An easy one-sheet-pan dinner. Riced cauliflower roasted with carrot, celery, and chicken soup sausage.
The best homemade pizza. A frozen crust from Trader Joe’s / marinara sauce that I cooked down with tons of garlic and chili oil, plus fish sauce / smoked sliced mozzarella / turkey pepperoni. Plus roasted romanesco.
An eclectic salad. Baby romaine with sriracha-mayo dressing, wasabi peanuts, sesame seeds, yellow raisins, and leftover romanesco.
We had a great time this weekend visiting some of our favorite spots and discovering some new favorites! Highlights include…
High Low Beverage Company. Vietnamese-influenced with a gorgeous backyard. Cherry and lime leaf jelly doughnut.
Tiki New Fashioned – banana-infused Four Roses bourbon, Plantation pineapple dark rum, pandan syrup, tiki bitters / HiLo Hello – Thai chili-infused mezcal with lime, passionfruit, and cane syrup.
Papaya salad with sambal beef jerky, cabbage, herbs, peanuts, fried shallots, fresno chili, and plum vinaigrette.
Double Chicken, Please. Draft cocktails, massive sandwiches, and clever desserts! #2 – Teeling small batch whiskey, brown butter, black raisin, honey, verjus (warm) / #9 Barcardi Cuatro rum, St. Germain, verjus, amontilado sherry, banana, walnut.
Five spice and plum salt sweet potato chips.
Hen of the woods mushroom sandwich with seaweed and bamboo / fried chicken sandwich with shrimp, brioche, and salted duck yolk sauce.
Shot – mezcal with plum and shiso / ice ice weenie – chocolate ice cream on a potato bun with salted duck egg sauce, hot honey, and whiskey cream.
We found fresh soursop juice at the Dominican place in Essex Market.
All the beers (truly, almost all of the beers) at Evil Twin. My three favorites were the ET Stay Home 6 Royal Treatment – sour ale with peaches, papaya, pineapple, passion fruit, coconut, marshmallow, vanilla, and cacao / This Deli Needs a Bigger Double Kiwi Lime Coconut Muffin Lassi Gose / Luxurious Luxury – imperial Berliner gose with grapefruit, tart raspberry candy, coconut, and marshmallow.
We also finally checked out (and loved!) Bridge and Tunnel Brewery just down the street. Everything we tried was great but the standout was the F**k the Virus coconut New England IPA.
Super Moon Bakehouse. Epic baked goods. I loved this cookie butter, dulce de leche crunch cookie with my whole heart.
I also brought home a square of sourdough focaccia and made an insane turkey and cheddar sandwich.
I couldn’t contain myself but this terrible picture is to serve as a placeholder to remind Adam and I that we want takeout from The Meat Hook again immediately. We had several sandwiches and the best french onion dip I’ve ever tasted.
We retried the cola coffee with great success – espresso, Coke, and scm. Yes, I am furiously looking to get my hands on the newly released cans of Coke with coffee.
One of Adam’s friends delivered us amazing nutella, sea salt caramel brownies.
I obviously crumbled one into plain skyr with some berries and cinnamon.
Chicken nuggets with frozen broccoli wok-sauteed with honey mustard and pickled onions.
Goodbye 2020, hello 2021! Highlights from the last week/end of the year include…
It was our wedding anniversary on Monday and Adam knows me very well so he surprised me with flowers and ice creams. The coffee flavor had the best consistency, so chewy!
Local, NYE-themed beers. The Kills Boro was great, a sour with milk sugar, coconut, pineapple, and strawberry.
Pretzels with hummus + Whole foods chicken nuggets and honey mustard.
Trader Joe’s scallion pancakes topped with Kewpie, Sriracha, vegan pork floss, and furikake. <– reminder to myself to make this more often!
Smoked turkey sandwiches on pretzel rolls with strawberry jam, truffle mayo, and mozzarella. Plus potato chips and simple salads.
NYE cheese plates! Sharp cheddar / smoked almonds / blackberries and strawberries / Trader Joe’s gouda and cheddar cheese crisps / ruby cacao covered cherries.
I work all this weekend so clearly I jumped right back into my non-vacation life. It was actually a really busy work-week for me, I’ve been updating the hospital’s parenteral nutrition guidelines which is a fun but time-consuming project (in addition to my patient load). I am already quite excited for the next weekend – – in 8 days!
Double cherry truffle ice cream. I have been more than a little obsessed with these Magnum tubs throughout quarantine and cherry was my favorite variety yet!
These Slush Puppie ice pops fill me with an unfathomable amount of joy. They’re a total childhood favorite throwback and delicious to boot.
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.
My parents sent us a box of tamarinds and I found these strawberry cherries at Whole Foods.
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!
Watermelon-themed things since it’s almost July 4th. The winner of the bunch was definitely the Hal’s Seltzer.
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.
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.
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).
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.
I made some damn delicious meals this weekend; all of my dinners were winners. I am midway between my bimonthly grocery trips now though so we’ll see how next week goes.
Highlights include…
Phin coffee. We are head over heels for this system, the results are so velvety!
We ate yogurt bowls as a family. Mine had 2% Fage, honey, candied walnuts, cinnamon, espresso powder, and blueberries.
TJ’s vegan tikki masala. 9/10.
Leftover turkey meatballs. This simple batch – seasoned with salt, pepper, TJ’s umami powder, and Korean chili flakes – turned out so good.
We made Hummingbird High’s small batch brownies and they were hands-down the best brownies I’ve ever eaten. Insane. I added espresso powder and didn’t have any cocoa powder and they were next-level fudgy.
Pizza salad! Romaine, Greek feta dressing, roasted tomatoes, sharp cheddar, and pepperoni croutons (aka turkey pepperoni that I baked until crispy). Plus homemade garlic knots.
I made stromboli! With turkey, turkey pepperoni, and mozzarella. Plus roasted green beans.
Important update – this is how the dog likes to spend most of his time, on my lap, under a pillow.
