Oats And Easter Candy

by Emily

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.

This week I cold-brewed the French Roast.

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.

Gevalia almond milk iced coffee.

The flavor was good but not great. The 9 grams of protein made it a good breakfast though.

Iced coffee and peanut butter toast with condensed milk from the tea place near my work.

I threw out my crusts and my office smelled like a peanut all day!

lunch

Banana walnut oatmeal with a minneola and Cadbury mini eggs.

Cabury mini eggs win for best holiday candy ever.

Wild berry oatmeal with Justin’s chocolate hazelnut butter.

I 100% bought the oatmeal because it had a bear on the package, but it ended up being pretty tasty.

Turkey sandwich, citrus, and malted eggs.

That’s a toasted English muffin with Smart Balance and Applegate Farms smoked turkey.

Yogurt bowl.

2% Greek with pomegranate and marble halvah. <– my best idea ever

Chicken sandwich from the cafeteria.

An everything bagel with mayo, mustard, spicy chicken, Munster cheese, and fancy lettuce.

snack

Coffee all day every day.

Worth mentioning were this short, skim caramel macchiato.

And the fact that Hungry Ghost has Stumptown cold brew on draft.

Easter candy.

Turkey jerky.

Ample Hills!

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.

Happy Easter to all my readers who celebrate.

30Mar2015

Birthday Cake Coffee And Jelly Bean Gum

by Emily

Random notes:

A bunch of bites slipped past the camera this weekend, though per usual, the majority of them were coffee and candy.
I had big plans for excitement in the city this weekend and the snow (in March?! seriously?) throw me off my game. We did make it to the Lower East Side for a 2nd trip to Adam’s new favorite restaurant though.
I binge-watched my way through the first 9 episodes of “Fresh off the Boat” and thought it was great. The book has been on my Amazon wish-list for ages, and we recently visited BaoHaus, so it’s safe to say I’m currently infatuated with Eddie Huang.

Eats:

Double espresso with skim milk (over ice) at work.

I’m not super hungry most mornings, but I try to get in a full 8 oz serving of dairy in my coffee. The 8 grams of protein and 90 – 130 calories usually hold me just fine until my early lunch. Usually. I was so hungry all day on Friday that I was practically crying.

My lunch was delicious.

Fresh blueberries on top of lemon Chobani with a side of sugar cookie kettle corn.

But soon after lunch I was miserable. And I took lunch an hour earlier than usual so it was looong afternoon. I bought this thing of cheese and crackers from the cafeteria, scoffed at how ridiculously large the serving size was, and finished the whole thing 30 minutes later.

And 30 minutes after that, I was buying coffee and a KIND bar for my train ride.

Plus I ate Easter candy both before and after dinner.

My dinner, that in retrospect definitely could have used more protein, was a good one though, if a bit scattered.

Salad = baby kale, cubes pesto gouda, dried blueberries, buckwheat groats, and honey/evoo/lavender salt for dressing.

Our pasta bowls were more of the same; pesto gouda and baby spinach, along with tons of caramelized onions – finished with cream sherry! – and whole wheat boxed mac and cheese with a few giant shells thrown in for good measure.

I was still hungry when we went to bed! Thankfully I felt back to normal by Saturday morning.

My picture-taking motivation went downhill at that point – when I woke up to almost-April snow my plans to go to the gym, clean the floors, and generally accomplish anything all seemed to disappear – but I do have shots of the good stuff.

Adam loved the oatmeal raisin cookie smoothie that I made for my last Recipe Redux post a ton, so this weekend I worked up an official recipe.

I made mine with plain almond milk. ‘Twas good.

This gum is great.

Doesn’t taste like a jelly bean, but it has a great, tart flavor.

Starbucks reached the 20th birthday of the Frappuccino last week and they celebrated with a limited-edition birthday cake flavor… with pink raspberry whipped cream!

I asked for them to make me one into a skim iced latte. So good. Still ridiculous, but slightly less ridiculous.

I made Pinch of Yum’s Bourbon Chicken for Sunday dinner, though I trashed mine up a bit by substituting in turkey breast and Jim Beam’s Maple Bourbon.

Served with brown rice and roasted broccoli, under a healthy drizzle of sauce. My mother – a maple fanatic – bought me the bourbon for Christmas and I have so many cocktail ideas for it.

We had another amazing meal at Pig & Khao. Adam is obsessed with this place and I don’t blame him.

That’s my Reisling and our order of fried mantao buns.

The husband had a giant plate of pork leg, and I ordered the Khao Soi – red curry, coconut milk, chicken, egg noodles, pickled mustard greens, and shallots.

I don’t even like red curry (understandably, the menu is mostly meats so there aren’t a ton of options for me) but I loooved this. The flavors are just so balanced; you leave feeling unbelievably satisfied.

We had to make room for Halo Halo though!

Shaved ice, leche flan, ube ice cream, macapuno (coconut), and pinipig (toasted puffed rice). My favorite desserts are bat ping so, choclados, and halo halo, clearly I am all about shaved ice and sweet milk.

Did you try the birthday cake Frappuccino?

20Mar2015

“It’s A Miracle!”

by Emily

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!

17Mar2015

Pi(e) Day 2015

by Emily

Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is an infinite, constant number (i.e. the number goes on forever and it’s the same number for all circles of all sizes). π equals 3.1415926535897932384626etcetera,etcetera. Because of this, math-lovers and sugar-aficionados alike celebrate March 14 (3/14 = 3.14) as Pi Day each year. This year was extra special because it was a once-a-hundred-years opportunity to celebrate a full five digits (3/14/2015 = 3.14[.]15). Adam and I partook in both dessert pies and pizza pies to mark the occasion.

Pi Day

Adam and I knew that we wanted to go for the double, so we headed to Park Slope, where both our favorite pie place and pizza place reside. We were clearly not the only ones to have this idea –

After an hour+ wait, we did dessert first with pie at Four & Twenty Blackbirds.

Malted chocolate pecan for him and buttermilk chess for me. The crusts suffered a bit from what must have been a major uptick in production (Blackbirds was offering a 3 slices for $14 special) but the fillings were amazing as always.

Then we did slices of pizza pie at Pino’s.

Bbq chicken for me. Adam got more because he has π memorized beyond the first three digits 😉

Dinners in Bowls

I’m not so big on plates -I also prefer chopsticks to forks – and it feels like we eat the majority of our dinner out of bowls. Extra-credit if the food is layered into the bowl instead of served as a homogenous dish. Our dinners last weekend hit both counts.

We even ate dessert in bowls.

The ice cream was good, but nothing about it was “Tres Leches.” Boo.

Spicy sweet potato bowls.

baked yam
creamy Sriracha sauce – Sriracha, mayo, and honey
sautéed broccoli – in soy sauce and rice vinegar
sunny side up egg – fried in coconut oil

This was… not good. The idea was good, I think, but the broccoli was freezer-burnt and the potatoes were old.

Our bbq bowls were much, much better.

brown rice cooked in chicken stock
bbq pulled chicken – cooked in the crockpot with stock and smothered in TJ’s bbq sauce
collard greens sautéed with bbq sauce and turkey bacon
tons of caramelized sweet and red onions (cooked like this)
shredded sharp cheddar

We’re going to put our leftovers on top of salad later this week and I’m pretty excited about it.

DUMBO Fun

Drinks in DUMBO.

I am obsessed with Brooklyn Roasting Company‘s coffee and we finally made it to their roaster/café. I wish I had taken photos because the space was gorgeous and inviting, but we loved our beverages.

Iced Maple Shay for me = espresso with cream and real maple syrup. Amazingly, it was too sweet and creamy for me to finish.

Our next stop was the antithesis of maple and cream, green juice from Forager’s.

Kale, spinach, cucumber, and papaya. I will not be getting papaya again; I always like to include one sweet and juicy component in my green juice (carrot, apple, watermelon, etc) but the papaya did not bring any brightness to the party.

Williamsburg Fun

Sunday brunch and brunch dessert (<– that’s not a thing!) in East Williamsburg. We ate at Brooklyn Star where Adam was 99.9% sure that Emma Stone was at the next table. It wasn’t her, but it sure was her doppelgänger.

The bourbon bon bon – bourbon, iced coffee, sweetened condensed milk – was the menu item that called me in.

Nope! I love bourbon, and I love iced coffee, but apparently I don’t love them together.

My kale salad stole my heart though.

You can’t see it under the giant cheese crisp, but there was raw kale with lemon vinegarette, roasted peanuts, and golden raisins. Best kale salad ever. I know I say that every time, but this one was my new favorite.

We also got coffee at Sweatshop.

And the best sundae ever at Milk Bar. With crack pie soft-serve. The guy asked me if I wanted “hot fudge or cornflakes?,” and I answered “both.”

That was the correct answer.

Do you celebrate Pi Day? Favorite kind of pie?

2Mar2015

Veggie Lovers Pizza Mac & Cheese + Browned Butterscotch Peanut Butter Recipes

by Emily

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.

The best buttered toast.

Inspired by The Pioneer Woman’s “The Bread” we butter our toast first and then bake it.

…Drank a killer strawberry mojito.

The dream team was Cruzan Key Lime Rum and Strawberry Minta soda. With frozen strawberries instead of ice to keep things cool without watering it down.

…Checked out The Little Beet at the newly revamped mall food court.

The new options were all awesome, there is a potato place that looks very unhealthy but very delicious. Adam had a cheesy meal at Melt Shop.

And I got a trio of charred string beans, charred kale, and buckwheat soba noodle salad.

The kale was soooo good, a little bit spicy and much more flavorful than the kale chips we make at home.

…Made gooey macaroni and cheese that tasted like a pizza!

Veggie Lovers Pizza Macaroni and Cheese; serves 4 – 6

6 oz short-cut pasta
4 cups chopped, cooked broccoli
1 cup sliced, canned mushrooms
1/2 cup sliced black olives
25 slices turkey pepperoni, sliced in half
2 Tbsp salted butter, chopped into smaller pieces
2 heaping Tbsp flour
1 3/4 cups skim milk
5 oz reduced-fat mozzarella, shredded
5 oz sharp cheddar, shredded
1 cup marinara sauce

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.

27Feb2015

Home Again, Home Again

by Emily

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).

We did a pre-dinner dessert date at Ample Hills.

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?

9Feb2015

Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

random facts

I finished reading my latest book on Friday – Fairyland, a memoir about growing up with an openly gay father in San Francisco in the 80’s. (Not much of a)spoiler alert – he dies of AIDS related complications. I was wracked with sobs for the last quarter of the book. Steve Abbot was a published author who kept detailed journals his entire adulthood and wrote copious letters to Alysia while she was in college, so she had a lot of source material to pull from which was nice; it was practically a biography within a memoir.
A big chunk of Saturday is missing because we went on a fun foodie tour and I am devoting a whole post to it. (coming tomorrow)
We upgraded our phones on Sunday. My new Galaxy is giant and tacky, obnoxiously gold.

breakfast

Adam and I tried the new raspberry white chocolate coffee from Dunkin’.

Our opinions ranged from good to meh. I still want to try the Starbucks version.

Cereal bowl.

Cocoa Pebbles and Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes. Pebbles have absolutely no flavor and were deeply disappointing.

Oatmeal bowl.

Rolled oats – cooked in the microwave – with 1 heaping Tbsp each chopped pecans, raisins, chocolate chips, and brown sugar. Plus milk on top.

Coffee from 7-11 with wasabi almonds.

Yes, that was a terrible combination.

lunch

Chipotle!

White rice / chicken / black beans / sautéed veggies / fresh salsa / tomatillo salsa / sour cream / cheese. I would normally get lettuce but I split this bowl with Adam and he didn’t want it. I’ve stopped putting the corn salsa on my bowls in general because even though it’s tasty it isn’t really necessary to pile another carb on top of a rice bowl.

Adam went to a post-ABSITE surgical exam party and brought home leftover mini pizzas.

Paired with green juice.

NYC Jamba Juices recently introduced a new line of 12 oz Cold-Pressed Juice bottles and they sent me a $10 gift card so I could try them out.

I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

The juices contain no preservatives and three servings of fruit and/or vegetables and each full bottle has between 140 to 190 calories.

Citrus Kick was way too spicy for me – Adam liked it but I just can’t do ginger – but I found Tropical Greens to be nicely balanced, neither two sweet nor too grassy. (There are four flavors in total; the two I didn’t try were Orange Reviver and Veggie Harvest).

dinner

We had another stupendous meal at Russ & Daughters.

The Breakfast Martini = Beefeater gin, jam, lemon juice, egg white, Pernod Absinthe, Angostura Bitters.

I adore cocktails with egg white. <– I was about to type that they will be hard for me to give up if I get pregnant! I guess the alcohol may also be an issue.

I ordered the Eggs Benny, which came with Scottish smoked salmon and sautéed spinach on challah.

No surprise, the eggs were perfectly poached and the hollandaise was loaded with flavor. <– more reasons I’m not chomping at the bit for a baby

Sunday night we made a nice, but less exciting dinner at home.

We were helped out by a jar of Sepo Sauce, a creamy garlic and horseradish spread that’s meant to be used as a dressing, dip, and/or sandwich spread.

Sepfonifiq sent me a jar of sauce free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

The sauce has 150 calories and 2.5 grams saturated fat per 2-Tbsp serving, so it’s not any healthier than most typical dressings, but it packs a lot of flavor so you would rarely need to use any more than a serving.

We decided to go the bread and lettuce route.

A sandwich of part-skim mozzarella cheese, thick-cut uncured turkey ham steak, and whole-wheat cinnamon swirl bread spread with Sepo Sauce and oven-toasted.

A salad of baby kale tossed in Sepo Sauce and topped with roasted broccoli and sweet and spicy pecans.

Plus we split a sumo mandarin on the side.

Sadly, we hated the thick cut turkey, which kind of ruined the sandwiches. We both got rid of the meat halfway through and ended up eating big desserts instead. But we loooved the Sepo as a dressing and were both blown away by the salad. I will definitely look forward to making that again.

Please cross your fingers that it’s not actually snowing in NYC right now?

2Feb2015

Weekend Wrap-Up; My Camera Went MIA

by Emily

Moving to Long Island has done something to my brain! <– real talk, please let’s just pretend that this problem is a LI thing and not the fact that I turn 30 this year

Prior to 2013, I had lost/seriously misplaced one item in my entire life: a pair of flip-flops at a party in high school. Also I had to have my dorm keys replaced in college after Adam kicked them into a lake, but those weren’t technically missing, they just weren’t accessible. But lately? I’m an absentminded disaster. Last year, on my very first day at the hospital, I lost a brand-new scarf. This December, I lost a brand-newish i-pod somewhere between my apartment and the gym. And this weekend I misplaced my camera. Not lost, thankfully, because it turned out that I had just left it in the husband’s car, but since he then drove that car to 30 hour shift this is my long-winded way of telling you that I don’t have a ton of pictures from this weekend. I am missing a lot, especially since I didn’t deem things like the four slices of cinnamon toast I ate for dinner on Saturday instagram-worthy.

How often do you lose track of your stuff? Someone tell me they left their baby on the bus so I’ll feel better!

breakfasts and lunches

Coffee! This was a freebie so I went a bit crazy – a large iced latte with extra espresso.

Those Starbucks workers get very snarky once you start asking for that much espresso.

Yet another good reason to have coffee at home instead.

Starbucks iced (but from home!) with Hint of Honey Almond Breeze and fat-free half and half.

Fruit and yogurt bowls ruled my work lunches. Grape Chobani with pomegranate and a Zing Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bar on the side.

Stonyfield Chia and Red Berry Greek Yogurt with fresh strawberries and the last of the TJ’s Pumpkin O’s.

Several coworkers commented on this lunch; I guess they aren’t used to chia?!

The best was clearly brunch at Rabbit Hole with a girl friend. I got the Eggs Norwegian, aka a Benedict but with lox instead of bacon and served on a biscuit.

Sooo good. But the drink in the background was even better – Champagne, St. Germaine, and grapefruit. We both got one and thought that they were just great.

snacks

We tried some fun drinks while we were in Chinatown.

Yeeech! The sugar cane was terrible. But we only spent $1 so it was worth a shot.

Adam bought Gushers!!

They weren’t as good as I remembered, but it was still a fun throwback.

Coffee is always good.

The Blue Bottle in Williamsburg made me my New Orleans with skim milk. Frankly, I would have accepted almost anything at that point though – first my friend and I stopped at one coffee shop that was out of ice and another that poured me a giant glass of whole milk with a smidge of coffee in it.

dinner

I made us great pasta bowls one night. Box mac and cheese gussied up with canned smoked trout, chopped spinach, sautéed bell peppers and garlic, and tons of caramelized onions.

I doused my bowl in green Tabasco.

Adam and I finally got to try Pies and Thighs for dinner.

I got the Chicken Biscuit.

Fried cutlet with honey butter and hot sauce on a biscuit.

Plus a really amazing salad.

Collard greens with avocado, pickled red onions, and smoked coconut. Adam and I could not get over how delicious it was; I really want to remake it at home.

With banana cream pie on Nilla Wafer crust for dessert.

Yum. ♥

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: booze

Oats And Easter Candy

breakfast

lunch

snack

dinner

Birthday Cake Coffee And Jelly Bean Gum

“It’s A Miracle!”

breakfast

lunch

snack

dinner

Pi(e) Day 2015

Pi Day

Dinners in Bowls

DUMBO Fun

Williamsburg Fun

Veggie Lovers Pizza Mac & Cheese + Browned Butterscotch Peanut Butter Recipes

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.

Home Again, Home Again

breakfast

lunch

dinner

Weekend Wrap-Up

I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Sepfonifiq sent me a jar of sauce free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Weekend Wrap-Up; My Camera Went MIA

breakfasts and lunches

snacks

dinner