Boots On The Moon

Five things from the past week —

{1} I really enjoyed these two cans from Nitro Coffee Company.  The nitro gives them a super velvet-y mouthfeel.

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{2} A very hydrating cocktail.  Vodka with lime, watermelon juice, and watermelon seltzer.

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{3} We made twice-baked potatoes that were delicious.  Stuffed with butter, sharp cheddar, turkey bacon, green onion, Kewpie, and fish sauce.

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{4} A very loose take on homemade okonomiyaki.  Made with shredded brussel sprouts!

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{5} Did I mention yet that we adored Space Force?  We also loved the new SF-themed ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s.

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Summer Fruits And Veggies

It was a very good week in fruits and vegetables here!  We went to Whole Foods on Saturday to stock up.  With our new, pandemic-induced, bimonthly grocery schedule our first week of dinners/snacks always feels a lot fresher than the second week.

Highlights include…

Could Perfect Bars be any more perfect?  They are the optimal balance of sweet and savory.  I loved this trail mix flavor.

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My parents sent us a box of tamarinds and I found these strawberry cherries at Whole Foods.

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I also snagged a bag of genips (<– Caribbean fruit that I grew up picking from a tree near my house but have had an impossible time finding in New York) on the street corner near my hospital!

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Watermelon-themed things since it’s almost July 4th.  The winner of the bunch was definitely the Hal’s Seltzer.

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This dinner was brought to you by the color orange!  Salmon/trout salad bagel melts / local heirloom tomatoes with a bit of salt and pepper / roasted gold zucchini.

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We have been loving this black-eyed pea salad combo for almost a decade.  This batch was actually made with fancy heirloom yellow eyed beans since BEP were sold out at the store.  Beans, green pepper, smoked almonds, sharp cheddar, and green Tabasco.  It is such a simple combination but super satisfying.

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Roasted green zucchini topped with Moroccan tofu cubes and a simple yogurt sauce (plain skyr, mayo, olive oil, sumac, paprika, salt, and a little water).

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Our best meal of the week was this trio – baked tofu (cooked with a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar, fish sauce, Sriracha, and honey) / Chinese smashed cucumber salad / fancy mushroom medley sauteed with salt, pepper, and butter.

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Bridge + Brigadeiro

Highlights from this week include…

Adam and I were both off on Tuesday and we had a great city/social-distancing date!  Walks across the Manhattan Bridge.

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And take-out lunch in Seaport.  Brigadeiro iced latte from Cafe Patoro.  <– one of the best lattes I’ve had in awhile, even aside from the fact that the cup was slathered in Brazilian fudge sauce!

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And a kimchi scallion pancake sandwich from Vanessa’s Dumplings.

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My homemade dinners don’t look that exciting but were totally delicious.  A cheesy, crunchy, veggie-filled casserole with cauliflower rice / ground turkey sauteed with smoked paprika, sweet onion, and orange and yellow bell pepper / black beans / Trader Joe’s pineapple salsa / and a topping of buttery crushed tortilla chips and sharp cheddar.

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Ground turkey with gojuchang, Korean chili flakes, and green onion on a bed of roasted cabbage.  I went back and topped the whole thing generously with Kewpie and Sriracha and loved every bite.

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We made fantastic daiquiris this week!  Cruzan rum and soursop nectar with lime juice and sweetened condensed milk.

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Is it even summer in New York yet if you don’t eat an Italian ice?  I got toasted marshmallow with key lime and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be my combo for the rest of the summer.

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It’s Easy Being Greenpoint

Non-food things I’ve been loving lately —

Seinfeld!  I obviously quite enjoyed it in the ’90’s as well but we’ve been doing a rewatch on Hulu.  I can’t tolerate any TV that isn’t light/funny lately so old sitcoms are perfect for me.

“Adore” by Amy Shark has been played at least once on every one of my runs recently.  I heard it on an episode of Schitt’s Creek, which I’m also completely obsessed with but had to stop watching in the middle because the final season isn’t out on Netflix yet.

Dave Chapelle’s new special, “8:46,” should be required reading for any white person who still isn’t clear on why the Black Lives Matter protests are happening/necessary.

We spent Sunday getting take-out and picnicing around Greenpoint and it was a perfect day.  I love everything about how the businesses in that neighborhood brand themselves, it’s such a delight just to walk around and admire stuff.

Edible highlights this weekend —

Quad shot iced Americano with skim milk from Maman.  Plus an absolutely divine double chocolate cookie with oat milk ganache.

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Toasted coconut almonds.  I’ve been having a real love affair with nuts lately and these were a perfect blend of salty and sweet.

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Take-out cocktails and a cheeseburger from Elder Greene was obviously our best lunch of the year so far.

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Plus we got cocktails from Ramona – frozen painkiller!! – for dessert.

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Our long-time favorite pizza spot recently reopened so we got a giant buffalo chicken pie.

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I made spicy salmon roll fries.  With Kewpie, Furikaki, Sriracha, rice vinegar, and smoked salmon.

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Coffee Cookies And Cream

Food highlights from the weekend included —

We celebrated National Doughnut Day one day late with a s’mores doughnut from Dough Hut.

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Plain skyr yogurt topped with fruit salad (mango, kiwi, plum, blueberries, lemon juice, and honey).

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This nut mix was great, it had just enough savory to offset the sweet.

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These brown sugar boba popsicles knocked our socks off.  How did the keep the frozen tapioca so chewy and wonderful??!

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Also I made ice cream.  Two-ingredient no-churn ice cream infused with coffee and espresso and layered with crushed Oreo.  It was amazing.

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Kettlecorn with Korean chili flake.

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Veggie tacos.  Baked tortillas with cheese / corn and kale / chorizo-style seitan / homemade salsa.

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Brinner Tacos

This week’s best:

{Coffee} Trader Joe’s cold brew with cookies and cream milk.

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{Lunch} Leftover buffalo chicken pizza with roasted zucchini.

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{Snack} Coca-Cola Tic-Tacs.  How did they get the flavor so spot-on??!

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{Dinner} Egg tacos.  These are amazing; I’ve been eating them all week and I’m still not sick of them!  Pan-warmed tortillas // sauteed corn and kale with paprika and TJ’s umami powder // soft-scrambled eggs with gouda // homemade salsa (I made a big batch loosely based on this recipe).IMG_3042

 

 

Kimchi In My Ramen And My Burger

Real Stuff — This was a hard weekend in the United States.  I don’t think my voice adds anything to the discussion but I do want to use my (small) platform share some posts with my white readers:  A Guide to White Privilege // How to be Actively Anti-Racist // 10 Steps to Non-Optical Allyship.

Fluff — Some highlights from the past few days…

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We took a social distancing walk across the Williamsburg Bridge to get take-out to eat in Thompkin’s Square Park and I must have said four-thousand times how much I love NYC.

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Nowon was ridiculously fantastic.  I had charred broccoli with sesame caesar, perilla, anchovy, parmesan, and seaweed and a double cheeseburger with american cheese and kimchi mayo.

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Still loving making Phin coffee.

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This new Chobani chocolate oat milk is insane.  It tastes like chocolate marshmallows!

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This yogurt bowl tasted like summer.  Plain Greek, honey, cinnamon, and fresh mango.

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Chicken and kimchi ramen with brown sugar milk tea with boba.

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The best thing I ate all weekend = this taco.  Stuffed with Kewpie, Crystal hot sauce, and soft-scrambled eggs with gouda.

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On Top Of Spaghetti

Adam was home off of work all week (so much time together! swoon!) and I was off Monday for the holiday so we took a ten-mile social distance walk around Manhattan.  We were able to do it safely and it was so indescribably nice to see the city again!

Highlights from the homefront include…

Breakfast for dessert!  Sea salt caramel cold brew and a cookie dough Perfect Bar.

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Dessert for dessert; this week’s baked good was peanut butter cookies with vanilla bean powder and malted milk.

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I got take-out sushi for lunch on a work-from-home day which was fairly thrilling.

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Caramelized onion spaghetti – whole wheat spaghetti tossed with tons of caramelized sweet onions and green onions with fish sauce, brown sugar, butter, and Korean chili powder.  Topped with roasted zucchini, smoked rainbow trout, and pastrami-style smoked salmon.

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Buffalo chicken baked pasta with spaghetti, ground chicken cooked with hot sauce and cream cheese, tons of spinach, and chedddar.

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