Tag Archives: greens

Blueberries And/Or Breakfast Foods

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On-theme things from the week, all delicious…

Smoothies! Strawberry malted – frozen strawberries blended with water, malted milk powder, and chocolate protein powder.

Blueberry cheesecake – frozen blueberries blended with water, vanilla bean powder, vanilla protein powder, and cottage cheese.

A breakfast-y, dessert-y, waffle yogurt bowl situation. Fage with blueberry topped with blueberries, Evergreen peanut butter banana bread waffles, and maple syrup.

Nightingale lemon blueberry pound cake ice cream sandwich.

Bagels with cream cheese and lox, chopped. We did a mix of cream cheese, Kewpie, smoked salmon, Trader Joe’s pickled onions, chili crisp, and honey. Plus roasted broccoli.

Egg tacos, chopped. Our filling was a mix of chopped together scrambled egg with extra-sharp cheddar, fried plantains, sauteed poblano pepper and green onion, avocado, and Cholula chipotle cremosa sauce. Plus roasted zucchini.

Savory oatmeal bowls. Our favorite oatmeal (Trader Joe’s rolled oats with ancient grains and seeds) topped with sauteed kale, crispy baked shredded tofu, a fried egg, and chili crisp.

Blueberry cottage cheese pancakes. I used this recipe but added vanilla bean powder, lemon zest, lemon juice, and some blueberries. Plus sauteed kale and homemade turkey sausage (ground turkey with sharp cheddar, maple syrup, fish sauce, smoked paprika, urfa, gochugaru, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper). I coved the whole plate in maple syrup and Cholula chili garlic hot sauce!

Best Of The Best

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It was a perfect New York summer weekend! Including great food (several of my top favorites and lots of sweet treats!), a couple of long walks, brunch on the water in Roslyn, a trip to Rockaway Beach, and a visit to the mall! The best things I ate were…

Rockaway Beach Bakery. Guava cheese danish. We also had a yummy slice of croissant bread. Their new location is great.

From Lucie. They make my favorite cake in the city. This was a (super duper moist) vanilla cake with Earl Gray frosting and blackberry jam.

Culture Espresso makes our 2nd favorite chocolate chip cookie in the city. This was the corn cookie and we also enjoyed a frozen maple coffee.

Pavlo Mochi. My favorite was the banana milk jam with a dulce de leche center.

Connolly’s Bar pina colada is my current favorite frozen cocktail.

I didn’t actually love my brunch burger at Naks but their wonderful vinegar fries were fantastic dipped in egg and gravy.

My cocktail was also a win; I got the Zesto – a milk punch with coconut, soursop, and rum (and that’s a pandan coconut rum jello shot!).

Roberta’s house-made bread + stracciatella + sugar snap peas with pea shoots and green garlic.

Best meal of the weekend = lunch at Rippers. Cheeseburgers and seasoned fries. This is Adam’s favorite burger.

Their cocktails were magical too! Lychee soju martini and a frozen sangria (we ate spoons of sangria with soft-serve and swooned).

P.S. No photos but I had a kale salad with salmon at Daily Provisions that knocked my socks off.

Superlatives

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Of the week…

The best new find – Woodstock blueberry banana water. This was yummy! And no added sugar.

The best snack – Brownie batter Barebell’s protien bar. One of their best flavors; it was almost oddly filling.

The best dinner – crab rangoon baked quesadillas. The filling was crab meat, green onion, cream cheese, melted butter, sweet chili sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, and sharp cheddar. Plus bok choy sauteed with green onion and mushroom. Plus a homemade Sriracha mayo dip.

The best dinner leftovers – Buffalo chicken baked pasta. With whole-wheat bowtie pasta, baked chicken, green onion, garlic powder, onion powder, buffalo sauce, cream cheese, and sharp cheddar. Plus baby carrots.

Salted Egg – Egg Cream

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Some things from last week…

Barebells peanut butter and jelly bar. This was better than the white chocolate flavors but not as good as the originals.

Smoothie – frozen peaches and banana, soursop nectar, vanilla protein powder, and nutmeg.

Surrup mint and rosemary syrup. I liked it in an iced coffee and loved it in an iced diet coke.

Tochi salted egg popcorn – 100/10.

Arizona chocolate egg cream soda – 10/10. I made my coworkers taste-test with me and we all agreed it was spot on.

We bought an egregious amount of baked goods from Little Cupcake Bakeshop last weekend and I heartily enjoyed the leftovers all week. Note to self – buy the caramel peanut butter shortbread bar every time!

Vegetarian “meatball” rice bowls. Brown rice mixed with Le Grand pesto / roasted zucchini / balls = navy beans, firm tofu, and an egg went into the blender; got mixed with panko, salt, grains of paradise, smoked paprika, urfa, onion powder, garlic powder, and dried basil; then baked. I would make the balls again but sized much smaller.

Magnificent salads! Romaine / homemade dressing – yuzu ponzu, rice vinegar, miso, ginger, honey, Dijon, and evoo / crispy rice – leftover brown rice baked with soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili crisp / roasted baby broccoli / canned yellowfin tuna belly / Wooly Wooly aged sheep’s milk cheese/ crispy fava beans / caramelized plums – cooked in a skillet with butter, brown sugar, salt, and vanilla bean powder.

P.S. I saved the “juice” from the cooked plums and served it over plain Greek yogurt and that was the best thing I ate all week.

Desserty Coffees And Ramen

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It was a great NYC weekend including a thousand iced coffees, a street art instillation, a day in Brooklyn, and a trip to Long Island City.

Highlights…

Hungry Ghost will always be the best quad iced latte in the city.

Casa del Cafe horchatta iced latte with cold foam. This was too milky for me but the spot was sweet and we also tried a nice chocoflan.

Bean Monger miso caramel iced latte.

Doughnut Plant is hit or miss for me but this rosewater glazed doughnut was perfection.

Brunch at Vato. We shared a cinnamon bun and a burnt end, egg, and cheese burrito. The meat wasn’t my favorite but the housemade tortilla was great and their salsas were solid. I need to go back for a concha!

We were impressed with Jax Pizza; Adam liked the Rosso with six-hour tomato sauce and my favorite was the vodka slice.

Handroll dinner at Matsunori. We shared seaweed salad.

And steamed eggs.

My handrolls – spicy salmon (shown) / miso butter cod / toro with caviar / A5 Waygu. I also had a yuzu drop!

Dinner at Chuko was the best meal of the weekend. We shared some fun beverages like this ume soda.

And a Calpico.

Split a shrimp bun.

Fantastic okonomiyaki-style tots.

And kale salad (the best in the city!) with yellow raisins, miso dressing, and crispy sweet potato. They throw some fried kale into the mix and the texture mix here is just wonderful.

They offer all of their broth bases in vegetarian and are also my favorite ramen spot. I went with Kimchi (which comes with cabbage and curly yellow noodles) with pickled mustard greens, a soy egg, and chili crisp.

Bao Haus Is Back!

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Adam and I had the whole weekend together and it was just the best! We had two days of Manhattan fun (East Village and the Upper East Side) including great food, a long walk, time loving the trees in Central Park, and a trip the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. The highlights…

Fancy Kook‘s carrot cake iced latte with cream cheese foam, cinnamon, and pecans.

I was disappointed in this egg coffee from Le Phin but we also had the best pandan iced latte I’ve ever had.

Cola and lemonade slush from Slik. Perfect consistency and not too-too sweet.

We quite enjoyed this bowl from Yogurt Club. Super thick strained Greek yogurt with blueberries, Biscoff kataifi sauce, and mochi.

Speaking of mochi and kataifi – Bear Donut‘s new chewy cookies are amazing. We got white chocolate hazelnut.

Before they closed, Bao Haus served my favorite food in New York and their new iteration is even better! We had lamb bao and unphotographed duck bao.

The Birdhaus bao was as fantastic as I remembered.

The new location does large plates like these outstanding noodles with chilis, pickled greens, and burnt ends. The wonderful schmaltzy pea shoots are hiding in the back.

I also had a guava gose with a delightful rim (li hing mui, maybe?).

Cambodian food at Bayon. We shared shrimp, crabmeat, and corn chowder.

Tamarind duck. Perfectly crispy skin!

Sauteed eggplant with beef, fresh basil, garlic, chili peppers, and oyster sauce. The beef was even better than the duck.

And the Spicy Siem Reap Noodles – sauteed wide rice noodles, basil, scallions, eggs, onion, chili, fish sauce, and
soybean, with beef, extra spicy.

I tamed the spice with a creamy iced tea.

P.S. The leftover noodles were great reheated in a skillet with kale and an extra egg.

Nachos. Stew Leonard’s salsa verde protein tortilla chips (delicious!) with sharp cheddar, ground turkey, and onion, poblano, and bell pepper sauteed with taco seasoning.

Chopped Cheese, Peanut Butter Tofu

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Highlights from a yummy week…

Equator remains some of the best bottled cold brew I’ve tried.

Ube and pandan simple syrups. They were good-not-great in iced coffees but nice in Diet Cokes.

The best yogurt bowls = plain skyr with tons of blueberries and chopped marzipan.

Durian ice creams. These were both so flavorful and the Mavens was some of the creamiest ice cream I’ve ever tried.

I went to Duck Island Bread Company for bread and ended up with a great pistachio croissant.

We used the bread to make wonderful sandwiches. Sourdough pullman / ginger miso mayo / shredded, baked super-firm tofu tossed with peanut butter, gochujang, lime juice, brown sugar, and veggie broth / sliced baby cucumbers marinated in white sugar, Sichuan peppercorn, Milu everything spice, and rice vinegar. Plus roasted baby broccoli.

For Five‘s chopped cheese sandwich was surprisingly good. Even these leftovers were delicious.

Congee bowls. Brown rice slow-cooked with chicken stock / mustard greens and scallion sauteed with soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, and pepper / ground turkey sauteed with peanut butter, lime, brown sugar, Sriracha, dark soy sauce, fish sauce, and chicken broth / chili crisp.

Tuna noodle casserole. This came out so well! Brami radiatori protein pasta, canned tuna, and canned trout / mushrooms, leek, and red scallions sautéed with flour, corn starch, veggie broth, gochujang, fish sauce, and sesame oil / baked topped with a mix of crushed honey butter chips and seaweed chips. Plus roasted broccoli.

My Rex Manning day tradition is rewatching Empire Records with pizza and brownies and this was our best year yet! Brownies = Hummingbird High’s small batch brownies. These are even better than my go-to brownie recipe (I did add a bit of espresso powder and topped them with cinnamon maple pretzels).

Pizza = a variety of slices from Tori T’s. This is some of the best pizza I’ve eaten; the crust is perfect.

Space Yam!

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Things from the weekend…

Blueberries aren’t my number one favorite food (a three way tie between nachos, Cherry Coke Zero, and Milk Bar’s marshmallow brownie), but they are probably the food I eat most often. Plain skyr with granola and jumbo blueberries.

We ordered fun cookies from Salamat! This was Space Yam (ube and marshmallow) but my favorites were Peach Mango Pie and Strawberry Matcha Latte.

Fish dip dinner. Canned pink salmon and lightly smoked salmon, Dukes, Kewpie, Dijon, lemon, paprika, garlic powder, onion, powder, and white pepper, food processed, then topped with chili crisp. Served along side baby broccoli sauteed with salt, pepper, gochugaru, Milu everything seasoning, butter, and lemon.

We scooped with TWO types of seaweed crackers (both excellent) – Mary’s Super Seed seaweed and black sesame and Trader Joe’s sticky rice seaweed crisps.

Trader Joe’s Thai yellow curry potato chips needed to be turned into nachos. With two types of sharp cheddar and a loose take on Thai basil chicken. Plus bok choy sauteed with ginger, white pepper, and hoisin sauce.

I enjoyed my chicken leftovers in a bowl with fried eggs and green beans that I steamed then sauteed with chili crisp, Dijon, and maple.

♥