Tag Archives: seaweed

Chopped Cheese, Peanut Butter Tofu

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Highlights from a yummy week…

Equator remains some of the best bottled cold brew I’ve tried.

Ube and pandan simple syrups. They were good-not-great in iced coffees but nice in Diet Cokes.

The best yogurt bowls = plain skyr with tons of blueberries and chopped marzipan.

Durian ice creams. These were both so flavorful and the Mavens was some of the creamiest ice cream I’ve ever tried.

I went to Duck Island Bread Company for bread and ended up with a great pistachio croissant.

We used the bread to make wonderful sandwiches. Sourdough pullman / ginger miso mayo / shredded, baked super-firm tofu tossed with peanut butter, gochujang, lime juice, brown sugar, and veggie broth / sliced baby cucumbers marinated in white sugar, Sichuan peppercorn, Milu everything spice, and rice vinegar. Plus roasted baby broccoli.

For Five‘s chopped cheese sandwich was surprisingly good. Even these leftovers were delicious.

Congee bowls. Brown rice slow-cooked with chicken stock / mustard greens and scallion sauteed with soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, and pepper / ground turkey sauteed with peanut butter, lime, brown sugar, Sriracha, dark soy sauce, fish sauce, and chicken broth / chili crisp.

Tuna noodle casserole. This came out so well! Brami radiatori protein pasta, canned tuna, and canned trout / mushrooms, leek, and red scallions sautéed with flour, corn starch, veggie broth, gochujang, fish sauce, and sesame oil / baked topped with a mix of crushed honey butter chips and seaweed chips. Plus roasted broccoli.

My Rex Manning day tradition is rewatching Empire Records with pizza and brownies and this was our best year yet! Brownies = Hummingbird High’s small batch brownies. These are even better than my go-to brownie recipe (I did add a bit of espresso powder and topped them with cinnamon maple pretzels).

Pizza = a variety of slices from Tori T’s. This is some of the best pizza I’ve eaten; the crust is perfect.

Space Yam!

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Things from the weekend…

Blueberries aren’t my number one favorite food (a three way tie between nachos, Cherry Coke Zero, and Milk Bar’s marshmallow brownie), but they are probably the food I eat most often. Plain skyr with granola and jumbo blueberries.

We ordered fun cookies from Salamat! This was Space Yam (ube and marshmallow) but my favorites were Peach Mango Pie and Strawberry Matcha Latte.

Fish dip dinner. Canned pink salmon and lightly smoked salmon, Dukes, Kewpie, Dijon, lemon, paprika, garlic powder, onion, powder, and white pepper, food processed, then topped with chili crisp. Served along side baby broccoli sauteed with salt, pepper, gochugaru, Milu everything seasoning, butter, and lemon.

We scooped with TWO types of seaweed crackers (both excellent) – Mary’s Super Seed seaweed and black sesame and Trader Joe’s sticky rice seaweed crisps.

Trader Joe’s Thai yellow curry potato chips needed to be turned into nachos. With two types of sharp cheddar and a loose take on Thai basil chicken. Plus bok choy sauteed with ginger, white pepper, and hoisin sauce.

I enjoyed my chicken leftovers in a bowl with fried eggs and green beans that I steamed then sauteed with chili crisp, Dijon, and maple.

♥

Blueberries And Bears

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We survived the coldest week of the year! Here were some highlights…

A good skyr bowl with Crofter’s blueberry jam, Olyra blueberry bites, and fresh blueberries.

A better skyr bowl with cinnamon, honey, vanilla powder, blueberries, and honey granola.

These fun-flavored chocolate were good but not great like we expected them to be.

These milk chocolate covered gummy bears on the other hand? 11/10!

Salmon sushi bake. I used brown rice and added parmesan to that layer. Served with avocado and a quick-pickled cucumber salad.

Great homemade pizza. Store-bought grilled whole-wheat crust / sauce = Trader Joe’s pizza sauce gussied up with tomato paste, 2 bulbs of confit elephant garlic, and dried basil / oyster mushrooms sauteed with salt, pepper, and butter / mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Served with roasted cauliflower.

Packaged chicken meatballs (mine are better) with leftover sauce. Plus asparagus sauteed with pecans and parmesan.

Goodbye, 2025

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Here were some highlights from THE END OF 2025?!…

Peppermint divinity candy, 9/10.

O’Jelly plum and kiwi gummies, 100/10. These are my new favorite peelable candies.

World Taco Factory. Esquites, chicken al pastor taco, jerk chicken taco, and a Korean beef bbq taco.

Spicy salmon roll bowls. Brown rice / canned salmon with skyr, mayo, minced ginger, Sriracha, and soy sauce / quick pickled cucumbers with sugar, salt, and rice vinegar / seaweed salad / seaweed sheets.

Packaged wide noodles in spicy sauce plus sauteed seitan and roasted zucchini.

For The Graham

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It was a nice fall weekend! Some highlights…

Homemade s’mores iced latte. Marshmallow creme / Trader Joe’s chocolate shell / Trader Joe’s maple pecan cold brew concentrate / milk infused with graham cracker, cinnamon, vanilla bean powder, and salt.

I had the graham crackers in the house for the fantastic pecan pie cookies I made. Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies but with chopped up homemade chocolate pecan graham cracker toffee candy in place of chips.

The best dessert of the weekend was hands-down Librae‘s halvah chocolate croissant.

I am not a big juice person but I very much enjoyed this Alldae passionfruit and guava cascara drink.

The perfect walking snack from an Asian grocery in Manhattan – spicy tuna onigiri and crab meat inari.

Mimi Cheng‘s makes my current favorite dumplings in the city and their seasonal/collaborative options are always awesome. Three cup chicken scallion pancake melt with mozzarella and fresno peppers.

Thanksgiving dinner dumplings with local turkey, cranberry herb stuffing, housemade gravy, thyme, and a side of housemade cranberry sauce.

Dinner at The Cuban. I couldn’t take pictures because the lighting was insane but we had an excellent meal. That drink was a coquito mojito!!

Kitchen sink salads. Romaine with Trader Joe’s cilantro dressing, jalapeno hummus, cucumber, raisins, walnuts, crispy broad beans, extra-sharp cheddar, and baked sprouted tofu.

Crab Rangoon Casserole

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Things from the week…

I’m not usually a big pear person but these Happi one’s are divine.

My best souvenirs from Scotland were Haribo gummies.

Crusted tofu – super-firm tofu baked coated in egg wash and food-processed kettle chips, seaweed, and gochugaru / broccoli salad – roasted and tossed in a sauce of food-processed roasted garlic and green onion, parsley, evoo, gochugaru, walnuts, dark soy sauce, fish sauce, and maple syrup.

Tuna cakes – canned tuna, panade, Kewpie, egg, and crunchy chili flakes; baked. With leftover broccoli salad.

Gooey grilled cheese – stuffed with a mix of cream cheese, blueberry preserves, gochujang, and smoked cheddar / with green beans that were steamed and then sauteed with soy sauce, maple syrup, and gochugaru.


Crab rangoon casserole (how have I never seen someone else make this yet?!) – Sauteed green onion with ginger, sugar, white pepper, soy sauce, sweet chili sauce, cream cheese, mozzarella cheese, and a mix of real crab meat and imitation crab; mixed with Goodle’s Loopdy-Loos; topped with panko bread crumbs toasted with crunchy chili flakes, and butter; and baked / roasted brussels sprouts sauteed with peanut butter, gochujang, sugar, and lime juice.

Crab Apple

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This week had a snack theme (apples!) and a dinner theme (seafood)! Here were some highlights…

Apple energy drinks. The Alani was too sour for me this year (does it seem different than last year to anyone else?) but I ended up really liking the Bloom.

I made an iced matcha spritzer with apple cider and lemon seltzer. P.S. I also made spiced apple brown sugar syrup this week – equal parts cider and brown sugar cooked down with some ground cinnamon and nutmeg – it was good in coffee and great in Diet Coke.

High Tide’s yuzu sparkling water is a new favorite.

Apple snack plate – Cripps Pink apple, Fix and Fogg super crunchy peanut butter, Whole Food’s apple cinnamon mini rice cakes.

This furikake snack mix from Trader Joe’s is hands-down the best snack mix we’ve ever tasted; it’s almost impossible to keep your hands out of.

On-theme peelable gummies make my heart happy.

I hated this dinner – udon noodles with a sardine-scented red sauce – so much I wouldn’t eat it and got pizza instead, but I am including this picture as a reminder to myself that oven-roasted baby broccoli is delicious and we should make it more often.

Crab pasta (that I actually liked). Buckwheat soba noodles and roasted zucchini with sauteed shallots and garleek with crab, butter, evoo, cream cheese, white pepper, gochujang, brown sugar, and lemon juice.

Salmon avocado toast. Toasted sourdough / mashed avocado with salt, pepper, gochugaru, and lemon / Trader Joe’s hot-smoked sockeye salmon. Plus roasted adult broccoli. No, this was not enough food for dinner. Yes, I loved the new cantina chicken chalupas I ended up getting at Taco Bell.

P.S. We are staying on theme this evening and heading out to a fun sushi dinner at Kissaki to hopefully eat all the rest of the fishes.

Wet Fruit, Dry Fruit

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Highlights from a yummy week…

This yogurt bowl was good in theory but unfortunately it was so wet. Plain skyr with blueberries, golden kiwi, and passionfruit. Scooping kiwis out of their skin (rather than trying to peel and cut them) has been a game changer for me; I eat them all the time now.

Hummus and crackers. Both good but not my favorites.

These Patagonia sourdough crackers are amazing though.

Trader Joe’s freeze-dried watermelon candies. Our bag seemed a little stale but the flavor is great.

Lindt Dubai style chocolate bar. 9/10 but nothing is as good as the original Nuts for Nuts Dubai bar.

The best candy is these sour slices from Whole Foods. The calamansi lime ones are ridiculous.

Dinner out at Varli Indian Street Kitchen. Mango lassi.

I got chili paneer which came with tons of onions and peppers and Adam had excellent butter chicken.

Greek baked turkey meatballs. Ground turkey with tabbouleh, feta, salt and pepper, urfa chili, onion powder, garlic powder, and egg. Served with fresh tomatoes and fantastic snap peas (sauteed with feta, piquante peppers, walnuts, honey, rice vinegar, and gochugaru.

In the style of orange chicken, Tangerine Apricot Yuzu Tofu. Firm tofu (I froze/thawed mine which gives it the best texture) tossed with gochugaru, white pepper, and cornstarch / baked with broccoli, red bell pepper, and green onions / tossed with sauce – cornstarch slurry, fresh tangerine juice, apricot jelly, yuzu ponzu, dark soy sauce, chili oil, rice vinegar, honey, and garlic whisked over medium heat / topped with sesame seeds. We added cashews afterwards too! Served on brown rice.

Crispy rice spicy California roll bowls. We love this meal. This iteration was imitation crab, cucumber, avocado, and green onion / tossed with yuzu ponzu and Kewpie / on top of crispy rice – leftover rice tossed with dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, rice vinegar, and chili oil and baked until crispy / topped with furikake.