At the end of November, my mom, Deborah, and I are heading down to NYC for a long weekend of shopping, sight-seeing, and of course, eating!
Naturally, my mom put me in charge of putting together a list of restaurants to eat at while we're there. Thanks to friends on Facebook, Twitter & good old fashioned research, I compiled a pretty tantalizing list. That being said, I am still welcoming suggestions from you guys! Please comment if you think I'm missing any "must-eats."
Restaurants:
1) Cafeteria (119 7th Ave, 7th & W 17th)
2) Momofoku (Noodle Bar or Ssam Bar)
3) Babbo (110 Waverly Place, NW corner of Washington Square)
4) Shake Shack (Madison Square Park)
5) The Spotted Pig (314 W 11th St at Greenwich St.)
6) DuMont (432 Union Ave, Brooklyn)
7) Fatty Crab (West Village, 643 Hudson St, between Horatio & Gansevoort)
8) Boqueria (171 Spring St, Soho)
9) Balthazar (80 Spring St, Soho)
10) Pearl Oyster Bar (18 Cornelia St)
11) Prune (54 E 1st St, between 1st & 2nd)
12) Barney Greengrass (541 Amsterdam St at 86th)
13) Katz's Deli (205 East Houston) **Definitely eating here - a scene from my fave movie was filmed here! Hint: "I'll have what she's having!"**
14) Maialino (2 Lexington Ave)
15) Di Fara Pizza (1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn)
16) Buddakan (75 9th Ave, 9th & W 16th)
17) Corner Bistro (331 W 4th St, Jane & W 4th)
Sadly, I had to narrow this list down from a much longer one, and we won't be able to eat at all of these.. But these restaurants look absolutely delish!
Like I said, still open to suggestions! Happy eating! :)
American Thanksgiving in NYC!
Baked Grown-up Mac and Cheese!
Since I've joined the gym this past week, I've been making (very) minor adjustments to my life to sort of gear toward a healthier, not to mention less expensive, lifestyle. For starters, I've totally cut eating out at restaurants (okay okay, I ate at Poutini's this week... but we were in a pinch for food before the Warren Haynes Band concert!!), so I've been cooking a lot more.
Yesterday, I sat brainstorming for a while ideas of what to make for dinner for me and my boyfriend. I was in the mood for something super flavourful and fairly epic. I perused the internet for ideas for quite a while and decided on baked mac and cheese. I compiled a bunch of different recipes and came up with my own!
INGREDIENTS:
Serves 6
-1 lb Large Shell pasta (or any pasta that you like, really. Most websites recommend elbow mac)
-1/2 cup, or one stick, of butter
-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
-4 1/2 cups milk
-2 cups grated sharp white cheddar (1/2 cup for the top)
-2 cups grated sharp orange cheddar (1/2 cup for the top)
-2 cups grated gruyere (1/2 cup for the top)
-generous amount of salt, black pepper, paprika
-chili flakes (optional, but adds a nice kick)
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First, I boiled the large shell pasta in salted water until it was about two minutes outside of being cooked (it would cook in the oven anyway, and nobody likes mushy pasta - especially not me!). Then, I strained it and put it in a large bowl to sit.
Then, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees while I prepared the sauce.
First, I melted the stick of butter in a medium pot over medium heat. Then, I whisked in flour, and slowly added the milk, whisking continuously until it reached a boil. Then I reduced the heat, cooked for about 5 more minutes, whisking constantly. After 5 minutes had passed, I added in the cheese, salt, pepper, and paprika. I kept whisking the sauce until it was completely smooth (no chunks), and removed it from heat. I then added the sauce to the pasta in the large bowl and mixed it well.
I coated a large baking dish in low cal Canola Oil spray (cuz I need to be watching calories at this point, right? Ha!), poured in the pasta and sauce, and topped it off with the remaining grated cheese.
I baked it for 40 minutes, when the cheese was bubbling around the edges and the top was a beautiful golden brown colour.
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Holy COW! It was so so sooooo delicious! I had a large helping, as did Chris. It went really great with dollops of Sriracha Chili Paste.
Stay tuned for my next cooking adventure :)
Happy eating!
Homemade Delicious Guacamole!
Chris (@tman41) and I decided to head up to the cottage for a night so that he could take inventory of his camping stuff before heading to Bonnaroo this weekend. We’re always looking for something fun to do together, and we had so much fun cooking together before, so we decided to come up with a superb guacamole recipe and get to work with the ingredients.
We stopped at Zehrs in Keswick and picked out our ingredients:
- 6 ripe avocados, peeled & pitted
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- 1 large garlic clove, crushed
- 1 small tomato, diced
- 6 oz. Monterey Jack cheese, grated
- 1 jalapeno pepper, diced
- 1 cubanelle pepper, diced
- 1/3 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp fresh lime juice
- 1 tsp salt
Once you’ve mashed your avocados, you’re ready to dice, chop and crush the rest of your ingredients!
Last but not least, add all of your ingredients into the bowl and mix to blend it all together.
As you stir it, your taste buds will be tickled by the incredible smell alone. Get out your favourite nacho chip (we used President’s Choice Sea Salt Kettle Style Tortilla Chips, which were really yummy!) and enjoy!
Because we made our guacamole right before dinner, we decided to incorporate it into our dinner and make homemade burritos.
Chris marinated the chicken in a smoky chipotle salsa and fried the slices in a pan. He used the leftover cilantro and lime from our guacamole recipe to create a cilantro & lime rice. We grated what was left of our Monterey Jack cheese, and voila! We had delicious burrito ingredients. Add lettuce, sour cream and any other of your favourite toppings, and enjoy!
But we weren’t done yet!
Our guacamole was so delicious, and there was so much left, that the next morning, as we were making cheesy chorizo scrambled eggs, we decided to make breakfast burritos!
Using basically the same ingredients as the burritos from the night before (I added bacon bits and Franks Red Hot Sauce), we made scrumptious, savoury breakfast burritos.
All in all, the guacamole was a tasty, fun and easy dish to make!
(Prep time: approx 15-20 mins)
