Salmon Cream Cheese Wontons

I had to work this weekend but somehow I ended up with a bunch of eats that were super good.  Because they all included sugar and/or cheese?  Probably!  Here were the highlights…

Three fun new coffee cups.  Halvah cotton candy on top.

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Chocolate milk ice cubes.

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Starbuck’s nitro cold brew.  I loved the velvety texture but was not a fan of it being served without ice.

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Pickings are slim at the cafeteria on the weekends but I put together a pretty good lunch plate.  BBQ wings, veggie lo mein, roasted baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes with blue cheese dressing.

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Mango yogurt with fresh mango on top.  Guys, fresh mangos are so flipping good, how did I forget about them all winter??

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Cookie and coffee break.  From Bittersweet (a hopping Fort Greene coffee spot with no less than 7 cute doggies waiting in line when I walked in).

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Another sweet snack, vanilla yogurt with chocolate peanut butter stirred in and mini chocolate chips on top.

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Cinnamon dusted apple slices with sharp cheddar squares and chocolate peanut butter sticks.

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Whole Foods hot bar dinner on an after-work shopping trip.  Crispy potatoes, vegan meat balls, roasted zucchini, tabbouleh, and pasta salad.

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Best meal of the week was this quick and easy dinner I threw together Friday night.

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Salmon cream cheese wontons!  I stuffed wonton skins with a mix of canned salmon, cream cheese, brown sugar, fish sauce, and minced ginger.  Baked at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes.

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They were creamy and crispy and delicious.  Served with roasted green beans.

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A close 2nd for best meal was our dinner at Lady’s, a newish Italian spot in Brooklyn.

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The food was all fantastic – so fresh, and perfectly seasoned.  Like this amazing salad with snow peas, sunflower seeds, and pickled radish.  <– 2nd best salad of my entire life

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We also started with hummus with crispy chickpeas, charred cucumber, lemon, and focaccia.

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With a yummy local watermelon ale.

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And for our entrée we shared pasta with crab,

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and honey butter pizza dough with sea salt and Calabrian chili.  The spicy-salty-sweet contrast was perfection.  I had a glass of prosecco with that course and the pairing was wonderful.

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I got a giant scoop of the new cheesecake flavor at Ample Hills for dessert.  It was a tasty weekend!

Cold Brew With Condensed Milk

Here were some of my best bites over the past 7 days…

Grady’s Cold Brew with scm.  So flipping good!  It even overtook THIS as my favorite coffee combo for the year.

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Trader Joe’s berry oatmeal with chocolate peanut butter and a Gala apple on the side.

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Snack attack – spicy chicken jerky with a cheese stick and a Golden Nugget tangerine.

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Trader Joe’s birthday cake bar.  This was delicious, absolutely studded with sprinkles!

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Eggs and veggie hash.  Onion, mushrooms, yellow bell pepper, and broccoli, sautéed in evoo with paprika and turmeric / topped with tons of cheddar / and sunny side up eggs.

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Meat and potatoes night.

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Asian-inspired meat and potatoes.  Yummy miso meatballs,

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ginger and garlic baked fries,

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plus broccoli.

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Yesterday I spent a solid four hours cooking this “soup.”

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I roasted chicken bones and made a tasty brown stock, but… then I over-reduced the stock into practically nothing and by the time I was done boiling my pasta in it the pot was dry!  The final dish – with whole wheat pasta shells, roasted zucchini, and shredded chicken, and lots of cheese – was fantastic, but probably didn’t need to take four hours!

Have a nice weekend!

Chicken Wing Style Meatballs

This week’s top three were tippity-top good!  Sweet and spicy, my favorite combo…

{1}  Fluffy cloud sesame vanilla yogurt bowl goodness.

TJ’s vanilla bean Greek yogurt with halvah cotton candy folded in.

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{2}  Chocolate chip vanilla chia pudding.

Chia seeds + vanilla hemp milk + mini chocolate chips.

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{3}  Chicken wing style meatball dinner.

Inspired by this Spicy Habenero Wing Sauce I got from Moore’s Marinades.  <– free sample alert – this product was provided for me without charge to review, I was not given any additional compensation for this post and all opinions are my own.

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I made spicy meatballs with wing sauce, ground chicken, and celery and onion (the veggies were minced and cooked in butter first).  I used panade instead of breadcrumbs and they ended up being the juiciest, best meatballs we’ve ever made eaten.

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Seriously, Adam and I ate the whole batch in one night because we kept going back for more!

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Served with an on-theme side, sautéed carrot, celery, and spring onion.

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Have a great weekend!

Smorgasburg, Greenport, And The Weekend’s Top Five

{1}  A day trip to Greenport.

Greenport is one of Adam’s favorite Long Island areas and we finally had a Sunday together to go explore.

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We walked on the pier, walked on the beach, ate a kind of meh breakfast in town, plus got a great iced latte and an almond croissant.

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Aaaand a toasted marshmallow iced latte that knocked our socks off.

{2}  Our 1st kolache experience.

So exciting!

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I’ve been dying to try one ever since I started following Kylie and Brooklyn Kolache did not disappoint.

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We did one sweet and one savory – poppy seed and turkey, egg, and cheese – plus a delicious brown sugar iced latte.

{3}  Our 1st Smorgasburg visit of the season.

It was a good one!  We hit up Duck Season for duck fat fries with confit and a sandwich with confit, pickled cabbage, gojuchang, and craklins.

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Ube Kitchen for Halo Halo.  It was a nice dessert, but not Halo Halo – there was no nata de coco, no palm seeds, plus it had granola in it, and almond milk instead of condensed milk.

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Plus we got impossibly smooth coffee from Ministry of Kaapi.

{4}  BBQ chicken salad.

Baby romaine dressed in yogurt ranch, shredded chicken in Korean bbq sauce, cucumber, sharp cheddar, and smoked paprika.

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This was actually the appetizer course for a meal that included cheese fries and buffalo chicken wings!

{5}  A toasted marshmallow smoothie/shake.

Toasted marshmallows, Greek yogurt, vanilla extract, and vanilla hemp milk.

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It was wonderful.

P.S. This is currently the view when I step out my front door!!

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I Can’t Choose A Favorite!

This is a longer wrap-up (Monday through Sunday) and I ate too many yummy things to chose a single favorite for my post title.  I’ve got my top three – 1) Thai-style crab fried rice, 2) roasted garlic bread, and 3) black sesame shaved ice.

Here were the highlights…

Killer coffee combo – Volcanic roast with chocolate milk.

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Usually I just have coffee for breakfast or eat something on my train, but this week the cafeteria sounded amazing first thing in the morning.  Eggs and hashbrowns, with humus.

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Cafeteria lunch, a spicy chicken sandwich on ridiculously cheesy bread with mustard, lettuce, and bell pepper.

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Last weekend I spent forever trying to make coconut curd.  I didn’t make jam, but I did filthy every last inch of my stovetop.  My experiment didn’t work, at all, but I did kind of like the end result – a vaguely sweet, egg, cake.

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I enjoyed my “jam” in lunches all week.  Like with vanilla bean yogurt and blackberries.

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And plain yogurt, berries, maple quinoa granola, and black sesame seeds.

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Whole Foods hot bar lunch.

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Sesame broccoli, turkey salad, and cole slaw.

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Plus a maple soda that was not as exciting as I was expecting it to be; it had an off-putting aftertaste.

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Snack time.  Ice cream = maple walnut and a white chocolate vanilla marshmallow flavor.

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Milk bun.

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Crème brulee milk stout.

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My workweek dinners were on point!  Like crab fried rice with roasted broccoli and sliced cucumber.

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I loosely followed this recipe, except I used brown rice and waaaay more crab.  It was fantastic.

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Vampire killer, I roasted three whole heads of garlic for this recipe.

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Garlic turkey meatballs with red sauce and roasted zucchini.

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And amazing homemade garlic bread – I mashed butter and roasted garlic and then slathered it on sliced sourdough and baked until delicious.

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Even our leftovers meal was tasty.  Cheese tortellini with meatballs, peas, roasted garlic, and red sauce.

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One night I had dinner out with a coworker.  We checked out the new Brooklyn MŏkBar location.  They have a liquor license now, and I got a yummy vodka “cloudsicle.”

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Plus chicken ramen with kimchi and poached egg.

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And the new Brooklyn Snowdays location was right next door!  Black sesame shaved ice with oreo, mochi, and condensed milk.

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Plus a dinner date with the husband.  Brinkley’s has Genesee Cream Ale on draught!

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We got pimento cheese dip and duck fat fries to start and I dipped my fries in the pimento cheese and pretty much died of heart failure happiness.

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Plus fish tacos with mahi, guacamole, and pineapple salsa.

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The other two dinners were decidedly less exciting.  Like Chipotle take out.  And more hot bar.  Yes, I went to Whole Foods two different days, it was an exciting week.  I was too busy at work yesterday to break for lunch so by the time I got dinner I ate a giant plate of all of the things.

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Now it’s two days of work before a break on Wednesday.

Have a great week!

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Pastrami Smoked Salmon On Sourdough

Once again, this title reflects the most exciting thing I ate in this post.  Honestly though, everything I ate this weekend was pretty darn tasty!

Iced coffee with cake popsicle used for ice.  <– gaaaaah!  so swoontastic!

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Perfectly sweet just enough sour smoothie – passionfruit sorbet / plain Greek yogurt / frozen blueberries / princess flavoring / water.

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Snacky lunch at work.  Mandarin, uncured turkey pepperoni, yummy cinnamon roll Chobani.

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Cafeteria sandwich.  Spicy chicken, pesto, red pepper, and tomato, on an insanely cheesy roll.

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Mr. Flip sandwich from Flip Bird – pulled rotisserie chicken, harissa honey, pickled coleslaw, sambal mayo, and a piece of crispy skin.  It was a 10/10.

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Dinner from the freezer – ice cream and a naan pizza.

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The cilantro pesto pizza – which I got with a free coupon given to me for review – was delicious, the flavor was a bit spicy, which was a nice surprise.

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Lox and cream cheese on a bagel sourdough toast.

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This pastrami-style smoked salmon from Trader Joe’s is my all-time favorite smoked salmon.

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Served with a quick salad of tomato, cucumber, cilantro, green onion, olive oil, and Himalayan salt.

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I made a recipe!  Cheddar bbq turkey meatloaf.

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I ate all of the crispy cheese bits that started to burn to the pan and was sooooo happy.  Plus roasted broccoli.

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Do you have a favorite type of smoked fish to recommend?

Crab Rangoon Grilled Cheese

This post contains a week’s worth of wrap up – not just the sandwich – but the sandwich was awesome so it stole the title.  Maybe I’ll make a thing of it and start titling all of my weekly posts after the best bite?

Yummy things…

Our very last cup of chicory coffee from Café du Monde.  <– boo!  With a mandarin.  I spilled the 2nd to very last cup all over the counter and down the side of the fridge, so that was fun.

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More chicory coffee, in yogurt form.  With KIND maple quinoa granola and chocolate-covered cacao nibs.  Plus a Pacific Rose apple.

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The best chips of all time – honey butter flavored from Trader Joe’s.  Excluding, obviously, the freshly made honey butter chips served at Oiji.

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Another Trader Joe’s win – Kona coffee cookie mocha swirl ice cream.

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Homemade treats make the best snacks though.  I threw a wedding shower for one of the ladies at work this week and contributed cookie butter bars and brown butter chocolate chip cookies.

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The eponymous sandwich!

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Served with roasted brussel sprouts with paprika and Old Bay seasoning – to keep the seafood theme going.

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Toasted sourdough with crab rangoon in between.  The filling was a mixture of cream cheese, lump crab meat, green onion, minced ginger, brown sugar, and soy sauce.  They were wonderful.

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I loosely followed the recipe for Eat, Live, Run’s lemon brown sugar chicken.

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I added sliced green onions to the casserole dish and used extra smoked paprika, but primarily I swapped in MAPLE sugar for brown sugar.  Delicious.  We spooned the sauce on top of our veggies.

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Another night I loosely followed the recipe for Bon Appétit’s marinated beans.  Great northern beans with evoo, rice vinegar, cilantro, green onion, and gojuchang.  I served the beans on top of roasted green beans and sweet potato fries.

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With a sour beer on the side.

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I work the next five days, but I hope everyone else has a lovely weekend!

Vacation // Staycation

Whew, what a week!  Adam and I have been on vacation since last Saturday and it has been absolutely freaking fantastic!

St. Thomas Vacation

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We spent the first half of our week going home to visit my parents.  It was a great trip; we made multiple beach visits, ate the sandwich we both ate the morning we got married, and had lunch on the beach with an old friend.

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top three vacation moments –

{1}  Eating an egg and cheese sandwich on a johnny cake.

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{2}  Hiking in St. John.  We hiked across the Caneel Bay trail and then walked back to town from Honeymoon Beach.

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{3}  Getting the world’s best fraco (aka shaved ice) downtown – soursop and guava with condensed milk.  It was swoon-worthy!

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Related: I also had a pretty fantastic fresh soursop juice at Mafolie.  It is my favorite fruit.

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NYC Staycation

We stayed in the city for the 2nd half of our vacation.  NYC is my favorite place on Earth so I’m always happy to have additional free time here.  Though we did spend a lot of time home in our apartment — watching tv, in bed, with the dog curled up on our laps!

Quick eats at home included –

All the nachos.  Salad with pulled rotisserie chicken, pinto beans, cole slaw, and pineapple salsa.

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Eggs with the same ingredients, minus cole slaw, plus German butter cheese.

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Cake popsicles!

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Champagne with sorbet while we watched the final finale of Bones. <– one of our all time favorite shows.  I thought they did a really nice job wrapping things up.

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We also had some really exciting eats in Manhattan –

Brunch at Cosme.  I had the duck enmoladas or mole enchiladas.

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Plus the best Paloma ever.  Made with house grapefruit syrup and amazing grapefruit salt on the rim.

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Churro s’more at Boqueria.

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Best thing I’ve had in 2017 and possibly ever: Unicorn latte!!!  A (purple!) caramel latte topped with glittered marshmallows and loads of whipped cream and sprinkles.  It was magical!

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Think stress-free thoughts for me on my return back to reality please.