Posts Tagged by dessert
Blogging Black Hole & Eating Tour of NYC
| May 31, 2010 | Posted by Lauren under Misc |
As I’ve said many times on this blog, I believe that life is all about balance. Balancing work with play, exercise with rest, healthy food with huge 90-gallon ice cream sundaes…and life with blogging.
This weekend, I fell into a bit of a black hole in the blog world. I was actually in NYC with the HOTR-family for a weekend of celebrations – HOTR Sister #2’s graduation from her Master’s program (Congratulations Christina!!), my birthday, and HOTR Sister #3’s birthday! I thought I’d have time to blog, but that obviously did not happen. So while I loved hearing your thoughts about treadmill running, I’m sorry for the lack of replies. I promise that I read every one (with the help of my phone!) and really appreciate you taking the time share your experiences and feedback.
So what did I do instead of blog (hard to imagine there’s anything else, right? 
)? The weekend was spent walking around Manhattan until my feet were ready to fall off, eating lots and lots of amazing food, and spending time with some new friends:
All of these were taken at the Central Park Zoo. It’s crazy to think all of this exists right in the center of a busy city.
We also went to some amazing restaurants and ate delicious food that unfortunately went unpictured.
A quick confession. Up until a few days ago, I actually haven’t had a working camera. So with the exception of the few times I was able to steal borrow a camera from my mom or EC, I have actually been taking most of the pictures for this blog with my iPhone. I finally got a working camera for my birthday, and am excited to be able to take pictures with the ability to zoom! 
So if you are planning a visit to NYC and need some restaurant recommendations, I leave you with the following HOTR-family approved suggestions:
Patsy’s Italian Restaurant, located in the theater district. This family owned restaurant was apparently Frank Sinatra’s favorite. They have a large menu with lots of authentic Neapolitan dishes…and mouth watering desserts. HOTR-sister #3 (also known as Caitlin) and I split the Eggplant Parmigiana and the Linguine al Pesto. While we liked both, the pesto was definitely my favorite of the two. I’m pretty picky about my eggplant parm (it’s actually my favorite meal), and I found this one to be a bit too chewy for my taste. But the pesto was very flavorful. I loved that it wasn’t drowning in oil, which seems to happen at a lot of restaurants.
And even though we were all full from our large plates of pasta, it was impossible to say no to dessert when the waiter rolled an entire cart full of delicacies to the table.
Josie’s Restaurant (west-side location). For a lighter meal at a restaurant that offers many vegetarian and vegan options made with organic ingredients (as well as free range meat/poultry/eggs), I highly recommend Josie’s. I love going to restaurants where there are more than 2 menu items for me to choose between (a rare treat for a vegetarian!). I ordered their All Veggie Meatloaf, made with organic lentils, seitan, shitake mushrooms, and sweet potatoes and topped with a miso gravy…all over a bed of sautéed baby bok choy. It was delicious and packed with flavor. They also offer a variety of salads as well as their own homemade veggie burgers (also delicious). 
Maoz Vegetarian. This “quick service vegetarian” restaurant is actually an international chain. The concept is wonderfully simple. Their basic sandwich is simply a pita filled with handmade (gluten-free!) falafel. A standard pita comes with hummus, falafel, eggplant and greens. You can spice it up by adding a variety of toppings and sauces from their salad bar. Or you can skip the pita and get a salad instead. This was actually my family’s first time trying falafel and I was so happy that they all loved it!
And finally – dessert. If you’re ever in NYC, you really must visit Serendipity at least once. They have three locations in Manhattan. We went to Serendipity 3 on the Upper East Side, which is actually the restaurant that was featured in the movie Serendipity.
Because it’s so well known, the wait is long, but it’s totally worth it! I would suggest going early and putting your name in, and then going out for dinner someplace else while you wait. We put our name in early on Saturday night (around 5:30) and still waited for an hour and a half before getting a table!
Serendipity is most famous for their frozen hot chocolate, but they’re also the home of giant ice cream sundaes, including a world record-holding $1,000 sundae. Apparently this baby contains flecks of real gold (it better for 1,000 bucks!) and is served in a crystal bowl with a bejeweled spoon. Unfortunately you have to order it 48 hours in advance, and since my family did not plan that far ahead (and aren’t actually royal dignitaries or any sort of celebrity), we had to pass. The sundaes we did order, however, did not disappoint! We tried the “Can’t Say No” Sundae (humble pie [which is creamy pb with a graham cracker crust] + ice cream + banana + hot fudge + whipped cream) and the Forbidden Broadway Sundae (chocolate Blackout cake + ice cream + hot fudge + whipped cream). I loved them both equally. My only complaint is that I don’t get one of these every day of the week!
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After a wonderful weekend of food and family, it’s now back to reality. I haven’t forgotten about the Shape Up Summer Challenge. Stay tuned for the kick-off tomorrow!
Happy Memorial Day!
Life in the Balance
| May 11, 2010 | Posted by Lauren under Motivation |
This week has been all about restoring balance in my life. The last few weeks (okay, let’s be honest months), have been filled with a lot of stress, anxiety, and feelings of treading water simply so that I could stay afloat. In fact, to be perfectly honest, the feeling of being stuck in a rut hasn’t completely gone away since I wrote about it in one of my very first posts. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized it never really would…unless I did something big to change my outlook. But more about that later…
This week I am taking a much needed break, spending some time at home with my wonderful family {creepy stalkers reading this, please note: my apartment is still occupied, so don’t get any crazy ideas!}. It has been so nice to get away and just be for a little while (even though I’m horrified by the fact that it’s currently snowing in Western PA). And it’s been a grand vacation for Koli as well, who has been eagerly soaking up 6-times the usual amount of attention, a large backyard to run around in, and a constant playmate to attack.
Being away has provided me with the time and opportunity to focus on living life in the balance. Like balancing healthy and delicious home-cooked meals with lots of baking and a huge dose of chocolate.
Super easy no-bake cookies with oats, almond milk, cocoa, cinnamon, and coconut
I’ve found that the secret to super soft no-bakes is to actually cook the oats in with the milk and cocoa, instead of stirring it in at the end like most recipes say to.
“Almost” Vegan Brownies – made with cocoa, almond milk, and coconut
A good try, but not quite a success. I’ve learned that it’s not always smart to drastically cut down the amount of sugar in a recipe in order to “healthify” it. These were almost vegan because I later topped them with the leftover “secret” recipe non-vegan chocolate cake filling used in Sunday’s three-layer Mother’s Day Chocolate Cake (sadly unpictured but oh-so delicious)…and served them with ice cream. At which point they became an edible treat.
A time to balance work and play.
As I work on a couple of freelance projects…
(Source)
and play with the boys.
A time to balance being a responsible adult and being, well…not one.
Dear Sisters, please forgive me…
A time to re-balance my workouts to incorporate both cardio and resistance training.
(Source)
During the past few months, I have been neglecting any and all resistance training, including core strengthening. I have let my love-hate relationship with lifting get the best of me, and have been focusing solely on cardio. This is not good for many reasons. Regular strength training has countless benefits, including producing overall muscle tone, strengthening your bones, increasing your metabolism, improving your posture, and making you a faster runner. So in an effort to bring more balance to my workouts, I am re-committing to a weight training regimen by doing the workout fondly referred to in our family as “The Core.” This high intensity strength training circuit is short but extremely effective. Today was Day 1 of my new routine, and my muscles are already aching…in that satisfying “I’ve accomplished something today” kind of way. I plan on posting the workout later this week, so get excited.
And finally, this week is a time to balance my focus on living in the moment with planning for the future.
In my last post, I alluded to a big transition that I’m currently going through. I promise to talk more about this in a future post, but for now I will just say that this time at home is providing me with a much needed opportunity to just step back and re-evaluate things. I strongly believe that matter where you are in life, it’s important to do this once in awhile; to step back and look at the big picture to see the steps you have to take next. At the same time, I am soaking up every minute of the present, being surrounded by loved ones and temporarily removed from the worries and stresses of everyday life.
And in the spirit of looking toward the future, here is what’s coming up this week on HOTR: In my next few posts, I plan to talk about more adventures in eating, the Core Workout mentioned above, a post about why reading labels is so important, and my very first guest post! This guest poster may or may not be a family member , and she’ll be posting about an issue very near and dear to her heart that’s quite a bit different than the topics I typically discuss here. Even so, I’m very excited about this post and hope you’ll find it just as interesting as I did! So stay tuned!
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