Bakeries And More | Healthy and Sane

So much good food, so little time – CPK, Tatte and Church

August 9th, 2009

Oops – sorry for the late post. It was sitting in my drafts folder and I forgot to publish it. Hope your weekend was as fun as mine!

Yesterday was such a fun day. Lots of fun foods and good times with friends. I started out a little stressed out about everything that needs to be done before the big move (it’s in 2 weeks, yikes!) but slowly loosened up and decided to just go with the flow

The morning started with a blueberry muffin + coffee:

+ very soon after a peach chobani + fresh peach and Kashi Golean cereal was consumed:

For some reason I just had a crazy hunger all morning. What’s up with that?! I had the other half of the Goji Moji bar while waiting for our appointment to see our new condo the last time before closing (we brought the color wheel to finalize paint colors, measured the outdoor space so we can order furniture, etc.). This time I still tasted the orange peel but also the flavor of the figs stood out. K was right that it tasted a bit like the filling of the fig newtons… but more wholesome of course

By the time our condo “inspection” was over, Adam and I were both STARVING (seriously, this should not have been the case. Something was up with my metabolism) so we went to the first place we saw – California Pizza Kitchen. Despite loving the pizza I’ve had lately, I’ve been lately slightly jealous of Adam’s selections, so he agreed upfront that we could swap 1 slice of each other’s. This meant we had to “approve” each others’ toppings and after much consideration chose 1/2 original bbq chicken (bbq sauce, smoked gouda and mozzarella cheeses, bbq chicken, sliced red onion and cilantro) and 1/2 wild mushroom (cremini, shiitake, portobello and white mushrooms, fontina and mozzarella cheeses with a wild mushroom walnut pesto; garnished with chopped Italian parsley). We asked for no onions on anything and requested a thin crust instead of the original (it’s $1.50 extra but saved about a million calories so it’s worth it in my opinion).

Here is the whole pie (about 12″):

My first 2 slices (I had another mushroom one):

This was honestly amazing, and I’m not just saying that because we were really hungry. The thin crust was really thin so I felt like it was a significantly healthier option – and it was really flavorful! The toppings were also quite creative in my opinion – not just your standard mozzarella/red sauce combo. Have you had CPK pizza? What’s your favorite?

We were still a little hungry after this lunch, so dessert was in order! I knew exactly what I wanted – a nut box from Tatte (if you don’t know what a nut box is – I raved about it and Tatte here). I am absolutely obsessed with this bakery. It’s just the cutest thing and everything is super fancy and amazingly delicious. Just look how adorable the decor is…

As you can see below – what I actually got was not a nut box. The desserts in the back refrigerator started talking to me when I saw them I got the raspberry cheesecake and a coffee. Doesn’t it look wonderful?

It was light and fluffy and just rocked my world. I was eating it very quietly while enjoying the cute bakery scenery. This dessert was a larger treat that I allow myself on a daily basis but was just an amazing weekend splurge. Good thing I burnt over 1,000 calories on my Sunday run (more details in a separate post). Everything balances out

Adam chose a much healthier dessert – Berryline. I had to get a little tasting of the rose flavor. Yum! I keep forgetting how indulgent these nonfat frozen yogurts taste. Very creamy. I think there is some Berryline in my future over the next 2 weeks (it’s currently located in the building we’re moving out of).

Oh yeah – when I got home I had a package… 6 flavors of the Crazy Camel dessert hummus (thank you, Chuck, for sending me these!). I’ll do a separate post on them but basically they are pretty awesome and healthy. I’m a big fan!

Oh man, this has become a marathon post – sorry to bore you, but I guess this was a happening Saturday We ended up going to Church for dinner. I knew I’ve been quite indulgent over the course of the day, so I tried to keep it kind of light with my food choices. Not everything was waist friendly, but I tried to keep the portions reasonable.

I started the meal with the shrimp bruschetta (spicy pepper sauce, oven roasted tomatoes, feta cheese) my sister ordered and was kind enough to share with the table. These guys were spicy! Adam and I have actually ordered this exact appetizer before and recommended it to my sister. It was a winner once again

Knowing that I’ll be tasting other people’s food, I got the salad appetizer as my meal. This salad is off Church’s summer menu – tomato salad with mixed greens, kalamata olives, feta & lemon-mint vinaigrette. The dressing had onions in it, so they brought me the balsamic vinaigrette on side + some EVOO and balsamic vinegar as well. I only drizzled a bit of the vinaigrette over the salad greens. Everything was so fresh and flavorful there was no reason to doze it in dressing.

The tomatoes were the coolest! There was a mix of yellow and green tomatoes and they were literally melting in my mouth. Oh and mid-way through the meal I noticed that it was goat cheese, not feta that was in the salad. Works for me since I love goat cheese more than feta

All right on to other things I tried/ate. I had some of the baked mac and cheese (sinfully cheesy, crispy bread crumb crust) my sister and I ordered together. This stuff was rich! We ordered a “small” since I knew it would be one of those things that you can only have a few bites of before getting into a food coma. This was still a very generous portion.

The mac and cheese was on a drier side (i.e. not runny) – just the way my sister and I like it. The topping was especially buttery – we think they used ritz crackers or something. I tried not to eat too much of it, but my fork definitely was reaching for more when I wasn’t paying attention Good stuff!

I also had 1/2 of my dad’s scallops – isn’t the presentation awesome?

It was perfectly cooked. Unfortunately the risotto had onions in it, so I can’t speak for how that was. I tried 1/2 of my mom’s crab ravioli and wasn’t a big fan. It got cold by the time I was ready for my tasting so that could have something to do with it

After chatting for a bit, I realized I was still hungry, so I had a slice of the white bread with some butter from the bread basket. The butter was very yummy but I’m not sure what was in it – maybe roasted garlic and thyme, but it was also a little sweet. Yum! Btw, I do this often – leave the bread basket to the end of the meal. I’d rather have the bread if I still have stomach room instead of overfilling on it and being unable to eat the actual meal.

Everyone really enjoyed their meal at Church! The restaurant is a block away from our current place – I’m going to miss having such a great venue so close to home!

Finally – seriously I’m going to end it soon – I promise … we went to a drink-off party. This was part II of the original drink-off (where someone you may know came out victorious ). I’m retired at this point, so this time it was between our friend Tiffany (Tiffany, do you want to say anything for yourself in the comments section? hehe) and Gary. Man, this was a hilarious night! I had 1 Organic Peak pomegranate wheat beer. That’s it for drinks for me. Actually this beer was too hoppy for me, otherwise I would have had another.

At some point during the night, I had a few handfuls of Smart Food. I actually checked the ingredients list before diving in and it wasn’t that bad. Nothing alarmingly scary. I forgot how much I liked this stuff!

And 1/2 of a Hershey’s bar was also consumed.

My friend Jim wanted to be on the blog, I think, so he stole a bite of my chocolate. I had to document it. Ok, maybe he just wanted chocolate.

Mmm, sweet ending to a wonderful day. I’m off to do more packing!

Major IE setback + Tendercrop farm and Newburyport

July 27th, 2009

Hi all. Sorry I took a few days off blogging. I had some rough time with intuitive eating. Not sure what happened; I just snapped and binged for what seemed like 2 days straight. I’m learning that Intuitive Eating is in a sense like dieting – you need to be careful and not only be aware of how you feel (i.e. whether you’re hungry, eating out of emotion, etc.) but also make the decision to “do the right thing” (i.e. stop eating if you’re eating for all the wrong reasons). It’s the last part that I was having major problems with this weekend. I knew I was just stuffing my face and not even enjoying it; yet I couldn’t stop the train wreck. Clearly I have issues. I’m working on figuring out what the triggers were and why I keep doing this to myself. Anyways, I’m writing this not because I want you to feel sorry for me; neither because I feel like you guys can “figure it out for me.” I’m even embarrased to admit that this madness was going on this weekend, but at the end I want to be honest and share this journey to Intuitive Eating without editing. Know that it is hard but I think the end justifies the means. I’ll keep you posted on how everything goes. Today has been going great so far.

Before the stupidity began, I actually had an amazing time with Adam. Breakfast was another apple cranberry muffin with crunchy Barney Butter (new shipment – oh how I missed crunchy BB!)

Then we decided to go to Tendercrop Farm to buy some local/grass fed meat. Since we were in the area, we decided to stop by Adam’s hometown, Newburyport, pretended to be tourists (window shopped and took lots of pictures) and had lunch at the famous Michael’s Harborside. The weather was gorgeous! I really felt like we were on vacation

Oh on the way to Newburyport I busted into this passion fruit/macadamia nut KIND bar. I actually had a few bites from it at a time throughout the weekend. This was when I was still trying to eat intuitively and tried to balance not ruining my appetite with not letting myself starve and trigger overeating.

Some pics in Newburyport…

This duck was so cute! It was just chilling by its little “Inn”

Newburyport is right on the water and is known for their fresh seafood so of course I got seafood for lunch. Before our main course arrived, we were served some fresh rolls with butter…

… but after having a bite of it I realized it tasted like regular bread and just “wasn’t worth it.” The appeal of warm bread kind of dissapears when it’s sweaty mid-80′s. For my entree I got the grilled swordfish in citrus ponzu glaze, with asparagus and rice on the side.

The asparagus was drenched in butter. I was so disguisted. Thankfully they had some steamed asparagus in the kitchen (waiting to be buttered) that the waitress was able to snag for me. It made this meal a little better. The citrus ponzu I thought was too intense and actually masked the flavor of what otherwise was a nicely grilled fresh piece of fish. It’s a little sad that this is what most people want – butter on asparagus and thick sauce on their fish. Most food was fried of course, so I guess this was still one of the healthier meals.

After lunch we finally drove to Tendercrop farms. We were both happy to find out (especially me!!!) that we could pick our own blueberries. Yay!! My outfit doesn’t exactly scream “ready to blueberry pick” but it was actually really easy (i.e. no crawling required) and sort of therapeutic. The best part – a whole pound of blueberries was $2 (if you picked them yourself). We got 2 pints for $3. Sweet! I was really happy at this moment.

At Tendercrop farms we got some local meat, fruits and veggies and these 2 baked goods that I had to dig into in the car (ate the rest later that night). First up: whoopie pie – tasted like chocolate cake with frosting. Yum!

And a rocky road bar. OMG SO good! I want more now (actually that’s a lie… after a weekend of serious overeating all I want it salad and fruit to cleanse my body but this brownie thing really was amazing!)

Dinner that night was a whole bunch of (unpictured) walnuts and probably more than 1/2 a box of these Russian chocolates (they have some kind of peanut paste in them that doesn’t taste like peanut butter).

Addictive stuff. I basically finished this box on Sunday morning. Yeah, good times. Anyway, that’s Saturday’s eats. The first half of the day was so amazing, I just had to share it with you. Hope your weekend was good. I’m back at work today with a reignited fire to eat healthy. What else is new?!

Will yourself a good day

July 22nd, 2009

I decided that today will be a good day. I’m sick of waking up in the morning and dreading work, continuing the food fight and letting it take over my life. Nope, today will be a good day. I will make it a good day, just like that. Do you believe in the power of positive thinking? Let’s see if it works!

Here are yesterday’s eats. I was so busy that most of my meals (except for breakfast) had to be purchased. A little more treats than usual, but they were all pretty much incredible so at least those calories were not a waste. Oh and dinner/drinks + the comedy show with Tina and Mal was fun. We had to bail out a little early (Adam had to work) but we’re already talking about future plans with those 2

Egg & cheese on a FFL english muffin + fresh blueberries and coffee:

Iggy’s fresh mozzarella with organic tomatoes, basil and mustard vinaigrette on a baguette. The bread was so chewy – yum!

The Danish Pastry House apricot/cherry almond pie slice. It was so rich, I couldn’t even think about food for 5 hours!

The popeye salad: spinach, mushrooms, green apple slices + candied walnuts, goat cheese and shrimp at the Grendel’s Den. (*I made a whole bunch of subsitutions so the actual menu item looks quite different)

+ a pint of Magners cider (unpictured).

The salad did absolutely nothing to curb my hunger and my sweet tooth was screaming at me during the first half of the comedy show. Good thing there was the most adorable chocolatery right around the corner from the show. I snuck in to the L.A. Burdick during intermission and enjoyed this piece of heaven: