This weekend was downright fabulous! I’m still not feeling quite 100% from my cold – you’ll notice that fruit and veggie consumption was still abysmal – but I felt well enough to have lots of fun. Having Adam home on break has been indescribably wonderful❤. And tomorrow my parents come to visit (and will be joined later in the week by two sets of aunts and uncles) for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah!
breakfast
Yogurt bowl.
TJ 0% honey Greek yogurt topped with two sliced kiwis.
Sunday breakfast.
We toasted the last of the garlic and cheddar beer bread in the oven with some Smart Balance Light.
With a sliced Cameo apple on the side.
And a cup of cafe con leche.
The coffee was part of a sample that Maison Camus sent me.
Please note – this product was sent to me free of charge. I was not provided further compensation for my this post. All opinions are my own.
I had not heard of Maison Camus before they reached out to me, but apparently they are an independent, family owned Cognac house. Their coffee is grown sustainably – no herbicides, fungicides, or pesticides, and they stick to a strict growing process to minimize environmental impact and preserve biodiversity. The beans are grown at high altitudes (primarily in Costa Rica and Guatemala) and they use small-scale farmers who they pay fair wages.
I haven’t opened the French Roast yet but we loved the Signature Blend. My first tasting thought was “smooth,” and it was fun to see that match the company’s description (the French Roast is described as bold and I’m quite looking forward to it). I did put a bit of SCM in my coffee but I took a few sips black and was thrilled with the lack of bitterness. I drank two big mugs. Adam, who drinks at least 3 cups of coffee a day and is a much more discerning drinker than I, was very impressed as well.
lunch
Breakfast for lunch but not brunch.
Seedy bread with Smart Balance Light,
and eggs scrambled with tons of corn (cooked with evoo, tons of Sriracha, and a bit of sugar).
Don’t turn your nose up at the sugar; I realize it’s something I’m not exactly short on in my die,t but with the chili sauce it makes the corn perfect.
On Saturday I took Adam on a date that ended up being one of our best days ever. We decided the last time we had such a good time was on our last trip to Toronto. We drove up through Long Island to Port Jefferson.
The town was gorgeous and quaint, and we even came across a fire pit offering free marshmallows for roasting!
After we licked all the burnt sugar off our fingers we headed over to C’est Cheese for lunch.
My girlfriend (who lives in Buffalo but grew up in LI) used to babysit for the owners and recommended it to us. We were grateful for the intel because we had an amazing meal.
Adam and I shared… A beer sampler.
{South Hampton Double White, Smuttynose Brown Dog, Frambois, Port Jeff Porter}
The Smuttynose was his favorite and the porter was mine, which was funny because we both didn’t care for the others selection. The frambois was enjoyed by all though and was an excellent palate cleaner.
A bowl of New England Clam Chowder.
Adam ate this all on his own but he said it was excellent.
The Somerset sandwich – Melted aged cheddar, sun-dried tomato pesto, black olive tapenade, and fresh basil.
The aged cheddar on our sandwich was actually our very favorite cheese of the day, though it had a lot of competition.
A cheese sampling.
{Truffle Tremor, Taleggio, Pecorino Toscano, Scharfe Maxx, Vlaskaas, 2 year Grafton, Harbourne Blue}
The sampling is a plate of seven assorted cheeses that changes each day. We loved our selection. And we came home with leftovers so the fun could continue the next day. The fun continued that day as well; we finished out our date with a trip to “Thor” and popcorn for dinner.
On Sunday we had leftovers to look forward to.
We chopped up the last of our cheese plate and put it on top of crockpot cranberry chicken (scroll down to dinner) and jasmine rice.
This was so good we both wished we had leftovers of our leftovers.
dinner
I only have one meal in this category! The other days we did big, late lunches and just snacked (popcorn and bananas foster!) for dinner. Thankfully this one meal was a winner, though not very photogenic.
Crockpot Cranberry Chicken = put 1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breast into the crockpot and top with 14 oz fresh cranberries and bbq sauce (we used Whole Food’s Korean style) to cover, then cook 4 hours on “high.”
So simple, but so good. Adam raved about this meal and went back for both 2nds and 3rds. The green on the bottom was frozen spinach that I cooked with evoo, lemon juice, craisins, and smoked almonds.
drink & dessert
The gingerbread cookies from Cheryl’s (thanks again, Barb!) are perfectly soft and spicy.
I’ve already bought a whole slew of gingerbread flavored goodies and I’m excited to announce that I’ve decided tomorrow is the perfect time to start opening them.
Grande, non-fat, eggnog latte.
I got this with a 50% off coupon and I was glad because I didn’t love it this year. Somehow it wasn’t sweet at all, which was very strange with the eggnog flavor.
Another sample, Rave Review Original Culinary Spirits sent me a box of booze for cooking.
Please note – this product was sent to me free of charge. I was not provided further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.
We had a lot of fun setting up a bourbon tasting.
Bourbon isn’t my favorite kind of whiskey, and on first taste I preferred Rave Review to the competitor. I rarely give a bad review (I’m excitable and pretty easy please), but I have to say that after heating I hated it! The flavor was almost savory?! which we think was related to the blend of spices. That said, I could see how it could be good in a savory dish, and I do plan on cooking with it.
On the positive side, we made Bananas Foster with the Rum and I’m giving that two thumbs up.
I basically followed Alton Brown’s recipe, except I skipped the banana liquor and used cinnamon instead of all spice.
Served over vanilla ice cream, this was wonderful. I’m pretty sure we’ll be making another batch next weekend.
Finally, have you seen the new limited edition winter flavors from Polar?
Toasted coconut was good but champagne strawberry is out of this world. The flavor is great and the scent is just ridiculous. I will also be searching high and low for fudge cheesecake, obviously.
Do you ever cook with booze, or do you just drink booze while you cook?
Leftovers of my spin on Hoppin’ John on top of leftover farro,
with cola candies,
and tangerines.
I actually ate the tangerines on my train ride home, alongside a nice, warm espresso.
Coffee was very loved this weekend. I also had a cinnamon brown sugar iced latte from Dunkin Donuts {love, love, loved},
and a hazelnut iced coffee – with sugar, skim milk, and a dash of vanilla creamer – from Bagel Boss {I can’t really speak to their bagels but I’m obsessed with their iced coffee}.
Aaaaaand a different iced latte from Starbucks that I didn’t photograph because it was getting ridiculous. Yes, I recently became extra in love with coffee. No, I won’t switch from iced no matter how cold it gets.
I made “miso stoup” for the first time and was thrilled with the results. Not totally traditional, but with ingredients we had on hand. And extra “chunky” because it was our whole meal and not just a side.
Miso Soup, Basically serves 2 – 3
We loved it.
We split a lemon cream pie martini that wasn’t terrible.
And for fondue we ordered the sharp cheese,
and the caramel pecan chocolate (though I’m fairly certain they left out our caramel).
Both were fairly meh. The bread cubes were terrible and we only got two each of the other dippers so if you liked something you couldn’t even try it again because then the other person didn’t get any. We cashed in a Groupon to Simply Fondue and even with the $ off it was still pretty darn expensive. Boo.
A Suede Imperial Porter from Stone {I couldn’t taste the honey but the floral scent was amazing},
And a big bowl of popcorn with truffle salt.
Oh jeez, the truffle popcorn. Insane. Usually Adam turns his nose up at my bowls of popcorn but this time he was more than happy to share.
We were visiting friends in Williamsburg and they took us to Simple. We all had wonderful meals.
I got the Vegetable Burger – Sautéed spinach, mushroom, zucchini, pepper, onion, garlic. It was more of a pile of veggies than a burger, particularly once I ordered it sans bun. It was also delicious, especially when topped with Danish blue cheese. And the fries on the side were nice and crispy!
Eating Chalk 