Yogurt bowls of note – Plain skyr with passionfruit syrup, white chocolate passionfruit truffle, blackberries, blueberries, and maple pecan granola.
Plain skyr with granola, strawberries, and persimmon.
Iced matcha with condensed milk and plum seltzer.
These Kodiak s’mores bars taste exactly like the Chewy bars from your childhood.
Abomination Brewery’s Fogsicle is obviously our new favorite summer beer – sour double IPA with peach, vanilla, and marshmallow.
I liked the flavor of this maple cardamom candied pecan ice cream but the texture was a little funky.
I finally hopped on the TikTok smashburger taco trend and it was worth the hype. With ground turkey, extra-sharp cheddar, and a house sauce on the side. Plus roasted cauliflower.
Dinner inspired by my favorite dish from Very Fresh Noodles. Buckwheat soba / quick cucumber salad with sugar and rice vinegar / in the food processor – crumbled super-firm tofu baked until crispy, roasted serrano pepper and green onion, basil, Sichuan peppercorn, extra-virgin olive oil, crunchy yellow peas / topped later with chili crisp.
The title is a quadruple threat pun – I had things from my current hometown in Long Island, things that remind me of my original hometown in the Caribbean, things made at home, and things from a place called Hometown! Some highlights from the weekend…
Plus I got an insane build-your-own breakfast sandwich – cheddar biscuit, over easy egg, turkey bacon, caramelized onion, pickled beet, white cheddar, and smoked aioli.
And I brought home scones too! Cinnamon roll-style and pistachio.
Cheesecake smoothie. Frozen strawberries and pineapple with water and cottage cheese.
Tony’s Lil’ Bits s’mores chocolates are great, a good combination of crunchy and chewy.
Takeout dinner from Coco’s Cuisine, a Jamaican place near us that we will be going back to ASAP. We shared stewed oxtail with sauteed cabbage and candied yam.
Fantastic jerk chicken with cabbage and perfect rice and beans.
Baked macaroni and cheese.
And Jamaican black cake (good, but we prefer the other style of Caribbean rum cakes).
Saturday night Adam and I went all out making dinner. Mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, roasted broccoli, and baked chicken with bbq sauce (a homemade Mediterranean bbq sauce with pomegranate and sumac!).
P.S. I wrote this post Sunday evening and we are about to head to a fancy Long Island dinner at the new(ish) Oak and Vine.
My other song title option was “Like It Was 1980,” and if you don’t get that reference you are sorely missing out! This week’s dinner theme was Americana/nostalgia. We made Salisbury steak, tuna pasta salad, macaroni and cheese, and chili and grilled cheese sandwiches!
Highlights from the past four days include…
After-school snacks. Apple + peanut butter (I didn’t have mini marshmallows to make smiles!). This was a Sugar Bee apple and it was wonderfully crisp and sweet.
Important note – the Whole Foods unsweetened crunchy peanut butter is wonderful. It is some of the best I’ve ever had and certainly outranks the other options at this price point. Just peanuts and salt.
This week’s yogurt bowl combo was plain skry, blackberries, peanut butter, and Nature’s Path honey almond granola.
Love Corn bbq corn nuts. These have a very satisfying consistency.
Junior Mints minis are fantastic. They are like the popping boba of chocolate candies.
Fun in sparkling waters – Target caffeinated cherry cola and Ruby tart hibiscus. Both were an 8/10.
I had never actually tried Salisbury steak before but I loved it. We loosely followed this recipe but I used ground turkey and way more mushrooms. Plus roasted purple and Japanese sweet potato and zucchini.
I did not use Italian dressing in my tuna pasta though that is how I grew up eating it. Whole-wheat macaroni, canned tuna, roasted zucchini, edamame, extra-sharp cheddar, and balsamic vinegar. Maybe Italian is the way to go though? Adam and I both went back and topped our bowls with hot sauce.
Macaroni and cheese muffins. I used extra-sharp cheddar instead of parmesan and added mustard powder. Plus roasted broccoli.
Plus we had bbq Wilde chicken chips.
Chili = ground turkey, celery, white onion, fire-roasted tomatoes, fire-roasted green chiles, kidney beans, chicken broth, evoo, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. I topped my bowl with plain yogurt and hot sauce. Plus I made amazing grilled cheese sandwiches; the filling was a mixture of extra-sharp cheddar, marinated artichoke hearts, mayo, white pepper, mustard powder, and a pinch of sugar.
A bananas good cup of ice cream from Cold Stone. Banana pudding ice cream with bananas, peanut butter, caramel, and graham cracker pie crust.
Very spicy vegan dan dan noodles from Very Fresh Noodles. These wonderfully numbingly spicy hand-pulled noodles are some of the very chewiest (aka best) I’ve ever eaten. I adore how cooling the cucumber salad is with it.
Best meal of the weekend/month – homemade flatbreads. Lavash bread drizzled with olive oil and baked until crispy then topped with extra-sharp cheddar, baked chicken, and marinated artichoke hearts and baked again. We loved it! Plus steamed green beans sauteed with dijon mustard, yellow mustard, maple syrup, Sriracha, and rice vinegar.
No post from me last weekend because I was away in Kingston! My cousin invited me to go with her and some friends for the weekend and we had a fabulous time. I had not seen her since her wedding last summer and it was so good to catch up! Also Kingston is super cute and packed with coffee spots and bakeries — I will be bringing Adam for a day-trip ASAP. And this weekend we are heading to PA to visit Adam’s family for Easter.
Some things I ate between trips…
This Chameleon Cafe Cubano Cold Brew was great. I wasn’t super impressed with the last few bottles I tried from them but this had good body and roastiness.
I found super juicy, ruby colored watermelon plums at Trader Joe’s so obviously my yogurt bowls this week were winners. Plain Greek with plum and salted caramel granola.
Plain Greek with plum, peanut butter, honey, and Heritage Flakes.
I am usually not a snack cake person but these Lidl milk & honey bars were lovely. Maybe I would also like Devil Dogs if they were served cold?
This boring photo is a reminder to myself that hummus makes a great after-work snack.
So much Easter candy!
P.S. Dad – the Brach’s jelly beans were great this year and totally worth buying. There is a grape flavor now!
See also – I infused Peeps into vodka. Served with lemon seltzer and edible glitter.
Dinner date at Youta Ramen. They have the sake jelly drinks!
We shared spicy cucumber salad (Persian cucumber, Serrano lime cilantro sauce, with sesame oil).
And Karaage (deep fried chicken with garlic mayo).
And I got the veggie ramen – truffle veggie broth, maitake, shitake, wood ear tempura, fermented bamboo shoots, and scallion – plus an egg and chili paste.
Brinner wraps. I sauteed Trader Joe’s soyrizo with red onion then scrambled in eggs and extra-sharp cheddar. Wrapped in a TJ’s lavash bread. Plus roasted baby cauliflower.
Sandwich roll-ups on TJ’s whole-wheat lavash – baked honey harissa chicken, roasted garlic hummus, chopped cucumber and yellow bell pepper. Plus a raw bok choy salad with homemade miso vinaigrette (1 Tbsp miso paste whisked with 1 Tbsp warm water until smooth, 1 Tbsp each sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds, 1/2 Tbsp Sriracha, and 3 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar).
Best meal of the week was these loaded baked potatoes. I rubbed the potatoes in evoo and salt and baked at 400 for 60 minutes without wrapping in foil and they were perfect. Topped with leftover soyrizo, roasted broccoli and red onion, and extra-sharp cheddar.
Coffee at Frame. The Upper West Side location is currently our favorite Manhattan coffee. We got the special latte with cinnamon and caramel.
We had to make a couple of stops to find worthwhile bagels near us in Long Island but this everything egg with salmon cream cheese did the trick.
We did a very fun 1990’s theme night and watched “Hey Dude” and “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” while eating throwback snacks. The Combos were lackluster but we had forgotten just how wonderful Bugles and Gushers are.
I tried tanghulu for the first time and loved it. Fresh fruit with a delicate layer of crispy sugar.
Treats at Lady Wong. The baked ube rice cake was the very best thing we ate all weekend.
Lunch at Bahn. This was the best meal of the weekend. Egg cream cold brew!!
We shared vermicelli bowls with butter beef.
And beer-battered chicken.
Dinner at Maldon and Mignonette. The lighting was bad but the food was surprisingly good. I had a nice cocktail with tequila and passionfruit and a crunchy salt rim.
Seasoned roasted carrots.
We share two (amazing) pastas. Ravioli with duck confit, sweet potato, sage, and pecorino and pappardelle with short rib and vodka sauce.
And two desserts. Cinnamon bundt cake and cheesecake-stuffed oatmeal cookies!
No post from me last week because we were on VACATION. It was perfect! We went home to the Virgin Islands and got to start every single morning with a run and/or iced coffee and/or breakfast right on the water. Then we came back to New York and had a fancy stay at the Wall Street Hotel and an amazing meal at their restaurant (La Marchande).
Highlights from this week included…
Valentine’s things! Like heart-shaped candies.
Chocolate cherry protein bar from 88 Acres.
Chocolate covered cherry smoothie – plain Greek yogurt, frozen dark cherries, and chocolate milk.
Chocolate cherry cookies – this recipe with the addition of chopped cocktail cherries.
I paired this wonderfully pink peach apricot rose soda with vodka and edible glitter!
Do these winter citrus fruits count as on-theme because I love them? My last two juicy crunch tangerines were a bit lackluster though, so sumo mandarins have regained the number one spot in my heart.
Yogurt bowl with juicy crunch tangerine, canned peaches, blueberry jam, and granola.
Snack plate – pimento cheese dip scooped with mini cucumbers, baby carrots, and white cheddar popcorn chips.
This week’s dinners were all – a) fantastic and b) served in bowls. Butter chicken inspired tofu. Extra-firm tofu marinated in tomato sauce, olive oil, ginger, curry powder, and smoked paprika then sauteed. For the sauce I cooked the marinade with yellow onion, fresno chili, butter, tomato paste, and a big splash of half and half. Served with a quick cucumber and tomato salad (tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, pepper, and Sichuan pepper salt) and a blend of brown rice and riced cauliflower.
Cava inspired bowls. Leftover rice/cauliflower / leftover cucumber tomato salad / marinated grilled artichoke hearts / honey harissa baked chicken (we use this recipe as our base and it is perfect) / baby corn / Cava crazy feta dip.
Bowls very-loosely inspired by Bún thịt nướng. Whole-wheat vermicelli noodles / roasted brussel sprouts / tomatoes / chicken breast cooked in the crockpot with water, soy sauce, lime juice, honey, and ginger / topped with Nước chấm sauce and chili crisp.
It was a fantastic weekend (including a 6+ mile Manhattan walk)! Highlights include…
Banana protein coffee (blender – coffee, milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla protein powder, frozen banana); Adam and I both decided we adore this.
Interlude‘s Cadenza is one of the most exciting coffees we’ve had in a while. Shaken espresso served with Mexican Coke topped with cold foam and vanilla whipped cream.
Sadly, Doughnut Project is closing this month so we had to go get a final fantastic maple cruller.
Related – Daily Provisions‘ monthly cruller special is lemon poppy seed so obviously we got that too! This was even better than DP.
Rigor Hill Market‘s hot chocolate is a 10/10; thick and creamy, a good balance of bitter and sweet, and it comes with toasted marshmallows.
Joe’s Steam Rice Roll, we got beef with egg and scallions. The sauce trio makes this.
Dinner at Thai Diner. We arrived early and managed to snag a table. I got Phat See Ew with beef shortrib. Any dish with broad rice noodles and Chinese broccoli is a hit with me.
Plus pea shoots with garlic, chili, and salted soybeans.
Guava sour with vodka and mint.
Dinner at Backyard BBQ in Freeport. I didn’t have my camera but I did Instagram our giant spread because we loved it here. Brisket, chicken with an amazing bbq rub, candied yams, and pickles.
Plus smoked baked mac and cheese that we both thought was perfect. We also had an unphotographed cheese burger!
An easy homemade dinner – Trader Joe’s chicken taquitos baked topped with ground turkey, zucchini, smoky salsa, and cheddar.
Eating Chalk 