Featured food finds: Monday and Tuesday

The week started out slowly in terms of food finds, but it has quickly picked up steam. I have a hunch that today will be even more rife with contributions, so I’m getting these down before I end up with a novel!

Monday morning, Lillian offered me this biscuit to go along with my tea. I don’t know what it is about these biscuits — they’re so plain yet soooo addicting.



I also tried out one of my free Soyjoy bars from the health event last weekend:

I can see why the people at the event only let me take two of their sample bars (I still snuck a third) — they didn’t want me to know how un-amazing they were! I had asked if I could take one of each of the five flavors, and the lady turned me down. You’d think Soyjoy would want to give away as much as possible with all the soy controversy going around, but I guess she did not study marketing. Although, if she had given me one of each, I would have been able to say with confidence that every single flavor was lousy. So maybe she wanted to keep the lousy-ness a secret.

Anyway, the bar wasn’t gross or inedible by any means. It was just dry and kind of eh. I’ll eat them as I need them, but I’m not in a rush!

Tuesday morning, I went to a two-hour training downtown about deafness/hearing concerns. I had a suspicion that pastries might be present due to the breakfast timing, so I brought along a paper bag and a bunch of napkins just in case. I was right!

I packed up a bunch of bagels and assorted pastries for my freezer, and I contented myself with tea, the lone strawberry garnish, and a mini cranberry-orange muffin:

Oh, right … and a mini bran muffin, too 😛

Also on Tuesday, Myrna brought in a bunch of purple-pink frosted tres leches cake from a birthday party her daughter attended over the weekend. Here’s my pile!

Salty-sweet trail mix from Rosey later in the afternoon:

And a free fro-yo sample with Tate’s Bakeshop oatmeal-cranberry cookies from Butterfield Market on the way to class 😀

The end!

What has fallen into your lap this week?

It’s shaping up to be another highlights-style blog week around here. Summer classes move at the speed of light — I already have to be working on final papers and projects, ack!

This week’s featured breakfast started here:

I had frozen the rest of last week’s CSA strawberries on Friday, so I pulled those out of the freezer and let them simmer in a covered pan with about 1/2 cup of water. I added 2 tbsp ground flax, boiled a few minutes longer, and then added 1/2 cup BRM Scottish Oatmeal. Before this, I was under the impression that Scottish oatmeal and Irish (steel-cut) oatmeal were the same (and I’m sure my Scotch–Irish ancestors are rolling in their graves right now). But, if you look closely, you can see that the Scottish oatmeal is not as uniformly chopped as steel-cut.

In my opinion, more texture = more fun, so I was thrilled with the textural variety of these! I didn’t really cook the oats — I just mixed them into the hot strawberry-flax mix and added more things like plain yogurt, chia seeds, and goji berries. The resulting pudding the next morning was thick and creamy and chewy, just as I had hoped!

I layered the strawberry-oat-seed pudding with plain pumpkin for a parfait effect:

I topped the parfait with a sample packet of Fitnutz Butter, the “regular” variety this time. I still prefer PB2 (well, I really prefer real peanut butter, but we’re talking about powders here!), but the creamy texture of the Fitnutz did lend itself well to the parfait setup.

(I also tried the Fitnutz Pro with “added essential fatty acids.” The ingredients list (peanut powder, sugar, salt) is the same, but somehow it struck me as having more of a sesame flavor. And I still prefer PB2!) 

I topped the reconstituted peanut butter with unsweetened coconut and a chopped square of Newman’s espresso dark chocolate (sooooooo good!). And if you look closely, you can see my homemade balls in the background!

 

I used soymilky Numi emperor’s puerh black tea to go along with the tapioca. I prefer my bubble tea iced, so I brewed a big pot of the tea on Sunday and have just been storing it in the fridge so that it’s ready to go when the balls start calling!

What is your favorite powdered product (food or non-food)?

P.S. Remember my French toast challenge? True to her word, Brandi went ahead and French-toasted her donuts! Go check out the heart-hammering results 😀

For Sunday morning brunch, Rachel, Jaime, and I went to Dizzy’s, a Park Slope brunch institution.

Dizzy’s is located a mere five blocks from my apartment, yet I’ve somehow managed to avoid eating there for the four years that I’ve been living in this neighborhood!



Rachel and Jaime wanted to get on the road so they could get home to MA before it got too late, so I suggested Dizzy’s because I knew it opened at 9am. (Most Sunday brunches around here don’t start until much later.)

I knew we had made the right choice when this basket made its way to our table!

We had two blueberry mini-muffins, one apricot mini-muffin, a biscuit, and strawberry butter. For the most part, I have no need for butter in my life. I could have eaten this strawberry butter by the spoonful, though! It was amaaaaaaaaazing.

Rachel ordered this beautiful giant bowl of fruit, yogurt, and honey. (It came with granola, too, but she ordered extra fruit and yogurt in place of it.) It’s so refreshing to find a restaurant that realizes “fruit salad” needs to consist of more than cantaloupe and honeydew! This salad had strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, pineapple, mango, banana, and pears:

Jaime ordered the amaretto French toast topped with pecans:

I had a bite and it was the most decadent-tasting thing ever … but I did not taste any amaretto?

Normally, I am all about sweet breakfasts, but I needed something salty after being out so late the night before!

I crafted my own mix-and-match breakfast because I was having a hard time deciding between huevos rancheros and the omelet special with red pepper, spinach, parsley, and feta. I decided to combine the best of each!

I ordered the omelet special made with egg whites and asked for guacamole on the side 😀 The omelet also came with super hearty whole grain seedy bread that was probably baked fresh (and the strawberry butter was a match made in heaven for it, fyi):

Ooooh that was so good. You may not normally think to combine feta and guac, but every time I do it, I remember what an excellent pair they make!

In place of the home fries (if you recall, I loathe potatoes), I asked for some of that fresh and fruity salad:

The verdict: we loooooooooved Dizzy’s! It’s a little too pricey for every weekend, though. The only brunch option is fixed price: $12.95 for the bread basket, entree, juice, and unlimited coffee/tea and $14.95 if you want to include alcoholic beverages. With all my special requests, my non-alcoholic breakfast came to $14.95, not including tax and tip. Could have been worse, though! If you have the money, the food is definitely worth the price.

What role does butter play in your life? Does flavor matter? (And I’m not talking about all-fruit butters like apple butter or pumpkin butter here!)

So, last you heard, I was having a pleasant Saturday of Peep recovery.

Recovery progressed smoothly until Rachel arrived.

Rachel is my cousin. She may be small, but she can move a 2500-pound metal cube with no sweat and she can make me stay out until 2 a.m. dancing in heels and spending my own money on alcohol. (If you know me, you know that heels, dancing, and alcohol are very hard sells where I am concerned.)

Rachel and her boyfriend Jaime arrived at my apartment on Saturday evening after driving down from MA for a quick one-night-stay at Hotel Sarah. We started the night at Cafe Orlin, one of favorite restaurants from the NYU days. Rachel put me in a headlock until I agreed to buy myself a drink. OK, maybe it wasn’t that hard for her to convince me once I saw this on the menu:



It was a vodka drink with fresh strawberry and fresh kiwi … and it was very strong but very tasty. I am really never ever tempted to buy a drink unless it has fresh fruit in it. This one fit the bill!

For dinner, I went with one of my Orlin stand-bys: the falafel and hummus plate.

I don’t know how authentic the Orlin falafel is (it’s definitely no Mamoun’s), but sometimes a glammed up version of street food can really hit the spot!

For dessert, we all split the carrot cake.

This was my first experience with the Orlin carrot cake, believe it or not. I usually end up having dinner there with die-hard chocolate lovers (ahem, Gina) who insist on the flourless chocolate lava cake. I was disappointed at first when I saw that this carrot cake did not have cream cheese frosting, but I needn’t have worried! The cake was served warm, and it had a thin and crunchy sprinkle of brown sugar on top. What really put the cake over the edge, however, were the candied pecans in fresh whipped cream on the side.

With a successful dinner behind us, we heeled up and headed to Central Bar, another NYU favorite and the only place I consider taking people when dancing is on the agenda because there is no cover to get in and there is usually an Irish man of some sort working the bar. Gina arrived a little bit later, I bought myself another drink (Rachel was staring me down!), and we all stayed dancing for hours until Gina’s husband was able to pick us up after his hockey games and chauffeur us back to the Slope (Thanks, Chris!).

Five hours after getting to bed, we were up again for an early brunch before Rachel and Jaime had to hit the road! So yes, recovery was derailed by more drinks and less sleep. But it was fun, and it was worth it 😀

Have you experienced any derailments lately?

I have an idea. How about you tell me it’s not really almost bedtime on Sunday night???!! How did this happen?!

Saturday involved a prescription for Peep recovery which went something like this:

(The Peeps moved into freezer bag 1A with the current lease-holder, half a package of Newman’s Os.)

Some of you suggested that I put one of these innocent marshmallow birdies/duckies into a microwave for 5 seconds to see what becomes of it. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the Peeps), I am microwaveless!! Anyone have pictures to share of what happens to the little creatures?

Peep recovery continued with hot yoga followed by this:

CSA delivery #2! My half of the share (pictured) included pea shoots, spinach, mesclun, three eggs (the other three are from last week), asparagus, cilantro, garlic scapes, and snap peas.

Next on the Peep recovery agenda was a 1 p.m. breakfast:

This bowl involved an immersion-blended mix of cooked kale from Nydia’s Edible Arrangement, whole wheat couscous from the health event, and overripe banana slices from my [old] roommate Tara; a sprinkling of instant oats and goji berries for chew; cinnamon and nutmeg, and this new find:

I heard about this PB2 competitor last week and had to get my hands on some samples when I found out that FitNutz had a chunky mix! Peanut pieces aside, however, I much prefer the taste of PB2. The FitNutz butter had some extra sweetness in it that didn’t thrill me. (I also mixed the packet with a tbsp of plain yogurt instead of 2 tsp water.) It was ok, and I know I will enjoy my sample packets, but I’m probably not going to be buying it anytime soon.

The FitNutz experiment represented a perfect segue from Peep recovery to kitchen adventures. I decided to take on the challenge of homemade balls once again. Although the goop-turned-crepe last week actually worked out quite well, my goal this weekend was to achieve ball perfection. I learn well from my mistakes, so I opted to skip a pre-soak and just throw all the balls into a pot of boiling water.

As you can see, they started out a light beige color and turned the desired dark brown as they cooked.

I could tell the tapioca was done when the balls became dark brown all the way through (any beige meant that the texture would still be chalky instead of chewy inside). Because these were jumbo balls (as opposed to the typical tapioca with teeny balls), they took a long time to cook — at least an hour and maybe two.

I was overjoyed with the finished product: ball perfection!

I had some homemade bubble tea right then and rinsed the rest of the balls with cold water, drained them, and put them in the fridge for storage and easy access.

My final kitchen project of the weekend was none other than coconut-banana ice cream. I had a few chunks of fresh coconut left in my freezer from when Jessica gave them to me at work weeks ago. I chopped the coconut into small pieces and mixed it with some more of Tara’s abandoned banana chunks, a chopped date, and plain yogurt.

One intense immersion-blending session later, I had this:

Which, after 15 minutes-stir-15 minutes-stir in the freezer, became this:

I garnished the “ice cream” with a fresh CSA strawberry, an OhNuts! whole strawberry in dark chocolate, and a sprig of homegrown basil.

Does your freezer have any unlikely bag-mates?

Also, Melissa is giving away a ridiculously loaded prize package over at For the Love of Health. I highly suggest that you go enter her contest as me ASAP.