Wishing you all a super savvy holiday filled with good company and yummy food! Adam and I will be dutifully catching a movie and venturing down to Chinatown tomorrow evening, fulfilling a certain age-old Christmas tradition.
Below are a few photos I snapped at the Columbus Circle Holiday Market a few nights ago... Manhattan really is something special during the holidays!
When it comes to pasta, there are certainly some restaurants in Manhattan where I feel comfortable dropping some cash every once in a while. Bella Luna, Bricco, Max Soha… these are places whose dishes I’m happy to pay $10-16 a pop for. But on a Wednesday night in the middle of a frigid winter, it’s best to DIY.
I've named this dish White Wine Tomato Pasta Etc. because there are really so many great things going on. You have the lemon, the garlic, the spinach... it would be a mouthful to include everything in the title. Call it what you wish– just know I've made this countless times, and it's always turned out super tasty. It’s the sort of thing that’s worthy of serving at a dinner party and easy enough to cook for two on a cold December night. All you need is a drinkable glass of white wine and a few basic ingredients…
Adam and I are usually pretty predictable with our weekday dinner choices: it’s either the east or west side of the globe for us. So when Adam suggested the crazy idea of Middle East (what a concept!), I was sold. We called up one of the nearby falafel joints, Jerusalem Restaurant (bway btwn 103 & 104) for cheap and tasty delivery. This hole-in-the-wall spot serves up large portions for way too reasonable prices. The food is always fresh, veg-friendly and (gasp) they’re open till 4am! You’d think that “the city that never sleeps” would stick to its name, but it’s usually more like “the city that passes out around 1am” so the 4am thing is somewhat of a novel concept around here...
Ah, the semester's finally over... and only one more to go until I'm a legitimate, adult-like human being. Excellent! And with this crazy-cold weather we're having, us New Yorkers definitely need good boots, a good hat, and most importantly, good tea to carry us through the winter. In search of this, I met up with a few friends at Aroma Espresso Bar on 72nd between Amsterdam and Columbus. And yes, while coffee concoctions are their specialty, the mint tea looked and smelled fantastic with loose, fresh peppermint leaves. As a bonus, this place gets an A+ for veg-friendly fare. I was eyeing a bowl of the garbanzo bean salad, with chopped egg, tomato, parsley, tahini and homemade croutons...
What’s the best grilled cheese sandwich? A grilled cheese sandwich from a specialty cheese shop, of course. Lucy’s Whey, a hole-in-the-wall shop in Chelsea Market (15th & 9th ave) serves up plenty of specialty cheeses along with crackers, spreads and jams to accompany them. And though it’s not blatantly advertised, they have an awesome rotating selection of grilled cheese sandwiches. The most popular pick is the “Prairie Breeze” cheddar (from Milton Creamery in Iowa) with caramelized fig spread. A refreshingly friendly guy behind the counter pressed the sandwich on the spot. That being said, I can guarantee if I surrounded myself with cheese and jams all day I’d be 10x friendlier (and 20x rounder.)
The sandwich was delicious. The Prairie Breeze was creamy and mild, melted together with the not-too-sweet fig spread, all encompassed by wonderfully crusty, chewy bread. It was the perfect balance of savory and sweet, gooey and crusty: everything you need in a grilled cheese sandwich.
(And let’s keep this on the DL, but be sure to snag a free brownie sample at Fat Witch bakery on your way out. Yum.)
As my vegetarian blog doesn’t exactly boast the best track record for slimming, thigh-forgiving snacks around NYC (see here, here, here and here), I figured I’d at least give my recipe portion a bit of an effort. So here we go with the first rousing installment of Desserts That Won’t Make You Fat or Broke: Simple Baked Brown Sugar Apples. Now, when I think fall, I think apples. Nothing groundbreaking there. But tender, piping hot apples soaked in brown sugary, buttery goodness? Now that’s a fantastic fall dessert. This recipe is extremely simple and cheap. The flavors work beautifully together, and it’s perfect for entertaining or curling up on the couch to watch an ANTM marathon. Come to think of it, is ANTM ever anything but a marathon? But I digress. Here’s the recipe:
Hello again! It’s been a little while since my last post, but have no fear! I have since chowed down on some serious NYC grub…all for the sake of the blog, of course. So let’s get back in the groove with my favorite meal in the known universe: BRUNCH. I’ve been excited to check out Popover Café (86th & Amsterdam Ave.) since I moved up here in the summer. I’ve heard some great things from friends about their flakey, eggy popovers and some not so great things about the line that forms on Sunday afternoons. So when my mother stopped into the city to have some girl time (yay) at the 79th street flea market, we made sure to get to brunch early. Adam also met up with us for the brunch portion of our day, because, as I say every weekend here in NYC, who can resist brunch?! No one. That’s who.
This lovely title is my first step in halting the prefacing of nearly every recipe with "ridiculously easy" and "5-minute" because, honestly, I don't have time for anything but. Also, and most importantly, this eggplant is indeed bitchin'.
So, tonight I was hungry. This happens most nights. I opened the fridge door. A tumbleweed blew past the almond milk and into the vast nothingness that was my empty refrigerator. All but a plump, purple eggplant graced the desolate Siberian wasteland. But wait... did I have soy sauce? Yes! Did I have honey? Garlic? Lemon juice? Yes, yes, yes! Done.
recipe after the jump...
Sunday mornings are a funny thing in NYC. The streets flood with sleepy-eyed citizens, lugging their tired bones to the nearest purveyors of thick-cut brioche French toast to sop up any remaining traces of alcohol from bar-hopping, club-raving and fun-having.
Me? I like brunching. However, brunching in my kitchen, in my pj’s, in my fluffy bunny slippers is largely my preference.
Crêpes are something I like to whip up because they’re cheap, easy, delicious, versatile and a crowd pleaser… like me (hah!). You most likely already have all the ingredients in your pantry, so let’s get a-cookin’! ...
We love local & sustainable eating in NYC! Go check out "Eating Locally, Thinking Globally" this Sunday and learn all about the slow food movement. Nosh on veg-friendly snacks, sip some vino and learn how to help our little planet. Nothin' wrong with that! Whether you're in a big city or quiet town, supporting locally-sourced food is always in style.
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