Aha!

by Emily

Highlights from this week (mostly beverages that blew my mind!) include…

Starbucks vanilla sweet cream nitro cold brew can gets a 7.5/10. Not as good as a freshly made nitro but better than many canned coffees.

Wendy’s new cold brew with chocolate Frosty creamer gets a 7/10; a great score for a fast food coffee. It was not too sweet and the coffee was vastly more robust than Dunkin Donuts’.

I always enjoy Health Ade Kombucha and their passion fruit tangerine flavor is my new 2nd favorite (it comes in behind their holiday spice flavor).

AHA = my new favorite sparkling water. This was the surprisingly fantastic flavor combo of cherry and coffee! And it’s caffeinated!!

A decked out yogurt bowl. With vanilla bean powder, cinnamon, honey, banana, watermelon seed butter, and starry sprinkles.

My favorite yogurt (Trader Joe’s plain skyr) with my new favorite oatmeal cookies (Stella’s easy one bowl recipe) and some mandarinquats (which I actually didn’t enjoy because they were impossible to eat).

Crazy good take-out from Cheng Du. I got kung pow tofu and Szechuan chili oil tofu and it was some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever tasted.

This was hands-down the best sandwich I’ve ever made. I could not stop raving out it.

Brioche bun with Kewpie mayo / chicken thighs marinated in pineapple juice, brown sugar, sriracha, minced ginger, soy sauce, and rice vinegar then roasted / bbq sauce made with the reduced marinade plus ketchup / topped with sauteed sweet onion, poblano pepper, and pineapple. Served with roasted broccoli.

9Mar2020

Super Soft Spoken

by Emily

Five things I loved this weekend…

New to me local beers. Sloop Brewing Super Soft IPA and Kills Boro Soft Spoken (a sour IPA with mango and marshmallow!).

Pour over rose lattes from Copper Cow.

Salted caramel cheese cake ice cream that is legitimately the best take-home ice cream I’ve ever tasted. The flavor is super sour cream forward and there are giant hunts of cheesecake.

Trader Joe’s vegetable biyrani frozen meal. The veggie dumplings are great.

6Mar2020

An Oatsome Good Time

by Emily

Highlights from this week include – a day trip into Brooklyn // tons of tortilla chips and salsas // a product review.

Oatsome sent me a carton of their oat-milk to try {I was provided no additional compensation and all opinions shared are my own}. I have a three pronged review –

1) Taste: the flavor is similar to skim milk in that it is not strong at all; I could definitely identify that oats were involved but it wasn’t “oat forward.” It was inoffensive in coffee and cereal which is basically what I’m looking for in my non-dairy milks. I could not get it to foam for coffee, likely due to its low protein content. Tastewise, Oatsome is definitely my new favorite non-dairy option. Typically I won’t order at coffee shops that don’t stock skim milk but I would consider places with oat milk more regularly now.
2) Nutrition: one cup of Oatsome contains 130 calories and 2 grams of protein. It does not contain dairy, nuts, or added sugars and it is gluten free. It’s a low sodium option with 60 mg per cup. Oatsome is fortified with calcium (provides 20% DRI), vitamin D (provides 10% DRI), riboflavin (provides 40% DRI), and vitamin B12 (provides 40% DRI). For vegans, it is awesome that this is fortified with B12. However, for anyone who depends on dairy to help meet their daily protein needs at 2 grams per cup Oatsome probably isn’t the best choice (versus skim milk with 8 grams protein per cup).
3) Environmental impact: oats require 80% less water to grow than almonds.

I had Oatsome in a cup of espresso roast with brown sugar.

And in a bowl of Heritage Flakes with blueberries.

Vanilla bean Greek yogurt with blueberries and a honey tangerine.

An egg sandwich from Golda with muhumarra, kashkaval, dill, sumac’d onion, and beef bacon. Plus a salted tahini oat milk latte!

Baby carrots and roasted broccoli dipped in Asian ginger dressing.

Homemade chilaquiles. We used yellow and orange bell pepper, serrano pepper, sweet onion, leftover salsa, and tortilla chips. Topped with eggs, homemade cilantro crema, and Cholula.

Nacho night. Tortilla chips, black beans, poached chicken thighs, sauteed onion and poblano pepper, cheese, Trader Joe’s salsa, and sour cream.

2Mar2020

Tacos And Tahini

by Emily

Highlights from this weekend…

Yogurt bowl with Heritage Flakes cereal, blueberries, and chocolate chunks.

An afternoon in Bushwick. Including stops at Millers and Makers for cake – vanilla and chocolate with coconut, caramel, and chocolate buttercream.

And Taqueria Al Pastor for delicious tacos with chicken and nopales (cactus).

Cups on cups. My current favorite type of candy is nut/seed butter cups and these two types are great. Sunbutter from Trader Joe’s.

Vanilla tahini from Raaka.

Our homemade dinner bowls were both eclectic and wonderful. Roasted riced cauliflower with smoked paprika and sumac / chicken salad with chicken thighs, sour cream, caramelized onion and garlic, and fresh parsley / topped with Cholula.

Roasted broccoli / sauteed corn and baby tomatoes / baked tofu (seasoned with smoked paprika, gochugaru, honey, and olive oil) / homemade salsa / sour cream.

28Feb2020

White Rabbit

by Emily

Packaged foods I enjoyed this week…

White Rabbit milk candy milk box.

Coffee from the VI.

Bars galore (I need to stop buying anything that isn’t Perfect Bars, they just don’t measure up).

Chicken chips dipped in salsa verde aioli.

These are the best gummi candies I have ever eaten.

24Feb2020

See Food Diet

by Emily

Two key housekeeping things –

1) I recently kind of randomly started eating sashimi and burgers and I am now obsessed with both. Also, apparently I’m into cake at the moment.

2) I had an absolutely fantastic time in St. Thomas! I spent two weeks hanging out with my grandma and swimming in the ocean!

Thankfully the weather in NYC has been nice enough for us to do a ton of walking (and a ton of cake, coffee, and fancy cocktail consuming!) so the transition has been pretty easy.

Recent highlights include…

Rum raisin iced latte at the Ace Hotel. Related – I had a rose cold brew at Brooklyn Roasting Co that was mindblowing.

I am definitely a fan of these new KIND nut butter bars whose product info is weirdly not on their website.

Brunch at the Fulton in the Seaport District. I had a smoked bloody mary margarita!

We shared sashimi with spicy white ponzu.

And brussel sprouts with mint and pecorino cheese.

And I had the gruyere cheeseburger with au jus.

Now that I’m into sushi, a girlfriend suggested we get lunch at Sugarfish. I got the “Trust Me Lite” which included edamame and tuna sashimi.

Albacore, salmon, and shrimp sushi.

And a toro hand roll.

Adam and I had a giant, epic lunch at Fan Fried Rice Bar in Bed Stuy. Golden kimchi / cucumber salad / mush-mame fried rice with shiitake mushrooms, edamame, mixed vegetables, and fried shallots.

Big Gay Ice Cream is my current favorite. This was yellow cake soft-serve with dulce de leche and rainbow sprinkles in a biscoff lined cone.

Dreamy cake slices – strawberry Good Humor bar and Oreo – at Little Cupcake Bakeshop.

Brigadero cake and a cappuccino at Padoca Bakery.

Leyenda‘s Candy Striper is a frozen blend of Leblon cachaça, coconut, vanilla, maple, lime, peppermint, and cardamom and it is the single best beverage I have ever put in my mouth. Every sip was so interesting!

Dinner at the Hi Hi Room. We started with smashed potatoes with an herb aioli.

Other Half Cream Get the Honey IPA. <– IPAs brewed with lactose are my favorite

Our reason for being there = hand-cut spaghetti with duck chili, cheddar, and white onion. I couldn’t get a good photo but it was truly fantastic.

Our apartment complex lost power for several hours on Friday night and we were forced to go out to a super fun dinner on the Upper East Side. A friend sent me a list of “the best cocktail spots in NYC” and NR definitely earned its spot!

Our favorites were the Japanese whiskey sour (above) with brown sugar, yuzu, and egg white and the Pistachio – dry gin, house-made pistachio cream, campari, and clementine!

We also shared a truffle oil egg salad sandwich.

And I had the hokkaido ramen with chicken, corn, butter, bean sprouts, and extra seaweed.

A home-cooked meal! Trader Joe’s frozen mahi mahi burgers, steak fries, and roasted baby cauliflower with sumac and smoked paprika. All dipped in a sauce of honey habanero hot sauce, honey, and mayo.

3Feb2020

Super Bowling

by Emily

Five things from the weekend –

{1} I did not watch any of the Super Bowl but I did go bowling! I am not good.

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{2} Best salad combination = romaine lettuce, cilantro dressing, zhoug, celery, tomato, and chorizo seitan.

{3} This Moophoria line from Ben & Jerry’s is surprisingly good. We bought it because the mix-ins (brownies and marshmallow swirl!) sounded so yummy and were pleasantly surprised by how much we liked the fluffy texture of the light ice cream.