Birthday Cake Coffee And Jelly Bean Gum

by Emily

Random notes:

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.

My lunch was delicious.

Fresh blueberries on top of lemon Chobani with a side of sugar cookie kettle corn.

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.

Adam loved the oatmeal raisin cookie smoothie that I made for my last Recipe Redux post a ton, so this weekend I worked up an official recipe.

I made mine with plain almond milk. ‘Twas good.

This gum is great.

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.

Did you try the birthday cake Frappuccino?

20Mar2015

“It’s A Miracle!”

by Emily

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!

17Mar2015

Pi(e) Day 2015

by Emily

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 –

After an hour+ wait, we did dessert first with pie at Four & Twenty Blackbirds.

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.

Then we did slices of pizza pie at Pino’s.

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.

We also got coffee at Sweatshop.

And the best sundae ever at Milk Bar. With crack pie soft-serve. The guy asked me if I wanted “hot fudge or cornflakes?,” and I answered “both.”

That was the correct answer.

Do you celebrate Pi Day? Favorite kind of pie?

6Mar2015

When It Snows It Blizzards*

by Emily

When it comes to the big, important stuff – having jobs, our health, and a great marriage – Adam and I know that we are unbelievably lucky. That said, man oh man, this week was annoying. The snow has been relentless, I wore my favorite sweater to work only to get to the cafeteria and douse myself head to toe in balsamic vinegar, Adam had to have both of his big toe nails emergently removed, and my car has a flat tire. When it rains it pours*. I’m pretty sure I have never been so glad for a weekend!

There was a lot of stress snacking going down this week that I didn’t do the best job of photographing, but I am going to recap the most delicious things…