Coffee, Doughnuts, And Quinoa

by Emily

Adam and I had the morning off together on Friday and we used the time for another sunrise bridge walk – Queensboro Bridge.

3 down {Williamsburg Bridge} {Brooklyn Bridge}, and 1 to go {Manhattan Bridge}. Perhaps in the summer we’ll reverse it and walk out of Manhattan at sunset.

After the bridge, we wandered around the Upper East Side and in and out of Central Park and ended up walking more than 8 miles (<–awesome). The weather was so gorgeous I wore flip flops for the first time in months (again, awesome) and unfortunately now my calves are killing me (<– not awesome). I’ve been limping for the past two days!

On the food front, here were my top three favorites…

#1 – breakfast pastries

We tried new treats at two new spots and they were reeeeeeally good! At Padoca Bakery, brioche – chocolate and dulce de leche swirl and guava and cheese swirl.

At Orwashers, we had a doughnut injected with strawberry preserves, which was good, and a chocolate almond croissant which was the single-best pastry I’ve ever eaten.

You have to have coffee with doughnuts.

The lattes at Bluestone Lane are divine. We went to the UES location that shares space with a stunning church.

#2 – a new snack

I pack Adam crunchy chickpeas for work all the time and this Korean BBQ flavor is my new favorite thing.

Related – Sumo Mandarins are officially my favorite fruit of the year. They are always juicy and tart, and so easy to eat – they’re a snap to peel and have no seeds!

#3 – quinoa ~~soup~~ stoup

I got the idea from Cooking Light; you cook the quinoa in the broth with the other components so it comes together very quickly.

For my version I used carrots, red bell pepper, celery, onion // s&p, turmeric, smoked paprika, celery seed // shredded turkey breast // 1 cup quinoa // low sodium chicken broth.

Since I used more veggies and quinoa mine came out thicker like a stew.

This upcoming week I’m looking forward to: a fancy coffee combo this morning, watching the newest undercover episode of “Bones,” and having Thursday off of work.

3Feb2017

The End Of The First Month Of The New Year

by Emily

I’m two weeks late and about a hundred pictures short, but here, finally, is a (bi)weekly wrap up for the end of January. I blame a bout of the cold, a string of loser dinners, and a case of the mid-winter blues for my lack of timeliness and photo-taking-enthusiasm.

Gaps aside, here were some eats from the past two weeks…

{rated within their category; i.e. the yogurt bowl is an 8 out of 10 compared with other yogurt bowls not compared other dissimilar items}

Green monster from the cafeteria. They sometimes set up a smoothie bar at the rotating station. I chose spinach, strawberry, mango, and coconut water. 8.5/10

Chocolate iced coffee. 8/10

Work snack – an apple and coconut caramel bar. The score here is for the Thai Coco coconut milk drink, which was creamy and sweet. 9.5/10

Soursop yogurt with blueberries and vanilla granola. 8/10

Turkey reuben-ish sandwich from the cafeteria. Sliced turkey, swiss cheese, pickles, spinach, and cole slaw on a whole-wheat wrap. Plus french fries dipped in 1000 island. 6.5/10

Cola kombucha. 6.5/10

This Milka Oreo candy bar didn’t have as much cookie in it as I wanted. 6/10

But these TJ’s sour gummies are the best gummy candies Adam or I have ever tasted. 10/10

Biscuit breakfast sandwiches for dinner. Buttermilk biscuits (<– I don’t recommend this recipe, the biscuits had no flake) / maple Sriracha mayo / smoked gouda / fried egg. 6/10

Pumpkin soup. Roux, canned pumpkin, and chicken stock with sautéed onions, carrot, and maple chicken breakfast sausage on the bottom. This didn’t turn out as well as I was expecting it to, the salt and pepper pumpkin seed brittle I sprinkled on top was by far the best component. 5/10

Escarole and white bean skillet with (turkey) bacon and artichoke. 7/10

Creamy turkey pasta. Ground turkey sautéed with garlic, browned mushrooms, and oven-roasted tomatoes, tossed with sour cream, and whole-wheat pasta. 7.5/10

I’ve got some yummy things planned for this weekend so hopefully the next post will be slightly less lame!

23Jan2017

Warm Weekend Winners

by Emily

It was 50 degrees outside this weekend! Twice!! I had an absolute blast pulling out my flip flops and spring jacket.

Conveniently, my favorite things from the past three days make one complete day’s worth of meals…

{coffee}

Maple Shay, a nonfat iced latte with maple syrup from Brooklyn Roasting Company. I need to put maple into more of my lattes, it really is fantastic.

{breakfast}

Brunch at Colonie. I had the dandelion greens salad – with walnut, anchovy, tarragon, parsley, and a poached egg. It was actually kind of terrible, beyond bitter, but thankfully Adam shared his duck hash with me.

And dessert was good! Eggnog panna cotta with bourbon and blood orange.

{lunch}

Whole Food’s hot bar. Clockwise from the bottom left – macaroni and cheese, buffalo-style seitan, roasted squash, roasted carrots, and honey Sriracha brussel sprouts. Whenever I hit a hot bar I try to pick a protein, mostly veggies, and the cheesiest starch available.

{dinner}

Tandoor Chef recently offered to send me some free-product coupons so I could try their frozen entrees. I’ve loved their Pad Thai for years so I readily accepted.

Adam reports that his chicken tikka masala was loaded with meat and that the sauce was creamy and well seasoned. My channa masala was tasty as well, and quite filling; there were 10 grams of protein and 14 grams of fiber for a 380 calorie serving.

I served our meals with roasted broccoli with green onion, gojuchang, and black sesame seeds.

{dessert}

Cake batter Cookie DŌ. Ready-to-eat dough with white chocolate chips and sprinkles.

{I love New York}

13Jan2017

Mid-January

by Emily

Tuesday night, I met up with my aunt in the Financial District for dinner and then coffees/cookies at the beautiful new 3rd story Eataly.

Wednesday, I was off from work and spent the entire day in bed, watching tv, eating pizza, and reading a Liane Moriarty book from start to finish.

Thursday, Adam and I went on a dinner date sans coats in 66 degree weather.

<– kind of a hard week to complain about, huh?

Here were my best bites…

New all-time favorite coffee combo: Texas pecan coffee concentrate with sweet buttercream creamer. Swoontastic.

I also tried the new Starbucks Cascara latte. It was meh, too sweet but not in a brown sugar way as promised.

Chilaquiles!

Kinda, sorta. I cooked thick tortilla chips in salsa and leftover spicy pepper sauce from my shakshuka. Topped with black beans, shredded cheese, and fried eggs.

Piñata apple with a spicy chicken epic bar. I’ve really been enjoying these meat-based bar options.

Yogurt bowl lunch. Siggi’s with granola and chocolate tahini. Plus pears.

I made cheesy turkey sloppy joes. Turkey breast sautéed with onion and green bell pepper and tomato paste, stirred into a sharp cheddar mornay sauce, and served on a brioche bun. It was pretty damn good.

With leftover bok choy salad and roasted broccoli.

Our date night was a pizza date at Paulie Gee’s.

It was our first time and we loved it. I had a Milk and Honey Ale and a pizza with fresh mozzarella, baby spinach, olive oil, and garlic.

Dessert at Ample Hills. A new flavor, The View – chocolate marshmallow ice cream with ooey gooey butter cake pieces, brownies, and crack cookie; plus fantasmic dark hot chocolate.

Looking forward a long weekend!

9Jan2017

Carbo-Loading For The Work-Week

by Emily

Three words to sum up this weekend’s eats – all the carbs. Fourth word – yum!

It was a very good weekend, in spite of the city’s first snow. We drove (carefully!) into Brooklyn both days for tasty brunches, I cooked two new dishes, we cackled loudly at the Garfunkel and Oates special, and I polished off a bunch of freelance work.

Iced latte from Milk Bar.

Starbucks smoked butterscotch latte. I ordered this with four shots of espresso (normal x2) and two pumps of syrup (normal/2) and it was still too sweet.

Espresso and chocolate milk.

Best brunch of the new year at Sunday in Brooklyn.

I drank a Sundae Coffee – cold brewed coffee, aged rum, allspice dram, and vanilla cream – and a Smoked Oak Soda, aka the best thing I’ve ever tasted. It was like a glass of toasted marshmallow!!!

We started with a pecan sticky bun and a maple cheddar biscuit. It’s possible we got excited and basically ordered the whole damn menu.

I uncharacteristically ordered pancakes… malted pancakes with hazelnut maple praline and brown butter.

Plus we spit home fries and I stole several bites of Adam’s smoked salmon and pastrami cod. We took some food home, obviously, and the dog was over the moon for that salmon. <– I agree, best lox I’ve had yet.

Work lunch yogurt bowl. Vanilla bean with TJ’s almond butter granola and chocolate tahini, plus a Piñata apple.

Pizza lunch at Emmy Squared. We had waffle fries with bonito flakes.

The Marn Blanc — white pizza with mozzarella, ricotta, pecorino, and caramelized onion – was good but intense; I’d probably get something with red sauce to cut through the fat next time.

Snack time, tortilla chips and peanut butter cups.

Dulce de leche iced chocolate from Cacao Market.

Turkey salad for a simple dinner, with mayo, ground mustard, celery, sweet and spicy pecans, and cilantro. Plus baby carrots and buttered sourdough toast.

Nacho night. Tortilla chips with sharp cheddar, chunky salsa, and black beans. Plus more baby carrots on the side.

Sunday I spent some time chopping in the kitchen and tried two new recipes. I did a very loose interpretation of Mapo Tofu with ground turkey and gojuchang served on brown rice.

Next to a bok choy salad. I borrowed this sauce, and tossed it with chopped bok choy, red bell pepper, celery, green onions, and Valencia peanuts. It was delicious! This was our first time eating the bok choy raw and we loved it.

I’d say my glycogen stores are fully replenished. Have a fantastic week!

6Jan2017

Hello, 2017!

by Emily

How is everyone’s year going?? So far, the word for my 2017 is tasty.

Here are some culinary highlights from the first week…

Coffee first, always coffee. Espresso roast and chocolate milk before work.

I also had the best iced latte of the year from Birch; their shots are extra strong and roasty.

Adam and I both had Monday off of work and we started our new year with a trip to Serendipity 3.

Veggie chili for my lunch.

I kept lunch boring because I was focused on the main event – sundae funday! A giant scoop of peanut butter pie with hot fudge and bananas. <– swoon city

Work lunches were centered around a box of free product review samples I received from ips snacks. The snacks – crisps and popcorn – are all made with whey protein and pack at least 5 grams of protein for </ 150 calories.

I have to admit that I liked the snacks a lot more than I was expecting to. The salted popcorn was honestly the best bagged popcorn Adam or I have ever tasted! It was filling, satisfying, and totally delicious. The chips would rate poorly if I compared them to chip-chips, but score a 9/10 as snack crisps. Very few snacks, especially ones that pack less than 200 calories, keep me full enough in the afternoon that I don’t consider gnawing my own arm off on the train, but these did the trick.

I packed crisps and fruit to pair with toasted turkey and cheese cafeteria sandwiches. BBQ chips and a cara cara.

Sea salt and black pepper chips and an Asian pear.

Snack attack. Popcorn and a honey kolsch.

Yogurt bowl with plain Greek, chocolate tahini, sliced snap dragon apple, chia seeds, cinnamon, and sweet and spicy pecans.

I was killing it with dinners this week. Three different veggie-forward, flavor-loaded, 10/10 dishes! When I made fried green onions last week I saved the infused oil and that’s what I used for cooking this week. First, a simple salad to start off the new year.

Oak leaf lettuce, TJ’s Greek-style feta dressing, cucumber, dill, and roasted chickpeas. With hibiscus kombucha on the side.

Next up, spicy cabbage salad with turkey and peanuts from Bon Appétit. I only ever read this magazine on plane rides but this recipe alone would be worth the subscription cost!

I doubled up so that we could get 4 big dinners out of it, and roasted the cabbage so it was less voluminous, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly <– something I rarely do.

Served with cheesey breadsticks, aka pizza dough rolled up with an obscene amount of cheese.

Finally, I tried my hand at shakshuka. Based loosely on the recipes from Serious Eats and My Name is Yeh, my version had red bell peppers, red jalapeño pepper, and serrano pepper.

Served with hunks of sourdough.

I’m excited to do a little more exploring in the kitchen this new year. My meal plan list for the next month or so includes menemen, mapo tofu, kaya jam, okonomiyaki, and chilaquiles!

27Dec2016

Merry Christmas!

by Emily

My holiday greeting is a few days late but that’s ok, my holiday celebrating was late too! Adam and I both worked Christmas day this year (and Thanksgiving… and New Years) so we saved our gift opening and merriment for the 26th. It was actually kind of fun, we had an item that needed to be exchanged and we just ran right out to the mall and did it.

Here were the food-based highlights, no candy canes, sugar plums, or fruit cakes, but good all the same…

Making the most of the end of eggnog season with several eggnog iced lattes (with a quadruple dose of espresso!).

Christmas day I packed a bottled coffee for work (1.5 thumbs up) plus an exciting peppermint seltzer.

Saturday we headed to Brooklyn for Thai food at super artsy and cool Samui.

Apparently Christmas Eve lunch is not a thing because we were the only people in the restaurant! At least there was no one blocking our view.

The food was great, this was the 2nd best green papaya salad I’ve ever gotten.

And I had yummy shrimp Pad Thai in an egg crepe.

Ice cream for dessert to celebrate the first night of Hannukah – “Festival of Lights”cream cheese ice cream with pieces of chocolate rugelach.

Actual Christmas day I came home from work and ate leftovers with the dog, but Christmas Eve I had a pizza and beer party with the husband.

We made taco pizza that was fantastic. TJ’s thin crust / refried beans / Mexican cheese blend / seasoned ground turkey / cilantro sour cream. With roasted zucchini on the side.

And for our belated Christmas dinner we made brinner, aka breakfast for dinner.

Red and green eggs – a scramble with red bell pepper, green onions, spinach, and parsley, plus cheddar.

The best roasted potatoes from Serious Eats. <– seriously, they were THE BEST

Enjoy the rest of your year!

12Dec2016

New Orleans Vacation 2016

by Emily

New Orleans was our best travel experience of 2016. We stayed at a cute hotel in the French Quarter and had enough time to really get to know the area. It was a great way to finish up the year.

This was my first trip to Louisiana and I think we managed to pack a lot in. We visited three local breweries, walked around Loyola and Tulane, explored the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, went to the World War II Museum….

We also tasted tons of local (or at least Southern) flavors – pralines, divinity, snowballs, beignets, pimento cheese, etouffe, grits, chicory coffee, milk punch, and hurricanes.

Here were some of our best bites…

♥Pralines. They were everywhere and the smell was amazing.

♥Hurricanes. We went to Pat O’Brien’s (<– yuck!) and Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop.

♥Frozen daiquiris, this one was eggnog!

♥This pecan pie soda was actually horribly disgusting, but it was fun to try!

♥Snowballs. NOLA served me the best snow-cones of my life, I had one every day. This was wedding cake (a blend of vanilla and almond) and egg custard topped with sweetened condensed milk.

♥Breakfast at Café Du Monde. This was a must-stop for us, it was actually the only activity I had planned when I booked our tickets. The beignets did not disappoint and neither did the chicory coffee café au lait (served on crushed ice).

♥Breakfast at District Doughnut. We got a Nutella doughnut and a biscuit with pimento cheese.

Plus yummy Vietnamese coffee and an iced coffee with cola and chocolate milk (<– delicious and infinitely better than it sounds).

♥Brunch at Willa Jean.

I had the shrimp and grits – gulf shrimp, etouffee gravy, grits, and slow poached eggs with cheddar biscuits on the side.

Cookies and milk for dessert. With a beater of dough and vanilla-infused milk.

♥Flights at Abita. <– one of our very favorite breweries They had our old favorites and some fantastic limited edition flavors including vanilla Turbo Dog and a key lime gose. We had beers, Zapps chips, and a root beer on draught and were in absolute heaven.

♥Lunch at Cochon. They had house-made eggnog.

We split a variety of small plates – a roasted carrot special with mint, Louisiana blue crab rice, and whole fried shrimp with pickled mustard seed hot sauce. The fried herbs were aromatic and wonderful and the best bites were a mix of everything at once.

♥Dinner at Brennan’s.

Insanely creamy Caribbean milk punch with Buffalo Trace bourbon, Mt Gay black barrel rum, cream, and vanilla bean.

Ridiculous foie gras “sweet potato casserole,” with sweet potato puree and candied pecans.

I had the cheddar risotto for dinner. With Cherokee Rose cheddar, smoked maitake mushrooms, collard green puree, and a brown butter sauce.

♥Dinner at SHAYA. <– best meal of the trip and also best meal of the year

That’s a halvah cappuccino. I also had a Pearl Diver – vodka, labneh, vanilla, and lavender bitters.

We shared a trio of appetizers – Moroccan carrots with chermoula and mint / baba ganoush with green garlic / tershi = a creamy pumpkin spread with crispy garlic and chili oil. All with fantasmic pita bread and herbed olive oil.

Also foie gras with rose tahini and carob molasses on challah toast (omg).

I had the matzoh ball soup for my entrée. With slowed cooked duck, dill, charred leaks, lemon oil, and a cinnamon-scented broth. Best matzoh balls of my life! Adam had slow cooked lamb and the bites I stole were truly the best thing I’ve ever tasted (fyi I don’t typically eat mammals but I’ll have a taste occasionally if I know the meat is humanely-sourced and Adam says the flavor is worth it).

Dessert(s). We basically rolled away from the table! Chocolate babka with halva ice cream and labneh cheese cake with burnt honey ice cream.

It was a wonderful trip!

P.S. No post coming from this weekend, it was the husband’s birthday and I was in celebration-mode versus blogger-mode. And now we’re both back at work.. womp wah. Have a great week!

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: beans

Coffee, Doughnuts, And Quinoa

The End Of The First Month Of The New Year

Warm Weekend Winners

Mid-January

Carbo-Loading For The Work-Week

Hello, 2017!

Merry Christmas!

New Orleans Vacation 2016