Tag Archives: soup

Denver –> NYC

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This was a “short” week because I was in Denver until 2 am Tuesday East Coast time. My mom and I had such a fun vacation! Other than family stuff our favorite activities were the Rocky Mountain National Park (and just generally being constantly awed by how fantastically beautiful the wild flowers were!) and an afternoon at Meow Wolf.

I don’t have a ton to share from my return home because this was the longest short week ever. I landed in JFK at 6 am and was at my desk at work by 7:30! Also I worked through the weekend and had some of the busiest and stressful shifts of all time. Suffice to say we’ve mostly eaten take-out the past week! Here were some highlights…

Frozen tahini iced coffee. I made coffee ice cubes and blended them with more coffee, tahini, sugar, and a splash of half and half.

Very impressed with the Sang black coffee can (roasty, good body, and outdone only by Grady’s and Stumptown).

Extra-crispy Cosmic Crisp apple.

A winner Whole Foods’ hot bar day – Roasted veggies and roasted green beans / celery, date, and peanut salad / Caesar chicken salad / hard-boiled egg / mac and cheese.

Loved this alcoholic beverage from Empirical; it really did taste like pine in a lovely way.

Cinnamon bears are my new favorite kind of chocolate-covered gummy.

Dinner at a restaurant – Youta, a new ramen spot we loved. Spicy serano cucumber salad.

Fried chicken with garlic mayo.

I got the veggie ramen – truffle veggie broth, maitake, shitake, kikurage tempura, topped with menma and scallion.

And a mango parfait for dessert.

Dinner via takeout – Dario’s Pizza. New to us and a 9.5/10. We got two kinds of cheese slices, shredded beef, and spicy chicken.

Dinner “made” at home thanks to these kimchi vegetable dumplings and frozen cauliflower.

Plus homemade dumpling sauce.

Pecking Order

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Adam and I were both on vacation last week and we went home to St. Thomas for Carnival! It was a perfect week – we had time with family, went on my favorite runs, ate my favorite foods (highlights included soursop shaved ice and a dark rum and coke), and went to the beach every day. It’s hard to beat a morning walk in the sand with an iced coffee!

We went right back to work when we got home (seriously, I was at my desk less than 10 hours after we left the airport!) and I didn’t get to go grocery shopping until yesterday but thankfully I had left myself a well-stocked freezer and pantry. Highlights from the week included…

This week’s coffee combo.

Beautiful smoothies. Frozen spinach, banana, and blueberries with honey, water, and key lime juice.

Frozen soursop, banana, and strawberries with vanilla almond milk, cinnamon, and plain Greek yogurt.

Trader Joe’s crispy apple chips.

These s’mores Ben and Jerry’s bites are hands-down my favorite thing.

Leftover chicken soup I made and froze a few weeks before vacation; this reheated really well.

“Freshly made” soup with this trio. Trader Joe’s ginger miso broth and garlicky cabbage plus ginger chicken dumplings.

Farro / furikake, kelp granules, black garlic, gochugaru / canned salmon and smoked trout with mayo, rice vinegar, and Sriracha / zoodles and celery / fried egg. I actually decided I didn’t like this and abandoned it halfway through for ramen but Adam liked it and I still think it was a good idea.

I work this weekend so I was off on Thursday and I went into the city for a haircut and a fun Brooklyn date. I have wanted to go to Pecking House for more than a year and it more than exceeded my high expectations! We shared fries with chicken seasoning.

Cornbread. Charred turnips with miso and almonds.

Fried chicken with salted egg sauce.

And the fantastic spicy chicken sandwich with Fuqi chili sauce, Oaxaca cheese, and pickled jalapenos on a brioche bun.

Plus gelato for dessert. A butter and salt scoop and a scoop of a cannolo flavor with candied fruits that blew my mind.

Duck, Duck, Soup

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Highlights from a tasty weekend…

Giant green smoothie. This had frozen spinach, strawberry, soursop, honey, and vanilla almond milk.

Siggi’s vanilla honey skyr. I only liked – not loved – this and found it to be a little sour (and am mostly posting to remind myself).

Kimchi butter ramen. This was spicier than I was expecting.

Gelato from a new spot in LI. I got Kinder and s’mores in a vanilla cone. We weren’t head over heels for this spot but my s’mores scoop did have a giant toasted marshmallow in it and that was delightful.

Beers from Destination Unknown. This was our 2nd trip there and we have loved almost everything we’ve tried. Great IPAs.

Brunch at Maya Congee Cafe. We loved it here. We shared passionfruit tea with mango stars.

Chicken breakfast congee with smoked cheese and a soft egg.

And a braised chicken bahn mi.

Dinner at Long Island Pekin. This is officially our favorite Long Island spot. This dinner was an 11/10 and the leftovers were sooo exciting. We shared the Peking duck scallion pancakes with cheddar and sweet plum sauce.

Flat rice noodles with veggies and duck.

And the half Hong Kong roast duck.

Leftover soup. I topped my bowl with chili crisp. Served with homemade garlic bread.

No photo but worth a mention – we tried the honey butter chicken sandwich from PDQ and were both impressed!

Soup’s Up

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Highlights from this week…

Whole Foods’ Spring latte special is brown butter cookie – good but not excellent.

Meanwhile, Partners‘ Spring latte special is mojito and it is a 10/10.

I added butterfly peaflower tea to this smoothie (with frozen peaches, banana, soursop, and vanilla almond milk) to make it pretty and ended up with greige.

I was much more successful with frozen blueberries, banana, almond milk, and butterfly peaflower tea.

BelliWelli birthday cake flavored probiotic bar.

I feel like I should give another shout-out to this rapidly dwindling bag of Zapp’s Voodoo seasoned pretzels.

Passion fruit sips; hard seltzer and kombucha.

I had a day off this week and I walked 7 miles roundtrip from Penn Station to the Seaport for this burger and fries. The signature smashburger with gojuchang aioli, American, miso-caramelized onions, and garlic parmesan butter and waffle fries with red miso cheese sauce.

Monday I hadn’t gone to the grocery store for the week yet but we cobbled together a pretty good dinner. Chips and guacamole from our local burrito place.

Bitchin dip with mini sweet peppers (and cucumber slices).

And these Fillo’s walking tamales – Adam liked them, I thought they were underseasoned.

Tuesday I went to the fish counter and whipped up this Southern feast. Fried catfish (breaded in a mix of flour and cornmeal with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika); collard greens sauteed with green onion, lemon, and garlic; and hushpuppies. Then I doused my plate in honey, lemon, and Crystal hot sauce.

And Wednesday I made a giant batch of soup. With evoo, salt and pepper, garlic, yellow onion, celery, zucchini, carrot, potato, diced tomato, harissa, chicken broth, and chicken breast.

Sweet Ting

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Some highlights from the weekend…

Blueberries with my 1st plum of the year.

I got my hands on a pink Ting!

One of Adam’s work friends gave us a mini cookies and cream bundt cake from a new cake place. It was good, we want to go try another flavor!

Dinner date a Kinya Ramen. We shared crabmeat fries.

And their special house Old Fashioned.

And I got spicy chicken ramen.

Best dinner of the week/month – savory cottage cheese bowls with chili crisp, fried egg, and cherry tomatoes sauteed in butter and evoo.

I got my greens in in smoothie form; spinach with banana and soursop.

Oxtail Pizza

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Highlights from the weekend…

Passionfruit Coffee. This was a quad skim iced latte with caramelized milk chocolate sauce.

We are head over heels for these Nightingale ice cream sandwiches. Adam is a traditionalist but this cinnamon roll variety is my favorite.

We went to Food Bazaar recently (home of Rokstar Chicken) and brought home some great snacks. This weekend I enjoyed key lime grapefruit Polar seltzer,

honey butter chips,

Jom gummy candy,

and spicy beef ramen.

We waited in line two and a half hours for Cuts and Slices pizza — worth it! We got chopped cheese, chicken and wafles, jerk chicken, and stewed oxtail.

Lunch at For Five – I had a turkey Cuban.

Leftovers from a wonderful lunch at Mao Mao (I didn’t have my camera). Fried fish cakes with sweet chili sauce / steamed dumplings with chicken, shrimp, and mushroom / vegetarian rice rolls. We also had great poached chicken with chicken fat rice.

Roasted sheetpan hash. Fennel, bok choy, purple sweet potato, chicken pesto sausage, soy puffs, mint, and pesto.

Pho Real

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It was a short workweek because I spent Monday-Wednesday in Ohio. My grandma is moving and I went help pack up/visit with her and my mom! Here were some random things I’ve enjoyed since I got back home…

Pocket latte – coffee chocolate bar with caffeine.

This real latte was better. New York Beanery‘s monthly special is a mint mocha. We also had a pretty amazing creme brulee latte.

Fruity, extra-creamy yogurts. The fig was too lemon-y for my tastes but the marionberry was perfect.

Buttered popcorn with togarashi, furikake, and brown sugar.

Yogurt soju 9/10 and yuzu jelly sake 20/10.

We tried and loved a new-to-us Vietnamese spot in Long Island – Sup. Bang bang chicken salad.

Vietnamese iced coffee (with also had a great strawberry tea) and green papaya salad.

I got beef pho.

Take Me Out

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I work all this weekend but we do have some fun Long Island dinners planned. Highlights from this past week included – lots of take-out and homecooked meals better suited for fall!

Smoothie time – plain Greek yogurt, frozen strawberries, chocolate almond milk, and taro powder.

I made beer bread, which meant I spent the week very happily snacking on beer bread with cheese.

Adam and I were both fans of this kettle corn.

Chinese take-out leftovers – sesame noodles and fried tofu.

Wednesday Adam and I both worked exceptionally long days and we salvaged the evening with a cocktail walk and an agressive amount of Mighty Quinn take-out. The leftovers made a great lunch. Burnt end fries, corn fritters, and mac and cheese fritters.

Homemade soup. Chicken, broth, tomato paste, urfa chili paste, diced tomatoes, kidney beans, and zucchini.

Sheet pan hash. Japanese sweet potato, zucchini, fennel bulb, sweet onion, chicken kale pesto sausage, sharp cheddar, and pesto.