Salmon Cream Cheese Wontons

I had to work this weekend but somehow I ended up with a bunch of eats that were super good.  Because they all included sugar and/or cheese?  Probably!  Here were the highlights…

Three fun new coffee cups.  Halvah cotton candy on top.

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Chocolate milk ice cubes.

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Starbuck’s nitro cold brew.  I loved the velvety texture but was not a fan of it being served without ice.

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Pickings are slim at the cafeteria on the weekends but I put together a pretty good lunch plate.  BBQ wings, veggie lo mein, roasted baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes with blue cheese dressing.

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Mango yogurt with fresh mango on top.  Guys, fresh mangos are so flipping good, how did I forget about them all winter??

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Cookie and coffee break.  From Bittersweet (a hopping Fort Greene coffee spot with no less than 7 cute doggies waiting in line when I walked in).

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Another sweet snack, vanilla yogurt with chocolate peanut butter stirred in and mini chocolate chips on top.

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Cinnamon dusted apple slices with sharp cheddar squares and chocolate peanut butter sticks.

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Whole Foods hot bar dinner on an after-work shopping trip.  Crispy potatoes, vegan meat balls, roasted zucchini, tabbouleh, and pasta salad.

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Best meal of the week was this quick and easy dinner I threw together Friday night.

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Salmon cream cheese wontons!  I stuffed wonton skins with a mix of canned salmon, cream cheese, brown sugar, fish sauce, and minced ginger.  Baked at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes.

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They were creamy and crispy and delicious.  Served with roasted green beans.

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A close 2nd for best meal was our dinner at Lady’s, a newish Italian spot in Brooklyn.

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The food was all fantastic – so fresh, and perfectly seasoned.  Like this amazing salad with snow peas, sunflower seeds, and pickled radish.  <– 2nd best salad of my entire life

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We also started with hummus with crispy chickpeas, charred cucumber, lemon, and focaccia.

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With a yummy local watermelon ale.

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And for our entrée we shared pasta with crab,

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and honey butter pizza dough with sea salt and Calabrian chili.  The spicy-salty-sweet contrast was perfection.  I had a glass of prosecco with that course and the pairing was wonderful.

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I got a giant scoop of the new cheesecake flavor at Ample Hills for dessert.  It was a tasty weekend!

Chicken Wing Style Meatballs

This week’s top three were tippity-top good!  Sweet and spicy, my favorite combo…

{1}  Fluffy cloud sesame vanilla yogurt bowl goodness.

TJ’s vanilla bean Greek yogurt with halvah cotton candy folded in.

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{2}  Chocolate chip vanilla chia pudding.

Chia seeds + vanilla hemp milk + mini chocolate chips.

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{3}  Chicken wing style meatball dinner.

Inspired by this Spicy Habenero Wing Sauce I got from Moore’s Marinades.  <– free sample alert – this product was provided for me without charge to review, I was not given any additional compensation for this post and all opinions are my own.

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I made spicy meatballs with wing sauce, ground chicken, and celery and onion (the veggies were minced and cooked in butter first).  I used panade instead of breadcrumbs and they ended up being the juiciest, best meatballs we’ve ever made eaten.

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Seriously, Adam and I ate the whole batch in one night because we kept going back for more!

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Served with an on-theme side, sautéed carrot, celery, and spring onion.

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Have a great weekend!

Smorgasburg, Greenport, And The Weekend’s Top Five

{1}  A day trip to Greenport.

Greenport is one of Adam’s favorite Long Island areas and we finally had a Sunday together to go explore.

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We walked on the pier, walked on the beach, ate a kind of meh breakfast in town, plus got a great iced latte and an almond croissant.

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Aaaand a toasted marshmallow iced latte that knocked our socks off.

{2}  Our 1st kolache experience.

So exciting!

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I’ve been dying to try one ever since I started following Kylie and Brooklyn Kolache did not disappoint.

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We did one sweet and one savory – poppy seed and turkey, egg, and cheese – plus a delicious brown sugar iced latte.

{3}  Our 1st Smorgasburg visit of the season.

It was a good one!  We hit up Duck Season for duck fat fries with confit and a sandwich with confit, pickled cabbage, gojuchang, and craklins.

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Ube Kitchen for Halo Halo.  It was a nice dessert, but not Halo Halo – there was no nata de coco, no palm seeds, plus it had granola in it, and almond milk instead of condensed milk.

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Plus we got impossibly smooth coffee from Ministry of Kaapi.

{4}  BBQ chicken salad.

Baby romaine dressed in yogurt ranch, shredded chicken in Korean bbq sauce, cucumber, sharp cheddar, and smoked paprika.

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This was actually the appetizer course for a meal that included cheese fries and buffalo chicken wings!

{5}  A toasted marshmallow smoothie/shake.

Toasted marshmallows, Greek yogurt, vanilla extract, and vanilla hemp milk.

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It was wonderful.

P.S. This is currently the view when I step out my front door!!

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Halvah Cotton Candy

Here were this week’s top five bites –

An egg and cheese roll from a truck in Brooklyn.  This edge bite does not give an accurate picture of just how wonderfully cheesy it was.

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Kiwi Chobani with Heritage Flakes and a Minneola.

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Sweet Cream Liberté with maple quinoa granola and some Golden Nugget tangerines.

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A loose take on this recipe for vegan menemen with silken tofu.  I couldn’t find urfa chiles so I substituted smoked paprika and some raisins and somehow it came out great.

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With roasted zucchini and toasted bread with olive oil.

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Halvah floss (aka cotton candy!).

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I Can’t Choose A Favorite!

This is a longer wrap-up (Monday through Sunday) and I ate too many yummy things to chose a single favorite for my post title.  I’ve got my top three – 1) Thai-style crab fried rice, 2) roasted garlic bread, and 3) black sesame shaved ice.

Here were the highlights…

Killer coffee combo – Volcanic roast with chocolate milk.

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Usually I just have coffee for breakfast or eat something on my train, but this week the cafeteria sounded amazing first thing in the morning.  Eggs and hashbrowns, with humus.

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Cafeteria lunch, a spicy chicken sandwich on ridiculously cheesy bread with mustard, lettuce, and bell pepper.

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Last weekend I spent forever trying to make coconut curd.  I didn’t make jam, but I did filthy every last inch of my stovetop.  My experiment didn’t work, at all, but I did kind of like the end result – a vaguely sweet, egg, cake.

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I enjoyed my “jam” in lunches all week.  Like with vanilla bean yogurt and blackberries.

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And plain yogurt, berries, maple quinoa granola, and black sesame seeds.

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Whole Foods hot bar lunch.

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Sesame broccoli, turkey salad, and cole slaw.

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Plus a maple soda that was not as exciting as I was expecting it to be; it had an off-putting aftertaste.

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Snack time.  Ice cream = maple walnut and a white chocolate vanilla marshmallow flavor.

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Milk bun.

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Crème brulee milk stout.

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My workweek dinners were on point!  Like crab fried rice with roasted broccoli and sliced cucumber.

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I loosely followed this recipe, except I used brown rice and waaaay more crab.  It was fantastic.

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Vampire killer, I roasted three whole heads of garlic for this recipe.

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Garlic turkey meatballs with red sauce and roasted zucchini.

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And amazing homemade garlic bread – I mashed butter and roasted garlic and then slathered it on sliced sourdough and baked until delicious.

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Even our leftovers meal was tasty.  Cheese tortellini with meatballs, peas, roasted garlic, and red sauce.

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One night I had dinner out with a coworker.  We checked out the new Brooklyn MŏkBar location.  They have a liquor license now, and I got a yummy vodka “cloudsicle.”

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Plus chicken ramen with kimchi and poached egg.

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And the new Brooklyn Snowdays location was right next door!  Black sesame shaved ice with oreo, mochi, and condensed milk.

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Plus a dinner date with the husband.  Brinkley’s has Genesee Cream Ale on draught!

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We got pimento cheese dip and duck fat fries to start and I dipped my fries in the pimento cheese and pretty much died of heart failure happiness.

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Plus fish tacos with mahi, guacamole, and pineapple salsa.

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The other two dinners were decidedly less exciting.  Like Chipotle take out.  And more hot bar.  Yes, I went to Whole Foods two different days, it was an exciting week.  I was too busy at work yesterday to break for lunch so by the time I got dinner I ate a giant plate of all of the things.

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Now it’s two days of work before a break on Wednesday.

Have a great week!

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Chocolate “Cheesecake” Oatmeal

Kids.  Work is really freaking stressful this month.  My goodness.  I had Wednesday off this week (from working the previous weekend) and I practically spent the whole day in a coma.  And yesterday I bought multiple coffees before 10 am.  I promise to whine about post a work sitch update sometime soon, but for this post I’m keeping things short and simple.

Some of the best things I ate this week…

Oatmeal with chia seeds, two kinds of chocolate chips, and a scoop of cream cheese.  It was heavenly.

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Mango yogurt with Luxardo cherries, plus I added a banana from the cafeteria at work.

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Another dessert-y lunch, plain Greek yogurt with cookie butter, granola, and a Pink Lady apple.

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My mother-in-law sent us a giant box of sugar cookies for Easter.  Both of our mothers still send us Easter baskets, actually, there’s a lot of candy in this house!

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Leftover cheddar bbq meatloaf with roasted green beans.  Adam butchered the meatloaf getting it out of the dish and then mashed it onto my plate because I pretty much live like a princess.

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<– that was sarcasm, but I really am pretty spoiled.  Case in point – honey beer with dinner.

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Sweet potato fries with tons of extra-sharp cheddar and ground turkey with Korean bbq sauce.  I realize that the photo is pretty rough, but it was one of the yummiest things I ate all week.  We highly recommend the frozen fries from Trader Joe’s.

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Hot pasta salad.  I sautéed big chunks of green bell pepper and onion in tons of olive oil and smoked paprika, tossed with crispy roasted chickpeas, and cheese tortellini.

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Are you dying eggs this weekend??

Pastrami Smoked Salmon On Sourdough

Once again, this title reflects the most exciting thing I ate in this post.  Honestly though, everything I ate this weekend was pretty darn tasty!

Iced coffee with cake popsicle used for ice.  <– gaaaaah!  so swoontastic!

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Perfectly sweet just enough sour smoothie – passionfruit sorbet / plain Greek yogurt / frozen blueberries / princess flavoring / water.

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Snacky lunch at work.  Mandarin, uncured turkey pepperoni, yummy cinnamon roll Chobani.

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Cafeteria sandwich.  Spicy chicken, pesto, red pepper, and tomato, on an insanely cheesy roll.

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Mr. Flip sandwich from Flip Bird – pulled rotisserie chicken, harissa honey, pickled coleslaw, sambal mayo, and a piece of crispy skin.  It was a 10/10.

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Dinner from the freezer – ice cream and a naan pizza.

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The cilantro pesto pizza – which I got with a free coupon given to me for review – was delicious, the flavor was a bit spicy, which was a nice surprise.

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Lox and cream cheese on a bagel sourdough toast.

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This pastrami-style smoked salmon from Trader Joe’s is my all-time favorite smoked salmon.

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Served with a quick salad of tomato, cucumber, cilantro, green onion, olive oil, and Himalayan salt.

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I made a recipe!  Cheddar bbq turkey meatloaf.

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I ate all of the crispy cheese bits that started to burn to the pan and was sooooo happy.  Plus roasted broccoli.

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Do you have a favorite type of smoked fish to recommend?

Crab Rangoon Grilled Cheese

This post contains a week’s worth of wrap up – not just the sandwich – but the sandwich was awesome so it stole the title.  Maybe I’ll make a thing of it and start titling all of my weekly posts after the best bite?

Yummy things…

Our very last cup of chicory coffee from Café du Monde.  <– boo!  With a mandarin.  I spilled the 2nd to very last cup all over the counter and down the side of the fridge, so that was fun.

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More chicory coffee, in yogurt form.  With KIND maple quinoa granola and chocolate-covered cacao nibs.  Plus a Pacific Rose apple.

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The best chips of all time – honey butter flavored from Trader Joe’s.  Excluding, obviously, the freshly made honey butter chips served at Oiji.

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Another Trader Joe’s win – Kona coffee cookie mocha swirl ice cream.

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Homemade treats make the best snacks though.  I threw a wedding shower for one of the ladies at work this week and contributed cookie butter bars and brown butter chocolate chip cookies.

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The eponymous sandwich!

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Served with roasted brussel sprouts with paprika and Old Bay seasoning – to keep the seafood theme going.

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Toasted sourdough with crab rangoon in between.  The filling was a mixture of cream cheese, lump crab meat, green onion, minced ginger, brown sugar, and soy sauce.  They were wonderful.

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I loosely followed the recipe for Eat, Live, Run’s lemon brown sugar chicken.

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I added sliced green onions to the casserole dish and used extra smoked paprika, but primarily I swapped in MAPLE sugar for brown sugar.  Delicious.  We spooned the sauce on top of our veggies.

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Another night I loosely followed the recipe for Bon Appétit’s marinated beans.  Great northern beans with evoo, rice vinegar, cilantro, green onion, and gojuchang.  I served the beans on top of roasted green beans and sweet potato fries.

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With a sour beer on the side.

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I work the next five days, but I hope everyone else has a lovely weekend!