Bluefish Hash at Tygershark

This week’s top five –

(1) Brunch at Tygershark.

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I got the smoked bluefish hash (best meal of the week!) with fried potato, salsa verde, napa cabbage, shishito pepper, and an over easy egg.

(2) Doughnuts and coffee at Du’s Donuts.

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They were Adam’s all time favorites!

(3) New yummy candies.

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Maltesers // Milk & Cookies bar.

(4) Dinner and drinks at Atlantic Social.

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I went with a girlfriend who was equally obsessed with Pork Slope.  This wasn’t half as good (obviously!), but I did have a tasty bowl of chicken pot pie ramen.

(5) New favorite sparkling water.

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It’s so good!  We’ve tried pink grapefruit and strawberry-guava and loved them both, but do NOT like the raspberry lemonade.

Stuff from the week that wasn’t terrible but didn’t quite rate a number –

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Brooklyn is the best –

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Duck Confit

Top 10 bites this week…

Pastries and coffees at Lilia.  An espresso-cream filled doughnut and something that tasted like a fancy funnel cake.

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Egg and cheese on a whole-wheat roll.  With an iced latte and a tangerine.

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Candy oats bowl.  Rolled oats with chia seeds, mini chocolate chips, and a few caramel M&M’s.  (<– they are so good!  Adam and I are both obsessed and we mailed a bag to my parents who flipped over them as well.)

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Nectarine yogurt and red cherries.  So excited that it’s cherry season.

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Cafeteria came through with a fancy pasta bar.  Tortelini with peas, pesto, and shrimp.

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Best meal of the week was a midweek lunch date at Sauvage.  The service was impeccable and the space was beautiful.

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I love a good tiled floor!

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We started with the seeded Kouign Amann which was buttery good.  Plus an unpictured cocktail that was fizzy and citrusy but that I’m not finding on the online menu.

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Adam ordered mind-blowingly good hen of the woods mushrooms with poached eggs.  I just got a salad — with oranges, za’atar, and duck confit!!  <– 2nd best duck I’ve ever eaten

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It is disgustingly warm in NYC and I had ice cream in some form every day this week.  Best = Van Leeuwen‘s honeycomb and black sesame and ash flavors.

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Yummy cola flavored hard candies.  Cola is our favorite candy flavor, hard, gummy, sour, or otherwise.

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Trader Joe’s frozen lemongrass chicken sticks with a side of baby carrots.

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2nd best meal of the week was this homemade masterpiece.  I know that chicken looks awful and raw but it was actually perfectly cooked.  I baked chicken thighs that marinated in miso, brown sugar, rice vinegar, ginger, and fish sauce all morning.

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Paired with roasted broccoli and kimchi and turkey bacon fried rice.

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Enjoy your weekend!

Salmon Cream Cheese Wontons

I had to work this weekend but somehow I ended up with a bunch of eats that were super good.  Because they all included sugar and/or cheese?  Probably!  Here were the highlights…

Three fun new coffee cups.  Halvah cotton candy on top.

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Chocolate milk ice cubes.

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Starbuck’s nitro cold brew.  I loved the velvety texture but was not a fan of it being served without ice.

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Pickings are slim at the cafeteria on the weekends but I put together a pretty good lunch plate.  BBQ wings, veggie lo mein, roasted baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes with blue cheese dressing.

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Mango yogurt with fresh mango on top.  Guys, fresh mangos are so flipping good, how did I forget about them all winter??

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Cookie and coffee break.  From Bittersweet (a hopping Fort Greene coffee spot with no less than 7 cute doggies waiting in line when I walked in).

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Another sweet snack, vanilla yogurt with chocolate peanut butter stirred in and mini chocolate chips on top.

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Cinnamon dusted apple slices with sharp cheddar squares and chocolate peanut butter sticks.

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Whole Foods hot bar dinner on an after-work shopping trip.  Crispy potatoes, vegan meat balls, roasted zucchini, tabbouleh, and pasta salad.

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Best meal of the week was this quick and easy dinner I threw together Friday night.

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Salmon cream cheese wontons!  I stuffed wonton skins with a mix of canned salmon, cream cheese, brown sugar, fish sauce, and minced ginger.  Baked at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes.

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They were creamy and crispy and delicious.  Served with roasted green beans.

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A close 2nd for best meal was our dinner at Lady’s, a newish Italian spot in Brooklyn.

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The food was all fantastic – so fresh, and perfectly seasoned.  Like this amazing salad with snow peas, sunflower seeds, and pickled radish.  <– 2nd best salad of my entire life

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We also started with hummus with crispy chickpeas, charred cucumber, lemon, and focaccia.

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With a yummy local watermelon ale.

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And for our entrée we shared pasta with crab,

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and honey butter pizza dough with sea salt and Calabrian chili.  The spicy-salty-sweet contrast was perfection.  I had a glass of prosecco with that course and the pairing was wonderful.

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I got a giant scoop of the new cheesecake flavor at Ample Hills for dessert.  It was a tasty weekend!

Smorgasburg, Greenport, And The Weekend’s Top Five

{1}  A day trip to Greenport.

Greenport is one of Adam’s favorite Long Island areas and we finally had a Sunday together to go explore.

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We walked on the pier, walked on the beach, ate a kind of meh breakfast in town, plus got a great iced latte and an almond croissant.

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Aaaand a toasted marshmallow iced latte that knocked our socks off.

{2}  Our 1st kolache experience.

So exciting!

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I’ve been dying to try one ever since I started following Kylie and Brooklyn Kolache did not disappoint.

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We did one sweet and one savory – poppy seed and turkey, egg, and cheese – plus a delicious brown sugar iced latte.

{3}  Our 1st Smorgasburg visit of the season.

It was a good one!  We hit up Duck Season for duck fat fries with confit and a sandwich with confit, pickled cabbage, gojuchang, and craklins.

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Ube Kitchen for Halo Halo.  It was a nice dessert, but not Halo Halo – there was no nata de coco, no palm seeds, plus it had granola in it, and almond milk instead of condensed milk.

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Plus we got impossibly smooth coffee from Ministry of Kaapi.

{4}  BBQ chicken salad.

Baby romaine dressed in yogurt ranch, shredded chicken in Korean bbq sauce, cucumber, sharp cheddar, and smoked paprika.

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This was actually the appetizer course for a meal that included cheese fries and buffalo chicken wings!

{5}  A toasted marshmallow smoothie/shake.

Toasted marshmallows, Greek yogurt, vanilla extract, and vanilla hemp milk.

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It was wonderful.

P.S. This is currently the view when I step out my front door!!

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I Can’t Choose A Favorite!

This is a longer wrap-up (Monday through Sunday) and I ate too many yummy things to chose a single favorite for my post title.  I’ve got my top three – 1) Thai-style crab fried rice, 2) roasted garlic bread, and 3) black sesame shaved ice.

Here were the highlights…

Killer coffee combo – Volcanic roast with chocolate milk.

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Usually I just have coffee for breakfast or eat something on my train, but this week the cafeteria sounded amazing first thing in the morning.  Eggs and hashbrowns, with humus.

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Cafeteria lunch, a spicy chicken sandwich on ridiculously cheesy bread with mustard, lettuce, and bell pepper.

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Last weekend I spent forever trying to make coconut curd.  I didn’t make jam, but I did filthy every last inch of my stovetop.  My experiment didn’t work, at all, but I did kind of like the end result – a vaguely sweet, egg, cake.

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I enjoyed my “jam” in lunches all week.  Like with vanilla bean yogurt and blackberries.

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And plain yogurt, berries, maple quinoa granola, and black sesame seeds.

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Whole Foods hot bar lunch.

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Sesame broccoli, turkey salad, and cole slaw.

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Plus a maple soda that was not as exciting as I was expecting it to be; it had an off-putting aftertaste.

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Snack time.  Ice cream = maple walnut and a white chocolate vanilla marshmallow flavor.

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Milk bun.

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Crème brulee milk stout.

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My workweek dinners were on point!  Like crab fried rice with roasted broccoli and sliced cucumber.

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I loosely followed this recipe, except I used brown rice and waaaay more crab.  It was fantastic.

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Vampire killer, I roasted three whole heads of garlic for this recipe.

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Garlic turkey meatballs with red sauce and roasted zucchini.

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And amazing homemade garlic bread – I mashed butter and roasted garlic and then slathered it on sliced sourdough and baked until delicious.

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Even our leftovers meal was tasty.  Cheese tortellini with meatballs, peas, roasted garlic, and red sauce.

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One night I had dinner out with a coworker.  We checked out the new Brooklyn MŏkBar location.  They have a liquor license now, and I got a yummy vodka “cloudsicle.”

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Plus chicken ramen with kimchi and poached egg.

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And the new Brooklyn Snowdays location was right next door!  Black sesame shaved ice with oreo, mochi, and condensed milk.

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Plus a dinner date with the husband.  Brinkley’s has Genesee Cream Ale on draught!

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We got pimento cheese dip and duck fat fries to start and I dipped my fries in the pimento cheese and pretty much died of heart failure happiness.

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Plus fish tacos with mahi, guacamole, and pineapple salsa.

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The other two dinners were decidedly less exciting.  Like Chipotle take out.  And more hot bar.  Yes, I went to Whole Foods two different days, it was an exciting week.  I was too busy at work yesterday to break for lunch so by the time I got dinner I ate a giant plate of all of the things.

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Now it’s two days of work before a break on Wednesday.

Have a great week!

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Pastrami Smoked Salmon On Sourdough

Once again, this title reflects the most exciting thing I ate in this post.  Honestly though, everything I ate this weekend was pretty darn tasty!

Iced coffee with cake popsicle used for ice.  <– gaaaaah!  so swoontastic!

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Perfectly sweet just enough sour smoothie – passionfruit sorbet / plain Greek yogurt / frozen blueberries / princess flavoring / water.

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Snacky lunch at work.  Mandarin, uncured turkey pepperoni, yummy cinnamon roll Chobani.

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Cafeteria sandwich.  Spicy chicken, pesto, red pepper, and tomato, on an insanely cheesy roll.

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Mr. Flip sandwich from Flip Bird – pulled rotisserie chicken, harissa honey, pickled coleslaw, sambal mayo, and a piece of crispy skin.  It was a 10/10.

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Dinner from the freezer – ice cream and a naan pizza.

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The cilantro pesto pizza – which I got with a free coupon given to me for review – was delicious, the flavor was a bit spicy, which was a nice surprise.

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Lox and cream cheese on a bagel sourdough toast.

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This pastrami-style smoked salmon from Trader Joe’s is my all-time favorite smoked salmon.

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Served with a quick salad of tomato, cucumber, cilantro, green onion, olive oil, and Himalayan salt.

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I made a recipe!  Cheddar bbq turkey meatloaf.

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I ate all of the crispy cheese bits that started to burn to the pan and was sooooo happy.  Plus roasted broccoli.

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Do you have a favorite type of smoked fish to recommend?

Crab Rangoon Grilled Cheese

This post contains a week’s worth of wrap up – not just the sandwich – but the sandwich was awesome so it stole the title.  Maybe I’ll make a thing of it and start titling all of my weekly posts after the best bite?

Yummy things…

Our very last cup of chicory coffee from Café du Monde.  <– boo!  With a mandarin.  I spilled the 2nd to very last cup all over the counter and down the side of the fridge, so that was fun.

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More chicory coffee, in yogurt form.  With KIND maple quinoa granola and chocolate-covered cacao nibs.  Plus a Pacific Rose apple.

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The best chips of all time – honey butter flavored from Trader Joe’s.  Excluding, obviously, the freshly made honey butter chips served at Oiji.

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Another Trader Joe’s win – Kona coffee cookie mocha swirl ice cream.

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Homemade treats make the best snacks though.  I threw a wedding shower for one of the ladies at work this week and contributed cookie butter bars and brown butter chocolate chip cookies.

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The eponymous sandwich!

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Served with roasted brussel sprouts with paprika and Old Bay seasoning – to keep the seafood theme going.

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Toasted sourdough with crab rangoon in between.  The filling was a mixture of cream cheese, lump crab meat, green onion, minced ginger, brown sugar, and soy sauce.  They were wonderful.

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I loosely followed the recipe for Eat, Live, Run’s lemon brown sugar chicken.

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I added sliced green onions to the casserole dish and used extra smoked paprika, but primarily I swapped in MAPLE sugar for brown sugar.  Delicious.  We spooned the sauce on top of our veggies.

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Another night I loosely followed the recipe for Bon Appétit’s marinated beans.  Great northern beans with evoo, rice vinegar, cilantro, green onion, and gojuchang.  I served the beans on top of roasted green beans and sweet potato fries.

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With a sour beer on the side.

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I work the next five days, but I hope everyone else has a lovely weekend!

Pie In The Sky

This is a longer wrap-up (Monday through Sunday) but I’m missing a lot of photos because this week felt like the actual longest and I mostly just ate cheese on top of various things.  Adam and I both have a week off coming up at the end of the month and man, oh man, do I need it!  Three big complaints from this past week – 1. some horrible thing are happening in our department and my schedule/work-load is going to become ridiculous; 2. the “blizzard” killed my big Pi(e) Day plans; 3. I stood in front of an automatic door like an idiot and gouged my big toe and then bled all over the place in front of a bunch of cute doctors.

My schedule was all over the place last week so I was disoriented in addition to cranky.  Thanks to the weather-related NYC shut down, a last minute schedule change for a lunch and learn, and weekend coverage, I was off on Wednesday, worked a half day on Tuesday and Thursday, and worked a full day Monday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  But now I’m off again on Wednesday which is pretty much a golden lining!

/end rant.  Here were some of the yummy things that put a smile on my face last week…

Coffee combo on point.  Chicory with sweet buttercream creamer.

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I also had wonderful iced lattes from Butler and City of Saints.

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Killer lunch components = California Grape kombuchaPeach and cloudberry(!) skyr yogurt with Heritage Flakes and a sumo mandarin.

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Our lunch and learn was a Nestle presentation on perioperative nutrition.  It was more product promotion than educational, unfortunately, and the research wasn’t as robust as I had hoped.  My lunch was good though, grilled salmon and mixed veggies.

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Fabulous lunch date at the White Oak Tavern.

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I had a cocktail with whiskey, Kahlua, housemade butterscotch, espresso, and cream.

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We split a salad and salmon for lunch.  Chopped salad with cucumber, feta, olives, avocado, haricot vert, and tahini dressing.

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Pan seared salmon with a smoked tomato and piquillo puree, plus crispy potatoes and cipollini onion.

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We were pleasantly surprised by how good the food was because we definitely came for dessert – a dark chocolate brownie with butterscotch, walnuts, and toasted marshmallow.

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Fruit and cheese plate, the cafeteria was feeling fancy.

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Coffee break with a honey caramel chocolate bar.

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Adam totally saved Pi(e) Day by offering to bake with me.  We made S’mores Pie which is one of our favorites.  Almost as good as going on a pie crawl in Brooklyn, almost.

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The crust looks red because instead of graham crackers I made it out of Peeps flavored Oreos (<– which turned out to be freaking amazing).

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P.S. on Monday night while the grocery store was packed with people filling carts with bread, canned goods, and bottled waters, I got in line with Oreos, chocolate bars, marshmallows, and a case of soda.  I’d die first if the blizzard had been real but I’m still pretty sure I win.

Eggs for dinner that tasted far better than they looked.  Scrambled with sharp cheddar and brown sugar and Sriracha shredded chicken.

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When we were at the University of Miami I worked at an on-campus bar that served the yummiest pita tuna melts; it took me ten years, but I finally made them at home.

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Curried tuna salad – canned tuna with mayo, green curry paste, curry powder, spring onion, and shallots – with sharp cheddar stuffed in a pita and cooked in a skillet with copious amounts of butter.  They were 10/10 fantastic.

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Plus roasted green beans with shallots.

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Buffalo chicken and veggie bowls.

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Roasted sweet potato and brussels sprouts, topped with shredded chicken breast in buffalo sauce, and a drizzle of blue cheese dressing.

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Have a great week!