1, 2, 3 / 366

by Emily

We are four days into 2016 and I’ve yet to have a weekend day – my Christmas four-day weekend and an upcoming vacation (yay!) meant that it was my turn to work both the holiday and Saturday and Sunday. <–worth it! The weekend coverage shifts – and subsequent week days off – are one of the main “perks” of my new inpatient position. And clinically the last few days have been fascinating, lots of malnutrition, bowel obstructions, and parenteral feeds.

The only downside to the extra busy days (and terrible weekend-menu cafeteria food) is that there’s no #newyearnewyou around here, instead it’s been lots of junk food and zero gym time. You win some, you lose some.

daytime eats

I opened the year with an extra shot of espresso in my iced latte, a good way to start anything.

Plus an apple with cheese. My apple selection this weekend was Piñata and Pink Ladies, all of which were exceptionally juicy and crisp.

Saturday breakfast was all about the cartons – a winter cheer cold brew and an Icebox Water. The water was a freebie product review. It’s really hard to characterize the taste of water (unless you dislike it for some reason, Dasani tastes like carrots to me and I think it’s terrible) but I will say that I found this one enjoyable/refreshing and definitely inoffensive.

Obviously the ideal would be that people would refill reusable water containers but Icebox Water does offer a more environmentally sustainable option to bottled waters. Each BPA-free carton is 100% recyclable (and made of 76% less plastic than traditional bottles).

Sunday was my busiest day and thankfully my biggest coffee. Plus strawberry champagne(!!) seltzer.

The cafeteria is only partially open on the weekends and the offerings are grim. I relied mostly on packaged foods from home for lunches.

Plus gross cafeteria pizza that went unphotographed.

nighttime eats

You have to eat black eyed peas on the 1st.

I made my favorite BEP recipe – beans / chopped green pepper / smoked almonds / chopped Dubliner cheese / green Tabasco / plus the new addition of shredded chicken breast.

With a big pile of green beans roasted with shallots on the side.

Saturday we gussied up some long-ago leftover leftovers. I made my artichoke and mushroom pasta ~~unhealthy~~ great again by pan-cooking it in lots of evoo and adding an obscene amount of Sriracha and mozzarella cheese.

This was better than the original dish.

Sunday, Adam met me after work for date night. Fonda did not disappoint. I spotted the Rosalita margarita on Instagram and knew that it would be fantastic.

I was right! It’s a hibiscus margarita with a hibiscus salt rim, swoon.

We split a salad that was scrumptious – avocados, roasted carrots, toasted pecans, soft goat cheese and romaine hearts drizzled with a lime mustard vinaigrette. I swear, there was more avocado than lettuce!

As well as fried sweet plantains with sour cream and queso fresco.

Adam got chicken enchiladas and I got a vegetarian chile rellano.

Roasted poblano pepper filled with carrots, zucchini, corn kernels, pickled jalapeños and Chihuahua cheese. Served with a roasted tomato guajillo sauce, pickled onions and Mexican crema. Stuffed chiles are my favorite Mexican dish and this was the best version I’ve ever had.

With Kahlua tres leches for dessert.

We both want to go back immediately. I’ve got my eye on the brunch menu.

Snacks for the week included fancy popcorn from my stocking.

And cookies. David Lebovitz’s chocolate chip cookies really do deserve all the veneration they’ve gotten in the food press. I made a batch for a NYE party and both the party-goers and my co-workers lost their minds over them.

Recipe notes, because you know I always have to change something: I used salted butter, skipped the nuts and doubled the chocolate instead – a mix of semisweet and milk chocolate chips, and refrigerated the cookies as preformed balls instead of slice and bake logs. I don’t think my changes hurt anything, in fact I’m pretty sure the nut for chocolate swap was an improvement!

I also made a less lauded but still terrific peanut butter (chocolate chip) mug cookie.

My year is off to a sweet start!

31Dec2015

Goodbye, 2015

by Emily

It’s been a good year but I’m ready for 2016!

I still tend to think in terms of school years rather than calendar years, so I don’t usually set new year’s resolutions (though in 2015 I did lose a few pounds and make a major career move, woo-hoo!). However, for the past 5 years I have made it my mission to read at least 25 books a year. I’m pretty proud of the 35 I read this year so I included the list at the bottom of this post.

I’m heading to a NYE party tonight and then I’m up early for work on the 1st, so without further adieu, here’s the final wrap-up of the year…

breakfast

A final eggnog iced coffee while I set up my planner for 2016!!

Otherwise this was the coffee combo for the week –

With wonderful fruit options, a cocktail grapefruit.

And a piñata apple.

Plus tea at work.

Caramel was yummy, and it smelled delicious.

lunch

I had Monday off – the end of a fabulous four-day weekend – so I got to have a yogurt bowl at home.

Plain Fage with maple syrup, blackberries, chia seeds, and praline pecan granola.

Oatmeal from home, at work.

With vanilla almond butter.

Cafeteria salad bar.

I made myself a Greek salad with romaine with balsamic, marinated cucumber salad, tzatziki , tabbouleh , and falafel.

dinner

Monday was our 8-year wedding anniversary (we got married on our 5th dating anniversary so it was also our 13th year as a couple)!! I consider myself the luckiest person alive that I get to spend my life with Adam. We celebrated with food, of course. We headed into the city early and got our favorite coffee {Brooklyn Roasting Company},

and our favorite ice cream {Morganstern’s}.

We split a scoop of American egg with sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sprinkles.

Then we enjoyed our favorite dinner of the year (maybe my favorite dinner of our marriage!) at Bowery Meat Company. It was a truly epic meal of several courses whose highlights included roasted cauliflower, foie gras, Spanish wine, and an entire casserole of duck lasagna. We held hands, and giggled, and were generally disgusting, and I didn’t take a single picture*. *Other than instagramming the duck lasagna, because how could I not?

The nights at home, appetizers included delicious leftover buffalo chicken pizza and carrots with hummus.

I’ve determined that pretty much no matter what I eat for lunch I am frantic with hunger by the time I get home from work so I usually eat something before I try to make dinner.

Tuesday’s dinner didn’t require much time or effort though, because we brought home leftover duck lasagna. swoon.

I consider myself a fairly good cook and it is safe to say that I’ve never made a dish that tasted as good as these microwaved leftovers!

With salads on the side.

Spinach / lavender salt, lavender honey, evoo / sweet and spicy pecans / golden raisins.

And Wednesday I designed a quick dinner around this (former freebie) Bertolli Asiago Cheese and Artichoke sauce.

We tossed the sauce with sautéed mushrooms, artichokes, shredded chicken, and orecchiette pasta. It obviously couldn’t compete with the duck but was still good.

2015’s reading list

They’re listed in chronological order. F = fiction, NH = nonfiction, and M = memoir. I bolded the year’s top ten favorites.

Bones Never Lie – Kathy Reichs (f)
I Forget to Remember, A Memoir of Amnesia – Su Meck (m)
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted, And Other Small Acts of Liberation – Elizabeth Berg (f)
The Next Queen of Heaven – Gregory Maguire (f)
Fairyland, a Memoir of my Father – Alysia Abbott (m)
Yes, Please – Amy Poehler (m)
Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach (nf)
Born Round, A Story of Family, Food and a Ferocious Appetite – Fran Bruni (m)
Flesh and Blood – Patricia Cornwell (f)
With or Without You – Domenica Ruta (m)
The Story Sisters – Alice Hoffman (f)
Tender at the Bone – Ruth Reichl (m)
Comfort Me with Apples – Ruth Reichl (m)
Garlic and Saphires – Ruth Reichl (m)
Crash and Burn – Lisa Gardner (f)
Delancey – Molly Wizenberg (m)
Someone is Watching – Joy Fielding (f)
If Only You People Could Follow Directions – Jessica Henry Nelson (m)
Working Stiff – Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner – Judy Melinek M.D. (m)
The Removers – Andrew Meredith (m)
Let the Tornado Come – Rita Zoey Chin (m)
Bossypants – Tina Fey (m)
Unorthodox, The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots – Deborah Feldman (m)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery (f)
Delicious – Ruth Feichl (f)
Head Cases, Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath – Michael Paul Mason (nf/m)
Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood – Leah Vincent (m)
Speaking in Bones – Kathy Reichs (f)
My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places – Mary Roach (m)
Cooked, A Natural History of Transformation – Michael Pollan (nf)
Burn Down the Ground – Kambri Crews (m)
Thinking in Pictures, My Life with Autism – Temple Grandin (m/nf)
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee (f) {reread}
Go Set a Watchman – Harper Lee (f)
Gulp, Adventures on the Alimentary Canal – Mary Roach (nf)

Do you set new year’s resolutions?

11Dec2015

S’Mores And S’more

by Emily

Since I worked the weekend, I had Tuesday off this week, woo-hoo! I used the time to get my holiday gift shopping 100% purchased, wrapped, and packed for shipping, woo-hoo x2!

daytime eats

This week’s tea – Chestnut. This was my favorite flavor yet; not as good as coffee, of course, but still pretty sweet and roasty. And the smell is unbelievable, I got a yummy whiff every time I opened my desk.

With an almond cookie from my co-worker.

Or s’mores trail mix.

Wheat squares cereal, salted brown butter dark chocolate, sweet and spicy pecans, and these fancy marshmallows my aunt and uncle sent me for Hanukkah.

That s’mores box was gone within 24 hours.

This week’s coffee:

Also I enjoyed a Winter Cheer (Stumptown cold brew with mulling spices!) with a cocktail grapefruit (a mandarin and pomelo hybrid that has the tang of a grapefruit without the bitterness).

And one morning I made us pink smoothies – plain Greek yogurt and orange juice with frozen grapes, blackberries, and pomegranate.

I only have one work lunch photo this week, we have been slammed and I ate hurriedly at my desk while I worked so I mostly stuck to pizza.

But Tuesday at home I did eat a tasty yogurt bowl.

Plain Greek yogurt with the last of the cranberry sauce, fresh pomegranate, chia seeds, and Maple-icious Pecan Granola. I’m going to miss that sauce.

nighttime eats

First things first – I started almost every dinner this week with an appetizer of a big hunk of ciabatta schmeared with Smart Balance.

Also cocktail hour with this dream team:

Adam bought me those ridiculously exciting Luxardo cherries for my birthday and I’ve been hoarding them for winter cocktail hours ever since.

Monday night we harnessed the power of the soft-cooked egg yolk and made easy but amazing bowls.

Mine was roasted green beans, maple chicken breakfast sausage, and a sunny side up egg on top. Best meal of the week!

The leftovers weren’t half bad though, scrambled eggs with chopped sausage, frozen spinach, and TJ’s sticky toffee cheddar cheese.

Speaking of, I know it sounds ~~a little~~ a lot weird, but if you see that cheese a Trader Joe’s, buy it, the sweet and savory combo just works. Full disclosure though, it does have dates and raisins in it.

Wednesday and Thursday we ate giant Chipotle-style salad bowls.

Baby romaine base // sautéed onions and peppers // sautéed chicken that was marinated in ginger, garlic, chipotle, lime, honey, and canola oil // avocado // shredded cheese and sour cream.

If I could figure out how to make those fabulous lime-y chips at home we’d be able to stop going to Chipotle!

P.S. Happy birthday to my (funny, handsome, smart, kind) husband!!!

16Nov2015

Weekend’s Best…

by Emily

{Brunch} Adam and I had a great meal at Burnside Biscuits.

A great, giant meal. The Full Ration = 2 pieces of black tea, lemon, and thyme brined fried chicken; pimento cheese biscuits; and sunny side up eggs.

Plus a salty dog.

Everything was yummy, the chicken was both succulent and crispy.

{Lunch} Yogurt bowl. Honey Greek yogurt with pumpkin puree and maple pecan granola.

Plus a persimmon. Plus an apple and a cup of earl grey moonlight as a snack.

{Dessert} Birthday cake frozen yogurt with Nutella sauce.

Plus mochi and Reese’s cup.

{Dinner} Cheeseburger fried rice.

This was a homemade success. Brown jasmine rice stir-fried with eggs, tomato, basil, onion, cheddar cheese, and lean ground turkey.

Broccoli on the side.

The addition of cheese to the fried rice was a good one. We have a similar meal planned for next week now.

14Oct2015

Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

I know this post is running a bit late but it was a damn good weekend that was worth blogging. We drank, we brunched, we explored – all of the important stuff! Here are the highlights…

breakfast

7-11 iced coffee and a protein bar.

Starbucks iced coffee and a doughnut.

Doughnut Plant‘s pumpkin doughseed is a plain doughnut with pumpkin cream filling and super spicy cinnamon icing. It was interesting.

The best breakfast of all was spread out to include some city time. We got coffee in DUMBO.

Took the train in to the LES and walked two miles west.

To the gorgeous Brookfield place.

Where we headed to famed Black Seed Bagels.

Poppy with honey butter for me. It was wildly disappointing – no chew. But then we spent way too much money on candy at Le District.

And after a quick train ride we had a great walk back to the car through Cobble Hill. We got so lucky with the weather.

lunch

Yogurt bowl at work.

Pumpkin Noosa with a TJ’s pumpkin bar and a snap dragon(!!) apple.

Yogurt bowl at home.

Plain Fage with maple syrup, red grapes, granola, chia seeds, and maple pumpkin seeds.

The day I skipped the yogurt bowl I went big – lunch at Miriam in Park Slope.

I had Burekas, or puffed pastry pocket stuffed with feta & olives, served with poached eggs, labneh cheese, Israeli salad and tahini sauce. Everything was amazing, super fresh and flavorful. We want to go back for dinner immediately.

With ridiculously giant froyo bowls for dessert.

All of the toppings.

dinner

{Friday} Dinner appetizer – Kale chips.

Dinner drink – Rogue Pumpkin Savior, best pumpkin beer so far this season!

Dinner – roasted veggie fall forest gnome food.

Browned mushrooms // shredded chicken // turkey bacon // shredded Brussels sprouts // roasted butternut squash // baby spinach // pecans.

We make some iteration of this dish every fall, it’s one of our favorites.

{Saturday} Dinner appetizer – Shrimp, crab, salmon, and tofu skin fritters from Laverne.

Dinner drink – yummy root beer beer.

Dinner – turkey sandwich, red grapes, and fantastic seaweed salad.

{Sunday} Dinner, drinks, and appetizer were all wrapped up in one – I had beer with chips and dip… while watching bad tv… in bed. It was fabulous.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

1Oct2015

Goodbye, Apple Month

by Emily

Can you believe that it is already October?! Time has felt like it is flying ever since we moved back to the city but this year in particular is booking it. Never mind the fact that I am somehow 30 years old even though I still feel like high school was maybe six years ago tops.

breakfast

I kept this week’s coffee combo simple –

I wanted to be able to get a good feel for this stuff –

This was the perfect month to review* Rigoni di Asiago’s Dolcedì sweetener because it is made of apples! 10 kilograms of organic apples go into 1 kilogram of Dolcedì.

The liquid sweetener is USDA certified organic, gluten-free, vegan, and kosher, and can be used in the same ways you would use table sugar (1 teaspoon of Dolcedì would substitute for 1 teaspoon of sugar, a 1:1 ratio) in hot and cold drinks. It has 15 calories per Tbsp (table sugar has 15 per teaspoon). You can also use it in baking but I haven’t tried that yet.

The liquid is sweet but flavorless so it really doesn’t alter the taste of your drink – unlike honey and agave – and I found that it quickly dissolved completely into solution in my iced coffee. I don’t typically sweeten my drinks but when I do I would definitely use the Dolcedì again in the future.

Along with my sweetened coffees I had bars

and orchard apples.

We were not impressed with the scant variety available for apple picking but these ended up being some of the best apples any of the four of us have ever eaten.

lunch

Plain yogurt with blueberries and pomegranate, sea salt caramel apple granola and chia seeds, and an apple on the side.

Plus I brought in turtle pretzel magic bars for my coworkers and I totally snagged one for after lunch.

The other days I stuck with THIS for dessert –

Omg.

Kodiak flapjack on the go and TJ’s freeze-dried Fuji apple slices.

I hated the pancake cup – it was like choking down raw batter – but those apples are amazing. I shared a taste with two coworkers who said they were the best they’ve ever had.

Plain Siggi’s with blueberries, strawberry preserves, and caramel apple granola and chia seeds.

The caramel apple chia combo has rocked my world this month, though I have had to start carrying floss in my purse to deal with errant seeds.

“dinner”

Dinners this week were exceedingly weak. Apparently our busy weekend of walking wore us out because Adam and I have been unbelievably tired. Like on Monday we got into bed at 7:30 pm tired. And then on Tuesday we took a nap before bed. I guess maybe I do feel thirty!

Monday I ate a Starbucks chicken Santa Fe sandwich on the train.

It was good, and thank goodness because when I got home I ate this strawberry Cow Tail under the covers.

Hence “dinners.”

Tuesday I at least legitimately included some vegetables in my snack-based dinner. Carrots with hummus.

Several rounds of pretzels with string cheese.

And roasted green beans.

This was actually a pretty balanced meal.

And Wednesday I cooked a grown-up dinner.

Can you call heating up a package of TJ’s Palak Paneer cooking?

I had to make the brown jasmine rice and roasted zucchini we served it with so I’m counting it.

With a dollop of goat’s milk yogurt on top. And my final La Brea Bakery review* on the side – flatbread.

They were all good but this was our favorite bread so far. It had that perfect naan texture, fluffy yet chewy. And the flatbread includes sprouted whole wheat flour (along with white flour) which made the flavor just a bit more interesting. A+.

P.S. Now it’s October it is finally Pumpkin Month!!!

*These products were provided to me free of charge to review. I was not provided any additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

19Sep2015

This Week’s Top Five

by Emily

{1} Coffee.

I know this gets repetitive but coffee is just so freaking good!

The winner this week was the double espresso with ice and cream from a coffee shop near my hospital.

{2} Chocolate with pretzels.

I brought the toffee candy to work and my co-workers lost their minds over it. We did too; it was a good thing I got it out of the house or I think Adam and I could have finished the tray in a day or two.

Also yummy pretzel chocolate from Lindt.

Yes, I had dessert every evening this week.

{3} Apple month stuff.

Apple-pear pouch. I sprinkled the SuperSeedz on a pretty killer salad from the cafeteria salad bar.

Salted caramel apple granola (with chia seeds) on my yogurt.

And this apple explosion lunch.

Caramel apple oatmeal, TJ’s freeze-dried apples, and Salty Road caramel apple taffy.

{4} Loaded baked potatoes.

These bowls were fantastic.

Baked potato / roasted broccoli with green onions / homemade baked beans / topped with plain yogurt, sharp cheddar, and green Tabasco.

For the baked beans: Sauté tons of white and yellow chopped onions. Add sliced turkey hot dogs, pinto beans, and tomato sauce and let things cook for awhile. Then season with brown sugar and Gochujang.

They were so yummy I ate the leftovers cold.

{5} Dinner at Mile End.

Mile End Delicatessen is my new favorite deli, which is a big deal because the place I grew up going to had a pickle bar! MED did have tasty hibiscus beer…

And poutine made with smoked chicken gravy.

And roasted cauliflower with caraway honey, harissa paste, and toasted pistachios. This had the best texture, crunchy on the outside and silky soft in the middle.