November 2015 - Page 2 of 2 - NY Foodie Family

Veterans Day Movie Review

Posted on November 11, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Weekend Chef here. On this Veterans Day, we here at NY Foodie Family would like to extend our sincerest thanks and appreciation to all those in the armed forces serving at home and around the world. I wanted to share a movie review which is doubly appropriate this week. On a whim, I happened to watch “We Were Soldiers” on Netflix a few days ago. Coincidentally, the events depicted in the film happened 50 years ago this week. When the movie hit theaters in 2002, I didn’t pay it much attention. It seemed like a generic Vietnam War movie. Don’t get me wrong. I like a good war movie. I made sure to see “Saving Private Ryan” when it came out. But I skipped the likes of “Windtalkers” with Nicholas Cage. I guess I originally put “We Were Soldiers” in the skip category.

The film was based on the book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young written in 1992 by Lt. General (Ret.) Hal Moore and reporter Joseph Galloway. Both these individuals were featured in the movie, portrayed by Mel Gibson and Barry Pepper, respectively. The film included dozens of portrayals of real soldiers, their wives and families. The focus on a number of these individuals gives the viewer the opportunity to connect with many of them over the course of a few hours. The beginning of the film starts in the early days of the US involvement in Vietnam with Mel Gibson’s Lt. Colonel Moore in the training phase in the US prior to escalation of the conflict overseas. I appreciated the development of the relationships on the home front before jumping into the battle scenes further ahead. The film’s battles dramatize the Battle of Ia Drang between November 14 and 18, 1965 where the American forces are vastly outnumbered and ambushed by the Vietnamese army. The 3 days of fighting are intense. One element that a lot of other films typically don’t address is the opposing perspective. A fair amount of time is spent on showing the Vietnamese commanders and soldiers are real people too and not just nameless and faceless combatants. I give credit to the film for it’s attention to facts and details. Of course everything gets a little exaggerated by Hollywood, but Lt. General Moore himself found this to be one war movie that “got it right”.

I recommend taking the time to watch this film on Veterans Day on the battle’s roughly 50th anniversary. I hope it gives some perspective of what regular folks do to commit and sacrifice for everyone’s safety and freedom. Please forgive Mel Gibson for his recent personal missteps long enough to watch an engaging performance.

All About the Books October 2015

Posted on November 10, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

It is time once again for the Show Us Your Books link-up with Steph and Jana. I didn’t get in as much reading this month as I would have liked, but that’s life. Luckily, I enjoyed most of what I did end up reading. I’ve ordered the books in order from least to most favorite. I’m looking forward to reading what everyone else has read this month and adding to my TBR list!

3 Stars:

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Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari – This is a non-fiction book in which comedian, Ansari takes a look at modern romance and how dating today is different from the past. I found it interesting and it made me appreciate that I’m not dating in today’s modern age!

3.5 Stars:

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Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy – This YA book is about Willowdean Dickson, who’s mother gave her the nickname Dumplin’, when she was little. Willow knows she’s overweight and owns it, even with a mother who runs the local beauty pageant. But when Bo, a coworker at the local fast food joint where she works, shows interest in her, she begins to doubt herself. While I enjoyed the body positivity message of the book, I didn’t connect with any of the characters and found Willow to be a bit hypocritical of others.

4 Stars:

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Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea – This is a middle grade chapter book that I had heard good things about. It’s about a 5th grade class that is transformed by Mr. Terupt, an inspirational teacher, who impacts all of his students. The story is told through the perspectives of seven different students, in alternating chapters. The book was due back to the library before my daughter had a chance to read it, but it’s one that I think that she’d like. There’s a second and recently released third book in this series that I would like to read.

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The Red Thread by Ann Hood – Maya runs an adoption agency helping families adopt baby girls from China. This book tells the story of six couples trying to adopt children and the women in China who are giving up their daughters. This book has been on my bookshelf for awhile and I’m glad that I finally decided to read it. I really enjoyed this book. Being adopted from South Korea, this book gave me more insight into both sides of the adoption process.

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Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling – I read Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and wasn’t impressed. I feel like I need to reread that book because I enjoyed this one so much! As I read it, I could imagine Kaling’s voice reading it to me. It was a humorous and fun read.

5 Stars:

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult – Picoult is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read almost all of her books. This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for ages and I finally decided to read it. The story is really thought-provoking and deals with the Holocaust, friendship and forgiveness. Sage, a 24-year old baker, befriends Josef Weber, an elderly gentleman who visits the bakery where she works. He eventually asks a favor of her, which she is not sure she can help him with, after she discovers information about his past.

What have you been reading?

Weekly Meal Plan {Week 19}

Posted on November 9, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Happy Monday! We hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Here is what was on last week’s menu. If you are just beginning to meal plan, check out how we meal plan.

Saturday: We ordered a bunch of pizzas from a local pizzeria since we were having some friends over for dinner before trick-or-treating.

Sunday: We went to a birthday party where they had catered from Chipotle! I was in heaven!

Monday: I made Cilantro Lime Salmon from Closet Cooking (please note that the picture of the salmon was taken prior to cooking!). We hadn’t had salmon in awhile so I was really looking forward to this. Next time I’d make more sauce, as I had a big piece of fish and felt like there was barely enough sauce to cover the top of the salmon. I also had a really thick piece of fish so the cooking time had to be adjusted. This was tasty enough and I served it with rice and salad.

Tuesday: I was at a staff development day for work all day. The Weekend Chef was home with the kids and ended up making Queso Crockpot Chicken Chili from Pinch of Yum. The recipe called for 3 bell peppers and a jalapeno, which seemed like a lot to me, so I only had him use 2 peppers. We probably could have used all three and it wouldn’t have overwhelmed the dish like I thought it would. We served this with tortilla chips. I had never thought to use a chili as a dip with chips. Let’s just say, although this was the first time eating chili with tortilla chips, it definitely won’t be the last! Leftovers were just as good the next day!

Wednesday: I made {30 Minute} Honey Sriracha Chicken Rice Noodle Bowls from With Salt & Wit. I replaced the rice noodles with lo mein noodles that we already had in our pantry. I only added one tablespoon of the recommended 3 tablespoons of sriracha, for fear that it would be too spicy for the kids. We all enjoyed this dish which was easy to put together. My dish however, looked nothing like Megan’s!

Thursday: After working and taking my daughter to piano lessons, I was in no mood to cook dinner. I heated up some hotdogs and served with French fries. The only cooking I did was making a red onion sauce for the hotdogs!

Friday: The kids had off from school and the Weekend Chef was home. We ended up running errands and grabbing a late Indian Buffet lunch. No one was really hungry for dinner, so the kids ended up having a bowl of cereal and a yogurt stick before bed. I just had some cheese and crackers.

Friday Favorites {Week 37}

Posted on November 6, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Yes, it’s that time again! Friday! We had a really fun Halloween last weekend. Our daughter went with a friend trick-or-treating and then to the party her friend’s family was hosting. We ended up having a couple of our son’s friends and their families over for some pizza and trick-or-treating. We first went trick-or-treating at a nearby townhouse community. We ended up enjoying this a lot. The community was really big so there was lots of trick-or-treating. It was nice that the houses were close to one another and the kids appreciated less walking! When we got back to our house we then walked the boys around our neighborhood until they wanted to go home because their feet were so tired! We spent Sunday at a 1st birthday party. This week the kids had off Tuesday for Election Day and today for parent-teacher conferences. Otherwise, it’s been a pretty uneventful week. Here are some of our favorites:

1. A day off or two for the Weekend Chef – I had a staff development day for work, so the Weekend Chef stayed home Tuesday with the kids. It’s amazing how much stuff he can get done! He raked and bagged all the leaves in the front yard. Let me tell you there were a TON of leaves too! He also prepped the slow cooker for dinner and took one of the cars in for an oil change. Today, he’s home again with the kids and he’s tackling the backyard!

The Great Food Truck Race, Season 3

2. Netflix – The one thing I really miss about not having cable television is reality TV. I’m talking Real Housewives and The Bachelor/Bachelorette. I was really in the mood for some reality TV and found The Great Food Truck Race collection on Netflix. It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but I watched the first season of the collection (really Season 3 of the show) this week. The Weekend Chef watched a few episodes with me. Yes, you can tell it’s staged, but I like Tyler Florence and I didn’t have many options, so, it had to do. And now, it’s really gotten me in the mood for some food truck food!

3. Favorite bookmarked recipe of the week: These Halloween Stash Devil Food Cookies from Frugal Foodie Mama. I already have the ingredients and recipe for this Halloween Candy Apple Crisp from Melanie Makes…..but I think we have more candy we need to use up. So, these cookies may also be making an appearance in our kitchen soon!

4. Children’s book: The Bear Report by Thyra Heder. We read this before bedtime this past week and both the kids and I enjoyed it a lot! It’s a fun, imaginative book about a girl who doesn’t want to write her report on polar bears. She ends up learning about the animal, right from the source, as she’s taken on an educational adventure in the Arctic.

5. Not Your Father’s Root Beer – I’m not sure that this is a favorite, but I’m glad I FINALLY got to try it this weekend! It wasn’t bad, but not my fave. I’ll stick to my hard ciders. I’ve heard that this tastes good in a root beer float though, so I may have to try that!

ICYMI:
Monday we posted our weekly meal plan.
Wednesday we joined Anne and Jenna’s monthly Currently link-up.
Thursday we reviewed snack subscription box MunchPak.

Linking up with Tif @ Bright on a Budget, Amanda from Meet @ The Barre and Andrea from Momfessionals! Have a great weekend!

October 2015 MunchPak Review

Posted on November 5, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Disclosure: This complimentary box was received for review purposes. All opinions are our own and no compensation was received.

MunchPak kindly sent us an October snack box to review. We have been a subscriber to the Universal Yums! Snack box for awhile now, but recently cancelled our subscription to explore some other snack box subscriptions. I was excited when MunchPak contacted us about reviewing a box, since this snack box has been on our list of possible subscriptions to try. MunchPak is an international snack subscription box. Each month they send out an assortment of snacks from around the world. They have three different snack subscription sizes including MunchPak Mini that includes 5+ snacks ($9.95), Original MunchPak which includes 10+ snacks ($19.95) and the FamilyPak which contains 20+ snacks ($39.95). MunchPak offers a customization option for $1 per variable. For example, you can opt not to have anything spicy in your snack box or prefer to have only candy in your box. They also offer a coffee or tea drink option for an additional $5 each. You can also decide how often you would like a box delivered, with options including every week, every two weeks or once a month.

MunchPak sent us the Original box to review. This box is supposed to have at least 10 snacks in it and ours included 11 different snacks. Unfortunately, they do not include an information card as to what snacks are included in the box and where they are from which would be useful. However, you can go to the shop on the MunchPak site and find most of their snacks, with descriptions. If you really enjoy a snack, you can even purchase more from the site! It appears every MunchPak contains a different assortment of snacks. So, you may not get the same selection of snacks each month in your box as someone else who also subscribes.

1. Rancheritos (60 g bag) – These are Mexican style corn chips with chili powder and spices. The chip itself was not spicy and had a sour, tangy flavor. These were okay for us, but not our favorite.

2. Lotte Pepero Nude (1.76 oz box) – This snack is from Korea. The box contained hollow biscuit like cookie tubes that had a chocolate filling. These were similar to other Asian cookie sticks that we’ve had before but were good. *On a side note, November 11, is Pepero Day in South Korea. The holiday’s purpose, allegedly similar to our Valentine’s Day, is to exchange peperos to show affection.

3. 7 Days Bake Rolls (70 g bag) Mushrooms & Cream flavor – 7 Days in an international brand marketed in 65 countries. I could not find a country of origin for these chips though. These chips were a favorite of mine! You could really taste the mushroom flavor. These come in variety of flavors including pizza, bacon, cheese-spinach and tomato olive. These chips are sold in the United States as 7 Days Bagel Chips and come in less interesting flavors including roasted garlic, sea salt cinnamon raisin and everything.

4. Corn Potage – This snack is from Japan and made by a company named Yaokin. Research revealed that corn potage is a popular Japanese soup. This was a large, hollow cheese doodle like puff that had a discernible corn flavor. This was tasty and very different.

5. Solen Crazy Extra (1.06 oz bar) – I believe that this candy bar is made in Turkey. It’s a chocolate bar with crisp rice layers. This was really tasty and one of the family favorites.

6. Lotte Green Tea (1.90 oz) Chewy Candy – The Lotte company was founded in Japan but has headquarters in both Japan and South Korea. The package contains 10 pieces of green tea candy that are each individually wrapped. At first the candy is hard but softens quickly and has the consistency similar to a Starburst. The green tea flavor is very evident, so you must like green tea to enjoy this candy!

7. Chiki Snack Balls – This snack is from Indonesia. These had a similar consistency to Cheez Doodles cheese balls. However, even trying them after just opening the bag they had a slightly stale taste to them. They were cheese flavor but it was very faint. This was not one of our favorite snacks.

8. Ginbis Dream Animals (1.76 oz box) – This snack is from Japan. These were butter flavored biscuits in the shapes of animals. As seen from the photo above, each animal has it’s name printed on the biscuit. These tasted like butter flavored crackers with a hint of sweet. The kids really enjoyed these.

9. Haribo Gummy Teeth (bag with approximately 34 pieces) – Haribo is a German candy company, famous for their gummy candies. My son was especially excited to see these gummy teeth. These had a possibly strawberry gummy flavor. If you are a gummy candy fan like we are, you’ll like these!

10. Rama – Unfortunately, I did not take an individual photo of the rama snack, which is in the center of the picture above. I could not find much information about this snack, but believe it is from Bulgaria. This is a bar made of a variety of nuts stuck together with a sticky coating. It’s not hard and crunchy like brittle and is not very sweet. The nut flavor is overpowering and even tasted a bit burnt. This was also not one of our favorite snacks.

11. Ozmo Cornet Chocolate Cone – This snack is from Turkey. This is a chocolate filled cone with tiny candy-coated chocolate pieces. The cone is filled with chocolate but the candy pieces are just on the top. The chocolate is not the highest quality. However, this was a fun treat that the kids shared and enjoyed.

Overall, we were very happy with our MunchPak box. There’s a great variety of snacks including salty, sweet, chips and candy. If you are interested in trying MunchPak you can use this link to sign up. Use promo code “NYFOODIEFAMILY” to save $3 off your first MunchPak! Please note that this is an affiliate link.

November 2015 Currently

Posted on November 4, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

I am linking up with Anne and Jenna for their monthly Currently link-up.

Cooking: Last night we made this Queso Crockpot Chicken Chili with Roasted Corn and Jalapeno from Pinch of Yum. In general, I’ve been cooking quick and easy recipes and using the slow cooker a lot.

Planning: Nothing at the moment….although I know that we need to start thinking about our Christmas card picture.

Smelling: The Avon Whipped Pumpkin candle that I won from Sandra at Charmed Crown Blog back in September. It’s a perfect scent for fall!

Appreciating: That my family is in good health (knock on wood!) and happy. I am also appreciating the Indian Summer that we are experiencing this week here in New York. The first week of November and it’s in the 70’s! I will take that any day!

Anticipating: My husband’s new job. He will hopefully be starting in a couple of weeks and it will mean big changes for the family.

Weekly Meal Plan {Week 18}

Posted on November 2, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Does everyone have tons of Halloween candy from Saturday like we do?!! The kids had a fun Halloween trick-or-treating with friends. We have candy for days….or more like months! The only downer was that when we went out trick-or-treating we left a bowl of candy out for trick-or-treaters. When we got back we discovered that someone not only took all the candy, but they took our bowl too! And it was our good, wooden salad bowl! The Weekend Chef has been giving me an “I-told-you-so” since he had questioned earlier in the evening why we weren’t using the plastic bowl (which I was too lazy to clean out – but hey, he could have cleaned it out just as well!!).

We are recuperating from the time change, which luckily, knock on wood, hasn’t affected us too badly. I’m sad seeing it get dark so early though! We are in store for a hopefully not as busy week, with the kids off of school two days and the Weekend Chef taking those days off from work.

Now, on to last week’s menu. You can read more about how we meal plan if you are new and would like some pointers. Here’s a look at what was on our menu last week:

Saturday – We ended up having a late lunch at the Chinese Buffet and were so stuffed we didn’t eat dinner!

Sunday – The Weekend Chef made London broil which he served with buttered noodles and swiss chard.

Monday – I made Asian Ground Turkey & Broccoli Lettuce Wraps inspired by a recipe on Cupcakes & Kale Chips which I served with frozen egg rolls. This wasn’t the first time that I’ve made some version of lettuce wraps. These were pretty easy to make and the kids enjoyed them.

Tuesday – I made Chicken Avocado Burritos from Oh My God Chocolate Desserts. I made one burrito without avocado for my son, since he doesn’t like it. I used leftover shredded chicken that we had in the freezer, which was a time saver. And I baked the burritos instead of frying them. We all liked these! I served these with yellow rice and sautéed swiss chard.

Wednesday – I made Spiced Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Egg Skillet from Naturally Ella. The kids, especially my daughter who’s not a big fan of sweet potatoes, weren’t sure they’d like this dish, but they did! The seasoning really flavored the sweet potatoes. And honestly, I think they will eat anything if you put a fried egg on top of it!

Thursday – I made Chicken and Gnocchi Soup from Taste and Tell. This is supposed to be a copycat version of an Olive Garden Soup, but I’ve never had it. This soup though was creamy, tasty and filling with the chicken and gnocchi.

If I had realized that, I wouldn’t have made these Apple-Cheddar Scones from Pink Parsley to go with. But, we had the leftovers for breakfast, so it was all good. I didn’t realize the scones needed some prep work, like baking and cooling the apples. I did a kind of rush job on them, but they came out really tasty anyway! These were moist and sweet.

Friday – I made Brats with Beer & Mustard Sauce over Egg Noodles from Pink Parsley. This was of course after hearing in the news that sausage, bacon and other processed meats cause cancer. I added in a little honey to the sauce to sweeten it a bit and also added a little bit of heavy cream, since I had some left over from the scones. This was a hearty meal perfect for a cool fall evening. I used a Yuengling Black & Tan and the beer taste was pretty evident. I’m actually surprised the kids didn’t comment on it!