A Weak Weekly Wrap-Up

I don’t have much to say or show, taking pictures was beyond me this week.  Having to be a grown-up again after two weeks of vacation pretty much kicked my butt.  I don’t have a single dinner shot but it’s no big deal because we ate Chipotle and/or pizza every night!

This week took so much coffee.

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This non-fat eggnog iced latte was the best.

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LÄRABAR sent me some of their new seasonal flavor, Gingerbread!  It was yummy, and I loved how smooth the texture was.

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A lunch.

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That’s Wildwood Royal Thai Tofu with pumpkin butter and Sriracha mayo.

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Apple, olives, cola float hard candies.

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Bears.

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I made caramel chip cookies.

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Another lunch: 2% Fage with pumpkin butter and cookies, plus an apple.

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I had to share this strawberry water because it was ridiculously delicious.

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I hope everyone else had a good week!

 

The Girl In Sonoma {San Francisco}

Our last two days were spent enjoying the beauty of California wine country.  And eating.  So much eating!  We were trying to pack in as much fun as possible on our last full day and we went a little crazy ordering food.  We definitely didn’t finish everything shown, but we did eat quite a lot.

We started Friday with coffee,

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and fruit and bread.

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We split a Satsuma, an unpictured banana, and a rosemary roll from ACME Bread Company.

We saved the sourdough roll for an amazing lunch of bread, cheese, and chocolate.

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Plus earl grey panna cotta for dessert.

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We had the Cowgirl Creamery Mount Tam fresh from the source because we were there for a history lesson and cheese tasting.

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Best tour of the trip!

After cheese, it was time for wine, with a tasting at Matanzas Creek.

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The grounds were gorgeous and the wine was de-lish!  We liked it so much we even bought a few bottles to bring to Thanksgiving.

Next up was beer (and more cheese!) at Lagunitas Brewing Company.  Brown Shugga was my favorite, unsurprisingly.

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They had pretzels out for palate cleansing between tastes,

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but we also got a big plate of cheesy nachos.

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This was the point in the day where I was getting a little too full!

But we forged ahead with a trip to Bouchon Bakery for a butterscotch éclair.

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And finally settled in at The Girl and the Fig for an outstanding dinner.

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Those light green olives were shockingly good.

I had to get a lavender mojito, it was made with Cruzan rum!

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We started with a cheese plate with apple, house-made fig cake, spiced nuts and baguette.

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We choose a P’tit Basque sheep’s milk, Bohemian Creamery’s The Bomb goat’s milk, and a Bleeting Heart Moolicious Blue.  Because we had to fit cheese into every single meal that day.

Adam and I shared for dinner.  Local mushroom raviolo with sunchoke purée, truffle pesto, local mushrooms, and chicories.

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And the house-smoked trout sandwich with farm egg salad, caper aioli, pickled red onion and dill.

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Both were absolutely amazing.  The sauce under the pasta and the pickled red onions on the trout totally made the dishes.

We got an after-dinner drink with Firelit coffee liquor and Sailor Jerry rum.

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And had dessert that was my favorite dish of the entire trip.  Chocolate and salted fig caramel trifle with cocoa nibs and Italian meringue.

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Adam was amazed by the nibs and I was obsessed with the marshmallowy meringue.  Plus we came home with a jar of their salted fig caramel.

We had such a wonderful dinner at The Girl and the Fig that we ended up going back for brunch on Saturday!  We met up with a medical school friend who is doing his residency in Fresno and he said The Girl was his favorite Sonoma spot.

Fig Fashioned.

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Mussels and frites for the table, which I was totally brave about and ended up loving.

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And the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life.

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We left completely stuffed; the three of us were barely able to get coffee, hours later.

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Our flight was a red-eye and it didn’t leave until after 10 pm so we were able to spend the whole day catching up.  Our friend chose to spend his one day off for the week with us so we were thrilled to make the most of it.

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A perfect end to a perfect vacation!

Weekly Wrap Up

As of this morning, the cold of winter is finally here. Ugh. But I had a good final week of thin hoodies and no gloves. Good eats too! I did a lot of train eating – bars for breakfast, guava cheese empanadas… – but the LIRR was too packed for stealthy photography. Here’s what I did capture…

breakfast {coffee, coffee, coffee}

Never hot, I don’t care if it drops below zero, you can pry my iced coffee out of my cold, dead hands.

Chameleon cold brew with the last of the honey almond milk, which I loved.

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Espresso! With milk and sugar.

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I tried the chestnut praline latte from Starbucks. I really liked it.

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Marshmallow cold brew.

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lunch

Turkey, sharp cheddar, and pumpkin butter sandwich on a pumpkin spice English muffin.  With an apple and bbq chips.

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Plus the last cookie.

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Maple raisin oatmeal with a red pear.

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And an afternoon treat of Turkish coffee that a coworker brought in.

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Dannon Creamery cherry cheesecake (yum, much better than the strawberry!) with chopped strawberries and blueberries. TJ’s kale chips. I passed the kale around the breakroom and my coworkers all said they might buy some themselves.

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Dannon Creamery vanilla pudding with strawberries, plus the last of the kale chips and bbq chips. This was the best store-bought pudding I’ve ever tasted. And Adam stole the milk chocolate pudding and loved it.

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I tried, and did not love, the new Coke.

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dinner

When I got home on Monday, dinner was waiting in the crockpot for me.

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Chicken with bbq sauce, smoked brown sugar, and fresh cranberries. I ate mine on a big bed of spinach.

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We had salted caramel cheesecake and a yummy pumpkin beer for dessert.

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Pizza and salad.

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A giant bbq chicken slice from Pinos. The crust on these is amazing, super fluffy and light but still crunchy.

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Plus Whole Foods hot bar – garlic broccoli, pickled cucumber, and salad with veggies on top.

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We also got hot chocolate that we’d been excited about all week – supposedly it was made with ganache – that ended up being a big cup of hot milk.

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You cant win ’em all.

Halloween Weekend Wrap-Up

Did everyone have a spooky weekend?  Or at least eat lots of candy?  I didn’t dress up this year and I didn’t manage to eat a single piece of candy, boo!  The whole weekend was pretty lame, frankly.  Saturday I spent hours holed up with a friend working on some continuing education credits.  And Sunday Adam and I were both a bit under the weather so we took advantage of the time change to catch some extra z’s.

Here were a few fun things…

Hallow’s Eats

Breakfast was on theme.  Coffee with chocolate soy milk, an apple, and a Clif Monster Chocolate Mint Z Bar.

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The bar was so good, I need to find more of this flavor.

Dinner too.  A tasty bowl of leftovers.

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Pasta with roasted broccoli, browned mushrooms, rock cheddar, fancy evoo, and turkey bacon (my new favorite kind, from Wellshire).

And I may not have eaten candy, but I did go to Snow Days for shaved ice.

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Roasted black sesame ice with mochi and sweetened condensed milk.  It was amazing.  The ice is sliced into sheets rather than crushed and the texture is totally unique.

Say Cheese

When I was done with my work on Saturday, Adam and I drove up to Port Jeff for a dinner date at C’est Cheese.  We shared a beer sampler.

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And a cheese plate.

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Plus the Spanish Salad.

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Field greens / Manchego / orange slices / red onion / black olives / honey tarragon vinaigrette.

Burgers With Bear

We did Sunday brunch at Bare Burger.  I got the Western – turkey burger, no bun, with turkey bacon instead of pork and maple horseradish mustard subbed for smokehouse sauce.

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With giant bowls of froyo for dessert.

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Dinner was Chipotle but I’ve promised to stop blogging about that!

Raw Review

Finally, a product review.  I was sent a free sample of Maui Brand Raws Turbinado and Whites Crystallized Natural Cane Sugar.

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I received these products free of charge but I was not provided with any additional compensation for this post.  All opinions are my own.

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Available on Amazon and in some stores, their sugar cane is grown and processed on the Hawaiian island of Maui.  The sugars are non-GMO and vegan (<– not all granulated sugar is vegan).

I tried the sugars (which come in convenient 10 calorie to-go packages) in iced coffee,

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and chocolate chip cookies,

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and was quite pleased with their functional properties compared with regular sugar.  I’m a fan.

Best Pizza Ever; Weekly Wrap-Up

Happy Halloween!

Things were busy, busy, busy, busy this week at work.  <– if you don’t read that in the voice of the magician from “Frosty the Snowman” then you didn’t have a childhood and you need to go rent the movie immediately!

As I’ve mentioned, my clinic is transferring over to an electronic medical record system at the end of this year.  The nutrition department needs a new charting form (built from scratch) to accommodate our specific patient population, but since I am the entire department things have been pretty hectic.  Plus we are in the middle of planning a big event and I randomly had a bunch of newly diabetic patients this week.

Additionally, I do some consulting work on the side reviewing nutrition educations and I had a big batch of articles to get through this week.  I really enjoy the work – did you know that I did some editing/reviewing for a famous Caribbean author as a child? – but it can be hard to get motivated to get myself back into work mode once I’m home and changed into Adam’s sweatpants at the end of the day.  Snacks help.

My meals were all totes amaze this week and/but you will see quite a bit of repetition…

breakfast

Vega Peanut Butter Cup Bar and an orchard apple.

breakfast

Iced coffee with chocolate soy milk and an apple.

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Orchard apples and espresso with milk and sugar.

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The energy shot in the middle was a sample from my Urth Box and it was a giant nope.

lunch

Yogurt bowl.  It’s funny, at least once a week someone will comment about how good my yogurt lunch looks.

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Dannon Pumpkin Pie Greek with fresh blackberries and TJ’s Pumpkin O’s.  Plus a candy corn salt water taffy.

Take-2.

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With TJ’s pumpkin Greek and Pop Rocks.

Dark Chocolate Mint bar from Zing.

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This was all I had time to eat on Thursday but it kept me full all afternoon.  Thanks, 10 grams of protein.

snack time

Lindt’s “Hello My Name Is” bars are pretty much my favorite.  Cookies and Cream!

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An “Apple Pie A la Mode” = honeycrisp apple cider + RumChata + Goldschläger.

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Locally-made yogurt.

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Trying to bribe myself into doing my freelance work, I … stole some of Adam’s Cheetos (we both are a little bit insane about themed foods),

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Ate licorice bears,

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And dipped a big, sliced apple into butterscotch peanut butter.

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The apple dippers beat out my other snacks in nutrition and flavor.

dinner

We made Rachael Ray’s Pasta with Pumpkin and Sausage using this fun pasta as our base.

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We tend to rarely repeat recipes but this is one we’ve made several years in a row now (back in the day!).

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So good.  I subbed TJ’s soy chorizo for sausage and fat-free half and half for cream but otherwise followed the recipe.

Round 2.

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I made a big bowl of leftover pumpkin pasta and leftover white cheddar macaroni with spinach, topped with chunky cranberry apple sauce that one of my nutrition co-workers made for me.

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Adam was not willing to put fruit on his pasta, but my bowl was delicious.

Pizza Night!

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Ugh.  These came out so flipping yummy and neither Adam or I could shut up about it.  We loaded them with ridiculous toppings and they probably ended up being far more caloric than delivery but they were also the best pizzas we’ve ever eaten.  We used a ball of dough from Trader Joe’s and it split perfectly into two nicely sized pizzas.

Traditional – marinara sauce / low-fat shredded mozzarella / sautéed green pepper rings / tons and tons of mushrooms browned in butter.

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Plus, slightly less traditional.

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Oh yes, you know I went there!  The best pizza I’ve ever eaten ever including the amazing, giant slices of Buffalo chicken from Zetti’s – pumpkin puree / low-fat shredded mozzarella / TJ’s Pacific Rock cheddar / onions sautéed with liquid smoke and smoked brown sugar / tons of crumbled turkey bacon.

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Plus we had sautéed kale on the side, with liquid smoke, maple syrup, and more bacon.

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For nutrition.

We also shared a Warlock.

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Best of the season!  There wasn’t actually much pumpkin flavor, this was just a really delicious stout.

Round 2.

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Leftover pizza.

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Kale chips with truffle salt and roasted broccoli with bbq.

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The pizza was just as swoon-worthy eaten cold.  How do I get more, immediately?  And we ate this while watching “Nightmare Before Christmas” so I was pretty much exploding with excitement.  <– picture strange, giddy laughter and me singing along with my mouth stuffed full of pizza.

What was on the best pizza you’ve ever eaten?

Apples All Around; Long Week Wrap-Up

We have been enjoying the heck out of my apple picking haul.  There were a few days last week when I ate an apple with all three meals!  Too bad my husband’s a doctor, I don’t want to keep him away!

I haven’t blogged a recap since last Sunday so I’ve got quite a bit to share…

breakfast

An apple and a latte.

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Round 2; this was homemade cold-brew with Hint of Honey Almond Breeze.

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Then the next day I did skim milk and maple syrup.  Also delicious.

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An almond croissant with more coffee.

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Latte from David’s Tea while we walked around Park Slope.

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Cream of Earl Grey is the best.

lunch

Sandwich and salad day.  I think this is the largest lunch I’ve ever packed.  A pumpkin spice English muffin (<– oooh!) with pumpkin butter, roasted turkey, and sharp cheddar.

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Spinach salad with blue cheese, dried blueberries, sweet and spicy pecans, and honey mustard dressing.

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Oatmeal and an apple.

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I’ve decided that I hate that line of Quaker instant oatmeals but it was already waiting in my pantry so I gussied it up with chia seeds, butterscotch chips, and dried cranberries.

Pumpkin yogurt bowl.

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Pumpkin Chobani with TJ’s Pumpkin O’s amd butterscotch peanut butter.  Plus an apple, of course, though that was actually a SweeTango from a grocery trip before I had my orchard haul.

Cafeteria day.

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Salad bar and baked onion rings.

Sunday brunch at Talde.  There was pickled ginger in my Bloody Mary.

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We also shared a French Press of Illy.

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Fried avocado bao to share.

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And Korean chicken wings with waffles for me.

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With coconut brown butter, yum!

snack

An orange selection.

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Sweet stuff.

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Pumpkin Noosa with butterscotch peanut butter.

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Duh.

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TJ’s Cookies and Cream Butter.  <– ahhhhhhhh

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This jar lasted Adam and me less than a week!

dinner

A roasty fall meal.

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Squash with cinnamon and smoked paprika.  This was our first try roasting kombucha and it was good, though not quite worth the hype in my opinion.

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Asparagus sautéed with Bone Sucking mustard sauce and sliced almonds.

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And a big slice of my cheesy eggplant bake.

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We made this version in a pie dish and with mozzarella instead of provolone but it still ended up being delicious.

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With Naked Flock pumpkin cider to share.

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My co-worker brought me back the cider from the orchard where she went apple picking!

Leftovers night.  Eggplant bake side-by-side with tuna casserole, topped with additional cheese and crushed Cheez-its.

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I know that looks like a giant bowl of melted cheese, but I swear the layer underneath was mostly veg.  Plus we did salads for some green.  Spinach, chopped carrots, and edamame with sesame soy ginger vinaigrette.

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And a totes amaze apple cocktail.

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Honeycrisp cider with Apple Pie Moonshine.  I also did a splash of Goldschläger.

Chipotle.  Let’s be real, we got rice bowls two nights in a row.

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We shared some pumpkin brews to keep things fall-ish.

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Soup’s up.

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The TJ’s pumpkin soup was too thin and basically inedible.

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But my sides were awesome.  Three cheese grilled cheese = sharp cheddar, mozzarella, and blue cheese on wheat bread.

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And sliced apple.  I’m sure you’re not surprised that I ended up dipping my slices in melted cookies and cream butter.

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Mac and greens (and cheese!).

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Standby spinach salad – with dried blueberries, blue cheese, lavender salt, evoo, and honey – on the bottom.

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And mac and cheese – Pirate’s Booty aged white cheddar mac with tons of spinach, extra cheese, and Sriracha – on top.

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Adam hates when I pile things on top of one another but mac and salad go together really well.  You should try it!

What was the best fall flavor you had this past week?

Apple Picking; Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend I got to cross something major off of my fall bucket list – apple picking!

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I drove upstate to Lawrence Farms with some girlfriends and we came home with pounds and pounds of tasty apples.

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I also snagged Adam and I two pumpkins for carving next weekend.

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Check out my gorgeous haul (this is only a portion of it, the rest went into the fridge) –

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So far, my favorite variety is the Candy Crisp.

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Yum!  We had a ton of fun and I definitely want to repeat this activity next fall.

I don’t have much to share for this post, just three things.  I’m a bit under the weather and I spent almost all of Sunday tucked in bed.

Breakfast on the go.

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A smoothie  – water and meat from a Thai young coconut with canned pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, frozen banana, and maple syrup – and a Clif Maple Nut bar that I shared with the husband.  The bar was much better than the smoothie, which did not emulsify at all.

Getting in my green before a dinner of orange hues.

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Spinach salad with sweet and spicy pecans, dried blueberries, and buttermilk blue cheese, dressed with honey, evoo, and lavender salt.

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The oil came home from Italy with a friend and it was fantastic.

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Our main course was tuna casserole that I made and froze awhile back, so I don’t totally remember what was in it.  Definitely tuna, barley, spinach, green onions, peas, water chestnuts, roasted garlic and mushroom condensed soup, cheese, and crushed Cheez-Its on top.

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Plus carnival squash that we roasted with salt, smoked brown sugar, liquid smoke, and maple syrup.

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Dinner was delicious.  Sweet and smoky squash with cheesy casserole?  You can’t really go wrong!

Best bite of the week goes to dessert from Ample Hills.

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I got a kids’ cup of pistachio and honey and the flavors went together perfectly.

Hopefully I am over the hump with my sickness now.  The temperatures are finally dropping here and I really don’t want a cold to go with the cold!

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Books And Bites; Five Favorites From The Week

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{1} Coffee

I made a fantasmic batch of cold brew this week.  Brooklyn Roasting Company Iris Espresso brewed with pumpkin spice and vanilla bean paste.  Two notes – 1. Go read all of the coffee descriptions on BRC immediately; you’ll drool all over your keyboard.  2. I am adding vanilla bean paste to all of my coffees from here on out.

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Served over ice with Almond Breeze Hint of Honey.  <– I’m a fan.

{2} Chocolate

Dark Chocolate Mint from NibMor.

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Did y’all know that NibMore lives right up the road from me in Great Neck?  I’m excited that this tasty bar is local.

{3} Oatmeal for lunch

I know that these overnight oats look a little rough, but the flavor was perfect.  In the morning before work I stirred together 1/3 cup pumpkin puree, 1/4 cup oats, 3/4 cup almond milk, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds.  The mixture thickened up nicely by lunchtime.

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The blob on top is butterscotch peanut butter.  <– Ahh-mazing!  Adam and I are obsessed.

Another day, another (oat)meal.

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Veggie and fruit leather, a SweeTango apple, and *new* Quaker Caramel Apple Oats.

{4} A great, Greek, green dinner

Leftovers.

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I was worried about the phyllo dough, but my Greek Tofu Pie reheated just fine.

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Plus leftover green beans sautéed with garlic aioli mustard sauce and sliced almonds.

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We had a rough week health wise – one night Adam had a fever and I had a migraine and we sat on the floor and ate chips and aspirin for dinner – so having leftovers available was great.

Worth mentioning too – My leftovers from Max in Williamsburg.

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The pasta and sauces are all made in-house and they are out of control.

{5} A new favorite novel

The Center of Winter by Marya Hornbacher.  I haven’t actually gotten all that far into this book yet – partially because I’ve needed to nap on the train and mostly because the writing is so beautiful that I go back to the beginning of the page and reread when I hit the end of most of the pages.

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Hornbacher is one of my favorite authors and her first book, a memoir focusing on her eating disorder, shaped the way I think about literature.  <– I am planning on blogging about that in more detail next week.

Her first novel has been truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.  I wanted to share a short {meta!} passage to give you guys a taste –

All the seasons here in the north move toward their own end, except winter, which moves towards its center and sits there to see how long you can take it.  Spring twitches impatiently in its seat like a child wanting to go outside, straining toward summer, and summer, all lush and showy, tumbles headlong toward the decay of fall.  Fall comes and goes so fast it takes the breath away, arriving in brocades of red and gold and whipping them off in only a few weeks, leaving a landscape ascetic, stunned with loss.

Outside, in the soft blue-gray dark, the snow fell.  A child sat at the kitchen table and pretended her father had not died, because you were there.  As long as you were there, she did not need to be afraid, or go outside, and so she was not afraid, of cold or anything else.  Death did not kill her off but merely left her maimed, like a shot animal that startles at the noise more than the pain and scrambles even faster through the underbrush, wide-eyed and sweating at the flanks, not pausing for the ripped and useless leg it now drags behind it as it runs.  The animal has three legs left.  Terror makes that enough.

Have you read any of Hornbacher’s work yet?