{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.
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).
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??
We bought tons eggs and dye for Easter this year, and of course, never did a darn thing with them. The dye is in our “holidays bin” for next year, but the eggs had to be cooked. And so, I enjoyed hard-boiled eggs as a meal almost every day this week.
I was also all about the Cara Cara oranges and Medjool dates. It’s starting to taste like summer!
stuff
I started Ruth Reichl’s first autobiography on the train and I think I’m in love.
She is so funny, and I love any story about food!
We were insanely busy at work all week and I’m dying. That’s why this post is a day late (and is short about 10 more coffee and candy pictures), because I did sessions with 18 patients on Friday – many of them with gestational diabetes – and when I got home I just wanted to lie down.
breakfast
I made an awesome cold-brew blend this week: Community Coffee French Roast and BRC Peru with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin pie spice.
But this triple – chocolate oatmeal bowl wins a close second.
Rolled oats with a heaping Tbsp of hot chocolate mix, chocolate-covered cocoa nibs, and dark chocolate chips.
And this busy day “lunch” was a loser. Vanilla soy milk at 11 am.
And Easter candy at 4pm when there was finally a lull.
dinner
Omg. Kids! I made the tastiest stroganoff-inspired noodle bowls ever. Adam and I could not get over them.
Served in heaping scoops on egg pappardelle.
Yummy Stroganoff-ish Pasta, serves 4
Heat 1 Tbsp evoo in a large skillet over high-medium heat. Add 20 ounces sliced white mushrooms, and a big pinch of salt, and cook until the mushrooms have lost their juices and browned, stirring regularly (10 – 13 minutes). Deglaze the pan with a healthy pour of cream sherry. Remove mushrooms from pan and reduce heat to medium-high, adding an additional Tbsp evoo if needed.
Add 1 lb lean ground turkey and two large shallots, chopped to the pan. Season with pepper and 1 Tbsp smoked paprika. Cook 5 minutes, stirring regularly and breaking up the meat into small pieces with the side of your spatula. Stir in 1/2 Tbsp ground garlic, 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce, and 1 Tbsp soy sauce. Continue to cook, stirring regularly, until meat is cooked through (5 – 7 more minutes).
Reduce heat to low and stir in 3/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream.
Serve on top of pasta of choice.
The leftovers were still great.
Served on top of spinach salad. Plus, those of us who can eat chocolate had Lindt caramels for dessert.
We had cobb salad.
Baby spinach with balsamic / roasted asparagus / turkey bacon / avocado / TJ’s cave-aged blue cheese / hard-boiled eggs.
And egg salad.
Eggs with shredded carrot, chopped green pepper, mayo, pickle relish, garlic mustard, dill, tumeric, smoked paprika, and s & p. With great seeded crackers my parents sent us for Easter.
And roasted broccoli and green beans.
Egg salad is good – and I wasn’t even tired of eggs yet! – but roasted green beans are always the best part.
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.
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.
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.
I wrote this post at midnight on Saturday… while I ate dinner/my first meal of the day… it’s been kind of a rough week. Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood while this is auto-publishing because I should be in the car on my way to Easter celebrating with the husband’s family.
I’m missing a ton of photos from the week (chips and dip!) and posting two days late, so I almost skipped this post, but some of these eats (chocolate + oat bowls!) were just so good.
breakfast
Community Coffee sent me a variety of their ground coffees to try.
This was a free product sample that I’m reviewing for no additional compensation. It will take me some time to make it through them all, but I will let you know as I open each bag.
Quite nice! Roasty and not acrid at all. I am going to make a (hot) batch in the coffee machine soon and I will let you know if that changes my opinion, but for now we give this two thumbs up.
Salted crack caramel + salted honey with honeycomb and chocolate-covered potato chips.
dinner
Chipotle, because heaven forbid we go longer than five days without rice bowls.
Or salty lime chips, or giant diet cokes.
I made us a huge batch of marinara sauce in the crockpot.
It was a great idea in theory, but I didn’t season the sauce enough and the end result was very “meh.” Too bad we ate it three days in row for dinner and still have gallons left.
The best part of that meal was our side dish –
roasted broccoli with pesto gouda melted on top.
On a much more exciting night, I had drinks with a girlfriend at my favorite Brooklyn bar – Pork Slope. No photos, but I had a Keegan’s Mother’s Milk Stout on draft that rocked my socks off. Then we met up with Adam for dinner at Talde, Pork Slope’s Asian-American sister.
That’s my Navy Grog {Diplomatico rum, honey syrup, lime and grapefruit juices} and kale salad {cantaloupe, pickled beets, candied almonds, creamy ponzu}. I am going to be heartbroken when we move on from our national kale obsession.
A bunch of bites slipped past the camera this weekend, though per usual, the majority of them were coffee and candy.
I had big plans for excitement in the city this weekend and the snow (in March?! seriously?) throw me off my game. We did make it to the Lower East Side for a 2nd trip to Adam’s new favorite restaurant though.
I binge-watched my way through the first 9 episodes of “Fresh off the Boat” and thought it was great. The book has been on my Amazon wish-list for ages, and we recently visited BaoHaus, so it’s safe to say I’m currently infatuated with Eddie Huang.
Eats:
Double espresso with skim milk (over ice) at work.
I’m not super hungry most mornings, but I try to get in a full 8 oz serving of dairy in my coffee. The 8 grams of protein and 90 – 130 calories usually hold me just fine until my early lunch. Usually. I was so hungry all day on Friday that I was practically crying.
But soon after lunch I was miserable. And I took lunch an hour earlier than usual so it was looong afternoon. I bought this thing of cheese and crackers from the cafeteria, scoffed at how ridiculously large the serving size was, and finished the whole thing 30 minutes later.
And 30 minutes after that, I was buying coffee and a KIND bar for my train ride.
Plus I ate Easter candy both before and after dinner.
My dinner, that in retrospect definitely could have used more protein, was a good one though, if a bit scattered.
Salad = baby kale, cubes pesto gouda, dried blueberries, buckwheat groats, and honey/evoo/lavender salt for dressing.
Our pasta bowls were more of the same; pesto gouda and baby spinach, along with tons of caramelized onions – finished with cream sherry! – and whole wheat boxed mac and cheese with a few giant shells thrown in for good measure.
I was still hungry when we went to bed! Thankfully I felt back to normal by Saturday morning.
My picture-taking motivation went downhill at that point – when I woke up to almost-April snow my plans to go to the gym, clean the floors, and generally accomplish anything all seemed to disappear – but I do have shots of the good stuff.
Doesn’t taste like a jelly bean, but it has a great, tart flavor.
Starbucks reached the 20th birthday of the Frappuccino last week and they celebrated with a limited-edition birthday cake flavor… with pink raspberry whipped cream!
I asked for them to make me one into a skim iced latte. So good. Still ridiculous, but slightly less ridiculous.
I made Pinch of Yum’s Bourbon Chicken for Sunday dinner, though I trashed mine up a bit by substituting in turkey breast and Jim Beam’s Maple Bourbon.
Served with brown rice and roasted broccoli, under a healthy drizzle of sauce. My mother – a maple fanatic – bought me the bourbon for Christmas and I have so many cocktail ideas for it.
We had another amazing meal at Pig & Khao. Adam is obsessed with this place and I don’t blame him.
That’s my Reisling and our order of fried mantao buns.
The husband had a giant plate of pork leg, and I ordered the Khao Soi – red curry, coconut milk, chicken, egg noodles, pickled mustard greens, and shallots.
I don’t even like red curry (understandably, the menu is mostly meats so there aren’t a ton of options for me) but I loooved this. The flavors are just so balanced; you leave feeling unbelievably satisfied.
We had to make room for Halo Halo though!
Shaved ice, leche flan, ube ice cream, macapuno (coconut), and pinipig (toasted puffed rice). My favorite desserts are bat ping so, choclados, and halo halo, clearly I am all about shaved ice and sweet milk.
Who else has obsessively binge-watched their way though the entire first season of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” already? We finished the whole thing over the weekend. We loved it! I’m considering a rewatch. I hate the two trial episodes – I thought they were god-awful, truly some of the worst television I’ve ever seen – but I adored everything preceding them. The 10 second concept makes my life. Unsurprisingly, this is another smart and funny win from Tina Fey.
The theme song has permanently ear-wormed its way into my brain.
Related, Lisa – Born Round was amazing!
I read it on the train and then would sit in my car in the parking lot for at least 20 minutes each night to keep reading. I’m pretty sure Bruni should be giving TED Talks for all would-be crash dieters, emotional eaters, and aspiring journalists.
breakfast
I did the chocolate milk and iced coffee combo two days in a row.
Paired with a Special K protein bar both days.
Not the best bars – for taste or ingredient list – but they were free in the cafeteria and I had some extra morning hunger this week.
Another day I did hot chocolate mix in hot coffee with a lot of milk on top.
So basically just the lukewarm version of my chocolate milk and coffee.
My breakfast plan for St. Patrick’s Day was a green smoothie. Then I hit the snooze button and the plan was iced coffee with green dye in my milk. Then I hit the snooze button five more times and I barely managed to get coffee, ice, and boring plain milk into my cup.
…and then I also got Starbucks once I got off of the train.
I usually don’t let myself do two coffees in the morning, but I had stayed in bed until literally 10 minutes before I needed to be in the car so clearly it was a double coffee kind of morning. And yes, mom, I fixed my hat hair before I saw patients.
lunch
Thankfully the cafeteria totally came through and helped me get some green-theme on St. Paddy’s Day.
My bagel was topped with pepperjack, sliced turkey, mayo, mustard, and frisee lettuce. Plus baked onion rings on the side.
Blood orange Fage with Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes and blackberries and a fresh mandarin orange on the side.
I can’t believe I had only ever eaten canned mandarins up until this year, they are my new favorite citrus.
Tart cherry Noosa with coconut butter, homemade butterscotch peanut butter, and a Pinata apple.
We are loving the new 4 oz Noosa packs. Noosa is Adam’s top favorite yogurt – in fact it’s one of his favorite foods in general – but the original packages were a bit too large to enjoy on the go.
Vanilla-caramel yogurt with blackberries and 18 Rabbits caramel apple granola.
I loved the flavor of the grass-fed yogurt but I’d still be a little nervous about trying it plain.
snack
Popcorn / all-time best Easter candy / beer…
All good.
A small but gourmet sandwich.
Toasted whole-wheat with Applegate Farm herb sliced turkey, mayo, and leftover carmelized onions.
Weird pasta salad from the cafeteria.
Why do they keep putting croutons in pasta??
An Austrian iced coffee.
Aka coffee (delicious Grady’s cold-brew in this case) with ice, (skim) milk, and (vanilla-caramel) ice cream.
dinner
Asian-style baked shrimp bowls.
From the bottom up, I filled my casserole with quartered bok choy, sliced wild mushrooms, chopped orange and yellow bell pepper, shrimp, fish sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, canola oil, and Sriracha. Then I baked it for 15 minutes at 425 degrees.
Served on top of brown rice cooked in chicken stock.
Leftover bbq salads.
Spicy, local arugula topped with bbq sauce, cucumber, avocado, bell pepper, caramelized onions, and TJ’s fire-roasted corn cooked with turkey bacon.
These were some of the best salads we’ve made in months.
The next night I did a 180 from salads and made my grandma’s recipe for an awesomely retro chicken and rice casserole.
Complete with condensed soups, chow mein noodles, and crushed chips on top. I swapped half of the rice for shredded cauliflower but otherwise did not healthy it up at all.
Served with green beans baked with fish sauce, honey, Sriracha, and evoo.
We ate casserole the next night too.
And we will probably been eating casserole the next few nights as well!
Hope everyone has a great weekend, good luck getting that song out of your head!
Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is an infinite, constant number (i.e. the number goes on forever and it’s the same number for all circles of all sizes). π equals 3.1415926535897932384626etcetera,etcetera. Because of this, math-lovers and sugar-aficionados alike celebrate March 14 (3/14 = 3.14) as Pi Day each year. This year was extra special because it was a once-a-hundred-years opportunity to celebrate a full five digits (3/14/2015 = 3.14[.]15). Adam and I partook in both dessert pies and pizza pies to mark the occasion.
Pi Day
Adam and I knew that we wanted to go for the double, so we headed to Park Slope, where both our favorite pie place and pizza place reside. We were clearly not the only ones to have this idea –
Malted chocolate pecan for him and buttermilk chess for me. The crusts suffered a bit from what must have been a major uptick in production (Blackbirds was offering a 3 slices for $14 special) but the fillings were amazing as always.
Bbq chicken for me. Adam got more because he has π memorized beyond the first three digits 😉
Dinners in Bowls
I’m not so big on plates -I also prefer chopsticks to forks – and it feels like we eat the majority of our dinner out of bowls. Extra-credit if the food is layered into the bowl instead of served as a homogenous dish. Our dinners last weekend hit both counts.
We even ate dessert in bowls.
The ice cream was good, but nothing about it was “Tres Leches.” Boo.
Spicy sweet potato bowls.
baked yam
creamy Sriracha sauce – Sriracha, mayo, and honey
sautéed broccoli – in soy sauce and rice vinegar
sunny side up egg – fried in coconut oil
This was… not good. The idea was good, I think, but the broccoli was freezer-burnt and the potatoes were old.
Our bbq bowls were much, much better.
brown rice cooked in chicken stock
bbq pulled chicken – cooked in the crockpot with stock and smothered in TJ’s bbq sauce
collard greens sautéed with bbq sauce and turkey bacon
tons of caramelized sweet and red onions (cooked like this)
shredded sharp cheddar
We’re going to put our leftovers on top of salad later this week and I’m pretty excited about it.
DUMBO Fun
Drinks in DUMBO.
I am obsessed with Brooklyn Roasting Company‘s coffee and we finally made it to their roaster/café. I wish I had taken photos because the space was gorgeous and inviting, but we loved our beverages.
Iced Maple Shay for me = espresso with cream and real maple syrup. Amazingly, it was too sweet and creamy for me to finish.
Our next stop was the antithesis of maple and cream, green juice from Forager’s.
Kale, spinach, cucumber, and papaya. I will not be getting papaya again; I always like to include one sweet and juicy component in my green juice (carrot, apple, watermelon, etc) but the papaya did not bring any brightness to the party.
Williamsburg Fun
Sunday brunch and brunch dessert (<– that’s not a thing!) in East Williamsburg. We ate at Brooklyn Star where Adam was 99.9% sure that Emma Stone was at the next table. It wasn’t her, but it sure was her doppelgänger.
The bourbon bon bon – bourbon, iced coffee, sweetened condensed milk – was the menu item that called me in.
Nope! I love bourbon, and I love iced coffee, but apparently I don’t love them together.
My kale salad stole my heart though.
You can’t see it under the giant cheese crisp, but there was raw kale with lemon vinegarette, roasted peanuts, and golden raisins. Best kale salad ever. I know I say that every time, but this one was my new favorite.
Eating Chalk 