Weekend Wrap-Up; Oh, Sugar, Sugar

by Emily

I don’t have a ton to share from this weekend but every thing I do have a photo of was super tasty. My sweet tooth was certainly satisfied by the past three days!

Greek yogurt, strawberry, and chia from The Epic Seed.

The packaging here was very neat. The flavors were tasty, and I plan on buying this again, but I think I would have preferred this with regular, thinner yogurt because it was very thick and a bit difficult to eat.

Strawberry milk slush from Kung Fu Tea.

Adam took one sip and declared “this is the best drink I’ve ever had!” We both loved it and want another immediately. The texture was perfection; a great replacement for the granitas we used to adore in Park Slope.

Easy dinner at home.

A sandwich – smoked trout mashed with miracle whip and smoked paprika, on rye pumpernickel swirl with swiss cheese, cooked in butter – with baby carrots on the side.

A trip to Momofuku Milk Bar‘s Williamsburg location.

We shared a cereal milk shake that was fine but not too exciting. Corn flakes don’t exactly do it for me, I want the bottom of a bowl of Lucky Charms.

And a slice of crack pie.

This was teeth-achingly sweet, aka fantastic.

And next-door to Milk we discovered a tiny, hole-in-the-wall Thai spot that is our new favorite.

My tofu Pad See Eiw was chewy and wonderful. The tofu was perfectly seasoned.

While we were in Manhattan for the Green Fest (<– more to come on that tomorrow) we discovered H Bake Shop.

We got the Lilac, a berry cupcake with lavender frosting.

This was fabulous, the first cupcake ever to rival the greatness coming out of Sugar, Sweet, Sunshine. The price was a teensy bit higher than SSS, but this was also the prettiest dessert I’ve ever had.

What’s missing from this post? Another migraine (boo!), grocery shopping with giant coffees, a burger for Adam and fried pickles for me from SmashBurger, lunch at the Green Fest, and a trip to the movies for the newest “Captain America” (we liked it!).

What was sweet about your weekend?

28Mar2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Busy Busy

by Emily

Whew, has it been a busy week! I can’t even tell y’all, work has been wiping me out. <– Hence the 1.5 day late blog post.

Wednesday night I got home around 6:00, then sat at my desk with my boots and coat on until 8:00 when Adam got home and I finally had to get up! Then Thursday I managed to undress, and even get halfway into my gym clothes, before crawling under the covers and calling it a night.

Breakfasts

For the most part, I’ve stopped blogging coffee that isn’t extra exciting in some way, but you can assume I’m still obsessed and drink a cup whenever I can get my hands on it.

A NuGo Dark Chocolate Pretzel Bar.

Starbucks spectacular.

A tall nonfat iced vanilla macchiato.

And the almond blend.

Coffee and cereal.

Chocolate Krave, plus there was a packet of hot chocolate stirred into my coffee. And today I stirred hazelnut hot chocolate into hazelnut coffee and it rocked my face off.

Lunches

Leftovers.

A Cara Cara.

And the rest of the turkey reuben mac and cheese.

An awesome cafeteria lunch. I mixed together cream chowder and cheese soup, with popcorn on the side.

Cereal on the go.

Blackberries and a very unripe nectarine.

Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

And Quaker Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares and chia seeds.

I was starving by the time lunch rolled around so I also bought a biscuit from the cafeteria.

On Thursday I saw patients straight from 9 – 4. Then I had chocolate and diet soda at my desk while I charted and it was heavenly.

Snacks

Kiss Me Organics offered me a sample of their Organic Matcha powder. Adam is obsessed so I readily accepted.

I haven’t tried baking with it yet, but it blends perfectly into smoothies and lattes – both almond milk for me and skim cow’s for Adam. The flavor is delicious, not at all acrid like green tea can sometimes be. My only complaint is that the bag doesn’t list serving instructions or nutritional information.

Matcha in a smoothie. I did pineapple, tea, ice, vanilla almond milk, ice and Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

Good in theory but the lime flavor was a little too much.

Dannon coffee Greek frozen yogurt with lavender caramel and roasted peanuts.

I also ate about a million handfuls of peanuts this week because holy frick, salty peanuts are so good!

Inner Peas from Trader Joe’s = my new favorite snack. They are exactly the texture I like to crunch on.

Jelly Beans.

Strawberry jam with toasted marshmallow is the best.

Dinners

Adam worked Monday night so I made myself a giant bowl of cereal for dinner.

Heritage Flakes and Reese’s Puffs with vanilla almond milk, a giant nectarine, and half a pint of blackberries.

“Pad Thai” with shrimp and broccoli.

The quotation marks are because I used whole wheat linguine instead of the traditional rice noodles.

Sandwich night.

Sourdough toasted in the oven with strawberry jam, Bone Suckin’ mustard, and two slices of sharp cheddar, with a fried egg in the middle.

Is there a better combination than cheese, egg, and jam? I know ideally there would be a vegetable on that plate but when you consider that I slept through dinner the next night it doesn’t seem so bad.

And as soon as I hit publish I’m off to dinner with the husband. We are trying a Mexican place I’m quite excited about.

Have a great weekend!

17Mar2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Equations With Pie

by Emily

Happy Monday, all! Did everyone else enjoy Pi Day on Friday (March 14 –> 3/14 –> 3.14)? People usually celebrate the date by eating pie and/or pizza{pie}. We went with the sweet variety, though now that I think about it we had pizza over the weekend too.

In random order, here are the eats I have to share…

lunch

Friday at work.

A pepperoni and cheese snack box,

and a GT’s Synergy Grape Chia Kombucha.

We got lunch at Noodle & Co. while running errands on Saturday.

I got the Japanese pan noodles – caramelized udon noodles in a sweet soy sauce, broccoli, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, Asian sprouts, black sesame and cilantro.

I paid for extra veggies, which got me a whopping 3 tiny pieces of broccoli. We were not impressed.

dinner

Easy dinner on Friday to leave room for pie.

Eggs scrambled with kale and corn.

Pizza on Saturday. My half was topped with mushroom.

I got my veggies in the form of Sweet Greens.

Sunday was Chipotle take-out.

I planned on saving half of my meal for Adam (he was working the night shift) but I ended up eating every single bite of rice bowl and chips!

It doesn’t look like much, but my “meat” was sofritas – shredded tofu braised with chiles, poblanos, and spices – and it was delicious.

brunch

Au Bon Pain debuted a new seasonal Spring Menu on March 10th and they sent me a gift certificate so I could review their newest bakery item. – please note: I was able to sample the new items free of charge. I was not provided further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own. –

Adam and I decided to do a late Sunday morning brunch.

Coffee – a skim, iced Caffé Viennese – and a Sweet Cheese CroisBun, aka their new croissant and sweet bun hybrid.

The outside was wonderfully flakey and sweet but the inside was what really shined. The sweet cheese was sooooo moist – the main reason I usually don’t eat Danish is because they tend to get dried out, but this was amazing. There was a sweet cheese and strawberry variety that looked yummy too.

I also got a Sesame Ginger Chicken Salad.

Very good as well. The seasoning on the chicken provided so much flavor. Other options from the new menu include a Chicken Wasabi Wrap and Black Currant Iced Tea that I quite want to try.

snackage

Pi Day celebration from Four & Twenty Blackbirds.

I got our slices to-go but the space was super adorable and I am dying to go back.

Oatmeal black bottom – I didn’t love the texture of the oats within the pie but Adam was a big fan –

Salted honey – custard with the perfect balance of salt and sweet –

Lemon chess – my favorite variety; packed with pucker –

We were both very pleased. And we sat on the couch, holding hands, eating pie, and watching tv, so it was pretty much the best night ever.

And on Saturday I put the leftover lemon chess pie in vanilla bean Greek yogurt.

Perfection.

On Sunday, a girlfriend and I went to a gelato making class.

We came home with 4 pints each.

The class was fun, but I’m honestly not that thrilled with the taste/quality of my pints. At least we went on a Groupon.

The highlight of my weekend – other than time with the husband, obvs – was getting my hands on this:

Diet cherry coke slurpee, for the win! It tasted like dreams. Even my friend, who’s not an addict like I am, said it was tasty.

What was the highlight of your weekend?

21Jan2014

Three Day Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

My first long weekend as a worker bee was fabulous. Friday through Monday were packed with fun (and food!). Adam and I managed to spend a ton of time together. <– heavenly Here’s some of what we ate…

breakfasts

Breakfast in Park Slope with Adam and a girlfriend.

I got poached eggs with toast, hash browns, turkey bacon, and a mimosa.

Sadly our meals were all slightly burned and boring. Win some lose some. The iced coffee we got from Cafe Dada afterwards was a total win.

They have almond milk on their milk bar!

Speaking of almond milk, that’s what I put in my homemade iced coffee, cold pressed for the win.

Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. Plus some maple syrup.

And almond milk went in my cereal too – Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes with bunches of blueberries.

That cereal has stayed my favorite for months.

Another day another coffee. This time with a banana and fudge cereal bar.

The bar was de-lish. I am eagerly looking forward to microwaving one and eating it warm.

lunches

Friday’s lunch at the office.

Leftover mac with sardines and broccoli.

And a Wallaby low-fat Greek yogurt with strawberry.

Hot bar date at Whole Foods in SoHo.

I choose 2 vegan dumplings, a scoop of macaroni and cheese, and made a salad with mixed greens, balsamic, olives, and blue cheese.

Plus Adam and I split a Raspberry Chia Kombucha.

dinners

It’s been crazy cold in our area recently and we’ve both been craving soup. So I whipped up an Asian-inspired batch of the hot stuff. With a creamy soft-boiled egg cracked on top.

It was so good I even recorded the recipe.

Asian-Inspired Soup; serves 2

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 fresh jalepeños, thinly sliced
1/4 cup sliced green onions
5 oz bok choy, sliced lengthwise in quarters
1/4 tsp all spice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch each salt and pepper
3 cups broth
3 oz stir-fry noodles
{Optional toppings} Sriracha, sliced green onions, soft-boiled eggs

Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add jalepeños, green onions, and bok choy to oil and cook until softened, 3 – 5 minutes.
Add all spice, cloves, cinnamon, salt and pepper to vegetables and stir to combine.
Add broth to pot and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
When the broth has reached a boil, add noodles to pot and reduce heat to bring the soup to a simmer. Continue to simmer until noodles are softened, 3 – 5 minutes.
Serve and top as desired.

Another night we went all fancy (sort of) with polenta (sort of) stacks.

Layers 1, 3, and 5 were sliced polenta baked with dried basil and mozzarella. Layers 2 and 4 were lean ground turkey sautéed with evoo, thinly sliced garlic, thinly sliced turkey pepperoni, and marinara sauce.

The pepperoni totally made it. Roasted broccoli on the side.

And the last night of the weekend we did take-out from Yesterday’s Diner.

Adam and I split a turkey burger with mozzarella and french fries. We love their turkey burgers. And it helps that they send a juicy pickle and blue cheese dressing for dipping.

snackage

This section is full of love! Like this snack plate of super sharp cheese with Honeycrisp apple.

Haribo Juicy Gold Bears became my favorite gummi.

The texture is perfect – chewy and firm with no teeth sticking – and they are sooooo juicy.

The rest of the treats are all mint based, since I’m having a total love affair with the frosty flavor lately. The best froyo ever.

Mint with chocolate crunch, yogurt chips, and hot fudge.

A fabulous first trip to Emack and Bolio’s with Adam.

He got ice cream that he deemed the best he’s ever had and I went with a scoop of grasshopper pie frozen yogurt.

We also got a chocolate egg cream that was the best we’ve ever had. We want to go back immediately.

Finally, a vegan mint cream cookie sandwich from Babycakes.

Are you a mint fanatic too or is it too toothpastey for you?

30Dec2013

Weekend Wrap-Up; I’ve Been Married For Six Years!

by Emily

Who else is excited for New Year’s Eve? We don’t even do anything fun, but I’m looking forward to 2014. Not that ’13 wasn’t good to me; our move went well and Adam and I both graduated and got good jobs.

And in the final weekend of 2013, I celebrated my 6th/11th year anniversary with Adam, and one of my best friends (from undergrad round I in Miami) came to visit me!

She is a teacher in Florida and we do not get to see each other often enough. We had a blast getting some time together in city this weekend.

When I wasn’t celebrating or giggling, here’s some of what I ate…

breakfast

Our favorite smoothie. Frozen strawberries and chocolate peppermint soy milk.

Whole Foods was having a sale and I was able to grab two final cartons of the soy milk before it disappears for the year. Normally I’m a stickler for sticking to seasonal treats but this smoothie is so good it’s worth breaking the rules for.

Thai leftovers, cold from the container – aka the best way to eat them. I added more (cold) rice after I took that picture.

By the by, these were leftovers from Thursday night, not the Thai food I’m going to show you for Friday’s dinner. Apparently I’ve been doing a lot of Thai!

A lazy Sunday breakfast.

When Adam got home from his night shift, the three of us took a lovely family walk to the grocery stores for supplies and then we whipped up a great meal.

Eggnog french toast (on gingerbread swirl!) with maple syrup and blackberries.

With turkey bacon.

And cold brew coffee with a little skim milk and the last of the ‘nog.

Cold brew is the best! I think I finally found a recipe with a ratio that works for me. {1 and 1/4 cups water and 1/4 cup grounds, soaked overnight then pressed}

lunch

Packed on Friday.

TJ’s Vanilla Bean Greek Yogurt with a packet of Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter, quite the tasty combination.

Plus a little apple.

I’ve been finding the tiniest apples this year.

On a fancy and romantic date with the husband.

Ha! Yes, that is Whole Food’s hot bar. So not super fancy, but pricy at least. And I think everything we do is romantic; I legit consider going grocery shopping with my husband a date! Besides, hot bar is delicious.

I got veggies, salad with salmon, and mac and cheese.

On Sunday we all met for lunch at PJ Clarke’s near Lincoln Square. I *had* to order a Bloody Mary – “Sister Mary Walks Funny: Juice of Tomato, Huy Fong Sriracha, Worcestershire, Sea Salt, Blue Cheese Olives.”

Sadly it was all tomato, with barely any spice or vodka, but the blue cheese olives were fantastic.

Adam and I split the fish and chips for lunch.

So good! The meat was almost creamy inside the breading. And it came with a Shiner Bock remoulade that we both adored. I want to go back for the lobster roll!

snacks

I was given lots of chocolate to eat my way through. A honey almond praline chocolate from Adam.

And a Smokehouse BBQ Potato Chip dark chocolate bar from my stocking.

I loved the idea of this bar in theory, but the chocolate was just too dark to pair with the chips. Such a shame because I’ve been head over heels for the other Wild Ophelia bars I’ve tried. I think my flavor preference is shifting towards milk chocolate.

I’ve been trying to make a good Greek yogurt “cookie dough” for ages and now that I have almond flour in my kitchen I think I’m finally getting close.

I really dislike chocolate chips though, and always end up eating around them. I need to try to find some other kind of morsel chocolate.

My fizz idea has been a winner from day 1 though.

This was a lemon dulce de leche popsicle in vanilla seltzer with a splash of lavender syrup.

dinner

Mee Thai in Park Slope with my friend and her sister.

This restaurant was new to me (all of our favorite spots from when we lived in PS before have closed) but thankfully we all loved our meals. My Pad See Ew with mock duck was nice and spicy.

Lazy Sunday dinner.

We came home from the city soaked with rain and salad and sandwiches were all we could handle.

Romaine with champagne pear vinaigrette, chia seeds, and smoked almonds.

Smoked turkey and light Jarlsberg sandwiches with dijon and Sriracha mayo, on gingerbread swirl cooked in a little butter.

Nothing too fancy but it did the trick.

I’ll see you next year! {hardy, har, har}

17Dec2013

The Rest Of The Weekend

by Emily

Here is all the stuff that didn’t tie into yesterday’s book review…

Coffee break(fast) on Friday.

One of the doctors brought us all in doughnuts but I stuck with my latte and coffee chia bar (even though this flavor ended up being gross). Later I was laughing with Adam about how much much harder it is to pass things up now that I’ve gotten kind of fat. Before it felt like “this is a time I’m not eating something yummy, but that’s ok because I look and feel my best because I occasionally don’t eat things that are yummy.” Before I started my job I went a little crazy with the sitting on the couch and eating thing and now I’m trying to get back to my old, healthy self. But now it’s like “I’m passing up on this doughnut but I still don’t look like I pass on doughnuts, I look like I rolled around in a pile of doughnuts like Scrooge McDuck and then just put my clothing on over the doughnuts that stuck!”

<— anyone else get what I’m saying there?

Another Friday item, lunch.

The last of the big grapes.

And a salad of romaine with groats, edamame, peanuts, and peanut vinaigrette.

It was so great having the pre-cooked edamame at the ready. Thanks, Trader Joe’s. And speaking of TJ’s…

We tried several tasty cheeses this weekend.

In grilled cheese! On gingerbread swirl bread.

We made one sandwich of each and then split them in half. Chocolate cheddar cheese with Sriracha mayo and English cheddar with caramelized onions with dijon.

So. Freaking. Good. I don’t even plan on being a person who doesn’t cozy up with the husband in front of Gray’s with a plate of grilled cheese. I just need to stop being the person who puts cheese on everrrrrrrrrything.

We cashed in a BOGO coupon at Starbucks and got turkey bacon, egg white, and cheddar sandwiches for breakfast before running errands.

This sandwich is one of the husband’s very favorite things but I ended up sharing the last 1/3 of mine with him. I feel like there must be fake sugar in the English muffins; they have a strangely sweet aftertaste that throws off the whole sandwich.

I was supposed to do a review with Limoneira recently but things fell through at the last minute. They felt bad and sweetly sent me a big box of lemons.

Too exciting! I had so much fun getting to experiment with the meyer lemons. We made another batch of Dulce de Leche Lemon Popsicles, and did something really fun with the leftover “batter.”

Lemon egg creams! Just popsicle mix (lemon juice, scm, and skim milk) with pink grapefruit seltzer.

We also made some lemon bars to bring to a holiday party we attended Saturday night.

My mom always made these bars for me growing up but this was the first time Adam ever tried them and he adored them. Not super Christmasy but they did have powdered sugar snow.

P.S. Don’t forget to enter the cookbook giveaways!

18Oct2013

Weekly Wrap-Up; Jalapeño Business

by Emily

Lots of repetition on the food front this week – eggs, cheese, kale, and jalapeño were the featured players! And this is another recap that’s light on content; lots of take-out and several late nights (and therefore late mornings) are to blame. I’ve got the 10 items I did manage to photograph ranked increasingly by greatness.

{1} Pumpkin oats.

Sadly this item was so far from greatness as to just be bad. The bowl had such potential: oats, Silk Vanilla Almond Milk, chia seeds, cottage cheese, a smidge of vanilla extract and maple syrup, coconut, crunchy Barney Butter, and pumpkin.

It was terrible. The pumpkin was sooooooo savory and squashy. And this was a fresh can of Libby’s too!?

{2} Baked tomatoes with egg and cheese with a side of kale chips.

This was a recipe from Cooking Light but I threw away the magazine and I can’t find it online.

The dish turned out very well but apparently I’m not a huge fan of baked tomatoes.

{3} White Chocolate Candy Corn M&M’s.

Regular m&m’s don’t really thrill me but this seasonal variety (along with the mint dark chocolate) is delicious.

{4} Taco night.

Leftover taco shells topped with Ortega Thick and Chunky Salsa and stuffed with eggs – scrambled with spinach and jalapeños. We continued to be impressed with the taco shells and the filling was delicious, including the little bit of extra I stuck on the side of my plate.

We definitely need to do taco night more often.

{5} Chicago Mix.

Adam and I were obsessed with the caramel and cheddar “golden mix” from the popcorn shop and the Buffalo mall and this will substitute nicely.

{6} Eggs for breakfast.

Eggs scrambled with sautéed kale, cottage cheese, and Parmesan.

Plus a baby apple.

This was a winner, and you’ll see most of the components again in #7.

{7} Cheesy mac.

Annie’s Mac and Cheese with peas, Parmesan, and eggs (scrambled with cottage cheese and jalapeño).

Stirring the eggs into the pasta was so genius, I’m never serving macaroni the traditional way again. And the parm was grated by hand, making this feel extra fancy.

{8} Whole Foods hot bar.

Kale salad with a bit of mac and cheese. Plus fried plantains for dessert.

Ugh, plantains are too good. So sweet and chewy.

{9} Everything bagel with jalapeño cheddar cream cheese.

This was from La Bagel Delight, a spot in Park Slope that makes the best bagels in the city. They blend the cream cheese in shop, look that those giant hunks –

Fabulous.

{10} Homemade nachos with candied jalapeños.

How could nachos with candied jalapeño possibly not be the single best thing I ate all week?

Some roasted green beans,

piled next to nachos. Late July Multigrain Chips with 2% sharp cheddar and candied jalapeños.

Yummmmmmm.

What was the single best thing you ate this week?

27Sep2013

Long Week Wrap-Up; Pizza Pizza

by Emily

Whoops. I guess it’s been longer than usual since I’ve done a wrap-up. And I don’t even have a ton to share; we ordered take-out pizza this week and through a miscommunication ended up with a lot of pizza so that’s mostly what we’ve been eating.

Here are some of the other things that made it on to the meal plan…