Insta-Wrap-Up, IX

by Emily

Instagram dump, fall edition!

I was sad to have to put this lacy white dress away with my summer gear.

But the closet swap meant that this scarf is part of my life again. It was a Hanukkah gift from my cousins last year and it is so me.

The fall smells at Bath and Bodyworks are killer. We usual burn two at once to “blend” the scents. Fun fact – Adam doesn’t actually have a sense of smell, but he still thinks these guys are fun.

Our clinic is moving over to an electronic medical record soon {yay!} and I’m particular and obsessive so I’ve mapped out the entire nutrition section myself. Then I wrote it all out by hand… with color coding… and a key.

Pie at Four and Twenty Blackbirds. My salted caramel apple slice was delish. Also their espresso is our very favorite.

When I was a kid, my best friend and I used this book to memorize all of the US presidents in order. We also had one for the US state capitals. She recently texted me that she bought a copy and I died for jealousy and then immediately ordered one of my own.

The boys are ridiculous when they cuddle. The dog isn’t happy unless one of us is spooning him in his sleep.

He’s flying!

3Oct2014

Seven Sweet Snacks; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

I don’t have a ton to share this week. I certainly ate enough – including a truly disturbing amount of potato chips – but I didn’t get a picture of much. All I have for you today is seven great snacks…

TJ’s nacho kale chips.

These are definitely the best variety of packaged kale chips that I’ve tried. Crispy but not crumbly.

Guava-cheese empanada on the train. Guava and cheese are the perfect pair, I don’t know how this combo was not more popular back home.

I really wanted to love the book in the background – a collection of essays from the former food writer for “Vogue” – but it was hard not to hate it back. Steingarten was hilariously wry and quite thorough, but his intense vitriol against all nutrition experts turned me off.

Cherry Pistachio Quaker Oatmeal with coconut butter.

Technically lunch, not a snack, but coconut butter on oats is too tasty not to rave about.

A Stumptown Cold Brew box with a Honeycrisp.

Uggh. My favorite coffee drink with my favorite apple variety was almost too much happiness.

We said goodbye to Apple Month with caramel apple floats!

Vanilla ice cream in Jones’ Carmel Apple Soda.

Then it was time for pumpkin. Like this pumpkin pie donut from Dunkin’.

This was actually not great – it was horrifying and neither Adam nor I wanted a second bite – but you know I have to mention all of the on-theme goodies I sample in the fall.

My pumpkin spice latte was a total win {#basic}.

I had a freebie so I went all out – venti iced non-fat latte with two shots of pumpkin spice, an extra shot of espresso, and salted caramel drizzle.

Have you had a PSL yet this fall?

26Sep2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Coffee Crazy

by Emily

Soooo, that title probably could have worked for any week this year, huh? What can I say, the addiction is not lessening. I will totally cop to the fact that I allot more of my budget to coffees than clothing or shoes {priorities}.

I have a good mix of meals to share today, including several that I definitely want to make again soon! I could not wake up enough in the mornings for any breakfast shots, but overall I caught a good amount of the week on film…

lunch

Fantastically thick and creamy yogurt. Coffee Fage Fruyo with a Honeycrisp and an AriZona Oak Reserve Tea.

Plus a red pear and a turkey jerky stick that I snacked on later.

Salad from the cafeteria.

Romaine topped with red onion, kidney beans, shredded cheddar, black olives, and too much blue cheese dressing. Plus bbq chips on the side.

Apple themed oats.

Apple & Cinnamon Quaker (which was gummy and not good) with a banana-applesauce and the last of my caramel apple candies.

Brunch. Scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, and a chocolate croissant.

I was randomly extra hungry on Thursday morning so I went down to the cafeteria for a late breakfast. I ended up getting slammed with follow-ups all afternoon and having to skip lunch, and serendipitously my late breakfast kept me from chewing off my own arm.

snacks

Gotta start with the coffee line-up! From worst to best. Starbucks Hazelnut Doubleshot was very meh.

But I was quite excited to spot this new item at Konditori –

I was a little sick of it by the end, but the coconut cream did a great job of keeping things creamy. Nonetheless, the winner = Blue Bottle.

These little milk boxes kill me and this was wonderfully creamy, sweet, and roasty.

Adam has a weird obsession with Au Bon Pain and he sweetly brought me home one of the pumpkin bunt cakes he’s been loving recently.

I’m just not a huge cake person, but I loved getting a surprise treat.

The last of the Talenti Sea Salt Caramel Gelato, topped with some melted (chunky/flax/chia)peanut butter from TJ.

I’m glad I tried this with the end of the container or I would have gone back and made more! Best combo ever. Adam’s a little wary of the chunky pb but even he thought this was good.

Leftover slice of mushroom and olive pizza.

Clover honey straw. <– please note: I wouldn’t normally eat this straight like a total sugar freak, but it split open while I was trying to pack it in a lunch

Coffee yogurt.

The strangest pairing of the week was also the best.

Nonni’s Banana Dark Chocolate Almond Thins spread with Port Sault cheese were delicious.

dinner

A fantabulously fall salad.

This was so flipping yummy that we ended up making it two nights in a row.

Baby arugula and spinach blend topped with maple balsamic, pea shoots, Port Sault cheese, pomegranate arils, sweet and spicy hazelnuts [baked with canola oil, honey, cayenne pepper, and salt] , and roasted delicata squash [with coconut oil, cinnamon, and curry powder].

The pizza on the side was this mushroom and black truffle flatbread from Trader Joe’s.

All-in-all, a great meal.

Wednesday night I went out in Williamsburg for a friend’s birthday.

No photos because I am socially awkward enough without the food photography, trust me.

And last night I threw together some fancied up macaroni.

Annie’s Shells and Cheddar with TJ’s smoked herring and some chopped up pea shoots.

Pea shoots do not belong in pasta, but Adam seemed to like it. I smothered my bowl in smoked brown sugar and Sriracha.

Have a great weekend!

22Sep2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; October Came Early in Montauk

by Emily

The husband and I had quite the nice weekend. <– do I always say that??! A day of errands and a day trip up to Montauk. We got to stick our toes in the sand!

We also had some tasty eats.

Here’s how most of the last two days looked…

Errands day opened with a late brunch bowl at home.

Apple Cinnamon Chobani topped with toasted coconut and pomegranate arils. There was also a big blob of Wild Friends Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter hidden underneath the fruit.

Snacks of the day included two types of goodies from Haribo,

and a Honey Crisp Crispin that I shared with the husband.

This is our absolute favorite hard cider.

I also hungrily tore off bites of pretzel roll on the drive home from grocery shopping.

I went late in the day and Trader Joe’s was getting slammed. Probably because the shelves all seemed to be brimming with new pumpkin goodies!

Dinner was an Apple Month special (unlike what’s coming in the rest of this post!).

A toasted sandwich of Applegate Farm Smoked Turkey, TJ’s Light Havarti sliced cheese, and TJ’s hot pepper jelly, on Pepperidge Farm Caramel Apple Swirl Bread.

Plus TJ’s nacho kale chips and baby carrots on the side.

This sandwich was so yummy; love the spicy-sweet pairing.

Our drive to Montauk was nice and speedy (only about 2 hours; a Montauk local told me that traffic to the Hamptons cuts back nearly 2/3 after Labor Day) but it did require a little coffee.

We shared some Vanilla Chameleon Cold Brew with skim milk and chocolate milk on the drive up

and we got more of the good stuff locally while we walked around a ritzy shopping area.

We did lunch at Lunch, a lobster roll place right on the beach.

Adam was all about the hot lobster roll.

He shared a few hunks of buttered meat with me (gah! yum!), as well as his cole slaw.

I know it’s only September, but there were two fantasmic sounding pumpkin items on the menu, and who knows when I’ll go back to Montauk, so I couldn’t pass them up. Pumpkin and crab soup.

And Post Road Pumpkin Ale with a cinnamon-sugar rim.

OMG.

After lunch, a drive to the lighthouse, and a quick stop at the beach, we got more beer at the Montauk Brewing Company.

Their tasting room was quite cheap – $8 for 4 pours – and you even got to keep your glass.

I will definitely order their Driftwood Ale if I see it on menus in the city.

A final coffee for the road – I love Hampton Coffee Company –

and we were on our way home.

We did dinner in front of reruns of “Chopped.” We went high-brow with the food so it would match up with the high standards of the Chopped judges.

Pizza Hut pizza and Cupcake Wine Moscato. Keeping it classy.

19Sep2014

Things From The Week

by Emily

Hello, hello! I have a mere five things to talk about today, I was too busy with lots of little things last week to take many pictures. I mostly wanted to check in and reassure y’all (MOM) that I’m out of my funk. We spent the weekend eating tons of pizza and finishing up “The Office” and it totally cured my bad mood.

thing #1 – TV

Loooooooved the ending of The Office! Pam was kind of starting to drive me crazy in the last seasons, but I thought the finale was perfect. Both the wedding and the cameo made me cry!

thing #2 – Bars

Lots of on the go bites this week, and these were two of the best. Zing Dark Chocolate Hazelnut.

I liked the chewiness. And I was quite pleased by this –

I also loved the KIND Honey Smoked BBQ Bar, though I accidentally deleted the picture of it. This savory line is perfection for the times you want the convenience of a bar but not the typically sweet flavor.

thing #3 – Yogurt

I found the pumpkin spice Chobani!!! But you know I won’t eat that until October, so more importantly, I found the Apple Cinnamon Chobani.

It was very delicious paired with pomegranate arils.

thing #4 – Baking

Part of what was keeping me busy this week were the three September birthdays in the Nutrition office. I made a big batch of my Pumpkin Double Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins and they got good reviews.

thing #5 – Coffeeeeee

I found Chameleon Cold Brew in NYC, finally. Yippee!

I also scored more Stumptown boxes and the Blue Bottle boxes, so I’m going to have some extra-fancy caffeination next week.

8Sep2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Attack Of The Killer Sandwiches

by Emily

Did everyone have a great weekend? Mine was low-key but good; I got my hands on not one, but two of my top favorite sandwiches, so that was nice. The weekend following a three-day weekend always feels a bit too short! Assume many, many coffees went unphotographed.

breakfast

Iced coffee and I ate the top off of this cappuccino muffin.

I’m not really a muffin fan but I had been craving one like crazy all week and Friday seemed like a fun time to give in.

Peanut butter chocolate chip bar from GoMacro.

This came in my Urthbox but I would buy it again on my own. Eaten on the go because I spent most of Saturday helping a friend move.

lunch

I packed a nice yogurt bowl for work on Friday, with sliced plucot and a Jax banana coconut water on the side. The bananas foster yogurt was good, but a bit too sweet (note – if it’s too sweet for my tastes it is way too sweet for 90% of the adult population).

Plus brown sugar sea salt seaweed snacks and caramel apple Twizzlers for the afternoon.

Both snacks got two thumbs up.

Green juice from Foragers. Kale, spinach, cucumber, pineapple, and mint.

I’ve been wanting to go to Foragers for ages so it was good to try out the juice bar. They have so much fancy stuff, including this super-soft apple caramel I bought the husband.

I also scored myself a licorice.

snack

Chocolate-covered bears are always good.

I finally got to make the chia tea lemonade.

Quite nice! I will definitely do this again.

Orbit gum loses its flavor and get’s hard too chew very quickly, but it’s neat that my gum is on theme for the month.

I handed my girlfriend a piece of gum, right after I let her use my apple scented hand sanitizer, and she cracked up. I might be a bit obsessed.

dinner

We got take-out from Bareburger to go with our “The Office” marathoning. I ate baby carrots in the car so I could get some veggies in.

We sat at the bar while we waited. I got a peach julep slush. swoon

My sandwich was grilled chicken topped with smokehouse sauce, blue cheese, sautéed mushrooms, turkey bacon, and fried onions. {my favorite “burger”}

Ridiculous. It is the Big Blue Bacon with modifications to make it pork-free, if you want to try one for yourself.

Adam worked overnight on Saturday and I got home late so I went with my old-standby dinner.

Plus turkey jerky… for protein.

I’m not even embarrassed, popcorn’s a whole grain.

Sunday we went to Fletchers. {my favorite bbq}

I got the chopped chicken sandwich, which I smothered in pickled jalopeños and their amazing bbq sauce.

Plus banana puddin(g) for dessert.

I just wanted to taste the pudding – we were planning on stopping for pie afterwards – but it was so flipping good that I couldn’t stop eating until I basically licked the bowl clean!

5Sep2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Appletastic

by Emily

I don’t have a ton to share today – it’s only been two days since my last wrap-up and I didn’t photograph snacks at all – but what I do have is appletastic. More than 50% of these eats involved apple in some form! Let’s do this post old-school style…

Wednesday morning I made myself a go-cup of iced cold brew with vanilla almond milk.

A few minutes after I snapped that picture I spilled the entire thing in my lap. Whoops.

It was a good day to lose my coffee because I had a nice breakfast already packed for work.

2% Coconut Chobani topped with two types of sliced plucot and some fresh raspberries. I’m honestly not sure what I’m going to do when plucot season ends, they are my very favorite. I’ve even gotten the husband hooked on them, finally.

I had an extra-busy morning at work playing catch up. On Tuesdays I do coverage care on inpatient floors in the hospital so I’m not in the clinic. Usually I only miss 1 or 2 new patients because that’s our slow day, but this week we got slammed, and I came in on Wednesday to several charts on my desk. I spent the morning trying to call people to set up appointments but of course none of the numbers on file worked. <– major flashbacks to my teacher days!

Lunch was apple walnut oatmeal with TJ’s freeze-dried apples.

Appletastic! {I promise to stop saying that now. At least for this post.}

I thought I was fine without my morning coffee, but I practically missed my train home because I was so desperate to get a cup.

Adam was working a 24-hour shift so I was on my own for the evening. Fueled by caffeine, I had grand plans of hitting the gym and then cooking a respectable meal to leave in the fridge for the husband. Really though, I ate two bags of microwave popcorn for dinner after reading this Buzzfeed sad Buffy Tumblr round up and crying so hard that I upset the dog.

Yesterday morning I had much more success with my java. Coconut iced coffee – cold brew with Almond Joy creamer, skim milk, and coconut water – for the win.

Plus a KIND apple cinnamon & pecan bar.

Lunch stayed on theme.

An apple cinnamon raisin Fage with an acutal apple. Plus I ate Good & Plenty and Diet Dr. Pepper at my desk while I charted at the end of the day. I’m not sure what my deal is but I have been crazy obsessed with licorice lately. I knew my lunch wasn’t big enough so I had also packed a seaweed snack for the afternoon but then I couldn’t bear to have anything but G&P.

Dinner came from the grill. Our unseasonably warm weather has the upside that it encourages outdoor cooking.

Jennie-O recently sent me some coupons, so the timing was perfect. P.S. The timing is good for your too, Jennie-O is running a sweepstakes through September 14th.

Please note, I purchased the turkey with a free product coupon. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

My burger making skills? Not so perfect. There’s a reason that Adam is usually in charge of the grill. I thought I had a genius idea, to make the patties out of just lean ground turkey, Worcestershire sauce, bbq sauce, and crumbled blue cheese.

Without bread crumbs or some other binder, the patties were wet and strange and they never did quite become burgers. Next time I’ll use one of their recipes.

Our Moa kiwi hard cider definitely took some of the sting out of my failure.

And overall dinner was pretty delicious.

These were the two best looking patties, if that tells you anything. I ended up smothering them in more bbq sauce.

Plus corn on the cob – grilled in tin foil packets with evoo and truffle salt.

And asparagus – marinated in evoo and Bone Suckin’ mustard before it went on the grill.

Not bad, not bad at all. And while I wrote this post I snacked on a small bowl of melted peanut butter (TJ’s chunky pb with chia and flax) with chocolate chips.

Can you even believe that ~~tomorrow~~ today is Friday? Thank heavens for the short weeks that follow three-day weekends!

4Sep2014

Apple Month Round-Up

by Emily

09/04/14 means we are four days into Apple Month! P.S. Two different friends texted me about Apple Month in the beginning of September and I pretty much died of happiness. I love it when I can share my thematic fervor with others.

Hopefully you guys are planning on celebrating September with lots of apple goodies as well – don’t you dare order a Pumpkin Spice Latte this month! – so I wanted to share a few of my favorite items.

* Trader Joe’s freeze-dried Fuji Apple Slices are my all-time favorite dried fruit.

They are unsweetened and unsulphured. The slices are sweet, and closer to chewy than crumbly like some freeze-dried fruit can be.

* Caramel apples are good in theory but messy and impossible in person, caramel apple flavored candies are much better.

I was impressed with the Werther’s last year (along with caramel apple Milky Ways that I don’t think are available any more but recommend buying if you spot them), and the Twizzlers were a pleasant surprise. The caramel filling has the perfect amount of sweetness and grit.

* All of the Crispin ciders are good, but Honey Crisp is our favorite.

This is the sweetest hard cider I’ve ever tasted.

* Ole Smoky send me a jar of their Apple Pie Moonshine and it has become my new favorite thing for themed drinking.

Adam and I took some sips straight from the jar and were thrilled with it; quite sweet and smooth and the flavor truly is apple pie filling.

I included the recipe for my new September drink below, and I’ve also started dreaming of some kind of apple moonshine shot with something creamy like half & half, in a honey and graham cracker rimmed shot glass, of course.

Apple Pie à la Moonshine, serves 1

2 oz Ole Smoky Apple Pie Moonshine
1 oz Goldschläger (any cinnamon vodka would work here as well)
ginger ale to taste

Pour Ole Smokey and Goldschläger over ice. Top with ginger ale. Garnish with an apple slice if you’re fancy.

The Moonshine was provided to me free of charge to review, but all of the other products were purchased with my own money. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own. I just really like theme months.

What is your favorite item for Apple Month? Are you going to go for the early release PSL, or wait for October like a sane person?

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: apple

Insta-Wrap-Up, IX

Seven Sweet Snacks; Weekly Wrap-Up

Weekly Wrap-Up; Coffee Crazy

lunch

snacks

dinner

Weekend Wrap-Up; October Came Early in Montauk

Things From The Week

Weekend Wrap-Up; Attack Of The Killer Sandwiches

breakfast

lunch

snack

dinner

Weekly Wrap-Up; Appletastic

Please note, I purchased the turkey with a free product coupon. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Apple Month Round-Up

The Moonshine was provided to me free of charge to review, but all of the other products were purchased with my own money. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own. I just really like theme months.