Oh man, has allergy season hit us with a vengeance. I feel just horrible! My throat hurts, my nose is runny, and my head is an achy, foggy mess. All of that complaining is to say – I missed a lot of pictures this week, many of them of candy and/or coffee because I pretty much had to have a liquid or hard candy in my mouth 24 hours a day. That said, I got to go on several mid-week dates with the husband and it was actually a pretty great week.
breakfast
Smoothie. Vanilla almond milk, frozen banana, blueberries, raspberries and dates, chia seeds, and a scoop of vanilla pudding mix.
Adam prefers his smoothies creamier than icy so I thought the pudding would help with texture but it gave the smoothie an offputtingly sweet taste.
Breakfast date at Doughnut Plant!
I got a tres leches doughnut (the best one on the menu),
and a horchata, a specialty menu item for Cinco de Mayo.
Plus a latte from Gorilla.
Mmmmn.
lunch
Soup for my sore throat.
With a Lady Alice apple.
Guava-cheese empanada.
With a grapefruit soda.
A sandwich from home.
Low-fat cheddar, mayo, and Applegate Farm’s bbq spiced turkey on TJ’s whole-wheat Tuscan pane.
Turkey sandwich from the cafeteria on yummy olive bread.
Plus dried nectarines a coworker brought in.
They were even better than dried apricots.
snacks drinks
Lavender milk tea.
Good but not great.
This “Simply Red” from Pork Slope was amazing.
House-infused hibiscus vodka, mint, lime, and soda. I am obsessed with mint lately.
Low-fat machta latte.
I told you there were going to be a lot of drinks!
dinner
Rice bowls.
For a super authentic Cinco de Mayo.
Date night at the new-ish Luke’s Lobster in Park Slope!
My lobster roll was heavenly.
And then we got a flight at Ample Hills for dessert.
It came in an egg tray and was amazing and delicious and I was basically dying.
{1} The special drink at Café Bene this month is handmade strawberry milk! It’s called a “strawberry latte,” and as far as we could tell it is just milk and macerated strawberries. The husband and I liked it a lot.
That’s more than I can say for the S’mores Frappuccino, as the whipped cream did not taste like marshmallows.
{2} You can eat Kentucky Derby themed snacks even if you don’t watch the race and still have no idea who won.
Milk chocolate gelato and toasted walnuts blended with skim milk, Jim Beam Maple Bourbon, and ice.
{3} Bareburger’s new menu includes a burger topped with pimento cheese, pickled green tomato, a fried egg.
I guess that technically fit in with our Derby eats too.
{4} The new Avengers’ movie was not bad at all. Even though it was long enough for us to need a refill on our giant soda.
It was very funny; several quips had the whole theatre laughing out loud. I think overall it would have been a lot more Whedon-y if it had been Natasha walking into the house instead in that final farm scene (<– intentionally vague so as not to give any spoilers).
New York gave us weather in the upper 40’s two days in a row and we had a fabulous weekend! We went to two new (to us) restaurants and adored them both. Here is a wrap-up of my favorite bites and sips, not including several more cups of coffee, several more cups of ice cream, and a windy but wonderful walk across the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.
A gorgeous espresso over skim milk, with raw sugar and a splash of cream. We fought over it on the subway. I also got another Maple Shay and learned that they will make it with skim milk and that it is even better that way.
We shared a sweet cream with salted caramel, fruity pebbles, grass jelly, and mochi. Snowdays is Adam’s favorite iced dessert option and mochi are my favorite iced dessert topping.
I actually passed on the cupcakes in lieu of puddings –
Banana and chocolate chip cookie.
Baohaus rocked our socks off. Their lighting scheme was dim with shades of yellow, so I couldn’t get a good shot, but the buns were outstanding.
I got an Uncle Jessie: Organic fried tofu served with our Haus Seasoning Salt, crushed peanuts, Taiwanese red sugar, cilantro, and Haus Sauce, and we shared a Coffin Bao: A large fried bao stuffed with our fried chicken topped with chili condensed milk syrup, crushed peanuts, Taiwanese red sugar, and cilantro. Chili condensed milk syrup is pretty much my love language!
Pig & Khao was even better. Adam says this was the best meal he’s had in months.
Every dish had umami out the wazoo. I poured a bit of Adam’s chili oil – for dipping with his steak and eggs – into my broth and the burn was so worth it!
Green eggs at home.
Scrambled with fresh arugula and TJ’s fire roasted corn. Instead of toast, I had ice cream.
Jimmy Fallon can laugh at his own jokes, I don’t care, this is the best Ben & Jerry’s of all time: Caramel & Chocolate Ice Creams with Chocolate Cookie Swirls & Gobs of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough & Peanut Butter Cookie Dough. Funny fact – I thought I hated iced cream up until a year or two ago.
I made a new salmon dish – Sweet and Spicy Cilantro Baked Salmon.
Recipe linked here. I was pleased enough with how it came out to make a recipe page.
With TJ’s Cruciferous Crunch (kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, green and red cabbage) sautéed with leftover cilantro sauce and Wegman’s Thai peanut sauce.
This was worth dirtying up the food processor for.
Crossing my fingers that the weather stays “warm” this week.
Who else has obsessively binge-watched their way though the entire first season of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” already? We finished the whole thing over the weekend. We loved it! I’m considering a rewatch. I hate the two trial episodes – I thought they were god-awful, truly some of the worst television I’ve ever seen – but I adored everything preceding them. The 10 second concept makes my life. Unsurprisingly, this is another smart and funny win from Tina Fey.
The theme song has permanently ear-wormed its way into my brain.
Related, Lisa – Born Round was amazing!
I read it on the train and then would sit in my car in the parking lot for at least 20 minutes each night to keep reading. I’m pretty sure Bruni should be giving TED Talks for all would-be crash dieters, emotional eaters, and aspiring journalists.
breakfast
I did the chocolate milk and iced coffee combo two days in a row.
Paired with a Special K protein bar both days.
Not the best bars – for taste or ingredient list – but they were free in the cafeteria and I had some extra morning hunger this week.
Another day I did hot chocolate mix in hot coffee with a lot of milk on top.
So basically just the lukewarm version of my chocolate milk and coffee.
My breakfast plan for St. Patrick’s Day was a green smoothie. Then I hit the snooze button and the plan was iced coffee with green dye in my milk. Then I hit the snooze button five more times and I barely managed to get coffee, ice, and boring plain milk into my cup.
…and then I also got Starbucks once I got off of the train.
I usually don’t let myself do two coffees in the morning, but I had stayed in bed until literally 10 minutes before I needed to be in the car so clearly it was a double coffee kind of morning. And yes, mom, I fixed my hat hair before I saw patients.
lunch
Thankfully the cafeteria totally came through and helped me get some green-theme on St. Paddy’s Day.
My bagel was topped with pepperjack, sliced turkey, mayo, mustard, and frisee lettuce. Plus baked onion rings on the side.
Blood orange Fage with Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes and blackberries and a fresh mandarin orange on the side.
I can’t believe I had only ever eaten canned mandarins up until this year, they are my new favorite citrus.
Tart cherry Noosa with coconut butter, homemade butterscotch peanut butter, and a Pinata apple.
We are loving the new 4 oz Noosa packs. Noosa is Adam’s top favorite yogurt – in fact it’s one of his favorite foods in general – but the original packages were a bit too large to enjoy on the go.
Vanilla-caramel yogurt with blackberries and 18 Rabbits caramel apple granola.
I loved the flavor of the grass-fed yogurt but I’d still be a little nervous about trying it plain.
snack
Popcorn / all-time best Easter candy / beer…
All good.
A small but gourmet sandwich.
Toasted whole-wheat with Applegate Farm herb sliced turkey, mayo, and leftover carmelized onions.
Weird pasta salad from the cafeteria.
Why do they keep putting croutons in pasta??
An Austrian iced coffee.
Aka coffee (delicious Grady’s cold-brew in this case) with ice, (skim) milk, and (vanilla-caramel) ice cream.
dinner
Asian-style baked shrimp bowls.
From the bottom up, I filled my casserole with quartered bok choy, sliced wild mushrooms, chopped orange and yellow bell pepper, shrimp, fish sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, canola oil, and Sriracha. Then I baked it for 15 minutes at 425 degrees.
Served on top of brown rice cooked in chicken stock.
Leftover bbq salads.
Spicy, local arugula topped with bbq sauce, cucumber, avocado, bell pepper, caramelized onions, and TJ’s fire-roasted corn cooked with turkey bacon.
These were some of the best salads we’ve made in months.
The next night I did a 180 from salads and made my grandma’s recipe for an awesomely retro chicken and rice casserole.
Complete with condensed soups, chow mein noodles, and crushed chips on top. I swapped half of the rice for shredded cauliflower but otherwise did not healthy it up at all.
Served with green beans baked with fish sauce, honey, Sriracha, and evoo.
We ate casserole the next night too.
And we will probably been eating casserole the next few nights as well!
Hope everyone has a great weekend, good luck getting that song out of your head!
I am feeling much better now, though the week did feel very long to me. Here’s to hoping the weekend feels long too! I have not been to the grocery store since a week before I left for St. Thomas, but somehow we made it through.
breakfast
Adam sweetly helped ease me back in to normal, non-vacation life by driving me in to work on Tuesday. We made a doughnut date of it!
Pecan praline beignet for me. Doughnut Plant is great so it’s super fun that there’s a location right near my hospital now.
An apple and a hot chocolate.
Less exciting than doughnuts, but still good.
Iced coffee with chocolate milk and a bar.
I loved the Oatmega bar in theory, but unfortunately it was insanely fishy. I just couldn’t do it. I ended up going down to the salad bar for a snack in the late morning.
Cheddar cheese and sunflower seeds packed a protein punch (8 grams of protein if you assume 2 Tbsp of each) to make up for the bar I threw away.
lunch
Salad bar and french fries.
Baby spinach topped with cucumber, olives, broccoli, a marinated veggie mix, and balsamic dressing. The blob in the left corner is fried plantains.
Salad bar and blurry Chipotle leftovers.
Baby spinach with ranch and a bit of extra cheese, topped with my dinner leftovers.
Oatmeal day. Quaker cherry pistachio oatmeal topped with coconut butter with a cinnamon applesauce on the side.
This was the day I had my salad breakfast snack so I did manage to hit up the salad bar three days in a row, a feat that feels extra impressive when you remember that my stomach was still a bit iffy.
dinner
Chipotle night. We legit eat Chipotle at least once a week, it’s a problem.
Brown rice with sautéed veggies, pinto beans, chicken, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, and all of the salsas. The three salsa combo was key to helping me enjoy the brown rice (I really prefer white rice but brown is a whole grain so it has more protein and fiber).
I didn’t love the red velvet, but their caramel and honey flavors are all deep burnt sugar good.
Adam was on call on Wednesday and I definitely made myself a big bowl of chia pudding for dinner. Thank goodness for those lunch salads, eh?
Gina’s recipe base – 3 Tbsp of chia seeds in 1 cup of Hint of Honey almond milk with a splash of vanilla and honey whisked in. I topped my bowl with Girl & The Fig salted fig caramel and it was flipping amazing.
Last night’s dinner came straight from the freezer. Salmon patties from Whole Foods plus asparagus and a mushroom medley from Trader Joe’s.
The patties were unpleasantly dry so I made a dipping sauce of mayo, garlic aioli, pickle relish, and smoked paprika.
I drank a Genny Cream Ale while I cooked.
And ate a zoo of gummies for dessert while we watched the “Parks and Rec” finale.
Omg. The P&R finale basically killed me – I loooved it. Every single detail was perfect, down the very last second of the ending being a sweet moment from Ben. LOVE.
Do you watch “Parks and Recreation?” What’d you think of the finale?
I finished reading my latest book on Friday – Fairyland, a memoir about growing up with an openly gay father in San Francisco in the 80’s. (Not much of a)spoiler alert – he dies of AIDS related complications. I was wracked with sobs for the last quarter of the book. Steve Abbot was a published author who kept detailed journals his entire adulthood and wrote copious letters to Alysia while she was in college, so she had a lot of source material to pull from which was nice; it was practically a biography within a memoir.
A big chunk of Saturday is missing because we went on a fun foodie tour and I am devoting a whole post to it. (coming tomorrow)
We upgraded our phones on Sunday. My new Galaxy is giant and tacky, obnoxiously gold.
breakfast
Adam and I tried the new raspberry white chocolate coffee from Dunkin’.
Our opinions ranged from good to meh. I still want to try the Starbucks version.
Cereal bowl.
Cocoa Pebbles and Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes. Pebbles have absolutely no flavor and were deeply disappointing.
Oatmeal bowl.
Rolled oats – cooked in the microwave – with 1 heaping Tbsp each chopped pecans, raisins, chocolate chips, and brown sugar. Plus milk on top.
Coffee from 7-11 with wasabi almonds.
Yes, that was a terrible combination.
lunch
Chipotle!
White rice / chicken / black beans / sautéed veggies / fresh salsa / tomatillo salsa / sour cream / cheese. I would normally get lettuce but I split this bowl with Adam and he didn’t want it. I’ve stopped putting the corn salsa on my bowls in general because even though it’s tasty it isn’t really necessary to pile another carb on top of a rice bowl.
Adam went to a post-ABSITE surgical exam party and brought home leftover mini pizzas.
Paired with green juice.
NYC Jamba Juices recently introduced a new line of 12 oz Cold-Pressed Juice bottles and they sent me a $10 gift card so I could try them out.
I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.
The juices contain no preservatives and three servings of fruit and/or vegetables and each full bottle has between 140 to 190 calories.
Citrus Kick was way too spicy for me – Adam liked it but I just can’t do ginger – but I found Tropical Greens to be nicely balanced, neither two sweet nor too grassy. (There are four flavors in total; the two I didn’t try were Orange Reviver and Veggie Harvest).
dinner
We had another stupendous meal at Russ & Daughters.
The Breakfast Martini = Beefeater gin, jam, lemon juice, egg white, Pernod Absinthe, Angostura Bitters.
I adore cocktails with egg white. <– I was about to type that they will be hard for me to give up if I get pregnant! I guess the alcohol may also be an issue.
I ordered the Eggs Benny, which came with Scottish smoked salmon and sautéed spinach on challah.
No surprise, the eggs were perfectly poached and the hollandaise was loaded with flavor. <– more reasons I’m not chomping at the bit for a baby
Sunday night we made a nice, but less exciting dinner at home.
We were helped out by a jar of Sepo Sauce, a creamy garlic and horseradish spread that’s meant to be used as a dressing, dip, and/or sandwich spread.
Sepfonifiq sent me a jar of sauce free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.
The sauce has 150 calories and 2.5 grams saturated fat per 2-Tbsp serving, so it’s not any healthier than most typical dressings, but it packs a lot of flavor so you would rarely need to use any more than a serving.
We decided to go the bread and lettuce route.
A sandwich of part-skim mozzarella cheese, thick-cut uncured turkey ham steak, and whole-wheat cinnamon swirl bread spread with Sepo Sauce and oven-toasted.
A salad of baby kale tossed in Sepo Sauce and topped with roasted broccoli and sweet and spicy pecans.
Plus we split a sumo mandarin on the side.
Sadly, we hated the thick cut turkey, which kind of ruined the sandwiches. We both got rid of the meat halfway through and ended up eating big desserts instead. But we loooved the Sepo as a dressing and were both blown away by the salad. I will definitely look forward to making that again.
Please cross your fingers that it’s not actually snowing in NYC right now?
Moving to Long Island has done something to my brain! <– real talk, please let’s just pretend that this problem is a LI thing and not the fact that I turn 30 this year
Prior to 2013, I had lost/seriously misplaced one item in my entire life: a pair of flip-flops at a party in high school. Also I had to have my dorm keys replaced in college after Adam kicked them into a lake, but those weren’t technically missing, they just weren’t accessible. But lately? I’m an absentminded disaster. Last year, on my very first day at the hospital, I lost a brand-new scarf. This December, I lost a brand-newish i-pod somewhere between my apartment and the gym. And this weekend I misplaced my camera. Not lost, thankfully, because it turned out that I had just left it in the husband’s car, but since he then drove that car to 30 hour shift this is my long-winded way of telling you that I don’t have a ton of pictures from this weekend. I am missing a lot, especially since I didn’t deem things like the four slices of cinnamon toast I ate for dinner on Saturday instagram-worthy.
How often do you lose track of your stuff? Someone tell me they left their baby on the bus so I’ll feel better!
breakfasts and lunches
Coffee! This was a freebie so I went a bit crazy – a large iced latte with extra espresso.
Those Starbucks workers get very snarky once you start asking for that much espresso.
Yet another good reason to have coffee at home instead.
Starbucks iced (but from home!) with Hint of Honey Almond Breeze and fat-free half and half.
Several coworkers commented on this lunch; I guess they aren’t used to chia?!
The best was clearly brunch at Rabbit Hole with a girl friend. I got the Eggs Norwegian, aka a Benedict but with lox instead of bacon and served on a biscuit.
Sooo good. But the drink in the background was even better – Champagne, St. Germaine, and grapefruit. We both got one and thought that they were just great.
snacks
We tried some fun drinks while we were in Chinatown.
Yeeech! The sugar cane was terrible. But we only spent $1 so it was worth a shot.
Adam bought Gushers!!
They weren’t as good as I remembered, but it was still a fun throwback.
Coffee is always good.
The Blue Bottle in Williamsburg made me my New Orleans with skim milk. Frankly, I would have accepted almost anything at that point though – first my friend and I stopped at one coffee shop that was out of ice and another that poured me a giant glass of whole milk with a smidge of coffee in it.
dinner
I made us great pasta bowls one night. Box mac and cheese gussied up with canned smoked trout, chopped spinach, sautéed bell peppers and garlic, and tons of caramelized onions.
Fried cutlet with honey butter and hot sauce on a biscuit.
Plus a really amazing salad.
Collard greens with avocado, pickled red onions, and smoked coconut. Adam and I could not get over how delicious it was; I really want to remake it at home.
With banana cream pie on Nilla Wafer crust for dessert.
I am not 100% yet, but I am feeling much better. 90%? Poor Adam, though, has gotten my cold x2, complete with an ear infection. It’s put a real damper on how much sympathy I’m able to get! At least we were both in the mood for a quiet, lazy weekend.
Again, not as amazing as iced coffee, but the espresso coconut water mash-up is damn good.
And I did have iced coffee this weekend. With skim milk and vanilla creamer.
Plus peanut/butter toast and a mini cheese for brunch.
That is the only weekend breakfast or lunch picture I have because mostly we snacked on random things.
Also I made and ate a lot of brownies (see below…).
dinner
Friday night we turned to the freezer for dinner.
TJ’s vegan orange chicken was alright paired with broccoli.
But it was basically the least filling thing on the planet. We both ended up making sandwiches too.
Fancy pb&j for me.
Saturday night was just straight fancy.
I made baked shrimp! Shrimp, chopped bell pepper, evoo, fresh cilantro, salt, smoked paprika, cayenne, lime juice, and a sprinkle of chopped butter, baked at 425* for 12 minutes. Served on top of jasmine rice cooked in chicken stock.
This was tasty, healthy, and oh-so quick to prepare. Triple win.
Sunday I started dinner in the car home after the world’s longest trip to Trader Joe’s. Apparently people are freaking out about our potential blizzard. By the by, please, please, please cross your fingers that it doesn’t blizzard!
After my pretzel roll I made a spinach salad.
With balsamic vinaigrette, pomegranate, goat’s milk cheddar, and sweet and salty pecans.
snacks, aka marshmallow madness
My mother-in-law sent us a cute Valentine’s card and some strawberry Peeps.
They were yummy, but the marshmallow extravaganza was just beginning… we also had a big container of fluff!
So I made the very best brownies I’ve ever tasted.
Triple chocolate fudge with a layer of marshmallow fluff in the middle.
Recipe is coming tomorrow and it is absolutely fantastic, I promise.
In the meantime, I did something else with the fluff.
Oh yes, I did. Malted Marshmallow Coffee Creamer. If you put skim milk, marshmallow fluff (1:2 ratio with the milk), and malted milk powder (1:4 ratio with the milk) in the blender you can put it in your coffee and pretty much die of happiness.
We used 2 cups skim milk, 1 cup fluff, and 1/4 cup malted milk powder, but as long as you follow the ratio above you can make a smaller or larger batch, no problem. I highly recommend it!
