Flan And Floats

by Emily

Five fun things from the past weekend:

{1} My cousin graduated from VCU with her doctorate like a total badass so we had family in town for celebratory fun.

{2} We had an amazing meal at Little Star, culminating in the best flan I’ve ever tasted.

{3} My hair is pink(ish) thanks to this temporary tint spray. It is subtle, but there’s more color than I was able to capture in a photo.

{4} Adam and I had the best snacks. Wegman’s mint chocolate chip yogurt.

Super meta – smoked gouda pimento cheese dip scooped with pimento cheese chips.

We made root beer floats with what turned out to be the best ice cream of all time – CoolHaus’ The Best of Both Worlds vanilla tastes like a marshmallow dream.

{5} I made a tasty dinner. Chicken tenders (cooked similarly to this) with whole wheat panko and silk chili // dipped in homemade honey mustard // with honey glazed brussels sprouts.

We sipped on this surprisingly good Three Notch’d sugarcane pecan all while we cooked.

10May2019

Tahini And Tamarind

by Emily

Highlights from a yummy week…

Coffee, coffee, coffee.

It was Carnival back home while my mom was visiting us and she brought up the best tamarind balls I’ve ever eaten.

These dried baby pineapples from Trader Joe’s (unsweetened, unsulfured) are delicious.

Chocolate-dipped gummi bears.

Chocolate-dipped, cookie dough-wrapped ice cream balls! We are obsessed with these Wallops.

Double dose of double IPAs.

Simple sandwich night. TJ’s white whole wheat bread, Sir Kensington urfa chili mayo, smoked sliced turkey, havarti. With roasted green beans.

I made a tasty hash. Shredded potatoes with kimchi, leeks, green onion, and turkey bacon. Plus a fried egg.

This was the best meal of the week though.

Egg casserole – baked eggs with chives, sun-dried tomato, and mozzarella.

Broccoli salad – roasted broccoli and red onion / turkey bacon / raisins / sunflower seeds / maple tahini sauce.

6May2019

Vino + Virginia Visitors

by Emily

We had a great weekend being tourists in Charlottesville + the surrounding area because my mom was in town. She came up for a quick visit and we all had a blast!

We celebrated May the Fourth…

Went on wine tastings…

Explored the farmer’s market…

Five fun highlights were –

{1} Charlottesville City Market. We saw someone hand-pressing tortillas so obviously we had to get a chicken taco.

Plus I never turn down Vietnamese iced coffee.

{2} Rocket Coffee in Crozet. I had a great iced latte plus a bagel (<– shipped in from H&H in NYC!) with cream cheese.

{3} Spirits from Vitae. We loved it here! So many Caribbean flavors and they did a theme menu for May the Fourth. I had a taster of paw paw liquor plus a Cantina Punch – golden rum, mauby syrup, pomegranate juice, lemon, and aloe juice.

{4} Dinner at Maya. I didn’t snap any pictures but it was the best meal of the weekend! I had the crispiest, most succulent duck confit of my life and we shared a s’mores torte with housemade marshmallow fluff!

{5} Dinner at Tillmans. Greek salad plus pimento cheese served with red pepper jelly and crostini.

Hope it’s a great week!

29Apr2019

Chocolate + Coffee, Chocolate + Peanut Butter

by Emily

Highlights from the past week…

Personal Life:

We had several boons come together in the last week or so. Related – I am waaaay overdue on sharing some big life updates. In short, the highlights are –

Adam is officially a board-certified surgeon (woo-hoo!)
Adam got his dream job and is all set up to be a critical care attending in New York this summer (woo-hoo!!)
We’ve lined up our New York apartment
Our lease here was a month short but we’ve finally lined up a place to live in Charlottesville in July

Television:

I finally talked Adam into watching “Hart of Dixie” with me and he is as smitten as I am! Related – read this Buzzfeed article.

The Bob Dylan cover in this terrible WGU commercial makes me ugly cry every single time I hear it.

Food:

This was one of my best coffee combos this year, Dark as Dark with chocolate milk.

Related – Whole Food’s hazelnut mochas (with light syrup, extra espresso, and ice) are freaking delicious.

Both of our moms went a bit overboard and we are drowning in Easter candy. The highlight, as always, is these pectin jelly beans.

And the low was these terrible new m&m’s.

Still loving these Stinger peanut butter cracker bars.

Related – I finally found these in a snack-sized kids portion and now I am eating even more of them.

We had a duo of fruity beers that did not disappoint. Abita’s Lounging Iguanas pineapple coconut IPA is a 10/10.

Pizza night. A simple turkey pepperoni pizza on Trader Joe’s cauliflower crust plus a simple side salad.

Trader Joe’s vegetable biryani with vegetable dumplings frozen meal.

I made a veggie take on this fire chicken with cheese.

With tofu instead of chicken, plus roasted broccoli and Japanese sweet potato.

19Apr2019

BBQ Chips, BBQ Beans, BBQ Nachos

by Emily

Highlights from the last week include several new (to me) things…

I don’t usually show my at-work meals, but I wanted to share one of the perks of working in the South – biscuit breakfast sandwiches in the hospital cafeteria. This had turkey chorizo sausage, a cage-free fried egg, and cheddar.

These Don’t Go Nuts granola bars have the best texture, almost like a streusel.

Other snack highlights include this assortment of bbq flavored crisped chickpeas and corn.

Chocolate beers and hibiscus drinks. I loved the s’mores beer, liked the tea, and hated the other two.

My aunt shared a recipe for Chicken Provencal Soup with us and we loved it for dinner. It’s packed with potato, diced tomato, onion, carrot, and celery. I dipped some naan in my broth.

We made fantastic bbq bowls another night. Collard greens and celery (sauteed with lemon, garlic, butter, and harissa hot sauce) // shredded chicken (cooked in the crock pot with ketchup, yellow mustard, brown sugar, cayenne, paprika, and red onion) // baby heirloom tomatoes // and smoked paprika candied pecans. Remind me to cook more collards!

We turned our leftovers into something fantastic with the help of these two products. 1) Hickory BBQ kettle chips that Boulder Canyon sent me to sample. FYI – Boulder Canyon chips are – certified gluten free – trans fat free -vegan – kosher – made with green energy. They had a good amount of smoke and tang and weren’t greasy at all. Bonus, my bags, at least, had tons of foldsies! 2) Borlotti beans that we bought at Mekelburg’s just because the box was so pretty.

BBQ kettle chips + beans + leftover chicken + roasted corn + sharp cheddar + smoked paprika = nachos!

15Apr2019

Bowls On Bowls

by Emily

Seven wins from the past seven days…

{1} Peeps coffee creamer!! It tastes like vanilla marshmallow!!! But they should have made it pink.

{2} Speaking of marshmallow, I made cereal bars with Trader Joe’s neapolitan cereal. I brought them to a work event and they were a hit. I used my go-to recipe but took things up a notch with the addition of vanilla bean paste.

{3} I placed a super exciting order with the Mexican Candy Lady. The standout so far has been these flan gummies.

{4} Berry breakfast bowls. Liebe strawberry quark (<– this was 10/10, btw, super creamy and delicious!) / fresh blackberries / granola / cacao bliss.

{5} Cava bowls are currently our favorite take-out, there are a ton of toppings to choose from. This was greens / tzatziki / crazy feta spread / harissa / roasted vegetables / grilled chicken / pickled onion / cabbage slaw / chopped cucumber / kalamata olives / and green harissa dressing. Plus a side of really yummy house-made pita chips.