After the rain stopped drizzling earlier this afternoon, we headed out to Sayville’s Seafood Festival which benefits the Long Island Maritime Museum. I had been craving lobster for awhile, which I did have (mmm!), but unfortunately did not get a good picture of!

Fresh made sangria…

Fried calimari from Vincent’s Clam Bar stand… I liked it a lot because the batter was light and not greasy. Mmm, I got all the “beard” pieces because Chris doesn’t like them!

Best surprise of all was seeing Vertical Horizon! We got front row seats too… not sure if the table was intentionally left empty near the front or not, but we sat there haha!!

I found out yesterday @ work that Cosi was featuring a limited time offer of lobster salad sandwiches…and immediately, I was instantly craving it! Their website describes the sandwich as: New England style lobster salad on our signature hearth-baked flatbread, topped with shredded romaine.

Yummy! I love all things lobster, so this was a must-try for me.

Of course, I did look up the nutritional information beforehand to make sure I was not consuming anything that was loaded with calories and fat. At 503 calories and 19g of fat, it is a tad high but not too shabby.

The sandwich (I got it on wholegrain bread):

A cross view…it doesn’t look like there is that much lobster salad inside, but it was a decent spread. There were a few bigger chunks of lobster here and there, but for the most part, it was a tad skimpy. Didn’t expect it to be loaded though, considering the price and franchise.

They have a hot version of this sandwich too, with melted swiss cheese. But I didn’t want the additional calories… perhaps next time, like after a bike ride!

Yesterday while grocery shopping, these mint chocolate chip meringues popped out at me! I don’t even like mint-y stuff that much, but I have a fascination with green colored food… (eg. pistachio is my fav ice cream flavor, with green tea ice cream right behind).

So I decided to treat myself… 4 meringues are also only 120 calories. And I can never eat more than 2 in one go anyway.

Love the green!!

For Chris’ dad’s birthday, we decided to make cupcakes! Chris found this vanilla almond cupcake w/ blackberry buttercream frosting recipe online and it looked pretty good. It was unique since it combined a lot of different flavors together. The only substitution we made was using strawberries instead of blackberries.

Cutting up the vanilla bean. When the recipe called for vanilla seeds, we were initially puzzled where to get vanilla “seeds” from, but thanks to google.. we are now in the know!

The vanilla seeds from 1/2 the pod.

Pouring the batter into the cupcake liners. Hmmm the recipe said serving size of 12, but we could only get 11 cupcakes. I guess when they said use a ’scant’ 1/4c per liner, they really do mean SCANT!

Right out of the oven! It smelled great!

While the cupcakes were cooling, we started on the strawberry buttercream frosting. We had to make it TWICE because I fubar’ed the first batch. When reading the instructions, I misread “Add Sugar” and gave Chris a cup of regular sugar instead of confectionary. We thought it could still be saved since he only had added 1/4 of it into the frosting… but ugh, it was too sweet and we could taste the sugar granules. So that batch was dumped and we made a second attempt which was much more successful.

And voila, the cupcake!

This was the first time I have ever made cupcakes. I was a little surprised at the buttercream consistency. I had always thought it was a little stiffer… which is how people create those nifty looking designs. Maybe I was thinking of a different kind of frosting? With this recipe’s frosting, we could only slather the top of the cupcake.

Also, I don’t think we allowed the cupcakes enough time to cool down. I think they only got 30 minutes of cooling before we put the frosting on. The cupcakes stuck to the liner a bit and fell apart easily when we tried to eat one. BUT the next day, after sitting in the fridge, they tasted fantastic and held together so much better.

Last Friday, I had off from work so decided it would be a good opportunity to pick up some groceries and cook a real dinner — something I have not done in awhile due to the heat and laziness. I still didn’t want to expend too much effort in the kitchen but at the same time, I wanted to try a new recipe too. Poked around Ree’s new recipe website and found this easy pork chop +& rice casserole.

Browning the pork chops over the stove. Mmm the thyme was so fragrant! The recipe called for sage too, but I excluded that because it wasn’t in my pantry.

Putting the chops in the casserole dish. I used brown rice instead of white.. which did throw off the cooking time a bit. Recipe called for 45 minutes in the oven, but the rice was still uncooked at that point. I put it in for another 30 minutes, which overcooked the rice a little bit… came out a little soggy…

The pork and rice was tasty, but the cooking time needs to be tweaked for my substitutions.

I added in some steamed broccoli to make the meal more wholesome!

Overall, not too shabby a meal. It was super easy to put together. The prep time took under 10 minutes (although my face was completely drenched in sweat from browning the pork chops over the stove — no AC in kitchen). I would make this again if I wanted something easy and different (we don’t eat pork that often).

When we went to California last weekend, I picked up a bunch of snacks to munch on the airplane. Tried to be as ‘healthy’ as possible by picking up low calorie & portioned snacks. These 100 calorie hostess chocolate cakes were really cute and satisfied my mini-sweet tooth.

Each package came with 3 mini cakes:

And the tiny white cream filling on the inside:

My attempt at making “pizza” at home with random leftovers. I was inspired by these roll up wraps that I had bought. The back of the package had suggestions on how to use them, and one was to make a flat-pizza. Figured I’d give it a shot and use up the food in my fridge before they went bad.

Pre-oven:

Post-oven:

It turned out pretty good, except for being slightly soggy near the center. I didn’t drain the diced tomatoes very well and the liquids made a little pool in the middle. Boo! Also, I might try just baking instead of broiling next time. Not too sure if broiling is ideal…

Here’s my little recipe to make one flatout pizza (enough for 1 person to eat):

Ingredients
- 1, rollup
- 1/2 can of diced tomatoes (italian seasoned)
- a few dashes of dried basil
- a few dashes of parmesan cheese
- cut up cooked chicken pieces
- handful of spring mix lettuce
- small palmful of goat cheese

Directions
1 – Spread diced tomatoes on rollup. Sprinkle dried basil and parmesan cheese. Add cooked chicken pieces, spring mix, and the goatcheese.
2- Broil in oven, 400′ for 5-10 minutes.

Pre-Gym breakfast…Two eggs w/ soy sauce + light seeded Rye bread.

Post-Gym breakfast…1/2 a steamed plaintain.

My dinner last night…

Baked salmon. I normally don’t like salmon that much, but this filet was so moist and flavorful. Instead of a salad, I sliced up a cucumber [from Dad's garden!!], sprinkled it with EVOO, fresh ground black pepper, and topped with goat cheese.

After eating out so much this past weekend, I just wanted something simple, homemade, but also tasty. Also wanted to cut down on processed carbs (bread, rice, etc)… so the perfect choice for dinner was a salad.

Originally, my intentions were to make a basic salad topped with chicken. But I got lazy to even sautee a tray of chicken breasts. Instead, I used a package of prosciutto that I had also picked up at the grocery store earlier for the “meat” in the salad.

Here’s the salad…Spring mix lettuce with cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, prosciutto and for dressing, I poured a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil.

The prosciutto was a nice addition! I’ve never had it before — which is why I picked up a tray to try out. Didn’t think I would be using them in a salad, but it turned out quite nice.

So voila, a nice gourmet salad made at home!

These are the best fruit bars ever! Only 120 calories, yet so tasty. There are a ton of shredded coconut pieces inside which makes it beyond awesome.

Yay for healthy ice cream treats!

Not sure where my parents got these lychees longans from, but I always welcome exotic fruits! It’s been awhile since I’ve had them — probably since my Vietnam trip last summer.

Peeling away the skin…

Yummy orb inside! They were very juicy and sweet!

A few weeks ago, Chris’ sister posted a picture of a pastry on FB and called it a lobster tail. I had never heard of such a thing before (aside from the actual shellfish) and it totally intrigued me! So she said she would get me one…And here it is!

The bakery that it came from… now that I look at the catch line, haha no wonder it tastes so good… mmm butter!

Up close and personal with flaky goodness.

I had to split it open to show the scrumptious cream inside. The filling was so light and tasty! It was a mixture of cream cheese, whipped cream, and sunshine :D

Some more creamy goodness. Btw, I took these shots inside my car! I brought my camera into work just so I could snap these pictures… couldn’t miss this photo opportunity!

Probably the best pastry I’ve ever had! Ughhhh how terrible, because now I know how good it is but must refrain until super special occasions (like maybe breakfast @ Christmas).

Address
Buttercooky Bakery
217 Jericho Tpke
Floral Park, NY 11001
or
Buttercooky Bakery
140 Plandome Rd
Manhasset, NY 11030

Yet another indulgence of the weekend… but at least it was controlled dessert! At least that’s how I justified them..*cough*. I bought these 3.6oz container (230 calories) of Ben & Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream a couple weeks ago but we never got around to eating them until Sunday night.

The itty bitty container, so small yet packed with calories.

Mmm, it was so flavorful. I really loved the graham crackers mixed in!

And the money shot.. all gone!

Saturday night, Chris and I had gone miniature golfing…prior to playing, we had made a wager that the loser had to make dinner the next night. The dinner had to be semi-made from scratch. I honestly thought I would lose and was already trying to figure out what I should prepare….

But I shockingly won!

I suggested meatballs since we haven’t had Italian (aside from the occasional pizza) food in awhile. But not just any meatballs, I wanted the big jumbo ones that are usually served in restaurants.

So Sunday, we looked up a bunch of recipes online and settled on Junior’s BIG Meatballs and Marinara sauce. Yup, we figured that we might as well make sauce from scratch too if we’re doing the meatballs! According to the website, the recipe is from Junior’s Deli/Restaurant in Brooklyn, NY. Now I want to go there and try the original out!

Chris did all the prepwork, I made the sauce (easier part) and he worked on creating the meatball masterpiece!

Melting butter in sauce pan with olive oil. Beginning the sauce!

Onions, ready to be chopped!

Minced parsley…

The chopped up green bell peppers and onions in the cast iron skillet. They had to be cooked tender crisp as part of the meatball filling.

3lbs of ground chuck, mixed with all the veggies, seasoned breadcrumbs, and 4 eggs.

And when I tell you each meatball was big…. they were BIG!! Here they are browning in the skillet. The first batch got burnt a tad because the heat was a little too hot. But the second batch was perfect. Chris then dropped them in the sauce to simmer for 30 minutes. I was a little worried that 30 minutes might not be enough time to cook them through, but when time was up, they were fully done. If we had cooked earlier, I would have left them simmering over low heat for a few hours to soak in more saucy flavor… but alas, time was not on our side.

While Chris was tending to the meatballs, I found a quick & easy recipe for garlic bread. I had bought a freshly baked loaf of sesame Italian bread from the store and brushed it with our melted home made butter, garlic, and the leftover minced flat leaf parsley. I tried to make it as garlicky as I could!

And…tada!! The whole cooking process took us approximately two hours, which wore us out. But the final result was delicious…. I think it might be the best meatballs (w/ pasta) I have ever had! The meatballs were moist and full of flavor!

My plate…which was super filling. I struggled to finish it, and probably shouldn’t have even.. but it was too good to resist! Oh and yes, we used rigatoni instead of the traditional spaghetti!

Chris’ plate… that’s his “smiley face” with the meatballs and garlic bread!

Re-posting the recipes behind the cut:
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