Sips And Sweets

by Emily

Last weekend the husband and I were both off Friday night through Monday morning and it was amazing! It was the most time in a row together we’ve had in months! We made the absolute most of it cuddling with the dog, taking multiple trips into Brooklyn, and catching up on the last season of Agents of Shield.

Our favorite activity of the weekend was definitely the afternoon we spent in Industry City enjoying the art.

We ate a million exciting treats, highlights of which include…

A freddo cappuccino from Oasis Cafe. Also an unphotographed Oreo caramel mousse!

Phin-brewed coffee with draft chocolate milk.

Love, Nelly – a newish Colombian bakery in Bushwick – is our new favorite spot. Every single design choice is perfect.

Among other things, we had a coffee with condensed milk and crushed ice,

and a shaved ice with passion fruit and almond syrups and passion fruit meringues.

A fresh soursop milkshake from a Vietnamese spot in Flushing.

Bars have to sell you a food item with your drinks to serve outdoors here and Adam’s favorite German spot has added a cup of marshmallows and gummi bears to its menu!

Dinosaur-themed beers, Three Floyd’s LazerSnake IPA and Toppling Goliath’s King Sue IPA with mango, orange, and pineapple.

The world’s most exciting maple key lime margarita is made with sparkly, glitter-infused maple syrup.

Drinks at Diamond Reef. Their outdoor space is great and they served me the best frozen pina colada of my life! Also chips and guac, blistered shishitos, and a pretty great guava rum punch.

18Sep2020

Stuffed

by Emily

Highlights from this week include – truly epic snacks, a mid-week date night with the husband, and homemade dinners featuring fantastic sausages that I found at Whole Foods. I had a weekend comp day and a holiday comp day and was off Monday-Tuesday, which was just lovely!

Best bites…

Date night at Evil Twin!

Our favorite beer was that one that looks like a smoothie – Even More Hydra, a sour ale with blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, marshmallow, and cacao nibs.

The fudge ripple in this 7-11 ice cream is my favorite thing I’ve eaten all year.

Highly recommend these Trader Joe’s crunchy honeycrisp for Apple Month.

Cola-flavored beer.

All of the sushi take-out. Spicy crab, spicy salmon, Philadelphia roll, and crispy rice with spicy tuna.

Reuben pizza from Whole Foods.

Brussel sprouts roasted with duck fennel sausage, blue cheese, and yellow raisins.

Whole-wheat spaghetti with roasted cauliflower, lamb sausage, yellow raisins, sunflower seeds, green olive, and jalopeno.

14Sep2020

Black Cherry, Black Bean

by Emily

My work situation this past week/weekend was crazy, over-the-top busy so I don’t have a ton to share from the past seven days because I mostly ate weird snacks and sad take-out. I am actually off Monday and Tuesday this week and I could not be more excited for my “weekend.”

Here were five things I ate and loved…

{1} Top Apple Month success so far has been these caramel apple mellowcremes. They are as delicious as they are adorable!

{2} Still obsessed with Dr. Brown’s black cherry soda. I don’t know how I let this stuff fall off my radar the past few years, it’s fantastic!

{3} Also obsessed with these Trader Joe’s turkey corndogs. They are the perfect balance of sweet and savory.

{4} These buffalo blue bean burgers remain the best recipe I’ve ever created. Paired with homemade coleslaw with yellow raisins and sesame seeds. I roasted the cabbage which was a total upgrade.

{5} Before our busy weekend Adam and I managed to get into Brooklyn for a date on Friday – take-out from Donna Cocktail while watching the sunset in Domino Park! I had a frozen margarita and the best taco I’ve ever eaten. P.S. Then we went to second dinner at Meckelberg’s and split three sandwiches!

6Sep2020

Apple/Spice Month

by Emily

We were trying to eat through some of our stores before I went grocery shopping this weekend so the past week we ate a lot of random foods from the back of the freezer and take-out. Somehow it worked out that everything was delicious! Highlights include…

First things first, it is Apple/Spice Month! Yes, I am already feverishly shopping for pumpkin beers too.

Peanut butter and jelly crispy waffle from Costa Nova + an iced latte.

Leftover olives from our dinner at Glasserie.

Local Cava Guava IPA which was basically beer champagne.

Adam and I are both 10/10, head over heels obsessed with these Swedish Swedish fish. We bought every flavor we could get our hands on at the store the other day.

We also lost it for these Ben & Jerry’s cinnamon bun cookie dough bites. We had their original cookie dough flavor when it first came out and were underwhelmed but these were outstanding.

Trader Joe’s Asian stir-fry veggies topped with scrambled eggs.

Boca Burgers with beautiful roasted purple potato and roasted broccoli with chili spice.

Chipotle nachos! Tortilla chips with cheese, chicken, roasted peppers, corn salsa, and guacamole.

Homemade okonomiyaki. Topped with Kewpie, Sriracha, and furikake.

Buffalo chicken pizza is good, but leftover buffalo chicken pizza topped with honey and Korean chili flake is even better.

1Sep2020

Al Fresco

by Emily

What a wonderful weekend we just had! I worked (super long, busy days) Friday, Saturday, Sunday but Adam was off in the evenings too so we made sure to aggressively enjoy ourselves. Tons of NYC restaurants are doing safely distanced / non-exploitative outdoor dining now and we took full advantage.

Highlights include…

Homemade frozen pain-killers, enjoyed on a long walk with Webster. Coconut milk, orange juice, frozen pineapple, nutmeg, and dark rum.

S’mores ice cream sandwich. This was very graham/cinnamon forward.

A birthday cake stuffed cookie from Gooey on the inside.

Drinks and dessert at Freeman’s Alley. Bananas foster with a spicy margarita and a jammy vodka cocktail with elderflower and raspberry.

Dinner at Wayla, aka our new favorite Thai spot. They have Thai iced tea with oat milk.

We had a couple good cocktails, including this Hanabi Milk Punch which was my favorite drink I’ve ever been served. Naked Turtle Rum, Blackwell Rum, strawberry, star anise, cloves, genmaicha, and Singha soda.

Lump crab fried rice

Tua Pad Prik Khing – wok-fried long beans, crispy tofu, and galangal chili paste.

Dinner at Glasserie. I had a hibiscus margarita. Also a Hemingway daiquiri that knocked my socks off.

We shared a bunch of plates, each one better than the last. Olives and pickled peppers // labne, honey, and griddled bread.

Roasted lamb with potato and grilled scallions.

Tzatziki with trout roe and potato husks. <– my favorite dish of the weekend

28Aug2020

Coconut Iced Coffee

by Emily

I work this weekend but I do have some fun date nights planned. Highlights from the past week include…

We made painkillers! Dark rum, coconut milk, coconut cream, pineapple juice, orange juice, and nutmeg (and edible glitter stars!).

And since it was in the house, I put coconut cream in my iced coffee.

A yogurt bowl with peanut butter toffee granola and fresh blueberries. I need to make an effort to eat more berries while they’re still in season.

Watermelon jerky. I was past due on eating this… it is Apple Month next week!

These birthday cake bunny grahams are a 10/10. Perfectly balanced sweetness and soooo cute.

Green beans (roasted, then sauteed with duck sauce, soy sauce, and Chinese mustard) with Trader Joe’s frozen vegan orange chicken.

A tasting plate dinner win – rainbow baby carrots, bbq kettle chips, smoked salmon dip, and roasted cauliflower with five spice.

21Aug2020

Tubular

by Emily

Five highlights from this week include – – –

Arizona fruit snacks. They have a really pleasant texture and no palm oil. Does anyone else remember the terrible-in-a-wonderful-way pina colada bottled beverage Arizona used to sell?

Speaking of throwbacks, here’s a cherry cola slurpie(!) push-up(!!). Would recommend.

Beer wins. Triple dry-hopped IPA // key lime pie gose.

Dinner inspired by chana masala. Made with white beans instead of chickpeas and served on cauliflower rice.

Dinner inspired by laarb and/or fried rice. Ground turkey cooked with fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, Sriracha, and Korean chili flakes / with sauteed shallot, green onion, and Thai chili pepper / plus cilantro and mint / and roasted cauliflower rice / with eggs stir-fried in.

17Aug2020

Woop, There It Is

by Emily

Highlights from this weekend include – tons of coffee, tons of beer, tons of togetherness. Webster spent all of Saturday kicking it in Brooklyn with us, which was amazing.

Either Adam or I work the next several weekends so we tried to really maximize our fun date time!

Highlights…

We did a decadent car brunch picnic with take-out from Soul Brew in Huntington. Woop, There It Is weekend special – chocolate pancakes with marshmallow cream.

Scrambled egg burrito with potato, spinach, and smoked gouda.

Chocolate peanut butter cup iced latte.

Brooklyn Kolache Co is one of our favorite breakfast spots.

I had pimento cheese and we split a chocolate peanut butter. Plus an ube iced latte!

Lavender toasted marshmallow iced latte from Pipeline Coffee.

Frozen cortado from Better Read Then Dead. <– the best thing I ate all weekend/month/year

We were 10/10 excited to buy/try this Gushers yogurt but it was, unsurprisingly, not all that good to eat.

Evil Twin Brewing is currently our favorite spot in the city/on earth. Everything is inventive and delicious and they offer smaller tasting cups so you can try a lot of things. Blackberry peach milkshake IPA // key lime pie milkshake IPA // gose brewed with soursop(!!) and sea salt.

Triple dry hopped IPA // Triple IPA with marshmallow // a Saturn frozen cocktail – Dorthy Parker Gin, L’Orgeat, Velvet Falernum, passionfruit, Rockey’s Milk Punch, citrus, and edible glitter!

Highly recommend this chicken, corn, and rice frozen meal, particularly topped with chili oil.

(Distanced, outdoors) dinner at a Thai restaurant in Red Hook. I had spicy duck salad.

And a green papaya salad with salted eggs.

Happy Monday!

7Aug2020

Guava – Luxardo – Soursop

by Emily

Highlights from this week include – easy frozen meals, my first time making (and eating!) carbonara, and cocktail walks with Adam and Webster…

Strawberry guava sour.

Grimm (local) barrel-aged sour brewed with cashmere hops.

Soursop daiquiris.

This drink trio made a great team.

Trader Joe’s frozen scallion pancakes with Kewpie, Sriracha, and furikake.

Amy’s chile relleno frozen casserole.

I made carbonara with turkey bacon and whole-wheat pasta and it was still 10/10 decadent! With roasted baby eggplant.

We had leftover egg whites from the pasta so I made scrambled eggs the next night. With kale and Korean chili flakes. Plus turkey bacon and buttered pumpernickel-rye toast.

P.S. These chocolate-covered gummi bears were perfection! The chocolate and the gummies were both amazing so the combo was even better.

31Jul2020

Chocolate Cherry And Hoppy Guava

by Emily

I work all this weekend so clearly I jumped right back into my non-vacation life. It was actually a really busy work-week for me, I’ve been updating the hospital’s parenteral nutrition guidelines which is a fun but time-consuming project (in addition to my patient load). I am already quite excited for the next weekend – – in 8 days!

Highlights from this week include…

Espresso roast coffee with vanilla oat milk.

Sweet and jammy jelly berry grapes.

Double cherry truffle ice cream. I have been more than a little obsessed with these Magnum tubs throughout quarantine and cherry was my favorite variety yet!