Hello, Pumpkin Month!!

by Emily

It’s possible that I have a pumpkin purchasing problem…

Just maybe, though the pumpkin spice chap stick does make it seem pretty likely! Also I’ve eaten something pumpkin flavored at least once a day for the past four days. And October First I had something pumpkin at every single meal.

breakfast

Pumpkin spice latte.

I kind of hated it. I thought the spice was really overwhelming and I ordered my drink with 1/2 of the flavor pumps (plus an extra espresso shot and caramel drizzle on top) so I can’t even imagine a full-strength PSL.

Iced coffee with chocolate milk.

With a yummy GoMacro bar.

Pumpkin cheesecake doughnut from Dunkin.

Yuck city. These beverages were more my jam.

Sometimes we get a fountain soda when we go to the store. Sometimes we got to Starbucks for clover brews. And some magical days I get diet soda and an iced coffee and basically float through the grocery store in excitement.

Café Grumpy makes us anything but grumpy.

Adam’s flat white was better than my macchiato, especially once I clumsily oversugared it.

lunch

Chobani Flip with my last orchard apple and a TJ’s pumpkin cereal bar.

Plus dessert from the giant bag of Russian candies a (now former) coworker delivered me to say thank you for her retirement gift.

Plus I scarfed roasted broccoli with TJ’s Sriracha ranch the minute I got home because apparently this lunch didn’t fill me up at all.

The next day I ate practically the same meal and was full all afternoon.

Thank you 14 grams of protein in my Siggi.

With TJ’s pumpkin o’s and a honeycrisp.

Dinner leftovers – pasta and veggies. This photo is of Adam’s plate because I ate my (smaller) serving out of the Tupperware.

With TJ’s chocolate pumpkins for dessert.

We liked the orange ones and were lukewarm on the rest. Washed down with an alcoholic root beer that was freaking life changing.

Best root beer (boozy or not) either of us have ever tasted.

We had a phenomenal brunch at LIC Market.

I had the duck hash! Crisp potatoes, red onion, peppers, dried cherries, and pine nuts with two fried eggs.

I love duck so flipping much. And this was the best iteration of the meat I’ve had yet. We gave the meal as a whole a 9.5/10.

We got up and out of the house to make it to brunch crazy early and then we had the entire afternoon for fun stuff, mostly more eating and lots of drinking. Grand Central Terminal is Adam’s favorite spot in the city so we spent the morning window shopping there while sipping iced coffee with homemade chocolate syrup from Irving Farms.

Plus Jacques Torres Chocolate handed us samples of fantastic hot chocolate.

I will be back for a full-size cup once the weather gets a bit colder.

Then we wandered down Lexington Ave to Ginger Man to check out their seventy draft beer options.

Clearly flights were the only way to go. Our sour line-up was amazing. The pub had a great vibe, we will definitely be bringing all city visitors there.

dinner

Pumpkin pasta for the first night of October.

Rachael Ray’s recipe with whole wheat shells for penne, basil for sage, chicken breakfast sausage for sweet Italian sausage, and swiss/gruyere for parmesan.

It was tasty, even the dog got a little bowl with extra pumpkin puree.

The humans had roasted veggies on the side.

Trader Joe’s seasoned brussels sprouts and broccoli and cauliflower with smoked paprika.

We drove to Queens in the rain for dinner at Burnside Biscuit.

Worth it. Check how fancy my julep was.

Dinner was pimento mac and cheese with a side of shaved collards.

We went to Gossip Coffee for a “nightcap.”

Gorgeous space serving delicious, roasty cold-brew. And they had rice pudding.

We shared Oreo and cheesecake, both of which were fantastic.

Crab fried rice.

Yum! Adam would say that stir-frying is the cooking technique I’m best at. This dish was wonderful. Leftover brown jasmine rice with garlic, ginger, rice vinegar and fish sauce / peas, mini heirloom tomatoes, sweet red pepper, onion, and basil / eggs and canned crab meat.

This was the first time I’ve used tomato or basil in fried rice at home and both were welcome additions.

Burger night to finish the weekend.

Spinach salad with Sriracha ranch, maple rosemary roasted sunflower seeds, and roasted baby zucchini.

Turkey burgers on TJ’s brioche buns with mayo, sharp cheddar, turkey bacon, and tons of caramelized onions.

These were the best burgers I’ve ever made/eaten. The crunchy bacon and sweet onions totally made this. We got our pumpkin in for dessert.

Pumpkin pie and cookies and cream yogurt with Nutella, sprinkles, and chocolate candy toppings. A sweet way to end the weekend.

Are you going ga-ga orange gourd this month? Any pumpkin must-haves I haven’t done yet?

21Sep2015

Weekend Top Five

by Emily

{1} Apple picking upstate.

The selections were pretty weak – they only had two varieties!

We picked small bags and then moved on to the brewery.

They had housemade cider and wine slushies so that part of the day was a bit more exciting.

{2} Pecan Pie Bar.

Omg, kids, this candy was ridiculous good.

I’m not even embarrassed that I ate it two months early – pecan pie month isn’t until November on the Emily is crazy calendar – because this is my new favorite thing.

{3} Friday dinner at home.

Leftovers scrambled into easy eggs.

Turkey hot dogs, roasted broccoli, and spinach.

With cider from Wolfer Estates.

It was good but not my favorite.

{4} Saturday pizza night.

TJ’s red pepper, provolone, and pearl mozzarella wood-fired pizza.

With roasted zucchini.

I burned the life out of the pizza but roasted squash is our end of summer favorite.

{5} Sunday night Thai food with friends.

We went to Siam Orchid, a tiny little spot that makes the best Thai food in Brooklyn.

My drunken noodles with vegetarian duck were on point!

28Aug2015

Weekly Wrap-Up, Weddings Have Great Food

by Emily

breakfast

Coffee. With Hint of Honey Almond Milk and a GoMacro Bar.

Or seltzer and an applesauce.

Or chocolate milk.

Another morning I tried to do the coffee + chocolate milk combo but my cafeteria was out of milk so I just drank it black and I had a stomach ache for the rest of the day.

lunch

Yogurt. Strawberry Fage with plucots and pumpkin seeds on the side.

Oatmeal. Quaker Summer Berry oats with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter on top and plucots on the side.

Sandwich. A monster from the cafeteria with spicy turkey and fresh mozzarella on a brioche roll.

Leftovers. Egg salad (see below), TJ’s Crispy Broccoli – which I dumped into the egg salad! – and an apple.

snack

Salty.

Sweet.

dinner

I am missing many photos from the start and end of this week, but I did a pretty good job capturing the middle days.

Monday my camera was dead all afternoon and through the evening. You didn’t miss much though, I ate two grilled cheese sandwiches in bed. Then I ate a second dinner of Thai take-out. Also in bed. Related fact – I have been burning through episodes of “Body of Proof” at an alarming rate. It’s bad; not just the fact that I’m watching the show obsessively, but the show itself, is bad.

Tuesday was frozen shrimp goyza from Trader Joe’s.

We sautéed broccoli and bok choy with ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, and soy sauce and served our pan-fried goyza on top.

I woke up early Wednesday morning to hard-boil eggs for salad.

This was eggs with minced red bell pepper, mayo and a healthy dollop of sesame gojuchang which gave the salad a great spice and a little bit of smokiness.

With roasted green beans on the side.

Roasted green beans have always been one of my favorite foods but now that I’ve started topping them with sliced shallots they’re on a whole new level.

Thursday night I was way less pathetic, but I still don’t have any pictures. A Buffalo friend came into town and took me to a wedding. The event was in LIC at The Foundry and it was beyond gorgeous but way too dark for food pictures.

I ate hummus, cocktails, mini cupcakes, and all the other wedding trappings but the only photo I have is a blurry shot of my friend and me.

Fun fact – I met her straight from work and I had to get dressed in a Barnes and Nobel bathroom. I am the classiest.

I took today off to spend the morning with my girlfriend before she drives home so I have this whole Friday ahead of me to ~~watch Body of Proof~~ do fun stuff in the city!

21Aug2015

Left My Heart In Montana

by Emily

I’m missing a lot of photos this week but the meals I do have to share were off the charts good.

lunch

Mostly I did lunches from the cafeteria this week, like a tasty broccoli and cheese baked potato whose cell-phone photo was an absolute horror. Packed lunches featured a great fruit salad – Cara Cara Orange, strawberries, and 3 varieties of pluot.

With plain yogurt and Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes.

notable snacks

Fresh mint in sparkling water is my jam. This “mojito” rocked our socks off.

We’ve kept the dessert every day thing going. One morning Adam took me to work and we tried the doughnuts at Elsie’s Parlor. I got the Confettura Di Fichi – filled with fig jam and topped with mascarpone and toasted almonds.

I loved the idea of this, especially because the fig jam and mascarpone were delicious, but the texture was terrible, way too dense. If I thought of it was a muffin it was great, but as a doughnut I ate half and we moved on to a tried and true.

Now that’s a doughnut! My peaches and crème doughseed had just the right balance of fluff and chew. Plus it was perfectly tangy and sweet.

Vegan ice cream from Sky Ice.

Thai iced coffee and Thai young coconut went great together.

Ice cream from Oddfellows.

S’mores with amazing caramelized white chocolate with toasted almond.

Guava-cheese empanadas.

Enjoyed with Ruth Reichl’s novel, which I read in a day and a half and enjoyed even more than her memoir. She is such a good story-teller and her food writing makes your mouth water.

dinner

Leftover Korilla knock-off bowls were still yummy.

I stir-fried mine with eggs to make up for the missing one on top.

Also I kind of burnt the life out of it, but this was still good.

It was fitting that I put this dinner on my heart plate because I loved-loved-loved it.

A tiny roasted pile of every single okra I could find at the stores this weekend.

Plus I snacked on this for extra veggies.

Toasted ciabatta sandwich with turkey, turkey bacon, Colby jack, and Smart Balance.

The cheese was extra-thin sliced and it melted to perfection.

We checked out Bushwick’s Montana’s Trail House and our best meal of the week ended up being the best meal of the year!

Adorable décor, amazing service, and freshly made food – most of it local – with well-balanced flavors.

Captain Stormalong – Standard Heartcut White Whiskey, Campari, Demerara & Topped with Downeast Cider.

Riff Randell – Vodka, Krupnikas Honey Liqueur, Contratto Aperitif, Luxardo Maraschino, Acid Phosphate, Sparkling Wine. This was the best drink we’ve ever had. It was like drinking pure honey but in an amazing way. Similar to a great honey meade I had in SF.

We started with the charred green beans – which were topped with browned garlic and soft-cooked eggs and served on top of housemade ricotta. This was the best dish of the year, the lemony ricotta was fantastic with the drippy eggs and charred greens.

Then we shared the dinosaur kale salad – with feta, roasted carrots, and kale that was grown in the restaurant’s rooftop garden!

And the fried chicken with honey butter and housemade hot sauce. Best fried chicken ever; super juicy and every bite had a whiff of honey.

Dessert – aka the course I saw on Instagram that made me move this restaurant to my “must-eat” list – was banana bread s’mores. <– squee!

Also they brought us complimentary shots with our bill because we’d been raving about every bite we took. Love. NYC people – get yourself to Bushwick, you won’t regret it!

7Aug2015

Lunch N Oats

by Emily

breakfast

This week’s coffee (a mix of Community Coffee and Brooklyn Roasting Co) was iced with milk (a mix of vanilla almond milk and skim). Sweetened with honey – meh.

And maple – yum!

And paired with watermelon juice.

And an apple.

lunch

2% Lingonberry Strawberry Siggi’s with chopped apricot and plum and Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes.

The rest of the week was all about the oats.

Chocolate chip oats with peanut butter and diced apricot stirred in. Plus goats milk maple caramels on the side.

Coconut maple oats with purple rose plums(!!) and chocolate pumpkin seeds.

And oats from home. With freeze-dried strawberries, chia seeds, chocolate covered cocoa nibs, and chocolate chunks.

snack

Delicious nougat bar my parents bought me at BRKLYN Larder. Adam bought me Luxardo cherries for my birthday there too and I am so excited to start using them.

Iced Americano with cream.

Herbed turkey and Havarti roll-up.

I ate several handfuls of prunes this week. The snack situation was getting pretty bleak.

But then we bought the new Reuben lays.

It was amazing, if you were blindfolded you still would totally taste rye bread and thousand island dressing. If they were kettle chips instead of the flimsy regular kind they’d be my new favorite.

dinner

Leftovers from Sunday. Whole-wheat penne topped with sautéed turkey, mushrooms, and onions in marinara sauce.

Eaten cold, out of the Tupperware, in front of the open fridge. It’s kind of crazy how classy I am.

The next night really was pretty snazzy though.

Lemon Pepper Baked Shrimp with shredded Brussels sprouts and barely.

Recipe HERE, this cooks in less than 30 minutes.

Then we had big salads with red curry turkey burgers on top.

Arugula blend topped with TJ’s Asian Sesame Vinaigrette, sliced cucumber, and baked shredded Brussels sprouts and broccoli. Two notes – 1) baking the shredded B sprouts is my new favorite thing; 2) I bought TJ’s Thai-style chili and lime cashews to put on the salads and they were so spicy even I couldn’t eat them.

The patties were lean ground turkey with tons of parsley and green onions, soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, red curry paste, and ground ginger. Cooked in coconut oil.

We were supposed to have this meal two nights in a row but we snacked on the 1st round of patties while we assembled the salads (and the dog ate an entire patty that fell on the ground!) and there ended up only being enough leftovers for one. Really I won out though because this chile rellano from TJ’s was darn good.

Best frozen meal ever.

Finish this thought – this weekend I am excited to…

31Jul2015

My Year Is Off To A Good Start

by Emily

enjoyed all week

Coffees. Also naps.

Apparently my parents wore us out; I had a to take a nap before I could make dinner the first three nights of the week.

Diet chocolate soda from Polar.

I know it sounds a little strange but we were fans.

Our leftovers from The Smith. Eaten cold while standing in front of the open fridge.

My mac and cheese was fantastic leftover and so was my mom’s Mexican corn.

A big box of free samples {free as in provided free of charge / no other compensation for this post / yada, yada } from Super Seedz.

I wouldn’t have thought of pumpkin seeds as a favorite of mine but I’ve loved all of the flavors we’ve tried so far. Flavor options include: Really Naked, Sea Salt, Cinnamon & Sugar, Coco Joe, Tomato Italiano, Curious Curry, Somewhat Spicy and Super Spicy. They pack a nutritional punch – see the infographic (provided by the company) below – and Super Seedz are allergen friendly – peanut-free, tree nut-free, egg-free, dairy-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free and made with gluten-free ingredients.

breakfast

After we dropped my parents at the airport on Monday, Adam and I went on a doughnut(plant) and coffee date before work. Because apparently we hadn’t eaten enough crap over my birthday weekend.

My strawberry-filled vanilla got two thumbs up.

As did my maple latte from Gorilla.

Coco pumpkin seeds and cold-pressed watermelon juice.

TJ’s came through on this juice, it was wonderfully refreshing.

Chocolate-cherry smoothie.

Vanilla almond milk with coco powder, frozen cherries, and dates. I enjoyed this combo and want to make it again soon.

Snack plate.

A cheese stick, cinnamon sugar pumpkin seeds, and a medley of grapes.

lunch

Chocolate chip cookie oats.

With an apple and coco pumpkin seeds.

Sweet and spicy tuna salad.

With grapes and cinnamon sugar pumpkin seeds.

I didn’t have to provide my own lunch the rest of the week! I attended a lunch-and-learn on malnutrition in surgical patients on Tuesday.

They gave us education, salad, and yummy sandwiches with hummus and roasted eggplant. And I mainlined coffee (with tons of milk and cream) when I got back to my desk.

On Thursday the hospital threw an employee appreciation bbq.

Very sweet!

dinner

Pizza, pizza.

We used TJ’s frozen crusts and were so impressed with how they turned out. Topped with marinara, mozzarella, and tons of garlic and onion sautéed mushrooms.

Plus super simple salads on the side.

Just arugula blend with ranch dressing. They were a bit depressing. But we also had beer.

I carried this Southern Tier Compass all the way back home from Buffalo but unfortunately it was a bit hoppy for our tastes.

Burger night.

I made my Buffalo Blue Bean Burgers. They don’t look like much but this is one of my best recipes!

With a trio of roasted veggies: Brussels sprouts, green beans, and broccoli.

Served with maple bacon kettle chips, aka my favorite chips because they are the best chips of all time.

They were doing a promotion and handing out mini bags at my railroad station and it was very exciting.

Last night I met up with a girlfriend for dinner in Brooklyn. We checked out Elbow Room, the mac and cheese window at Morgan’s BBQ.

Milk stout.

Old School Mac – NY state sharp cheddar, béchamel, and garlic breadcrumbs.

With collard greens that were spicy and vegetarian. Dinner was good but dessert was better.

Salted crack caramel and honey peanut butter ice creams from Ample Hills. But they were supposed to have key lime pie ice cream available and they didn’t so now I need to go back immediately and it’s a problem.

20Apr2015

It’s A Miracle! {They’re Alive, Damn It!}

by Emily

This weekend…

…I tried MiraBurst

Aka Miracle Berries aka Synsepalum dulcificum, a plant whose berries don’t taste sweet on their own, but have a compound (Miraculin) that binds to sweet receptors on the tongue and makes acidic foods which are ordinarily sour be perceived as sweet.

Please note – I was sent the berries free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post.

You eat the pulp, not the seeds, and the effect lasts about an hour. They recommend trying the berries 1-2 at a time with foods such as citrus fruits, yogurt and kefir, and vinegar, so we set up a little tasting station.

It totally worked!! The limes and plain yogurt were both sweet and delicious. I could definitely see this working as a great way to get kids interested in trying new foods. I am excited to have the berries in my freezer so I can continue trying them out on different things.