Black and white cookie. I’ve decided I have not been eating nearly enough bagels or black and white cookies.
If you haven’t tried the hot honey chicken sandwich from Melt Shop yet get yourself there immediately. It has hot honey and jalopeno pimento cheese!
We went with a seafood theme for dinners this week and each night was better than the last! Seared scallops with crispy garlic smashed potatoes and sauteed bok choy and radish greens.
Roasted cabbage with sliced radishes, avocado crema, and Whole Food’s frozen fish fillets.
Broccoli rice with five spice quick pickled cucumbers, furikake, Sriracha aioli, and smoked salmon.
Adam and I had time together on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and we had just the best weekend ever! We got super lucky with nice weather which makes all of the difference this time of year.
Friday night we met up with friends for distanced fun in Brooklyn. Dinner and some stand-up comedy. Ample Hills does shows on their rooftop and each $10 ticket comes with a giant cup of ice cream! I got Coffee Toffee and No Sleep ‘Til Pumpkin – coffee ice cream with pumpkin gooey butter cake pieces.
Saturday we took a sixteen mile walk around the Upper West Side and Central Park.
And Sunday we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Food highlights from the week include…
Rainbow cookie iced latte with edible glitter and pink whipped cream(!!!) from Crave.
Snacks from H-Mart. Oreo bubble tea candy and durian chocolates. Plus seaweed and salted egg potato chips.
A two chip chocolate chip cookie from Levain (newest best cookie ever) and a Campfire Cappuccino from Orwashers (with toasted marshmallow and hickory smoke, newest best marshmallow coffee ever).
Dinner at Tradisyon. I had Kare Kare – stewed oxtail and brisket in peanut sauce with eggplant, green beans, and bok choy and shrimp paste.
Plus we got delicious popsicles. Soy milk with mochi and brown sugar and calamansi cheesecake with meringue.
Important things first – as of Thursday we have entered Pumpkin Month!
I am very excited about some of those beers. This year’s haul was more restrained than years past because I have accepted that I don’t actually eat cereal so I didn’t buy eight varieties of pumpkin spice cereal to sit and grow stale while they waited for Adam.
Highlights from this week included lots of fall flavors…
And this next-level tasty Eleven Lives & Still Wandering double IPA.
I spent two solid hours in the kitchen last Sunday prepping meal components and it was worth it because we had a super easy and delicious taco week! Sautéed onion and red, orange, and yellow bell peppers with roasted zucchini // cauliflower and walnut vegan taco meat // crockpot shredded chicken thighs // homemade salsa (loosely inspired by this recipe). Tacos with veggies, salsa, cauliflower meat, and shredded cheese.
Giant protein bowls with veggies, shredded cheese, cauliflower meat, chicken, salsa, and a fried egg. Plus a cheese quesadilla.
Chicken chilaquiles (made with homeamde tortilla chips!).
We were trying to eat through some of our stores before I went grocery shopping this weekend so the past week we ate a lot of random foods from the back of the freezer and take-out. Somehow it worked out that everything was delicious! Highlights include…
First things first, it is Apple/Spice Month! Yes, I am already feverishly shopping for pumpkin beers too.
Peanut butter and jelly crispy waffle from Costa Nova + an iced latte.
Leftover olives from our dinner at Glasserie.
Local Cava Guava IPA which was basically beer champagne.
Adam and I are both 10/10, head over heels obsessed with these Swedish Swedish fish. We bought every flavor we could get our hands on at the store the other day.
We also lost it for these Ben & Jerry’s cinnamon bun cookie dough bites. We had their original cookie dough flavor when it first came out and were underwhelmed but these were outstanding.
Trader Joe’s Asian stir-fry veggies topped with scrambled eggs.
Boca Burgers with beautiful roasted purple potato and roasted broccoli with chili spice.
Chipotle nachos! Tortilla chips with cheese, chicken, roasted peppers, corn salsa, and guacamole.
Homemade okonomiyaki. Topped with Kewpie, Sriracha, and furikake.
Buffalo chicken pizza is good, but leftover buffalo chicken pizza topped with honey and Korean chili flake is even better.
It was a very low-key weekend (I slept for ten hours Friday night!?) but I did manage to clean every inch of our apartment yesterday, a very overdue and satisfying task.
Cheeseburger fries! Ground turkey sauteed with tomato paste, fish sauce, and yellow mustard, baked on top of curly fries with sharp cheddar, green onion, and chopped dill pickles.
Curry chicken salad with baked green beans. The chicken salad came out great – it was packed with sauteed celery, toasted cashews, and yellow raisins.
Arizona fruit snacks. They have a really pleasant texture and no palm oil. Does anyone else remember the terrible-in-a-wonderful-way pina colada bottled beverage Arizona used to sell?
Speaking of throwbacks, here’s a cherry cola slurpie(!) push-up(!!). Would recommend.
Dinner inspired by chana masala. Made with white beans instead of chickpeas and served on cauliflower rice.
Dinner inspired by laarb and/or fried rice. Ground turkey cooked with fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, Sriracha, and Korean chili flakes / with sauteed shallot, green onion, and Thai chili pepper / plus cilantro and mint / and roasted cauliflower rice / with eggs stir-fried in.
I made carbonara with turkey bacon and whole-wheat pasta and it was still 10/10 decadent! With roasted baby eggplant.
We had leftover egg whites from the pasta so I made scrambled eggs the next night. With kale and Korean chili flakes. Plus turkey bacon and buttered pumpernickel-rye toast.
P.S. These chocolate-covered gummi bears were perfection! The chocolate and the gummies were both amazing so the combo was even better.
