Saturday Missions, Ted's Butcherblock, and bad girls at Baked!

Saturday morning I woke up with two Asian missions: sweet chili sauce and nail polish. I called Ashley and told her about my weird needs and thankfully she's weird enough to join in on my adventures. Mission 1: Nail Polish, accepted.

Re-Fresh Mint by China Glaze

Both Sally Hansen stores in Mt. Pleasant and Summerville were sold out...since we were on already on the way to the ghetto of North Charleston, I checked out that location. Lucky me - they had it! I also picked up this color: 

High Hopes by China Glaze

After our success in the ghetto, we drove over to the Asian supermarket on the other end of Rivers Ave. Yikes. This place smells "like both soap and fish." If you can handle the stench, you can get some great deals on Asian staples. I picked up a knob of ginger, 2 stalks of lemongrass, and 4 bottles of Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce:

A 32-ounce bottle only costs $2.59. At Whole Foods it's like 5 something for a 20-ounce bottle. My total for everything was a little over $10. I think I spent more in gas being lost in the hood than I did on actual food. Hmm.

We worked up an appetite and headed over to Ted's Butcherblock for lunch treats. Ted's is a butcher shop and gourmet market in downtown Charleston. Ted was at the counter when we walked in and greeted us cheerfully. He made some recommendations since we were new to the block to help us decide. While we waited for our sandwiches to be made, I snapped some photos. 

Butcher counter: 

 Prepared food and Sitting area:

 Gourmet Cheeses:

 Wine and Sitting area:

Beer!

 

Saturday was beautiful, so we sat outside in the warm sun. Ted was nice enough to bring our food out to us. I chose the chicken, pancetta & avocado: roasted chicken, crispy Italian-style bacon, avocado, tomato, red onion, garlic aioli  for $8. 

Onions were removed!!!!

This was the freshest tasting sandwich I've ever had. The avocado and tomato were at the peak of their ripeness, the pancetta was perfectly crispy, the chicken was moist, and the bread was chewy. Loved it! 

Ashley chose the waldorf salad sandwich: chicken, dried cranberries, pecans, apple & brie, lightly tossed in garlic aioli for $8.

As soon as she took a bite she said "Oh that's a 10!" We switched sandwiches for a bite and hers definitely was a 10. She asked for it warm so the brie had melted a little. As our included sides, we both had the three-year Gouda mac & cheese:

The mac & cheese was served cold, which surprised both of us, but it was still good. Ted offered to warm it up, but it was fine just like that. The menu had so many other options that I'd like to try so I'll definitely be back. After eating half our sandwiches, we were filled to the brim, but you-know-who wanted something sweet. I asked Ashley if we should be good and she said we might as well go big or go home. We didn't go home; we went to Baked.

I've been to Baked before and was so in love that I bought three things at once. Baked has a NYC location and a Charleston location on East Bay St. They serve cakes, cupcakes, morning goods, brownies, bars, biscotti, cookies, marshmallows and tarts. I chose a strawberry-lemon curd ginger tart. 

It was a ginger and pretzel crust as a base, with a layer of lemon curd and topped with strawberries. The lemon curd was pretty sweet and Ashley and I kept picking at the crust instead. It was a fun foodie day that just energized us for more shopping -- receipts for eyeshadow, lip gloss, and new black heels are now in my purse. 

It's Raining NUTS! Hallelujah, It's Raining NUTS!

I wish it was raining men but since I'm set on being single until 2050, nuts will do. Almonds and peanuts that is!!! I got home from work and these little jars from heaven were waiting for me:

Mr. Tim from Naturally More, you put a huge smile on my face! Thank you! As much as I wanted to dig into the jars once I saw them, I had an earlier than usual training session at 6:30. Umm talk about a rough session that was. I left feeling ripped and in dire need of protein, so today's gift came on a perfect day! I opened the almond butter first and was surprised at the amount of oil at the top. And here's when my brain temporarily stopped working. Thinking that oil = bad, I dumped most of it in the drain....oh crap. When I went to stir it, it was nearly impossible to move my spoon. I kept thinking "COME ON, I just lifted like 40 lb weights. I just want to eat." Jar 2: I did not dump out the oil, and it stirred up like a dream.

look at the flax seeds!

The taste was good, smoother than other almond butters I've tried, with a nice crunch from the flax seeds.

Con una manzana:

Nutritionals that rock:

Then I tried the peanut butter.

This peanut butter is SO GOOD! It was sooo smooth, creamy, and the taste was great! It's tastes very natural with a hint of honey. I'm really excited to try this with oats because it spreads so well.

Nutritionals that rock:

After my taste test, my kitchen looked like a crime scene. I was also eating cottage cheese/bbming while I was having a hellofa time stirring the AB without oil.

As if I didn't eat enough nut butter, I was feeling Greeky. 

And Geeky. On the container it says "Please do not stir." Well, thanks for being polite Fage, but I'm a curious girl and tonight I was clearly in the mood to stir...so what happens when you stir the yogurt with cherry?

PINK YOGURT!!

The Hallmark Channel movie I just finished watching has temporarily turned into an emotional woman. What will make me better again? 

MORE NATURALLY MORE!

Spicy Chicken & Peppers with Avocado Butter and Pineapple Greek Yogurt

For the last week I've been craving Mexican food. Although you can get Mexican food for pennies, I'd rather not calorie waste on the greasy restaurant stuff. My friend Nick sent me a recipe for what his family calls "Avocado Butter."

The Avocado Butter essentials are among the world's healthiest foods:

• Avocado - good for cholesterol, good source of potassium which helps regulate blood pressure, good source of folate which is important for heart health.
• Garlic - an excellent source of manganese, a very good source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C and a good source of selenium. Good for blood pressure, platelet aggregation, and cholesterol levels.
• Honey - a natural sweetener, anti-bacterial, cough suppressant, helpful for cholesterol levels.
• Olive Oil - helpful for cholesterol levels, an anti-inflammatory, prevents bone loss.

Talk about making your heart happy!

 

Nick's Recipe:

• 1 large avocado
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 olive oil
• s&p to taste

Remove the avocado from its peel and pit. Mash with the back of a large fork. Add garlic, honey, and olive oil and stir until smooth. Add salt & pepper to your liking. Nick recommended using a blender but the fork worked just fine because my avocado had fully ripened.  The first time I made this I used all the ingredients, but this time I omitted the olive oil for a chunkier effect. Omitting the olive oil made it a much sweeter dip as the honey stood out more.

This took about 5 minutes from start to finish. I popped it in the refrigerator to let the flavors set in and headed to the gym. Once there, I did a 10 minute walking warm-up, 35-minute run, and spent about 15 minutes on abs. It's really hard to do more than that when you have Avocado Butter waiting for you!

For dinner, I cut up 8 oz chicken tenderloins, 1/2 red pepper, 1/2 yellow pepper, 2 gloves of garlic, and sauteed them with cumin, cayenne pepper, and balsamic vinegar. (Makes two servings.)

 

I decided to turn this into a wrap (fajitas?) and added the avocado butter and this key ingredient as a sour cream replacement:

Mmm! The pineapple flavor really cooled down the spiciness of the chicken. All the flavors combined so well that cheese wasn't necessary! I nibbled on some carrots as my side:

It tasted really good as a wrap and was quick to make!

I'm currently snacking on a Luna Bar: Peanut Butter Cookie. 

 

This bar definitely tastes like your typical peanut butter bar. It was a tasty treat with a perfect amount of crunch from the organic peanuts and sea salt.

The bottom layer adds delicious creaminess:

Question 1: 
Do you guys ever wake up starving? Lately, I have been waking up and running to the fridge. I'm trying to figure out if I'm not eating the night before or if it's because I'm going to the gym at night and my body requires more fuel. This doesn't happen on Mondays though - I guess I do a good job pigging out all weekend. 

Question 2:
It seems like the days I go to the gym looking extra-rough, hair a mess, wrinkled shirt, sweating 5 minutes in, are the days w/ tons of hotties and/or people I know. Not fair! It's only happened a couple times but stilllllll whyyyyyy? In the middle of abs I got some weird knot in my stomach and while I was laying on the floor pouring sweat, my friend suddenly stands over me saying "HI!!" Not even kidding, my response was "HI! I'm disgusting right now." Ohhhhh the gym look is HOT.

Spinning off the Weekend

Spinning is my new detox. I woke up super early to call and reserve my spot for the Monday night class and I'm so glad I did. It's definitely worth waking up at the crack of dawn to sign up...and of course, you can always go back to sleep. After a boat-load of drinking (literally) on Saturday and lots of naughty weekend eating, I knew spinning would make me feel better. It's a great way to ditch Monday blues and kick-start the week.

My second class was even more fun than the first. The instructor and his awesome music make the hour go by super fast. During the cool down he even turned the lights down really low while we pedaled up a steep mountain to a slow 6-minute song. That was really cool. My favorite part was when he played the music video for Britney Spear's "Womanizer." Wowwwy, not only is that an awesome song to ride to, but the video is intense!! I sweated buckets of coor's light/easter dinner and left feeling awesome about the coming week.

Where did I spend my naughty eating allowance this weekend? Well, besides spending it on mimosas and coor's lights on the boat all day, I ate at Pizzeria Di Giovanni on Saturday night. Di Giovanni is a hidden gem on Market St. downtown. The New Yorker owner brings the typical NY style pizza down to the lowcountry. They serve ridiculously huge pizzas or you can get them by the slice. In a pizza, I prefer thin, chewy dough with a crispy crust, and a flavorful sauce. Di Giovanni serves exactly that. You can tell he uses fresh herbs and tomatoes because the sauce is perfect. The pizzeria is small with a large, open eating area. You can even watch them make your pizza. This place gets packed after the bars close.

My cheese slice and Justin's "roni":

Here's the owner after I yelled at him, "Smile like you think I'm pretty!!!"

Please note the creeper in the background on the right. I said "SMILE!" to him and he gave me a not-so-friendly look. Dough-thrower boy said "You have to tell him to say queso. He's Mexican." 

Ok, this I cannot understand. I have a degree in Spanish - queso means cheese, got that one just fine....but why on earth would he say "queso" to smile. Saying queso out loud doesn't produce a smile...maybe just a sweet o-face. Dough-boy's got tricks.

...

A new grocery store find:

What.the.crap. The label states, "Only the highest quality vinegars can create the unique taste of Daddies, the Strong Brown Sauce." EW!! This is not appealing. Apparently it's the British version of A1. I did not buy it.

And here's a link I found really useful: www.stilltasty.com. This site gives the lowdown on foods' shelf-life...Wondering how long your hard-boiled eggs from Easter will last? Don't even think about eating them. Today's question on the site was if you could freeze raw eggs for later use. Guess what? You can! You can freeze fresh eggs for up to a year...but you do have to remove them from the shell first. Cool stuff!!

Baking with a Dirty Blondie...Ginger

After I carbo-loaded on angel hair for absolutely no reason other than loving pasta, I had the urge to bake! I looked down in my own shame, remembered that I'm not currently rocking a tummy roll, and considered the state of my abs. NO COOKIES ALLOWED. 

SAVE THE ABLETS.

Cookinglight.com was a big fat failure for me tonight, so I resorted to other bloggers' goodies. Tina is a blogger from my home state of Massachusetts. Her healthy-eating and fitness blog is right up my alley -- she exercises her butt off, eats really healthy, but knows it's important to indulge...bc we can. Hence the name of her blog "Carrots and Cake." I perused her recipes and found Baked Banana Oatmeal. I made some modifications and created a very similar recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup oats
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup Blue Diamond almond milk, original flavor
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 banana, sliced

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350* F.

2. Combine the first six ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

3. Add milk and vanilla and stir.

4. Spray a loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. 

5. Add mixture to the pan.

6. Top the mixture with the sliced bananas. 

7. Bake for 30 minutes or until slightly browned.

8. Resist the temptation to immediately devour, and let cool. 

Makes 2-4 breakfast bars -- depends how hungry you are! 

I cut mine into 4 servings. Here is the estimated nutritional information that I calculated using livestrong.com.

Please note that this is a calculation using the above site and the specific products that I used.

Per 1/4 of total recipe: 
212 Calories

10g Fat

0mg Cholesterol

40mg Sodium

29.5 Carbohydrates

17.5g Sugar

2.75g Fiber

3.75g Protein

Enough science, onto the baking process. I'm such a blonde. Well, sort of. Let's not get into a 30 minute discussion about how I'm never quite sure what my hair color is. We'll just go with dirty blonde almost ginger. Oh, and my eyes? I-swear-they're-green-but-everyone-else-thinks-they're-blue. For this particular recipe, I was a ditzy, a.d.d. blonde. 

Step 1: Completed without difficulty. Pressing the up arrow to preheat an oven isn't hard.

Step 2: Beautiful success!

Step 3: Also a success!

Step 4: Where the !@#$%^&* is my loaf pan? I started to panic and rummage through the cabinets. Luna Bar stash, sweet!! Can you guess what my favorite flavor is?

Step 5-6: I settled for a little pyrex instead.

Step 7: The baking/sitting with anticipation by the oven process:

immediately after placing in the oven. 
i'm easily excited over baked goods.

ten minutes later. good grief, time is slow. 
i guess i'll clean up.

realizing that i make quite the disaster mess while baking:

oh, look, the spilled milk made a C!

10 minutes left, let's play on facebook/BBM/chug diet lemonade. 

clearly these three things are crucial in my life.

five minutes left. i can't sit still. 

except on the floor in front of the oven i guess.

Step 8: I MADE IT!

There you have it--brekkie bar sucess!