(Winner, Winner) Chicken Dinners

by Emily

Did this weekend feel far too short for anyone else??! I’m working next weekend – and expecting horrid snow on Tuesday – so maybe I just had a lot of emotion riding on this free time.

We did manage a fair amount of productivity and fun – taxes were filed, groceries were replenished, and we spent a great evening with my cousin and her boyfriend. They were only in Manhattan for a couple of hours but we managed to give them some good New York fun – drinks/games at Barcade and bbq at Blue Smoke.

If this post had six points my bbq dinner feast would have been #1, but since I didn’t bother with pictures while company was in town, here were the weekend’s top five…

{1} Marshmallow flavored popcorn.

It was yummy, and a little bit pink!

{2} This week’s coffee combo – chicory coffee and chocolate milk.

{3} A random lunch assortment – chocolate peanut butter packet, strawberry lingonberry yogurt, an apple, and a pink lady apple flavored kombucha. The kombucha was my favorite component.

{4} Take-out galore. Garlic fries, fried ravioli, southwestern salad, boneless wings, blue cheese, and honey bbq wings.

{5} An Asian-inspired dinner. Scooped up with tortilla chips.

Bok choy and edamame sautéed with garlic and soy sauce.

Red curry chicken salad made with shredded chicken breast with mayo, red curry, red bell pepper, shallot, and toasted coconut chips.

17Feb2017

♥♥♥

by Emily

Did everyone have a happy / romantic / chocolate-coated Valentine’s Day? Mine was good; Adam and I don’t do gifts but we went out of a yummy dinner on the 13th, and some of my coworkers brought in candy.

Top five tastes from the week…

{1♥} chocolate-covered cherry <– one of this month’s theme flavors!

CCC smoothie – chocolate milk, frozen dark cherries, plain Greek yogurt.

CCC coffee – cold brew, chocolate milk, Luxardo cherries with juice.

The coffee seriously made me swoon with happiness.

{2♥} best Mexican food in Brooklyn

I read two different places that El Atoradero had the best nachos in New York, so clearly we had to go there immediately. They were delicious, though not as good as the nachos I bake at home.

This was the best chicken burrito I’ve ever eaten though. The chicken tinga was smoky and roasty and there were peas and carrot in it giving little pops of sweetness.

Ample Hills for dessert!

{3♥} yogurt bowls

Toasted marshmallow yogurt(!!) with vanilla granola and chocolate tahini/Biscoff.

Siggi’s raspberry with mixed nut butter.

{4♥} deep-dish pepperoni pizza

I used TJ’s whole-wheat dough and cooked it in a casserole dish. With mozzarella, pizza sauce, and turkey pepperoni that I apparently did not have the skill to cut into hearts.

{5♥} English butter fudge

I love you, Trader Joe’s; this was the single best candy I’ve ever eaten. If you’re a fan of penuche/praline/brown sugar I recommend you buy this immediately.

Have a nice weekend!

13Feb2017

Bubbles And Bagels

by Emily

Highlights from this weekend…

I finally used my new milk foamer!

Valentine’s goodies from Doughnut Plant, honey with bee pollen and a rose doughseed with fantasmic rose cream.

Poppy seed bagel with jalapeño-cheddar cream cheese.

Cheddar scrambled eggs with quinoa bread toast and coffee.

Lunch at Wilma Jean.

Pimento cheese dip with tortilla chips.

Fried chicken tacos with cilantro and buttermilk dressing // shaved collard green salad with pecans and lemon vinaigrette.

Then we spent the afternoon wandering around Cobble Hill drinking coffee and eating dessert.

Coffee éclair.

Cookie butter rolled ice cream with mochi, toasted marshmallow, and sprinkles.

A quick and cheap version of salmon niçoise salad – greens with honey mustard dressing, canned salmon, roasted green beans, and crispy potatoes.

Have a happy Valentine’s tomorrow!

3Feb2017

The End Of The First Month Of The New Year

by Emily

I’m two weeks late and about a hundred pictures short, but here, finally, is a (bi)weekly wrap up for the end of January. I blame a bout of the cold, a string of loser dinners, and a case of the mid-winter blues for my lack of timeliness and photo-taking-enthusiasm.

Gaps aside, here were some eats from the past two weeks…

{rated within their category; i.e. the yogurt bowl is an 8 out of 10 compared with other yogurt bowls not compared other dissimilar items}

Green monster from the cafeteria. They sometimes set up a smoothie bar at the rotating station. I chose spinach, strawberry, mango, and coconut water. 8.5/10

Chocolate iced coffee. 8/10

Work snack – an apple and coconut caramel bar. The score here is for the Thai Coco coconut milk drink, which was creamy and sweet. 9.5/10

Soursop yogurt with blueberries and vanilla granola. 8/10

Turkey reuben-ish sandwich from the cafeteria. Sliced turkey, swiss cheese, pickles, spinach, and cole slaw on a whole-wheat wrap. Plus french fries dipped in 1000 island. 6.5/10

Cola kombucha. 6.5/10

This Milka Oreo candy bar didn’t have as much cookie in it as I wanted. 6/10

But these TJ’s sour gummies are the best gummy candies Adam or I have ever tasted. 10/10

Biscuit breakfast sandwiches for dinner. Buttermilk biscuits (<– I don’t recommend this recipe, the biscuits had no flake) / maple Sriracha mayo / smoked gouda / fried egg. 6/10

Pumpkin soup. Roux, canned pumpkin, and chicken stock with sautéed onions, carrot, and maple chicken breakfast sausage on the bottom. This didn’t turn out as well as I was expecting it to, the salt and pepper pumpkin seed brittle I sprinkled on top was by far the best component. 5/10

Escarole and white bean skillet with (turkey) bacon and artichoke. 7/10

Creamy turkey pasta. Ground turkey sautéed with garlic, browned mushrooms, and oven-roasted tomatoes, tossed with sour cream, and whole-wheat pasta. 7.5/10

I’ve got some yummy things planned for this weekend so hopefully the next post will be slightly less lame!

20Jan2017

Chocolate Strawberry And Banana Date

by Emily

A short post for a short week; here were my top five tastes…

Snack-pack lunch at work. Crispy broccoli, jerky(1), baby carrots, and a Cara Cara Orange.

I am a sucker for limited edition Oreos(2). I always eat them by splitting two in half to make one double-stuffed cookie.

Homemade dinner, chicken with bbq sauce, roasted asparagus, and another killer potato(3) recipe from Serious Eats.

Dinner out with a friend, I finally made it to Taïm and I loved it. We had sandwiches(4) and smoothies(5).

Smoked Salmon Maple Stick from EPIC
chocolate-covered strawberry limited edition Oreos
cheesy onion, bacon, and potato gratin
pita with balaganoush, tahini, Moroccan carrots, and pickled cabbage
date, lime, banana, and soy milk

13Jan2017

Mid-January

by Emily

Tuesday night, I met up with my aunt in the Financial District for dinner and then coffees/cookies at the beautiful new 3rd story Eataly.

Wednesday, I was off from work and spent the entire day in bed, watching tv, eating pizza, and reading a Liane Moriarty book from start to finish.

Thursday, Adam and I went on a dinner date sans coats in 66 degree weather.

<– kind of a hard week to complain about, huh?

Here were my best bites…

New all-time favorite coffee combo: Texas pecan coffee concentrate with sweet buttercream creamer. Swoontastic.

I also tried the new Starbucks Cascara latte. It was meh, too sweet but not in a brown sugar way as promised.

Chilaquiles!

Kinda, sorta. I cooked thick tortilla chips in salsa and leftover spicy pepper sauce from my shakshuka. Topped with black beans, shredded cheese, and fried eggs.

Piñata apple with a spicy chicken epic bar. I’ve really been enjoying these meat-based bar options.

Yogurt bowl lunch. Siggi’s with granola and chocolate tahini. Plus pears.

I made cheesy turkey sloppy joes. Turkey breast sautéed with onion and green bell pepper and tomato paste, stirred into a sharp cheddar mornay sauce, and served on a brioche bun. It was pretty damn good.

With leftover bok choy salad and roasted broccoli.

Our date night was a pizza date at Paulie Gee’s.

It was our first time and we loved it. I had a Milk and Honey Ale and a pizza with fresh mozzarella, baby spinach, olive oil, and garlic.

Dessert at Ample Hills. A new flavor, The View – chocolate marshmallow ice cream with ooey gooey butter cake pieces, brownies, and crack cookie; plus fantasmic dark hot chocolate.

Looking forward a long weekend!

6Jan2017

Hello, 2017!

by Emily

How is everyone’s year going?? So far, the word for my 2017 is tasty.

Here are some culinary highlights from the first week…

Coffee first, always coffee. Espresso roast and chocolate milk before work.

I also had the best iced latte of the year from Birch; their shots are extra strong and roasty.

Adam and I both had Monday off of work and we started our new year with a trip to Serendipity 3.

Veggie chili for my lunch.

I kept lunch boring because I was focused on the main event – sundae funday! A giant scoop of peanut butter pie with hot fudge and bananas. <– swoon city

Work lunches were centered around a box of free product review samples I received from ips snacks. The snacks – crisps and popcorn – are all made with whey protein and pack at least 5 grams of protein for </ 150 calories.

I have to admit that I liked the snacks a lot more than I was expecting to. The salted popcorn was honestly the best bagged popcorn Adam or I have ever tasted! It was filling, satisfying, and totally delicious. The chips would rate poorly if I compared them to chip-chips, but score a 9/10 as snack crisps. Very few snacks, especially ones that pack less than 200 calories, keep me full enough in the afternoon that I don’t consider gnawing my own arm off on the train, but these did the trick.

I packed crisps and fruit to pair with toasted turkey and cheese cafeteria sandwiches. BBQ chips and a cara cara.

Sea salt and black pepper chips and an Asian pear.

Snack attack. Popcorn and a honey kolsch.

Yogurt bowl with plain Greek, chocolate tahini, sliced snap dragon apple, chia seeds, cinnamon, and sweet and spicy pecans.

I was killing it with dinners this week. Three different veggie-forward, flavor-loaded, 10/10 dishes! When I made fried green onions last week I saved the infused oil and that’s what I used for cooking this week. First, a simple salad to start off the new year.

Oak leaf lettuce, TJ’s Greek-style feta dressing, cucumber, dill, and roasted chickpeas. With hibiscus kombucha on the side.

Next up, spicy cabbage salad with turkey and peanuts from Bon Appétit. I only ever read this magazine on plane rides but this recipe alone would be worth the subscription cost!

I doubled up so that we could get 4 big dinners out of it, and roasted the cabbage so it was less voluminous, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly <– something I rarely do.

Served with cheesey breadsticks, aka pizza dough rolled up with an obscene amount of cheese.

Finally, I tried my hand at shakshuka. Based loosely on the recipes from Serious Eats and My Name is Yeh, my version had red bell peppers, red jalapeño pepper, and serrano pepper.

Served with hunks of sourdough.

I’m excited to do a little more exploring in the kitchen this new year. My meal plan list for the next month or so includes menemen, mapo tofu, kaya jam, okonomiyaki, and chilaquiles!

24Dec2016

‘Twas The Week Before Christmas

by Emily

Technically this should be known as “the week of the sandwich.” I don’t actually have a single picture (I was kind of a disaster this week) but I ate a sandwich for at least one meal, some times two, a day.

I was a bit under the weather so for non-sandwich meals I made a giant batch of chicken soup. Shredded chicken breast / onion, celery, red bell pepper, carrots, evoo, tomato paste / chicken broth / brown rice.

Adam and I shared this winter vanilla stout while we cooked.

I packed so many veggies into my pot that I ended up with more of a stoup, so I topped my bowls with cheese, sour cream, and jalapeños, like I would a chili.

It was also a week of eggnog coffee, of course.

And it’s worth noting that the one day I did pack lunch – yogurt with granola and an apple – this strawberry yogurt and TJ’s coffee can were both excellent.

This post was kind of a disaster, wasn’t it?

A very happy 1st night of Hanukkah for all my readers who celebrate and I hope my readers who celebrate Christmas have a merry, jolly weekend.

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: chicken

(Winner, Winner) Chicken Dinners

♥♥♥

Bubbles And Bagels

The End Of The First Month Of The New Year

Chocolate Strawberry And Banana Date

Mid-January

Hello, 2017!

‘Twas The Week Before Christmas