Wafels and Pies

I've been wanting to try Wafels & Dinges for the longest time - not only does it have a cool name, is sold out of a food truck, it has also been said to be quite delicious. My friend promised me he would take me one day via Twitter (source of all things true), and the Waffletruck concurred it was a good idea. I had been waiting for that day...which finally came last Monday!

Speaking of things good and delicious, at the last place that I worked, I saw a sign for Pie Face opening soon. It's an Australian chain which I had read about earlier because there was a day that they were giving out free pies...but alas they were too far away from where I worked :( BUT THEY STILL HAVE NOT OPENED THERE!!! I did run into one while walking down through Times Square one night (**cringes at thought of crowds in Times Square**), but we did not have time to wait on line that night [insert another sad face here]. 

Last Monday though, the universe decided to give me an evening of epic food adventuring, and not only did we make it to the Wafel truck, we also had time to pick up some pies from Pie Face on the way home.

I decided to go with the classic "Throwdown" at the Wafels & Dinges truck with spekuloos (like peanut butter and Nutella had a baby with extra spices) and whipped cream. I am actually getting hungry just writing about it right now...

The Wafel "Throwdown"

Then at Pie Face (do you hear the angels singing right now?), I decided to go with the Minced Beef & Tomato pie...STACKED!!! What does it mean to get your pie stacked you ask? It means that the pie of your choice is topped with mashed potatoes, gravy & mashed peas. How could I not get my pie stacked?!?! And the woman was so excited that I chose to do so too...she did a sort of "I get to make a stacked pie" dance. I'm all for dancing, so it was all good. I almost started dancing down the streets myself, but had to stop lest I spilled or mussed up my pie at all.

The wait was worth it for all of the above. I can't wait until the next time I come across the wafel truck or the next time I drag someone to Pie Face with me :)

Pie Face!!!!!

Eating Devouring my pie on the train - classy as always

Happy Halloween

After pigging out all day on all things sweet at work, I figured now would be as good a time as any to finally add a new post! Sadly, this seems to be the trend in how all my latest posts start as school and work are kicking my butt. 

But enough of the sob story, moving on to better and more interesting (at least I think so) things.

While today is actually Halloween day, most revelers celebrate over the weekend as Halloween partying tends to hamper productivity in work or school the next day, and despite what the 99% occupying Wall Street are saying, most, or at least many people do still have work during the week. I've been debating what to do over the weekend and if I really wanted to make the trek all the way out to Brooklyn or not - I know, it's really not THAT far, but I'm really THAT lazy. 

Lucky for me, Mother Nature gave me the perfect excuse. While I was at work during Saturday day, it started to snow. Part of me is like, wtf Mother Nature, really? Snow before Halloween? And the other part of me is celebrating, because it made for an excellent excuse to not make the trek to...anywhere outside in the cold - even though I had back-up costumes that were pretty warm, considering Halloween has become an excuse for girls to...not really wear clothes. 

What I did instead was, as soon as I got home from work, change out of my work clothes and into leggings and a comfy sweater, don my fluffy robe, and settle down on the couch with my laptop and some movies. It's a wonder that I even got up for anything, but, my stomach rules all, and I did end up getting up a few times for food. What sort of food you ask? Well, even if you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you:

First things first - Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate w/ mini marshmallows. I mean, c'mon, it's the first snow of the season! Hot Chocolate is a must. Pair with the hot chocolate was a bag of Sea Salt Baked Lentil Chips - makes me feel like I'm being healthy because they're so light and because the bag is telling me that they're good for me...and oh so delicious! I ate the entire bag...and it was no "mini" bag either. Next, I found some curry ramen into which I added an egg that was cooked just right - not too fully cooked, but cooked enough that the yolk was thick when I broke the egg. Mixed in perfectly with the rest of the soup and noodles. What's a meal without dessert? Next came some tea with some Strawberry Rhubarb pie from Briermere Farms (it's like my family's mecca - we make at least 1 or 2 trips out there every year...once in the spring, once in the fall). However, 2 movies and an episode of How I Met Your Mother plus buffer time (they were online), is quite a long period of time, and near the end, my sweet tooth was acting up again. So, being that it was Halloween weekend, I nabbed the candy basket and proceeded to dig in. 

I haven't figured out yet whether it's a good or bad thing that I don't have any picture evidence of what transpired that night. When my family came home and looked over the scene in disbelief, my only explanation was, "I celebrated Halloween by myself...this had to happen."

And now today, with my giant spider earrings, I'm at it again (though in a much smaller scale) with bagels, munchkins (I stopped myself from going after actual donuts), and this pile of candy and a mini cupcake.

My work stash

Happy Halloween!

Fried Rice & Pie in Berlin

It was a rainy morning in Berlin...rather, I suppose by the time we woke up it was more like a rainy afternoon. Regardless of time, we were pretty spent from the touring and eating we did during the Doner Day before. So we decided to do some home cooking. Did we have rice? check. Garlic? check. Eggs? check.Tomatoes? no...Meat? no... supermarket? close enough. FIELD TRIP!!!

One of my favorite things to do when I visit another country is to go grocery shopping. Actually, that's one of my favorite things to do at home too...and let me just say, that grocery shopping on an empty stomach is a dangerous thing to do. So I get the directions for how to the local market, and I "suit up" (<3 NPH) in my hoodie, equipped with a canvas bag b/c it seems that every country charges for plastic bags except the USA, and head out.

I pick up what I need for making fried rice, and then start hunting for ingredients to make a version of Nestle's Mini Custard Fruit Tarts. I found the recipe online a few years ago, and made them for Thanksgiving when my cousin was visiting...he was such a fan, that I think I ended up making them into full pies instead of mini tarts at least 3 times that weekend. The best part is, the recipe is super simple and can be easily substituted with other ingredients. A few substitutions had to be made here because apparently they don't have graham crackers in Germany, and I had to take a stab at some of the other ingredients because, well, I can't read German.

Since I'm on dessert, I'm going to Tarantino it and work my way back from the end:

Preparing the crust...

Custard

Crust pre-bake

Crust post-bake w/ filling

Final product!

It's dessert time!

My little helpers hard at work - there's no such thing as a free meal!

The set-up and fried rice process & result:

Not the best fried rice I've ever made - which I'm going to chalk up to circumstance, BUT was at least passable. And dessert was a hit, which totally made up for it and gave us all the energy to embark on our adventures around Berlin afterwards.