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I used to dread figuring out what to bring for lunch every day. While there are microwaves at my workplace, I prefer to not carry my hot lunch container down the hallway to my office. I usually walk during my scheduled lunch time and then eat at my desk. Since I’m also trying to eat healthier, salads are a good option. Although my husband, who helps prepare my lunch in the morning may not agree, as he’s the one who preps the lettuce each morning for me (chopping, rinsing and spinning it in the salad spinner). However, he knows how much I look forward to lunch when I have one of these salads, so he continues to help me out! Although I’ve tried many different lunch recipes and salads, the four salads below are my favorites and are on a weekly rotation.
Falafel Salad – My favorite salad from Chop’t (the salad chain) was the Kebab Cobb Salad with Falafel. Sadly, they stopped making it. While it was delicious, my wallet is happy not spending the hefty price tag for it. I don’t have an actual recipe, but I’ve done my best to recreate it.
I start with a base of chopped romaine lettuce. Then I add cooked falafel (my quick go-to is the Trader Joe’s frozen falafel), halved grape tomatoes, crumbled feta, red onion (pickled red onion instead, if I’m feeling motivated to make them) and then I bring a bag of crushed pita chips to top the salad with, right before eating. I enjoy the nice crunch and flavor they give. Dressing-wise I like to use this Marzetti dressing when I can find it. Otherwise, I’ll use this Bolthouse dressing.
Caprese Salad – This is another salad without a real recipe. I start with chopped romaine and add fresh mozzarella cubes, halved cherry tomatoes, some red onion and cooked chik’n tenders (I don’t eat meat so I use the Beyond Chicken Tenders or Gardein Chik’n Tenders). Sometimes I’ll also add avocado and/or bring a bag of croutons. I bring a container of Ken’s Honey Balsamic dressing (which is my favorite balsamic!).
Orzo Salad with Grapes, Arugula and Feta – This recipe is from the food blog Two Peas & Their Pod. I pre-make the orzo and then assemble this salad each morning. Some changes that I make are: I buy salad dressing. Ken’s Honey Balsamic is my favorite. I pack the dressing separately and pour on right before eating. I also do not make the candied pecans and instead use the Emerald brand bagged glazed walnuts. I love the combo of salty from the feta with the sweet of the grapes, candied walnuts and balsamic dressing.
Mango Mandarin Sesame Chicken Salad – This is a take on the Shrimp Salad from the Creme de la Crumb food blog. Since I usually also make a salad for my daughter’s lunch and she doesn’t eat shrimp, I substitute it with the Beyond or Gardein Chik’n Tenders. This is one of the salads that takes the most time to prep since there’s so much “stuff.” But it’s so good! It has mango, canned mandarin oranges, chopped red pepper, edamame and avocado. I do not make the dressing (do you sense a pattern here?! LOL!). Instead, I buy either the Panera Bread Asian Sesame Dressing or Ken’s Asian Sesame dressing. I also add a handful of chow mein noodles on top for crunch and texture.
Which of these salads will you be making? What is your favorite lunch salad? I’d love some new suggestions!
Our lax summer schedules have afforded me the luxury of being able to cook intricate recipes. However, with the sweltering temps, I’ve had no desire to turn the oven on. Instead of the weekly menu plans that I used to post here many moons ago, I thought I’d share a monthly “Cooking Lately” post.
I want to share only the good recipes that have graced our dinner table throughout the month. I know how difficult it is figuring out what to cook for dinner. While I do plan out a menu for the week to help keep me sane and organized, not all the recipes I choose are winners! I plan on sharing just the recipes that we have tried and are family approved!
Since Trader Joe’s just opened a new location nearby, I feel like I’ll be eating and cooking a lot of their prepared foods and ingredients. This will be especially true in the fall which is our family’s busy season. Fellow Trader Joe’s fans may be interested in this Instagram account that I found. I haven’t made anything yet, but I have bookmarked a bunch of Anna’s recipes!
Just a note about our family’s diet and the types of recipes that I cook: my teenage daughter is a vegetarian. My husband and I are both pescatarians, although he eats a lot less seafood than I do. My teenage son is the only meat eater in the house, so you won’t find any meat recipes here. You’ll find vegetarian, sometimes vegan and the occasional pescatarian recipes.
Here are some of our July recipe recommendations:
Blueberry French Toast Casserole – This month we celebrated my son’s 14th birthday with a brunch-themed family celebration. Breakfast is his favorite meal. Among several dishes, I made this Blueberry French Toast Casserole that everyone was raving about.
Creamy Garlic Butter Tuscan Salmon – My husband and I had a rare weeknight where it was just the two of us for dinner. We made this recipe with Parmesan Spinach Couscous. This was such a tasty dish but I think I’ll serve it over pasta next time.
Halloumi Hummus Bowls – I used Trader Joe’s Pearled couscous. Instead of halloumi I used crumbled feta which is a cheaper and easier to find alternative. I added some red onion and I thought it needed a dressing so we topped our bowls with Wishbone Lemon Vinaigrette. This recipes has little to no actual cooking involved and is perfect for hot summer nights.
Peach Goat Cheese Salad – I made this salad for lunch one week and it will keep making appearances until peach season is over. There’s a bit of prep with the ingredients but it’s so tasty! And it’s a fraction of the cost to make it at home versus buying a salad for lunch.
Sheet Pan Cauliflower Fajitas – These fajitas are on repeat in our house and I probably make them about once a month. They are easy to make and a quick meal. To save time, I sometimes purchase a packet of fajita seasoning or use the Penzeys fajita seasoning, when I have it. I serve these with sour cream, salsa and/or guacamole.
Smoky Shiitake Quesadillas with Avocado Cream Sauce – My husband ended up cooking this dinner, since I was at our daughter’s summer league field hockey game. Instead of shiitake mushrooms I had bought regular white button mushrooms that worked perfectly fine in this recipe. The avocado cream and pickled onions really helped make the dish.
Summer Coconut Chickpea Curry – This recipe is a great way to use some of the summer zucchini and squash that always seems to be abundant around this time of year. Some of the edits I made to this recipe include omitting the tahini and the halloumi cheese. I served the curry over basmati rice with some store-bought naan.
Quick and Easy Meals
Usually once a week, and sometimes more, I have a quick and easy meal. These meals use either prepared foods or require little to no prep. This month’s quick and easy meals included:
*Pierogies and roasted broccoli
*Breakfast burritos – (scrambled eggs, cheese, hash brown and chorizo rolled in a tortilla served with salsa and sometimes prepared guacamole, if I have it)
*Burgers and fries (I use whatever burgers I find on sale – Beyond burgers, Boca Burgers, etc.).
The Academy is the newest culinary addition to the city of Poughkeepsie. Is it a food hall, a restaurant, or a market? It will feature all of these things and more when it opens to the public in a couple of weeks. It starts off as a food and beverage establishment including event space and, later this year, there will be 28 adjacent apartments and coworking space, completing the developers intentions of creating a mixed-use destination.
This past weekend, I attended the grand opening celebration and got an early first-hand glimpse of all The Academy has to offer.
The building at 33 Academy Street was, most recently, a nightclub. Baxter, a Hudson Valley real estate development and property management firm, has spearheaded the transformation of the space into what is now The Academy.
The first thing to note about The Academy is that it’s highly Instagrammable! Everything from the indoor and outdoor murals and the neon signs in the bathrooms (yes, you need to check them out!) scream, “take my picture!”.
The bottom floor of the building houses the food hall, The Academy Market, and The Academy Kitchen. These operations are led by Rachel Potts, the Culinary Director and Executive Chef, and David Lombardo, the Food & Beverage Director. Food hall vendors include: Smoke 33 (BBQ), Valley Greens (salads)and East-West (Asian).
Hudson Hopworks serves a rotating collection of mostly locally-brewed beer on tap, in cans and bottles. There’s even a signature The Academy craft brew coming soon.
Cafe + Grill serves hot and cold prepared foods and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They sell a variety of mains and sides by the pound, which is a great option for busy nights when you don’t feel like cooking but don’t want to go out to eat.
The Newburgh Flour Shop will round out the food vendors and will be selling their homemade breads and baked goods. You can also order one of their custom cakes for any celebration.
Although it wasn’t open the day of the grand opening celebration, The Academy Market will sell locally-sourced produce, meat, and seafood. The Market will have a café serving coffee, kombucha on tap, nitro cold brew and more. The Grill + Deli will have made-to-order sandwiches and prepared foods.
Every food vendor has vegetarian food options, with many offering vegan options as well. While we expect Valley Greens to have plenty of vegetarian options, it was nice to see vegetarian-friendly items on the other menus. East-West makes edamame dumplings, Impossible Buns and mushroom broth ramen. Smoke 33 has a Smoked Cauliflower Steak and Loaded Chili Smoked Sweet Potato as vegetarian main options, as well as many sides. I can’t wait until The Academy officially opens to be able to sample all these offerings!
A centrally-located bar on the bottom floor separates the food hall from The Academy Kitchen. The bar will be overseen by head mixologist Ben Friedman and will serve signature, as well as classic, cocktails.
The Academy Kitchen seats 75 and serves dinner daily and brunch on the weekends. The modern American menu includes a variety of appetizers, salads and entrees. You’ll find steaks, seafood, burgers and more, with plenty of vegetarian options.
Keepsake occupies the upstairs space of the building. It’s an 8700 square foot event space designed to host weddings and special celebrations.
It is inspiring to see the revitalization of Poughkeepsie and The Academy is a great addition to the city’s food and restaurant space. It is open from morning until night and offers all kinds of food options. Make a stop in Poughkeepsie soon and check out The Academy!
The Academy 33 Academy Street Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 website
Parking: Plenty of paid parking is available in the municipal lot across the street. Street parking is also available.
Dog Haus Biergarten Mohegan Lake is the newest addition to the Cortlandt Town Center. Dog Haus has locations throughout the country, with the Mohegan Lake franchise being the most recent and only the second New York location. Housed in the former Payless Shoe Store, Dog Haus Biergarten is franchised by Andrew Hamerling and Dave Orth and managed by Steve LaBarbera. The restaurant had its official ribbon cutting ceremony on December 14th and was warmly welcomed by the Town of Cortlandt.
Dog Haus dubs themselves a “craft casual” restaurant. They pride themselves on using quality ingredients and offering a welcoming environment where guest will want to stay and hang out. Wooden tables and booths fill the Mohegan Lake restaurant. Wire caged lights and black pipes and accents give the space an industrial feel.
A large bar area takes up the center of the restaurant and offers over 20 different beers on tap as well as a special craft cocktail menu currently featuring 12 different drinks. HD televisions line the walls and the back of the restaurant has two dart boards and a shuffleboard. In warmer months, expect outdoor seating to be available.
But the most important question to ask is, how is the food? We recently ordered takeout from Dog Haus Mohegan Lake to see how their food measured up. All items are made to order, so expect a small wait time. I like how each carton is labeled with what is inside, so you know you got exactly what you ordered.
With a name like Dog Haus, you know the hot dogs will be good. The restaurant offers 6 different specialty Hausdogs ($7.99 each) and 4 specialty Haussausages ($8.99) all with fun names (e.g. Chili Idol and Reservoir Hog). All of the meat that Dog Haus uses is 100% antibiotic- and hormone-free. They also serve a variety of burgers ($10.99) and chicken (sandwiches, wings and tenders).
My son ordered the Cowboy, a smoked bacon wrapped hot dog topped with cheddar cheese, BBQ sauce and crispy onions. This hotdog was devoured in minutes with rave reviews from the teen.
But what does a family of 3 vegetarians order from a restaurant called the Dog Haus? We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the restaurant has a variety of vegetarian and vegan options. They offer Beyond Meat versions of their chicken sandwiches, so we enjoyed a Beyond Bad Mutha Clucka. The sandwich is made of crispy Beyond Meat “chicken” tenders topped with lettuce, pickles and a miso ranch sauce. The Beyond chicken sandwich costs $11.99, while the regular Bad Mutha Clucka sandwich costs $10.99. Please note that this sandwich is not listed on their in-store menu board or in their paper menu. However, I saw it on the online menu and inquired about it when ordering.
We also had the Sooo Veggie Haussausage. This is a Hot Italian Beyond Sausage topped with wild arugula, avocado, tomato, crispy onions and a spicy basil aioli. This is one of their two Beyond Sausage options, which at $8.99 are priced the same as their other Haussausages.
Finally, we tried one of their 5 specialty Hausburgers ($10.99). For an additional $2.49, any of the Hausburgers can be made vegetarian with an Impossible patty substitution. We ordered the Little Mule since besides, the cheeseburger, was the only other burger that had no additional meat ingredients (bacon, chili, etc.). It had an Impossible patty topped with white american cheese, avocado, pickled jalapenos, cotjia cheese, a fried egg and a chipotle aioli. It was bursting with flavor and was our family’s favorite of the three vegetarian options that we tried.
We did not try any of the Dog Haus “On the Side” menu, which includes fries or tots, with the option of adding cheese and or chili cheese. They also offer sweet potato fries, onion rings, chili, slaw or The Love Boat: fries or tater tots topped with Haus chili and Haus slaw!
The Dog Haus is a great new addition to the Mohegan Lake area. It offers family-friendly dining while also serving the bar crowd with its later hours and its large beer and cocktail menu.
The Details:
Dog Haus Biergarten Mohegan Lake 3137 East Main Street Mohegan Lake, NY 10547 (845) 915-HAUS website
Hours: Monday – Thursday 4 PM – 11 PM Friday – 4 PM – 12 AM Saturday 11 AM- 12 AM Sunday 11 AM – 11 PM
Meal planning is crucial in making our week run smoothly. It’s so nice to come home from work knowing what we will be having for dinner. It also helps us plan accordingly on busy nights when my husband and I can delegate who is going to cook. Meal planning keeps our food budget in check, since there are rarely last minute trips to the grocery store for “a few items” or multiple nights of takeout. There are many ways to meal plan and there is no one tried and true method. You really have to figure out what works best for your family. I am showing you how I create our weekly meal plan which will hopefully give you some tips and inspiration.
1. The Calendar: You can find fancy, online printable menus if that will help motivate you or you like things to look pretty. For meal planning, I do not go the fancy route. As seen above, I use the back of a piece of scrap paper and set up a monthly calendar. I plan our menus weekly and write the meals in pencil, so I can erase and move things around if needed. It’s a constant work-in-progress with lots of erasing and moving things around.
2. The Day: Deciding what day you want your meal plan to start on is up to you and your schedule. We do our weekly grocery shopping at Shoprite. The new sale circular begins on Sundays, so over the weekend I write out the menu and make the grocery list. Then Sunday mornings, my husband and I do the shopping together.
3. Time: Meal planning does take a little bit of time. Especially in the beginning if you have never done it before. One you’ve built up a library of recipes your family enjoys it will become much quicker to rotate those meals. It takes me a little bit longer, because I rarely, if ever make the same recipe twice. It takes some time for me to go through my recipe resources (see below) and pick out the new recipes I want to make for the week. However, my new routine is to get up early on Saturday morning, make myself a cup of coffee and sit on the couch watching a show while I work on the weekly meal plan. This past weekend, I was super productive and got most of November’s meal plan completed!
It’s not the prettiest, but it works!
4. The Planning: If you are new to meal planning, it might be easier to start with some recipes that you know your family eats and enjoys and maybe aim for one new recipe a week. I recommend you use your grocery store circular to start your planning. If chicken is on sale this week, I recommend making at least one chicken dish and buying some extra chicken that you can freeze for the future. Some people prefer to have a themed dinner for each day, like Meatless Monday or Taco Tuesday. This helps in keeping a consistency to meal planning. Although my meal plan varies from week to week, we always have homemade pizza on Friday nights. Once I find a recipe that I decide I’m going to make, I write it in pencil on the calendar, along with the name of the source (blog name, magazine, website). Although I will have my five recipes for the week written in, I won’t necessarily make them in that order. When we eat each meal depends on factors like which dishes have produce that may spoil or how busy our schedules are. I will then write in each box, what day I actually plan on making that dish.
5. Grocery List: After the meal plan is made I write the grocery list. I go through each recipe I plan on making for the week and write down the ingredients that I need. I circle the recipe on the calendar to know that I made sure I had everything I needed for that recipe. I then go through the grocery store circular adding in all of the other items we need that week to the list. And that is my meal planning process!
Meal Planning Resources:
So, where can you find recipes? For starters, check out the resources right here on the blog! Although I stopped posting new ones, I have a page that includes 89 of our weekly menu plans and seven vegan meal plans that I have posted!
Food blogs have become my main source of dinner recipes. There are so many food blogs out there, ranging from family focused, quick and easy meals, to more involved recipe blogs. I subscribe to several food blogs and get new posts e-mailed to me. We are vegetarian and my main focus when meal planning is to find recipes that sound delicious but are quick and easy to make.
Here are a few food blogs that I use often and recommend:
Eats Well With Others – Joanne posts vegetarian recipes. I think I make at least one recipe of hers a week. She also posts a weekly meal plan post.
Half Baked Harvest, How Sweet Eats and Pinch of Yum are all great blogs with consistently good recipes. I’ve rarely made a recipe from these blogs that wasn’t delicious. Some of these recipes can be a bit involved or require a bunch of ingredients, so just review the recipe before deciding to make it. While their blogs are not strictly vegetarian, they all post a good number of recipes that are.
Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen – My friend Ashley has been running her food blog since 2006! It is full of delicious recipes and a great resource if you’re not sure what to make!
For beginner cooks I also highly recommend the website allrecipes.com. You can search for recipes by a number of different factors, including ingredients or name. I’ve found most recipes that I’ve used from the site easy to make. It’s especially helpful since there are tons of ratings and reviews. If a recipe has lots of five star ratings, it’s probably going to be good.
Try cooking recipes from several different blogs. You will eventually find you like certain bloggers’ recipe choices, presentation, photographs, etc. over others. You don’t need to subscribe to all of them! I have two meal planning folders on my phone. One is titled “Vegetarian recipes” and anytime I see a recipe I want to make I bookmark it there. If I decide to make the recipe, I bookmark it in the “Cooking This Week” folder, so it’s easier to find when needed.
And don’t forget about Pinterest. There are millions of recipes posted on that site. Start creating boards of recipes that you see that interest you and you can refer to your board for inspiration when meal planning!
I’ve found that as much as I enjoy reading cookbooks, I don’t use them very often. Most recipes can easily be found online. If you have a favorite cookbook, I’d love some recommendations!
I hope this helps give you a better idea on how to meal plan, if this is new to you! Please feel free to leave any questions in the comments section or e-mail me. I’d love to hear how others meal plan and am always looking for tips on how to make the process easier!
Fall is here and that means it’s time for all things pumpkin! I know I’m not the only one obsessed, am I?! Check out this first, pumpkin themed edition of Eat & Drink in Westchester County. See where you can enjoy all the pumpkin treats and drinks in Westchester County! But hurry, because all of these seasonal treats and drinks won’t be available for long!
Baked to Perfection (Online/White Plains) Pumpkin S’mores Cupcake. Also has a Pumpkin Cream Cheese cupcake. You can order cupcakes online or purchase at Roosters Market at 48 Gedney Way in White Plains.
The Brazen Fox(White Plains) The Brazen Fox is a craft beer bar and American Restaurant in downtown White Plains. They are serving a pumpkin bread pudding with a pumpkin vanilla sauce drizzle this month.
Moderne Barn (Armonk) has a pumpkin cheesecake ($11) on the dessert menu. It has a ginger graham cracker crust and topped with vanilla crème fraiche, cranberry compote, pumpkin seeds and caramel.
Auntie Liana’s (Yorktown Heights) Auntie Liana’s is located inside the Jefferson Valley Mall and can also be found at the Let It Shine farmers market in Verplanck on Sundays. They are selling Pumpkin Spice hot cocoa jars and pumpkin spice hot cocoa bombs.
DeCicco & Sons (locations in Ardsley, Armonk, Brewster, Eastchester, Harrison, Larchmont, Millwood, Pelham and Somers) This family-run grocery store sells a variety of pumpkin flavored items including Pumpkin Gouda and Pumpkin Cheesecake!
Double Barrel Coffee Roasters (online) You can get Double Barrel Coffee Roasters pumpkin spice coffee in decaf or regular and whole bean, fine grind, or auto grind (starting at $15).
North End Tavern (New Rochelle) Although the Pumpkin Mule ($12) was a daily drink special earlier this month, I believe they can make this drink for you all fall long!
Peekskill Brewery (Peekskill) Heads Will Roll is a beer collaboration between Peekskill Brewery and Horsefeathers in Sleepy Hollow. This is a pumpkin IPA that has, “big bold pumpkin flavor, but with a strong hoppy profile.”
Did you know that 1/3 of all food produced globally goes to waste each year? Too Good To Go is an anti-food waste mobile app that is working to combat the surplus food waste in restaurants and stores around the world.
How does Too Good To Go work?
Too Good To Go is an app that you can download for free in the iTunes app store. The company was founded in Copenhagen in 2016 and recently launched in the United States. Too Good To Go has partnered with restaurants and food stores to provide “surprise bags” of surplus food to customers. Normally, this unsold food would get thrown out at the end of the day. Via the app, consumers can purchase this surplus food at a deeply discounted price.
After downloading the app, it finds local restaurants and eateries that have “surprise bags” based on your location and distance you are willing to travel. Living in Westchester County, I discovered that there are not as many Surprise Bags available as there are in New York City and other larger cities. The Surprise Bags available to me have been priced at either $3.99 or $5.99 and have included bakeries, chains and restaurants.
My Experience With Too Good To Go
Baked By Susan is a popular bakery located in northern Westchester County. Since it is one of the few locations in my area, I have made it a “favorite.” Due to being busy, conflicting time pick-ups, and the Surprise Bags selling out, I only recently got to finally try the app out.
I placed my order with Baked By Susan on Saturday evening for a late afternoon Sunday pick-up. The cost of the bag was $3.99 which was payable on the app by either credit card or PayPal. Once the order was placed I got an email confirmation with the date, address and time frame of my pickup.
Since we have previously visited Baked By Susan, I was excited about the “surprise” aspect of the bag. I knew that whatever we got in our bag was likely going to be good! Pick up was super easy. I arrived during my designated window of time. The bakery was empty, as it was near closing time. I only needed to show my phone to the employee and swipe the pickup bar. The bag was already packed waiting for me.
There were four baked goods in the bag including a scone, a doughnut, a croissant and a cinnamon roll. Each item was individually wrapped in plastic wrap.
I found the scone to be a bit on the dry side. Otherwise, everything else was delicious!
The pumpkin sugar doughnut was moist.
My favorite was the cinnamon bun. I heated it up in the microwave for a few seconds before eating so it was warm and gooey.
Will I Order From Too Good To Go Again?
Yes, I definitely will! I am hoping that Too Good To Go gains a larger presence in Westchester County. Currently, the lack of Surprise Bags in my area and time pickups that conflict with my schedule have prevented me from using the app more. However, I think that the app is a great way to try new food establishments and I feel good that I’m helping to combat food waste.
With COVID-19 hitting the restaurant industry hard, it is hard to keep up with what restaurants are open. While we don’t live in Peekskill, it is a short drive away and offers so many different food options. I did some research and rounded up a list of Peekskill take-out and delivery options. Support local and order take out from one of these Peekskill restaurants and businesses. As always, please check directly with the restaurant for the most up-to-date information. Contact Nancy at NYFoodieFamily@gmail.com if there’s a restaurant that I have missed or the information below needs updating!
Blithe Bagels is a new addition to the Peekskill food scene. Owner Tina Selsky hand makes these bagels. The bagels are low-calorie, at only 200 calories each. They even have a vegan option!
*Order and take-out in person. Cash or credit cards ($10 minimum)
Peaceful Provisions 47 South Water Street Peekskill, NY 10566 (Located inside the Peekskill Brewery)
Peaceful Provisions has recently changed their offerings to prepackaged sets including a Treat Box for 2, Doughnut Box of 2, Doughnut Box of 4, plus merchandise. The doughnut flavors and treats change weekly. They limit orders to one of each box per household.
Boxes range from $8-$18+ depending on the combination of doughnuts being offered that week.
Friday – Sunday: 8:00 AM – 10:30 AM
*Online pre-orders only! Ordering opens up Monday at 12 PM for Friday pick-up, Tuesday at 12 PM for Saturday pick-up, and Wednesday at 12 PM for Sunday pick-up. These doughnuts sell out FAST!!! So, set your alarms and good luck!
Menu They sell over 60 different teas as well as a variety of soups, quiche, sandwiches, salads and sweets.
Tuesday-Friday: 11 AM – 3 PM
Bridgee’s Food Truck is at Kathleen’s Tea Room Wednesday & Friday 11 AM – 5 PM They serve a variety of southern dishes including fried chicken, fried shrimp, mac and cheese, yams and more. You can pre-order on the Kathleen’s Tea Room online menu.
They have a limited food menu that includes wings, pizza, burgers, salads and more.
They have five family style takeout options (that feed four) including Mac N’ Cheese ($18), Family Wings ($20), Family Style PB Burgers w/fries (($60), Family Style Kale Salad ($16) and Family Style Kale Salad with Chicken ($26).
You can purchase single cans or six-packs of their brews as well as canned wines and spirits.
The coffeehouse reopened May 18th. Get your favorite coffee to go as well as crepes, paninis, salads and baked goods. They also sell bags of coffee beans, merchandise and crepe batter and crepe kits for you to make your own at home.
Sunday – Saturday 7AM – 5 PM
Order online – Credit/Debit only – no cash
FOOD:
The Beanrunner Cafe 201 South Division Street Peekskill, NY 10566 (914) 737-1701
Menu The cafe serves a variety of breakfast options (served until 11 AM) as well as sandwiches, soups, salads and more. Check their Instagram for daily specials.
Daily: 8 AM – 4 PM
Curbside pick-up – Call to order
Birdsall House 970 Main Street Peekskill, NY 10566 (914) 930-1880
Daily: 12-8 PM Pick-Up and Curbside Delivery Please call and order directly from the restaurant.
Fin & Brew 5 John Walsh Boulevard Peekskill, NY 10566 (914) 788-4555
Take Out Menu Includes a variety of appetizers, pizzas and sandwiches as well as a couple of entree specials (Brisket Dinner for 2 – $40 or 4 – $75, Hanger Steak $29 and Steelhead Trout $27)
Cocktails and beer also available
Friday-Sunday: 12 PM – 8 :15 PM Take out and Delivery
Order online
Gleason’s 911 South Street Peekskill, NY 10566 (914) 401-1950
To-Go Menu Check out this Italian restaurant’s website. They offer a variety of specials including a customizable Family Dinner Pack for 4 ($40) as well as a $12 Pasta & Salad special and a $20.20 Dinner Duo.
Birdsall Market Pick-Up at Birdsall House Beer Garden 970 Main Street Peekskill, NY 10566
A collaboration between Birdsall House, Gleason’s, Exurbanist and Ride! Peekskill. Order one of their ten different boxes (including breakfast sandwich, craft beer, date night, fried chicken picnic and more. They even offer a plant-based vegan gyros box).
Friday pick-up/delivery between 1-4 PM Delivery to Peekskill, Cortlandt, Montrose, Buchanan and Verplanck only ($5 charge) Can pick-up at Kaia Yoga (Westport, CT) for $7 charge
*Must pre-order by Wednesday for Friday pick-up/delivery
(NY Foodie Family was invited to attend a Tasting event at the newly opened Mike’s Organic Market. As always, all opinions are our own.)
After 10 years of delivering organic groceries to the Fairfield, Connecticut and surrounding Westchester area, Mike’s Organic Delivery has opened a market!
Meet Mike Geller. A Greenwich, CT native, he founded Mike’s Organic Delivery in 2009. His mission is to make it easy for people to eat clean and wholesome food by delivering it right to their doorstep. During the ten years of owning his delivery business, he’s fostered partnerships with farmers, fishermen and other artisans and producers. He and his team hand-pick only the best products to offer his customers They are able to continue Mike’s mission but now are able to give customers the ability to shop for themselves.
The market, located in an commercial park in Stamford, is housed in part of a brick building that formerly served as their grocery delivery service headquarters. The warehouse gives the market an industrial vibe.
Part of the decor pays homage to Mike’s time spent bow hunting while he was living in Africa. His experience working and living in the Kalahari Desert helped to inspire the launch of his business.
You will see their slogan “Your Organic is Showing” throughout the space and branded on gear, like this cute tote bag. Mike states the slogan dates back to the origins of Mike’s Organic Delivery and was the slogan for the first t-shirt he made. He thought it was fun, catchy and memorable and it’s just stuck over the years.
Inside the Market, the shelves are stocked with the highest quality, small batch, artisanal products that Mike and his team can find. We found many locally made products in the store like Farmer Orzo and Spinach Rotini from Northern Farmhouse Pasta, handcrafted right in the Catskills. In the freezer section you can find ice cream from Arethusa Farm in Litchfield, CT and the dairy case includes milk from the Bethel Creamery.
And, of course, we can’t forget about the produce! The market only sells organic, seasonal fruit and vegetables from local farms.
The corn, from Saunderskill Farm (where we went strawberry picking this summer!), is so sweet you can eat it uncooked and right off the cob.
We discovered at this event that fresh, seasonal produce doesn’t need much to taste good.
Grilled organic mini bell peppers, gazpacho, and Persian cucumber salad are all easy to make and highlight the freshness of the ingredients. If you need some cooking inspiration, you can find plenty of recipes on the Mike’s Organic website.
The showstopper of the evening was the wagyu beef. The beef was first cooked sous vide earlier in the day and then seared for a few minutes before serving. According to my husband, it was the most buttery, tender rib-eye that he’s tasted.
There’s a cute little play area for little ones to shop and cook their own food while their parents shop. Mike doesn’t want the space to be just be a market. His goal is to make it a learning and wellness center as well by providing classes and programs that encourage healthy living and eating. His plans include pop-up chef dinners, partnering with local restaurants and businesses to provide classes and more.
Some fun, already planned upcoming events include:
September 19th, 7-10 PM:Nola @ the warehouse pre-event to the 2019 Greenwich Wine + Food Festival – Mike’s Organic Market is kicking off its fall event season…New Orleans style! Hometown legend Pete Francis (founder of Dispatch) will perform a special concert at the warehouse featuring his brand new song “Belong to the Band,” whose music video was shot in The Big Easy. The event will showcase signature New Orleans cuisine including Oyster Po’ Boy Sandwiches, Warm Beignets (a la Cafe Du Monde) and more prepared by culinary genius Chef Geoff Lazlo and utilizing the finest locally sourced ingredients from Mike’s. A portion of the proceeds will go to clean up efforts in New Orleans.
October 6th, 9 AM – 2 PM: Sheep Shearing Day – a fun-filled fest for the whole family where the kids can meet Farmers Pete and Carol from Sepe Farm and watch a live sheep shearing. The event will offer food tastings, crafts for the kids and a Sunday Market loaded with baked goods.
October 17th, 7 – 10 PM: Oktoberfest – the ultimate Pig Roast in collaboration with farmer-owned butcher shop The Piggery. Two Roads Brewing Company will provide brew tastings and Chef Lazlo will roast the pig and create farm to table masterpieces.
Be sure to check out the new Mike’s Organic Market in Stamford for all of your organic, locally sourced produce and healthy foods!
The Details: Mike’s Organic Market 377 Fairfield Avenue, Building 1 Stamford, CT 06902 (203) 832-3000 Hours: Open Monday – Friday, 9 AM – 4 PM
Parking: Plenty of free parking outside the market
Our family loves food halls! Food halls are an upscale equivalent to a mall food court. We love having a variety of food options available but being able to eat together in one location. We’ve been to City Kitchen and Urbanspace Vanderbilt in New York City multiple times. So when we heard that Hudson Valley Food Hall was opening in Beacon, we of course had to check it out.
Hudson Valley Food Hall is located at 288 Main Street in Beacon. The building was formerly inhabited by the Roosevelt Theater. The food hall is directly across from the Howland Public library and Glazed Over Doughnuts. From northern Westchester County it was approximately a 35 minute drive.
We planned to have a late lunch at the Hudson Valley Food Hall and arrived at 1:45 PM. The place was fairly busy when we got there. There are several food options from six different food vendors:
Bombay Wraps
Green House Salads
Hudson Valley Seafood
Katie Rose Bakery
Miz Hattie’s Southern BBQ
and Momo Valley.
Our first stop was Bombay Wrap, which also had the longest line during our visit. We opted for The Big Meal which includes rice with a choice of sauce, roti, two subji (fillings/mains), a samosa and a drink for $12.99. For our subji we got the Chicken Curry and Paneer Tikka, on the recommendation of the cashier. When we asked for his suggestions, he mentioned that these are two of their popular dishes. Everything was delicious but a bit spicy. That was fine with us, but the kids aren’t huge fans of spicy food. Overall, I think it’s a great value for the price.
We then stopped at the Momo Valley stand. Momos are South Asian dumplings native to areas like Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal. Established in 2018, besides momos, Momo Valley offers a noodle soup bowl, a chicken over rice bowl and an Everest platter (Nepal’s national fish that includes lentil soup, rice, veggies, dry curried meat, fermented daikon or carrots, and sautéed greens).
We opted to share a mixed momo bowl, which includes two grass-fed beef, two chicken and two spinach and cheese momos for $10. The momos are served steamed, though you can get them fried for an additional cost. We liked how each momo flavor is wrapped differently to differentiate them.
The Hudson Valley Food Hall doesn’t have a liquor license yet, so no alcohol is served. The plan is for the Roosevelt Bar to serve cocktails which showcase local spirits made in the Hudson Valley. At the time of this posting, the food hall still did not know when they will receive their liquor license. For now, it’s an ice cream and soda bar.
We tried a peach and basil soda. The syrups come from More Good, a local Beacon company that, besides hand-crafted soda syrup concentrates, also sells a variety of teas and bitters. A 16 oz. soda is $2.95 and besides Peach and Basil, other flavors include Concord Grape, Cherry Cola, Root Beer, Ginger Ale and Cassia Kream. We loved how the serve the sodas in a glass with a metal straw.
Although we did not try any ice cream, the menu looks delicious! The ice cream is homemade from the Mapleview Cafe in Poughkeepsie.
The food hall is narrow with limited seating. There is an upstairs dining space with a couple of additional tables and chairs.
We enjoyed the couple of items that we tried during our visit. We like how the food hall aims to showcase chefs and food from around the Hudson Valley. However, we wished that there was more unique food offerings. Overall, we are very happy to see a food hall in the area and wish the Hudson Valley Food Hall great success!
The Details: Hudson Valley Food Hall 288 Main Street Beacon, NY 12508
Hours: 11 AM – 9 PM, 7 days a week Hudson Valley Seafood is open 9 AM – 6 PM Once the Roosevelt Bar opens, food vendors will be staying open later
Parking: Street parking – see tip below
Tips: *Expect to wait a few minutes for your food, especially during busy times.
*Main Street on a weekend in Beacon is BUSY! We recommend taking the first available parking spot you find and hope you are good at parallel parking! We parked a few blocks down from the food hall and made the short walk.
* The Beacon Farmer’s Market takes place on Sundays from 10 AM – 3 PM, right down the street from the Hudson Valley Food Hall. After you enjoy lunch at the food hall, you can make a stop at the market to stock up on veggies, baked goods, cheese and much more!
