Spring Vacation 2015

by Emily

Adam and I took advantage of our joint weeks off and flew home to St. Thomas for a quick visit. The timing worked out perfectly so that we flew in on Mother’s Day and could celebrate with my mom in person.

Our trip was short but wonderful!

We saw some old friends, ate tons of good food, ran on the beach, and visited our favorite spots. I am missing pictures of most of the action, but here are some of the highlights…

St. Thomas now boasts several self-serve froyo places (and a Walgreens?!), a fact that seems insane to anyone who grew up in the VI.

Zest, at the Ritz, also had yummy toddy-brewed VI Roasters coffee, so you know I had to make an affogato.

With vanilla froyo with caramel and marshmallow.

Dinner at ITP, my family’s favorite pizza spot.

We shared giant Greek salads and a bbq chicken pizza.

Brunch at Barefoot Buddha, my favorite restaurant on the island.

I got a Vietnamese iced coffee, as well as a really amazing Cuban coffee to go. Plus my standard order, the Bigfoot Bagel Sandwich.

Egg frittata, smoked turkey, turkey bacon, cream cheese, sharp cheddar cheese, chipotle aioli, tomato-onion coulis and fresh spinach on an everything bagel.

Lunch on the water at Fat Turtle.

The food was meh – we split a Cajun mahi mahi sandwich and a veggie pizza that Adam loved – but the view was nice.

And afterwards we got house-made salted caramel gelato from a pop-up booth in Yacht Haven.

My parents made Adam’s favorite dish one night for dinner, Bill Clinton’s Enchiladas.

Plus key lime pie for dessert for me.

I scooped a slice of pie onto Greek yogurt for breakfast the next day and it was delicious.

You can’t miss the local dishes at Victor’s.

That is pan-fried Old Wife, a nice white fish that went well with the smoky creole sauce. My plate also had veggies, fried plantains, and fungi – a cornmeal paste that has a texture like firm mashed potatoes.

Finally, fraccos, aka Caribbean shaved ice.

I got soursop and passionfruit with condensed milk and it was one of the best things I ate all vacation!

It was a great trip, and now I’m excited for a three-day staycation in the city before we head back to work.

4May2015

Fun Facts From The Weekend

by Emily

{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.

This Dark Chocolate Walnut bar was yummy.

And I made Adam and I “Derby Shakes” on Saturday.

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).

{5} You should totally make my newest recipe at home – Spicy Salmon Roll Casserole.

It came together really quickly and Adam and I both enjoyed it. Served with Bon Appetit’s Thai Celery Salad on the side.

I’m looking forward to leftovers of both dishes.

24Apr2015

Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

The five best things I ate this week…

(1) Coffee boxes

Blue Bottle.

Stumptown.

These guys never let me down.

(2) This snack assortment

Baby carrots, seaweed salad, a Honey Belle pear, and a Pixie tangerine.

Bonus – I went to a catered seminar on physical assessments for malnutrition and they brought in surprisingly good salads from Smash Burger.

(3) Oatmeal bowls

Wild Beary flavor with maple almond butter on top and a Gold Nugget tangerine on the side.

The berries and cream oat bowl I made myself was better though.

Rolled oats, malted milk powder, chia seeds, freeze-dried strawberries, and dried blueberries. Plus sweetened sour cream on top.

(4) Green curry with bulgar

This was the best thing we ate all week.

Ground turkey sautéed with garlic, ginger, green onions, and probably something else that I’m forgetting // collard greens and celery cooked in rice vinegar with salt and a bit of sugar (sort of try for the pickled greens served at Pig and Khao) // green curry paste and light coconut milk // served on bulgar.

Now that I’ve gotten my hands on jarred crushed ginger again my food has gotten so much better.

(5) Asian-ish rice noodles

This would have been the second best thing we ate, but it desperately needed crushed peanuts on top.

Ground turkey that had been marinated over night with green onions, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, canola oil, fish sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and maple bourbon // baby bok choy, shitake mushrooms, and red bell pepper cooked with Sriracha, ginger, and a pinch of sugar // rice noodles cooked in chicken broth.

Marinating the meat in so many acidic things gave it an amazing texture, though I realize that it doesn’t look all that pretty. I have a bag of the chopped veggies prepped in the freezer so we can quickly make this meal again soon.

The worst thing about this week? The weather! Why is it so cold again??

13Apr2015

Homemade S’mores Milk and Weekend Brooklyn Love

by Emily

Adam and I had a pretty great weekend… in spite of me misplacing my – expensive! – favorite sports bra and spending half of Saturday in mourning. Seriously – I don’t change at the gym, I didn’t pack it on a trip, and we are very careful to check the machines for runaways when we do our laundry – where the frick is it?!! But when we weren’t checking and rechecking literally every drawer in the house, we did manage to have some fun.

highlights…

Homemade S’mores Milk

It’s official, I’m a genius. I put it in coffee, obviously.

S’mores Milk, makes 2 cups

Inspired by Tosi’s Cereal Milk. This recipe requires you to strain the solids out of the milk, you can use a fine mesh sieve but I used my French Press and that worked really well too. Smooshy marshmallows will not work for this, you need crispy ones; if you can’t find the Mallow Bits I recommend picking the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms!

2 cups skim milk or milk of choice
1/3 cup Jet Puff Mallow Bits
4 squares graham crackers, crumbled
2 Tbsp hot chocolate milk

Place all of the ingredients together in a container and stir to combine. Cover and store in the fridge for 8 – 16 hours.
Strain, discarding solids. Milk can be stored, covered, in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Cheesy Spicy Eggs

Coming up somewhere just behind coffee, diet coke, dulce de leche, and popcorn, corn cooked in scrambled eggs is one of my favorite meals.

This plate was TJ’s frozen fire-roasted corn, chopped spinach, and sliced shishito peppers (<– so much spicier than I was expecting!) cooked in coconut oil with eggs scrambled in and chunks of Kerrygold Skellig sweet cheddar tossed in at the end.

C’est Cheese in Port Jeff

C’est Cheese is always worth the drive up Port Jefferson for dinner.

We shared a beer sampler. The Framboise was my favorite.

A cheese plate. Adam loved the Tallegio and I was all about the 7-year Gouda.

And a grilled cheese with blue cheese and a raspberry-cranberry relish on marble rye. The cheese and jam combo made for the best bites of the night.

Snacky in Williamsburg

This weekend one of my lifelong best friends celebrated her 30th(!!!) birthday.

After the party, the husband and I had dinner at Snackys, one of my favorite Williamsburg spots. We shared a seaweed salad and a Chinese big bun stuffed with pickled vegetables.

And did rice bowls for dinner. I know the photos aren’t much, but my Spicy Korean BBQ Chicken Bowl was great, yummy sauce and big bites of kimchi.

Our 1st Smorgasburg of 2015

NYC people – if you haven’t done Smorgasburg yet you need to get your life together. They added a few new vendors this season and it is happy, foodie, perfection. We couldn’t find the Snowday truck but you can bet I’ll keep an eye out from now on.

We got lattes at Brooklyn Roasting Company.

Buns from Bite Sized Kitchen. I got red curry chicken with peanuts, cilantro, and fried garlic and shloots (topped with loads of sweet chili sauce).

And beer-battered cheese curds with truffle cheese sauce from Curd’s the Word.

Remember this post? The stupid sports bra is the fourth item I’ve ever lost… which would be a really good track record if 2, 3, and 4 hadn’t all been within the last year!

10Apr2015

Easter And Onward

by Emily

This post feels long, and I am le tired, so I will try to be less loquacious than usual.

Very chatty sidenote – how great are some of the words that describe how much a person does or does not talk?? Loquacious. Taciturn. Verbose. Gabby. Love them!

Real talk though: I somehow caught a springtime cold and I am cranky and sniffling and need to go to bed. I know I’ve wasted 60+ words on an intro, but I’ll try to let the pictures speak for themselves as much as possible.

breakfast

Vanilla iced coffee with vanilla milk.

Smoothie #1 – strawberry mint. Chocolate mint soy milk, frozen strawberries, and plain Greek yogurt.

Smoothie #2 – blueberry bliss. Frozen blueberries and dates with plain almond milk, plain Greek yogurt, and a little honey.

I made another batch of Community Coffee French Roast, this time in our coffee machine. Traditional/hot brewing did make this a little bitter, but it was still quite drinkable. Especially with skim milk and a splash of toasted marshmallow coffee syrup or a sprinkle of cinnamon and brown sugar.

lunch

Subs with the in-laws for Easter. With chips and hard-boiled Easter eggs.

Coffee Chobani with Cocoa Coconut Renola and a Cara Cara. I am very picky about my coffee yogurts and this stuff was on point.

A half turkey sandwich from the cafeteria with seaweed salad and Easter candy delivered by a coworker.

I apparently don’t have a photo to speak for itself, but another day I packed a sandwich from home. An epic sandwich. Sweet cheddar and extra-sharp cheddar on a toasted English muffin. Swoon.

This mix was random, but it worked – spicy Thai chili tuna salad, brown sugar and sea salt seaweed, and a Cara Cara.

snack

Coconut water for rehydration.

These chips are amazing.

Coffee, always.

The husband and I are both obsessed with these two dessert items.

Plain Greek yogurt with butterscotch peanut butter and chocolate-covered cocoa nibs

I made How Sweet Eat’s Brown Butter Oatmeal Chunk Cookies for a birthday at work and they received rave reviews. I subbed vanilla bean paste for cinnamon, subbed dark chocolate chips for chocolate chunks, and made much smaller cookies (for a yield of 40 cookies versus her 15), and I recommend all three changes if you make a batch of your own.

I’m including two non-edibles that fed my soul. The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman was like a grown-up version of Francesca Lia Block’s stuff. It was hard to put down; I read on the train and one night I had to sit in my car in the parking lot for twenty minutes to keep reading.

This lip-balm smells like my dreams.

dinner

Easter dinner.

Dessert was angel food cake layered with a yummy Cool Whip + vanilla pudding mix + shredded pineapple concoction.

An easy, amazing soup. I cooked shell pasta in chicken broth then dumped in sautéed chopped bok choy and green onions, shredded cooked chicken breast, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. My bowl was drizzled with sweet chili oil as well. Adam absolutely raved about this dish.

I turned the rest of my never-ending marinara sauce into a bastardized version of Jenna’s Channa Masala. On top of brown rice and roasted broccoli. Topped with plain Greek yogurt and sweet chili oil.

Safe Catch sent me a can of their wild skipjack tuna.

Please note: I was sent this product free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Seafood is a great thing to include in your diet. It is a lean protein, a good source of iron, and a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. Unfortunately, due to the fact that seafood contains mercury, it may not be a good idea to consume it daily, and some varieties are safer than others. Canned tuna, for example, I have to tell my pregnant patients to limit to </ once per week. Safe Catch is a new, mercury tested, tuna brand that enforces a strict limit on the amount of mercury allowable in the fish that go into its products (their standards are 90% stricter than the FDA’s mercury safety limit of 1.0 parts per million). Also important – the fish is caught exclusively with pole and line from managed stocks.

I wanted to be able to really taste the tuna – we give it two thumbs up – so I made it into a super simple tuna salad.

Served on a challah roll with a side of roasted broccoli.

Last night was my sickest, and the husband worked overnight, so I made a(n incredibly tasty!) frozen meal from Trader Joe’s and called it a night. I also ate a bowl of cereal in bed.

There were entirely too many photos of my hands in this post.

14Feb2015

Weekly Wrap-Up? Yes Please!

by Emily

happenings

As promised, here is a picture of my gaudy new cell phone –

I’m liking it more now that I’ve gotten used to the new system.

This week I gave an hour-long nutrition presentation at a women’s shelter near the hospital. We talked primarily about added sugars, reading nutrition labels, and the plate method.

I opened with an activity where we compared the sugar content of different beverages.

I started reading Amy Poehler’s memoir, Yes Please. I am halfway through and completely smitten.

It is just as hilarious and inspiring as you’d expect it to be. And her relationship with Seth Meyers – he guest writes a chapter – makes me love both of them more if that’s even possible.