By looking through 260+ pictures I took, it looks like this weekend was as crazy busy as ever. But I can assure you – we definitely spent a few hours just sitting on the porch, soaking in the sunshine and catching up on books that have been gathering some dust over the past few weeks. And of course, we also ate well. Very well. Thank you, Jane and Jim, for being such great hosts! (I also cooked one breakfast and one dinner – cooking is what I love!). So how about a recap? Ready?….

We like breaking up trips that are over 2 hours with fun stops. This weekend was my first time in Potsmouth, NH where I finally got to taste the famous Flatbread flatbreads.

This adorable drawing pretty much says it all My choice of the carne special – pepperoncini oil, organic garlic yogurt marinated chicken, baby spinach, whole milk mozzarella, kalamatta olives, feta cheese, artichokes hearts and herbs was a very good choice. I can’t see it on my camera so here is Adam’s pepperoni + mushroom flatbread (also awesome!).

The place itself is also adorable, very fitting for a super cute town. I want to go back to Portsmouth asap!

The real eating commenced upon our arrival in Maine though…

HEALTHY HOME COOKED MEALS (over 4 days, in no particular order)

Ellie Krieger’s tricolore penne pasta with chicken (recipe here)

Stuffed peppers with eggplant (and parmesan cheese) – recipe here. I had no idea these were somewhat healthy. I limited myself to just one. I may need to recreate them soon to make up for lost time. haha

Dark chocolate bark with walnut and dried cherries (and crystallized ginger) – recipe here. I ate my weight in these. Addictive is an understatement.

Broccoli-cheese (and sausage) breakfast casserole – recipe here

Chobani with fresh strawberries, blueberries and mango

Chobani with wild Maine blueberries, fresh mango, Kashi GoLean crunch cereal + mixed nuts

+ some blackberries Adam freshly picked on the side of the road while I was eating breakfast

Breakfast casserole with mushrooms and asparagus (recipe here, I added more cheese, more veggies than the recipe called for + some fresh lemon juice)

Blueberry tea cake (Adam’s mom has been making it for years… from this recipe?)

Apricot-walnut cereal bars (recipe here, the recipe yields a lot more than 10 servings and they are very delicious!!)

Zucchini rice casserole (recipe here, we subbed broccolini for zucchini and corn – this tasted like sinfully creamy risotto – SO good yet healthy, although apparently time consuming. Thanks for making this, Jane!!)

On Monday night I offered to cook dinner (although it ended up being a whole family effort after all). What’s more Maine than lobster? Adam and I decided that we must eat it every time we come. At $4/lb, fresh out of the water, it doesn’t get much better than this!!

Adam’s dad steamed the lobsters…

I made the lima bean/corn/grape tomato and bacon succotash (based on this recipe, I used 6 corn ears, lemon juice and of course lobster!!)

Mmm, so summery… and so Maine

We bought 5 lobsters – Adam took the meat out of the last one and shared it with all of us. Good job, honey! Adam’s mom made this lovely pear tart from Ellie Krieger (recipe here)

Oh yeah, we ate quite well at home!

THE NOT-SO-HEALTHY MEALS OUT

A super special dinner at Primo. We’ve been dying to go ever since seeing Anthony Bordain go there. Vegetables served in the restaurant are home grown in their extensive gardens and meats, seafood and cheese are mostly local (we spotted some Italian cheeses – who can blame them?!).

The atmosphere was very cozy (read dark soft lighting) so my pictures would not do the food and presentation justice. Here is my favorite serving platter at the charcuterie bar.

The charcuterie board with homemade sausages was my favorite! Adam and I shared it as a starter and it set the right tone for what was to come – more delicious eats! This molten chocolate cake did not dissapoint either. Yes, I know – predictable… but I couldn’t help myself!

Pretty much the exact opposite of Primo was a plate of fried clams we got at Kelly’s on the drive back. I don’t know what was up with me – I actually got this craving. Adam and I shared this plate. You know who ate the onion rings.

OPEN FARM DAY

Food, as always, was kind of the main activity (well eating it at least) but the coolest part of the weekend was visiting 5 different farms all over Maine. There were dozens open for visitors this past Sunday. How lucky was I?!! These pictures should say it all…

This afternoon, before going back to Boston, we picked some wild blackberries for the road.

Slim pickings today. Does that mean we should come back in a few weeks?

The loot:

Another amazing weekend. I feel so fortunate!!

I had lots of time to destress and reevaluate my priorities. Some small changes will be coming to Healthy and Sane. Stay tuned.

- A good dress is powerful. I was tired, stressed yet I felt fantastic. That’s because I knew I looked good. No, I did not instantly drop those damn 15lbs but the wrap dress I had on today hugged me in all the right places and was very forgiving in others. I felt FIERCE. So fierce that when I encountered a very abrasive co-worker, I gave him the verbal equivalent of a middle finger and moved on. Three years ago (or even last week on a bad day) I would have probably cried in the bathroom (or at least wanted to). Today the dress gave me the power that I needed. Go dress! But since this is a food blog, let’s see what else I got going…

- b.good mango smoothie, blended with Amazing Grass chocolate powder, extra ice, milk and some gums makes for a kickass breakfast. I was impressed.

- Sometimes a brownie makes it all better. Today’s fudgy brownie from Whole Foods was not on my “planned” list but it was my one and only dessert. I don’t regret a single bite.

- Sushi bento boxes from Haru make one amazing dinner. I almost didn’t mind that I was eating it at my desk at 10pm instead of being at home with the hubs (not true actually but it was good). I hope I can expense that baby.

- No gym today. Nearly 14 hours of work and yet I feel like I got nothing done. I think my new goal is to hit it every other day. Those reports don’t write themselves and financial statements cannot be analyzed while kicking butt in bootcamp. I AM making it happen tomorrow though. Promise.

Today’s eats….. (oh and last thought of the day - I hate my tripod!!… you’ll see why)

Ok, I have a 7am conference call tomorrow so I’m off to get my beauty sleep. It never stops, folks. Seriously. See you with a Thursday recap tomorrow night. I’m kind of liking this format for super busy nights. You?

As you may have guessed, we spent most of the afternoon/evening trying to clean up the mess. We extracted over 10 gallons of water just out of our carpet in the hallway. Thankfully Adam built up this little barricade between the living room and hallway so at least it prevented the water from going too far into the rest of the place (our bedrooms are dry). Our living room floors are 100% okay (we are still trying to figure out whether there is a risk of mold growing under there, but the carpet is soaking wet days later. The shop vac is unable to extract that much water at this point so we’re not sure what to do.

Anyways, we’ll get through it, I’m sure. Maybe we’ll at least become friends with our new neighbors out of this. They were extremely helpful – unclogged the sewer drain, brought lots of towels and around 7pm on Saturday even brought us dinner, fresh out of their oven. How incredibly nice is that?!!!

We weren’t going to stop until the mess was cleaned up, but when she came over with a hot pan of lasagna and meatballs, we realized we were actually starving. Talk about a random act of kindness. Adam and I couldn’t get over this. Definitely one of the nicest things a stranger has ever done for either one of us.

By the way, my laptop charger got submerged in water and is not currently working so I’m using Adam’s laptop which is painful (switching from a mac to a pc is not as easy as one might think), so I’ll try to keep it brief. Basically, this whole flood in our condo is a metaphor for my life. It been ridiculous at work, I feel like I can’t catch up with anything at home and the last drop in the bucket which I can’t ignore is that I gained so much weight recently that it’s affecting everything from how my clothes fit to my fitness level at the gym and how I generally feel about myself. I stepped on the scale last week and let’s just say that I haven’t seen that number in 4 years (!!!). I’ve been ignoring this issue since then but it’s time to clean up the flood mess!! I am not going to feel bad about myself, I’m going to do something about it. The plan of attack:

- Plan meals for the week and stick to the plan!! It’s ok to make minor adjustments based on taste preferences at the moment but I will stick to 3 meals + 2 snacks + 1 dessert (in moderation) equation until some progress is made in the weight dept.

- No mindless snacking/eating. My hours at home are going to get all out of whack over the next few weeks as I spend majority of my time in the office. That usually means stress eating. As mentioned above, I will make sure to stick to the pre-planned meals and snacks only. When life gets crazy like this, structure should be a good thing. I can do this!!!

- Continue making exercise a priority. I’ve been pretty good about this recently. I hope I can continue to keep it up despite the longer hours at work. I usually need a mental break mid-day anyways. A good sweat session should kill 2 birds with 1 stone (or something along those lines that’s less gross ).

How does this sound? I think it sounds good. I did A LOT of prep work last night for the next few days. Hopefully this builds up the momentum I’ll need.

So since I haven’t blogged in a few days, here are the highlights of this weekend’s eats.

Iggy’s ww bagel with olive jalapeno cream cheese and tomatoes

These tasted like sugar cookies with a pomegranate twist. Amazing!!

Beet/pesto/goat cheese and pecan panini + leftover b.good southwestern chicken salad

Spinach/artichoke hearts and mushroom calzone from Mangia (a treat on Friday night)

It was really delicious. We’ll definitely order from that place again!

I had the leftovers for lunch on Saturday. Yum!

+ Carly’s Confection 7 layer bar with a twist. So much white chocolate goodness. Another amazing treat for sure.

Sunday brunch at Sel de la Terre

Virgin bloody mary (I had to go to work!)

I had 2 of these. They weren’t very spicy but were definitely delicious.

Bread basket - I helped myself to a mini cinnamon roll and a cracker

For my entree I ordered the brioche French toast, strawberries, honey roasted almonds and vanilla butter.

It was really fantastic!! I removed that big butter blob and didn’t use any maple syrup because it was already rich and flavorful on its own. The strawberries were amazingly fresh and sweet as well. The sides of the french toast were perfectly grilled and the middle was kind of goey (souffle like) which normally would gross me out but it was so tasty that I didn’t care about texture. I would order this again in a heart beat (I ate half for brunch and then ate the other half later in the day as a “snack”).

Garlic/thyme smothered pork chop over qunoia and roasted rhubarb (adopted from this recipe).

It was great having a home-cooked meal again! Adam and I ate every morsel of our plates and I can’t wait for leftovers which I plan on making into a sandwich tomorrow.

All right, time for work! I apologize in advance for my random blogging schedule. I’m thinking of doing a picture collage at the end of each day and noting how my plan of attack is working so far. What do you think? Are you up for it?

I’ll be back with a bang in a few weeks. I have some giveaways in the works and a few posts that just need a little more research time. Happy Monday!

Funny enough, I was on the receiving end of a random act of kindness that same day when I got a package in the mail from one of my readers, Carly of So I Married a Chef. It included all sorts of amazing baked goods (see bottom of this post for pictures) and the best note!!

Carly probably didn’t even realize how touching this note was. I think with weather getting nicer, people are spending more time outdoors and less time reading blogs. I know it’s not personal but it’s still hard not to evaluate your “performance” given a drop in readership and comments. Her note reminded me of why I blog. Maybe some of you read because you like my meals, some of you feel like you are following a friend’s daily life and some of you feel inspired in other ways. I can’t believe that *I* can inspire and even help with self-acceptance. Seriously, Carly, you made my day. Heck, week/month. It’s been nearly a week and I’m still touched by this note. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! More on Carly’s treats below (yes, it is a food blog. I remember ).

Speaking of food, let’s check out today’s eats.

BREAKFAST

I’ve been waking up every morning this week craving nothing but Barney Butter. So today I doubled up on my serving.

FFL english muffin, 2 tablespoons of Barney Butter and fresh strawberries + coffee

I love this breakfast. FFL english muffins are so hearty and are a perfect vehicle for BB

MID-MORNING SNACK

Don’t worry, I washed it.

WORKOUT

Still going strong on the workouts front. Today was abs + bootcamp day. We had a substitute instructor who wasn’t great but it was still certainly better than nothing. I just hated doing 3 sets of everything. I like variety in my life and my workouts.

LUNCH

So we have a bunch of b.good leftovers at home. This morning I opened the fridge and wasn’t too excited about the possibility of eating the stuff for days. And then lunch time came and my taste buds quickly reminded me of my I love it so much!

Cousin Oliver slider, which I added chipotle cream to (SOOOOO good; I’m obsessed with that stuff)

Sweet potato fries

… and some southwestern chicken salad

I’ve said before that I could eat this stuff every day, and I think I am getting the chance to prove it. This was a fabulous lunch!!

DINNER

The stars: garlic scapes and beet greens

I’ve never heard of garlic scapes until this year and now I’m seeing them all over the blogworld. Have you ever had them? They are the shoots that grow out of garlic bulbs and they taste super galicky. I LOVE garlic so I bought just one of these guys at the farmers market for a little taste.

I took inspiration from this recipe of garlic scape and beet greens bruschetta, and sauteed both (removing the stems) in 2t of EVOO. I also added 1/2 a can of diced tomatoes and S&P to taste. This whole process took less than 5 minutes and the kitchen smelled heavenly. I LOVE the smell of garlic and EVOO!!

Next I topped 2 slices of Iggy’s whole wheat sourdough bread with 1 laughing cow wedge, the greens/scape/tomato mixture and junks of grilled chicken I picked off the b.good southwestern salad we had left.

Voila, dinner was served!

It was so comforting! Adam had a few bites and said it was restaurant quality. I was pretty proud of my little creation, especially since it came together in less than 10 minutes (which is good since I worked late tonight and was starving!).

For dessert, I finally reached into my stash of Carly’s confections.

I wanted to take a little bite of every one but instead settled on the smallest bar which happened to be the butterscotch & toffee blondie.

Wow. That’s kind of all I have. It was decadent and buttery and was even made with wholesome ingredients. Carly sells her baked goods at the Geauga farmers market in Ohio so if you live in the area, I highly recommend that you stop by there and stock up. I haven’t showed you the closeups of rest of the goods yet so be prepared to drool as I eat my way through them. They look absolutely incredible. Thank you, Carly, again! I feel so lucky!!

Unfortunately late nights at the office leave little time for play. I’m off to bed!

When was the last time you performed a random act of kindness? Also, have you ever received a special gift from a fellow blogger? I love how the food blog-world is such a close-knit community. It’s the best!

This was risky for sure, but it seemed to make sense. Neither one of us met anyone to-date that tried tart frozen yogurt from the likes of Pinkberry, Berryline and Red Mango and didn’t completely fall in love. In fact as the days were starting to warm up, our own experience showed that trips to froyo shops were becoming more and more frequent… and Northampton (in fact Western Mass in our knowledge) did not have one single froyo shop! Molly and Alex wanted to do it the right way too – use local ingredients as much as possible. Northampton has a really strong local culture so we both agreed this would not have been lost on their customers. After long hours at the tasting facility and a trip to Northampton where they found the perfect spot for their shop, they were off. Just like that.

Fast-forward to yesterday, when on our trip back from our little getaway at the Old Inn on the Green in New Marlborough in Massachusetts (which was overall a very disappointing experience – I’d rather just move on instead of talking about it here. The food was the only thing that was good. Let’s leave it at that.) we stopped by Amherst and Northampton. We drove around our old UMass campus. It was actually quite timely because Adam and I met there. We drove by our first dorm, then our sophomore year one and reminisced about the old times. It was somewhat incidental, though, that the trip there fell on our wedding anniversary (July 5th) because you probably guessed by now what the main destination was – Molly and Alex’s 7-week old froyo shop in Northampton – Go Berry. Seeing it was surreal and I nearly hopped inside after seeing the gorgeous, clean store front.

Let’s take a peak inside…

It was a lot larger and more spacious than I imagined. I loved the giant windows and all the natural light they allowed. (M&A agree that the space is larger than they currently need but this was an old Cold Stone location that they couldn’t pass up, and hopefully if they expand into a few other offerings, like waffles, the space will be utilized).

We hugged, got a quick tour of the back area, where one of the workers was chopping fresh strawberries for toppings, and then got to tasting. Original, strawberry and coconut were flavors of the day. Each was amazing – creamy and delicious just like froyo we all learned to love. Molly mentioned that many shops add water to their recipe to bulk it up – at Go Berry they only use skim milk, fat free yogurt, sugar and natural emulsifiers. No water = creamier texture. Adam and I agreed – this was perfect (I’d compare it to Berryline – our favorite froyo in Boston)! Now that we confirmed that the yogurt was good, we moved on to the toppings – there were so many of them, and some I’ve never seen before. I love froyo!!

Adam always gets the same thing: small original with strawberries and oreos. He was a happy customer.

I almost always get a small original (or half with nutella or coconut – if available) with mango and pecans. This time there were so many toppings I couldn’t wait to try that I went all out. Here is my beast (the girl needed to use a medium cup to fit all my toppings in )

Half original/half coconut frozen yogurt with fresh mango, walnuts, toffee and toasted coconut (the 2 last ones were toppings I haven’t seen before and I loved them both – they really made this taste like an even more special treat)

See, there is some fruit over there

I ate every single delicious bite and could keep eating if we didn’t have dinner plans later on. You know that natural fat-free froyo can be a meal, right?

Photo time with the owners. Say cheese

Nope. One more time…

Ok, got it!

It was amazing to catch up with Molly and Alex and see their dream come to fruition. The shop is gorgeous, the yogurt is amazingly tasty and they seem to continue having a blast together despite the hard work that owning a small business obviously is (oh and their wedding is just 2 months away!).

If you are in Western Mass area, definitely swing by Northampton and give Go Berry a try. I am obviously biased but I give you my word – it’s good!!

What’s your favorite froyo flavor? What’s your favorite topping?

PS – Molly reads my blog, so if you have any questions for her, I bet she’ll be able to answer them soon.

So I wanted to talk today about something that I recently noticed about myself… I am a true Internet addict. Yes, many of us spend quite a bit of our time online (especially bloggers!) but for me the problem is that… once I pop, I can’t stop! Okay, maybe that exact expression is more fitting for chips, but seriously… if I allow myself “just 1 minute” to check the email, several hours pass by and its way past my bedtime. I check an email – that leads to a website, or twitter… and you know where that gets you. Twitter is not exactly productive. I’ve been trying to set a strict “bed time” but it’s not working. Anyone else is an Internet addict? I know at least a few of you are. Any tips of how to take it a little easier, or at least help with the whole “get in bed at a reasonable hour so you don’t look and feel like a zombie in the morning”?

You know what helps a bit in the morning though?

BREAKFAST!

How do you like that segway? Oh I crack myself up…

2 When Pigs Fly maple, pineapple, raisin with toasted sesame and ginger toasts with crunchy Barney Butter and a kiwi

Yum, yum, yum. Sweet and sour. Time for work!

MID-MORNING SNACKS

Shelling peas and 1 almond stuffed medjool date (unpictured – I’ll snap a few photos of my new date stuffing method for a future post).

WORKOUT

So Wednesday was my first workout in a week. Yikes! I took a super hard spin class and vowed to never take such a long break from working out again. It was due to a combination of going away for the weekend and work being super busy. Yesterday, I went back for more – this time for an abs + RIPPED class. Basically a crazy awesome bootcamp that I totally thought I couldn’t handle but somehow came out alive out of. The instructor was making fun of me a bit because I kept screwing up. She knows I haven’t been there in a few weeks and we both saw the pretty obvious consequences of such actions. She’s out on vacation next week, but I am going to ace these bootcamp classes again. I used to be one of the best in the class. I want to feel super strong again!!

LUNCH

We had no produce in the house, which meant a quick trip to the farmers market was in order. Here are my 2 favorite booths at the Prudential Center farmers market (open on Thursdays only).

Samira’s Homemade

The 3rd one down is my beloved baba ganoush. They sell it at Whole Foods but it’s cheaper at the farmers market since it cuts out the middle man. I stocked up!

Hehe, the guy that was working there wanted to be in the picture I think. Here you go, sir – your moment of fame.

Spring Brook Farm

This is definitely one of my favorites at our local farmers markets. I love that the girl that runs it is very knowledgeable about their farming practices and chicken raising (they sell their own eggs – from range free chickens that have their beaks for only $3.50/dozen – that’s cheaper than organic eggs at a super market!!).

I also love that their gorgeous produce is significantly cheaper than anywhere else. I think they actually watch their competition and try to undercut it a bit. Hey works for me. It’s still not cheap (i.e. I know they are well paid) but it’s more affordable compared to others for sure.

I bought SO much stuff there yesterday. It was pretty much a 1 stop shop.

… oh yeah, about lunch. I got a sandwich from the Iggy’s stand. They have the chewiest baguettes. LOVE.

Fresh mozzarella, organic tomatoes, organic basil with white vinegar dressing on buttered ficelle (I could do without the butter )

So fresh and delicious. It also held me off for hours, without making me feel super stuffed. Perfect!

DINNER

How could I forget? CEiMB meals are back! This week’s dish was penne with roasted tomatoes, garlic and white beans (recipe here). I got the tomatoes and basil at the farmers market for it so I felt it still utilized some local produce. I like really centering my meals around that.

This took quite a bit of time to make (not active time, just waiting for the tomatoes and garlic to roast) and I’m not sure that it was worth it. Maybe I overcrowded my tomatoes (I nearly double the amount based on reviews online) but they kind of came out stewed rather than roasted. This was a little on the bland side (again, maybe I should have doubled the garlic and oil too to compensate for the extra tomatoes?). We enjoyed it but I won’t be making it again.

Dessert: Russian apple cake made by my mother in law:

Adam and I each enjoyed a little slice with what was left of the greek yogurt froyo. I need to make another batch!!

Are you an Internet junkie like myself? Make me feel a little better – let me know

Any fun plans for the weekend? We have so much going on. It also happens to be our 2-year wedding anniversary this coming Monday and my dad’s birthday so there is lots to celebrate. See you tomorrow morning with a post.

So here we go, nice and simple today. Work is crazy but I still found time to take a minute and mindfully enjoy some very delicious foods.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast started with a little help from this weekend’s trip to the City Market in Burlington, VT. This is a community-owned grocery store, which means that many products from small local producers were available (for a few pictures of what it’s like inside the market, check out my previous post – you can click on the pictures to enlarge). I came in to find Liz Lovely cookies, which I discovered just days prior to our trip to Vermont through the Foodzie blog (which is very dangerous by the way, I’m a sucker for all the cute stories of small producers) and ended up clearing out their dessert bar. Ok, this may be a slight exaggeration but you better believe that the only thing that stopped me from doing exactly that is the expiration dates on the products. They were freshly baked and clearly should be consumed asap. One of the products that I just could not resist was this package of Butterfly Bakery raspberry apricot breakfast scones.

I absolutely adore apricots and these plump cookie-like scones (looks-wise) were a love at first sight. The first bite sealed the deal for me. Soft and buttery, with real raspberry and apricot chunks – this is the best scone I’ve ever tasted and I don’t think any future scone can stand a chance. These are perfect! I think I may freeze one and see how it preserves, because I’d love to stock up on a future trip to Burlington. And there will be a future trip. I’m obsessed.

I enjoyed the scone with coffee and an oikos (this batch is the best for some reason – so fluffy!). I didn’t end up eating the strawberries until dinner time. This was one good breakfast!

LUNCH

Lunch was pretty special too. I had a lunch date with Lauren and Shannon. It’s been forever since I’ve seen Lauren and I’m so glad that Shannon keeps popping in during lunch to my neck of the woods because that means we can see each other more often. Caffe Jaffa was our meeting place.

Look who I spotted already at the table… hi, Lauren! (hehe, I was trying to be sneaky but she noticed me)

Caffe Jaffa features American and Middle Eastern fare. I wanted nothing more than hummus. So that’s pretty much what I ordered – a hummus plate that came with a Greek side salad.

The lettuce was fresh, the feta and dressing (which I had on the side and just dipped my fork into) were both delicious. A great simple starter!

Mmm, hummus! Standard stuff (maybe even a tad too grainy for my liking). I ate about half with a warm pita.

The girls both ordered the hummus/baba ganoush/falafel platters (which is SO the way to go!) and I snuck a taste of Lauren’s baba ganoush and had one of Shannon’s falafel balls. Both were outstanding! The baba ganoush was very creamy, the falafel was flavorful and not at all greasy (although of course, it is still deep fried so one should enjoy such things in moderation).

This lunch was so fun! We chatted for a while, only stopping to take bites of our food. It was hard to go back to work, I’m not going to lie.

SNACKS

Before heading back to the office, Shannon and I did stop by the Copley farmers market. I bought more shelling peas. I think I have a problem (good thing they’re just nutritious peas).

Snack of champions!

DINNER

Since we’ve been out all weekend, there was not much in the fridge for groceries (I bought beets and greens at the farmers market – these would take too long to cook for a weeknight). I’m still impressed with how I pulled dinner off. And it was a good one, let me tell you!

About 3 weeks ago, Jen posted this recipe for salmon with strawberry and tomato salsa that I’ve been dreaming of ever since. The only problem is – wild salmon is expensive. I was waiting for it to go on sale but the day never came. Strawberries are only going to be in season for a few weeks and I happened to have some amazingly sweet ones from Quebec on hand. We also had half a container of grape tomatoes in the veggie drawer in the fridge and wild salmon burgers in the freezer. Hey, how about a salmon burger with strawberry and tomato salsa? Oh yeah!

The strawberry tomato salsa is the prefect balance of sweet and savory with balsamic vinegar’s acidity balanced out by the smooth and creamy laughing cow cheese I topped the ww burger buns with and of course by the incredibly juicy wild salmon burger (the burgers were from Whole Foods by the way – I highly recommend them!). Adam and I couldn’t get enough of this – so unique and fresh. Summer fare with a twist. This recipe is definitely going on the favorites list!! Thank you, Jen, for the inspiration!

Dessert was another City Market purchase.

Think 7-layer bar but better. I ate 1/2 of the package and it took a lot of will power not to go back to the kitchen and finish the rest. The white and semi-sweet chocolate chunks worked beautifully with walnuts, almost short bread-like crust, and of course the toasted coconut. I’m stopping now because the kitchen is not that far away.

The little pleasures in life. I don’t hate this.

Have a great day! And say hello if you have a second to spare. I was feeling a bit abandoned earlier but something tells me these yummies will bring you back.

All right, now that we got all these logistics out of the way, let’s talk about something I’ve been super excited about lately – EXERCISE! A little while back I wrote kind of a sad post about struggling with overeating and just not feeling “it” in general. The very next day, I forced myself to go to the gym to sweat it out and haven’t looked back. I’ve been an exercise machine ever since. I can’t stop. It’s been amazing (and made a difference in my eating as well). Finally activating my 7-day pass at Healthworks just added more excitement. There are so many classes offered and I want to try every one of them. I’ve been going to Fitcorp (my current gym) and Healthworks and loving every second of it. I love when the snowball effect works in the right way. It’s all about finding something that you absolutely love (and that may change with time) – doing the “work” is then effortless. I actually look forward to every class!

So now let’s talk food. This is Sunday’s eats. I didn’t have a chance to blog about them earlier (and there is some really good stuff here!) so I actually left my camera at home on Monday and took a little break from picture taking. You still get to see a whole day’s worth of food (from Sunday) so I think it’s all good.

BREAKFAST

A few weeks ago, Lauren blogged about a healthy carrot cake sandwich that can be enjoyed for any meal of the day. I kept it in the back of my mind and even bought a special mango, pineapple, raisin bread that I thought would be great with it. I was right!

Look at this beauty from Sunday’s breakfast…

The back side

Since the sandwich just has a touch of sweetness, you don’t feel like you’re eating dessert for a meal yet it is still kind of exciting. I may have another one of these soon. Carrots are not an ingredient I use often in breakfast so why not throw it in a little more often?

WORKOUT

Body Pump at HW. Hurts so good…..

LUNCH

Beet salad, leftover L’Espalier chicken and feta wrap

Awesomeness.

SNACKS

Low fat cottage cheese + strawberries

L’Espalier macaron

Wow. I forgot how much I love macarons. I know this is a big no-no but I just had to take a picture of the inside. The paste was fantastic and the outside “shell” was so delicate, I definitely felt like I was eating a real treat.

Here is another TREAT. Sunday was Father’s Day of course so I baked my dad some pecan pie bars (recipe here). He loves nuts as much as I do (it runs in the family actually ).

Mmmmmmm – short bread crust, caramel-like pecan filling. These are not low fat/calorie by any means but SO worth it.

I probably had a square and a half throughout the day (I never actually had a whole one – just kept picking at it at different times). Oh, and if you make it – a little less sugar works beautifully. I used 1 cup for half a batch and it was perfectly sweet. If you love pecans, this is better than pecan pie (and way easier to make)!

DINNER

I mentioned before that my grandmas from Israel are here. Well, they still haven’t seen our new condo so I invited everyone over to enjoy some pecan bars and last minute, Adam and I decided to make dinner for everyone too.

Apps – pita chips, TJ’s garlic tzatziki (SO good!!) + grapes

The main fare – grass fed cheeseburgers (with whole wheat buns)

Toppings: tomatoes, avocado, pickles

Smashed grilled red potatoes (and sweet potatoes)

A big salad – mixed greens, carrots, grape tomatoes, grilled zucchini and pine nuts

My plate:

Everything was super yummy. For the burgers, btw, I almost always use 2T ketchup, 1T worchestershire sauce + 1/4t pepper for 1lb of meat. It makes really juicy and flavorful burgers. The potatoes were yummy as well.

A little dessert wine to end the meal. It tastes like white grape juice

And that was Sunday. Have you tried any new workouts lately? I’m going to a step class today – it’s been years. I can’t wait!!

BREAKFAST

The typical FFL english muffin with almond butter and fruit – upgraded!

FFL with almond butter, 2% greek yogurt, mango and a raspberry for garnish. So much more fun!

Freshly planted flowers. This time – full out blooming. Upgrade!

The tree that’s shedding all sorts of branches and green stuff… um, downgrade. Boo.

LUNCH WORKOUT

My favorite yoga class of all time. This one does not need an upgrade. It was perfect – as always.

LUNCH

Leftover sizzling haloumi with roasted asparagus and grape tomatoes - still incredible. Go here for the visual if you forget what it looks like.

AFTERNOON WORKOUT

I finally went to Body Pump at Healthworks today!! It used to be my absolute favorite class at my gym (Fitcorp) but they canceled it and I miss it terribly. Seeing Tina‘s arms in her recent post gave me the kick that I needed. I used to be a machine at that class and I’m happy to say that I still got it! I seriously had a grin the entire time during class… although let me tell you – this does not mean that I was slacking off. It was hard. My muscles were seriously shaking for at least an hour after the class. Awesome!

I was also super happy to finally have a few minutes to check out the facilities at the Back Bay location of Healthworks. I used to belong to the Chestnut Hill location right after it opened (6 years ago). I seriously thought it was like going to a spa every day. I brought girlfriends there just to show them around… and of course they always ended up joining. I was so sad to leave it when I moved to NY. The outdated Bally’s with meat heads at every corner was definitely quite the contrast. Anyways, I knew everyone always raved about Healthworks (and they have Body Pump after all so I will definitely be going back there, thanks to some free passes I received at the Healthworks Blogger Bash) but it was so great to finally see it for myself. Everything looked new (!!!) – it was super clean and well organized. I could see the numbers on the weights (yeah, Fitcorp’s weights are so old, on Saturday at bootcamp I used what I thought were 12lb weights because they seemed a bit bigger than the 10lbs… only to find out later that they were also 10′s but just a different shape. No wonder when it got hard and I picked up the “lighter” 10′s – it was still hard. Doh! … a definite upgrade). I had my camera but I didn’t want to be the weirdo taking pictures of the gym but it is awesome. Q-tips, cotton balls, hair dryers with all the attachments (like the diffuser!) in the bathroom – I just love all the girly touches (it IS a women’s gym after all). If you live in the Boston area and have never been to Healthworks yet, I recommend that you try it. Here is a 3-day pass that you can use. Anyways, sorry if it sounded like an advertisement – I just get excited about stuff like that (and no, Healthworks is NOT paying me or providing me with compensation in any form to say all this stuff).

DINNER

Remember the sandwich I had last Thursday on a pretzel baguette? I loved the bread but not the turkey with an unknown origin. Today mid-afternoon I stopped by the farmers market to pick up some dinner ingredients, including the yummy pretzelBaguette.

Fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomato, sun-dried tomato pesto on a pretzelBaguette

+ some (dying) snap peas

This dinner was definitely an upgrade from last week’s sandwich. It was so incredibly fresh, simple yet delicious… and made with all local ingredients

TREAT

Sour cream ice cream made healthier – upgrade! I subbed oikos nonfat greek yogurt for sour cream (but still used half-and-half). It froze a tad bit harder than the one with sour cream but still tasted very creamy and delicious.

I topped it with my favorite froyo toppings – mango + pecans (and a few raspberries we had left). I was in heaven.

OTHER SNACKS

2 medjool dates (they were super fresh and SO sweet and moist…mmm) + some fancy nuts I’ll blog about soon.

And the final upgrade – eating quality food, slowly and truly enjoying it, instead of hastily stuffing whatever I can find into my mouth… and crying about it later. This is day 8 of good eating that I can be proud of. Yes, I’m counting

Any upgrades in your life recently?

BREAKFAST

Spinach, grape tomato and feta omelet

I used 1 egg and 1 egg white for this guy. As you can see, it completely fell apart but man, was it delicious. Salty from the feta, fresh from the pop of the tomatoes. Yum!

With the omelet I also had a little piece of toast, and grabbed this orange to go.

LUNCH

We had pizza at work during a meeting. I picked what I thought was a mushroom/artichoke pizza – that one looked wonderful… until I discovered a ton of pepperoni under the veggies. No picture but let’s just say I was picking at my food like a 5 year old. I had a whole mountain of peperoni on my plate and a million napkins all around me when I was done. So professional. I had 2 slices and stayed away from the super market cookies. I had something way better for me waiting in the fridge…

TREAT

Some of you were close with your guesses in my last post. I made cookies ‘n cream cheesecake bars following this recipe from Food for Living. I literally saw it yesterday morning and then stopped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up the ingredients and baked them that night. I like having healthier baked goods around so that I’m less tempted to stop by a bakery and buy something 10 times worse for me and way more expensive.

I resisted the urge to have a whole photo shoot of these guys. Lauren already did a wonderful job. The cheesecake bar tasted so delicious. The crust was thin and moist, the cheesecake was creamy with a touch of sweetness. I like that these are not overwhelmingly sweet. You can really taste the quality of the ingredients. I love making cheesecake bars – this recipe is a keeper!

WORKOUT

After work I headed to the track for a workout with Boston Performance Coaching. You may remember I’ve done it once before and was terribly hard on myself. It was a tough workout, one I wasn’t particularly excited to go back to (since I’m not even training for a race) but I wanted coach Ali to look at my running form again so I signed up. The Harvard Track was actually being used for some kind of a race so we went to this dinky little side track and did laps there. That made them much shorter and a lot more manageable. Still hard but doable. This time Christina (I think?) was coaching and she said my problem is my arms. I cross them while I run which is inefficient and hurts my back. I tried to relax my shoulders down this time. Something I must work on. She was right. I felt very accomplished after we finished and actually ended up walking back home too, which was a little over 3 miles. It was nice out and Adam was out so I took advantage.

Speaking of running – who wants to see super embarrassing race photos of me? You can find them here. Terrible stuff.

DINNER

Get ready for some more ugly food…

All I could think about was a quesadilla on my walk home. So that’s what I had. Here are the insides:

Corn, peppers, mushrooms

Spicy black bean sauce and grape tomatoes – plus Cabot horseradish cheese all over (I couldn’t find our grader so I used a microplane)

All folded and grilled on the pan – a giant mess! (the little dish is the stuff that felt out that I still wanted to eat )

It burnt instantly on one side and wouldn’t brown up on the other. It was exactly what I wanted, taste wise though. A little spicy and definitely veggie-full. I had some more spicy black bean dip with lime tortilla chips while prepping and after dinner. I think these need to be banned from our house. So good, I can’t handle it.

I ended up watching too much trashy tv before finally going to bed so I’m a bit slow this morning. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to enter my giveaway (here).

Have you had any ugly food lately that was still tasty?