As this post goes live, we will be setting off on a fun adventure! The best part of which is the fact that Adam and I are both on vacation and can spend every second of the next 7 days together. <– squee!
I wanted to get in a quick post of highlights from the past few days, 90% of which are beverages…
Iced coffee and an apple for breakfast.
Plus a cinnamon iced chai latte when I got to work.
We threw a surprise wedding shower for one of my dietetic coworkers and that’s where Friday’s lunch came from.
Plus an orange in my office.
Yes, it took me less than 2 weeks to kill that plant!
More coffee. This caramel macchiato from Dunkin was not good.
But this can of salted caramel cold brew was, especially paired with a chocolate pretzel bar for breakfast.
Coffee yogurt topped with honey and salty peanuts is always good.
As is coffee beer, like this yummy milk stout from Stone.
Last night we celebrated the start of vacation with a delicious dinner at Brooklyn Star.
That’s Dr Pepper with bourbon and bitters.
Spicy duck wings sauced with ground chili, honey, Coca Cola, and fried garlic. We weren’t sure if it was Brooklyn Star’s superior frying technique or the fact that these were fatty, tasty duck instead of chicken, but these were the best wings we’ve ever had.
And a smoked escarole salad.
So smoky and good! Jonah crab meat, pickled watermelon, Asian pear, heart of palm, and parsnip chips.
Plus dessert at Milk Bar.
Cold brew and a cornflake marshmallow cookie. A sweet start to a fun week.
Oh man, has allergy season hit us with a vengeance. I feel just horrible! My throat hurts, my nose is runny, and my head is an achy, foggy mess. All of that complaining is to say – I missed a lot of pictures this week, many of them of candy and/or coffee because I pretty much had to have a liquid or hard candy in my mouth 24 hours a day. That said, I got to go on several mid-week dates with the husband and it was actually a pretty great week.
breakfast
Smoothie. Vanilla almond milk, frozen banana, blueberries, raspberries and dates, chia seeds, and a scoop of vanilla pudding mix.
Adam prefers his smoothies creamier than icy so I thought the pudding would help with texture but it gave the smoothie an offputtingly sweet taste.
Breakfast date at Doughnut Plant!
I got a tres leches doughnut (the best one on the menu),
and a horchata, a specialty menu item for Cinco de Mayo.
Plus a latte from Gorilla.
Mmmmn.
lunch
Soup for my sore throat.
With a Lady Alice apple.
Guava-cheese empanada.
With a grapefruit soda.
A sandwich from home.
Low-fat cheddar, mayo, and Applegate Farm’s bbq spiced turkey on TJ’s whole-wheat Tuscan pane.
Turkey sandwich from the cafeteria on yummy olive bread.
Plus dried nectarines a coworker brought in.
They were even better than dried apricots.
snacks drinks
Lavender milk tea.
Good but not great.
This “Simply Red” from Pork Slope was amazing.
House-infused hibiscus vodka, mint, lime, and soda. I am obsessed with mint lately.
Low-fat machta latte.
I told you there were going to be a lot of drinks!
dinner
Rice bowls.
For a super authentic Cinco de Mayo.
Date night at the new-ish Luke’s Lobster in Park Slope!
My lobster roll was heavenly.
And then we got a flight at Ample Hills for dessert.
It came in an egg tray and was amazing and delicious and I was basically dying.
{1} The special drink at Café Bene this month is handmade strawberry milk! It’s called a “strawberry latte,” and as far as we could tell it is just milk and macerated strawberries. The husband and I liked it a lot.
That’s more than I can say for the S’mores Frappuccino, as the whipped cream did not taste like marshmallows.
{2} You can eat Kentucky Derby themed snacks even if you don’t watch the race and still have no idea who won.
Milk chocolate gelato and toasted walnuts blended with skim milk, Jim Beam Maple Bourbon, and ice.
{3} Bareburger’s new menu includes a burger topped with pimento cheese, pickled green tomato, a fried egg.
I guess that technically fit in with our Derby eats too.
{4} The new Avengers’ movie was not bad at all. Even though it was long enough for us to need a refill on our giant soda.
It was very funny; several quips had the whole theatre laughing out loud. I think overall it would have been a lot more Whedon-y if it had been Natasha walking into the house instead in that final farm scene (<– intentionally vague so as not to give any spoilers).
I wrote this post at midnight on Saturday… while I ate dinner/my first meal of the day… it’s been kind of a rough week. Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood while this is auto-publishing because I should be in the car on my way to Easter celebrating with the husband’s family.
I’m missing a ton of photos from the week (chips and dip!) and posting two days late, so I almost skipped this post, but some of these eats (chocolate + oat bowls!) were just so good.
breakfast
Community Coffee sent me a variety of their ground coffees to try.
This was a free product sample that I’m reviewing for no additional compensation. It will take me some time to make it through them all, but I will let you know as I open each bag.
Quite nice! Roasty and not acrid at all. I am going to make a (hot) batch in the coffee machine soon and I will let you know if that changes my opinion, but for now we give this two thumbs up.
Salted crack caramel + salted honey with honeycomb and chocolate-covered potato chips.
dinner
Chipotle, because heaven forbid we go longer than five days without rice bowls.
Or salty lime chips, or giant diet cokes.
I made us a huge batch of marinara sauce in the crockpot.
It was a great idea in theory, but I didn’t season the sauce enough and the end result was very “meh.” Too bad we ate it three days in row for dinner and still have gallons left.
The best part of that meal was our side dish –
roasted broccoli with pesto gouda melted on top.
On a much more exciting night, I had drinks with a girlfriend at my favorite Brooklyn bar – Pork Slope. No photos, but I had a Keegan’s Mother’s Milk Stout on draft that rocked my socks off. Then we met up with Adam for dinner at Talde, Pork Slope’s Asian-American sister.
That’s my Navy Grog {Diplomatico rum, honey syrup, lime and grapefruit juices} and kale salad {cantaloupe, pickled beets, candied almonds, creamy ponzu}. I am going to be heartbroken when we move on from our national kale obsession.
Who else has obsessively binge-watched their way though the entire first season of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” already? We finished the whole thing over the weekend. We loved it! I’m considering a rewatch. I hate the two trial episodes – I thought they were god-awful, truly some of the worst television I’ve ever seen – but I adored everything preceding them. The 10 second concept makes my life. Unsurprisingly, this is another smart and funny win from Tina Fey.
The theme song has permanently ear-wormed its way into my brain.
Related, Lisa – Born Round was amazing!
I read it on the train and then would sit in my car in the parking lot for at least 20 minutes each night to keep reading. I’m pretty sure Bruni should be giving TED Talks for all would-be crash dieters, emotional eaters, and aspiring journalists.
breakfast
I did the chocolate milk and iced coffee combo two days in a row.
Paired with a Special K protein bar both days.
Not the best bars – for taste or ingredient list – but they were free in the cafeteria and I had some extra morning hunger this week.
Another day I did hot chocolate mix in hot coffee with a lot of milk on top.
So basically just the lukewarm version of my chocolate milk and coffee.
My breakfast plan for St. Patrick’s Day was a green smoothie. Then I hit the snooze button and the plan was iced coffee with green dye in my milk. Then I hit the snooze button five more times and I barely managed to get coffee, ice, and boring plain milk into my cup.
…and then I also got Starbucks once I got off of the train.
I usually don’t let myself do two coffees in the morning, but I had stayed in bed until literally 10 minutes before I needed to be in the car so clearly it was a double coffee kind of morning. And yes, mom, I fixed my hat hair before I saw patients.
lunch
Thankfully the cafeteria totally came through and helped me get some green-theme on St. Paddy’s Day.
My bagel was topped with pepperjack, sliced turkey, mayo, mustard, and frisee lettuce. Plus baked onion rings on the side.
Blood orange Fage with Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes and blackberries and a fresh mandarin orange on the side.
I can’t believe I had only ever eaten canned mandarins up until this year, they are my new favorite citrus.
Tart cherry Noosa with coconut butter, homemade butterscotch peanut butter, and a Pinata apple.
We are loving the new 4 oz Noosa packs. Noosa is Adam’s top favorite yogurt – in fact it’s one of his favorite foods in general – but the original packages were a bit too large to enjoy on the go.
Vanilla-caramel yogurt with blackberries and 18 Rabbits caramel apple granola.
I loved the flavor of the grass-fed yogurt but I’d still be a little nervous about trying it plain.
snack
Popcorn / all-time best Easter candy / beer…
All good.
A small but gourmet sandwich.
Toasted whole-wheat with Applegate Farm herb sliced turkey, mayo, and leftover carmelized onions.
Weird pasta salad from the cafeteria.
Why do they keep putting croutons in pasta??
An Austrian iced coffee.
Aka coffee (delicious Grady’s cold-brew in this case) with ice, (skim) milk, and (vanilla-caramel) ice cream.
dinner
Asian-style baked shrimp bowls.
From the bottom up, I filled my casserole with quartered bok choy, sliced wild mushrooms, chopped orange and yellow bell pepper, shrimp, fish sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, canola oil, and Sriracha. Then I baked it for 15 minutes at 425 degrees.
Served on top of brown rice cooked in chicken stock.
Leftover bbq salads.
Spicy, local arugula topped with bbq sauce, cucumber, avocado, bell pepper, caramelized onions, and TJ’s fire-roasted corn cooked with turkey bacon.
These were some of the best salads we’ve made in months.
The next night I did a 180 from salads and made my grandma’s recipe for an awesomely retro chicken and rice casserole.
Complete with condensed soups, chow mein noodles, and crushed chips on top. I swapped half of the rice for shredded cauliflower but otherwise did not healthy it up at all.
Served with green beans baked with fish sauce, honey, Sriracha, and evoo.
We ate casserole the next night too.
And we will probably been eating casserole the next few nights as well!
Hope everyone has a great weekend, good luck getting that song out of your head!
It was a low-key weekend – we never left Long Island – but I do have two legitimate recipes to share. They’re very good! Next weekend we have multiple city trips planned so I wanted to make the most of my free time in the kitchen.
This weekend I…
…Had a yummy breakfast at work.
An opal apple and chocolate biscotti dipped in coffee. I threw out the coffee as soon as my treat was gone, I just can’t do the hot stuff. I made up for it with several iced coffees enjoyed during errands-running on the weekend.
One of many.
…Enjoyed an even better work lunch. 1/3 cup rolled oats + 1/2 cup freeze-dried strawberries + 1 Tbsp chia seeds + 2 Tbsp malted milk powder + 1 Tbsp cocoa nibs.
Just shake it together and cover with hot water when it’s time for lunch. The crunchy chocolate bites were amazing; nibs are so much better in oatmeal than chocolate chips.
…Discovered my new favorite hard candy – Ice Chips.
Please note – Ice Chips Candy reached out to me about doing a review and provided the above product samples free of charge. I was not given any further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.
Ice Chips, which come in small chips shaped like shards of ice, are made of xylitol which is an anticariogenic sugar alcohol (i.e. eating gum or candy made with xylitol before acidogenic foods can help to reduce the formation of dental carries or cavities). Xylitol is as sweet as table sugar but contains fewer calories so two Ice Chip candies only contain about 5 calories and if you ate an entire tin – as I was tempted to! – it would be about 125 calories. <– don’t do that though, sugar alcohols give many people diarrhea when consumed in excess
The texture of the chips is freaking amazing, hard enough to suck on but they break apart in a really pleasing way when you crunch them. And their flavor game is on point – my favorite so far are Coffee ‘n Cream and Lemon, but I am really looking forward to Eggnog.
I also really liked this egg.
I don’t even care that I’m a month early, birthday cake is a stupid Easter flavor! It was really yummy though.
…Processed up some tasty (browned butterscotch)peanut butter.
All you need is a food processor, 4 Tbsp browned butter, 1 cup light brown sugar, and 1 lb roasted, salted peanuts.
I’m planning on packing the peanut butter with Greek yogurts for lunches this week.
…Drank a smoothie in the snow. Not the best weather for it, but smoothies are always good.
This one had (frozen:) blackberries, dates, and soursop puree, and Hint of Honey almond milk.
…Cooked green eggs and ham toast.
The eggs were scrambled with spinach and leftover mushrooms and asparagus from Thursday’s dinner.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit. Prepare an 8×8 inch casserole dish with baking spray. Mix the mozzarella and cheddar together and put aside 1 large handful (2 oz).
Cook pasta al dente according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
Melt butter in a medium-sized saucepan (large enough for all of your ingredients) over medium-high heat. Whisk flour into melted butter to form a roux. Cook 60 – 90 seconds, whisking constantly, until roux has darkened to a sandy tan color. Whisk milk into roux and cook 1 – 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened. You shouldn’t have any lumps, but if you do now is the time to whisk them out.
Reduce heat to low and add 8 oz of cheese to the sauce, working in 3 small batches and stirring until the cheese has fully melted.
Remove pan from heat and stir in cooked pasta, vegetables, and pepperoni. Pour mixture into your prepared casserole dish.
Top the casserole with an even mixture of marinara sauce, followed by the remaining 2 oz of cheese.
Bake for 25 minutes, until the cheese has browned.
I am feeling much better now, though the week did feel very long to me. Here’s to hoping the weekend feels long too! I have not been to the grocery store since a week before I left for St. Thomas, but somehow we made it through.
breakfast
Adam sweetly helped ease me back in to normal, non-vacation life by driving me in to work on Tuesday. We made a doughnut date of it!
Pecan praline beignet for me. Doughnut Plant is great so it’s super fun that there’s a location right near my hospital now.
An apple and a hot chocolate.
Less exciting than doughnuts, but still good.
Iced coffee with chocolate milk and a bar.
I loved the Oatmega bar in theory, but unfortunately it was insanely fishy. I just couldn’t do it. I ended up going down to the salad bar for a snack in the late morning.
Cheddar cheese and sunflower seeds packed a protein punch (8 grams of protein if you assume 2 Tbsp of each) to make up for the bar I threw away.
lunch
Salad bar and french fries.
Baby spinach topped with cucumber, olives, broccoli, a marinated veggie mix, and balsamic dressing. The blob in the left corner is fried plantains.
Salad bar and blurry Chipotle leftovers.
Baby spinach with ranch and a bit of extra cheese, topped with my dinner leftovers.
Oatmeal day. Quaker cherry pistachio oatmeal topped with coconut butter with a cinnamon applesauce on the side.
This was the day I had my salad breakfast snack so I did manage to hit up the salad bar three days in a row, a feat that feels extra impressive when you remember that my stomach was still a bit iffy.
dinner
Chipotle night. We legit eat Chipotle at least once a week, it’s a problem.
Brown rice with sautéed veggies, pinto beans, chicken, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, and all of the salsas. The three salsa combo was key to helping me enjoy the brown rice (I really prefer white rice but brown is a whole grain so it has more protein and fiber).
I didn’t love the red velvet, but their caramel and honey flavors are all deep burnt sugar good.
Adam was on call on Wednesday and I definitely made myself a big bowl of chia pudding for dinner. Thank goodness for those lunch salads, eh?
Gina’s recipe base – 3 Tbsp of chia seeds in 1 cup of Hint of Honey almond milk with a splash of vanilla and honey whisked in. I topped my bowl with Girl & The Fig salted fig caramel and it was flipping amazing.
Last night’s dinner came straight from the freezer. Salmon patties from Whole Foods plus asparagus and a mushroom medley from Trader Joe’s.
The patties were unpleasantly dry so I made a dipping sauce of mayo, garlic aioli, pickle relish, and smoked paprika.
I drank a Genny Cream Ale while I cooked.
And ate a zoo of gummies for dessert while we watched the “Parks and Rec” finale.
Omg. The P&R finale basically killed me – I loooved it. Every single detail was perfect, down the very last second of the ending being a sweet moment from Ben. LOVE.
Do you watch “Parks and Recreation?” What’d you think of the finale?
As promised, here is a picture of my gaudy new cell phone –
I’m liking it more now that I’ve gotten used to the new system.
This week I gave an hour-long nutrition presentation at a women’s shelter near the hospital. We talked primarily about added sugars, reading nutrition labels, and the plate method.
I opened with an activity where we compared the sugar content of different beverages.
I started reading Amy Poehler’s memoir, Yes Please. I am halfway through and completely smitten.
It is just as hilarious and inspiring as you’d expect it to be. And her relationship with Seth Meyers – he guest writes a chapter – makes me love both of them more if that’s even possible.
Coffee (duh!) and yummy hot chocolate with marshmallows that the hospital administration had for employee appreciation day.
They also had a bunch of cookies out, but it was 9 o’clock in the morning and one of the midwives brought in bagels for the clinic so I went with one of those instead.
I definitely made the right choice, my pumpernickel bagel was splendidly chewy. Also – I poured my marshmallow cocoa into my coffee after it had cooled down and it was ridiculous.
lunch
From home – yogurt bowl.
Blueberries, Heritage Flakes, and a Dannon butterscotch Greek yogurt.
From the cafeteria – a turkey sandwich and baked fries.
My sandwich had turkey, provolone, mayo, mustard, lettuce and red peppers and my fries had a side of blue cheese.
With cheese, chopped bell peppers, and sour cream and guacamole on the side. I planned on only eating half because it was quite big, but it was so good I ended up demolishing the whole thing.
Dinner leftovers (see the scrambled egg night) on top of spinach with ranch, chopped carrot, and cucumber from the cafeteria.
The salad bar packed lunch mash-up was perfect, I’ll have to remember to repeat it the next time I’m getting tired of my yogurt bowls.
Bibimbap bowls. I couldn’t get a great picture, but these were sooo good. Runny egg yolk goes wonderfully with spice.
Jasmine rice with rice vinegar // baked tofu cubes // broccoli and baby kale sautéed with canola oil, a bit of sugar, and tons of Sriracha // chopped sesame seaweed // and a sunny side up egg.
We used the leftovers the next day for another Asian-ish dinner.
Leftover rice and veggies stir-fried with sautéed onion, eggs, fish sauce, soy sauce, and rice vinegar.
Plus “beef and broccoli” aka chicken with broccoli and cauliflower.
I way overcooked the chicken and this was not very good.
I guess the next day was pretty similar as well. I sautéed chopped seitan, corn, and spinach in evoo and Sriracha and then scrambled in eggs and part-skim mozzarella.
It tasted so much better than it looked.
Chipotle in front of the tv on Friday. We were supposed to go into Brooklyn but it was terrifically cold outside and changing into pajamas just sounded too good.
Chicken rice bowl with sautéed veggies, three types of salsa, cheese, sour cream, and lettuce. Plus chips. There’s a giant diet coke just to the right of that photo ❤
Have you read any actor memoirs that you loved? I was a HUGE fan of Mindy Kaling’s too and I’m excited for Tina Fey’s next.
