Quinoa Cowboys Like Caviar

Earlier this year, I spotted new "quinoa cowboy" veggie burgers ($3.69) at Trader Joe's. I still had veggie burgers in the freezer back then, so I waited on buying them for a bit. Then one day, they were sampling them at the store topped with the cowboy caviar salsa, and it was so good that I didn't care if I still had veggie burgers in the freezer. I had to make sure I picked up a box of these before the stock was gone or it got discontinued. (You never know when something will disappear from TJ's! Everyone learned from the cookie butter disappearance a while back.)

I've tried the burger a few different ways now. Plain and on its own, topped with the cowboy caviar, and as the burger in a salad. It doesn't look that attractive in this photo, but it's pretty tasty. Along with tri-color quinoa, the burger has red peppers, black beans, bread crumbs, corn, onion, potato flakes, arrowroot, tomatoes, olive oil, jalapeno peppers, tomato paste, egg white powder, roasted garlic, white vinegar, salt, cilantro, chili powder, onion powder, coriander, black pepper, garlic powder, chipotle powder, and lime juice powder. It's a well-flavored (and seasoned - just look at that ingredient list) burger with good texture that comes from something other than the usual soy proteins, which makes it really interesting. It doesn't have the thick dense texture of a meat burger, and it tends to fall apart a little bit, but for the meals I make with it, that's okay. (It would probably be a little firmer and crispier if I didn't microwave it, but then I'd have another pan to wash and it would take longer, so I'm fine with the trade-off.) I'm not expecting a burger replacement, but a substitute that's instead made of healthy vegetables and grains.

The cowboy caviar salsa ($2.49) is a great complement to the quinoa cowboy burger, since it has a lot of the same main ingredients: corn, black beans, red bell peppers, onions, jalapeno peppers, and chipotles in adobo. The salsa is good, and it has a little bit of heat to it that really comes through from the chipotles. It's not my favorite salsa to eat on its own by the spoonful from the jar (the heat feels a little unbalanced to me when eaten like that), but it would be good for dipping and it's good with the burger.

Buy Again? Yes - for both the quinoa cowboy burgers and the cowboy caviar salsa. I may have bought them both as a set again today...

Revisiting Earl

One of the things I look forward to every time my birthday month rolls around is my free sandwich for being part of the club at Earl of Sandwich. I've mentioned Earl of Sandwich on here plenty of times as a good place for an affordable, quick, tasty sandwich. The toughest dilemma is always what to get for the free sandwich. This time, I decided to revisit the chipotle chicken avocado sandwich, which I first tried about 2 years ago.

It's chipoTLe not chipoLTe, drives me crazy...

When I would order the sandwich in the past, I would get it without the bacon (which left the chicken, avocado, lettuce, cheddar, and chipotle sauce). I still mostly think of bacon as a condiment but I eat more of it now, so I decided to try the sandwich as it was meant to be. I was so (pleasantly) surprised when I saw them sprinkling on bacon bits instead of strips of bacon when they made the sandwich this time. I was confused as to why I wouldn't have gotten them in the first place if they were just bacon bits, but luckily this was something I actually posted about 2 years ago, or I would have never remembered that back then the promo pics had huge strips of bacon instead. That explained everything!

I don't know whether it was just less expensive to use bacon bits or if it was the result of consumer feedback or corporate taste testing, but I really liked the sandwich with the bacon bits on it. This is still one of my favorite sandwiches at Earl and I like it so much that I got it instead of a festive holiday sandwich (and anyone who has read here for a while would know I love my holiday sandwiches!). Would definitely return for another one of these.

Rolled Chicken Tacos

Before we left for our trip, we stopped by Taco Bell to try their new rolled chicken tacos. They looked so good on TV and we needed something to improve our lunch after a potato debacle (perhaps more on that another time). Since we just wanted a light snack, we got an order of 2 rolled tacos which also came with 2 sides. I picked salsa and guacamole, figuring those would be good for dipping.

The salsa was fine, but not very flavorful. Definitely not spicy if that concerns you. The guacamole was kind of flavorless as well, just some processed/mashed up avocado with very little mixed in. The rolled chicken tacos themselves were also a bit of a disappointment.

Source

They looked like taquitos, which we pretty much expected, but they had nowhere near as much stuff inside them as the ads would lead you to believe. They were supposed to be filled with shredded chicken, but I'm not sure I would have known that in a blind taste test at all. Of course food always looks better styled for an ad, but this was just a sad looking cousin to those tacos. Look at the difference!

On top of that, they were also kind of flavorless. This wasn't some situation where we had eaten something really spicy or with heavy flavors and our taste buds had been dulled. Not at all. These just didn't taste like much of anything, sadly.

On a brighter note, I did make a nice story out of sauce packets.

Back to the food though, I think we're going to stick with a taquitos specialist, someplace like Taquitoria, if we want real "rolled chicken tacos." If we want Taco Bell, we'll get the stuff they're better at, like Doritos Locos Tacos. Glad we tried them, but not getting more of these.

Challenge Complete

I finished the whole 52 week cooking challenge for this year! I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment. I only skipped one week (molecular week, for reasons I explained then which have remained true over the course of the year) but I doubled up on some others so I still count the year as complete. Here's the full list for 2014:

Week 1 - eggs (vegetable scramble and gravlax omelette)
Week 2 - Polish (slow cooker kapusta and kielbasa)
Week 3 - one pot (one-pot sesame chicken, shiitake and brown rice)
Week 4 - ingredient you hated as a kid (lima beans and more lima beans)
Week 5 - vanilla (macaroons)
Week 6 - Jamaican (jerk chicken and rice & peas)
Week 7 - poaching (poached eggs & polenta and sesame chicken cucumber noodle salad)
Week 8 - TV show inspired (Hawaiian garlic shrimp and mac salad)
Week 9 - garlic (black garlic and mushroom pasta)
Week 10 - Australian (sausage rolls)
Week 11 - molecular (skipped for these reasons)
Week 12 - street food (fish tacos and esquites)
Week 13 - potatoes (twice baked chili cheese potatoes and hasselback potatoes)
Week 14 - Belgian (beer and onion braised chicken carbonnade and stoemp)
Week 15 - knifework (lots of prep work)
Week 16 - 80s (French bread pizza)
Week 17 - soy (Mediterranean baked tofu and sweet and sour tofu)
Week 18 - Peruvian (ensalada de choclo)
Week 19 - caramelization (mujadara and caramelized carrots)
Week 20 - diner/drive-in food (grilled cheese and corned beef hash breakfast plate)
Week 21 - beer (spicy beer braised lime chicken enchiladas)
Week 22 - Turkish (nohut salatasi, mercimek koftesi, beet salad)
Week 23 - confit (spicy red pepper and eggplant confit)
Week 24 - historic foods (turkey meatloaf)
Week 25 - stone fruits (peach salsa)
Week 26 - Philippines (chicken adobo with mushroom and bamboo shoot rice)
Week 27 - tenderizing (spring chicken roll-ups with lemon dijon pan sauce)
Week 28 - 'Murica (Hoppin' John and Southern greens)
Week 29 - from your pantry (chicken with sauteed corn and tomatoes)
Week 30 - clean eating (cod with roasted vegetables)
Week 31 - breading/dredging (breaded zucchini chips with garlic aioli)
Week 32 - your favorites (slow cooker split pea soup)
Week 33 - melons (watermelon and feta salad)
Week 34 - opposite side of the world (Vietnamese shrimp summer rolls)
Week 35 - pickling (pickled red onions for chicken tacos)
Week 36 - hot and cold (trio of sloppy joe sliders)
Week 37 - apples (savory apple saute)
Week 38 - Central Asia (plov)
Week 39 - stew (African-style peanut stew)
Week 40 - screw-ups revisited (bubble and squeak)
Week 41 - pumpkin (turkey pumpkin chili)
Week 42 - Native American (chicken and green chile pozole)
Week 43 - candied (candied yams)
Week 44 - horror movie inspired (mini mummy pizzas)
Week 45 - whole grains (autumn millet bake)
Week 46 - rustic (chicken cacciatore and parmesan smashed potatoes)
Week 47 - pan sauces (chicken cutlets with quick pan sauce)
Week 48 - unexpected combinations (parmesan and mayo crusted mahi mahi)
Week 49 - dried fruit (Catalan-style chickpeas with raisins)
Week 50 - Canadian (maple glazed Canadian salmon)
Week 51 - kosher ("healthy" latkes)
Week 52 - fancy ingredients (turkey and saffron rice)

Can't wait to see what new dishes next year's cooking challenge will bring!

Week 52 - Fancy Ingredients

The last weekly challenge for this year had a theme of "fancy" ingredients. I wasn't really sure what to pick. Lobster? King crab? (Definitely cannot afford the king crab legs we saw at Costco recently which were running $165 a box!) I didn't really want to make anything like that. A suggested saffron, which was perfect. Saffron is on the expensive side so quite a bit "fancier" than what I would normally use (other than a thread or 2 here or there), and we already had some in the pantry. Perfect!

In the back of my mind, I remembered that I had recently seen a recipe that used saffron with rice, so I set off to look for it. It was this recipe for smoky turkey and saffron red rice from Picky Palate and it sounded perfect for the challenge.

The ingredients for the recipe, as I adapted it, were:

- 2 cups uncooked basmati rice (free, only because it was the last of the rice I won at the health fair)

- olive oil for sauteing ($0.40)

- 1 yellow onion, finely chopped ($0.60)

- 1/2 head of garlic, minced ($0.10)

- 1 lb ground turkey breast ($4.20)

- salt and black pepper ($0.10)

- 2 15-oz cans of green beans, drained ($1.32)

- 8 oz can of tomato sauce ($0.59)

- cumin ($0.05)

- smoked Spanish paprika ($0.10)

- garlic powder ($0.05)

- saffron threads ($2.75)

A lot of these are estimated costs, like the saffron, since I actually bought it some time ago, but the total came out to around $10-11. If I had to pay for the basmati rice, it would probably be another dollar. $12 doesn't sound like a great deal for dinner, except it was for 2 of us, and there were also enough leftovers for me to eat it for lunch for 3-4 days. It was actually a fairly economical dish because it made a lot of food.

I was so wrapped up with cooking (and running back and forth to the living room since we were watching the Restaurant Wars episode of Top Chef) that I forgot to take more prep pics. Oh well. I usually do them so I can remember what I need to do when making a dish in the future, but it's pretty straightforward here.

You make the basmati rice in one pot and in another, add the onions, then garlic, then turkey + salt + pepper, and then everything else. I don't really measure spices so I just tossed in what looked reasonable, and ended up adding more seasoning later once I tried everything together. The original recipe used a tbsp of saffron, but I probably used half of that. I've barely cooked with saffron before, so I didn't want to overdo it. The final product also ended up with a little less rice than the original recipe since the basmati rice was so good, we kept eating it plain while everything else was cooking. The parts that stuck to the pot were delicious.

Overall, this was a very good recipe. I probably could have added more saffron and smoked paprika, but now I know for next time - and there will be a next time. This was really comforting and cozy and perfect for winter, and also pretty easy to make for a weeknight meal (unlike the latkes from the previous weekly challenge). What a great dish to end the 52 week challenge!

Thanksgiving with a Twist

Continuing our clearing out of our draft archives ... I wrote this back in mid-November and for some unknown reason, never posted it. It's Christmas today (merry Christmas to all who celebrate!), so let's jump back and try to finish off everything Thanksgiving-related before New Years rolls around...

Whenever I think of the new(ish) turkey sausage at Trader Joe's, the very holiday-sounding turkey cranberry apple sausage (previously reviewed here), it makes me think about Thanksgiving dinner. Since there's only 2 of us, it's perfect for the "turkey" part of a mini-Thanksgiving dinner, and that's exactly what we did both times we've had it. The first time (more here) we mixed it with candied yams and green bean casserole. This time (why the sausage is no longer pink, I have no idea, it's very confusing), I went with mustard-roasted potatoes and a brussels sprout saute in mustard sauce. Still haven't made the sausage with my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner - the stuffing - but maybe that will happen another time.

First up, the mustard-roasted potatoes. In meal planning for this week, I had initially thought I would buy a few sweet potatoes and use those for sides since they're healthier than regular potatoes (we're supposed to be cutting down on white starches...), but the price on the regular potatoes at the store (5 pounds for $1.19) was just too tempting. Of course, we then had 5 pounds of potatoes instead of 3 sweet potatoes, so I had to figure out what else to do with them. As soon as I saw this recipe for mustard-roasted potatoes on Smitten Kitchen, I knew that would be it. I followed the recipe pretty closely, so I would use the SK post as your starting point for detailed instructions.

These potatoes are basically wedge fries baked in a mustard sauce, which sounds (and was) completely awesome. Putting them together is also really straightforward, but the prep took a little longer than expected, since I am a little obsessive about removing any trace of green from the potato flesh. (Really though, who wants digestive issues? A little more work is worth the peace of mind.)

First, you slice up about 3 pounds of potatoes into wedges. (I had a general idea of how to do it, but since I wasn't completely sure and hadn't done it before, I found this video of Gordon Ramsay doing it helpful.) Then, in a large bowl, mix together 1/2 cup whole grain dijon mustard with 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2 tbsp of melted butter, the juice of 1 lemon, about 1 tsp of grated lemon peel, 3 minced cloves of garlic, about 1 tbsp of dried oregano, and some salt. Instead of using kosher salt, I opted for the Trader Joe's lemon pepper grinder, which I thought would be really complementary to this recipe. Mix the sauce together, then coat the potatoes in the sauce.

Now, the baking part. The racks go in the top and bottom third of the oven. You use 2 greased trays and spread the potatoes around. Bake for 20 minutes, swap the trays, and bake for another 25. Somewhere in there, you also turn the potatoes around. By the end of the last baking period, they should be pretty crispy.

We really liked the mustard-roasted potatoes. It was like eating seasoned fries and they're much healthier wedge fries than the ones at KFC. I can see myself making fries like this again, just maybe with not as many potatoes. That's because we ate them all. Yes, 3 pounds of potatoes and we ate them all. Add to that the 2 pounds of potatoes that I made the night before (roasted with peppers and onions) and we ate 5 pounds of potatoes in 2 days. No. More. Potatoes. (for a bit).

To go along with the potatoes and the sausage, I picked up some shaved brussels sprouts from Trader Joe's. I really wanted to make sure we ate some sort of vegetable with dinner to balance out the meat and potatoes. Although the full bag of brussels sprouts is cheaper and probably makes more overall, you can't beat the convenience of a pre-shaved bag of sprouts. So quick and easy. That's a convenience I'm willing to pay a little more for.

Since we were going to be having mustard-roasted potatoes, I had been toying with the idea of making a dijon mustard sauce for the brussels sprouts also. But then I read the SK post more closely and saw that you basically discard any of the extra mustard sauce that didn't stick to the potatoes. That was perfect! I could just add a little bit of olive oil to the mustard sauce to thin it out and then add that as the sauce for the brussels sprouts!

For this saute, I minced about 5 cloves of garlic and chopped 2 small onions, added them to a skillet with some olive oil, and sauteed them until they got a little softer, and then added the shaved brussels sprouts. Added about 1/4 cup of water and popped the cover on to let them cook, then uncovered it and added a chopped up bunch of scallions (whites and greens), as well as the mustard sauce, and then cooked it for a few more minutes. This was without a doubt our favorite part of the meal. That mustard sauce is really quite lovely.

Overall, this was a pretty good Thanksgiving mini-meal although we were both really craving some stuffing by the end of it. Leading up to Thanksgiving, we had Thanksgiving-flavored turkey sausage, mashed potatoes, candied yams, roasted potatoes, brussels sprouts, green bean casserole, and fresh cranberries, so the lack of stuffing was kind of a glaring omission. (We also didn't have gravy but since we didn't have "real" turkey, that isn't surprising and doesn't feel missed.) I see stuffing in our future!

Week 49 - Dried Fruit

The theme for Week 49 of the challenge was dried fruit. I may have mentioned before how *thrilled* I am to combine fruit into savory dishes, so I wasn't really looking forward to spotlighting dried fruit for dinner. Technically, though, the challenge doesn't really say I have to spotlight dried fruit, just that I have to use it, which was a distinction that made my choice very simple. 

I haven't made Catalan-style cigrons (chickpeas) in over a year, and the dish includes raisins which count as dried fruit. Really, I just needed an excuse to buy some more morcilla and make the cigrons (which you might remember from the year-end favorites post from last year). The cigrons are my best approximation of the dish you can get at the amazing Bar Pinotxo in Barcelona (which we still haven't written about). When I first started researching the chickpeas dish last year, I stumbled upon this site which gave an adaptation of Pinotxo's chickpeas recipe. I used that as my starting point last year and made small modifications to it along the way to align it with our fading memories.

I'm going to do something a little different with this post. Instead of posting the recipe with the amounts I actually made, I'm going to write up what I would usually make on a normal day, and what I think is probably closer to the correct proportions I prefer for this dish. The proportion of meat to chickpeas and other ingredients was a little off this time since I had to use the entire package of morcilla up. Usually one package will last me two meals of this dish, but with Christmas coming up, we just didn't have time for that and I didn't want the morcilla to get wasted. So I put the entire package in this dish, but I think it threw things off a little bit. Not enough to not taste good, but I didn't like it as much as last time.

The ingredients for this recipe are:

- 1/4 cup seedless raisins ($0.50)

- extra virgin olive oil (arbequina best, but we don't have any more Catalan arbequina in the house) ($0.75)

- 1 yellow onion, chopped ($0.60)

- 1/4 cup pine nuts ($1**)

- 2 garlic cloves, minced ($0.08)

- 2 small links of morcilla* ($2.75)

- 2 15-oz cans of chickpeas ($1.33)

- 1/2 bunch of parsley, chopped ($0.50)

- balsamic vinegar ($0.30)

- smoked paprika ($0.20)

- salt ($0.05)

* The recipe really should be botifarra negra but I don't believe they can import that into the US, sadly. If anyone around here would have it, it would be Despaña, where I get the morcilla, but when I asked them about it last year, they said they didn't carry it (and they don't make it like they do the morcilla and other chorizo).

** Pine nuts are ridiculously expensive. I don't actually remember how much they cost, but this is about what I usually end up getting. We got these out in the Portland area a while ago since the price was cheaper. The pine nuts are probably over $1, but I just don't know how much more.

The recipe costs about $8, the way that I would make it if I had a more flexible schedule to cook this week. Of course, the actual dish cost more this time, since I threw in an extra can of chickpeas and the rest of the morcilla package, as well as a little more raisins and garlic.

The recipe is pretty straightforward and only really needs a single pan (other than prep stuff). The steps were:

1. Soak raisins in hot water for at least 10 minutes. (I'm a slow prepper, so I usually end up soaking for longer and they expand quite a bit.)

2. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat up olive oil (about 2 tbsp) and then add onions. Cook onions until softened and then add garlic, pine nuts and raisins. Crumble the morcilla and add that. (I prefer the meat to be smaller and the morcilla this time for some reason wouldn't crumble that small, so I think next time I would chop it smaller after crumbling. I was short on time this time.) Lower heat to medium low and stir periodically.

3. Rinse and drain chickpeas, and add to pan. Also add the chopped parsley and smoked paprika to taste. Keep stirring everything around.

4. When everything has cooked and mixed well together, remove from heat. Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt to taste. (For estimated proportions, I would guess 1:1.5 oil to balsamic vinegar, and a light sprinkling of salt. The key for us is really the balsamic vinegar. Too little and it's a little dull. You definitely need enough balsamic vinegar to make it brighten up.)

We love this recipe. It's never going to be as good as Pinotxo, but it's a lot easier and more affordable making this than jetting off to Spain (as much as we'd like to do the latter). Whenever we make it to Barcelona next, you can be sure that we'll be heading to Pinotxo to get this again, and see if we can tweak anything else to make this a little better and closer to the real thing.

But for now, it'll do. We paired this with some patatas bravas (which will be a future post) and Crianza for a mini Spanish tapas night (can it still be tapas if you only have 2 dishes?) which really raised our spirits. Nothing like a little bit of Mediterranean warmth in the middle of December.

Latka Finger

This weekend, we headed over to Sticky's Finger Joint, a spot in the city that specializes in chicken fingers, for their holiday special: the latka finger. I had already made latkes (latka is so hard for me to type; I always spell it latke but will not here since Sticky's doesn't) for the 52 week cooking challenge, which I was not that enthused about, so I was hoping a nice, properly fried latka finger would improve our Hanukkah eats.

For $5, you get a piece of chicken marinated in a mix of buttermilk, onion and applesauce and then coated in a batter of potato, onions and matzo meal, and then fried. (They verbally gave all this detail in the description of the latka finger while we were there, but I promptly forgot it and had to look it up online here.) It comes with small side cups of sour cream and cinnamon-topped applesauce, as well as a piece of gelt. Part of the proceeds go to a nonprofit that fights hunger, so not only are you eating something timely for Hanukkah, you're doing it for a good cause.

Overall, we thought the latka finger was okay. The size was nice - good enough for both of us to split as a snack - but the latka breading just didn't have a ton of flavor to it on its own. (I feel like I'm writing my review of my own latkes again.) Also, since we were cutting the chicken finger instead of biting into it, the latka part often just fell off the chicken, which also contributed to it seeming not that flavorful. The latka finger was definitely improved by dipping. I liked it with the sour cream, which A also used to add flavor to it. So generally it was fine, but not as flavorful as we were expecting it to be.

We're glad that we stopped by Sticky's to try the latka finger as we were really intrigued by it from the moment we read about it since it was so different. Pretty sure that tomorrow was announced as the last day, so if you want to try it, head over now!

Week 51 - Kosher

Week 51 of the challenge - kosher - coincided with the start of Hanukkah, which made my challenge choice pretty easy. Latkes! I love eating latkes but I don't deep fry at home, so I set off looking for a recipe that would allow me to make latkes without tons of oil and frying. In the kosher recipe library on Chabad, they had a recipe for some low fat latkes that you could make in the oven, so that was my plan!

I mostly followed their recipe with only slight modifications. I used:

- about 2 lbs of potatoes ($0.75)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.60)
- 3 tsp canola oil ($0.15)
- 1/4 cup flour ($0.15)
- salt and pepper ($0.08)
- 1 large egg + egg whites of 1 large egg ($0.38)

For about 2 trays of latkes, the cost was only slightly over $2. I made some power greens and mushrooms, just like with the previous night's Canadian dinner, which tacked on a few dollars. All together, that was a pretty affordable meal.

The steps to make the latkes were:

1. Peel potatoes and remove outer layers and ends of onion.

2. Set up food processor with grating blade. Grate potatoes and onions. Drain in colander over a bowl. Dispose of the water but not the potato starch that collects on the bottom.

3. Once the potatoes and onions seem dry (I thought they were, but perhaps they could have used some more wringing), move to large bowl and mix with the potato starch, flour, salt and pepper. Mix well.

4. Add the egg, egg white, and 1 tsp of canola oil, and mix some more.

5. Add canola oil to baking sheets and brush the oil on. (We only had one clean pan so I did one this way, and used foil + nonstick spray on another pan. It worked better this way.) Scoop spoonfuls of the latke mixture onto the sheet and form/press into circular cake shapes.

6. Bake at 450 degrees on the lower and middle racks of the oven for about 12 minutes.

7. Flip latkes and swap baking sheet positions. Bake another 10 minutes. Latkes should be golden brown at that point, but it might depend on your oven and setup. (The latkes on the foil did not brown very much.)

Usually you eat latkes with sour cream and/or applesauce, but I ate them plain and with the vegetables, and A added sriracha to a few. We like sriracha so it's up in the air for us whether it's better with the traditional toppings.

The latkes were okay, but not that flavorful. I added plenty of salt and pepper, but they still tasted like they could have used more. The texture was different coming out of the oven, and frying would definitely taste better. So overall they were just okay.

It was interesting doing this kosher challenge. Even though I knew one big part of this meal would not be kosher - our kitchen - it made me think about all the steps of the meal and any accompaniments with the kosher rules in mind. It's something that doesn't usually enter into the planning process for me, so it was an interesting exercise. I probably will not make these latkes again as they just don't compare to the fried ones, but I'm glad I tried. Until we get an air fryer, I think I'll leave the frying and the latkes to the experts.

Poffertjes Man

As we mentioned when we went for herring at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, there just isn't much Dutch food in NYC and that's sad for us because we've truly loved our visits to the Netherlands. Earlier this fall (I said we needed to clear out our draft archives...), there was an Urban Space market on Broadway that we made it to once, and we were very happy to see that they had a stall selling poffertjes, little Dutch pancakes that we've only ever eaten in Amsterdam (read about the poffertjes we got in Amsterdam here).

They were selling poffertjes in batches of 15 for $5. That seemed expensive for a light snack, but after I did the math, it wasn't that much more than we paid in Europe. There, it was 2 euro for 10 pieces, so it would be close to $4 (under current exchange rates) for 15. These were only $1 more, and for all we know, that's what they could be going for now in Amsterdam, since our visit to Amsterdam for poffertjes was 4 years ago.

It was a smaller operation than what we saw at the Albert Cuyp Markt, but it was still fun watching them make the pancakes for our order. They came the way they traditionally do, topped with butter and a coating of powdered sugar.

These poffertjes were good. The texture was soft and spongey like they should be, and they were delicious dressed in butter and sugar. We liked the ones in Amsterdam a little bit more (those were a little fluffier), but we were pretty happy just to be able to get poffertjes somewhere, as we don't really have the correct equipment to make them ourselves. We have no idea where Poffertjes Man sets up other than the street markets, but we'll be keeping an eye out. Hopefully NYC will see more Dutch food someday!

Monterey Ranch

Despite the pulled pork debacle a couple of months ago, I'm still a sucker for promotional and limited edition sandwiches at Wendy's, always hoping they'll live up to the glory that was the wild mountain chicken sandwich. This time around, I got the Monterey ranch crispy chicken sandwich that I've seen advertised all over TV (which I think is a limited time recurring item). It looked pretty tasty and I was fairly confident that there would be no broccoli slaw this time!

The Monterey ranch crispy chicken sandwich consists of a chicken patty, a slice of cheese, a large leaf of lettuce, and some creamy ranch dressing. The chicken here is more of a formed patty like the other crispy chicken sandwich on the value menu (which I guess is now the "right price right size" menu), and not the "homestyle chicken" which would have cost much more than $1.79 (which is already more than a lot of the rest of the country). I usually prefer the homestyle since it's more "real" chicken, but this was fine (and cheap!).

The sandwich was exactly what it sounded like - a chicken patty with cheese and ranch dressing - which is a pretty good combination. It was fine, but not enough for lunch for me despite the calorie count on the menu board. I can tell you that it pairs quite nicely with the caesar side salad. Overall, I liked it and if it's still there on a future Wendy's visit, I would consider getting it again. But it wasn't so awesome that I would make a special trip to get it before it's gone if I weren't in the area. All that said, it was definitely better than the last limited edition sandwich I got!

Sweet and Salty Popcorn Chips

We're big fans of crunchy snacks, and it's not unusual to see a case of Popcorners or Popchips or Special K cracker chips in our apartment at any given time. Last month on the new items rack, Trader Joe's had been displaying these sweet and salty popcorn chips ($1.99). A little "healthier" than your ordinary chips since they have chia seeds, flax seeds, quinoa, and sunflower seeds among their ingredients, we figured we would give them a try.

If you can't read the bag, it says that the picture on the bag shows the actual size of the chip. We were skeptical but it turns out that it was quite accurate...

M's thoughts: When I grab a bag of chips, the flavor profile I'm looking for is usually salty and savory, but I probably should have been tipped off by the "sweet and salty" in the name that this wasn't going to be like that. It reminded me most of kettle-flavored Popcorners, which is my least favorite flavor of that chip and the entire reason I don't buy the variety pack of Popcorners at Costco. If I want something sweet, I have plenty of other options (like almost every other snack in our entire apartment at the moment). These were good chips texturally, and I appreciated the natural and healthier ingredients, but this was just too sweet for me and I only ate a few.

Buy Again? No, but that's personal preference on the flavor and not a negative response to the chip itself. Put these out in a BBQ or sour cream and onion flavor, and it would be a resounding yes.

A's thoughts: I'm a fan of kettle corn. I like the salty and sweet combo, but I know it's not M's favorite. This snack was totally more for me. The texture for these is amazing. It's crisp but also a touch soft. The subtle sweetness didn't overpower the flavor of the chip, and it was basically a flatter version of the best kettle corn I ever had.

Buy Again? I would. I like this type of snack, and I would love to eat more of it.

Dining on the Quantum

Quantum of the Seas is the newest ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet. One of the big changes that RC made when it came to the Quantum class of ships was to implement a new dining concept called Dynamic Dining, supposedly to appeal to millennials and other younger cruisers who aren't interested in traditional dining rooms found on cruise ships. Dynamic Dining breaks up the huge dining room into 4 separate "restaurant" venues, each focused on a different type of cuisine with menus that are fixed for the length of the cruise. Essentially it would be like being in a resort or town on land with 4 restaurants that you could visit. I'm not sure why this is supposed to be a "younger" thing but we weren't opposed to it in principle like some people were. It was different but different isn't always bad.

The world's first smartship... was sometimes not very smart

The four "complimentary" restaurant venues (not really free since they are part of the cruise fare, but no extra charges) were Silk (serving Asian food), American Icon Grill (focused on American classics), Chic ("contemporary" cuisine), and The Grande (the one restaurant on board that required formal dress). All 4 served dinner, but only American Icon also served breakfast and lunch.

If you were super special and had a suite of a certain level or were a Pinnacle member (the highest level in Royal's loyalty program), you also got complimentary access to Coastal Kitchen. The fact that the Coastal Kitchen venue was so limited really irked us, since its "Mediterranean meets California" menu sounded the best out of all the dining rooms and there was no way the 2 of us were going to pay for a giant suite just to get access. That meant we would never get to try it, which was disappointing.

One of the central areas on the ship near the (pay) Izumi Japanese restaurant

In addition to the complimentary restaurants, there were also a bunch of pay restaurants. Some had a cover charge (pay a set fee and then order as much as you want) and others were a la carte. We were celebrating a special occasion on the cruise, so we did do one of the "specialty" restaurants, but otherwise we had no interest in forking over more money to get more variety in our restaurant choices. We were paying enough money for the cruise, so why would we pay for all of our meals on top of that?

The pay venues included Jamie's Italian (Italian from Jamie Oliver, the one specialty restaurant we did go to), Izumi (Japanese), Wonderland Imaginative Cuisine (modernist), Chops Grille (steakhouse), and Devinly Decadence (spa-type cuisine, which was thankfully free for breakfast). There was also some Chef's Table, a "private epicurean experience" (according to the website), which we skipped, but heard was just a special table in Chops Grille. In addition to Jamie's, Izumi looked pretty good and the menu for Devinly Decadence was mouthwatering, but we chose not to do any other pay restaurants on principle.

The beautifully eclectic dining room at Wonderland

On top of all the sit-down complimentary and specialty restaurants, there was also the (free) buffet, which Royal Caribbean calls the Windjammer Marketplace, open for every meal. They also had other more casual spots (usually without waiter service), which included Sorrento's (pizza, including made-to-order, free), Cafe Promenade (sandwiches and sweets, free), Johnny Rockets (the same as the chain outside, pay), Seaplex Dog House (hot dogs and sausages, free), The Cafe at Two70 (sandwiches, salads, soups, free), La Patisserie (desserts and Starbucks coffee, pay), and Michael's Genuine Pub (bar snacks and beer (but perplexingly no sports on the TV), pay). Sounds like a ton of options, but somehow after 12 days, it didn't really feel like it.

Our room TV with its interactive message center and calendar ... which broke one very frustrating night

Since this was supposed to be a new "smart ship," there was an emphasis on technology all over the ship, and that included electronic reservations for dinners onboard. Reservations absurdly opened many months before the cruise and quickly disappeared as people kept booking, which annoyed us because how were we supposed to know what we wanted to eat on any given night 6 months in advance? In any event, we did make reservations for all our dinners except 2 before we went, and made those others onboard during the cruise (with some difficulty, unlike some people who claim to have gone on with no reservations and had no problems - we were not so lucky). The technology wasn't without its glitches generally. Reservations vanished before the cruise multiple times, which was extremely frustrating after all the time A spent making them and dealing with their crappy interface. We showed up in places where we had reservations and were told we didn't. But as aggravating as their IT was, I guess it could have been worse.

Our goal on the trip was to try every free venue at least once, and we did succeed at that. Since (a) our cruise went for 12 days, (b) the only meals we ate off-ship were 1 dinner and 4 lunches, and (c) we were avoiding pay venues except for 1 dinner, that meant a lot of venues got repeated over the course of our cruise. For that reason, it seems to make sense to group all of our visits to each venue together. We prefer recapping our trips in chronological order so we'll sort of do that but also include any subsequent visits to each restaurant in those posts, since we did repeat several dishes. Now that we've gotten all the details out of the way, we can start talking about the food!

Week 50 - Canadian

Back from vacation, back to the 52 week cooking challenge! The theme for Week 50 of the challenge was Canadian. We did an entire unit of Canadian WorldEats (before we changed up our way of doing WorldEats), but I still wasn't sure what to make. After some searching and talking with A, maple-glazed salmon seemed like the perfect choice. Maple syrup is pretty much always associated with Canada, and there's tons of salmon up there. Even better, I found a recipe on a Canadian website and the best available salmon at Trader Joe's the day we went was - yup, you guessed it - from Canada. If maple-glazed Canadian salmon with a recipe from Canadian Living wasn't Canadian enough for this challenge, not sure what would be (other than poutine).

I decided to pair up the salmon with some greens and other vegetables we brought back from our recent Costco run. That seemed like a nice healthy and simple way to ease back into our cooking routine.

The salmon required very few ingredients, just the salmon ($8.44), 1/8 cup of maple syrup ($1.12), 2 tsp of whole grain mustard ($0.05), and 2 tsp of soy sauce ($0.10). The salmon portion of dinner was approximately $9.71 and the vegetable side was no more than a couple of dollars. I would have added some lentils or grains to the meal, but we had earlier indulged in some Shack burgers as a snack (easing out of vacation eating mode ... slowly), so we didn't need any more filling calories.

The salmon was super simple to make. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Add the salmon to a foil-lined baking sheet. Spoon glaze over the fish. Bake for about 12 minutes until flaky and done. I'm not sure if 12 minutes was the right amount of time for our oven and we don't make enough fish to really know what the right time would be, so I guess we'll keep experimenting. The edges were a little overdone and the middle was definitely not, but overall, it was fine and not too overcooked at that amount of time. It didn't come out looking very pink on the outside, but it was on the inside.

The glaze was pretty good. It was a little sweet from the syrup and a little salty from the mustard and the soy sauce, but other than sweet and salty notes, we didn't really taste each individual ingredient very much. I thought it was going to be very sweet like maple syrup, but it was pretty balanced and tasty.

This was a good way to get back to the challenge (and no, I didn't just skip Week 49 - I need to pick up some ingredients for it that I can't get to for a few days). We liked our salmon and power greens dinner.

Quantum of the Seas

Wondering where we disappeared to the first 2 weeks of December? We went off on a family trip to the Caribbean on one of the first voyages of Royal Caribbean's brand new Quantum of the Seas. A 2 week trip means we have tons to write about, so we're going to do our best to post as much as possible before the end of December (as well as put up all the other mostly finished posts that have been languishing in drafts).

We'll tell you all about the dining venues on the ship (which was truly gigantic), as well as the food we enjoyed during our short port stops in Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, Martinique, Barbados, and St. Kitts. Hopefully we'll finish this quicker than some of our other trips!

December 2014 Custard Calendar

Christmas cookie custard is back!

That was my first thought when I opened up the December custard calendar a couple of days ago, which I immediately relayed to A. That's always been one of our favorite Shack Shack custards and one which really puts us in the holiday spirit (although we're dreading the crowds we'll have to brave to get it), and we're glad to see it return.

It may seem kind of late to be posting about the custard calendar since December is almost half over, but we've been traveling with very little access to internet and the calendar wasn't up before we left. It's not our usual late and/or lazy blogging!

So, without further rambling, here's the December calendar with our scores and links to our previous reviews:

Monday - Christmas cookie (9/10)
Tuesday - gingerbread (5.75/10)
Wednesday - eggnog (tried but never reviewed - maybe we'll give it another try after I really liked the Layer Shake)
Thursday - chocolate pecan pie (not new but never tried)
Friday - jelly donut (8.75/10)
Saturday - candy cane crunch (tried but never reviewed - we think we liked it)
Sunday - sweet potato marshmallow (not new but never tried)

A lot of these are repeats of last year and other years, but it's a very "holiday" menu so that makes sense. So excited for Christmas cookie!

Goodbye wd-50

One of the landmarks in the New York dining scene for years has been Chef Wylie Dufresne's wd-50, especially if you're looking to try molecular gastronomy or modernist cuisine. Thanks to the cruel forces of Manhattan real estate (which have taken out so many icons), wd-50 closed up shop tonight after dinner. We only made it there once, but dishes from that meal made both of our favorites lists that year. It was a surprise dinner for my birthday and I had absolutely no idea where we were going until A walked me all the way to the door. It was just the start of a night of surprises, since one of the joys of eating modernist cuisine for us is how nothing is ever really what you expect until you taste it.

The meal started out with some sesame flatbread crisps. We also got some cocktails but I haven't added pictures of those, because I don't have any recollection of what they are. I should probably mention that, 4 years later, we don't remember every detail about the dishes or even what all of our favorites were, so this isn't a great "review." It's more of a chance for us to look back and remember what we ate on our only visit to such a wonderful place. Also, sorry in advance for some of the unfortunate picture quality. We didn't have a macro lens on our SLR and the light wasn't the greatest, but oh well.

We got the tasting menu that night. Our first course was fluke with sunflower seed, cole slaw and lemon (most of these are menu descriptions, so not really much help on what the dishes were, and neither are my limited notes). There was also a cilantro flavored sauce and the cole slaw was kind of like a powder. This was a good light start to the night.

The second course, the everything bagel, we definitely remember for how unique it was. Instead of an actual mini bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese, there was something that looked exactly like the top of a mini everything bagel, but instead it had the consistency of ice cream. There were also smoked salmon threads, crisps of cream cheese, and pickled onions. It's fun and unexpected when you "bite" into something expecting it to have some substance and then to realize it's basically ice cream instead.

The foie gras course I remember most for how rich it was. I'm not a huge foie gras fan, but I'm glad we had the opportunity to try this. It was one big round of foie gras topped with slivers of celery, sitting on a financier of Chinese celery.

When you broke open the round of foie gras, liquid came spilling out, and that tasted like passion fruit. It was a combination of flavors that we had never had before (or since).

Next up was scrambled egg ravioli, charred avocado, kindai kampachi, and toasted potatoes. The final dinner menu at wd-50 has the same egg dish that we got (but with a different fish). We don't remember a ton about this one, sadly.

Have you ever had fried chicken leftovers the next day and just eaten them cold? I can't explain it, but there's something really good about cold fried chicken. That's what came up in our next course, which made A's favorites list and was high up on my list of possibilities. It was cold fried chicken, buttermilk ricotta (which was whipped up like mashed potatoes), tabasco (like a honey tabasco sauce), and caviar (not sure what type, but maybe sturgeon). It was like eating a cold version of chicken and mashed potatoes, and it was delicious.

After the cold fried chicken, it was time for black bass with chorizo crumble, grilled pineapple, and a popcorn puree. This sounds like it was really good, but unfortunately, sandwiched between 2 glorious dishes, we've kind of forgotten about it.

The next dish - beef and bernaise - was the one that unexpectedly ended up on my favorites list from 2010. At the time, I still didn't eat much red meat, but this dish was spectacular (looks like this one is also on the final dinner menu). I was so surprised by it, especially given my initial hesitation when I saw that the menu had this dish listed. I was expecting beef with a bernaise sauce, but instead it was like eating bernaise gnocchi, caramelized shallot paste, and beef broth, with some slivers of snow peas on top. I would definitely eat this again, but sadly, this will have been the only time for this dish.

We had mentioned to them before the meal that I didn't eat much red meat, so for the next course, they brought out different dishes for A and me. I had arctic char with fried yucca, cherry black bean sauce, and other stuff that I can't remember anymore and was not on the menu to be identified.

A got the squab breast which came with Chinese broccoli, corn bread with pickled cranberries in it, and what tasted like a spiced pumpkin puree. We don't remember much about these two, sadly. I bet we were still thinking and talking about the bernaise dish at the time.

That was the end of our savory entrees and now it was time for sweet. The first dessert was white beer ice cream, with quince, caramel, caraway, and a really pretty cookie. 

The second dessert looked like a spring roll. It was rainbow sherbet (in a shell that made it like an egg roll) with apple, tarragon, and orange flavors. That came on top of an olive oil sponge cake, with olive oil ice cream and a piece of grapefruit. It was so interesting.

The final dessert was by far the most beautiful. It had soft chocolate, beets, long pepper, ricotta ice cream, but more than the flavor, I just remembered how pretty the design was.

Since it was my birthday dinner, they brought me a candle, which was edible and tasted and smelled like coconut. It was really just another example in the long list of how Wylie and his staff are geniuses at what they do.

To end our meal, we first got chocolate shortbread with milk ice cream, which was like eating an Oreo ball.

And the last to arrive were cocoa packets, which were exactly what they sounded like. The cocoa inside was like little pellets housed inside the chocolate exterior.

We really enjoyed our meal at wd-50 and now, looking back, are glad that we had the opportunity to at least visit wd-50 once. It's sad that they have to close, but we're thankful for the experience.