- It was my aunt’s birthday yesterday (thus leaving work early) – happy birthday, Dodina!!

- Roasted rhubarb is genius. I added it to my salmon/hummus/avocado wrap and it contributed a fun sour/tangy flavor to it. Yum

- Dinner at my first Persian restaurant, Lala Rokh, (remember it from here?) was not as great as I hoped it would be. Too much lamb, not enough vegetarian/seafood options as legit meals (lots of vegetarian apps though!).

- It is possible that I can get used to the taste of caramelized onions!!!! They were added to the bulgur with my dish and I didn’t even taste them. The bulgur was delicious! I need to research this one a little more. This could be a pretty awesome discovery (I hate my serious aversion to onions. Maybe there is hope for me after all )

- The look on my aunt’s face when the waiter brought out a giant chocolate cake that had her name on it (I pre-arranged that, brought one from Whole Foods) was priceless. I love surprising people with things I know they’ll like! Dodina is her nickname btw (doda = aunt in Hebrew, many years ago we just made Dodina into a word and called her that ever since).

- A spontaneous stop at Charlesmark Hotel for another drink with the hubs (because we were having too much fun on our walk home and didn’t want it to end) was one of the reasons I love living in the middle of a City. There is always something to do, you just have to get away from that office desk!

- Not randomly going for more food because I wasn’t stuffed (something I’m supposed to feel after a restaurant meal?) was my most proud personal accomplishment of the day.

- Bootcamp at lunch rocked (I’m getting better already!!). I told you I’ll make it there!

Thursday in pictures:

We shared the appetizers. The mushrooms and eggplants were phenomenal!

Have a great weekend! I’ll be working but I’ll definitely try to spend a little time in the kitchen so please stay tuned

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.

Plan B – breakfast pizza! Yeah, unfortunately that did not go very smoothly either. I burnt the first tortilla!! I nearly gave up on the whole-breakfast thing but persevered. My second pizza was delicious.

Other annoying mishaps of the day:

• The eggs I planned on using for my lunch salad went bad. I had to go to plan B once again – chicken.
• I dropped the rest of the grape tomatoes all over the floor after prepping my salad.
• I put down a bag with groceries on the ground while looking for my keys – it went sideways and spilled all over the stairwell.
• I opened a water bottle to have with dinner and half of it squirted all over me, the couch and the floor.
• The grape tomato with dinner I pierced with a fork fought back and ended up all over my pants.
• The power was tripped twice while making Adam’s dinner.

I am NOT making this up. It was one of those days. I’m ready to pretty much relax and not touch anything for the rest of the night!

BREAKFAST

Breakfast pizza!!!

TJ’s flour tortilla with Barney Butter, ground flaxseed, TJ’s european style nonfat yogurt, 1/2 banana, Zoe’s granola, dried bing cherries + coffee

How about a slice?

[419 calories]

PRE-WORKOUT SNACK

Walnut stuffed date

[80 calories]

WORKOUT

My ankle is almost all better, but I decided to be smart and take a low impact spin class instead of running. It was a good class. Shannon even joined me.

LUNCH

Mixed greens, grape tomatoes, broccoli, snow peas, shredded carrots + grilled chicken…

… dressed with 1T Annie’s goddess dressing

[269 calories]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this dressing. I really think it transforms a boring salad into something nutritious AND delicious. It’s high in fat and calories though, so I always stick to 1 tablespoon at a time. It’s thick, so it coats the greens well if you shake the salad bowl.

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK ATTACK

I always crave something sweet and bad for me in the afternoon. This guy did the trick today. I have a few boxes stashed at the office for “emergencies.”

[120 calories]

DINNER

Not having a microwave at home is making things even more difficult these days. I got creative by using our griddler for these crepes.

The star(s) of dinner were Trader Joe’s smoked salmon and spinach crepes that I picked up tonight + grape tomatoes and an apple

Open wide…

The filling was kind of bland so I added some capers. Much better!!

A crispy fuji apple was great for dessert. I’m trying to be good.

[all together = 322 calories]

Total calories consumed (so far): 1241

I aim to eat at least 1475 calories (my BMR) so I’m sure I’ll make a little snack in a bit. Funny how last night I was starving after consuming over 1600 calories, and today I’m totally fine with less than 1300.

Speaking of calorie counting… I received a question on my previous post that I figured I’d address right here on the blog since some of you may be wondering this as well.

Q: How do you get such accurate calorie counts?

A: I own a food scale so I weight most of my food while prepping it and write it all down. I then input all the ingredients into Sparkpeople.com. It’s not 100% exact but I think I get pretty close. For most of my meals out, I just try to order something healthy or treat it as a splurge. For those circumstances, estimating the calorie counts is usually a guessing game that I don’t find particularly useful. I hope that answers it. Let me know if you guys have any other questions for me

Biggest Loser and Lost are BOTH on tonight. What to do, what to do… Are watching tv tonight?

Edited to add: While watching Lost, I ate 3 coconut macaroons, 1 orange and a few spoonfuls of Barney Butter. Total calories consumed ~1,575. See, nothing to worry about!

The restaurant has a really clean, yet cozy atmosphere (btw, by clean I mean clean lines – not the levels of dirt ).

The menu is centered around comfort foods as well as lots of creative salads. My eyes almost instantly locked on the salad I just “had to have” but we’ll get there in a minute. First there was wine… the l’Oca ciuca “the drunken goose” sangiovese blend to be exact. Hehe, drunken goose. Yeah, yeah, I’m that mature. I had this glass:

The lighting was dim so please forgive me for the slightly blurry photos. I hope you can imagine the deliciousness of this garlic baguette. It was soaked in garlicky butter and was definitely worth the calories. I had 2 little pieces.

For my entree, I ordered the miso glazed salmon salad: fresh Atlantic salmon, shaved romaine, pickled vegetables, sesame seaweed salad, sliced avocado and fried ginger served with sesame honey vinaigrette and ponzu. I love that I can get a large salad for an entree and Adam can get something a little more hearty at the same place!

My salad was gigantic.. and here is its good side. Mmm, pickled veggies..

Some dressing on the side because they possibly had some onions in it (I didn’t taste any onions – score!).

This salad was so fresh and delicious! All the flavors were well rounded and very Asian (read: lots of ginger) – there were no fillers here (well, I guess the lettuce could be called a filler, but it was great with the sesame vinaigrette). The pickled vegetables (radish? and carrots) were the most unique and since I’m obsessed with everything-pickled lately, I couldn’t get enough of them. The salmon, although small, was super tender and just melted in my mouth (I very rarely say that about salmon outside of a quality sushi restaurant). I definitely could never make this salad in my makeshift kitchen!

Last time I went to Stephi’s, I was able to resist dessert but I couldn’t let this happen twice!! You know where this is going…

When I look at dessert menus, I quickly scan for all things chocolate (sometimes a cherry pie will convince me to make an exception). The fudgy brownie bread pudding with hot fudge, creme anglaise and vanilla ice cream sounded heavenly. According to our waiter, it was freshly made this afternoon. Wow, that’s fresh! It was so pillowy and creamy – I really enjoyed it. Adam stole a few bites but otherwise I pretty much devoured it. My belly was super happy. What a great dinner!

Our date night on a random Tuesday night was a great success! The whole experience was great from the atmosphere to service and of course the food. I was in a fantastic mood when we got to Stephi’s but I left even happier. I hear their brunch is great too, and I can’t wait to check that out.

***

If you’d like to read my other restaurant reviews, check out my Restaurant Reviews page.

Our house smells like Christmas!!

Fresh flowers in the vase…

And the dining room table set…

Everybody – have some wine! [This was a fantastic Chianti my dad brought.]

FIRST COURSE

We started with a nice salad: mixed greens, arugula, roasted apples, pomegranate seeds and hazelnuts

I thought all the salad ingredients complemented each other really well – the sweet and savory balance was spot on (she pats herself on the back…).

I followed this recipe for the dressing (cut the oil by 1/2).

I also decided to make little appetizers with the Pepperidge Farm puff pastry (I received a free coupon for it from Foodbuzz).

These guys were inspired by a pasta I used to love at an old local restaurant in New York.  They’re topped with vodka sauce, roasted asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and a graded parmesan. Delicious!!

My plate:

SECOND COURSE

The star of the show: sweet-spicy glazed salmon. This is one of my favorite salmon recipes – I follow this recipe from Cooking Light, substituting 1/2 honey mustard and 1/2 country dijon mustard for Chinese-style hot mustard.

Haricot verts, steamed then sauteed in a tiny bit of EVOO with garlic.

Couscous pilaf (recipe based on p. 12 of The Best of Cooking Light, Great Plates) – ww couscous, dried cherries, almond slivers, lemon zest and S&P.

My plate (I ate 1/2 of it… getting stuffed!)

The salmon was a hit! This glaze is fabulous!!

The cherries in the couscous were my favorite. I <3 cherries

Let’s not forget the veggies. Simple preparation doesn’t mean simple taste.

DESSERT

The almond, cherry chocolate clusters made their appearance on the dinner table. This recipe is already becoming a staple in my entertaining repertoire because it takes just minutes to make and everybody loves these clusters!

All 12 were gobbled up!

My aunt also brought a dessert – a local specialty called “chuck chuck.” Her mother-in-law made this particular batch with nearly every ingredient home-grown. This is little homemade pastry noodles, fried then covered in a honey glaze. The eggs are from the chickens they have and the honey is from their own honey-combs. Pretty awesome. We picked on this sticky mess all night. Mmm…..

Teas galore

My first portion (I had a whole lot more of the chuck chuck)

Family pic for evidence Happy bellies…

I’m really in the holiday spirit now!! Thank you, parents, for my early Chanukkah cash. I’m off to shop! Oh, I have to go to work first? Ok, ok…

See you guys later!

I have a little story from today. Bare with me… I need your help!!!

I planned on doing some speed work on the treadmill today. It got COLD here in Boston, so speed work seemed like the perfect answer… 10x400s were on the schedule to be exact. I “met” someone else that is running the Boston half marathon, and emailing back and forth with Betsy this morning got me even more excited about the race. I was so ready to run today… until I got on that treadmill Even during my warm-up walk I was feeling off. I couldn’t walk as fast as I’m used to because it hurt my shins. Not a sharp pain, but something that was definitely nagging me. Then I sped up to a slow warm up run. Once again, I couldn’t do my usual warm up. It hurt. I continued for a few minutes, hoping I just needed to warm up, but then started worrying that I’m actually contributing to an injury. I got off the treadmill and decided to talk to a trainer. Long story short, the guy was a postural therapist and offered to look at me. He said my alignment was completely off, that I wasn’t using my right hamstring and let all my left leg do all the work, yadda yadda yadda he scared me shitless. He then said he could “fix it” if I came back in an hour for a session. Sweet! I was shaking I was so scared that I couldn’t run. The session was great. He stretched me for 30 minutes, massaged my right calf (which was the problem), made me do some random exercises (one legged squats, etc.) and then I went back on the treadmill. It seemed to be ok now. He said my alignment was good now.

I asked the guy if I owed him anything for the session and he said that this one was free, but that I should really schedule some follow up personal training sessions, where he’d show me strengthening exercises so that I run more evenly and don’t get injured. He said he’ll also thoroughly stretch me out before every session and that this should really help. He was ready to schedule my next appointment but this was just a lot of information thrown at me in one hour’s time, and I wasn’t ready to fork over hundreds of dollars for a package of training sessions. I told him I’ll email him with my schedule, but now I’m not sure. It’s a lot of money and I feel like I’m being bullied into this. I think the sessions would help and I know that I’m not running straight (that’s why my right hip always hurts after my long runs) but I don’t think I urgently need to start seeing a personal trainer either. This is so hard. What would you do in my situation? I’m leaning towards sending him a very nice email telling him I can’t afford it right now and bringing some cookies over. … Or should I suck it up and get some sessions since they’ll help me in the long term?

By the way, I went back to the gym after work and finished what I started – 10 x 400 at 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.5, 8.6, 8.5, 8.5, 8.5, 8.6 with recovery at 6.5. It was hard but I knew I would feel a million times better if I finished, and I did!!!

BREAKFAST

Inspired by the week’s CEiMB recipe for New York Breakfast hosted by imafoodblog.com, my breakfast was a yummy lox/tomato sammie. I somehow ended up with a whole lot of bread at home, including some new light bagels so I didn’t buy the bread Ellie recommended for this.  Now that I think about it, though, by substituting a bagel for pumpernickel bread this breakfast became even more “New York.”

*These bagels are somewhere in between a mini bagel and a regular bagel in size; they seem a little less dense that a regular bagel (good thing!) and are only 110 calories. I like them!

So for breakfast I had 1 Kim’s wheat bagel with 1 laughing cow wedge + some wild lox and a sprinkle of dried dill

Mmm, lox <3

+ some TJ’s nonfat European style yogurt with tomato slices. I love that I had a serving of veggies for breakfast!

MID-MORNING SNACK

1/2 FFL english muffin + Barney Butter and 1/2 banana

LUNCH

Leftover parmesan polenta with roasted mushrooms + shrimp

+ 1 serving of sea salt somersaults (my favorite flavor!!)

And 3/4 serving of TJ’s chocolate covered edamame. I was definitely stress eating at this point because of my mini injury.

At some point, again out of stress, I ate a brownie (unpictured). I wasn’t proud of it at the time, but at the end it fueled me through a kick-ass workout so I guess it was ok. Sugar is good sometimes!

DINNER

Tortilla pizza: TJ’s low carb ww tortilla with pizza sauce, organic part skim mozzarella, roasted mushrooms and black beans + carrot sticks on the side. Sometimes these tortilla pizzas totally take care of my pizza craving (like today!!). So easy, quick and delicious

LATE NIGHT SNACKING

‘Nuff said. Seriously, no more eating out of the bag!!!!!!

Please help me figure out what to do with this trainer/postural therapist thing! Thanks, guys – you’re the best!!

Despite the crazy schedule (another late meeting prevented me from working out after work ) my eats were delicious. I tried to eat a little cleaner today given the abundance of this weekend’s treats.

Breakfast: egg & cheese with tomato on a FFL english muffin + mascadine grapes

These grapes are giant and are super cool. Their skin is very thick and tart but their flesh is really meaty, sweet and delicious. Have you ever mascadine grapes?

Mid-morning snack: some grapes my co-worker gave me. They were so sweet!

Lunch: mixed greens, carrots, heirloom grape tomatoes, roasted red peppers, black beans, roasted almonds + buttermilk-herb dressing and shaved organic cheddar cheese.

My favorite was the crunch of the roasted almonds and carrots and the creaminess of the black beans. The roasted peppers were kind of random – I was just trying to bulk up the salad with veggies. Next time I’ll skip them. Black + roasted red peppers are a weird combo. One at a time is better

Lunch dessert: 1/2 FFL cinnamon raisin english muffin with Barney Butter and fresh raspberries. I knew I needed a little somethin’ after the salad and this hearty dessert prevented me from hitting up the vending machine at the office!

Mid-afternoon snack: fruit & nuts – 100 calorie almonds pack + 2 dried prunes. Yum!

Dinner: cheddar crusted salmon + sweet roasted broccoli

See the crust over the salmon? That’s cheese!! I sprinkled the salmon fillet with S&P and shredded some cheddar over it before plopping it (top side down) on the skillet until perfectly cooked (inspired by this recipe). I knew the salmon was perfectly done when I could easily remove the skin from it. The broccoli was roasted by following this recipe. I thought sweetening the broccoli with some sugar was fun and different although I don’t think broccoli necessarily needs any sugar; I love it as is. Adam loved this sweetened version!

Dessert: Kashi dark chocolate oatmeal cookie + a glass of riesling

Mmm, wholesome cookies.

And now I’m snacking on these as I’m typing. They are definitely addictive and incredibly delicious (I also got the chocolate kind – not as good). I need to separate them into little baggies for portion control asap! New addiction alert!!

How was your Monday? Do you find that you’re refreshed after the weekend and ready for the work week or dreading to go back?

Don’t forget to enter The Lazy Baker giveaway!

Here are my eats from the last 2 days. You’re missing another piece of cheesecake, the rest of the chocolate covered brownie from the bottom of this post, and dinner from last night (to be covered in a separate post)

Banana oats with coconut, almonds and chocolate chips:

I love how the chocolate chips just melt all over the warm oats. Coconut + banana, however, is a little weird

Oikos + fruit salad:

Oh Nuts pumpkin seeds. I actually ended up eating the whole baggie I got in the HLS swag bag.

Leftover salmon + edamame from dinner at KO Prime:

Birthday strawberry cheesecake + yogi tea:

Imitation lobster:

Amazing Grass chocolate whole food energy bar:

I received this bar in the HLS swag bag as well, and I think this is the item I was the most excited to try. I knew it would be a little weird but something told me I would also love it. The verdict? Nope. This guy is not for me! I thought the chocolate coating was waxy, and the filling was fake tasting. The cocoa nibs stood out the most. I think this is what “healthy food” stereotypically tastes like, and that’s why I started this blog – to show people that healthy food does not have to be bland or weird, and can be exciting.

Something that’s healthy and I DO love: 1 Food for Life english muffin + 2 packets of Barney Butter and a large banana. Delicious and filling

And of course my obsession: 1 chocolate chip Paradise Bakery cookie + tea:

I hope to be able to blog from Israel but I don’t know what the internet situation is like there. We are staying with my grandmothers who supposedly have internet, but we’ll see if it’s workable. I may also finally try to figure out Ecto to make it all happen. Do you use Ecto? If you do, how do you bulk resize your pictures? I can’t figure it out for the life of me!

Next time you hear from me, I may be overseeas

As I mentioned in my previous post, dinners at steak houses are an infrequent occurrence in this household but they are my husband’s favorite type of “fancy meal.” I guess most males would be put in this category. So for his birthday I took him out to KO Prime, a modern steakhouse. Their menu seemed creative enough that I wouldn’t feel obliged to order a steak so I felt like this was a fun way to treat my husband while still staying true to myself

The decor was pretty unique. The dining room was dark and almost space-like. I snapped a photo of the ceiling with the intention of getting more angles later, but my camera had other plans for me. It wanted to be recharged! What? That is not good timing!!! I hoped it would last at least for a few more shots of at least my entree and thankfully it cooperated. I literally had 1 second to snap a photo before it would shut off. Anyways, back to our meal…

Dining room ceiling:

The hubs reviewing the wine list:

Really cool salt and pepper shakers + my first glass of Cotes de Rhone (I probably had a little less than 1/2 bottle throughout dinner… Adam and the waiter kept refilling my glass so it was hard to keep track).

This is where you normally would see a picture of the bread basket. It was rustic bread (sour dough, rye); some slices reminded me a lot of the Russian black bread so I liked it a lot because it reminded me of a childhood classic. Adam was not impressed. Sorry for the lack of photo, I tried to conserve the camera’s battery for the money shots While nibbling on the bread we made our menu choices. I really wanted to keep the dinner on the lighter side, so I started with a salad. This was not just any salad, though. This guy had watermelon!

Arugula and watermelon, la quercia ham, passion fruit, and fiddlehead tomme salad

This was a very generous portion! And what you can’t see well is that the salad is sitting on huge chunks of watermelon, which is really the most unique salad ingredient I’ve ever seen. I love strawberries, blueberries, and peaches in salads, and this proved to me that really, you can put any fruit in a savory salad and it will work! The watermelon juice exploded in my mouth with every bite, and its sweetness was perfectly contrasted by the saltiness of the prosciutto and the aged cheese (I know they call it something fancy but that’s what it really was). The dressing was quite nice too – very light, perfectly coating the arugula without overpowering the rest of the salad ingredients. I really enjoyed this unique salad combo!

For my entree, I broke my own rule of always ordering the restaurant’s specialty (in this case clearly this being a steakhouse, I should have ordered a steak) and went with fish. For fish they had 2 choices: salmon and striped bass, and the waiter highly recommended the salmon. Salmon it was!

King salmon with miso, edamame and spicy onions:

I ordered this entree without the spicy onions (first making sure that this wasn’t an essential ingredient in this dish!) and I have to say it was probably a shame… at least that was my first reaction after my initial taste. I can’t stand onions, so I don’t regret omitting them, I just don’t like ordering dishes that have onions as an integral part of them. I think spicy onions were probably the unique twist to an otherwise just solid salmon (they do sound different). With that said, actually after a few bites this really grew on me. At first I enjoyed the glaze over the salmon (and thought it was perfectly cooked) but I couldn’t really taste the flavor of the sauce. It seemed to be too mild to stand up to the strong salmon and edamame flavors. But after actually tasting the sauce by itself, I realized it was a nice citrus reduction (hmm, now that I’m looking at the name of this dish, perhaps it was a miso reduction well, it tasted citrusy to me!). This really turned this around for me, and all of a sudden it all worked! I also had a few forkfulls of Adam’s side dish – the short rib mac & cheese.

Now that was decadent! What’s funny was that I thought it tasted more like cheesy pasta than a “mac & cheese” but of course that’s what mac & cheese is, a pasta with cheese! I guess I was expecting little elbow shaped pasta with a nice crust baked over it. Don’t get me wrong, this was quite incredible, just not traditional mac & cheese (I guess that’s what they were going for!).

I ate 1/2 of my entree (taking the rest home) to save room for dessert. We all know here I can’t review a restaurant without trying their dessert Adam and I split the dark chocolate “s’mores.” This was a fun play on the traditional s’mores… a graham cracker crust, chocolate mousse, and of course mini marshmallows. This was perfectly complemented by the cool cherry sorbet. Oh yeah, this was gooood!

This picture looks a little puney, but his was actually a very generous portion. I usually don’t like sharing my dessert but given that it was my second one for the day, I agreed to share it with the birthday boy, and I was glad I did. If I ate the whole thing, it would definitely put me over the edge and would make for an unpleasant rest of the evening.  This was a dessert that made a great last impression of this meal. I’d come back here just for it! (hmm, I think I’ve said that before… what can I say, I love dessert! )

We had a great time and I would definitely recommend KO Prime (although both Adam and I still think that Mooo, where I took him last year, is the best steak house and definitely one of the best restaurants in Boston). The bar looked pretty cool too, so we may swing by there one day just for a fun cocktail on a random night.

What’s your favorite type of restaurant?

I ate really well today. By “well” I mean healthy AND delicious foods. I also made some choices I’m proud of. If you’ve been paying close attention, the last few days had more than 1 treat. I honestly was not beating myself up over it (hello, progress!) but I also would like to treat my body with respect and I think that 1 sugary/fatty treat a day is plenty.  So today I made a conscious choice to eat a lot cleaner. It was not about deprivation but rather moderation. I already bought a treat to enjoy tomorrow so I know it’s only a day away. I made a comment to my husband the other day that sometimes we need to stop eating like kids, who don’t think of consequences their food choices may have on their future bodies or health, and act like adults. Eating like an adult today to me meant that the chocolate chip cookie that I purchased at the farmers market will wait until tomorrow. I plan on fully enjoying it then with a nice cup of tea

The day’s eats:

Breakfast – 1 egg + 1 egg white + 1 sl. of American cheese + 1.5 sl. bacon on a Food for Life english muffin

Pre-workout snack: local peach

Lunch: baby spinach, grape tomatoes, cucumber, 1/4 avocado, 1/3 giant sweet potato + 1T Annie’s organic goddess dressing

+ TJ’s 100 calorie dark chocolate bar (it was for the anti-oxidants )

Mid-afternoon snack: TJ’s ww low carb tortilla + 1 Barney Butter packet + 1/2 banana

Dinner was spectacular! I was craving salmon and we haven’t had it in a while, so I decided to go to my go-to salmon recipe I raved about previously here (check out #8 of top 8 meals in 2008). In case you didn’t link there, this is the sweet-spicy glazed salmon from Cooking Light (recipe is available online here). I kind of think my salmon pic looks better

The green beans look unassuming in the back of that picture but they were beyond amazing too! I followed a recipe for skillet green beans with garlic and lemon from my current cookbook obsession The beans were a little spicy, saucy and so flavorful. I could eat a whole pound of them in one sitting – easy!

And now we get to dessert. I haven’t caught the “raw food bug” but I was intrigued to taste the famous raw banana soft serve that’s been all over the blogosphere lately. I had 2 frozen bananas sitting in the freezer waiting to be used up for a green monster or banana bread, and this was the perfect opportunity to give them a new life After about 3 minutes in the food processor, the bananas became beautifully creamy and produced a delicious soft serve!

Wow, that’s just bananas? That’s it? Yep! Amazing!!! Adam and I shared this portion. I couldn’t help but add a few walnut crumbles to “spice it up.” What a perfect way to finish a great meal… the healthy way!

As you can see above, eating like an adult did not mean that there were no treats. The treats were just much healthier, so really it’s about balance.  That chocolate cookie definitely has my name on it tomorrow, though

Hope you finish the work week strong and have some fun plans for the weekend!