They serve it with a doughnut and a pickle! I’ve wanted maple snow candy try ever since I read about the Chippewa doing it in Caddie Woodlawn.
{2} Brunch at Bareburger.
I got a bellini.
And a Guapo Chop salad – romaine, queso fresco, pickled jalopeños, spicy pico de gallo, guacamole, tortilla chips, and avocado basil dressing. Plus there were gorgeous watermelon beet slices on top.
Plus cold-brew, obviously.
It wasn’t as amazing as the first time but you can’t beat that cup.
Pecan pie and toasted marshmallow for me. It was amazing, second only to Ample Hills.
{4} Cookies!
Chocolate chip mug cookie.
Taro mochi.
I put it in the fridge and it was extra chewy and wonderful.
{5} We finally found good Chinese take-out in our neighborhood.
The take-out options around us are all pretty abysmal, but when a new spot popped up on GrubHub we decided to give it a try. I got bean jelly noodles with chili oil and sour and spicy cucumber.
They were delicious and we would totally order from there again.
Adam and I had a pretty great weekend… in spite of me misplacing my – expensive! – favorite sports bra and spending half of Saturday in mourning. Seriously – I don’t change at the gym, I didn’t pack it on a trip, and we are very careful to check the machines for runaways when we do our laundry – where the frick is it?!! But when we weren’t checking and rechecking literally every drawer in the house, we did manage to have some fun.
highlights…
Homemade S’mores Milk
It’s official, I’m a genius. I put it in coffee, obviously.
S’mores Milk, makes 2 cups
Inspired by Tosi’s Cereal Milk. This recipe requires you to strain the solids out of the milk, you can use a fine mesh sieve but I used my French Press and that worked really well too. Smooshy marshmallows will not work for this, you need crispy ones; if you can’t find the Mallow Bits I recommend picking the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms!
2 cups skim milk or milk of choice
1/3 cup Jet Puff Mallow Bits
4 squares graham crackers, crumbled
2 Tbsp hot chocolate milk
Place all of the ingredients together in a container and stir to combine. Cover and store in the fridge for 8 – 16 hours.
Strain, discarding solids. Milk can be stored, covered, in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Cheesy Spicy Eggs
Coming up somewhere just behind coffee, diet coke, dulce de leche, and popcorn, corn cooked in scrambled eggs is one of my favorite meals.
This plate was TJ’s frozen fire-roasted corn, chopped spinach, and sliced shishito peppers (<– so much spicier than I was expecting!) cooked in coconut oil with eggs scrambled in and chunks of Kerrygold Skellig sweet cheddar tossed in at the end.
C’est Cheese in Port Jeff
C’est Cheese is always worth the drive up Port Jefferson for dinner.
We shared a beer sampler. The Framboise was my favorite.
A cheese plate. Adam loved the Tallegio and I was all about the 7-year Gouda.
And a grilled cheese with blue cheese and a raspberry-cranberry relish on marble rye. The cheese and jam combo made for the best bites of the night.
Snacky in Williamsburg
This weekend one of my lifelong best friends celebrated her 30th(!!!) birthday.
After the party, the husband and I had dinner at Snackys, one of my favorite Williamsburg spots. We shared a seaweed salad and a Chinese big bun stuffed with pickled vegetables.
And did rice bowls for dinner. I know the photos aren’t much, but my Spicy Korean BBQ Chicken Bowl was great, yummy sauce and big bites of kimchi.
Our 1st Smorgasburg of 2015
NYC people – if you haven’t done Smorgasburg yet you need to get your life together. They added a few new vendors this season and it is happy, foodie, perfection. We couldn’t find the Snowday truck but you can bet I’ll keep an eye out from now on.
Buns from Bite Sized Kitchen. I got red curry chicken with peanuts, cilantro, and fried garlic and shloots (topped with loads of sweet chili sauce).
And beer-battered cheese curds with truffle cheese sauce from Curd’s the Word.
Remember this post? The stupid sports bra is the fourth item I’ve ever lost… which would be a really good track record if 2, 3, and 4 hadn’t all been within the last year!
I wrote this post at midnight on Saturday… while I ate dinner/my first meal of the day… it’s been kind of a rough week. Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood while this is auto-publishing because I should be in the car on my way to Easter celebrating with the husband’s family.
I’m missing a ton of photos from the week (chips and dip!) and posting two days late, so I almost skipped this post, but some of these eats (chocolate + oat bowls!) were just so good.
breakfast
Community Coffee sent me a variety of their ground coffees to try.
This was a free product sample that I’m reviewing for no additional compensation. It will take me some time to make it through them all, but I will let you know as I open each bag.
Quite nice! Roasty and not acrid at all. I am going to make a (hot) batch in the coffee machine soon and I will let you know if that changes my opinion, but for now we give this two thumbs up.
Salted crack caramel + salted honey with honeycomb and chocolate-covered potato chips.
dinner
Chipotle, because heaven forbid we go longer than five days without rice bowls.
Or salty lime chips, or giant diet cokes.
I made us a huge batch of marinara sauce in the crockpot.
It was a great idea in theory, but I didn’t season the sauce enough and the end result was very “meh.” Too bad we ate it three days in row for dinner and still have gallons left.
The best part of that meal was our side dish –
roasted broccoli with pesto gouda melted on top.
On a much more exciting night, I had drinks with a girlfriend at my favorite Brooklyn bar – Pork Slope. No photos, but I had a Keegan’s Mother’s Milk Stout on draft that rocked my socks off. Then we met up with Adam for dinner at Talde, Pork Slope’s Asian-American sister.
That’s my Navy Grog {Diplomatico rum, honey syrup, lime and grapefruit juices} and kale salad {cantaloupe, pickled beets, candied almonds, creamy ponzu}. I am going to be heartbroken when we move on from our national kale obsession.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 –
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.
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.
It was a low-key weekend – we never left Long Island – but I do have two legitimate recipes to share. They’re very good! Next weekend we have multiple city trips planned so I wanted to make the most of my free time in the kitchen.
This weekend I…
…Had a yummy breakfast at work.
An opal apple and chocolate biscotti dipped in coffee. I threw out the coffee as soon as my treat was gone, I just can’t do the hot stuff. I made up for it with several iced coffees enjoyed during errands-running on the weekend.
One of many.
…Enjoyed an even better work lunch. 1/3 cup rolled oats + 1/2 cup freeze-dried strawberries + 1 Tbsp chia seeds + 2 Tbsp malted milk powder + 1 Tbsp cocoa nibs.
Just shake it together and cover with hot water when it’s time for lunch. The crunchy chocolate bites were amazing; nibs are so much better in oatmeal than chocolate chips.
…Discovered my new favorite hard candy – Ice Chips.
Please note – Ice Chips Candy reached out to me about doing a review and provided the above product samples free of charge. I was not given any further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.
Ice Chips, which come in small chips shaped like shards of ice, are made of xylitol which is an anticariogenic sugar alcohol (i.e. eating gum or candy made with xylitol before acidogenic foods can help to reduce the formation of dental carries or cavities). Xylitol is as sweet as table sugar but contains fewer calories so two Ice Chip candies only contain about 5 calories and if you ate an entire tin – as I was tempted to! – it would be about 125 calories. <– don’t do that though, sugar alcohols give many people diarrhea when consumed in excess
The texture of the chips is freaking amazing, hard enough to suck on but they break apart in a really pleasing way when you crunch them. And their flavor game is on point – my favorite so far are Coffee ‘n Cream and Lemon, but I am really looking forward to Eggnog.
I also really liked this egg.
I don’t even care that I’m a month early, birthday cake is a stupid Easter flavor! It was really yummy though.
…Processed up some tasty (browned butterscotch)peanut butter.
All you need is a food processor, 4 Tbsp browned butter, 1 cup light brown sugar, and 1 lb roasted, salted peanuts.
I’m planning on packing the peanut butter with Greek yogurts for lunches this week.
…Drank a smoothie in the snow. Not the best weather for it, but smoothies are always good.
This one had (frozen:) blackberries, dates, and soursop puree, and Hint of Honey almond milk.
…Cooked green eggs and ham toast.
The eggs were scrambled with spinach and leftover mushrooms and asparagus from Thursday’s dinner.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit. Prepare an 8×8 inch casserole dish with baking spray. Mix the mozzarella and cheddar together and put aside 1 large handful (2 oz).
Cook pasta al dente according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
Melt butter in a medium-sized saucepan (large enough for all of your ingredients) over medium-high heat. Whisk flour into melted butter to form a roux. Cook 60 – 90 seconds, whisking constantly, until roux has darkened to a sandy tan color. Whisk milk into roux and cook 1 – 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened. You shouldn’t have any lumps, but if you do now is the time to whisk them out.
Reduce heat to low and add 8 oz of cheese to the sauce, working in 3 small batches and stirring until the cheese has fully melted.
Remove pan from heat and stir in cooked pasta, vegetables, and pepperoni. Pour mixture into your prepared casserole dish.
Top the casserole with an even mixture of marinara sauce, followed by the remaining 2 oz of cheese.
Bake for 25 minutes, until the cheese has browned.
I am feeling much better now, though the week did feel very long to me. Here’s to hoping the weekend feels long too! I have not been to the grocery store since a week before I left for St. Thomas, but somehow we made it through.
breakfast
Adam sweetly helped ease me back in to normal, non-vacation life by driving me in to work on Tuesday. We made a doughnut date of it!
Pecan praline beignet for me. Doughnut Plant is great so it’s super fun that there’s a location right near my hospital now.
An apple and a hot chocolate.
Less exciting than doughnuts, but still good.
Iced coffee with chocolate milk and a bar.
I loved the Oatmega bar in theory, but unfortunately it was insanely fishy. I just couldn’t do it. I ended up going down to the salad bar for a snack in the late morning.
Cheddar cheese and sunflower seeds packed a protein punch (8 grams of protein if you assume 2 Tbsp of each) to make up for the bar I threw away.
lunch
Salad bar and french fries.
Baby spinach topped with cucumber, olives, broccoli, a marinated veggie mix, and balsamic dressing. The blob in the left corner is fried plantains.
Salad bar and blurry Chipotle leftovers.
Baby spinach with ranch and a bit of extra cheese, topped with my dinner leftovers.
Oatmeal day. Quaker cherry pistachio oatmeal topped with coconut butter with a cinnamon applesauce on the side.
This was the day I had my salad breakfast snack so I did manage to hit up the salad bar three days in a row, a feat that feels extra impressive when you remember that my stomach was still a bit iffy.
dinner
Chipotle night. We legit eat Chipotle at least once a week, it’s a problem.
Brown rice with sautéed veggies, pinto beans, chicken, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, and all of the salsas. The three salsa combo was key to helping me enjoy the brown rice (I really prefer white rice but brown is a whole grain so it has more protein and fiber).
I didn’t love the red velvet, but their caramel and honey flavors are all deep burnt sugar good.
Adam was on call on Wednesday and I definitely made myself a big bowl of chia pudding for dinner. Thank goodness for those lunch salads, eh?
Gina’s recipe base – 3 Tbsp of chia seeds in 1 cup of Hint of Honey almond milk with a splash of vanilla and honey whisked in. I topped my bowl with Girl & The Fig salted fig caramel and it was flipping amazing.
Last night’s dinner came straight from the freezer. Salmon patties from Whole Foods plus asparagus and a mushroom medley from Trader Joe’s.
The patties were unpleasantly dry so I made a dipping sauce of mayo, garlic aioli, pickle relish, and smoked paprika.
I drank a Genny Cream Ale while I cooked.
And ate a zoo of gummies for dessert while we watched the “Parks and Rec” finale.
Omg. The P&R finale basically killed me – I loooved it. Every single detail was perfect, down the very last second of the ending being a sweet moment from Ben. LOVE.
Do you watch “Parks and Recreation?” What’d you think of the finale?
Eating Chalk 