Crazy Sunday, recovering Monday

Sorry for not posting last night, I ended up going out. So here is the recap of the last 2 days...

I woke up yesterday with nothing on the agenda. I still can't sleep past 9am even on a weekend, but that's ok because that means a longer day off :)

I started thinking about breakfast. I prefer to make something a bit more complicated on weekends because I have the leisure of time on my hands, but yesterday I woke up craving a lox sandwich. You've seen this before a few times over the last few weeks, and it still hasn't gotten old :) I did try to make it a little more exciting by trying a new presentation (I know, fancy!).

Just like last time I used The Baker wholegrain flaxseed bread with 1 tablespoon of Philadelphia whipped cream cheese and 1 oz of smoked salmon. Today I cut it into little pieces to make it more visually appealing, but actually it made it really fun to eat too! Completed with a cup of coffee with skim milk and about a teaspoon of agave nectar.





This was uncomplicated but totally hit the spot! Great breakfast! I'm sorry to tell you this but you're going to have to see this one again. I'm still kind of addicted to this nutty bread combined with the creamy texture of cream cheese and lox.

LUNCH

As expected, for lunch I utilized the leftover peanutty chicken from Saturday's lunch. This chicken combined with my Annie's goddess dressing obsession inspired a simple salad:



This salad included spinach, grape tomatoes, cucumbers and the chicken + 1 tablespoon of Annie's organic goddess dressing. Pretty nice!

And then this is when it all turned around. My husband and I were watching a local restaurant review show (Phantom Gourmet) and we were both just drooling over everything they were showing. I usually like to watch these shows while eating, because I'm not hungry, but this time this trick did not work. I felt so defeated and slightly depressed because I just desperately wanted to eat out. I felt like this whole week when I thought I was happy by eating healthy I was really just lying to myself and waiting for a chance to eat out again. This was not a good way of thinking so I made an executive decision (after all, I make all the rules about my diet!) and decided that this was the right time to go out. We both really wanted it, I've been very healthy the last week, I exercised and I'm healthy in general (I'm trying to lose weight for aesthetics, not for health reasons). My husband was very happy to hear the news! So we started looking for a restaurant and narrowed it down to a few and decided to not eat anything else until then so we're really hungry and are truly enjoying our night out!

Fast forward to dinner...

DINNER

We ended up at a restaurant just a few blocks away from our house, Eastern Standard. This place is highly rated and had the vibe we were looking for. So here is my review...

By the time we got to the restaurant, I was absolutely starving. I was actually in pain I was so hungry (this wasn't by design... it kind of hit me out of no-where). Luckily they brought the bread right away and I started with a ww roll:



We also ordered a bottle of wine and while waiting for that and our appetizer I ate another piece of bread (slice of ww, not pictured)... I was still hungry.

For appetizer, we wanted to split an order of fried calamari (I know, not healthy, but that's what my husband wanted and I decided to call it a true splurge night so I agreed). Here is the whole plate:



Unfortunately they were waaay too fried. All I could taste was the grease, so I had about 3 rings and put the fork down. It wasn't worth it to eat something I really didn't like. Too bad!

For my main course I ordered housemade cavatelli with broccoli rabe, mushrooms and chicken confit. The waitress said it was her favorite dish on the menu so I decided to go for it. Here is my plate... not a large portion, which I like because it was instant portion control and made it look kind of fancy :)



Unfortunately this wasn't anything to write home about either. It wasn't bad but it didn't taste special, if that makes sense. It actually reminded me of something my mom would make, which was a good dish but again just an everyday thing, not special. I ate the whole thing nonetheless. At this point my husband asked me if I'd go back to this restaurant. I said I wasn't crazy about my meal, but I would. I enjoyed the atmosphere and we were having a good time. He loved his steak frittes, btw! Some restaurants I write off right away after not liking a dish, others I give a chance if the atmosphere is nice or the service is special. Our waitress was very good, btw. Then I said I wanted to order dessert (because I can't really give a full review fo a restaurant without trying out their dessert :D ) and since I practically didn't eat any of the appetizer and my entree was small-ish, I felt justified. So this is when I said if dessert wasn't good, then I wouldn't go back, because that would mean that everything I had was either mediocre or worse.

For the first time in recent history I was willing to order dessert that wasn't chocolate. For the most part when I look at dessert menus I pick out the ones that have chocolate. Usually there is either 1 or 2 so the choice is very easy (I hate restaurants that have no chocolate desserts, but luckily those are rare). Well last night I actually read the entire dessert menu and truly the chocolate espresso torte sounded the best. I went with the chocolate option after all. Figures. Here is what arrived on our table a few minutes later:



I was instantly dissapointed when I saw this because I prefer warm chocolate cakes. This wasn't one of them. Worse when I tasted it, it was completely bland. Very airy and quite flavoreless. Well you could taste the espresso, but it was like espresso flavored air. Bleh! I just stared at it, wondering what I should do. It seriously broke my heart. I was so excited about this dinner all day long and every single one of my courses just did not measure up. My husband quickly offered to go somewhere else for dessert. He said it would be fun and he wanted to continue the night anyway! We were having a really good time (except for the food part for me). I put my fork down... for while... and then I picked the ganache off from the top and side (that was the only part that was good). After finishing our bottle of wine, we left the restaurant in search of another spot with dessert. So yeah, I would NOT go back there.

We ended up at Z-Square in Kenmore square. I've been there before at a dinner with Kath. The dish I ordered last time I wasn't crazy about (it wasn't bad but again not great... hmm, am I too picky?!) but this was a place I was willing to give another chance + it was close by. I ordered a warm chocolate cake and a glass of Chianti :) Here is the cake:



Much better!!! It wasn't the best dessert I've ever had but it definitely filled the void. I was much happier after that. The only thing, I wanted MORE. I wanted to go to Panera (across the street from us) and get a brownie. But thankfully my husband knows me really well and wouldn't let me go.

Anyways, obviously my streak is over. Today was really tough to get back to being healthy. I tried all day until I broke down and had a bunch of trail mix. I just hate that one night off throws me off like that. One day I'll figure it out...

I won't bore you with the details of today since this was a long post already so here are a few pics with today's eats and I'll be back tomorrow with a "back-to-normal" post.



















Good night!

Busy day - cooking for company

My sister was in town yesterday and I asked her to come over and help me go over the design of my wedding album (it's a lot of work and she's much better at this stuff than I am!). She asked me to cook dinner and of course I agreed :D I cook a lot for me and my husband but when other people come over there is just slightly a bit more pressure, even if it's just family. I know they say never to serve a new dish to your guests, but I wanted to make something that I wouldn't normally make just for the two of us. I figured I'll make a few things and if one of them is bad at least there will be enough of other stuff to fill the guests. I think it worked! By let me back track to lunch and the preparations for dinner...

LUNCH

While looking through my recipe books (and online) I got hungry. I planned on making brussels sprouts and some chicken. I used this recipe for the chicken and this recipe for the brussels sprouts. Both came out really great!

I skipped the peach chutney suggested in the chicken recipe (didn't even notice that we needed it when I skimmed through the recipe for our grocery list) and we didn't miss it. The chicken breasts only took about 1/2 of the panko/peanut mixture, so each serving came out to a bit less calories than is specified on the bottom of the recipe (works for me!). It was crunchy and delicious! We have some leftovers, which may or may not end up on top of my salad today :D

The brussels sprouts were a huge success too. My husband said he was "ok" with brussels sprouts but he absolutely loved these ones. Heidi (from 1o1 cookbooks) says this recipe turns brussels sprout haters into lovers and I can see why! The parmesan cheese finishing is key. It really makes them extra special for a minimal amount of calories.

So here are a few pictures of lunch:

Brussels sprout branch... so cool looking!



Btw, I cooked all the sprouts off this branch with 1/2 the oil & cheese in the recipe, so this came out to 2 servings.

And my plate:



Close up of the yummy parmesan sprouts:



While I was preparing this lunch I munched on some baby carrots.



Oh and of course there was dessert :)



This was a really great treat and really filled me up. The piece of chocolate is quite big for just 100 calories. The quality was also very good and there was a fun fact in the back: 1 piece of this chocolate, as pictured, has more anti-oxidants than 1/2 cup of blueberries or blackberries... I think this means I should consume more of it :D

Another weird thing that happened with this chocolate... there were only 4 pieces in the package when there should have been 5! I was quite upset about this because clearly some thief in the store dug into the box without my knowledge. If this wasn't as delicious I wouldn't be as mad, but now I'll just have to go back for more sooner. Well I hope the little thief enjoyed one of these babies as much as I did. Shame on you though!

And then we were off to the grocery store for dinner ingredients...

DINNER

On dinner menu for the night:

- beef meatball sliders
- cornmeal crusted roasted vegetable tart
- make your own salad
- raspberry brownies
- pomegranate martinis and wine

It was quite the project cooking all of this in our small-ish kitchen with just 1 oven. But actually I was able to manage my time very well. Cooking for company can get a bit stressful but last night turned out well. I guess I got lucky! Here are a few pics of the process...

Beef meatballs waiting for the oven to free up...



I followed the recipe to the T, except cutting it by 1/3 (we made 20 meatballs instead of 30). They were sooo good! I think the best part of dinner!!

The vegetable tart was also competing for oven space. Here are a few pics of the process...

Raw veggies cuts up (the recipe didn't call for mushrooms but we all love mushrooms so I threw them in):


Tart crust weighted down by rice (the shadow looks like a bunny... hehe):


Tart crust baked:


Roasted veggies, cooling:


Me assembling the tart (while the meatballs are baking):


And here it is before topping it with cheese:


With cheese, pre-baking:


And this is the salad "bar". I figured since different people like different toppings and dressings, I'll just put a few options on the table and each person can make their own. It worked quite well! The salad ingredients included organic mixed greens, grape tomatoes, sliced cucumber, dried cranberries, roasted sunflower seeds, goat cheese(!) and Annie's goddess dressings (regular and green goddess).



Onto actual dinner... We bought mini whole wheat pitas to make "meatball sliders." It was my husband's genius idea! Again we left it to our guests to assemble them. Here is my first slider:



I also had another meatball "straight up." Oh and I was drinking some red wine with dinner. I think I had about 6oz throughout the night. My mom and husband were drinking the pomegranate martinis. I had a sip and it was super good. I will definitely have one (or more) of these when I'm not counting calories!

While we were eating the meatballs the tart was baking in the oven. Here it is finally ready! It did look very nice. That's what I mean when I say it's too fancy for just me and my husband.



I had 1/8 of the tart (1 serving) + some salad (mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, goat cheese with 1/2 T of goddess dressing):



Here is the feedback on the tart my husband and guests... it needed more cheese and the crust was a bit too dry. I think this is a pretty good base for a recipe but it definitely needs some tweaking. Some of the recommendations included layering either cheese or sauce between the crust and the first layer of veggies (the crust crumbled a bit so something to moisten it would help... I need to find something other than butter to moisten it :D ). Some of the reviews on the website mentioned that more cheese was used, but in the spirit of keeping things healthy I wanted to try it out for myself first with the suggested amount of cheese. I agree, more cheese would have been better (but when is it ever not the case?!). Overall I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't a huge success since it was the star of the show. But I think in general people enjoyed it and I'm glad I finally tried this recipe (it was on my to-make list for a while!).

Onto dessert...

I made the raspberry brownies before and these are my husband's favorite! He claims he's not a dessert person but he actually ate most of them last time around and requested that I make them again. I put this together over the last few days (it's easy you just need time to let things cool/freeze). Here are a few pics of the process.

No pudge original brownie mix with 5.5 oz of dannon nonfat yogurt and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, all mixed in the bowl (oh yeah, licking the bowl is the best part!)


Mixture going into the pan:


Brownies baked, ready to cool:


I let them cool like that in the pan for a few hours then covered them with tin foil and left them in the pantry for a day and a half until I was ready to finish this. A day and a half later I left the sherbert on the counter to soften a bit, then topped the brownies with a healthy layer of it, and covered with sprinkles as such:


Final product after being frozen for a day:


And my piece last night for dessert :) It came out better than last time. I loved it (and my husband and guests did too) !!! This is a fat free dessert but it definitely doesn't taste fat free.



After the stressful task of going over my wedding album layout (I get so weirdly stressed out... I just want it to be perfect!) I got hungry again (I guess it's been a few hours since dinner) so I grabbed a serving of my favorite trail mix:



I wanted more food (or more chocolate to be exact!) but I fought the urge and just made some peppermint tea. I actually ended up only having a few sips of it before going to bed. I probably should have skipped on the trail mix too, but I thought I was going to stay up longer and really was hungry. It could have been worse!

Here is the total for the day...

NYC STREAKING CHALLENGE:

Calories (1200-1650) - 1723 - ok, since I allowed myself 1 day with extra 100 calories.
Fitness - rest day
Water - DONE- I think I had at least 10 cups
F/Vs - DONE- banana, baby carrots, brussels sprouts, mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms

I'll start a new post with today's breakfast and other eats since this one has been probably too long already :) Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Save the best for last

I woke up absolutely exhausted this morning! Somehow I still went to bed late last night and this must stop! So yeah, the second I got to work, I made coffee... and enjoyed it with some leftover banana pancakes with a tablespoon of russian condensed milk. Delicious!





My pre-workout snack was 1/2 cup of TJ's european style nonfat yogurt with 1/2 banana and some pb granola. Very yummy stuff, but I wanted more. So I also had a clemantine I grabbed at the spa yesterday :) No picture, sorry. I'm still shy about taking pictures at work when people are around me. If you have a food blog, how do you do it? Was it weird at first? Did you have to explain yourself or just avoided the situtation by not taking pictures?



During lunch I hit the gym... on the agenda today was an abs class + spinning. It's been a few weeks since I've spinned and it was tough! I definitely felt it in my legs. Hopefully that means I burnt a bunch of calories :) I think it's time to buy an HRM to better monitor how hard I work. I felt it was a tough workout but how does it compare to the elliptical, running, etc.?

Here is lunch: a turkey/avocado/tomato sandwich on a homemade bagel. This thing was mes-sy!



The bagel was quite small but I still loaded it up so all the veggies were falling out, and then I tried to eat it open faced but it was still a mess. It think it was delicious but I was too distracted. And yes, there were some baby carrots involved...

And for dessert, I ate this:



Not the wrapper, I ate the actual candy :) Again, I was too shy to take a picture so I just saved the wrapper. These things are pretty good. Well, they are exactly the same as a regular snickers bar but smaller, so they definitely satisfied my craving for some real dessert. I could have another dozen of them though...

And a few hours later, I prepared my second snack of the day: little hummus wraps with some shredded carrots. These are as good as it gets when there is no chocolate or peanut/almond butter.


(1 1/2 TJ's low carb wrap + 2 tablespoons of Sabra hummus + some carrots)

I ate them like so:



Dinner was the best meal of the day! We had some chicken and mushrooms in the fridge that I wanted to use up so I immediately decided to cook something chicken marsala-ish. I went back to a recipe I've tried before that received 3 smiley faces (our measure of goodness). I used this recipe from Cooking Light but substituted the mushrooms for asparagus and steamed some potatoes on the side. I mashed the potatoes and added some skim milk and s&p to them. What a delicious meal! Oh, I only used 1/2 tablespoon of butter for 3 servings of chicken. It was really really good. I stand behind my original 3 smiley face rating!



I have another serving of the chicken left. I think there is a delicious salad with chicken in my near future... um um um.

I'm really going to try to go to bed early tonight. We'll see...