Roll With It

I was off of work yesterday because I work both days this weekend. We are still hoping to to have some evening Long Island fun though. Highlights from this past week…

I took myself on a fantastic car picnic in Huntington for my day off! Vanilla bean iced latte from Southdown Coffee and the best cinnamon roll of my life from Duck Island Bread Company.

Sparkling watermelon waters. The watermelon flavored Liquid Death is a 10/10. We also really like this passionfruit watermelon Mela; typically we don’t buy sugar-sweetened drinks for home but this stuff is delicious (especially with tequilla!).

Crunchy things – honey roasted chickpeas and crunchy lentils.

These Blue Pearl blueberries are great; so big and sweet.

Big fan of these brown sugar boba popsicles. I have no idea how they get the frozen tapioca to stay so soft/chewy.

Leftover sheet-pan hash. We were getting sick of it at this point so I topped mine with a Sriracha honey mustard sauce.

Delicious Mediterranean-ish bowls. Farro mixed with pesto / canned artichoke hearts sauteed in evoo and then cooked with a mix of tomato sauce and harissa / roasted zucchini / canned tuna / chopped olives.

Watermelon Pop Rocks

This past week was a crazy grueling work-week for both Adam and me (obviously his schedule was immeasurably worse than mine) and we ended up eating a ton of take-out (and candy!). The homemade meals I did manage to cook came out wonderfully though. Highlights included…

I am having a love affair with summer fruits. Doughnut peach + green plucot. My stone fruit preference goes plucot > plum > nectarine > peach > apricot and sometimes I forget how wonderful peaches are.

My mom sent us Pop Rocks to eat on watermelon, which was a great idea! Somehow it extended the fizziness.

Mango and dark cherry smoothie with almond milk and Greek yogurt.

We are officially all-in on alcoholic seltzers. These were two of the best we’ve tried so far.

Take-out win shout-out: this insane fried chicken sandwich from Roast. On sourdough bread with ranch, hot honey, pickles, and cheddar. Plus I made spicy cucumber salad.

Our favorite chicken salad – shredded chicken breasts with slivered almonds, kimchi, mayo, and horseradish. Plus sauteed rainbow chard with green onion, chili flake, and garlic.

Curried chicken thighs (baked after a marinade in goat milk yogurt, evoo, Jamaican curry powder, salt, and ginger) with baked cauliflower and coconut beans and rice (brown rice cooked with coconut milk, black beans, yellow onion, and habanero pepper).

Tastes Like Summer

Highlights from a tasty July week…

Coffee combo – Trader Joe’s dark roast with Chobani oatmilk horchatta.

We ordered marshmallows!

Vanilla Greek yogurt bowl with white peach, passionfruit, and fluff.

Toasted banana bread with marshmallow/fluff.

Summery drinks for a walk around our neighborhood – Blue Point Rainbow Italian Ice Sour and a vodka cocktail with fresh watermelon.

Adam and I are both head over heels for these vegan sweet potato cheese puffs.

Roasted garlic chicken sausage on a hot dog bun with Kewpie and kimchi. Plus roasted baby cauliflower.

Turkey sloppy Josephines! With roasted rainbow cauliflower.

Sheet-pan hash. With yellow potato, zucchini, green onion, pobablo pepper, fresh corn, chicken sausage, and sharp cheddar.

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Three (out of the house!) highlights from the past week —

Fancy caffeine at New York Beanery. We had a lavender matcha and a peanut butter cup iced latte.

Mixed fruit mangonada! Somehow this was Adam’s first time trying chamoy but now he’s hooked.

Dinner at Llama Inn. A former coworker got us a gift certificate as a thank you (I helped train her when she moved from acute care to critical care) because it’s her favorite restaurant.

Everything was amazing. Atlas Shrubbed = Pisco, Shochu, aloe vera liquor, kiwi, lemon, and lime.

Asparagus with salsa, pickled green almonds, and huacatay // bok choy with huacatay, sunflower seeds, and grapes.

Scallop tiradito with kiwi leche de tigre and tapioca. <– best dish of the night!

Beef with scallion pancake, avocado, pickled chilis, and fries.

Coconut Iced Coffee

I work this weekend but I do have some fun date nights planned.  Highlights from the past week include…

We made painkillers!  Dark rum, coconut milk, coconut cream, pineapple juice, orange juice, and nutmeg (and edible glitter stars!).

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And since it was in the house, I put coconut cream in my iced coffee.

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A yogurt bowl with peanut butter toffee granola and fresh blueberries.  I need to make an effort to eat more berries while they’re still in season.

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Watermelon jerky.  I was past due on eating this… it is Apple Month next week!

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These birthday cake bunny grahams are a 10/10.  Perfectly balanced sweetness and soooo cute.

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Green beans (roasted, then sauteed with duck sauce, soy sauce, and Chinese mustard) with Trader Joe’s frozen vegan orange chicken.

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A tasting plate dinner win – rainbow baby carrots, bbq kettle chips, smoked salmon dip, and roasted cauliflower with five spice.

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Boots On The Moon

Five things from the past week —

{1} I really enjoyed these two cans from Nitro Coffee Company.  The nitro gives them a super velvet-y mouthfeel.

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{2} A very hydrating cocktail.  Vodka with lime, watermelon juice, and watermelon seltzer.

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{3} We made twice-baked potatoes that were delicious.  Stuffed with butter, sharp cheddar, turkey bacon, green onion, Kewpie, and fish sauce.

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{4} A very loose take on homemade okonomiyaki.  Made with shredded brussel sprouts!

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{5} Did I mention yet that we adored Space Force?  We also loved the new SF-themed ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s.

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Camp Fire Cuisine

Pretty much everything we ate this weekend fit in the theme of summertime fresh or July 4th BBQ, which was lovely.  Five highlights include…

A camp fire latte from Upstate Stock.

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Trader Joe’s pineapple kiwi Greek yogurt with plumcot, apricot, and pie crust.

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BBQ popped chips.  Served with homemade cheese burgers!

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Watermelon margaritas.

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S’more no-churn ice cream!  <– whipped heavy cream + sweetened condensed milk with fudge sauce, marshmallow fluff, and graham cracker pie crust

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It officially feels like summer.

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Summer Fruits And Veggies

It was a very good week in fruits and vegetables here!  We went to Whole Foods on Saturday to stock up.  With our new, pandemic-induced, bimonthly grocery schedule our first week of dinners/snacks always feels a lot fresher than the second week.

Highlights include…

Could Perfect Bars be any more perfect?  They are the optimal balance of sweet and savory.  I loved this trail mix flavor.

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My parents sent us a box of tamarinds and I found these strawberry cherries at Whole Foods.

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I also snagged a bag of genips (<– Caribbean fruit that I grew up picking from a tree near my house but have had an impossible time finding in New York) on the street corner near my hospital!

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Watermelon-themed things since it’s almost July 4th.  The winner of the bunch was definitely the Hal’s Seltzer.

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This dinner was brought to you by the color orange!  Salmon/trout salad bagel melts / local heirloom tomatoes with a bit of salt and pepper / roasted gold zucchini.

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We have been loving this black-eyed pea salad combo for almost a decade.  This batch was actually made with fancy heirloom yellow eyed beans since BEP were sold out at the store.  Beans, green pepper, smoked almonds, sharp cheddar, and green Tabasco.  It is such a simple combination but super satisfying.

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Roasted green zucchini topped with Moroccan tofu cubes and a simple yogurt sauce (plain skyr, mayo, olive oil, sumac, paprika, salt, and a little water).

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Our best meal of the week was this trio – baked tofu (cooked with a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar, fish sauce, Sriracha, and honey) / Chinese smashed cucumber salad / fancy mushroom medley sauteed with salt, pepper, and butter.

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A Bevy Of Beverages

My favorite bites this week were actually sips!  {I really want to make an “all about the beverages/Benjamins, baby” joke here but I’m holding myself back}

Highlights…

My new all-time-favorite coffee combo = Grady’s Cold Brew concentrate with the new Chobani sweet cream creamer.

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This week’s yogurt bowl combo was vanilla bean Greek yogurt with fresh blackberries and Trader Joe’s peanut butter with chia and flax.

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A girlfriend and I (and her baby!) met up in Nomad for lunch.  Salads at Made Nice – I had the frisee romaine with potato croutons, egg, and buttermilk vinaigrette.

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Ice cream at the new Milk Bar flagship – I had cornflake soft serve with fudge and sprinkles.

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New favorite kombucha is this juicy one with watermelon, hibiscus, and green tea.

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Milkshake IPAs (aka IPAs with lactose) are my favorite and this Gotta Get Up To Get Downstate guava one from Swiftwater is 10/10.

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I just discovered an amazing Asian grocery store near our apartment so we had some pretty great snacks this week.  Like numb and spicy hot pot chips.

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And yogurt gummies and passion fruit gummies.

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Easy dinner from the Trader Joe’s freezer section – meatless breakfast patties and cauliflower pancakes.  Plus roasted green beans and a dipping sauce made with honey habenero hot sauce.

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Chicken and waffle nachos!  Multigrain waffles, waffle flavored chicken bites, cheese, scallions, and a maple Cholula aioli.

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Have a great weekend!

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Last Day

Holy frick.  It’s my last day of work today!!

It’s been a weird last week – I’ve actually been crazy busy because a coworker is out sick so I’ve been covering additional units.  Usually you don’t do much patient care on your final day, but I’m planning on squeezing in a pretty full morning before I start my exit paperwork.  Plus I’ve been wrapping up various projects, including an hour-long presentation on critical care nutrition guidelines that I gave to the residents covering the ICUs.

It’d be nice to have some time to decompress but the last two weeks of June are going to be insane with the move.  And in busy-ness that is fun, my parents are coming into town tomorrow for a final city visit.  And then Adam’s family is joining us to celebrate his graduation next week!

Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy!  <– name that movie

Here were the highlights from my last week of work…

{fun in bottled coffee}  Cold brew from Trader Joe’s.

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Pecan cold brew from Chameleon Coffee.

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{fruit forward snacks}  Fresh watermelon chunks with TJ’s cucumber watermelon mint Greek yogurt.

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The last of the ambrosia my coworker made me.  I for sure ate out every single piece of palm seed.

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{vegetables masquerading as chips/fries}  Roasted green bean “cheese fries” with ketchup and mayo.  I’ll be honest, I wanted Kewpie mayo for years and finally bought a bottle the month before this move and now I’m looking for any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to use it.

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Spinach and parmesan tzatziki dip scooped with sugar snap peas and baby carrots.

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{good foods and goodbyes with coworkers}  An after-work walk to DeKalb Market Hall for Ample Hills.  Baby I was Churned This Way.

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Lunch at Bolivian Llama Party in the Ashland.  I had a fried seitan sandwich and we split insanely good cilantro cheese fries.

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{New York must-eats}  A poppy seed bagel with jalapeno-cheddar cream cheese from La Bagel Delight.  <– eaten on the walk to work, key feature

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Shaved ice from Grace Street.  We swooned over black sesame ice with sweetened condensed milk, honey boba, and mochi.  <– all-time best boba and mochi in the city/world

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Hand-pulled noodles from Xi’an Famous Foods.  Extra spicy for me, with smashed cucumber salad.  The chew factor here is just perfection.

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I ♥ New York.

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