Fat and Happy

You know that feeling of being wonderfully full after a delicious meal? That’s what Nathan and I call fat and happy and it was our motto back in the day. Now, I wouldn’t say that we spent our whole weekend that way, but we definitely finished it of that way! There were lots of smiles.

I celebrated the weekend [both days] with pancakes.

Morganne’s coconut protein pancakes are fabulous and I’ve been enjoying the day after day, sometimes with figs, sometimes with banana. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

Nathan and I celebrated Saturday with a little bar hopping.

Hers: Evil Twin Imperial Biscotti Break | His: Malka Blonde

We started out at The Trappist Provisions—the fanciest of the bars—continued to The Gradute, and finally, Barclays. We stopped at the Ramen Shop for dinner afterward. I wasn’t feeling ramen at all so I went for the salmon salad appetizer with an egg.

It was beautiful! But next time I need at least 5 of them to fill me up and about 10x less salt. Oh well, live and learn.

Sunday was spent strolling through neighborhoods of Berkeley and Oakland. We stopped at Elmwood Cafe for lunch; I’d been wanted to try it since Gina wrote about it and it did not dissapoint!

Here, take my picture. But please don’t wait till I’m ready.

People call this the latte soup. It was huge!

I got the smoked salmon sandwich with cream cheese, cucumber, pickled onion, and lemon pepper on Acme levain bread. It was so good. I’ve really been feeling smoked salmon lately and this was nice and light. Which saved room for a shared strawberry and sour cherry turnover and..

.. homemade peanut butter crunch ice cream in a homemade chocolate-lined waffle cone from Ici. It was every bit as delicious as it sounds. Nathan told me I was smiling too hard, but really.. do you see what I’m holding?!

As we walked around town, we stopped in other patisseries, meat and cheese shops, and grocery stores, tasting our way through. There are so many restaurants and ice cream shops we found [including a liquid nitrogen ice cream shop!} and have a lot more tasting to do. But for now, I don’t think we can thinking about more food! Ok, that’s a lie. Give us an hour..

Weekly Meal Plan

Sunday – Herbed turkey burgers with Nathan’s homemade onion jam, roasted tomatoes, and arugula on cauliflower rolls
Monday – Lentil ratatouille
Tuesday – Moroccan-spiced chicken with roasted cauliflower and farro salad
Wednesday – Leftovers
Thursday – Winging it!
Friday – Out!
Saturday – Leftovers

Food for Thought

What fun stuff did you do over the weekend?
What’s on your menu this week?

Beer is Kosher for Passover

Well that was a fun weekend! I hope you all had a great Easter if you celebrate. I continued my Passover.. celebrations? Sort of.. I just couldn’t go to Mikkeller and not get beer. Ha! At least I haven’t had bread and grains, right?

When I was little, I was telling my family what I had for lunch at school during Passover and mentioned that I had onion rings but only ate the outside. My older brother was pleased to point out that I only ate the breading. I still get made fun of! Passover officially ends Tuesday at sundown so I’ll continue to keep the spirit until then.

Anywho, Friday night we went into San Francisco and met up with a couple Fit Approach-ers at Mikkeller before heading over a sketch comedy show. It was our first time heading into the city at night and we made it taking public transportation and all. Win! I was really bad about taking any pictures that night though.. whoops.

Saturday I had plans with Alyse to go to a new VinBata class and somehow [after a couple drinks] Friday night she convinced me to go to the UrbanKick class before that. I’m so glad I went because they were both so fun! I’m not used to taking classes having a gym in my apartment complex so it was a really fun change of pace.

UrbanKick was a full hour of nonstop moving.. think Zumba with a kickboxing twist. Loved it! VinBata was really great too; it started with a few minutes of yoga warmup, then into about 25ish minutes of tabata training, and ended with 25ish minutes of vinyasa. I was completely squatted out after UrbanKick so the tabata part was rough but it was really nice to end with some good stretching.

Alyse, Rocky [the VinBata instructor], and me.

Nathan and I were both beat Saturday night so we just stayed local and tried a new pizza joint. Luckily for me, most of the pizza places also have other great options on the menu so I got a really good salmon fix.

Yesterday was a lazy day. I had the idea of going hiking just to get outside but we both weren’t feeling it so instead, we had more beer! We went over to Cato’s for lunch where they were having an adult Easter egg hunt. The egg that Nathan found got us a chocolate and a free beer. Heyooooo! Obviously because we chose the healthy option, we decided to take a post-lunch walk.. for gelato 😉

We split a cardamom orange zest and it was amazing. So much flavor on such a small spoon! Oh, and you know, in case you missed this on my Instagram feed yesterday..

Weekly Menu Plan

Sunday – Grilled chicken with zucchini fritters & pasta [for Nathan]/guacamole [for me]
Monday – Vegan bolognese.. except with ground turkey 😉 over zucchini noodles
Tuesday – Chipotle-style chicken rice/salad bowls with homemade salsa
Wednesday – Leftovers
Thursday – Parmesan-crusted chicken with shaved brussels sprouts salad
Friday – Out!
Saturday – Green harissa chicken stir fry rice bowl

Food for Thought

What’s your favorite class that you’ve taken at a gym?
What fun plans did you have over the weekend?