DC Kickoff

A few months ago, we went on a short road trip to DC. We just needed to get out of the city for a little bit (although we did really just end up in a different city), and thought some time in a new environment, hanging out around pandas, and eating Ethiopian food would do us some good.

The morning we left for DC, it snowed a little bit, but fortunately that didn't screw up our drive too much. We left a little later than we planned, but made good time driving through Jersey. As a quick snack to start the trip, we decided to split some crispy M&M's that we had picked up from Target not long before. The bag was 99 cents for very few M&M's but it had been so long since I had had crispy M&M's that I couldn't resist picking up a bag.

The crispy M&M's had been back on the shelves for about a year already, but we hadn't gotten around to getting them. I think part of the reason we like them is the crispiness, that inner wafer-like center, and an overall texture reminiscent of a malt ball. But I think another part of it is also nostalgia. They hadn't had crispy M&M's for a decade or so, and we remembered them (and that age) fondly. The M&M's were fine, just not really a whole lot of them for the price, but it was nice to have them again.

We were planning to grab lunch in Maryland, but we were getting really hungry around Trenton so we decided to stop at a rest stop for a snack. Burger King seemed like the easiest option for something quick and not too heavy, and they had recently come out with jalapeño chicken fries, so we got a box of those as well as the onion rings I can never resist from BK.

We had tried regular chicken fries at Burger King before, and while we thought they were fine, we never thought they were amazing or anything really special. But these jalapeño chicken fries were different. They were so much better. You could taste the difference in the flavor and there was a definite jalapeño taste and sourness to them (in a good way). We weren't sure what the dipping sauce was supposed to be since no one gave us one with the box of chicken fries (no one really seemed to want to do much of anything at that BK), so we're not sure how well the sauce would complement the fries. But we liked these chicken fries and would get them again if they're still around.

As we sat at the rest stop for our break, we couldn't take our eyes off the news. That was the day that they had discovered a knife near OJ's old property, and it was partway through the season of The People v. OJ Simpson, and we were completely obsessed. Eventually we finished our fried snacks and tore ourselves away from the screen to get back on the road. It was a good thing we had stopped for a snack since we unfortunately hit a fair amount of congestion heading into Delaware, and we would have been so hungry if we had waited until Maryland to eat (and probably would have had even more buyer's remorse; more on that next). We were pretty happy with our snack, and more than anything, happy to start vacation!

Mango Taffy

More mango treats!

Product: Mango taffy

Price: $0.99 for a 3 oz bag

Quick review: We've tried the multi-flavor salt water taffy from Trader Joe's before (although we never wrote about it), so when mango taffy appeared on the new items shelf as part of the new "mango season," we decided to try it. After all, it was pretty inexpensive at 99 cents per bag, so even if it was just okay, no big loss. TJ's makes a big deal about the fact that their taffy is whipped, and not pulled, which makes it softer and "fluffier," and that seems to be true. It's a little less chewy than some other taffy and a little airier. The mango flavor is really nice. It actually tastes like a really sweet mango and not artificial, which is probably because they use actual mango juice.

Buy again? We're not huge taffy purchasers, so this was going to be more of a one-off whether or not it stuck around for the summer. We're glad we tried it and would get it again if the mood struck, but we don't need it all the time.

Yankee Stadium

I've been a Yankees fan for my entire life, but I have no issues admitting that the food at Yankee Stadium isn't even close to as good as the food at Citi Field. When you have Danny Meyer running the show over at Citi Field with places like Shake Shack and Blue Smoke, the boring food at Yankee Stadium just can't compete. We went to both Yankees and NYCFC games at the stadium recently, and both times we were just reminded about how ordinary and unexciting the food there is.

A ordered something called the "grub tub" on our last visit, and although it didn't have exciting food, it did have a pretty nice delivery system. It's basically an order of chicken tenders and fries made for one person, since it sits in a bowl on top of a drink in a collectible cup. It's much more convenient than getting a drink plus a tray of tenders and fries, since you can just hold this in one hand and watch the game. Points for the contraption, but the food wasn't anything special even though you're paying $18.75 for it.

There really isn't anything spectacular about the mass produced chicken tenders and fries at the stadium, so not a whole lot to say about it. I will say that they never gave us any sauce for the chicken, so that was a bummer. And the person seemed a little clueless on how to put the thing together, so they didn't put the straw in before loading the chicken and fries into the bowl on top, and just gave A the straw separately. He had to assemble it himself on the side before we headed back to our seats. I guess this is the first year they've had this, but still, put the darn thing together. On top of all that, A originally wanted to get iced tea since he was avoiding soda as much as possible, but somehow, in the 2nd inning of the game, this concession stand had already run out. How is that even possible?

When we went to the soccer match, we got one of those mega tubs of 8 chicken tenders and fries, but this time got it with garlic fries. Garlic fries are one of the things we actually like about Yankee Stadium, but they're really just fries with tons of garlic and oil on top and not really unique to this ballpark. Although I love garlic and I do like the garlic fries, I felt like a big heavy blob by the end of the night, full of greasy, unhealthy fries. We couldn't even finish it. It was just too much starch and after a while, even the garlic wasn't enough enticement to keep going.

I wasn't feeling inspired by the fries or the Johnny Rockets burgers or the chicken tenders when we were at the baseball game, and the BBQ kiosk where I had thought about going was closed the entire time, so I just went with the old ballpark favorite, the Nathan's hot dog. They had 2 sizes, although the person working there didn't seem to know what the difference in size was other than them having different prices. I went with the longer one which was $7, and then went to the topping stand planning to top it with mustard and onions. Mustard was there, but no onions. All they had there was mustard and ketchup (blasphemy). Why is all the food so boring?

I really wish they had better food at Yankee Stadium. Sure, you could show up early to the Bronx and head to one of the places outside the stadium for some Jamaican food instead, but if you're not able to do that, you're kind of stuck with those boring and not great options in the stadium. Why can't they take a hint from Citi Field and do something good and affordable? We've had the steak sandwiches at Yankee Stadium before, but they're really pricey, and that's really one of the only unique options at all. Maybe next year something better will turn up. It hasn't really changed much over the years, but I'll keep hoping.

Dark Chocolate Covered Peaberry Coffee Beans

So as a lover of all things coffee related, I had to try Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Peaberry Coffee Beans. For those of you that don't know, peaberry coffee is special, round beans that are the rarest form of coffee. Typical coffee fruit pods produce two beans which is why one side is flat, but peaberries develop as single beans and are completely round. My first thought when seeing these was interest but also a little disappointment that Trader Joe's would "waste" such a rare and delicious coffee bean on a sweet treat. However, I decided to be as open minded as possible while trying them in an attempt to be as objective as possible.

I tend to only eat one or two at a time since this is usually something of a sweet caffeine supplement for me in the afternoon. I drink so much coffee during the day as it is that I probably should never be eating these, but whatever. Flavor-wise they aren't much different than any other chocolate covered coffee I've had in the past, but the dark chocolate is clearly of good quality. I like these as a quick, sweet jolt of caffeine for the post-lunch energy dip, but I still think it's a waste to use good peaberry beans. Save that stuff for actual brewing.

Buy again? Nope. Tasty treat, but a waste of good beanage. I feel like my not buying is a protest to that.

Black Seed Chef Specials

Black Seed Bagels recently finished up another spring full of chef collaboration bagel creations, and despite our intentions to try most (or a lot) of them, we kept forgetting and only made it there to get the first one of the set. The same thing happened last year too, when we only made it there to try the squid ink bagel sandwich through their Mission Chinese collaboration (although we never got around to writing about it). We liked that one, so we were pretty excited for the new ones this year as they all sounded so good.

The first bagel special this year was designed by Chef Sara Jenkins from Porchetta. It was supposed to be a za'atar bagel with labne (strained yogurt), turnips, cucumbers, radishes, and mint. We headed down to the East Village shop (our first time at that location) at the end of a food crawl since the special was supposed to be available all day. Unfortunately for us, when we got there and ordered it, they let us know they were out of mint, but offered to substitute parsley and dill. Even though that wouldn't be exactly as designed, we went with that, since we thought it would still be good, and then we could still try everything else. What we got looked nothing like what we had seen on Black Seed's own Instagram though.

M's review: This bagel sandwich was supposed to be Turkish-inspired and it sounded so fresh and clean, full of yogurt and refreshing vegetables. What we got was heavy on the creamy yogurt, missing a vegetable (A and I disagreed at the time on whether it was the turnip or the radish, but it was the pretty pink colored one from the Black Seed picture), and generally nothing special. Would it have been better if we had been able to get it with mint? Probably, but the dill wasn't a bad match for flavors like that, and I'm not sure that was really the issue. (Despite agreeing to parsley and dill, we found no parsley.) It was fine to eat, but mostly disappointing because of what we were expecting to get. Had they told us they were also missing vegetables in addition to mint, we probably would have just gone back another time or gotten something else. In the end, it just felt like what we got was nothing like what it was supposed to be, and like we had wasted our time since we went specifically to try that. Maybe we hit the East Village location on a bad day, but the Nolita one seemed better run from what we remembered. It was a little disappointing, especially since in the end, this was the only special we actually got this year.

A's review: I'm not really sure where to start with this. Of all of the collaboration bagels that Black Seed had announced, this was one of the ones we definitely wanted to try. We're both fans of Turkish food and flavors, but this was a complete disappointment which had nothing to do with the planned bagel. We arrived later in the day, and when we asked if they still had the collaboration bagel they said yes. However, they did note that they had run out of mint but could substitute in dill and parsley to try and mimic the flavor as best as possible. We thought that sounded okay so we paid and started waiting. After getting the bagel, we noticed that so many of the other ingredients were also missing, and they never even bothered to let us know. Had we known about all of the missing ingredients we would have just said no. In the end, the combo they put together didn't really work. The labne was supposed to be paired with mint, but since they had run out they subbed in dill and parsley (supposedly). The dill was okay, but even after saying they would sub in parsley, they forgot the parsley. Also, the other missing ingredients just made the bagel seem bland and empty. In the end, the flavors just didn't shine through together, and all of the missing ingredients or subbed ingredients just made the whole thing seem like a mish-mosh of flavors instead of the composed combination it was meant to be. Complete disappointment.

Silverbrite Keta Salmon

I've always wanted to do a series of cooking posts where I followed the recipes given on the backs of cans or packages of food, but usually I buy things to be used in other recipes and never have a chance to do it. When we prepared for the root to stem challenge, however, we were looking through the fish section at Trader Joe's and realized that the recipe on the back of the silverbrite salmon package would be perfect for the meal. I was finally getting my wish.

This wasn't our first time buying salmon from Trader Joe's, but it was our first time buying salmon of this type. I'm not that knowledgeable about the different kinds of salmon and the differences in taste or nutritional value, so I don't really know where silverbrite stands among the others. I do know that it was a little bit cheaper, but the quality still seemed fine.

We followed the recipe pretty closely and other than the salmon, we already had all the ingredients at home which made it easy. The ingredients were:

- 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.40)
- 2 tbsp butter ($0.40)
- 2 tbsp whole grain dijon mustard ($0.60)
- black pepper ($0.05)
- 1 package (about 1 lb) silverbrite salmon ($6.55)
- 1 tbsp honey ($0.20)
- 1/4 cup water ($0)

The fish preparation cost about $8.20, but almost all of that cost is the fish itself. Not too bad.

The steps to make the salmon were:

1. Heat olive oil and butter in skillet until butter melts.

2. Add mustard, stir and cook for 1-2 minutes. (The mustard seeds popped quite a bit.)

3. Add fish, skin side down, to pan, and sprinkle with pepper on top.

4. Saute salmon until lightly browned. The recipe gave the measurements as 3 minutes per side when defrosted and 6 minutes per side when frozen. Our salmon wasn't completely frozen but also not completely defrosted, so we did about 5 minutes on one side and then 4 minutes on the other.

5. Flip the fish back over to skin side down, add the honey, and cover the skillet with a lid to finish cooking. (This was a little bit confusing in the original recipe, as it said to cook on both sides, and then said, "Turn fish," before adding honey. It wasn't clear if it meant turn the fish again (as we did it) or to add the honey on the first turn, but we think it turned out well the way we did it.) Cook until fish is opaque.

6. Remove fish when cooked. Add a little water to deglaze pan and heat over high heat to reduce sauce. Pour pan sauce over fish to serve.

We really liked the salmon and especially the honey mustard sauce, much more than we thought we would when we saw how blackened the sauce had become. We worried that it would taste somewhat burnt, but it actually was really good. It had a good amount of sweetness from the honey and also from the mustard since the second jar of mustard we opened (didn't have enough in the first) seemed a little sweeter than the first. This salmon and the honey mustard sauce were actually perfect as complements to the roasted fennel and carrots. We would definitely get this salmon again and follow the exact same recipe!

Mango O's

If you've walked around Trader Joe's lately, you've probably noticed that there is mango everywhere. Candy, cereal, body butter, salad, slaw, flatbread, mochi, sorbet, salsa, popcorn, ginger chews, pretty much anything you can think of, there's a mango version - even babka. Hopefully we'll be able to get a few mango product reviews posted before the season ends!

Product: Mango O's

Price: $3.29 for 11 oz box

Quick review: We didn't actually purchase these, but M's parents had on a previous mango-filled visit, so we tried them at their house. This cereal takes the usual O's cereal and adds in mango puree to the O's themselves, and then also pieces of freeze dried mango. M isn't a big cereal lover, but she wanted to try these just to see if they'd be a good snack. She had a piece with the freeze dried mango and thought it had nice mango flavor, but was a little on the sweet side. A thought this was far too sweet to be a daily thing. The sweet, sugary mango pieces completely overpowered the cereal pieces, and as is often the case with freeze dried fruit they had an odd, not quite natural flavor.

Buy Again? Not for us, as it's much sweeter than we would like for cereal. M's parents have started mixing it with other (non-sweet) cereal, which balances it out a little bit, and maybe it would be good with some vanilla yogurt, but this isn't a cereal we need to have.

Buka

One year ago today, we were in Brooklyn hitting up a couple of places for our Women's World Cup eating challenge (yes, we're still posting about that, but hopefully will be done soon), and went to Buka, a Nigerian restaurant, for dinner. Neither of us had ever had Nigerian food before, and it was always one of our greatest regrets that we never made it to an African restaurant during our World Cup eating challenge the year before. We wanted to make sure we rectified that for this challenge.

Since we had a late lunch, we skipped the appetizers and each ordered one main course. There was an entire section on the menu devoted to tomato-based stews, which were described as the most popular meal in Nigeria, so we decided to go with that. Each of the different proteins could be ordered with fufu (we both chose the pounded white yam fufu) and sauce (which seemed to us more like vegetable sides) for only a few dollars more, so we both did that and chose different ones so we could try as much as possible.

For A's stew, he got goat and for his sauce, he picked the efo, which was finely shredded spinach with onions and dried fish. The goat was a little tough and hard to eat for the most part. I only tried a bite of the goat, but my piece was okay. That was because A was kind and gave me one of the few tender bites of goat that he had, but a lot of the rest was tough. We both really liked the side of efo. It had so much flavor, especially with the addition of dried fish.

For my stew, I chose the tilapia. I had been picturing chunks of fish fillets immersed in the stew, so when the plate arrived with a whole fish on it, I was pretty surprised. I blame my shock for not deboning the fish the way that we would when we normally order a whole fish, so I ended up with little bones everywhere before I remembered to do it. The fish itself was good, but it was a lot of work. For the sauce, I wasn't sure what to pick, so I asked for a recommendation on what went well with the tilapia. They suggested the egusi, ground melon seeds steamed with spinach and dried fish. We had no idea what that would be like, in texture or taste, but it was pretty good. If we remember correctly, we think we liked the spinach better, but this was still good.

This was definitely a different eating experience for us and why we decided to do WorldEats in the first place. We originally tried to eat it the traditional way, grabbing some fufu (which was so filling) and using it to scoop up some of the stew. They even gave us big bowls of water to dip our fingers in. We had no idea what we were doing but tried to do the best we could, but it wasn't working that smoothly so eventually we gave up and used the utensils that were also provided on the table. We definitely would return to Buka as we want to try more Nigerian food, like the stew of West African land snails that they were out of on the day of our visit. It's a type of cuisine we don't have much familiarity with, and we want to learn more.

Buka is at 946 Fulton Street in Brooklyn.

Berlin Currywurst

On one of the first really nice days of the year, M and I went out for a nice afternoon because I had taken the day off from work to help take care of some repairs around the apartment. We ended up walking down the High Line and generally enjoying the day and weather. Near the end of the walking path we found ourselves down at Chelsea Market looking for a snack. We walked around for a little bit, and we ended up stopping in at one of the newer spots in the market, Berlin Currywurst.

The menu was very straight-forward which makes sense since they're trying to capture the simplicity and feel of a Berlin street cart serving this iconic dish. You first pick your sausage and then decide how you want it (in a roll or as currywurst). We opted for the Bratwurst Currywurst with their original sauce since that's how it's done in Germany. The currywurst comes out sliced and smothered with sauce along with a small hunk of bread.

The sausage itself was nice and soft with just the right amount of snap to the casing. It was seasoned beautifully. It wasn't too salty, and the spices they mixed into the meat complemented the sauce we chose. The sauce was a great mixture of sweet, tart, and spicy flavors as the curry powder really brought out the rich flavors of the tomato-based sauce. The bread, which they describe as a crispy German bread, was not all that crispy, but we preferred that as the soft interior did a great job of sopping up the remaining sauce after we were done with the bratwurst.

Overall we both liked our snack. It wasn't the cheapest, and it certainly wasn't the healthiest, but it was definitely tasty. Would we get it again? Sure, but there's so much to eat in and around Chelsea Market that we're not sure when we're going to make it back here. (We do also want to try it for breakfast sometime though, since we've never had those dishes before and they sound really good.) Since the previous spot we visited for currywurst (Wechsler's) is now sadly closed, at least we now have a place where we can get our currywurst fix if the craving ever strikes.

Southwest Chicken Quesadillas

Even though it's apparently now "mango season" at Trader Joe's, here's a quick review for something non-mango...

Product: Southwest Chicken Quesadillas (from "Taos Joe" which amuses me)

Price: $3.69 for 2 quesadillas

Quick review: These quesadillas were pretty good, although I found them a little on the salty side (despite being only 490 mg of sodium per quesadilla). I found them more flavorful than some of the other microwavable Mexican and southwest items at TJ's, probably due to how much stuff they have packed into each one. They weren't super thin quesadillas without much filling, but instead they actually had quite a bit of meat and vegetables, which I liked. Inside each quesadilla, there was monterey jack and pepper jack cheese, chicken, corn, peppers, spinach, black beans, and various seasonings to give it that "southwest" flavor (stuff like cumin, cilantro, chile peppers, paprika, and more). It was pretty easy to prepare it in the microwave, and it made for a really quick and easy lunch. Would it have been better out of the oven or finished off in a skillet? Yeah, probably, but the whole point of getting this for me is for lunch to be simple, convenient, and lazy.

Buy Again? Yes. Maybe not every time since it's a little salty and it's more cost-efficient to get something like vegetable burgers, but at $1.85 per quesadilla, it's definitely a good lunch for the price.

La Sonrisa Empanadas

One of the things I like about the Urbanspace markets (and now food hall) is how many choices there are. You can get tacos or African food or pizza or lobster rolls or countless other things all in one place, and the locations are usually very convenient. The downside of the markets though is that, because of the cost of doing business in those locations, the vendor prices aren't always that affordable for a snack or a food crawl. I made my way through the Garment District market the other day looking for a snack (which, to me, means under $5, since it's only a snack), and wasn't surprised at all to find that most things would top that limit, even things like a single taco.

When A and I walked through this season's market for the first time a week or so earlier, we had noticed that La Sonrisa Empanadas looked like one of the more reasonably priced options, and after I went by all the stands carefully looking at all the menus, that still held true. I decided to order the coconut curry chicken empanada, described as chicken breast prepared with Caribbean curry and sweetened coconut milk. With tax, it came out to $4, so that made me happy.

When I got the empanada, I was surprised at first by its appearance, mostly because I'm so used to baked empanadas at this point. The way it was fried and the bubbles in the dough reminded me a little bit of the pastelillos I used to get all the time from El Rey. It was also a little bit funny to me, since part of the reason I got the empanada instead of other things (like croquetas or bombas at another place) was because I had assumed it wasn't fried and I was trying to avoid fried food that day. That's on me though for not asking and just assuming it was baked, but I was also not unhappy with the choice once I tasted it.

The chicken curry inside the empanada was incredibly flavorful. You could taste the coconut milk and the curry, and it was really good, even without adding any extra sauce to it. I did add the chipotle mayo to the parts of the empanada that were more fried dough and less chicken, and it was a good sauce, but while it was fine with the curried chicken, it wasn't necessary. I didn't try the hot sauce this time, but maybe next time. I would definitely get this empanada again, because the flavor of the chicken was really good. The menu also has quite a few other options, so I could see myself stopping by for another snack while the market's open.

Hatch Chile Mac and Cheese

It's late at night and I'm kind of in the mood for some mac and cheese, so here's another TJ's review!

Product: Hatch chile mac and cheese

Price: $2.99 for a 12 oz tray

Quick review: I've never tried any of the microwavable mac and cheeses at Trader Joe's before, but I've seen plenty of rave reviews about them. When they came out with the hatch chile mac and cheese this year, I knew I had to try it. I'm a big fan of green chiles and previously tried the hatch salsa, so I was intrigued. I figured it would just be mac and cheese with the chiles mixed in, and it basically was, but it was a good opportunity to try out the mac and cheese as a general matter. I really liked it. The mac and cheese was creamy and rich (but not overly rich), the chiles added a little bit of heat, the texture of the pasta had just the right amount of chewiness, and microwaving it in the tray gave it those really crusty cheesy edges that are some of my favorite parts of mac and cheese. Really good.

Buy Again? Yes! I've gotten it a couple of times now. I often try to stay under $3 for microwave lunches at home, so this just makes the cut at the high end, but it's really good and worth the "splurge."

Week 23 - Deep Frying

Even though I'm doing the 52 week cooking challenge just for myself (and not for points on Reddit), I really hate skipping a week and breaking my streak. I've only skipped a week once - molecular week during the first year I did the challenge (the reasoning explained here) - but I doubled up some other challenge weeks to "make up for it." The Week 23 theme this year was deep frying, which I just don't do at home. I don't cook much (if any) red meat at home, and I don't deep fry. Those are basically the only "rules" I have, which keep our home cooking a little bit healthier, but it also means I don't have to deal with my issues with deep frying (wasted oil, possible burns since I'm a giant klutz, the fear of burning the kitchen down). I didn't want to skip the week altogether though, so I figured I would just pan fry something. I ended up doing shallow frying for the first time, and since the challenge is all about stretching your boundaries and trying something new, I think this should count as much as deep frying for me since the effect on me is pretty much the same.

Chicken not pictured because it had been thawing in the sink

Just like Week 22, I ended up finding a good recipe for this challenge from the Everyday Harumi cookbook. This time it was for fried chicken with a leek sauce. The original recipe called for deep frying the chicken, but I planned to modify the recipe to pan fry it. The ingredients for the fried chicken dish (as adapted) were:

for the chicken:
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts ($4.50)
- 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce ($0.05)
- 1 tbsp sake ($0.10)
- potato starch to coat chicken (about 6 spoonfuls) ($0.40)
- canola oil for frying (a few tbsp) ($0.30)

for the leek sauce:
- about 1 cup of leeks, finely chopped ($0.70)
- 1 red chili pepper, seeds removed and finely chopped ($0.28)
- 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp sake ($0.10)
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar ($0.10)
- 1.5 tbsp sugar ($0.10)
- 1 tbsp canola oil ($0.10)

The total for the fried chicken was approximately $6.93. We ate it alongside some brown rice and a cucumber salad, which probably added another $3, making the grand total just under $10. Not bad at all.

It was really easy to make the leek sauce. First up was prep - finely chopping the leeks and the chili pepper, and combining the soy sauce, sake, rice vinegar, and sugar in a separate bowl.

To make the sauce, I added the canola oil to a small saucepan, and then sauteed the leeks and chili pepper until soft. After that, I added the sauce bowl ingredients to the pan, stirring frequently to help the sugar dissolve. I started the sauteing right before I started frying the chicken, and cooked it all on low so it wouldn't be done too quickly. I ended up removing it from the heat only a few minutes before the chicken was done.

The prep for the chicken was a little more complex, but still not difficult. After slicing the chicken breasts into smaller, thinner pieces, I added the soy sauce and sake to a bowl and let the chicken marinate for about 10 minutes. After that, I set up a bowl with potato starch to coat the chicken. I was pretty excited because dredging the chicken in the potato starch was probably the best I had ever done at breading something, and I was really proud of that. Unfortunately, I then piled the chicken (coated in potato starch) in a bowl with pieces on top of one another, and let it sit that way for a few minutes while I set up the stove. That meant that when I picked up the chicken to drop it into the oil to fry it, quite a few of them came out missing one side of their potato starch coating. Oops. Lesson learned.

For the frying itself, I added a few tbsp of canola oil to the wok, probably half an inch or less. I was planning to pan fry the chicken, but after I added the first batch (of 2) to the wok, the chicken displaced so much oil that it looked like I was going to end up shallow frying instead. That still worked for the challenge, but I was a little uneasy about it because of the prospect of all of the bubbling hot oil. Sure enough, the oil was boiling loudly at some point, but since the original plan was pan frying, it never occurred to me that I should wait for it to do that before dropping the chicken in. As a result, the first batch of chicken came out missing even more of the potato starch breading since it stuck to the pan.

The second batch, since the oil was already hot enough, came out much better, much more golden brown, much crisper, and with much more of the breading intact. Lesson learned, even if I don't particularly want to do that again. For each batch, I flipped the chicken over partway through (which was a challenge when the breading was stuck to the wok). I don't know exactly how many minutes in that was though, since I did it entirely by sight and guessing. Once the chicken was fried, I removed the pieces with a slotted spoon and let them rest on paper towels to soak up some of the oil. We topped the fried chicken with the leek sauce when it was time to eat.

This challenge meal confirmed for me that frying at home is really not for me, and I should avoid or adapt recipes that require it. I don't think this was so much of a self-fulfilling prophecy as being pretty certain about the reasons I wouldn't enjoy it because I know myself when it comes to some things. The chicken itself turned out okay, even if the second batch was much better than the first, and the leek sauce was really tasty and a good complement for the flavor of the chicken. That said, if I made this again, I think I'd rather just saute and/or bake the chicken and use the sauce. I didn't really enjoy shallow frying that much, and I still have no desire to deep fry at home. I appreciate the challenge for making me try doing this, but honestly, I'm just glad this challenge week is over and hopefully will not return anytime soon.

Noosa Yoghurt

On Friday afternoon, A was headed back to the office from lunch when he ran across someone giving out free yoghurt (and trying to offload the rest of their supply). They had 3 different flavors, so he grabbed one of each flavor so we could both try each one. We had both seen Noosa yoghurt in the store before, but had never tried it as it was never on sale, so this was the perfect opportunity. Noosa is an Australian-style yoghurt made with whole milk, honey, and fruit purees, and having never tried Australian-style yoghurt before, we were excited to test them out.

First up, lemon.

M's review: I didn't love this one, not because of the texture or style, but the flavor. The texture was fine - very creamy and smooth. The flavor, even though it was supposed to be a natural lemon curd, just tasted a little artificial to me, like lemon candy. It's kind of the same problem I often have with orange-flavored stuff. It was okay, but I wouldn't get this flavor again.

A's review: I liked this as the lemon tasted sort of like a lemon candy. Would I have liked it more were it more like a fresh lemon flavor? Maybe, but this was still good. What struck me with this yoghurt, and something I noted in every flavor, was that this seemed creamier than most other non-Greek yogurts I had eaten in the past.

The second one we tried was blueberry.

M's review: I liked this one much better than lemon, confirming for me that the problem wasn't the brand or the style, but the flavor itself. The blueberry flavor here was really natural, and there were actual blueberries mixed in (the small wild ones, not the big ones a lot of other places use). It reminded me of when I would buy vanilla yoghurt on its own and mix in the frozen Maine wild blueberries we have in the freezer, just very natural and full of real fruit. I would get this one again.

A's review: I liked the blueberry flavor more than the lemon. It tasted more like actual blueberries (though slightly sweetened), and they were whole enough blueberries to still have a little bite to them. It was a much more naturally flavored yoghurt as compared to the lemon.

The third and final yoghurt we tried was the strawberry rhubarb.

M's review: I really liked this one, and it's tough for me to decide between this one and the blueberry as my favorite. What I liked was that this one had a mild sweetness and wasn't overly sweet like a lot of strawberry yoghurts are (the reason why I avoid a lot of them). It tasted really natural, which I also appreciated. I'm not an expert on rhubarb flavor, so I'm not sure how much of that was there, but I liked the flavor overall.

You may have noticed that the lid phrases changed in every picture but somehow through luck of the draw every single one of A's said xoxoxo!

A's review: I liked this flavor a lot. They didn't make the strawberry syrup overly sweet, and it really tasted of strawberries. The rhubarb also added a really nice texture to the yoghurt. I don't know if I liked this or the blueberry more, probably the blueberry if I'm being honest since I think the blueberry really let the overall flavor of the blueberry shine through a little more than the strawberry, but they were both really good.

Overall, we thought the Noosa yoghurts were pretty good, but we did like some flavors better than others. We would be interested in trying some of the other flavors, like maybe the Colorado-exclusive blackberry serrano, or (from those probably more widely available) blood orange or pineapple, so we'll keep an eye out for sales or good prices in the future for sure.

Wickedwich

We've been to Hill Country Chicken more than 10 times, yet we've still never written about it (despite starting several times). I think part of the issue was that we kept adding every visit to the same post with the intention of publishing one giant post about all the good stuff at Hill Country Chicken, but it just got so monstrous that we never made any progress. Probably better to just talk about what we've been getting recently in pieces so we don't forget whether we liked it!

On my first few visits to Hill Country Chicken, I got chicken tenders or a fried chicken breast, but lately I've been getting their fried chicken sandwiches. I've made no secret of my love for fried chicken sandwiches, and on my most recent visit, I got the Wickedwich, which I think I got before, but since I never posted about it, am not 100% sure. The Wickedwich is a fried chicken breast with "spicy (but not too spicy!) honey, red onion, cheddar cheese, and sour pickles." It's $9.50, so not cheap fast food, but not as much as a sit-down restaurant could be.

I'm a big fan of this sandwich, although it's a little bit messy to eat because the honey drips everywhere. One of the best parts of the Hill Country Chicken sandwiches is that the chicken itself is always good, very juicy and never dry. They absolutely get the fried chicken part right. The cheese adds some richness, the honey has a little bit of zing to it (but really isn't spicy), and the red onion and pickles provide freshness and crispness. It's a nice, balanced combination, and I would definitely get this again (after trying all of the other fried chicken sandwich options).

Hill Country Chicken is located at 1123 Broadway, right near Madison Square Park.