Kalamazoo Tuesday

Yes there is really a place called Kalamazoo! I was there for three days this week for work. Tuesday morning I woke up really early to make sure I could squeeze in breakfast before I had to leave for work. I went to one of the hotel's restaurants, Old Burdick's Bar & Grill. I took a nice picture of my breakfast but accidentally deleted it. I had two eggs over medium, a slice of whole wheat toast and a big bowl of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, watermelon and cantaloupe). I was so happy that I ate a big breakfast because I didn't get to eat again until 1:30. Six hours without food is way too long!

For lunch the site I was visiting brought in a lunch box. I had a blackened chicken sandwich with lettuce and cucumber salad on ciabatta bread. I ate one half of the sandwich and then ate the chicken off of the second half. I decided I would rather have a bag of Ruffle chips than the other half of dry white bread.

After leaving the facility I went to the hotel's pool for a 25 minute swim. I forgot how hard swimming is! My body was exhausted and hungry after my swim so I headed to the concierge lounge for a snack before dinner. I had a couple slices of cheese and hummus (for protein), olive tapenade, sesame crackers and a Corona to wash it all down.

My co-worker and I ended up going to Fandango for dinner. It was a recommendation from my snack bartender. Fandango is a tapas restaurant so we ended up getting four small plates to share.

Tapa #1 Herb Crusted Artichokes stuffed with Boursin cheese and served with a pesto vinaigrette

Tapa #2 Baked Brie in a pastry with seasonal fruit compotes and slivered almonds

Tapa #3 Pork Tenderloin marinated in honey, mango and cilantro served with mango couscous

Tapa #4 Fandango Fire Shrimp a spicy version of garlic shrimp

I decided that I hadn't had enough vegetables for the day so I got a salad for myself while my co-worker had dessert. Avocado, orange and almonds on field greens tossed with a blood orange vinaigrette.

By the time I got my back to my room I realized I wanted to get a little dessert to accompany my hour of Glee. I went downstairs to Zazio's and got antioxidants galore, dark chocolate gelato and a glass of Lolonis zinfandel. It was a heavenly ending to my night!

* click the restaurant's hyperlinks for yelp reviews*

Michigan Monday

I left my house this morning at 7AM for the airport. After a speedy check-in I went to Starbucks to get my breakfast. I ordered their Perfect Oatmeal and a grande non-fat pumpkin spice latte. I love and appreciate that they put the calorie count for each pouch of "add-ins" right on the package. I decided that I didn't need all the additional calories so I put half of all the packets into my oatmeal. It was perfect! I also decided to save the other half of the dried fruit and nuts for my afternoon snack.
When I landed in Detroit I stopped to get a bottle of water. Then I had my snack in my awful rental car:
Airplane package of pretzels
Half of the dried fruit from breakfast
Half of the nuts from breakfast
16oz of water
150 calories and the perfect snack!

For lunch I had a garlic buttery roll and a delicious salad with a scoop of tuna fish salad on top. The salad had so many antioxidants and was so flavorful:
Spinach
Dried cranberries
Blue cheese
Walnuts
Onions

After the two hour drive from the Detroit area to Kalamazoo I decided I needed to hit the gym! I completed a full body strength training circuit and most of my HIIT session. The treadmills at the hotel gym do not have the easy speed training setting. I got frustrated with trying to toggle back and forth with the speed and had to stop an interval early.

I went to one of the nicest restaurants in Kalamazoo for dinner, Zazios. I started with a locally brewed brown ale. When I finally looked at the menu I noticed that all of their pasta is homemade. They also try to use as much local produce as possible which I appreciate and love supporting!

Sorry that all of these pictures aren't very good it was very dark (and red) at the restaurant bar.

For my appetizer I started with a pear and arugula salad drizzled with local honey.

Then I had homemade butternut squash ravioli with browned butter and pumpkin seeds.

The picture of the Michigan wine list is for memento sake. Matt and I stayed at one of the vineyards, Chateau Chantal, two years ago when we did an upper peninsula Michigan wine tour. I got all giddy when I saw it on their wine list and had to take a picture!

For my dessert I had a glass of Lolonis Zinfandel which is one of our favorite Zinfandels! A great wine to end my night as I caught up on my blogging!

Fun Day Sunday

Sunday was a day of recovery! After sleeping in a little we met up with our NYC friends for brunch at Scollay Square. The food hit the spot! I of course forgot to take a picture of my delicious breakfast:
Filet Mignon Eggs Benedict
Coffee
WATER (re-hydrate please!)

For lunch we had dessert at Stephanie's On Newbury. The four of shared a pumpkin cheesecake and an apple bread pudding. I think the de-hyrdation got to my head because I didn't remember to take pictures AGAIN! Everything was delicious even sans pictures!

*As a side note: All of the restaurants that I mention are hyperlinked to their respective yelp reviews. This way you can read all of the reviews for each restaurant including my own.*

After our friends left I started to prepare for my business trip to Michigan. Matt and I decided to take a quick little break for dinner at Ma Soba. I had heard about their baked spicy lobster roll through Yelp and had been dying to try it! I decided to start with the lobster roll for my appetizer. It was just as good as the reviews I read and I can't wait to have it again!!!

For my entree I was craving noodles so I decided to try their Pad Thai. Ma Soba's Pad Thai had a lot of vegetables and had a great kick of spice to it but I still like the Pad Thai from the King & I better.

I sure got my fill of food this weekend! I'm leaving for Michigan with my belly very full and happy!

Does anyone else wish that they could get a small portion of all their favorite (bad) food? I could have had a quarter of the Pad Thai and had been content!

Oktoberfest Saturday

Saturday was a crazy day! Going to the gym, visiting with our friends from NYC and getting ready for our Oktoberfest! To start the day off Matt and I had our standard protein shake before going to the gym. I decided that Saturday was going to be a crazy calorie intake day and completed a whole body strength training and HIIT session. If it hadn't been for Matt I wouldn't have been able to complete the HIIT. I was exhausted!

We met up with our friends from Manhattan for lunch and a mini walking tour of Boston. We started walking from our house to Park Plaza Hotel to the Gaslight for lunch over to the North End then back home. Gaslight was phenomenal as always! Matt and I shared a Pain au Chocolate to start. Heaven! Then I had a Croque-Monsieur which is pretty much a fancy French name for an open faced grilled ham and cheese sandwich. To quote my mother "It was to die for"! Thank goodness for the morning gym session and our 4.5 mile walk!

Our Oktoberfest menu was my dinner complimented by far too many beers!!! The menu consisted of:

Homemade soft pretzels (courtesy of my awesome husband!)
Homemade butternut squash soup with smoked cheddar and sauteed apples (courtesy of my chef friend and savior)
Homemade sweet and sour turkey meatballs (a family secret recipe but similar to the attached hyperlink) - I used ground turkey and whole wheat bread crumbs to try to make the recipe a little healthy
Cheese, hummus, crackers, carrots and "beer mix"
Homemade apple cake with bourbon glaze (courtesy of our awesome friend)
Everything was a success and it was such a fun night. After far too many samplings of beer we crashed in bed sometime around 3AM. Way too late for this old gal!

Next year everyone is invited! Who wants to come?! I promise we won't dress up again! ;o)

Facial Friday

I took Friday off from work to prep for our Saturday Oktoberfest party. I slept in a little and then started my morning off with a bowl of tasteless oatmeal. I added a little honey and greek yogurt to the oatmeal. It didn’t taste good so I added some maple syrup. It was now a little sweeter but it was still not satisfying. I forced it down though so I could move on with the day. I decided to treat myself to a facial for all the hard work that I was going to do for the party. I went to see Laura at Salon Euphoria and it was heavenly!

After my facial Matt picked me up to go shopping for the party. Before I could focus on the food for the party I had to feed myself first. We stopped at a Subway for a late lunch. I had a 6 inch tuna salad sandwich on their whole wheat bread with all of the veggies. Matt and I share a little bag of Lays Baked Sour Cream and Onion potato chips. I love these little baked chips!!

After all of our shopping two of my colleagues called to say they were having a girl’s night out on Newbury Street. Matt insisted that I go meet up with them for dinner while he worked on homemade soft pretzels, taking up the entire kitchen and some of the living room. We went to Casa Romero for dinner. I ordered Chicken Mole Enchiladas. I ate half and brought the other half home for Matt. I was proud of myself for managing to restrict my salsa and chips consumption. To compliment my Mexican dinner I ordered the Sampaquita, three tequila based shots. One tasted like pure sour mix, one was straight Patron and the last was a delicious spicy tomato drink. I mixed the Patron and the “sour mix” into a glass of ice to try to balance out the flavors. Next time I’ll just order the tequila tomato drink.

This dark picture is of my Guinness at Daisy Buchanan’s, our last stop for girl’s night out.

When I got home Matt had finished all of the DELICIOUS soft pretzels! We ended the night relaxing on the couch with a glass of red wine. It was a great day even though I didn’t do too much for our party!

Thank Goodness for HIIT Thursday

Looking back on the day I am very grateful that today was a HIIT day! My day was a day of vices! However it started out well with a well balanced breakfast of grapes and whole wheat english muffin with Teddy's peanut butter and a little bit of honey. I also had a big mug of Earl Grey tea hoping that the caffeine would kick in as soon as possible!

For lunch I went out with some co-workers to Harvard Square. It was such a beautiful day and probably the last for awhile so we decided to make lunch an event! Our first stop was Oggi's Gourmet for pizza! I LOVE PIZZA! We had never been to Oggi's so we weren't sure on the size of a slice so I ordered two. I got a slice of the tomato and basil pizza and one slice of the daily special, Kung Fu Pig. I had heard about their crust through a couple of different sources, i.e. Phantom Gourmet and Yelp, and I was not disappointed! Their pizza was fantastic! However I took the sausage off of my Kung Fu Pig slice. I'm not a huge fan of sausage on pizza.

After Oggi's we walked over to Lizzy's for ice cream. I had read that Lizzy's had the best pumpkin pie frozen yogurt and had to taste it for myself. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it turned out that it's really ice cream and not frozen yogurt. Oh well, I still had to try it! It was heavenly! The pumpkin wasn't overwhelming and there was a great balance of spices with the super creamy vanilla ice cream.

After our great lunch expedition it was back to work. I was so full from lunch that I didn't need my typical afternoon snack. Instead I worked through the rest of the day and was excited to go to the gym at 5:30! I was ready to run off some of lunch!

After the gym Matt and I went home. After taking Bailey on a little walk I made dinner. I was exhausted so dinner was simple. Chicken over roasted, smashed butternut squash and a side salad. My co-worker told me earlier in the week how she makes her squash so I thought I would give it a try. I think it came out great. I cut the squash into eight pieces and scooped out the seeds. Then I put a little bit of water at the bottom of a pan, placed the squash on the pan, sprinkled the squash with olive oil, grey salt and pepper. The put in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. The squash was so easy to scoop out of the skin after it was in the oven. So much easier than the way I normally make it, "peeling" pre-boiling!

After dinner Matt and I just relaxed on the couch and caught up on our TiVo!

My friend noticed something interesting about the Lizzy Cow. Does anyone else think that the cow looks very phallic?

Pumpkin Carving Wednesday

My day started out with a big glass of water and a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries, ground flaxseed and peanut butter.

For lunch I had a salad with red leaf lettuce, cauliflower, banana peppers, sliced chicken breast, blue cheese and balsamic. I also had a small bowl of Sea Salt Popcorn from our new favorite popcorn company, Popcorn, Indiana. It was so filling, tasty and low in calories!

My pre-workout snack consisted of a plum and a vanilla greek yogurt from Brown Cow. I picked up the Brown Cow yogurt last week on sale in the grocery store and I'm glad I did. I think it's my new favorite yogurt! The vanilla isn't too high in sugar and it tastes great!

After work Matt and I went over to our friend's house for our annual pumpkin carving event. They made us a delicious turkey chili with little corn bread muffins! We also brought over our new favorite beer, Bud Light Golden Wheat. It was a perfect dinner!

After dinner we all picked our pumpkins and our patterns and started carving! The pumpkins turned out great but we were unable to get a good action shot of them all. Below is my friend's pumpkin and then mine follows.

After attempting to take pictures of the pumpkins in the dark we had homemade apple crisp for dessert. It was the perfect fall night for the festivities.

We came home to our bi-weekly Boston Organics order! We got a beautiful head of lettuce, an acorn squash, cauliflower, bananas, pears, apples, kiwis, pluots, potatoes, onion and beets.

Question of the day: How do you carve your pumpkins? Do you get fancy with the pattern books or do you go with the nostalgic carving of a pumpkin face?

Tuesday

I picked up some new oats over the weekend so I had to try it out Tuesday morning! I had a half cup of oats with blueberries, ground flax seed, a teaspoon of milk and honey. It was satisfying and it filled me up until lunch!
For lunch I had a handful of potato chips and a salad with:Spinach
2 ounces sliced chicken breast
Blue cheese
Banana peppers
Cauliflower
Red pepper
Balsamic vinegar

The afternoon flew by at work and before I knew it I had to run to the gym for my 20 minute HIIT. I ran 5 minutes at 5mph and then the 30 second sprints were at 8.5mph with my incline set at 1. I was still having a bit of difficulty breathing from my cold but I pushed through the training session. After my HIIT I took the fastest shower and ran to the bus stop to get to the Back Bay so that I could meet my friends at Cuffs. By the time I got there they had already ordered a bottle of Malbec for us all to share. The wine was very good! Full bodied and full of berry flavor! I had a glass and then realized that I was starving so the wine was affecting me faster than normal. I quickly finished a glass of water to try to rehydrate myself.

After drinks at Cuffs, Matt met up with us at Scampo for dinner. By the time I got to Scampo I was starving. So I was very excited when they put down breadsticks with a chickpea, basil and pine nut dip. I dug right into the dip while perusing the menu.

After munching on the breadsticks we ordered a mozzarella, tomato and basil salad to share.

Then I ordered naan and roasted garlic from their bread menu. Apparently, “garlic” referred to garlic bread and we ended up with double the delicious carbs! Of course we had to try both since they were there!

For my entrée I shared the chickpea flour pasta with roasted butternut squash and brussels sprout leaves with my friend. To accompany dinner we had another glass of Malbec. Everything was wonderful!

Matt had the brick pressed chicken. He was nice enough to share a bite. It was so flavorful and moist, again perfection!

This was our view from our seats at the mozzarella bar. Great food, great company, great fun!

Question of the day:

Do you do High Intensity Interval Training? If yes, how do you typically do this workout?