Restaurant roundup

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Ohhhhhh my goodness, the food just will not stop. I can’t blog fast enough to catch it all! And I almost can’t wait to get back to normal on Monday so that I can detox from all the excess a bit. And, you know, deflate. The constant state of expansion, however delicious, is getting to me.

Anyway, if you haven’t gotten tired of reading about too much food that tastes too good, I’ve just finished posting my restaurant reviews from dinner #1 and dinner #2 with my sister on Friday night. We had so much fun — one of my biggest wishes is that I can live closer to my siblings someday!

Next up will be the Passover seder (best meal of the year!) recap, from which I’m still recovering (and from which I will likely continue to recover for the next month). And I can’t even think yet about the all-you-can-eat Easter buffet I’m going to with my dad and stepmom’s family tomorrow.

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

Theatrical tea

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While Emily napped yesterday (for four hours!), I took care of some business of my own … and snacked of course!

Jasmine tea biscotti bites (with soymilked yogi mexican sweet chili tea in the kitty mug):

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And the last 2 tbsp of my Total Cranberry Crunch sample with splash of soymilk:

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I also got this recipe for peanut roasted chickpeas (from The Peanut Butter Boy) underway after my developmentally delayed chickpeas took nearly 24 hours to cook. I’ve never had that happen before. Once the chickpeas were finally tender, the roasting took an hour and a half (twice the amount of time in the recipe!), probably because my oven is old and slow. They also weren’t tasting peanutty enough, so I added lots of extra PB2 and a big pile of cashew-almond butter.

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They still weren’t all that peanutty once they were done and crunchy, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t addictive! I snacked on about a tablespoon of them. Three or four times.

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I’m pretty sure there was also some straight-out-of-the-jar cashew-almond butter action 🙂

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I roused Emily from her slumber around 12:30 so she could start getting ready for the afternoon while I pulled together a sister lunch for us. We started on arugula salads with Newman’s dried berries, chopped dates, fat free feta, peanut roasted chickpeas, and Annie’s Lite Gingerly Vinaigrette:

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I also made us steak and spinach wraps. I made the wraps from scratch as usual (for 2: 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1 tbsp olive oil, dash salt, teeny bit of water to pull it all together). I gave the perfect one to Em, but mine got a little extra toasted — fine because I love the crunch, but troublesome because it wouldn’t wrap.

For the wrap filling, I sauteed the last 1/3 cup of leftover steak Nydia gave me on Friday with about 3 cups of spinach, 1/2 a baby onion, and 1 tbsp of the sofrito I made the other day. I split the sauteed mix between the two wraps and added a teeny bit of gouda to each, a bunch of grated homemade parmesan, and a huge pile of arugula:

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For dessert, Emily and I split one of the little tangerines she’d brought for airplane snacking:

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We hung around and chatted for a bit, and then we headed to Gramercy to drop her luggage off at her friend’s apartment. From there, we walked down to the Lower East Side in the general direction of dinner #1 (yes, there was more than one dinner on the agenda last night). We were running a little bit ahead of schedule, so Em asked if I’d like to stop into Whole Foods for samples. She knows me so well!

Pistachio ice cream and camembert (not in the same bite obviously):

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Cranberry granola and maple granola (and unpictured similar cups of blueberry granola and berry medley granola):

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For dinner #1, we met Emily’s friend Yan at Stanton Social. We ate way too much in light of the fact that we were going to head right off to another dinner, but what else is new? I’ll have a full review of the dinner and the expansion coming along shortly.

After that first dinner, we took a walk around the block to “burn it off” and, while doing so, to sample a peanut butter cookie piece and an m&m cookie piece from Sugar:

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We still had about 30 minutes to kill — and I had a camera battery in need of charging — so we stopped into teany for a spot of tea. We ordered a performance by tea #33. Watch the process:

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Fully charged and partially digested, we left teany around 9:30 to go meet Emily’s friends Megan (the birthday girl!) and Aimee at Apizz for another expansion-inducing festival of deliciousness. I’ll have a full review of this one coming along shortly, too. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of the night. The waiter asked if we’d like more bread for the table, and Megan responded:

Why not? I’m trying to get in as many calories as possible before I turn 40 in an hour and a half!

So we got more bread 😀

I’ll be back with like 10,000 more food updates eventually, so brace yourselves.

In the meantime, what’s the most exciting tea you’ve ever experienced?

And remember to enter this giveaway by Monday for the chance to win your very own stash of safe pistachios!

Jewlicious

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In honor of Good Friday, this is a post all about being Jewish.

It’s pretty obvious that I have some Scotch-Irishness in me, but there’s also the Jewish part that comes out to play every so often, especially when Passover is involved. I went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up some potato starch for the sponge cake my mom asked me to make. I ended up going absoutely wild on the Jewish shelf:

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I spent $21, more than I’ve spent on real groceries in ages!! But I’m hoping my mom will kick in a little financial support since I think this qualifies as cultural exploration?

I was ridiculously excited to find the whole wheat matzo meal, as I’ve searched high and low for it in the past — and even tried to order it online — to no avail. I’m thinking I need to go back to the grocery store later today to get two more boxes! And that muesli looked too fun — it’s made with whole wheat matzo, raisins, almonds, apples, brown sugar, and honey. I don’t practice the religion or keep kosher or follow any sort of Passover dietary guidelines, but I still couldn’t help buying this! And, would I ever buy those “fruit slices” at any other time? No! But they were on the Jewish shelf and I couldn’t help myself. I also got a bag of Californian blood oranges, because what’s more Jewish than that?

The potato starch and the eggs were for the sponge cake I mentioned yesterday via the batter and crumbs I ate. I used the recipe on the starch canister, but I replaced the lemon juice and zest with blood orange juice and zest because I like to be classy. Here’s how it came out:

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I did not make any sort of glaze for the cake because we’re actually going to cut it into cubes and use it to accompany chocolate fondue at our seder tomorrow. That’s how we roll in my fam.

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Even when it’s not Passover, my Jewish still comes out from time to time. Like when I’m offered an all-expenses-paid 10-day trip to Israel, as happened in March 2007. My Jewishness propelled me through pregnancy-inducing dessert buffets and pregnancy-ending desert donkey rides:

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OK, OK, the Jewishness also propelled me through real, live camel rides:

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And Dead Sea floating:

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But I’m getting ahead of (behind?) myself.

This morning, my sister — who is NOT Jewish, btw — arrived on a 7am red-eye flight from San Francisco. She wanted to nap when she got to my apartment, but I hadn’t seen her in nearly a year and a half, so I made her sit with me and eat some matzo muesli. I had just gotten back from the gym, and I was hungry. Emily acquiesed.

Here’s my bowl with 1/2 cup matzo muesli, 1/3 cup unsweetened soymilk, 1/4 cup plain Oikos, strawberries, pineapple, and tangerine:

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It was tasty but just a little bit cardboardy due the the matzo.

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I asked Emily if it tasted like cardboard to her. She said:

Yes, but I like cardboard, so it’s ok.

We each had seconds.

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She’s taking a nap now, and I might do the same soon.

Which holiday/season do you think comes with the best food items?

For a dose of honesty, enter this giveaway. And for safe nuts, enter this giveaway!

Who loves her new dishes?

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I do!

Dinner last night was the other half of my out-of-this-world caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza:

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And dessert was a pile of strawberries, blood orange pieces, and fresh pineapple topped with 1/4 cup of plain Oikos, nutmeg, and unsweetened coconut (with 1/2 of a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie from the freezer bag):

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New plate love:

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There may have also been some Hershey’s spears dipped in cashew-almond butter:

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And some crumbs from the Passover sponge cake I made:

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I just got back from the gym where I did the same workout as Wednesday so that I will soon be running pain-free with hip adductors of steel. Stats: 1 hour 28 minutes, 416 calories, 114 average heart rate, 172 max.

I am now patiently awaiting the arrival of my sister Emily. She took an overnight
flight from San Francisco and should be here momentarily. I haven’t seen her in over a year! She’s coming for the weekend in honor of her best friend’s birthday, but her trip sadly coincides with me needing to get a bus at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to head up to MA for Passover with mom and Easter with dad. But we’ve got all day today to visit, yay!

Are you going to see any long-lost family members this weekend?

Win pistachios!

A number of things

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I’ll start with scenery.

My kitchen looked pretty in late morning sunlight:

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And flowers were blooming out my bedroom window:

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In all the spring excitement, I went for my first real run in about a week and a half, and it was glorious! I ran in capris and no sleeves because Brooklyn decided it would let spring visit for a day. Again, I felt some groin/gluteal (ugh, how much longer am I going to have to say that?) discomfort and found that I had to take much shorter strides than normal, but nothing was overly anxiety-provoking. I ran slowly and carefully and pictured the yoga string pulling the crown of my head straight up 🙂 Stats: 3.83 miles, 46.5 minutes, 352 calories, 145 average heart rate, 171 maximum heart rate. I came home, did the 20-minute Yoga for Runners #1 from yogadownload.com, and then iced for 20 minutes. I’ve got a bit more of a limp now than I did pre-run, but that’s to be expected.

Look what I encountered during my cool-down walk home!

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This is what I love about my neighborhood. We’ve got this unofficial swap system. If you don’t want something, you just leave it out on your stoop. It will be gone within the hour 😀 I went through everything and picked out and washed what I wanted. The remainders will go back out on my stoop. Here’s what I’m keeping:

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(You can’t tell from the picture, but there are nine plates there: 5 with the design, 1 plain blue, 2 white, and 1 clear glass. I feel like I just got back from a shopping spree at Crate & Barrel.)

I had a lovely lunch today. I sauteed the last of my asparagus and portabello with curry butter with spinach stems, roasted red pepper, and 1/4 cup of steak left from Nydia’s lunch at work yesterday. I also added in a tsp of sofrito that I made the other day using Inginia’s recipe (cilantro, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, ancho, onion) and a packet of magic seasoning that Vianni donated. This is what helps all my coworkers feed me deliciously authentic Dominican delicacies 🙂

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Final product:

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I had the sauteed mix on a bed of spinach and arugula with four Newman’s spelt pretzels crumbled on top for crunch:

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Arugula, how I love you.

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I also spent a large chunk of today whipping up a batch of jasmine tea biscotti bites to send to Kelsey, the highest bidder on these in Meghann’s bake auction. Some of the cookie dough did not make it into the oven. Instead, it garnished my dessert: a pile of pineapple with a dollop of plain Oikos and a sprinkle of cardamom (on a new plate!).

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Picture that cookie dough times about 4. That’s probably closer to what I actually consumed.

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I spent a different chunk of today baking a Passover-friendly sponge cake to bring home this weekend. Details on that will come later. In the meantime, there was batter:

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Rest assured, the batter is now gone. Phew. I will let you use your imagination to figure out where it went. Hint: it did not go down the drain. Where did the batter go? And are you in charge of making anything exciting this weekend?

Win some salmonella-free pistachios!