Five Things Friday: Favorite Foods Edition, Part II

It's Good Friday...who's ready for the weekend?!

Are your hands raised?

Both of mine are! I actually am starting a 4 day weekend today which is exciting for this holiday. What are your weekend plans?

So after last week's favorite foods edition, I realized that I had many more favorite foods that I simply wouldn't want to go without (obviously). So I'm back with another five favorite foods! Oh and keep in mind...these are NOT healthy foods (obviously)...and I think that will be another post in the future :)

Coffee

I just love it. A great start to any morning, caffinated or not. I love it with some half and half and lots of sweetener.

Cheeseburgers

I so love a good cheeseburger. Thick, juicy ground beef, a little pink in the middle and loaded with velvety melted cheese.

Dip

Of all the appetizers I made, I still always love simple potato chips or veggies and onion dip. So simple, so not good for me, yet I can't resist. Give me pizza dip, artichoke & spinach dip, warm pimento and pepper jack cheese dip or Greek layer dip. Sigh.

Cake

I just love a good slice of layer cake. Lots of frosting filling it all in. Sweet frosing, moist, pillowy cake...any flavor will do.

Eggs

I could (and do!) eat them all the time. For breakfast, lunch or dinner. So versatile and so delicious.

 So those are some more of my favorite foods!

I know this series could go on and on...and it just might! I love food!

What are your top 5 favorite foods?

Soup Season

Today is a good day. Not for any particular reason. But there are a few things making me happy today.

• Shaun made a delicious dinner last night for us and we ate together in front of the television so we could catch up on Castle & Jersey Shore (yep, Jersey Shore). Love those kinds of nights.

• The Jackson Browne station on Pandora + the fact that he wrote Somebody’s Baby

• The fact that my workout at the gym today was better than yesterday

• It’s cool and sunny here in Manhattan and it feels oh-so-fallish

• I have a grand plan to bake some delicious muffins tonight so that I can use the remainder of my uber yummy tart cherry jam

Oh and stay tuned for the wrap up of Shaun whipping up some whole wheat spaghetti and turkey meatballs. And now onto yet another reason why I love the Fall. Not only is it totally appropriate to OD on apple and pumpkin things, but it is also the opening of soup season! There's nothing I love more than a delicious, warm, comforting bowl of soup on a chilly day. And friends, when I say I love soup...I mean, I love soup. As in I can effectively eat it every single day for lunch from now until the end of March (not that I plan to, but you get the point). And yesterday was the seasonal kickoff, if you will.

The soup of choice? Butternut squash! Though my favorite butternut squash soup to date was devoured at Lincoln Center's Winter's Eve in 2007 and was served up by Cafe des Artiste. Those were the days before the blog, but can you tell that I was meant to be a food blogger? The fact that I'm still dreaming about soup from 3 years ago that I had at a street fair frightens me in that it makes my life seem kind of...sad. But I'll say it's just passionate.

This butternut squash soup, however, was warming, creamy and delcious, if not quite Cafe des Artiste quality. I picked it up at a local TriBeCa spot, Beach Street Eatery.

Once the cool weather strikes, I'm a frequent patron of Beach Street Eatery since it's a short walk from the office and they offer up new soup flavors everyday with free samples to boot. This is not, however, to discount 'wichcraft, which is located just across the street from Beach. 'wichcraft has my second favorite soup of all time, Tomato Parmesean. But that's a story for another time.

So how about you? Do you have any go-to cool weather foods? A bowl of soup? A hot cup of tea? A tray of hearty pasta? Dish 'em!

Fave Foods: Land Serves Up Change-Your-Life Vegetable Dumplings

As part of a new series called Fave Foods, we'll be featuring new, exciting, lesser known foods from around the city that just so happen to be particularly delicious. First up is from my favorite Thai restaurant on the Upper West Side. Though the entire restaurant is so tiny that it only seats about 30 people at a time, Land Thai Kitchen has some of the best Thai food I've had throughout the entire city. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, as we waited for over an hour for a table. But yes, it's that good. The Land specialty? The vegetable dumplings featuring a mix of vegetables and peanuts, all of which are sweet and savory, are encompassed in a green skin which toes the line of being 'too squishy' yet unbelievably fantastic. But the flavor of the dumpling with soy sauce is really about as good as it gets. Too bad one order only comes with 4 dumplings...I could eat about 100. The best part? One order of veggie dumplings will set you back a mere $6.50 for four. These really are one of my ultimate fave NYC foods.

Featured foods:
Vegetable Dumplings
Chicken with Cashew Nuts
Squid with Garlic Sauce
Shrimp with Garlic Sauce
Thai Iced Coffee