Butter Pecan Mochi

by Emily

Apologies for another late post! Honestly? When I get home from work I get into bed fully dressed with a snack for at least 30 minutes and sometimes I just don’t get up again to do anything productive! I know I haven’t really blogged about some of the big recent changes at work, but suffice to say I am tired. <– but also really happy to be busy and getting some exposure to new things

Some of my favorite bites from the [last] week…

Watermelon kefir is an excellent idea. P.S. When I went to the Lifeway website I discovered that they apparently make an eggnog kefir and now it’s pretty much all I can think about.

I was all about the premade coffees this week and they were surprisingly delicious. Starbuck’s dark roast iced coffee.

Caribou vanilla iced coffee.

Cafeteria baked potato bar. With sour cream, cilantro, cheese/sauce, and salsa.

Yummy yogurt bowls. Coffee Chobani with chocolate tahini, maple granola, and walnuts and an eve apple.

Blood orange Chobani with Heritage Flakes and sunshine raspberries.

Whole Foods hot bar = black bean sauce broccoli, green beans, curried cauliflower, pasta salads, sweet chili tofu.

Plus I tried their mocha ice cream in butter pecan and black sesame. <– this might be my new favorite thing

Blue chip nachos! With corn, cheddar, black beans, and fresh tomatoes. I dipped them into roasted tomato salsa.

I bought a bag of rolls at our grocery’s bakery ($1.69 for a variety pack of six?!) and we became obsessed with turkey and cheddar sandwiches. The key is spreading the bun with a mix of mayo and gojuchang.

I made a simple veggie and tofu bowl that was our favorite dinner of the week.

Chopped raw bok choy with TJ’s sesame soy ginger vinaigrette / TJ’s teriyaki baked tofu / crispy edamame – tossed with evoo and salt and baked at 400* for 20 minutes / black sesame seeds.

Leftover sesame noodles with chili oil with baked tofu and crispy edamame.

A dinner in parts: Adam had to take a super quick trip to Delaware this week and I worked out my schedule to tag along. We started with Mile End in Brooklyn for appetizers. Garlic knish.

Brussel sprouts salad (with a mix of raw and roasted!) with labne, sumac, and honeycomb and pumpernickel powder. It was amazing.

Mid-dinner dessert stop for churros with dulce de leche at the new DeKalb Market Hall.

And finally Grain in Newark. I had a great whiskey sour.

And the best crab cake sandwich of my life; it was absolutely packed with crab meat, no filler to be found.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

5Jun2017

Japanese Kit-Kats And Trader Joe’s Nitro Cold Brew

by Emily

Highlights from the week included…

Trader Joe’s nitrogen-infused cold brew, my new favorite bottled coffee. It was so creamy and velvety!

Check out that head (photo taken after I added cream).

Yogurt bowls at work. Plain Siggi’s with maple quinoa granola, chia seeds, brown sugar, and homemade raisins. <– if I had included three favorites in my title this bowl would have been #3! P.S. the raisins were much improved by a night in the fridge.

Banana Chobani with Heritage Flakes and a piñata apple on the side.

Snack attack. There were curly fries in the cafeteria this week!

I finally got my hands on some crazy-flavors Japanese Kit-Kats – butter cookie and pudding. I would have liked both better with milk chocolate versus white but they were fun to try.

Iced chai latte (that was way too spicy for me and ended up going in the garbage) and yummy honey caramel candies.

I made a big batch of pesto and it was the cornerstone of most of our adult dinners last week. Failed adulting dinners were cheese and crackers eaten in bed. Pesto = basil, garlic, salt, olive oil, pine nuts, and parmesan. Most of it went into pasta bowls – whole wheat shells with shredded chicken and roasted zucchini, topped with more cheese and pine nuts and fried garlic panko bread crumbs for crunch.

I also set aside some pesto for some truly epic egg sandwiches.

Brioche bun / with pesto on one side / and gojuchang mayo on the other / with two fried eggs with a slice of fontina cheese melting in between. <– ridiculously good and loosely inspired by the egg sandwich at Santina.

With roasted green beans with more garlic panko.

Saturday after work I met Adam for Southern fare at Pretty Southern. We ordered both sherry drinks because cocktails with sherry are wonderful. Carlita’s Colada – Palo cortado sherry, coconut cream, pineapple, and lime and Sunshine Way – Fino sherry, blackberry, pineapple, lime, and mint. The coconut one was the best.

We shared all of the things for dinner. Chicken strips with the most amazing housemade pickles.

Bourbon butter biscuit. <– this was soggy and meh

Fantastic mac and cheese with crispy fried onions on top.

And a griddled sandwich with pimento cheese, tomato, and pickled jalapeño.

I’ve got a busy but fun week ahead, please think calm thoughts for me!

19May2017

Duck Confit

by Emily

Top 10 bites this week…

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

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

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.)

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

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

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

I love a good tiled floor!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Enjoy your weekend!

12May2017

Cold Brew With Condensed Milk

by Emily

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.

Trader Joe’s berry oatmeal with chocolate peanut butter and a Gala apple on the side.

Snack attack – spicy chicken jerky with a cheese stick and a Golden Nugget tangerine.

Trader Joe’s birthday cake bar. This was delicious, absolutely studded with sprinkles!

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.

Meat and potatoes night.

Asian-inspired meat and potatoes. Yummy miso meatballs,

ginger and garlic baked fries,

plus broccoli.

Yesterday I spent a solid four hours cooking this “soup.”

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!

24Apr2017

I Can’t Choose A Favorite!

by Emily

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.

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.

Cafeteria lunch, a spicy chicken sandwich on ridiculously cheesy bread with mustard, lettuce, and bell pepper.

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.

I enjoyed my “jam” in lunches all week. Like with vanilla bean yogurt and blackberries.

And plain yogurt, berries, maple quinoa granola, and black sesame seeds.

Whole Foods hot bar lunch.

Sesame broccoli, turkey salad, and cole slaw.

Plus a maple soda that was not as exciting as I was expecting it to be; it had an off-putting aftertaste.

Snack time. Ice cream = maple walnut and a white chocolate vanilla marshmallow flavor.

Milk bun.

Crème brulee milk stout.

My workweek dinners were on point! Like crab fried rice with roasted broccoli and sliced cucumber.

I loosely followed this recipe, except I used brown rice and waaaay more crab. It was fantastic.

Vampire killer, I roasted three whole heads of garlic for this recipe.

Garlic turkey meatballs with red sauce and roasted zucchini.

And amazing homemade garlic bread – I mashed butter and roasted garlic and then slathered it on sliced sourdough and baked until delicious.

Even our leftovers meal was tasty. Cheese tortellini with meatballs, peas, roasted garlic, and red sauce.

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.”

Plus chicken ramen with kimchi and poached egg.

And the new Brooklyn Snowdays location was right next door! Black sesame shaved ice with oreo, mochi, and condensed milk.

Plus a dinner date with the husband. Brinkley’s has Genesee Cream Ale on draught!

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.

Plus fish tacos with mahi, guacamole, and pineapple salsa.

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.

Now it’s two days of work before a break on Wednesday.

Have a great week!

14Apr2017

Chocolate “Cheesecake” Oatmeal

by Emily

Kids. Work is really freaking stressful this month. My goodness. I had Wednesday off this week (from working the previous weekend) and I practically spent the whole day in a coma. And yesterday I bought multiple coffees before 10 am. I promise to ~~whine about~~ post a work sitch update sometime soon, but for this post I’m keeping things short and simple.

Some of the best things I ate this week…

Oatmeal with chia seeds, two kinds of chocolate chips, and a scoop of cream cheese. It was heavenly.

Mango yogurt with Luxardo cherries, plus I added a banana from the cafeteria at work.

Another dessert-y lunch, plain Greek yogurt with cookie butter, granola, and a Pink Lady apple.

My mother-in-law sent us a giant box of sugar cookies for Easter. Both of our mothers still send us Easter baskets, actually, there’s a lot of candy in this house!

Leftover cheddar bbq meatloaf with roasted green beans. Adam butchered the meatloaf getting it out of the dish and then mashed it onto my plate because I pretty much live like a princess.

<– that was sarcasm, but I really am pretty spoiled. Case in point – honey beer with dinner.

Sweet potato fries with tons of extra-sharp cheddar and ground turkey with Korean bbq sauce. I realize that the photo is pretty rough, but it was one of the yummiest things I ate all week. We highly recommend the frozen fries from Trader Joe’s.

Hot pasta salad. I sautéed big chunks of green bell pepper and onion in tons of olive oil and smoked paprika, tossed with crispy roasted chickpeas, and cheese tortellini.

Are you dying eggs this weekend??

7Apr2017

Crab Rangoon Grilled Cheese

by Emily

This post contains a week’s worth of wrap up – not just the sandwich – but the sandwich was awesome so it stole the title. Maybe I’ll make a thing of it and start titling all of my weekly posts after the best bite?

Yummy things…

Our very last cup of chicory coffee from Café du Monde. <– boo! With a mandarin. I spilled the 2nd to very last cup all over the counter and down the side of the fridge, so that was fun.

More chicory coffee, in yogurt form. With KIND maple quinoa granola and chocolate-covered cacao nibs. Plus a Pacific Rose apple.

The best chips of all time – honey butter flavored from Trader Joe’s. Excluding, obviously, the freshly made honey butter chips served at Oiji.

Another Trader Joe’s win – Kona coffee cookie mocha swirl ice cream.

Homemade treats make the best snacks though. I threw a wedding shower for one of the ladies at work this week and contributed cookie butter bars and brown butter chocolate chip cookies.

The eponymous sandwich!

Served with roasted brussel sprouts with paprika and Old Bay seasoning – to keep the seafood theme going.

Toasted sourdough with crab rangoon in between. The filling was a mixture of cream cheese, lump crab meat, green onion, minced ginger, brown sugar, and soy sauce. They were wonderful.

I loosely followed the recipe for Eat, Live, Run’s lemon brown sugar chicken.

I added sliced green onions to the casserole dish and used extra smoked paprika, but primarily I swapped in MAPLE sugar for brown sugar. Delicious. We spooned the sauce on top of our veggies.

Another night I loosely followed the recipe for Bon Appétit’s marinated beans. Great northern beans with evoo, rice vinegar, cilantro, green onion, and gojuchang. I served the beans on top of roasted green beans and sweet potato fries.

With a sour beer on the side.

I work the next five days, but I hope everyone else has a lovely weekend!

3Mar2017

4 x 3 = 12

by Emily

For breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus snack, here were my top three eats for this week…

breakfast{1} The 2nd best* thing I ate all week – Vietnamese iced coffee.

Café du Mondé coffee with chicory from our trip to NOLA with sweetened condensed milk. Yum City.

b{2} A killer smoothie.

How pretty is this purple?? Frozen soursop and blueberries with cow’s milk and vanilla pudding mix.

b{3} Double chocolate oat bowl.

Oats, chia, freeze-dried strawberries, chocolate chips, and chocolate-covered cacao nibs.

b{warning} Do not recommend: this oatmeal drink box.

The flavor was way too artificial. Adam tried a plain one and loved it so it’s probably the caramel flavor that’s the problem.

lunch{1} Cafeteria sandwich.

Turkey and cheese. I mostly prefer to pack lunch for work but I hate trying to pack sandwiches so this is a great cafeteria option when I’m in the mood.

l{2} Yogurt bowl.

Coconut Greek yogurt with pink grapefruit is this year’s new favorite combo! I snacked on the vanilla granola and chocolate coconut milk on the side.

l{3} Baked potato bar.

I topped my spud with cheese sauce, salsa, black beans, bell peppers, red onion, jalapeño, and cilantro.

snack{1} Caffeine overload.

Iced latte with chocolate-covered espresso beans. Full disclosure – I drank a sugar-free Red Bull around this same time and spent an hour or two pretty sure I could hear colors.

s{2} Cheesy bagel.

I toasted half a poppy seed bagel with butter and cheddar-gruyere/parmesan-gouda. Eaten while prepping dinner because I just couldn’t wait.

s{3} Yogurt bowl with my favorite citrus.

Maple yogurt with Heritage Flakes. Plus a Sumo Mandarin.

dinner{1} Let’s be real, the very best* thing I ate this week was nachos.

Four-cheese nachos with black beans and roasted garlic salsa. Duh. But no photo because we ate them in bed in the middle of the day (<–fabulous) and my main focus was on keeping them away from the dog.

d{2} Gojuchang turkey rice bowls.

Brown rice with cilantro, lime and butter / roasted cabbage / ground turkey sautéed with spring onions and cilantro and a sauce made out of gojuchang, brown sugar, soy sauce, and rice vinegar / black sesame seeds and lime juice on top.

d{3} Cheesy eggs.

A scramble with cheddar-gruyere and parmesan-gouda. Plus baby carrots for a quick veggie on the side.

d{warning} Do not recommend: the altered quinoa soup I blogged about last weekend.

I see why Cooking Light only used a quarter cup of grains, by day 2 our leftovers were very well-hydrated quinoa with not a drop of broth to be found.

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: oats

Butter Pecan Mochi

Japanese Kit-Kats And Trader Joe’s Nitro Cold Brew

Duck Confit

Cold Brew With Condensed Milk

I Can’t Choose A Favorite!

Chocolate “Cheesecake” Oatmeal

Crab Rangoon Grilled Cheese

4 x 3 = 12