Butter Pecan Mochi

by Emily

Apologies for another late post! Honestly? When I get home from work I get into bed fully dressed with a snack for at least 30 minutes and sometimes I just don’t get up again to do anything productive! I know I haven’t really blogged about some of the big recent changes at work, but suffice to say I am tired. <– but also really happy to be busy and getting some exposure to new things

Some of my favorite bites from the [last] week…

Watermelon kefir is an excellent idea. P.S. When I went to the Lifeway website I discovered that they apparently make an eggnog kefir and now it’s pretty much all I can think about.

I was all about the premade coffees this week and they were surprisingly delicious. Starbuck’s dark roast iced coffee.

Caribou vanilla iced coffee.

Cafeteria baked potato bar. With sour cream, cilantro, cheese/sauce, and salsa.

Yummy yogurt bowls. Coffee Chobani with chocolate tahini, maple granola, and walnuts and an eve apple.

Blood orange Chobani with Heritage Flakes and sunshine raspberries.

Whole Foods hot bar = black bean sauce broccoli, green beans, curried cauliflower, pasta salads, sweet chili tofu.

Plus I tried their mocha ice cream in butter pecan and black sesame. <– this might be my new favorite thing

Blue chip nachos! With corn, cheddar, black beans, and fresh tomatoes. I dipped them into roasted tomato salsa.

I bought a bag of rolls at our grocery’s bakery ($1.69 for a variety pack of six?!) and we became obsessed with turkey and cheddar sandwiches. The key is spreading the bun with a mix of mayo and gojuchang.

I made a simple veggie and tofu bowl that was our favorite dinner of the week.

Chopped raw bok choy with TJ’s sesame soy ginger vinaigrette / TJ’s teriyaki baked tofu / crispy edamame – tossed with evoo and salt and baked at 400* for 20 minutes / black sesame seeds.

Leftover sesame noodles with chili oil with baked tofu and crispy edamame.

A dinner in parts: Adam had to take a super quick trip to Delaware this week and I worked out my schedule to tag along. We started with Mile End in Brooklyn for appetizers. Garlic knish.

Brussel sprouts salad (with a mix of raw and roasted!) with labne, sumac, and honeycomb and pumpernickel powder. It was amazing.

Mid-dinner dessert stop for churros with dulce de leche at the new DeKalb Market Hall.

And finally Grain in Newark. I had a great whiskey sour.

And the best crab cake sandwich of my life; it was absolutely packed with crab meat, no filler to be found.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

20Jun2017

It’s Hot Outside And I Want Ice Cream And Iced Coffee

by Emily

Here’s a looong post because it’s been a looong time since I last posted! 20 things from the past 10 days…

{1-4} Cool Coffees. New Orleans iced coffees from Homecoming and Otha’s.

Toasted marshmallow iced latte from Sweetie Pies on Main.

Homemade frappe with dark roast, milk, ice, and birthday cake ice cream (<– I enjoyed the Halo Top a surprising amount, and would definitely buy it again).

{5-6} Decadent Doughnuts. Nutella beignet from Maman.

Rose and marmalade doughnut from Polka Dot. <– one of the best doughnuts either of us had ever eaten

{7-10} Work Bites. Piñata apple, salted caramel Doubleshot, and an ancho pepper turkey stick.

Almond water (<– yuck!), chocolate hazelnut croissant, and a smitten apple.

Vanilla bean yogurt with white peach and crumbled cookies (<– the recipe I always make with butterscotch and dark chocolate chips and walnuts).

TJ’s avocado citrus yogurt with fresh mango and a peanut butter Larabar on the side.

{11-12} Lunch in Greenpoint. Greenpoint Fish and Lobster.

Watermelon lemonade with cava.

Grilled bluefish tacos with citrus cabbage, chipotle-lime mayo, radishes, and cilantro on grilled corn tortillas.

Greenpoint Beer and Ale. I got the honey saison.

{13} Quality Eats at Quality Eats. French toast cocktail (<– extra points for the punny name!) = bourbon, maple syrup, cinnamon, egg white, and prosecco.

I had fried eggs with avocado and salsa rosa, and a perfectly dressed salad.

And we had the s’mores ice cream sundae for dessert, with burnt marshmallow ice cream.

{14-17} Winner Dinners. Kimichi quesadillas. I stuffed wonderfully soft tortillas with a mix of sharp cheddar, chopped kimchi, and mayo.

Served with sour cream, roasted zucchini, and a weisse beer with lychee and pink guava.

Bean and cheese tacos. With watermelon beer and seltzer. I cooked pinto beans in a skillet with evoo, salt, pepper, curry powder, and cayenne, then mashed them up with a spoon.

With sour cream, salsa, Mexican cheese blend, and sautéed onions and green pepper.

Chicken wing pasta. Whole wheat shells / shredded chicken / peas / habanero wing sauce / cream cheese / blue cheese.

Our first trip to Win Son = the best meal of this post.

I got the Breakfast of Champions drink with peanut milk, toasted sesame, rum, rum cream, and toasted coconut.

Fried eggplant with black vinegar, kefir cheese, and spiced cashews. <– maybe my favorite thing I’ve eaten this year

Sesame noodles with scallions and oyster mushrooms. Plus a metric ton of chili oil.

{18-20} Delicious Desserts. Molly’s Cupcake for raw cake batter stuffed yellow cake.

Bubble tea at Yaya Tea. Guava black tea with yogurt popping boba and mango stars. <– new favorite boba spot

Ice and Vice seasonal flavor, No Whey – labne ice cream with burnt honey and preserved lemon. This was so refreshing!

Enjoy the rest of your week!

5Jun2017

Japanese Kit-Kats And Trader Joe’s Nitro Cold Brew

by Emily

Highlights from the week included…

Trader Joe’s nitrogen-infused cold brew, my new favorite bottled coffee. It was so creamy and velvety!

Check out that head (photo taken after I added cream).

Yogurt bowls at work. Plain Siggi’s with maple quinoa granola, chia seeds, brown sugar, and homemade raisins. <– if I had included three favorites in my title this bowl would have been #3! P.S. the raisins were much improved by a night in the fridge.

Banana Chobani with Heritage Flakes and a piñata apple on the side.

Snack attack. There were curly fries in the cafeteria this week!

I finally got my hands on some crazy-flavors Japanese Kit-Kats – butter cookie and pudding. I would have liked both better with milk chocolate versus white but they were fun to try.

Iced chai latte (that was way too spicy for me and ended up going in the garbage) and yummy honey caramel candies.

I made a big batch of pesto and it was the cornerstone of most of our adult dinners last week. Failed adulting dinners were cheese and crackers eaten in bed. Pesto = basil, garlic, salt, olive oil, pine nuts, and parmesan. Most of it went into pasta bowls – whole wheat shells with shredded chicken and roasted zucchini, topped with more cheese and pine nuts and fried garlic panko bread crumbs for crunch.

I also set aside some pesto for some truly epic egg sandwiches.

Brioche bun / with pesto on one side / and gojuchang mayo on the other / with two fried eggs with a slice of fontina cheese melting in between. <– ridiculously good and loosely inspired by the egg sandwich at Santina.

With roasted green beans with more garlic panko.

Saturday after work I met Adam for Southern fare at Pretty Southern. We ordered both sherry drinks because cocktails with sherry are wonderful. Carlita’s Colada – Palo cortado sherry, coconut cream, pineapple, and lime and Sunshine Way – Fino sherry, blackberry, pineapple, lime, and mint. The coconut one was the best.

We shared all of the things for dinner. Chicken strips with the most amazing housemade pickles.

Bourbon butter biscuit. <– this was soggy and meh

Fantastic mac and cheese with crispy fried onions on top.

And a griddled sandwich with pimento cheese, tomato, and pickled jalapeño.

I’ve got a busy but fun week ahead, please think calm thoughts for me!

15May2017

Salmon Cream Cheese Wontons

by Emily

I had to work this weekend but somehow I ended up with a bunch of eats that were super good. Because they all included sugar and/or cheese? Probably! Here were the highlights…

Three fun new coffee cups. Halvah cotton candy on top.

Chocolate milk ice cubes.

Starbuck’s nitro cold brew. I loved the velvety texture but was not a fan of it being served without ice.

Pickings are slim at the cafeteria on the weekends but I put together a pretty good lunch plate. BBQ wings, veggie lo mein, roasted baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes with blue cheese dressing.

Mango yogurt with fresh mango on top. Guys, fresh mangos are so flipping good, how did I forget about them all winter??

Cookie and coffee break. From Bittersweet (a hopping Fort Greene coffee spot with no less than 7 cute doggies waiting in line when I walked in).

Another sweet snack, vanilla yogurt with chocolate peanut butter stirred in and mini chocolate chips on top.

Cinnamon dusted apple slices with sharp cheddar squares and chocolate peanut butter sticks.

Whole Foods hot bar dinner on an after-work shopping trip. Crispy potatoes, vegan meat balls, roasted zucchini, tabbouleh, and pasta salad.

Best meal of the week was this quick and easy dinner I threw together Friday night.

Salmon cream cheese wontons! I stuffed wonton skins with a mix of canned salmon, cream cheese, brown sugar, fish sauce, and minced ginger. Baked at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes.

They were creamy and crispy and delicious. Served with roasted green beans.

A close 2nd for best meal was our dinner at Lady’s, a newish Italian spot in Brooklyn.

The food was all fantastic – so fresh, and perfectly seasoned. Like this amazing salad with snow peas, sunflower seeds, and pickled radish. <– 2nd best salad of my entire life

We also started with hummus with crispy chickpeas, charred cucumber, lemon, and focaccia.

With a yummy local watermelon ale.

And for our entrée we shared pasta with crab,

and honey butter pizza dough with sea salt and Calabrian chili. The spicy-salty-sweet contrast was perfection. I had a glass of prosecco with that course and the pairing was wonderful.

I got a giant scoop of the new cheesecake flavor at Ample Hills for dessert. It was a tasty weekend!

12May2017

Cold Brew With Condensed Milk

by Emily

Here were some of my best bites over the past 7 days…

Grady’s Cold Brew with scm. So flipping good! It even overtook THIS as my favorite coffee combo for the year.

Trader Joe’s berry oatmeal with chocolate peanut butter and a Gala apple on the side.

Snack attack – spicy chicken jerky with a cheese stick and a Golden Nugget tangerine.

Trader Joe’s birthday cake bar. This was delicious, absolutely studded with sprinkles!

Eggs and veggie hash. Onion, mushrooms, yellow bell pepper, and broccoli, sautéed in evoo with paprika and turmeric / topped with tons of cheddar / and sunny side up eggs.

Meat and potatoes night.

Asian-inspired meat and potatoes. Yummy miso meatballs,

ginger and garlic baked fries,

plus broccoli.

Yesterday I spent a solid four hours cooking this “soup.”

I roasted chicken bones and made a tasty brown stock, but… then I over-reduced the stock into practically nothing and by the time I was done boiling my pasta in it the pot was dry! The final dish – with whole wheat pasta shells, roasted zucchini, and shredded chicken, and lots of cheese – was fantastic, but probably didn’t need to take four hours!

Have a nice weekend!

14Apr2017

Chocolate “Cheesecake” Oatmeal

by Emily

Kids. Work is really freaking stressful this month. My goodness. I had Wednesday off this week (from working the previous weekend) and I practically spent the whole day in a coma. And yesterday I bought multiple coffees before 10 am. I promise to ~~whine about~~ post a work sitch update sometime soon, but for this post I’m keeping things short and simple.

Some of the best things I ate this week…

Oatmeal with chia seeds, two kinds of chocolate chips, and a scoop of cream cheese. It was heavenly.

Mango yogurt with Luxardo cherries, plus I added a banana from the cafeteria at work.

Another dessert-y lunch, plain Greek yogurt with cookie butter, granola, and a Pink Lady apple.

My mother-in-law sent us a giant box of sugar cookies for Easter. Both of our mothers still send us Easter baskets, actually, there’s a lot of candy in this house!

Leftover cheddar bbq meatloaf with roasted green beans. Adam butchered the meatloaf getting it out of the dish and then mashed it onto my plate because I pretty much live like a princess.

<– that was sarcasm, but I really am pretty spoiled. Case in point – honey beer with dinner.

Sweet potato fries with tons of extra-sharp cheddar and ground turkey with Korean bbq sauce. I realize that the photo is pretty rough, but it was one of the yummiest things I ate all week. We highly recommend the frozen fries from Trader Joe’s.

Hot pasta salad. I sautéed big chunks of green bell pepper and onion in tons of olive oil and smoked paprika, tossed with crispy roasted chickpeas, and cheese tortellini.

Are you dying eggs this weekend??

7Apr2017

Crab Rangoon Grilled Cheese

by Emily

This post contains a week’s worth of wrap up – not just the sandwich – but the sandwich was awesome so it stole the title. Maybe I’ll make a thing of it and start titling all of my weekly posts after the best bite?

Yummy things…

Our very last cup of chicory coffee from Café du Monde. <– boo! With a mandarin. I spilled the 2nd to very last cup all over the counter and down the side of the fridge, so that was fun.

More chicory coffee, in yogurt form. With KIND maple quinoa granola and chocolate-covered cacao nibs. Plus a Pacific Rose apple.

The best chips of all time – honey butter flavored from Trader Joe’s. Excluding, obviously, the freshly made honey butter chips served at Oiji.

Another Trader Joe’s win – Kona coffee cookie mocha swirl ice cream.

Homemade treats make the best snacks though. I threw a wedding shower for one of the ladies at work this week and contributed cookie butter bars and brown butter chocolate chip cookies.

The eponymous sandwich!

Served with roasted brussel sprouts with paprika and Old Bay seasoning – to keep the seafood theme going.

Toasted sourdough with crab rangoon in between. The filling was a mixture of cream cheese, lump crab meat, green onion, minced ginger, brown sugar, and soy sauce. They were wonderful.

I loosely followed the recipe for Eat, Live, Run’s lemon brown sugar chicken.

I added sliced green onions to the casserole dish and used extra smoked paprika, but primarily I swapped in MAPLE sugar for brown sugar. Delicious. We spooned the sauce on top of our veggies.

Another night I loosely followed the recipe for Bon Appétit’s marinated beans. Great northern beans with evoo, rice vinegar, cilantro, green onion, and gojuchang. I served the beans on top of roasted green beans and sweet potato fries.

With a sour beer on the side.

I work the next five days, but I hope everyone else has a lovely weekend!

25Mar2017

Coconut, Citrus, And Guava, Oh My

by Emily

Did I mention last week that I need a vacation? This week was worse. Thankfully, starting tomorrow we are on vacation!! Here are the highlights from the past five days that felt like they lasted for ten…

I kept my coffee combo the same, but did kick things up a notch one day with an Aussie iced coffee!

Limoneira recently expanded their orchards to include blood oranges and Cara Cara oranges and they sent me a box of goodies to sample.

The Cara Caras were good, and the blood oranges were the best I’ve ever had – juicy and sweet and just a bit tart. They made a very good work snack (with roasted pecans and TJ’s butterscotch short breads).

And were fantasmic mixed into coconut yogurt with Heritage Flakes.

It was a week of exceptionally good yogurt bowls. Plain Greek with TJ’s mixed nut butter, vanilla granola, chocolate-covered cacao nibs, and shortbreads.

Chicory + coffee yogurt with granola and nibs.

Adam and I both were off on Wednesday and we went to Sunday in Brooklyn for brunch. I had “The Elvis,” charred banana, housemade fluff, sunflower butter, and green apple, on whole-wheat bread.

Plus pie and espresso at Blue Stove. This guava chess was good but not great.

Snacks of note included jelly beans on the first day of Spring.

This lime fresco popcorn.

And the epicness that is Trader Joe’s dried fruit selection. Dried persimmon?! The carabao mango is out of this world, it’s like candy.

Three of five nights I ate a grilled cheese sandwich* while watching Bob’s Burgers** but twice I did manage to cook a legit dinner. Like egg sandwich pitas.

Scrambled eggs with smoked paprika, red bell pepper, and spring onion in a pita with mayo and sharp cheddar.

Plus a cruciferous veggie mix sautéed with cashews and soy sauce.

Green curry chicken and veggies. The chicken strips were baked after marinating in a spicy Sriracha marinade, with yellow onion, green onion, green bell pepper, and roasted zucchini, in a green curry sauce.

We kept the coconut theme going with our drink.

*grilled cheese notes: this week they were on quinoa bread but rye or sourdough is best / sharp cheddar with pickle relish is my preferred combo / always cooked in butter.

**Bob’s Burgers is my new favorite cartoon series (other than Rick and Morty which is just one of the best tv shows of any genre), I like it even more than Futurama. It’s the perfect balance of funny yet sweet.

See ya next week!

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: apple

Butter Pecan Mochi

It’s Hot Outside And I Want Ice Cream And Iced Coffee

Japanese Kit-Kats And Trader Joe’s Nitro Cold Brew

Salmon Cream Cheese Wontons

Cold Brew With Condensed Milk

Chocolate “Cheesecake” Oatmeal

Crab Rangoon Grilled Cheese

Coconut, Citrus, And Guava, Oh My