March 2016 - NY Foodie Family

Why You Don’t See Pictures of My Kids on the Blog

Posted on March 31, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

I’ve been writing this blog for a little over a year now. If you’re new here or even a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed that I don’t post pictures of my kids on the blog or on my social media accounts. Sometimes this can be difficult, as I consider NY Foodie Family to be a family lifestyle blog. I write about all the fun stuff we do as a family, including our travels, weekend fun and what we’re eating and reading. I try to include pictures in my posts and social media that capture the essence of our fun, without showing the kids’ faces. Prior to me starting this blog, it was a mutual decision made by my husband and I to protect the privacy of our children.

This little blog here is MY hobby. It’s something I do for fun. While I write about the events going on in their lives (because they also relate to me – the one paying for their activities, driving them, and cheering them on!) they don’t need their faces plastered on the internet. I scrapbook photos of these events for the kids to have and cherish as an adult. This blog was never meant to be an online scrapbook. It’s a fun outlet for me to write and practice my very amateur photography skills! It’s a public site and I have no control over who visits it. My kids are old enough (ages 7 1/2 and almost 10) to have opinions about what is posted. They know I have the blog, but they don’t read it. I don’t want them to ever feel embarrassed about what I post, but I also don’t want to request their permission every time I want to post a picture of them.

Every blogger’s decision regarding pictures of their children and family is a personal one. I hope you know have a better understanding of why you don’t see pictures of my kids.

Eating In Philadelphia – Reading Terminal Market

Posted on March 30, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

We recently visited Philadelphia over Spring Break. Of course we saw the sights but as food lovers, we also ate our way through Philadelphia. As self-declared foodies, there is no way that we’d take a vacation without scoping out the food scene. We knew we had to have at least one cheese steak, because, c’mon, it’s Philly! We also made sure we made a visit to Reading Terminal Market.

Reading Terminal Market, located between 12th & Arch Streets, is one of the oldest and largest public markets in the country. The market is several blocks away from the historic district, but definitely walkable, which we did. Unfortunately, we visited on a Sunday when the Pennsylvania Dutch merchants are not open. So, no donut from Beiler’s, hot pretzels or Dutch pancakes for us. However, we ate our fill from other stands. Every stand that we ate at accepted credit cards, most with no minimums. We visited the market around 12:30 PM on a Sunday and it was super packed. My husband ended up taking our son and finding a table for us while I waited on line at our first stop, Dinic’s with my daughter. There is a decent sized seating area down the middle and back area of the market, but empty seats are hard to come by. I recommend grabbing a map of the market at the desk when you first enter, which we failed to do until our way out! Please note, the four of us shared all of the food below.

Dinic’s: Roast Pork Sandwich with Provolone and Broccoli Rabe– The line for Dinic’s was crazy long but moves really quick. For those lucky enough to find an empty seat, there is counter seating. While you can choose from roast beef, roast pork or Italian sausage sandwiches, we ordered a roast pork sandwich with provolone cheese and broccoli rabe. From what I’ve read, this is THE sandwich to have as noted by television food celebrity Adam Richman, who named it best sandwich in the country in 2012, and was also recommended by our hotel shuttle driver (but we had already eaten it prior to his recommendation!). The sandwich and a large soda cost us $13.00.

Valley Shepherd Creamery: Fresh Mozzarella – The kids and I stayed at the table while my husband took a turn to find something good to eat. He came back a few minutes later with this tub of fresh mozzarella from the Valley Shepherd Creamery. According to my husband, you can watch them making the homemade mozzarella that they sell. The cheese sells for $9.99 a pound and he bought a little less than a half pound. This was a perfectly salted and creamy piece of mozzarella. It would have been even better with some bread or fresh slices of tomato and basil……next time!

Beck’s Cajun Cafe: Fried Mac and Cheese – This food stand serves all your New Orleans food cravings including jambalaya, po’boys, red beans and rice and muffalettas. I opted for just a side of their fried mac & cheese, which I had read was good. It included two fried balls of yumminess with a hot pepper like dipping sauce for $4.50.

Wursthaus Schmitz – The Lyoner: This stand was located at the end of the seating area where we were sitting and eating. We stopped on our way out and decided we had to share a sandwich. We went with The Lyoner, which is a fried bologna sandwich with muenster cheese, pickle, onion and horseradish sauce. As you can tell from the pic above, these were thick slices of bologna. This was a tasty sandwich for $8.

Famous 4th St. Cookie Company: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookie and Black and White Cookie – We were getting pretty full from all the food that we ate but we had to have a little something sweet. On the way out we picked up a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookie and a Black and White Cookie. The line here was also pretty long, but moved quickly. The cookies were both really good. However, we were disappointed that the peanut butter chocolate chip cookie was a regular chocolate chip cookie with peanut butter chips. They sell the cookies for $12.99 a pound and the two cookies cost us $5.85.

What is your favorite food at Reading Terminal Market?

Read in the Blogosphere

Posted on March 28, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Happy Monday! I don’t have our weekly meal plan to share since we were vacationing for part of the week. Instead, here are a few blog posts that I read in the blogosphere this past week that I enjoyed and thought might interest you!

I am fascinated by minimalism. Our family did a minimalist decluttering challenge in February, but I really enjoyed reading about confidence + minimalism.

I like to read about what people eat. Not only the delicious, not-good for you foods that fill my Instagram feed, but also the every day, clean eating food. Especially, because this is something I struggle with. I’m always getting ideas from reading food diary posts which will hopefully get me on track for some spring clean eating.

As many of you know, I am podcast addicted. I don’t listen to a lot of parenting podcasts, but I did find the Mom and Dad are Fighting podcast from this post. Plus, I have another of my own podcast posts coming soon!

I am the first to admit that I am fashionably challenged. I joke with my husband that my style is the what’s on the “clearance rack style.” My fashion and home decorating skills definitely need some improvement. Since I’m trying to put more effort into my fashion but I’m also budget conscious I really enjoyed 20 under $20.

Between Easter and our family’s love of eating them for breakfast, I have been hard boiling a lot of eggs. I try to use the same timing and method every time, but sometimes I get awesome easy to peel eggs and sometimes I don’t. I’m hoping to try this method soon!

What have you been reading in the blogosphere recently?

Friday Favorites – Spring Break {Week 54}

Posted on March 25, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Happy Friday! What a fun week it’s been. This week was the kids’ spring break. We decided to take a quick mini-vacation to Philadelphia for a couple of days. Look for some upcoming posts on our travel. The week ended with my daughter going with her friend’s family up to their cabin for an overnight. We are looking forward to celebrating Easter on Sunday at my parents and hopefully having a relaxing Monday before the kids head back to school and the scheduled craziness resumes! Here are some of our favorites from this week:

1. The Liberty Bell – The last time I visited the Liberty Bell I was in elementary school on a Brownie girl scout trip. I’m glad that we were able to bring the kids to see this national symbol of freedom.

2. The Science Behind Pixar Exhibit at the Franklin Institute – We (more like I) was disappointed that the Philadelphia Museum of Art is closed on Mondays. We of course went and took the requisite tourist pictures and ran the “Rocky” steps, but ended up spending the day at the Franklin Institute. This was a perfect museum for our kids and both my husband and I agreed that the special, The Science Behind Pixar Exhibit was our favorite. We have a better appreciation of all of the hard work and many hands that go into creating all of the Pixar movies that we love.

3. Dinic’s Roast Pork Sandwich – We visited Reading Terminal Market which was foodie heaven! We ate our way through the market, but our favorite was the roast pork sandwich from Dinic’s. Juicy pork, covered in provolone and broccoli rabe = deliciousness!! The kids were excited that Adam Richman from Man Vs. Food had visited there (his picture was hanging up).

4. All-you-can-eat Korean BBQ – Yes, we of course ate a mandatory cheesesteak, because, c’mon, Philly. But, we also ate a ton of other food. I discovered Nine Ting via Instagram, which has all-you can-eat Korean BBQ for $27.99. Incredible! Here in Westchester County, NY, you cannot find Korean BBQ for such a great price. This was an “all the meats” type of meal and it was so good!

5. Sahara Sam’s Oasis – I won tickets to Sahara Sam’s months ago. It worked out that it was on our way home from Philadelphia, so we scheduled a visit on our way home. We surprised the kids, who were soooo excited! They had such great time playing in the water and going down the slides.

ICYMI this week on the blog:
Monday I shared our weekly meal plan.
Wednesday I shared how to make the most of family meal time.

Linking up with Tif, Amanda and Andrea. Have a great weekend and a Happy Easter!

Making The Most of Family Meal Time

Posted on March 23, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

We’ve all heard that eating together as a family has a wealth of benefits. With my husband’s work schedule, dinner Monday through Friday is usually just me and the kids. At ages 11 and almost 9, their schedules are getting busier and busier. However, it is important to me that we sit down and eat together as much as we can.

If eating dinner together doesn’t work together for your family, think about eating breakfast together. My husband’s new job offers more flexibility in his schedule. While we may not be able to eat dinner together, a couple mornings a week we are able to all sit at the table and enjoy breakfast together. Why is eating together important?

Eating together as a family has many positive benefits including:

Nutritional Benefits – According to KidsHealth, family meals tend to be more nutritious. I can vouch for this, knowing that I’m cooking healthy, home-made meals. Even on busy nights, I’ll use the slow cooker and we’ll eat early rather than grabbing fast food.

Developmental Benefits – KidsHealth also noted that teens who regularly eat family meals are less likely to smoke, drink alcohol or use drugs. They are also learning and practicing communication and conversational skills.

Academic Benefits – According to Health.com a CASA report found that children who ate frequently with their families tended to get better report grades. Children engaged in regular conversations with adults are exposed to more advanced vocabulary words.

Suggestions to help make the most of your family meal time:

*No Electronics at the table – We follow this rule both at home and when dining out. No ipods, video games, or tablets at the table, including mom and dad’s cell phones. Only when we are having a special family dinner/movie night will we eat dinner together while watching a movie.

*No Reading – If we let our daughter bring a book to the table, she’d read at every meal. On weekend mornings we’ll sit at the table and read the paper while we eat breakfast. However, there is no reading at the dinner table.

*The Peak and The Pit – This activity has other names including “The Peak and The Valley, The Rose and the Thorn”, etc. Regardless of what you call it, each person gets a chance to tell about the best thing and the worst thing that happened that day.

*Family Dinner Book Club – Jodie at Growing Book By Book, hosts a Family Dinner Book Club. Each month, a new book is chosen and discussion/conversation starters, table decorations, and even a sample dinner menu are provided! This has been on my “to-do” list for awhile and is something that I hope to try soon with the kids. If the current month’s chosen book doesn’t interest you, you can always check out some of the previous book club choices.

*Cook a Meal Together – This is most likely to be able to occur on the weekend, but pick a recipe that the whole family can help prepare together. We’ve had fun making dumplings as a family. It’s fun to eat a meal that you all helped make. We’ve also had fun having Cupcake Wars. We formed two teams and each created a cupcake. This can also be done with cookies, muffins, doughnuts, etc.

Links to additional resources to help make the most of your family dinner time:

The Family Dinner Project – a whole movement and website devoted to enjoying meals together as a family.

Fun Themes for Family Dinnertime from She Knows

How do you make the most of your family dinner time?

Weekly Meal Plan {Week 33}

Posted on March 21, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Happy Monday everyone! This is the start of our spring break and as you are reading this our family is in Philadelphia doing some sight seeing for a couple of days. For those new to the blog, you can read more about our meal planning process here. Here is a look at what was on our menu last week:

Saturday – My parents came over for dinner before we went to see my daughter in her Annie Kids school musical. My husband made Asian Turkey Burgers which he served with fries and salad.

Sunday – My husband made a whole chicken in the slow cooker which we had with mashed potatoes and carrots. Whole chicken in the slow cooker is so easy and we usually end up with enough chicken for another meal!

Monday – I made Sausage, Peppers and Onions from Food Network courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis. I’ve made sausage and peppers before, but this version was super tasty. I was trying to use up a loaf of sourdough bread that was totally the wrong kind of bread to use. We ended up eating most of this meal without the bread. It’s very flavorful and would probably taste great over pasta!

Tuesday – I made Tex Mex Breakfast Casserole from Shutterbean. It was just alright and definitely needed the salsa and sour cream topping. My son, whose favorite meal is breakfast, wasn’t a fan of this. Not sure if this was because I used apple chicken breakfast sausage. But I’ve made lots of breakfast casseroles before which he has eaten. Side note – my casserole needed almost double the 20-25 minute cook time that the recipe called for.

Wednesday – I did not plan my menu taking the weather into effect. Wednesday was a beautiful day and I made Old Time Beef Stew from Food Network courtesy of Paula Deen. It was tasty, but again, my son didn’t finish his dinner, complaining, “the meat is too chewy!” Unfortunately, I think this meal ended the chili, stews and soups for dinner until the fall.

Thursday – Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We celebrated with slow cooker corned beef, sautéed cabbage and onions, red mashed potatoes and Irish soda bread. Yum!

Friday – We had pizza at our son’s grade level family game night event.

What is on your menu this week? I’m always looking for new recipe recommendations!

Friday Favorites – We Made It Edition! {Week 53}

Posted on March 18, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Happy Friday everyone! I am so glad that the week is over. This past week has been a crazy busy one. Spring break starts tomorrow and we are in desperate need of a break! The Annie Kids musical performance, 4th grade science fair, Colonial Day, 2nd grade game night…..phew! It’s been NON-STOP this week! We’ve been loving the warmer weather…..but now there’s talk of 3-5 inches of snow Sunday night. What?!!! Here are some of our favorites of this busy week:

1. Annie Kids – Last weekend was my daughter’s performance in the 3rd and 4th grade musical production. She has been practicing since December with the last few weeks having practice EVERY day until 5:30/6 PM! But she did it with no complaints and her and her classmates put on an amazing performance both Friday and Saturday evening.

2. The Good Wife – Now that we have Amazon Prime I’ve just started watching The Good Wife. I know I’m seven seasons behind and may never catch up with all the other shows that I’ve started. However, I’m about eight episodes in to the first season and I’m really liking it!

3. Local coffee and a coffee grinder – I won this locally roasted bag of coffee and a gift certificate to a local restaurant through a Hudson Valley Restaurant Week local social media contest. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a coffee grinder. Well, thanks to our recently purchased Amazon Prime membership I bought this Krups coffee grinder Friday evening and it arrived Sunday afternoon. We have now been enjoying freshly ground, locally roasted coffee each morning.

4. Card Making – Pre-marriage and kids (12 years ago!) some of my friends and I got into stamping and card making. With my husband’s recent new job, I volunteered to make homemade cards for his clients. I had to literally dust off my Stampin’ Up supplies and have slowly gotten back into card making.

5. Favorite bookmarked recipe of the week – This 20-Minute Moo Shu Pork (or Chicken). This is a dish that I’ll sometimes order when we do Chinese takeout and I’ve never thought to make it myself. This recipe looks quick, easy and tasty!

ICYMI this week:
Monday I shared our weekly meal plan.
Wednesday I wrote about our decision to join a CSA.

Linking up with Tif, Amanda and Andrea. Have a great weekend!

CSA Time!

Posted on March 16, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Last year I wrote a post about our family debating joining a CSA or relying on weekly visits to the farmers market. In the end we decided to make weekly farmers market visits, thinking the kids would enjoy helping pick out the produce. Well, that decision ended up being an ultimate fail. We didn’t make it weekly to the farmers market. Most of our local markets run on Saturday mornings. Even in the summers, our Saturday mornings were busy. When we did find time to go, I felt like I spent a lot of money and didn’t have much to show for it.

So, this year, we joined a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. When you join a CSA, you are purchasing a share (usually weekly) from a local farmer. You pay for the membership upfront (typically $450-$750), to help with the farming costs and then from approximately June through October or early November you pick up your share of produce.

We joined a local CSA farm which offers a Farm-Style Stand choice program. We get to choose what we want from that week’s available produce. The share is supposed to feed a family of four, which we are. The CSA runs 20 weeks from June through October and cost us $700. While the initial monetary output was daunting, it works out to be $30/week for locally grown, organic produce. I am looking forward to cooking with local, fresh ingredients and trying new recipes.

If you are interested in joining a CSA, check out Local Harvest to find one near you. Many membership registrations will be closing soon! And be sure to follow along as we report on and cook with our CSA produce!

Weekly Meal Plan {Week 32}

Posted on March 14, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend! It’s time once again to share our weekly meal with pictures and reviews. If you are new to meal planning you can read more about our meal planning process. The weather is still cool enough to enjoy chili and soups, so I have been taking advantage of it!

Saturday – Our daughter put in a request for chicken piccata and my husband happily obliged. He made some pasta with broccoli, garlic and olive oil to accompany.

Sunday – We had our peanut butter themed supper club. Even though February’s supper club was the week before, due to everyone’s busy schedules, Sunday was the only day in March that we were all free. I made Thai Veggie Burgers with Peanut Sauce from Annie’s Eats and my husband made Cold Sesame Noodles.

Monday – I made Ramen Wrapped Cod with Cajun Spice from Belly Full (formerly Very Culinary). I served this with roasted asparagus. My son helped me with the flouring and wrapping of the cod in the ramen, which was appreciated. We found the dish to lack the Cajun flavor, so we added more Cajun seasoning (we like Penzeys Spices) after it was cooked. While this was an interesting use of ramen, it wasn’t a dish that we loved.

Tuesday – I had a lunch date with my husband and then made a trip to HMart, a Korean grocery store. I picked up some pre-marinated beef bulgogi and dumplings which I served with rice and roasted broccoli and baby bok choy. Unfortunately, we were disappointed with the flavor of the bulgogi and next time, I am going to marinate it myself.

Wednesday – I made Spaghetti and Meatball Soup from Damn Delicious. I forgot to break the spaghetti up into smaller pieces and the instead of leaving 4 ounces of spaghetti left in the box I put the whole thing in. The pasta absorbed most of the liquid and it ended up more like regular spaghetti and meatballs versus a soup. I made homemade turkey meatballs, but you can also use store bought frozen to decrease hands on cooking time.

Thursday – I made Beer Braised Beanless Chili from Melanie Makes again. I first made this a few months ago. We liked it enough that I decided to make it again before spring arrives and we won’t be wanting chili and stews.

Friday – I made pizza. I also breaded and fried up some eggplant and made an eggplant and mozzarella pizza for my husband and I.

Friday Favorites – The One Year Edition {Week 52}

Posted on March 11, 2016 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Happy Friday! I cannot believe that I have been writing Friday Favorites posts for a year now! Normally, our weeks are pretty routine around here. However, this past week was surprisingly filled with lots of favorites!

1. Supper Club – Due to everyone’s busy schedules, our supper club ended up meeting back-to-back weeks. Even though I couldn’t make last month’s New Orleans/Mardi Gras themed supper I was happy that I could make March’s peanut butter themed dinner. I made bunless Thai Veggie Burgers with Peanut Sauce from Annie’s Eats. They were actually tasty even though I’m not the biggest fan of quinoa!

2. Hudson Valley Restaurant Week and a prize – The next two weeks are Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, where over 200 local restaurants offer 3 course lunches for $20.95 and 3 course dinners for $29.95. My husband and I were able to sneak in a delicious lunch date at Tarry Tavern, a restaurant in Tarrytown, NY that we enjoy. Even better? I found out that by posting the above photo and tagging the appropriate parties I won a HVRW prize! I just found out I am getting a gift certificate for a dinner at Chef Antonio Restaurant in Mamaroneck and a bag of Irving Farm Coffee!

3. Walking – I know that this made my favorites last week, but two mornings this week my neighbor friend and I went walking after the kids got on the school bus. It’s definitely more fun exercising with a friend! I hit my 10,000+ steps goal three times this week!

4. Shoes – I just commented to my husband the other day that I needed to try to get some boots for next year if I could find them on sale. I am in desperate need of fall/winter shoes and boots. I popped into Kohl’s to look for a suit for my son for his upcoming Communion. While that was a fail, I did find six pairs of shoes (yes 6!) for $73.05. They were having an additional 40% off clearance prices, plus, I had a 20% off coupon and a $10 and a $5 coupon. Add to that I got $20 Kohls cash since I purchased some other stuff too. I am all set for next fall and I got such a bargain!

5. Amazon Prime – We FINALLY bit the bullet and joined Amazon Prime. Now that they’ve hiked the free shipping minimum to a $50 purchase, we thought it was worth it to get the free 2-day shipping. This was especially beneficial since we just found out that my daughter needs to dress up for Colonial Day and purchased a colonial costume via Amazon. We are also enjoying having Amazon Prime streaming to expand our television viewing options! Please share any recommendations of shows worth watching on Prime!

ICYMI this week on the blog:
Tuesday I shared the books that I read in February with Steph and Jana’s link-up.
Wednesday I linked up with Stephanie’s the Kids Behind the Blog.
Thursday I shared New York State Maple Weekends.

Linking up with Tif, Andrea and Amanda! Have a great weekend!