New Year's Day Recipes

You'll understand in a few days why I'm posting these recipes with these specific ingredients, but for now all I can tell you is that these would be extremely lucky recipes to make on January 1st. (And if you hate the following recipes? Try to eat something with these main ingredients then - if you know what's good for you.)

Crockpot Pulled Pork Chili - recipe from How Sweet Eats

Crockpot Brown Sugar Balsamic Glazed Pork Tenderloin - recipe from Food52

Cider-Dijon Pork Chops - recipe from Epicurious

Lentil Tacos - recipe from AllRecipes

Garden Lentil Bolognese - recipe from Dunaway Dietetics

Pork and Black Eyed Pea Chili - recipe from Gourmandistan

Three Bean Salad - recipe from eNourishment

Pesto Lasagna with Spinach and Mushrooms - recipe from MyRecipes

Spinach, Bacon and Artichoke Stuffed Mushrooms - recipe from How Sweet Eats

Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread Muffins - recipe from Or Whatever You Do

Nutella-Stuffed Brown Butter + Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies

Want to know what's up? These cookies. THESE CHRISTMAS COOKIES. What makes them Christmas cookies? The fact that THEY GETTIN' MADE ON CHRISTMAS. And also, they are gluttonous as hell.

I have never made cookies from scratch before and these were my first attempt. And they're sort of ridiculous-tasting, I think - ie. amazing. MAKETHEMNOW.

Recipe from Ambitious Kitchen here. 

Food Matters Documentary

I really wish I'd posted this last week, since from December 1st until later on today, you can see this documentary for free on their site. Here's the link. 

Thankfully, the lovely Jenn suggested it to me and I just finished watching it. Verdict? Great. You really should see it. It's basically about nutrition, vitamins and, well, it's about so much more. If you can spare some time, just go watch it now. I'm going to try and find a streaming link for it as well if you're reading this after December 10th.

Overly Simple Thoughts After Seeing It

1. I don't know about you, but I'm definitely going to be drinking a jug of water each morning right after I wake. I'll update this in a week to report on how that went and if I felt any different/better. (UPDATE: You have to do this. It was messed up. In a good way.)
2. Cashews can help depression? Will keep that in mind.
3. I'll look into this further, but it seems like Niacin is the greatest sounding vitamin known to man. I'll try it out and, again, report back.

These are just small things that stuck in my head after watching it, but a lot of other parts really stayed with me as well. Such a good documentary. Definitely as good as Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. 

Trailer

McDonald's Poutine Back in Canada

McDonald's Poutine Back in Canada

I know they've done this in the past, but they're using REAL CURDS now. So... I'm all over this, guys. You know how I feel about real curds. Will let you soon as soon as I try one.

UPDATE: It was amazing. Don't listen to the haters. If you're into squeaky curds, you'll be into this.

Bob's Burgers Made Into REAL Burgers

I'm going to assume that you already watch Bob's Burgers. And if you haven't? Well, I'll speak to you privately later. Everyone should be watching this show.

Anyway, in every episode there's a different burger-of-the-day that's featured in the background of the restaurant on a chalkboard (see above photos). And I just found out that there's some magical human being out there WHO'S ACTUALLY MAKING THESE BURGERS! I love it when people do stuff like this. Ya know, fun stuff. Just such a neat idea. You can see for yourself over at The Bob's Burgers Experiment. I've included a few examples of what they've done below.

The Cauliflower’s Cumin From Inside The House Burger (comes with cauliflower and cumin)

Angus beef patty topped with jalapeno cheese, tomato, lettuce, onion and of course - the triple C combo: a mash of cauliflower, cumin and cilantro.

The Bruschetta-bout it Burger

An angus beef patty topped with bruschetta and mozzarella cheese, dressed lightly with balsamic vinegar on toasted french bread. Comes with a light salad.

Pickle My Funny Bone Burger

All beef patty topped with fried pickles (delicious dill coated in an italian herb and red pepper batter) and a deliciously creamy mayo-ketchup-hot sauce combo.  Served with a pickled beet salad.

SUCH a good idea for a blog. Can't wait to see what other ones they make. 

The Burger at Bua in NYC

This place (Bua) is a bar in the East Village, but this burger certainly should not be considered bar food. It's made of a La Frieda custom short rib blend with lettuce, tomato and pickle served on a potato roll with "burger sauce" for $8. It's akin to the burgers at Shake Shack, in the very best way. Come to think of it, all my favourite burgers are a "blend" of some sort. That must mean either:

1. I'm fancy. 
2. You ain't.

EAT IT NOW!

Chef John's Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip

I yearn to be a great cook. I like to think that I try my best, but I'm just not that great at it. But this dip? I can make this flawlessly and people actually eat it with a smile - so this will be one of my great go-to things to make for the rest of my days. I know I've mentioned it once quickly before in another post, but I wanted to put up the video for it as well. Also, do you know how much I love this man - Chef John? A lot. (I've mentioned my love for him in the past.) He's just the best and his recipes are almost always amazing. Anyway, you can watch the video for the recipe or go on over here for a print out. Tasty as hell. 

Trader Joe's Curried White Chicken Deli Salad

With the exception of all their tea tree products, this is my absolute favourite thing at Trader Joe's. As you already know, I love any kind of chicken that gets curried. But this one? Best I've ever had. Every time I buy some, I have such lofty ideas about what I'm gonna do with it. Am I gonna put it in an open-faced sandwich? Maybe a regular sandwich? PERHAPS A WRAP OF SORTS? And these ideas never come to fruition. What does end up happening? I get a fork and go to town. Usually within an hour of having it sit, lonely, in my refrigerator. It's so fucking tasty. 

The Thanksgiving Croissant at Momofuku Milk Bar

I know, I'm supposed to be done with Thanksgiving (since I've already celebrated it last month in Canada) - but when you're surrounded by people who haven't had their own turkey yet, well, they're gonna talk about it excessively until it happens. And thank goodness for that, otherwise I would've never heard of THIS AMAZING SANDWICH. 

It's white meat, dark meat, cranberry sauce, GRAVY, all stuffed inside a buttery-tasting croissant. If I were hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, I would only buy these to serve to my guests. I might make some enemies since people seem to flip out if there isn't a bird cooking in an oven for this holiday, but fuck that - these croissants are just that good. If anything, they should serve them alongside some extra gravy in a little bowl. But that's just me asking for too much. It really is perfect already.  

Here's a short video showing how they're made:

Honestly, they should cost way more than $4.50 (Update: it’s 2021 & they now cost $9, so I really should’ve shut my mouth!). This guy is so fucking tasty. I ate it in the subway. Like an animal. Because I couldn't wait until I got home. Who knew I could be into dark meat? I think it's so good 'cause there are a ton of flavours in one teeny little bite and you don't expect that. I realize I've already done a Momofuku post before, but I had to talk about this croissant. Absolutely phenomenal-tasting.

These are only available during the month of November, so please do us both a favour and hurry the hell up and eat one. They arrive at the place around noon and are usually gone by 3pm, so note that. It took me two tries before I could devour one. (Sorry, Toronto - they don't offer them at your location - and you should really be writing letters to them about that fact.)

Dutch Kills Centraal in Astoria, NY

If you're in Astoria, stop whatever you're doing and go eat here. I feel like this is going to be a post that I'm going to have to come back to constantly with slight updates of what I've tried there recently detailing how MUCH I loved it. So far? The deviled eggs with bacon and aleppo pepper are nuts. And the fucking slow roasted pulled pork? Get the hell out of here. This is the best pulled pork I've had IN LIFE. You start eating it and you're all, "Yep, this is pulled pork." But then you realize some of it is somehow CRISPY and fucking unreal, it's so good. Must eat this. Also, they have half sandwiches for $3 at lunch with is insanely cheap and probably taste heavenly.

Also, I thought this place would just be a bar. It looks like just a bar. But with food like this? Yikes. So much more than just a bar. Go now.