter bun with cheese.

snack

Easter candy, duh.

Juicy bears.

Cafe Dada iced coffee that the husband sweetly delivered when he picked me up from work one day.

Cookies.

Cereal bowl.

This was a sample of Graham Crunch from Cascadian Farm with vanilla almond milk.

Very tasty. This stuff is just begging to be made into cereal s’mores bars.

I made my new favorite milkshake for Adam and myself.

Coffee frozen Greek yogurt with chocolate milk and toasted coconut.

Bubble teas from Kung Fu Tea. Coffee milk tea for me.

dinner

Dinner at a diner.

I got an eggplant parm panini.

It was yummy but ridiculously filling.

And then we had pie!

Cream pie! My slice was banana cream.

It was flipping fantastic.

Chicken salad.

Big piles of Nana’s chicken salad.

With roasted green beans.

On Wednesday we went to Williamsburg for dinner with a girlfriend. She took us to Snacky.

It was fantabulous. The space was adorable and the menu was all my favorite things. Adam and I split a salad with seaweed and sesame dressing.

And I got a rice bowl with spicy bbq miso chicken, plus kimchi and a fried egg.

I swooned my way through that bowl. It was perfect, exactly my favorite meal.

And we made similar(ish) bowls for dinner at home the next day.

A hash of chopped sweet potato, browned mushrooms, sliced spinach, green onions, and smoked trout with rosemary and smoked paprika. Topped with a fried egg.

Put an egg on it!

Have a great weekend!

16Apr2014

Our Weekend Trip To Buffalo

by Emily

We moved from Buffalo to Long Island almost 10 months ago now and we felt overdue for a visit! Adam is on Spring Break this week so I took a personal day on Friday and we made the 8 hour drive back “home.”

It was a great weekend. I’m still pretty sick so we kept things low-key and it ended up being a wonderfully relaxing trip. And we still had time to cross off all of the must-do’s on our list. We ate all of the food we were missing, walked down Elmwood, visited my old job to get all nostalgic and purchase some terrific toys, attended a baby shower for two dear friends, went out drinking with the whole crowd, and took a long walk around the park to look at the buffalo.

Here were the food highlights…

Bubble tea from Gin Gin.

I got vanilla-almond milk tea with tapioca and popping boba.

Thai Orchid for the best Thai food ever.

My tofu Pad See Ew did not disappoint. So chewy!

SPoT for breakfast.

Iced coffee and a Mike’s sandwich on an everything bagel.

Juice at Ashker’s. A blend of kale, spinach, cucumber, and carrot.

We split a duck feast at Blue Monk. Duck Reuben and Duck Poutine.

And on the way out-of-town Danielle took us to Aroma for a brunch that would have been a weekly tradition had we known about it while we still lived in Buffalo.

That Buffalo Bloody Mary had gorgonzola and Frank’s in it! And my salad came topped with artichoke hearts, calamata olives, fried leeks, tomatoes, shaved parmigiano-reggiano, balsamic vinaigrette and a poached Oles Farm free-range egg.

It was a fantastic, delicious visit.

The long car rides weren’t even that bad – honestly they were sort of fabulous – thanks to the audiobook I was sent to review. Doing Harm by Kelly Parsons is an exciting debut novel about medicine and moral dilemmas in which a surgeon must confront, outwit, and overcome deadly threats to his patients and himself. The audiobook is voiced by Robert Petkoff, who has voiced countless thrillers, including those of Michael Palmer.

This was our first time listening to an audiobook and I think we are officially hooked. It made the time fly by. Time for a book review…

cons –

Some of the medical terms were mispronounced – fascia, parenteral nutrition, rhabdomyolysis – and it was distracting.
The author was weirdly obsessed with hairdos; there was only one lone character, out of every single other character both big or small, whose hair we didn’t get a description of.

pros –

The story completely sucked us in, we would sit in the car for at least five additional minutes whenever we reached a destination!
The experience of being a surgical resident was very accurately captured, Adam couldn’t believe how spot-on the author managed to be.
Most of the medical plot was fairly accurate as well.

Overall I’d recommend reading, or listening to, Doing Harm.

Do you ever listen to audiobooks?

11Apr2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; All By Myself

by Emily

Adam is on spring break right now so I gave him my free ticket voucher and he spent a week in St. Thomas with my parents. They are all disgustingly in love with each other and had a fabulous time. Meanwhile I was home alone but at least I had the dog.

Furry cuddles totally got me through. And I definitely took advantage of meals as a single lady.

breakfast

Fruit and yogurt bowl.

A strawberry Fage topped with fresh pineapple and cara cara orange.

A lackluster morning.

A bottle of iced coffee that I thought tasted artificial and threw out halfway through.

And a NuGo bar that was nowhere near as tasty as their salted pretzel variety.

Smoothie.

Coffee greek yogurt with frozen blackberries, toasted coconut, and chocolate milk. <– Fantabulous

Smoothie 2 was frozen mango, blackberries, and spinach with coconut water.

Have you tried the ice cream coffees from Dunkin? This was butter pecan.

I tried the cookie dough last weekend too and it was legit amazing.

lunch

Salad day.

Arugula with carrots, pea shoots, honey roasted almonds, buckwheat groats, blue cheese, dried blueberries, and vinaigrette.

Plus a cara cara orange and tamarind balls from home.

My coworkers are mostly all from the Caribbean as well and they were thrilled that I shared my tamarind shipment.

Oatmeal and apples.

Cherry Pistachio from Quaker.

And Cherry Vanilla from Big Slice.

This was the first flavor of these kettle cooked apples that I didn’t like.

Sandwich spread.

An everything bagel thin with strawberry jam, sharp cheddar, smoked turkey, and banana peppers.

Plus spicy peanut cucumber salad.

And raspberry candies and the last orange.

snack

Paper bag popcorn.

Prune chocolates my Russian coworker shared.

I ate this entire bag of Inner Peas in one sitting.

It was pathetic but also delicious.

I topped with cool tub of fig yogurt with white chocolate chips and toasted coconut.

Cookie mugs rocked my face of this week.

I use this recipe, but swap the ratio of white to brown sugar.

Do ittttttt.

dinner

Salad night.

I had a TJ’s pretzel bread in the car as an appetizer.

Then topped a giant bowl of arugula and pea shoots with medium-boiled eggs, blue cheese, turkey bacon, shredded carrot, yogurt blue cheese dressing, and truffle salt.