Duck Confit

Top 10 bites this week…

Pastries and coffees at Lilia.  An espresso-cream filled doughnut and something that tasted like a fancy funnel cake.

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Egg and cheese on a whole-wheat roll.  With an iced latte and a tangerine.

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Candy oats bowl.  Rolled oats with chia seeds, mini chocolate chips, and a few caramel M&M’s.  (<– they are so good!  Adam and I are both obsessed and we mailed a bag to my parents who flipped over them as well.)

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Nectarine yogurt and red cherries.  So excited that it’s cherry season.

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Cafeteria came through with a fancy pasta bar.  Tortelini with peas, pesto, and shrimp.

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Best meal of the week was a midweek lunch date at Sauvage.  The service was impeccable and the space was beautiful.

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I love a good tiled floor!

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We started with the seeded Kouign Amann which was buttery good.  Plus an unpictured cocktail that was fizzy and citrusy but that I’m not finding on the online menu.

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Adam ordered mind-blowingly good hen of the woods mushrooms with poached eggs.  I just got a salad — with oranges, za’atar, and duck confit!!  <– 2nd best duck I’ve ever eaten

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It is disgustingly warm in NYC and I had ice cream in some form every day this week.  Best = Van Leeuwen‘s honeycomb and black sesame and ash flavors.

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Yummy cola flavored hard candies.  Cola is our favorite candy flavor, hard, gummy, sour, or otherwise.

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Trader Joe’s frozen lemongrass chicken sticks with a side of baby carrots.

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2nd best meal of the week was this homemade masterpiece.  I know that chicken looks awful and raw but it was actually perfectly cooked.  I baked chicken thighs that marinated in miso, brown sugar, rice vinegar, ginger, and fish sauce all morning.

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Paired with roasted broccoli and kimchi and turkey bacon fried rice.

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Enjoy your 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!

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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Halvah Cotton Candy

Here were this week’s top five bites –

An egg and cheese roll from a truck in Brooklyn.  This edge bite does not give an accurate picture of just how wonderfully cheesy it was.

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Kiwi Chobani with Heritage Flakes and a Minneola.

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Sweet Cream Liberté with maple quinoa granola and some Golden Nugget tangerines.

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A loose take on this recipe for vegan menemen with silken tofu.  I couldn’t find urfa chiles so I substituted smoked paprika and some raisins and somehow it came out great.

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With roasted zucchini and toasted bread with olive oil.

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Halvah floss (aka cotton candy!).

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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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Duck Hash At Colonie

I hope everyone had a nice Easter!

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We had friends in town from PA and had a great weekend doing our favorite things with them – walking and eating!

Friday night highlights:  Grand Army / Barcade / Brooklyn Star

My drink at Brooklyn Star was packed with exciting stuff, including aperol and papaya puree.  Plus we had spicy duck wings which are 10/10.

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Saturday highlights:  Sweetleaf / Ice & Vice / Chelsea Market / John’s on Bleecker / we walked across the Williamsburg Bridge, on the water through Battery Park, then over to Brookfield Place and through the Oculus building

Ice and Vice did not fail to impress the out-of-towners.  I got a scoop of Shade (smoked dark chocolate with caramelized white chocolate ganache) in a sesame cone.

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John’s was actually a pizza place that they introduced to me!  Our pie, topped with green peppers, was delicious, and I plan on going back.

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Sunday highlights:  Colonie

All four of us ordered the duck hash at Colonie, it’s that good.

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Adam and I had some fun on our lonesome too.  Like talking a (sweltering!!) walk in Brooklyn and getting coffee and baklava.

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And I made us a very Easter-y salad for dinner.  Greens + fresh cilantro + spring onion / tossed with homemade creamy lemon poppy seed dressing / topped with fresh peas / and medium-boiled eggs.

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Have a nice week!

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.

Coconut, Citrus, And Guava, Oh My

Did I mention last week that I need a vacation?  This week was worse.  Thankfully, starting tomorrow we are on vacation!!  Here are the highlights from the past five days that felt like they lasted for ten…

I kept my coffee combo the same, but did kick things up a notch one day with an Aussie iced coffee!

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Limoneira recently expanded their orchards to include blood oranges and Cara Cara oranges and they sent me a box of goodies to sample.

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The Cara Caras were good, and the blood oranges were the best I’ve ever had – juicy and sweet and just a bit tart.  They made a very good work snack (with roasted pecans and TJ’s butterscotch short breads).

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And were fantasmic mixed into coconut yogurt with Heritage Flakes.

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It was a week of exceptionally good yogurt bowls.  Plain Greek with TJ’s mixed nut butter, vanilla granola, chocolate-covered cacao nibs, and shortbreads.

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Chicory + coffee yogurt with granola and nibs.

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Adam and I both were off on Wednesday and we went to Sunday in Brooklyn for brunch.  I had “The Elvis,” charred banana, housemade fluff, sunflower butter, and green apple, on whole-wheat bread.

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Plus pie and espresso at Blue Stove.  This guava chess was good but not great.

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Snacks of note included jelly beans on the first day of Spring.

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This lime fresco popcorn.

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And the epicness that is Trader Joe’s dried fruit selection.  Dried persimmon?!  The carabao mango is out of this world, it’s like candy.

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Three of five nights I ate a grilled cheese sandwich* while watching Bob’s Burgers** but twice I did manage to cook a legit dinner.  Like egg sandwich pitas.

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Scrambled eggs with smoked paprika, red bell pepper, and spring onion in a pita with mayo and sharp cheddar.

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Plus a cruciferous veggie mix sautéed with cashews and soy sauce.

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Green curry chicken and veggies.  The chicken strips were baked after marinating in a spicy Sriracha marinade, with yellow onion, green onion, green bell pepper, and roasted zucchini, in a green curry sauce.

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We kept the coconut theme going with our drink.

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*grilled cheese notes: this week they were on quinoa bread but rye or sourdough is best / sharp cheddar with pickle relish is my preferred combo / always cooked in butter.

**Bob’s Burgers is my new favorite cartoon series (other than Rick and Morty which is just one of the best tv shows of any genre), I like it even more than Futurama.  It’s the perfect balance of funny yet sweet.

See ya next week!