Turkey Week Eats

by Emily

I hope that all of my American readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We didn’t do anything fancy to celebrate, but I sure was thankful for the four-day workweek! My million-point list of things I’m thankful for also includes this gorgeous city…

Random Thoughts

I made the toffee candy for a work birthday party, this time following the original recipe.

I think my version with graham crackers and pretzels is better, the saltines got a bit soggy.

I reread To Kill a Mockingbird this week in anticipation of starting Go Catch a Watchman and cried on the train at least ten times.

TKM is one of my favorite books but I had forgotten what a fabulous writer Harper Lee is in the few years since I had last reread it. Atticus is my all-time favorite character. I love him even more than Ghosh from Cutting for Stone.

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Daytime Eats

This week’s tea – Adagio’s Pumpkin Spice (former freebie).

With treats from the birthday party… including pie made with fresh coconut

Or with pumpkin applesauce and biscotti.

This week’s coffee – Community Coffee’s Breakfast Blend with skim milk and sugar.

Cafeteria lunch salads. Romaine, blue cheese dressing, carrot, cucumber, tomato, olive, pickle, black eyed peas, and pasta salad.

Romaine, ranch, carrot, cucumber, tomato, olive, pickle, corn salsa, cheddar, and chickpeas.

Romaine, blue cheese dressing, carrot, olive, tomato, cucumber, corn, cheddar, and cole slaw.

And home on Turkey Day I was thankful for yogurt bowls.

Plain Greek yogurt topped with cranberry sauce, pomegranate, chia seeds, and praline pecan maple granola. Best bowl of the year.

Nighttime Eats

I met up with girlfriends for drinks early in the week. Pork Slope never disappoints. They had Sorachi Ace, Adam’s favorite beer which is now my favorite beer. It just goes down so easily!

I also had a ridiculous fall shandy – gin, maple bitters, simple syrup, lemon juice, and cider.

Dinners were all about the bird! We cooked turkey breasts in the crock pot on Sunday and then shredded them into meals all week.

Turkey tossed with TJ’s whole-wheat butternut squash goyza on top of sautéed shredded Brussels sprouts with pecans.

Topped with gruyere cheese and cranberry sauce.

Turkey tossed with bbq sauce on a brioche bun (toasted with Smart Balance) with cranberry sauce and goat’s milk brie.

With roasted green beans on the side. Year’s best sandwich!

For Thanksgiving dinner we decided to go super traditional – nachos. TJ’s stuffing flavored kettle chips topped with turkey, gruyere, smoked paprika, and cranberry sauce.

With hericot verts roasted with shallots. So much better than the usual meal! Plus pumpkin pie,

aka Rogue’s Pumpkin Patch Ale.

Friday night, once the turkey celebration was over, Adam and I went on a dinner date in the Lower East Side. Coffee while we walked around Chinatown.

Ice cream at Ice & Vice. Milk Money = toasted milk, sea salt, and chocolate ganache and Shade = smoked dark chocolate with caramelized white chocolate ganache. I’m usually not one for chocolate ice cream but this was fantastic.

Then dinner at Mission Chinese Food. With complimentary dumplings to start.

I ordered the Tea Ceremony – matcha, melon, and fizzy wine.

We shared the green papaya salad with smoked chicken, green tomato, peanuts, and pickled tea leaves.

And I ordered the spicy peanut noodles, with cucumber, mint, and numbing oil.

They were chewy, savory, and beyond tingly; numbing oil is good but intense! The mint was really wonderful with the spice. All in all a good meal, though not as epic as the thousand-plus articles I’d read about the restaurant would have had me believe.

13Nov2015

This Week’s Top Five; Product Reviews Galore

by Emily

I didn’t plan on doing a bulk review, I just happened to use a lot of new product samples this week. It works out well for those of you who hate product reviews because you can just skip this post and miss a whole set at once.

Disclosure – all of the starred (**) items in this post were provided to me gratis to review. I was not given further compensation for this post. As always, all opinions are my own.

Reminder – I only tasted one flavor each of the sauces and teas; I will continue to blog about the other varieties as I try them.

{1} Starbuck’s Chicken Santa Fe Sandwich

Not a freebie, just a product I’m obsessed with. I don’t even have them heat it up! The combo of crispy bell peppers, chewy flatbread, and creamy green-chile spread is so darn tasty.

{2} Pumpkin coconut chia yogurt bowl

This was the week’s best lunch, though that’s not much of a victory considering the fact that I ate cold pizza at my desk for lunch on two separate occasions. TJ’s coconut yogurt with pumpkin puree, roasted coconut chips, and chia seeds.

{3} Arbonne Essentials Protein Shake Mixes**

While I don’t think that protein powders are necessary for most people – you can meet your needs with whole foods! – I acknowledge that they can be a good option when you are in a rush or eating on the go. I am never going to bring eggs on the train but I can certainly pack a smoothie for my commute. Each packet provides 20 grams of vegan protein and 2 grams of fiber for 160 calories and 3.5 grams of unsaturated fat. <– mixed in a glass of cow’s milk that would provide more than 50% of my protein needs for the day.

Making protein smoothies is exactly what I did this week. Vanilla protein powder with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, and ice.

The next day was the same, but with chocolate. And with a chocolate cranberry biscotti on the side.

These certainly did fill me up, I didn’t even have room for coffee one day. I thought the flavor was passable but not fantastic, but it is worth noting that these powders are sweetened with cane sugar and stevia and I generally can’t stand the taste of stevia. I haven’t tried the daily fiber mix yet but I will report back when I do.

{4} Adagio Teas**

Adagio is a company that sells loose-leaf teas sourced directly from Artisan farmers. Their product selection is divided up very helpfully, the website lists teas by type (white, black, oolong, etc, including a variety of tea blends) and they have several sampler variety packages as well as the option to purchase a small sample of each type of tea (and they list the cost per cup for each option). Also cool? There is a section of the site where consumers can design and list their own blends and there is an immense selection of fandom blends. I basically had a heart attack over all the Supernatural and Buffy options but I decided to stick with the simpler stuff for now.

Adagio offered me a gift certificate and I was able picked a variety of teas. I also ordered some paper filters to brew them in. <– I’m sold, the filters were easy to pack and worked perfectly.

I don’t usually drink a ton of tea (duh, I’m a coffee fanatic!) but I’m hoping including a cup or two in the afternoon at work will help me to get closer to actually drinking enough water each day. This week I packed my paper filters with Earl Grey Moonlight.

Since the tea is loose you can see the citrus rind and blue cornflowers in with the black tea leaves which I thought was fun. It was no coffee, but this was the best Earl Grey I’ve ever had. My sample pouch will make 10 very reasonably priced 20 cent cups. I’m looking forward to teatime next week.

{5} Bertolli Riserva pasta sauces**

The newest line from Bertolli is made with artisanal ingredients and no artificial colors. The 24 oz bottles retail for ~$5.99 which is comparable to other similar (but less delicious) options. Flavors include Marinara with Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese, Balsamic Vinegar with Caramelized Onions, Asiago Cheese with Artichokes, and Porcini Mushroom with White Truffle Oil.

They all sound pretty wonderful to me but I decided to go simple and try Marinara first. Each half cup serving has 110 calories. Unfortunately each serving also has 450 mg of sodium (more than 20% of the no more than 2 grams of sodium most people should limit themselves to each day), but the sauce is so rich and yummy that a little goes a long way – we used the marinara in 5 dinner servings this week and still have a good third of the bottle left.

We let the sauce shine on a plain – but fantastic! – pizza first. TJ’s frozen crust topped with sauce, fresh mozzarella, and torn fresh basil.

Then we gussied it up with veggies and meat for pasta bowls.

Roasted zucchini and tomato + sautéed ground turkey with basil and yellow onion + tossed with marinara / served on whole-wheat rotini / with sharp cheddar on top.

The final product was full of umami. These bowls were the best meal of the month!

What was your best meal so far this month?

14Oct2015

Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

I know this post is running a bit late but it was a damn good weekend that was worth blogging. We drank, we brunched, we explored – all of the important stuff! Here are the highlights…

breakfast

7-11 iced coffee and a protein bar.

Starbucks iced coffee and a doughnut.

Doughnut Plant‘s pumpkin doughseed is a plain doughnut with pumpkin cream filling and super spicy cinnamon icing. It was interesting.

The best breakfast of all was spread out to include some city time. We got coffee in DUMBO.

Took the train in to the LES and walked two miles west.

To the gorgeous Brookfield place.

Where we headed to famed Black Seed Bagels.

Poppy with honey butter for me. It was wildly disappointing – no chew. But then we spent way too much money on candy at Le District.

And after a quick train ride we had a great walk back to the car through Cobble Hill. We got so lucky with the weather.

lunch

Yogurt bowl at work.

Pumpkin Noosa with a TJ’s pumpkin bar and a snap dragon(!!) apple.

Yogurt bowl at home.

Plain Fage with maple syrup, red grapes, granola, chia seeds, and maple pumpkin seeds.

The day I skipped the yogurt bowl I went big – lunch at Miriam in Park Slope.

I had Burekas, or puffed pastry pocket stuffed with feta & olives, served with poached eggs, labneh cheese, Israeli salad and tahini sauce. Everything was amazing, super fresh and flavorful. We want to go back for dinner immediately.

With ridiculously giant froyo bowls for dessert.

All of the toppings.

dinner

{Friday} Dinner appetizer – Kale chips.

Dinner drink – Rogue Pumpkin Savior, best pumpkin beer so far this season!

Dinner – roasted veggie fall forest gnome food.

Browned mushrooms // shredded chicken // turkey bacon // shredded Brussels sprouts // roasted butternut squash // baby spinach // pecans.

We make some iteration of this dish every fall, it’s one of our favorites.

{Saturday} Dinner appetizer – Shrimp, crab, salmon, and tofu skin fritters from Laverne.

Dinner drink – yummy root beer beer.

Dinner – turkey sandwich, red grapes, and fantastic seaweed salad.

{Sunday} Dinner, drinks, and appetizer were all wrapped up in one – I had beer with chips and dip… while watching bad tv… in bed. It was fabulous.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

5Oct2015

Hello, Pumpkin Month!!

by Emily

It’s possible that I have a pumpkin purchasing problem…

Just maybe, though the pumpkin spice chap stick does make it seem pretty likely! Also I’ve eaten something pumpkin flavored at least once a day for the past four days. And October First I had something pumpkin at every single meal.