Orange Cauliflower and Rice

Happy Halloween to everyone! I am having a pretty boring Halloween compared to my past. I’m just having a night in with the roommates doing school work. Oh the life of a graduate student. Actually I’m doing that because Carrianne and I are going to a crazy concert tomorrow, which I CAN’T WAIT FOR! So to make up for the lackluster Halloween events, I have a delicious recipe for you: Orange Cauliflower and Rice. I do love cauliflower (ya’ll know that from my cauliflower fried rice and cauliflower pizza).

Orange Cauliflower

3 T Egg Whites
1/4 c of flour
1/2 c of water
1/4 c of corn starch
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped up
3 chopped up green onions
zest of orange + all of juice of orange
2 T of soy sauce
2 T of rice vinegar
1/4 c of orange juice
1 tsp of corn starch
1 tsp of brown sugar
1 bag of frozen cauliflower

1. Cook frozen cauliflower to directions on bag.

2. Mix flour, cornstarch, water, and egg whites into a small mixing bowl until a batter like texture if formed. Make sure that the batter isn’t super thick.

3. Heat 1/4 c of olive oil in a pan while you coat all the pieces of cauliflower until each piece is fully coated.

4. Place cauliflower in pan until completely cooked and browned. Place cauliflower on paper towel to soak up oil and dry.

5. Heat 1 tsp of oil and the chopped up garlic in a new pan for a minute.

6. Add half of the green onions, the zest, and the juice of the orange into the pan and cook for another minute.

7. Add soy sauce and rice vinegar. Turn up the heat until it has reached a boil. Turn back down and toss in the cauliflower. Cook until it has been fully coated in sauce.

8. Remove from heat and place over brown rice (I just used Uncle Ben’s whole grain brown instant rice because I’m super lazy).

9. Throw orange juice, brown sugar, and tsp of corn starch into the same pan. Heat to a boil for one minute, constantly stirring the dish.

10. Drizzle the sauce over the cauliflower and brown rice.

11. You can garnish the dish with the remaining green onions, orange zest, and sesame seeds.

This dish is so delicious. It actually tastes like orange chicken minus the soft tenderness of the chicken, but the cauliflower is such a good healthy alternative. Chinese food can be packed full with calories, especially the Americanized food items like sesame chicken, orange chicken, and others. By placing a more vegetarian friendly option, you can lower the amount of calories while still enjoying the classic taste of the sauces. It was a nice warm meal to have when I was craving some greasy Chinese. I will definitely have to try this out with other popular Asian sauces. I like making healthy version of my favorite types of food because that allows me to enjoy them on a daily basis instead of just my fat day, which is Saturday.

I hope ya’ll enjoy this! Have an awesome Halloween. I’m catching up on all my missed TV shows while I make notecards, blog, and work on my review paper! Happy Halloween!

What is your favorite Chinese food item?
What are you going to be for Halloween?

WIAW: Living in the City

Hey ya’ll! It is that time again: What I Ate Wednesday. We can give a big thanks to Jenn for hosting this lovely foodie day of the week. I am glad that it is Wednesday. I need a break from school. Sometimes it can get so exhausting having 6 hours of straight class on two days of the week. I can’t wait for next semester when I will only have one class a day. I need that even though that means I will lose my four day weekends, but don’t worry because I will still have three day weekends haha. Oh the good life of grad school. Now lets get to the food. I’ve been enjoying some interesting things while I’ve been living in NYC.

Who remembers that one time that I went to rave brunch and was pretty plastered by 3 pm? Oh yes I don’t really remember. Just kidding, I wasn’t that drunk, but I was pretty tipsy. Anyways I never showed ya’ll what I ordered because while most people go to drink there is also food served there. I had crab cake eggs benedict. They were actually pretty good. The english muffin was toasted perfectly and the eggs were poached well. The crab cake was just mediocre, but you can’t go wrong with putting crab cakes on top eggs benedict. It came with this awesome hash mix. I wish there had been more of that. It was awesome to dip in ketchup.

This may be the greatest thing that exists on planet Earth. Welcome to Bibimbap. One night when we were out with our guy friends, Carrianne and I really just wanted some greasy Chinese food. However it was 2 am on a Saturday and we were over by Grand Central, so finding greasy Chinese open at that hour wasn’t the easiest. However we ended up in the wonderful Koreatown. We had a miss adventure where we thought we were going for Korean BBQ, but we ended up in a Korean Karaoke bar. We left and decided to just go into the next restaurant. There I discovered the greatness of Bibimbap. This is a fried rice kind of dish where the rice cooks against the hot pot and gets super crunchy. Mine is topped with bulgogi, a fried egg, carrots, and other delicious vegetables. There is an awesome spicy Korean sauce to go on top of it too. I drenched mine in it. I can’t wait to have more bibimbap in my life.

I forgot to show these weeks ago when my roommates got them for me, but they spoiled me with Crumb’s cupcakes. I have the birthday cake one, carrot cake, coconut, and pumpkin. The birthday cake ended up being my favorite with the pumpkin following close behind it in second. The birthday cake one had the best icing. It was a simple buttercream with sprinkles. The thing I liked about the pumpkin and birthday cake was that they were stuffed with icing too. That is one reason why I love Crumb’s. They stuff their cakes. The cake was a funfetti cake too, which is probably why it was birthday themed. Overall these were great and the best part was I lost weight haha.

This picture is a little blurry, but it was super dark inside the restaurant. This past Saturday after Carrianne and I were running errands around Soho, we decided to stop somewhere and get a little snack. I ended up getting wine glazed pork belly, which was to die for. It was this cute little Korean restaurant called Kori. I will definitely be going back because the food was so good. They had bibimbap too (with pork belly), so you know I will be going just for that.

Well it was Saturday and while we were at the Korean restaurant we decided that we needed to go to a happy hour to get some drinks. Unfortunately this wasn’t a very easy thing to do since it was about 6:30 and we obviously weren’t going to make it. We finally found this place, but we missed the happy hour. Oh well we were still getting drinks. Mine had passionfruit vodka, lemonade, and cherry juice in it. Oh man. It was delicious. I could have thrown a few of these back. My second drink was just the wine of the night, but afterwards I was feeling good.

The funny thing about the happy hour place we ended up at was that they served dim sum all day. Well of course I was going to get some more food since all I had were those few slices of pork belly. I ended up getting pork soup dumplings. They were pretty good. The dumpling wrapper was super sticky, but overall it was good. The broth inside was perfect. Probably one of the better broths I’ve had in regards to soup dumplings.

It was dim sum, so I obviously was going to get my staple dish. BBQ pork buns. They were delicious. I don’t think you can really mess those up unless you are drunk while cooking, but still. All you do is steam. I am glad that I got to have a little dim sum on Saturday night because I really can’t live without dim sum. It is definitely one of the greatest meals of the day. I still need to venture out to Flushing to go get my real dim sum on.

OMG DROOOOOLING. Carrianne decided to make pumpkin scones on Sunday night and I was like yes, yes, and yes. They were so delicious. At first when she was making them I was getting a little skeptical because the dough looked super sketchy. However they turned out perfect. The icing on top was amazing too. It was a cinnamon and sweet frosting that soaked into the scone, which made it taste even better. This was a perfect way to end Sunday night.

I’ll leave ya’ll with a cute little picture of some red pandas that I saw at Central Park Zoo on Friday. They were the cutest things ever. I really wanted to steal one and take it home as a pet. I would have loved it and cuddled it sooooooo much.

Have you ever had Korean food?
What is your favorite animal at the zoo?

Skinny Baked Potato Soup

Hey ya’ll! It is officially fall. The weather is getting chilly and I’m making soup to keep myself warm. I’m so excited that it is Friday. I’m going to the Bronx zoo today, so I am counting down the hours until I leave my apartment to go. I’m such a child, but oh well. I’m awesome. Plus this is my treat for getting an A on my midterm! Lets get to my recipe. I am going to be making a ton of soup recipes these days because it is gonna get freezing and soup is a quick warm thing to have. Today’s soup recipe is Skinny Baked Potato soup.

Skinny Baked Potato Soup

2 medium russet potatoes
1 head of cauliflower or 1 bag of frozen cauliflower
1 1/2 c of vegetable broth
1 1/2 c of almond milk
1/2 c of fat free sour cream
salt
pepper
green onions

1. Wash russet potatoes and then stab both with a fork all over. Place into a microwave safe dish and microwave for 5 minutes. Flip over and microwave for another 5 minutes.

2. While potato is being microwave, steam/cook the cauliflower until it is ready to be drained. Once the cauliflower is cooked, place into a blender or large food processor.

3. When potatoes are done, let them cool down and mash them in the container.

4. Add potatoes, vegetable broth, and almond milk into the blender with the cauliflower. Blend the mixture until it becomes a thick creamy texture. Then pour into a large pot on the stove.

5. Heat on a medium to low heat until starts to bubble up. Then add in the sour cream, a dash of salt and pepper, and as many green onions as you want.

6 Mix well until you see that the sour cream has disappeared. Let heat for a few more minutes then serve into dishes (1 cup portions).

I topped my soup with a sprinkle of fat free cheese, some more green onions, and a few pieces of turkey bacon. It literally tastes like a baked potato in liquid form. It was so delicious. It had gotten pretty chilly in the apartment, so it definitely warmed me up to eat this. You can’t even taste the cauliflower or the almond milk, so it was great to have healthy swaps that don’t ruin a dish. This makes a ton of servings too. I have a full plastic container waiting for me to enjoy every day in the fridge. It is really filling too because of all the fiber that is in the dish from the cauliflower and potatoes. This is a definite winter staple, so ya’ll should go out and make this immediately. You can get fun with the toppings too. Dress it up like it is your dream baked potato.

What do you like on your baked potato?
What is your favorite soup to have during winter and fall?

The Cupcake Experience

Hey ya’ll! I’m in such a fantastic mood right now, so I thought I would post about one of my favorite things in the world: Cupcakes. Why am I in such a good mood? Well I got an A on my first midterm in graduate school. For me, it is just reinforcing that I am in the best field for me. I’m so excited. So cupcakes. My favorite thing in the world. Well I have many favorite things, but this is just one of the top 3. I obviously had to go to the iconic cupcake shop in the city: Magnolia Bakery. Funny thing is my dad and I tried to go here many years ago, but it was so hard to find that we just gave up and ate Crumbs (not that I’m complaining). When Carrianne and I were over in West Village over by Bleecker street, I was like we HAVE to go to Magnolia just for the experience because it is on one of my favorite shows, Sex and the City.

This place is so cute. The location on Bleecker is a very tiny shop, so the line wraps around in the inside and it can get really crowded. However we went at a pretty good time, so the line wasn’t bad at all. Plus there were tons of beautiful cakes to look at while we waited to place our order. A woman came around in the line to ask if we wanted any cakes or other things besides cupcakes, so she would get them packaged. It was a really good method to make things more efficient. We were in and out of the shop in 10 minutes, so that was really nice because this is such a classic place for tourists to go.

The cupcakes are so cute. It is super simple, but I think that is what makes them so classic and wanted by everyone. Not to mention the association with Sex and the City. People that come to NYC to visit have some weird love with doing things that are related to their favorite tv shows. Anyways the cupcakes come in a few flavors. There was just the simple ones such as the vanilla vanilla or chocolate, but then they had options like red velvet, coconut, and s’mores. I think the special cupcakes change every day or week, but I’m not completely sure.

I wanted to have the classic Magnolia Bakery experience, so I went with the vanilla with vanilla buttercream. The buttercream came in different colors, so you got whatever one they gave you. I thought this one was really cute. I like that they put sprinkles on top of it too. Sprinkles makes everything better. I was a little worried before I ate this because the reviews on yelp were iffy, but they were wrong. This was a good cupcake for what it was. Do I prefer Crumbs? Well yes, but this wasn’t bad. The cake was moist and the icing was sweet, but not overly sweet.

What I enjoyed most about this place was probably the experience. It was a pleasant time with some sweet treats. The icing was the best part of the cupcake. I have weird cupcake eating habits, like sometimes I lick all the icing off the top before I even eat the cake. Or I will rip the cake in half and make a cupcake sandwich. However I prefer to just eat all the icing. I have a passion for icing. It is my favorite part, so I love when cupcake places stuff the inside of the cake with icing too (hello Crumbs, I see you got me there).

The main reason to go to Magnolia is for the cake! Yes, you heard me right. Go for the cake and skip the cupcakes unless you want the experience of the whole Sex and the City thing. This cake is mind blowing. I got the hummingbird cake. It was incredibly moist and packed with a ton of flavors from all the spices and pineapple. The icing was so delicious. It was a sweet cream cheese. Cream cheese isn’t my favorite icing, but this one was pretty great. I was so happy that I had gotten this slice of cake to go. It took me a few days to eat it all because they give you massive slices. It is definitely worth the money.

Have you ever been to Magnolia bakery?
What places on TV shows have you wanted to go to?

WIAW at Grub Street

Hey ya’ll! It is that amazing time of the week again. What I Ate Wednesday, thanks to Jenn. I have another awesome share for my favorite day. I swear I go to so many food festivals. Here in the city, there probably is a food fest about every weekend, so when I saw that the Grub Street Food Festival was going on this past Sunday, I obviously had to go. I dragged my roommates and they happily trekked to the Lower East Side with me. Lets get to the good part: the food.

When we first got there, we decided to walk around the entire event to see all the food options. The set up was pretty great. It was at a park on a track, so they set up the booths all around the track with a few in the middle. There were also a ton of tables in the middle of the track, but because so many people were there, we ended up having to sit at a checker table near the side. Once we walked around for a few minutes, we were ready to get our grub on.

The reason I found out about this specific food festival was because I follow Doughnut Plant on Instagram. They said that they were going to be at the festival with pumpkin, apple cider, and coffee cake doughnuts. Obviously that was one reason to go. Their delicious doughnuts are life changing and these were no different. They were serving different types of each flavor. The options were cake, yeast, or doughseed. We ended up choosing the cake doughnut because it was said to be the most dense.

Look at this perfect specimen. The lightly toasted pumpkin seeds on top. The small amount of pumpkin glaze that covered this doughnut. It was packed with pumpkin delicious flavor. The doughnut was so moist, which was nice because the texture was very cakey, but in a good way. It was a small doughnut, but it was perfect to split with Carrianne because we wanted to be able to eat as much as possible. My other roommate ended up getting the Apple Cider yeast doughnut and it looked amazing. She gobbled it up. Oh how I love fall flavored treats.

Next up was Asia Dog. I’ve been wanting to go here for a while now. I missed out on going at Smorgasburg, so I was kind of bummed out. When I saw that they were having a stand at the Grub Street Fest, I knew that I had to go get one. I have an obsession with hot dogs. I think they are such a classic American treat. So delicious. At Grub Street Asia Dog wasn’t serving up their typical fair, but instead they were doing corn dogs. Even better.

I ended up getting the tonkatsu with beef dog. You can get the corndogs if you go to the store front, but at this festival they were only serving them and not their other treats. This corndog was covered in a panko crust and served alongside was katsu mayo dipping sauce. It was amazing. I feel like panko crumbs make anything taste better. The mayo was a like a sweet Asian honey mustard sauce. It was awesome. The crunch of the outside was perfect with the softness of the inside of the dough. The beef hotdog was a perfect combination with this corndog breading.

My roommate who is vegetarian ended up going to this delicious looking pizza place. The funny thing was that I had bookmarked this pizza place on yelp, so when she let me have a slice of her pizza I was in heaven. The crust was thin like it is in Italy, so when you picked the piece up it flopped down. The cheese was delicious. It was huge slices of mozzarella all over. The sauce was also evenly spread out through the crust and not that much on the pizza. I’m not a big fan of sauce, I really just enjoy toppings, so it was my dream pizza. I will definitely be going to this pizza shop.

Now to the best thing of the whole day. Little Muenster. Yet another place that I had bookmarked on yelp for a must visit in the city. Oh how I am perfect at finding the best places. I ended up getting the beef brisket grilled cheese. It was the best grilled cheese I have ever had. The beef brisket was moist and tender. It pulled apart as you bit into it. The cheese was melted so well. It pulled in strings as you pulled it out of your mouth. The bread was toasted perfectly. It was crispy, but not burnt. This is the best comfort food.

Carrianne ended up getting the squash grilled cheese. It was delicious. We ended up swapping half of each of our sandwiches for one of the other. That way we got to enjoy both of them. This was a good vegetarian option. It had a ton of different cheeses and it was topped with butternut squash. There could have been more squash on the sandwich, but otherwise it was perfect. I will definitely be going to their storefront whenever I need a nice warm grilled cheese to brighten my day.

I hope ya’ll enjoyed my post on this amazing food festival. It only happens once a year, so next year in October you better be headed down to Lower East Side.

What would be on your dream grilled cheese?
What is your favorite fall flavor?

Healthy Chicken Pho

Hey ya’ll! I have survived yet another midterm. These midterms are very interesting. Definitely not what I would expect from graduate school. Good news is that so far I have been kicking butt. I have a A++ in one of my classes. Go me! I’m pretty amazing, I think. Anyways I have a delicious recipe to share with ya’ll! It has been getting chilly lately up here in the Northeast, so there is a need to make soup and other warm things to keep me cozy. For today’s soup recipe, I have a healthy chicken pho soup. I love Asian food, so I obviously had to make an inspired soup from my favorite food genre.

Healthy Chicken Pho

3-4 thin boneless chicken breasts
1-2 cups of bok choy
1 jalapeno
2 cloves of garlic
6 cups of chicken broth
3 green onions
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
2 oz of whole wheat vermicelli

1. Heat about 1-2 tsp of olive oil in a huge soup pot on medium to high heat. Then add in chopped up garlic for about 30 seconds.

2. In the meantime, chop up your chicken breasts into small pieces. Also prepare bok choy by cutting off the bottom of the stems.

3. Add the chicken and bok choy to cook for about 3-5 minutes until the chicken has become white.

4. Add the chicken broth, green onions, and jalapeno to the pot and heat to a simmer. You should let this sit and cook for around 15 to 20 minutes.

5. While this is going on, you can cook your noodles in a separate pot. Cooking method depends on the type of noodles you have. Mine you just had to heat the water to a boil, turn off the heat, and let them sit in the water for 4 minutes (I got these noodles at Whole Foods, pretty cheap for a 5 servings of 2 oz of noodles).

(this soup gets incredibly steamy, very hard to take quality pictures)

6. Add the rice vinegar and soy sauce to the soup pot. You can then add the noodles to the pot once you stir enough.

7. Remove and serve. You can top it with cilantro and sriracha based on personal preference (but ya’ll know I had to top mine with those goodies).

Oh soup, you are so beautiful to me, can’t you see? I am in love with pho. While mine isn’t as gourmet or probably as delicious as what I’ve had in some Vietnamese restaurants, this definitely is a pretty good substitute for when I don’t want to pay or have to travel downtown to get some. I think I will be tweeking the recipe around to literally get the perfect soup, but I am happy with this one. I think dumplings would be perfect in it. That is probably what I will attempt to do next. It is a healthy option too. There is no calories in broth and the main calories come from the whole wheat noodles and the chicken. I didn’t put that much chicken in mine because I prefer vegetables over meat. That means I totally overloaded it with bok choy (I’m obsessed with bok choy – if you didn’t know).

I’m off to go work on a project. I hope ya’ll are having a pretty good week.

Have you ever had pho?
What is your favorite Asian dish?

The Perfect Roommate Date

Hey ya’ll! I hope everyone has had a pretty great weekend. Mine has been awesome even with all the studying and paper writing that I have had to do. One of the highlights of the weekend was going on my roommate date. My roommates and I decided that we have been having and still will have this graduate school hell weeks that we needed a nice night out. We decided to get sushi for this roommate dinner, so I looked up places and found a delicious one that would suit all our needs. I ended up making reservations online at Open Table, which was a smart idea because this place was crazy when we got there.

This place was amazing for many reasons, but one of them was for the drinks. They had a happy hour from 5-9 pm that had 2 for 8$ cocktails. That is a steal. Seriously. The first weekend I went out in New York, I ordered a vodka and tonic, and had to pay 12$ for one small drink. WHAT? This is not the world that I want to be buying drinks in, so getting two for that price was amazing. These drinks were strong too, so we were feeling a little buzzed. This was a grapefruit cocktail that my roommate got. We all enjoyed our drinks so much.

I got a drink called the Rainbow. It had citrus vodka, blue curaco, and pineapple juice. It was delicious. After one drink, I wasn’t really sure how I was going to have another, so I’m glad that the waiter didn’t come back to get our second drink order until after we had gotten some sushi in our stomachs. We were in drink heaven though. This would definitely be a good place to go if you just wanted drinks too, but the food was just as amazing. Not to mention the awesome staff.

One of my roommates is a vegetarian, so she ordered vegetable tempura as her appetizer. It was cool because you could specifically pick what vegetables or items you wanted as tempura, it came with two pieces, and depending on the item it was only 2-3$. She let Carrianne and I split the zucchini piece and it was delicious. It was perfectly fried on the outside and the vegetable was soft on the inside. She ended up getting broccoli, asparagus, and zucchini. The pieces were so large though, so you definitely needed to cut them up. Also they only give you chopsticks here, so if you aren’t good with them, definitely ask if you can get a fork and knife.

Carrianne and I ended up splitting an appetizer. We got bacon wrapped scallops. These were so good. The bacon was so smoky, so it enhanced the simple flavor and texture of the scallop. The sauce on top was delicious. It was a sweet flavor mixed with a hint of the green onion. It was a nice light way to start the meal. It definitely didn’t provide any substance in our stomachs as we threw back our drinks.

Hello to sushi heaven. Did I order way too many rolls? Yes, but oh well. I managed to eat almost all of it. I attribute this to the alcohol in a small way and my determination to consume some of the best and affordable sushi that was available. On this plate is a pumpkin tempura roll, a heart throb roll, and a bagel roll. Lets talk about how cheap this sushi was. The pumpkin tempura roll was only 4.50$! The heart throb was 12$ and the bagel was 10$. In my opinion that is pretty good for crazy specialty rolls. Some places can charge up to 15 for just your basic specialty roll, so I was excited to see that there were so many affordable options.

The heart throb roll was definitely my favorite. It had spicy tuna wrapped around the roll. Inside was eel crabmeat, avocado, and spicy tuna. There was also a spicy mayo drizzled all over the roll. The fish was extremely fresh. I love when a roll is wrapped with fish on the outside because it gives it a meatier taste. The sauce gave it a nice creamy texture along with the avocado inside. I finished this roll like a champion.

This was the pumpkin tempura roll. It was just your simple pumpkin tempura along with some small things inside. It was so delicious. The fried texture gave a nice crunch to the roll while the pumpkin was smooth and creamy. It was a savory and sweet kind of roll. I am obsessed with all things pumpkin right now, so this roll definitely hit the spot. Plus it was only 4.50$. I probably could have survived on a few of these rolls and only paid 13$. That would have been pretty awesome, but I like to try different things.

Bagel roll. You know when we Jews see the word bagel we are instantly attracted to it. I think that is pretty much why I ordered the roll. Besides the fact that cream cheese and salmon is like the best combination (just another Jewish obsession). It was lightly fried on the outside, which was awesome. The roll also had spinach and asparagus inside. I think it could have done without the spinach, but it was still appetizing and delicious.

Hello to Carrianne’s plate of sushi. The funny thing was when she ordered her food, the waiter said that she needed to stop ordering because that was too much food for her. She was gonna get a third roll, but then she just decided to go with what she got. Smart girl. I wish the waiter would have said the same thing to me and my other roommate because we were so full by the time we tried to eat all our sushi. She got the pumpkin tempura roll too along with a piece of salmon nigiri. Also a roll with salmon and jalapenos. She enjoyed all of hers.

Here was my other roommate’s plate of sushi. She ordered all vegetarian rolls. The cool thing was that they had about 20 vegetarian rolls on the menu, which is definitely a nice thing for vegetarians and people that are more health conscious (not that sushi is that unhealthy for you). She got the sweet potato tempura roll, which looked just as good as the pumpkin one. Since she ordered three rolls too, she was about to burst. We were both in a sushi coma.

For our second drink, we all three got something called the Asuka-tini. Oh man. How strong was this thing? I thought I was going to die. It was tequila, sake, triple sec, and grenadine. I was like oh man. Plus it was super salty. I should have asked for mine without salt on the rim because I ended up knocking half the salt into the drink. I powered through and drank all of it. I was feeling a good buzz at this point and we decided to get jello shots for us. They were raspberry flavored and probably the best jello shots I have ever had. It tasted like real raspberries were in it. The waiter was so nice too. He gave us a free jello shot on the house. Overall it was a really great experience, and we will definitely be going back here many times.

What is your favorite date food?
Have you ever had crazy sushi rolls?

 

 

 

Burger Heaven in The City

Hey ya’ll! I survived my first graduate school midterm. I feel pretty good about it, but there were a few true or false questions that kind of sent my brain through a loop. Especially because one of the questions we had never talked about, but oh well. I feel happy with my success so far as a graduate student and hope that I will continue on with it. We are only allowed to get two Bs in a certain number of classes to continue on the program, so I’m super motivated to do awesome. Anyways I am going to share with you an awesome review of the best burger I have had so far in NYC. Bareburger. There are a ton of locations in the city, but we ended up going to the location on 46th st. It was such a fun atmosphere. We only had to wait a few minutes, so that was nice, especially because the third person in our party was running late.

The menu was huge. It was really hard to pick because there were so many delicious looking options. You could order a premade type of burger, which came with a bunch of toppings and a general theme, and then you could choose the type of meat that you wanted with it. There was also the build your own burger, which you could pick toppings, bun, and meat. The different themed burgers looked so good, and each even suggested the type of meat that tastes best with those toppings. While we waited for my friend to show up, Carrianne and I ended up looking through the menu and debating back and forth over what we were going to get. While we waited, Carrianne got a ginger soda, which was delicious and we ordered an appetizer.

We ended up getting sweet potato croqs. These were sweet potatoes with sharp cheddar cheese and they are deep fried. They were served with habanero chipotle mayo and stone ground honey mustard. These were little fried balls of heaven. The sweet potato texture was smooth and the bread crumbs gave a nice crunch to it. The cheese inside made it very creamy. The sauces were amazing. I definitely couldn’t pick a favorite. They ended up giving us two other sauces, which were BBQ and a spicy ketchup. There was a good amount in the basket, which was nice. We ended up eating this so quickly. We were starving. They were served really hot too, which is a nice thing because apparently some establishments don’t serve hot food.

Aren’t these so cute? They were the regular ketchup and dijon mustard containers. I loved that the restaurant actually had a bear theme to the whole place. There were bear heads (not real ones) on the walls, that were painted different colors and patterns. It just made the ambiance of the restaurant really fun and entertaining. There was so much to look at and see.

I was debating over getting the big blue bacon or the maui wowie. I ended up choosing maui wowie because I can’t resist pineapple and turkey bacon. The burger came with smoked mozzarella, pineapple ring, turkey bacon, fried onions, fried roasted red peppers, and buttermilk ranch. Bareburger recommended getting the burger wild boar, but I ended up just getting beef with mine. I ordered my meat medium and got it on a brioche roll. The bread was amazing. It was toasted to perfection, so it wasn’t soggy when the burger and sauce soaked through. The meat was cooked exactly as I ordered and was extremely juicy. The toppings were the most appetizing combination ever. The crunch and smokiness of the turkey bacon went well with the sweetness of the pineapple. The spice from the peppers was cooled off by the buttermilk ranch, which also gave the burger a nice creamy texture when you bit into it.

I mean just look at this burger. It is heaven staring right back at me. I can’t wait to go back to try more burgers. This place sort of reminds me of Hopdoddy in Austin, TX, which is one of my favorite burger places ever, so this obviously means that Bareburger is legit. The best thing about this place is that there is more than just burgers on the menu. They have a breakfast brunch menu, breakfast paninis, and so much more. I pretty much have decided that I am going to go here at least once a month, so that I can enjoy a new thing on the menu every time!

We ended up splitting a large basket of onion rings and fries. The onion rings were the bomb. The breading on the onions were seasoned and fried perfectly, meaning they weren’t too crunchy or soft. The onion rings were so good that I wish we just would have ordered an entire basket of onion rings. Not that the fries were bad because they were actually golden and crispy, but soft on the inside. I just loved the onion rings so much that it was sad when there were no more left. Of course they came with more types of dipping sauces, which was awesome.

Carrianne ended up getting the Big Blue Bacon. It had Wisconsin Blue Cheese, country bacon, sauteed mushrooms, fried onions, and bacon marmalade. The burger was recommended with ostrich, but she ended up getting beef. She ordered her beef to be medium well. Also she ordered hers on a brioche bun. She was in a burger coma as she chewed through hers. She said it was delicious. The bacon marmalade had a sweet, yet smoky flavor that went nicely with the cooked vegetables. The cheese was also not overwhelming, which was nice. My other friend ended up getting the same burger as me, but without the buttermilk ranch. After our meal, our stomachs were so full that we could barely walk. We ended up going along the water, but our stomachs were so full that we had to sit on a bench for a good amount of time before we could continue our journey. All in all, I recommend bareburger as a must if you are visiting NYC or if you live here and haven’t already gone! It is a burger paradise.

What is your favorite topping on a burger?
What is the craziest meat you have ever had a burger with?

WIAW at Smorgasburg

Hey ya’ll! It is my favorite day of the week: What I Ate Wednesday. If only I didn’t have a midterm today I would be in the happiest moods, not to mention my water heater is broken, so I can’t take a shower this morning, but oh well. Let me think about food and I’ll be happy again. Thanks to Jenn for hosting this fantastic day! I have a special treat for ya’ll! I know a while ago I said I was going to go to Smorgasburg, but things didn’t work out and I only recently went on a Sunday to the location in DUMBO. This may be the greatest event ever. It reminds me a bit of the gypsy picnic in Austin, but different since only a few of the food stands here are food trucks. Lets see all the food that I ate (I split it with my friend Isa, so I am not a huge pig).

This was Chicken Parmesan Bruschetta. Yes, it is an entire piece of chicken parm, which in my opinion is amazing. We had the shop cut it in half, so my friend and I could both enjoy a piece of it. The chicken was fried perfectly and it wasn’t overly breaded The sauce with the tomatoes was delicious. It had a bit of a kick to it, which was nice. I liked that they served it on a piece of toast because it gave a good crunch to it. Overall this was definitely a good way to start out the day. Plus they had one immediately ready for us, so we didn’t have to wait at all, which was nice!

If you know me, you know that I am going to creep on the website of a restaurant or event that I’m going to go to way in advance. So obviously I got on the Smorgasburg page and creeped on all the available vendors that were going to be there for the DUMBO location. When I saw that Brooklyn Wok Shop was going to be there, I had to check out their restaurant and menu online. It looked like heaven, so this was definitely on the list of immediate vendors I had to beeline to when I got to Smorgasburg. Such a good decision on my part.

Introducing Duck Confit Dumplings. AMAZING. Seriously. I do not joke about dumplings. This place was amazing. The duck inside of the dumpling was so tender and moist. The dumpling held together nicely too when you ate it with chopsticks, which is sometimes a very hard thing to do. The sauce on top was sweet with a subtle hint of spicy. It went well with the duck. This place was amazing. I now really want to go to the restaurant. It took us about 2 seconds to order and only a 2 minute wait to get fresh dumplings. That is my kind of deal. There were other delicious options too that I wish I would have tried, but I’ll just wait until next time.

I love cornbread. It is one of the best things to have before your meal. I wish most restaurants served cornbread instead of that white or brown junk. This would be so much better. So a specialty cornbread vendor? Ummm greatest thing ever! This was a maple bacon piece of cornbread. It was really hard to pick because they had 3 or 4 other flavors that were favor tempting, but man this was definitely the right way to go. The sweetness from the maple syrup went great with the smokiness of the bacon. It was a hearty piece of cornbread. I will definitely be visiting this place to load up on some crazy cornbread. One little square was definitely not enough for my stomach.

I love a good grilled cheese. My friend and I headed straight towards Milk Food trucks stand to get us a grilled cheese. Unfortunately because it was later in the day most of the items were sold out, so we did not get to order our breakfast grilled cheese with cheese, a fried egg, and bacon. Instead we just got a regular grilled cheese and added bacon on it. I feel like it would have been elevated to a whole new level with the fried egg, but it was still really amazing. It took a while to get, but it was worth it. At many times, I was attempted to steal other peoples orders when they did not show up to get them. I was a good girl though and waited for my grilled cheese.

I love s’mores. Really I will eat anything that has a s’mores theme. They are so delicious, so when I saw that there was going to be gourmet s’mores, I knew I had to go get myself one. This was a pumpkin salted caramel s’mores. The marshmallow was a pumpkin marshmallow that was toasted then topped with salted caramel and squeezed in between two pumpkin graham crackers. Pumpkin overload. I was in heaven. It was super messy, but so delicious and sweet. The savoriness of the pumpkin and salt went well with the sweetness of the caramel. Overall I had one happy tummy.

I seriously live in the best city. We got to enjoy our food out in the warm sun overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan. It was such a fun atmosphere. Not to mention all the cute guys that my friend and I had fun scoping out. This was definitely a fun foodie adventure that I allowed myself to have. I believe that you should always treat yourself at least one day a week. You deserve it after all the hard work you have been putting in. It wasn’t as if we even ate that much too because we split everything except the s’more, which was pretty tiny. I felt good after we left, but of course we had one more adventure in sight before we could leave the food adventure for the day.

CoolHaus goes to DUMBO Smorgasburg on Sundays, so my friend and I were on a mission to find this food truck. Oh what a hard mission it turned out to be. We walked around for a long time trying to find this food truck. Finally she read a tweet that had just been retweeted about where the actual location of CoolHaus was, so we trekked all the way to get in a huge line in order to get ourselves an ice cream sandwich to finish the day with. This was heaven. The cookie was a vegan chocolate banana truffle and the ice cream was chicken and waffles. Yes, I just said chicken and waffle icecream. It was mindblowing. Seriously I wish I would have gotten a tub of this to store in my freezer, so I could have a bite every few days. The cookie was great too. It was incredibly moist and went well with the icecream flavor. All in all I was a happy camper!

Have an awesome Wednesday! I’ll be studying until my exam at 7!

Have you ever been to a food truck event?
What is the one thing you would want to eat at an event?

Spaghetti Squash Carbonara

Hey ya’ll! We survived Monday. My last class was extremely painful, but I did it! We even got out 10 minutes early, which was amazing. The funny thing is that the class is so boring that at least 16 students were skipping class. I wonder if the professor knows how boring his class is. Anyways lets talk about food. I love food. Especially spaghetti squash. It is squash season right now and I am completely in my element. I have been coming up with squash recipes left and right, so I’m going to share one with ya’ll today. Let me introduce: Spaghetti Squash Carbonara.

Spaghetti Squash Carbonara

1 c of Spaghetti Squash
2 slices of turkey bacon
1/2 c of peas
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 tsp of butter/margarine
1 pinch of shredded Parmesan

Sauce:
1 egg
1/2 c of egg whites
1/2 c of skim milk
1/8 tsp of nutmeg
1/4 tsp of garlic powder
1/8 tsp of salt
1/8 tsp of pepper
1-2 tbsp of flour

1. Preheat oven to 375. Place spaghetti squash in a pyrex baking dish. Either cut the squash in half or poke holes in the entire squash with a fork or knife. Then place in the oven for an hour or until soft.

2. Once cooked, remove, wait till cooled off, and then pull out spaghetti from the squash.

3. Slice up the two turkey bacon pieces into fine bits. Place them in a pan that is on medium-high heat. Cook the bacon until it has become crisp.

4. Add in the garlic and cook for about 2-3 minutes.

5. Add in the butter and peas. This will take another 2-3 minutes to cook through.

6. Remove mixture and place into a dish with 1 c of the spaghetti squash.

7. Whisk egg and egg whites in a small bowl. Then whisk in milk, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Whisk over medium heat for 2 minutes and then let sit for another 2 minutes. At this point add in the flour to make it thicken.

8. Pour over your bowl of prepared pasta and mix thoroughly. Top with shredded Parmesan.

This dish is so delicious and healthy for you. I love spaghetti squash. It is the best alternative to pasta. Low calorie and packed with nutrients. Spaghetti Carbonara is one of my favorite dishes at classic Italian restaurants, but it is one of the dishes that packs the most fat and calories. I obviously had to come up with my own healthy version that had just as much flavor. This was it. The smokiness of the cooked bacon with the garlic brings a nice flavor to the dish. The peas are very subtle in the dish and just provide a nice texture. The sauce is what really makes this dish. It is creamy and holds the noodles together. Topped with Parmesan it is perfect. I ended up eating this multiple times during the week. I brought it to class at night for my dinner twice, and of course everyone was staring at me yet again. Once it leaked in my backpack because my dish wasn’t sealed tight enough. Now my backpack smells like spaghetti squash carbonara. Oh well.

Spaghetti squash contains a wide variety of vitamins. It contains a large amount of Vitamin C, which helps with immunity. Other vitamins that spaghetti squash contains is vitamin A, B6, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, pantothenic acid, and Vitamin K. Each of these vitamins plays key roles in your body. It is important to get the RDA of each one every day, so that your body is functioning properly. There are also minerals in spaghetti squash. The dominant mineral is manganese, which helps in healthy bones, tissues, and hormones. It also plays a role in metabolism, regulation of blood sugar, absorption of calcium, and functioning of nervous system. Other minerals in spaghetti squash are potassium, magnesium, copper, calcium, and iron. Also this packs a ton of fiber, which helps with the digestive system and cancer. And that is just the squash! This dish packs a ton of health benefits, so please make this to enjoy it!

Have an awesome Tuesday, I’ll be spending the entire day studying for my Advanced Nutrition midterm.

Do you eat a lot of spaghetti squash?
What is the best dish you have made with spaghetti squash?