Doughnuts And Coffee; Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

coffee, coffee

So, you know how we’re obsessed with coffee? Like, problematically obsessed? I might like it as much as Diet Coke. This post is going to include a coffee brewer review. Adam, who drinks at least two cups a day, prefers his hot. I get iced 95% of the time, but when I’m home I’ll drink it hot if it’s fresh. Long story short – even though I mostly stick with cold-brew in my French press, we do in fact need a more traditional brewing option in the house. So when iCoffee offered to send me an Opus Single-Serve Brewer to review, I said “yes!”

Please note – this product was sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

According to the company, the iCoffee system uses steam to help create a nice, smooth, non-bitter flavor. A patent-pending SpinBrew needle spins, steams and stirs the coffee inside of the single-serve cup, creating a mini-French Press effect that cannot be achieved by other brewers.

The Opus has a “Dial-a-Brew” control which allows you to customize strength and taste by choosing any brew size between 4 and 12 ounces in half-ounce increments. It can brew 10 ounces in less than 60 seconds, so it’s nice and quick. The drip tray is magnetic, so it can pull out to accommodate my tall go-cup.

They sent me a few cups to get me started. Adam had one of the Marley Coffees and loved it.

The Opus is cool because it is compatible with all k-type cups, including K-Cup, RealCup, OneCup and all private label cups (unlike the Keurig system that only uses K-cups). That said, I find single use cups to be insanely wasteful, the reason I accepted the brewer to review is because it is compatible with a reusable iCup.

I have made a few cups that way with the coffee we already had at home (marshmallow flavored!) and it’s all worked out quite well. I could see how the cup could have the propensity to break but replacements are only $12.95.

In short – we are fans! We would rate the system 4.5+ out of 5 and plan on giving it a permanent spot on our countertop.

copycat Chipotle bowls

Another thing we’re obsessed with? Loaded rice bowls from Chipotle. After making (multiple!) weekly Chipotle runs for the past several months it was time for us to finally make our own at home.

So many layers of flavor! Including:

jasmine rice with chopped cilantro and lime juice stirred in
sautéed mushroom, onion, and green pepper
corn sautéed with chopped jalopeño
black beans reheated with cilantro and lime juice
chicken that was marinated with lime juice, sugar, and green tomatillo salsa
shredded cheese, light sour cream, and homemade guacamole

So darn good!

And round two the next night – topped with green Tabasco – was just as good, maybe even better.

Plus we split a Warlock.

And a Mokaccino TCHO bar that we brought home from Blue Bottle in San Francisco.

Roasty good.

coffee and doughnuts

On Sunday we did a bit of a walking brunch around Chelsea in Manhattan. Stumptown Coffee –> Doughnut Plant –> Blue Bottle Coffee –> Doughnuttery. It was great fun!

We shared cold brew and an espresso at Stumptown.

It was my first time at the Ace Hotel, which is stunning.

Then made our way to Doughnut Plant.

We shared a hazelnut chocolate doughseed which was only ok.

And I got a Tres Leches filled caked doughnut that was amazing.

Best doughnut I’ve eaten all year. The filling was definitely reminiscent of Tres Leches and the doughnut had a great, crisp crust. I’ve been wanting to go get this flavor since last summer and it did not disappoint.

Doughnuttery ended up not appealing to us, but we did enjoy another cold brew from Blue Bottle.

I told you we have a coffee problem!

city living

We may not have gotten Doughnuttery, but it brought us into Chelsea Market which we loved the crap out of.

It was gorgeous (Christmas decorations!),

and there were so many tasty things that we want to try.

We’ll be back.

Instead we headed uptown to Xi’an Famous Foods for hand-pulled noodles.

Flipping yum! I went with the vegetarian spicy noodles and they rocked my socks off. The chew was out of control.

Meanwhile Adam was positively swooning over his pork bowl.

Then we went to Rockefeller Center and stared at the tree.

I ♥ New York!

24Nov2014

San Francisco Recap, Day 1 & 2

by Emily

If you follow me on instagram you’ve already figured this out, but {surprise!} I’ve been in San Francisco for the past week. Adam had the last two weeks of November for vacation again this year so I took the time off as well. We spent week 1 on the West coast and now we are headed off to Ohio for Thanksgiving family time. So far it’s been great!

I have a ton to share from SF – we basically walked and ate all day, every day – so I’m going to try to keep myself from being too wordy, but I’ll still need to split this up into three posts…

We had non-stop flights each way which was awesome. Monday we flew out around noon so we had a little time at home in the morning and then with the time change a full afternoon of vacation. Plus there was free television and movies on the plane which was basically the most exciting thing ever.

Plane food. Coffee, plus a white cheddar and pumpkin butter sandwich and tasty pretzel sticks.

The time flew by and before we knew it we were struggling up super steep hills on our way to dinner.

We had a late reservation so we stopped for bubble tea first. Brown sugar ice milk with egg pudding and grass jelly. Apparently I love egg pudding. And grass jelly.

And we got to keep our cool bottles.

Dinner was Waterbar, a sustainable seafood spot right near the Bay Bridge.

I got a cocktail with Buffalo Trace bourbon, Heering cherry liqueur, Benedictine, and orange zest.

We split a leek and parsnip soup with smoked trout that was very yummy (I had lots of good trout this trip).

And for dinner I did pan-roasted sablefish – caught in Fort Bragg, CA – with globe artichokes, butterball potato, grapefruit, nicoise olives, and chervil.

I adored the artichokes, but sadly didn’t like my fish at all. This was the only meal that I didn’t love on the trip. My food was practically floating in a watery sauce and I hate that. Adam, on the other hand, thought my dish was great and basically licked his plate clean. He enjoyed his ono with uni butter so much that I still definitely consider the meal a win.

And we did have brown sugar brioche bread pudding, with butterscotch pecan ice cream, for a fabulous dessert.

’twas a great first night.

Tuesday morning we headed out for a run in the neighborhood around our hotel. We ended up happening on the Palace of Fine Arts. It was beyond gorgeous.

I am so glad we got to see it.

We had a beautiful morning exploring Fisherman’s Wharf.

Including a stop for a fresh bowl of crab chowder.

We took the ferry for a tour of Alcatraz.

Then we spent the afternoon at the Ferry Building Marketplace.

We loved it there and went back almost every subsequent day. I was crazy jealous of people buying fancy mushrooms.

We shared a greens 2 juice from Pressed.

An iced coffee with milk and sugar from Blue Bottle.

And a Duck Yeah sundae – vanilla ice cream on duck fat pecan pie – from Humphry Slocombe.

I thought the ice cream was great, but not as good as Ample Hills. Adam looooooved it.

We also hit up Slanted Door’s Out the Door for Vietnamese iced coffee and buns.

Chicken bun for me.

We had dinner reservations at SD later in the week and this first taste got us very amped up.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the piers and staring at the sea lions.

Snacks included salt water taffy,

chunks torn off a loaf of sourdough from Boudin,

and a very lackluster drinking chocolate from Ghiradelli.

The chocolate was literally the only dish that didn’t knock our socks off all week, a pretty good track record if you ask me.

We were exhausted from walking around all day so we did Mexican take-out and hotel room cable tv for dinner.

Mushroom nachos for me.

It was a great first two days!!

Wednesday and Thursday coming tomorrow…

10Nov2014

Lunch And Learn; Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

I spent Friday and Saturday in New Jersey at a pediatric nutrition conference getting my learn on. A girlfriend, a co-worker, and I all went together and we had a very nice time. It stinks to lose a Saturday to “school,” but the lectures did include pediatric nutrition support, oncology, failure to thrive, and GI disorders; all big interests of mine. The conference ran for 8 hours each day but since it was only an hour or so away from the city I did get to have some fun with the husband in the evenings too.

Here are five favorites from the weekend…

{1} Saturday’s breakfast.

Getting to Jersey for the conference meant waking up by 5:30 both Friday and Saturday. On a typical workday, I should be up by 6:50; 50% of the time I set my alarm for 5:20, and 100% of the time I wake up after 7:10, so I was understandably a bit worried about the early wake-ups. I was excited about the conference so I managed, but Saturday was easier because Adam drove us in and I was looking forward to time in the car with him.

We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for the new cookie lattes – Snickerdoodle and Sugar Cookie – which were only okay,

and at La Bagel Delight for an everything bagel with jalopeño cheddar cream cheese.

That was great, obviously.

{2} Conference eats.

I didn’t do the best job of packing breakfast/lunch the first day and was not very happy throughout the afternoon. On Saturday, the three of us used the break to drive to Chipotle for a real lunch.

My friend and I split a rice bowl, which is always good.

And, as we were driving home I spotted a Sonic!!

Strawberry diet cokes are flipping amazing. My friend thought I was crazy for freaking out when we saw the sign, but once she tasted it she got it.

{3} Dinner in Koreatown.

Friday night, I met Adam in Penn Station (we took the train that day) and we walked over to Koreatown for dinner. There is a food court there that we had been dying to try.

We shared a steamed red bean bun.

Then got big bowls of bibimpap for dinner.

Mine, with tofu and tons of kimchi, was delicious.

We tried a canned coffee for dessert.

And stopped at Tous le Jours for mochi to share as well.

The chocolate was good but the maple was better. Soooo chewy.

{4} Sushi in Park Slope.

Saturday we ended up at Yamato, a favorite spot of Adam’s from when we lived in Brooklyn.

Salad with ginger dressing to start.

Veggie roll combo.

The cucumber avocado roll was the best, but I smothered everything in wasabi.

Plus we stopped and got hot chocolate for dessert.

That’s a homemade marshmallow!

{5} A package from Dannon Creamery.

Dannon’s newest line, Dannon Creamery sent me a super cool box of samples.

These desserts were sent to me free of charge to review. I received no further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

DC makes cheesecakes made with Greek yogurt plus three flavors of pudding, all averaging about 200 calories per serving/cup. I had tried the strawberry cheesecake on my own in the past and didn’t like it, but I was pleasantly surprised by the two other flavors I’ve tried so far.

Lemon cheesecake was opened pretty much the minute I got the package.

Nothing artificial about the topping and the mouthfeel of the cheesecake was great; I’m a fan!

I also quite enjoyed the dark chocolate pudding (with a leftover chocolate chip cookie).

I’m looking forward to the other flavors.

7Nov2014

No Sleep Till Brooklyn; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

Oh my gosh, Brooklyn is so freaking great! <– I could probably just stop here, that pretty much sums up the salient points of this post

I was a little all over the place this week so I don’t have a ton of pictures to share, but Adam and I did go out to two amazing dinners that I need to rave about. Other than that, I have about 30% of breakfast/lunch/snacks.

The husband worked several overnight shifts this week and I took advantage of my alone time by making the super adult decision to stay up until 3am on a work night catching up on the entire new season of “Criminal Minds.”

source

Here are some snippets of cafeteria breakfasts…

That second thing was some biscuit/pastry Western omelet hybrid. Strange, but not bad.

And of course, there were many {many} coffees.

Yogurt bowl lunches…

KIND Banana Nut Clusters with my blackberries and butterscotch peanut butter with my raspberries.

And snacks at my desk…

I also bought the new peppermint cookie chocolate bites from Starbucks and they were great.

Now on to the good stuff, two amazing, fantastic, fantasmic, socks-rocking dinners in Brooklyn!

#1 Berlyn

This space was gorgeous. I couldn’t get any good shots of the décor (or the food for that matter!) but our table felt like it could be sitting in a clearing in some German forest.

I ordered the Hemingway Daiquiri and it ended up being the best cocktail I’ve ever been served.

The menu listed Caña Brava Rum, Luxardo Maraschino, grapefruit juice, and lime juice, but I swear that I could also taste cinnamon in there. I liked it so much I kept us out late ordering a second round after dinner. Adam’s beer was amazing as well; I don’t remember it’s name but it positively reeked of honey.

We shared a house-made pretzel to start,

which came with the best honey mustard I’ve ever tasted. <– noticing a theme here?? I wouldn’t say that Berlyn is the best restaurant I’ve ever been to but many things on their menu were certainly the best ever in their categories.

Adam ordered pork schnitzel for his entrée so I decided to try two small dishes.

Potato pancakes that came topped with smoked trout and pickled cucumbers.

And fried Brussels sprouts with a pine nut aioli.

Best fried Brussels sprouts we’ve ever had and the aioli was seriously indescribably good. Adam and I both were gasping at how yummy it was.

The dessert course didn’t sound quite as terrific to us so we headed over to Four & Twenty Blackbirds for the best espresso in Brooklyn.

And came home with slices of pie to eat in front of “Brooklyn 99.”

My salted honey slice was legit.

#2 Thistle Hill Tavern <– from the owner of Talde and Pork Slope

I ordered a New Old Fashioned, which was made with Four Roses, Laird’s Applejack, maple bitters, lemon, and brown sugar.

So good, though bourbon is always good.

I started with the Kale Taco Salad. Kale dressed in salsa verde with cheddar, spicy pickled vegetables, and a fried tortilla.

This was the best kale salad I’ve ever eaten (<– I’ll stop now, promise!).

Dinner was the fish and chips with their famous salt and pepper fries.

I don’t know why I keep ordering fish and chips because I never eat much of the fried fish, but this was definitely the best version (sorry!) I’ve ever had.

Adam swooned his way through a slice of maple bourbon pumpkin pie,

but I held out for the best ice cream in the world, Ample Hills.

Good God. “No Sleep till Pumpkin” = coffee ice cream with pumpkin gooey butter cake and underneath was “PB Gets Fluffy” = marshmallow ice cream with chocolate flakes and homemade peanut butter cookie dough. Just fabulous. Neither of us could believe how good the pumpkin coffee flavor was.

What is the best restaurant in your city?

31Oct2014

Best Pizza Ever; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

Happy Halloween!

Things were busy, busy, busy, busy this week at work. <– if you don’t read that in the voice of the magician from “Frosty the Snowman” then you didn’t have a childhood and you need to go rent the movie immediately!

As I’ve mentioned, my clinic is transferring over to an electronic medical record system at the end of this year. The nutrition department needs a new charting form (built from scratch) to accommodate our specific patient population, but since I am the entire department things have been pretty hectic. Plus we are in the middle of planning a big event and I randomly had a bunch of newly diabetic patients this week.

Additionally, I do some consulting work on the side reviewing nutrition educations and I had a big batch of articles to get through this week. I really enjoy the work – did you know that I did some editing/reviewing for a famous Caribbean author as a child? – but it can be hard to get motivated to get myself back into work mode once I’m home and changed into Adam’s sweatpants at the end of the day. Snacks help.

My meals were all totes amaze this week and/but you will see quite a bit of repetition…

breakfast

Vega Peanut Butter Cup Bar and an orchard apple.

Iced coffee with chocolate soy milk and an apple.

Orchard apples and espresso with milk and sugar.

The energy shot in the middle was a sample from my Urth Box and it was a giant nope.

lunch

Yogurt bowl. It’s funny, at least once a week someone will comment about how good my yogurt lunch looks.

Dannon Pumpkin Pie Greek with fresh blackberries and TJ’s Pumpkin O’s. Plus a candy corn salt water taffy.

Take-2.

With TJ’s pumpkin Greek and Pop Rocks.

Dark Chocolate Mint bar from Zing.

This was all I had time to eat on Thursday but it kept me full all afternoon. Thanks, 10 grams of protein.

snack time

Lindt’s “Hello My Name Is” bars are pretty much my favorite. Cookies and Cream!

An “Apple Pie A la Mode” = honeycrisp apple cider + RumChata + Goldschläger.

Locally-made yogurt.

Trying to bribe myself into doing my freelance work, I … stole some of Adam’s Cheetos (we both are a little bit insane about themed foods),

Ate licorice bears,

And dipped a big, sliced apple into butterscotch peanut butter.

The apple dippers beat out my other snacks in nutrition and flavor.

dinner

We made Rachael Ray’s Pasta with Pumpkin and Sausage using this fun pasta as our base.

We tend to rarely repeat recipes but this is one we’ve made several years in a row now (back in the day!).

So good. I subbed TJ’s soy chorizo for sausage and fat-free half and half for cream but otherwise followed the recipe.

Round 2.

I made a big bowl of leftover pumpkin pasta and leftover white cheddar macaroni with spinach, topped with chunky cranberry apple sauce that one of my nutrition co-workers made for me.

Adam was not willing to put fruit on his pasta, but my bowl was delicious.

Pizza Night!

Ugh. These came out so flipping yummy and neither Adam or I could shut up about it. We loaded them with ridiculous toppings and they probably ended up being far more caloric than delivery but they were also the best pizzas we’ve ever eaten. We used a ball of dough from Trader Joe’s and it split perfectly into two nicely sized pizzas.

Traditional – marinara sauce / low-fat shredded mozzarella / sautéed green pepper rings / tons and tons of mushrooms browned in butter.

Plus, slightly less traditional.

Oh yes, you know I went there! The best pizza I’ve ever eaten ever including the amazing, giant slices of Buffalo chicken from Zetti’s – pumpkin puree / low-fat shredded mozzarella / TJ’s Pacific Rock cheddar / onions sautéed with liquid smoke and smoked brown sugar / tons of crumbled turkey bacon.

Plus we had sautéed kale on the side, with liquid smoke, maple syrup, and more bacon.

For nutrition.

We also shared a Warlock.

Best of the season! There wasn’t actually much pumpkin flavor, this was just a really delicious stout.

Round 2.

Leftover pizza.

Kale chips with truffle salt and roasted broccoli with bbq.

The pizza was just as swoon-worthy eaten cold. How do I get more, immediately? And we ate this while watching “Nightmare Before Christmas” so I was pretty much exploding with excitement. <– picture strange, giddy laughter and me singing along with my mouth stuffed full of pizza.

What was on the best pizza you’ve ever eaten?

27Oct2014

Apples All Around; Long Week Wrap-Up

by Emily

We have been enjoying the heck out of my apple picking haul. There were a few days last week when I ate an apple with all three meals! Too bad my husband’s a doctor, I don’t want to keep him away!

I haven’t blogged a recap since last Sunday so I’ve got quite a bit to share…