Brussels Sprout Salad with Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette

Remember when I went to Maine for a lovely weekend in February??  Well I mentioned it in my post but I had the most delicious salad that weekend at a restaurant called Walter’s in the Old Port. 

I’ve been wanting to re-create this salad ever since.

My grandmother’s birthday party was on Saturday!

Looking good for 87 right?? 

I wanted to bring a salad or some sort of veggie dish, as I knew we were having a Turkey-dinner-esque meal.  I wanted something fresh and light!

Plus there are so many great cooks in my family that there is always that unspoken pressure to come up with something different and delicious.

So I figured it was as good a time as any to try that salad!

If you’re making a large quantity of salad I highly recommend using a food processor with the slicing attachment to shred all the Brussels sprouts.  Otherwise, I’d just use a sharp knife and thinly slice them.

Another tip I learned after the fact was that you might want to cut out a bit of the core first.

I ended up with some of those thicker slices like in the photo above.  Not that you can’t eat it, but if eating raw they are better if that thick middle part is cut out.   

I prepped the Brussels sprouts the night before.

The next morning I cooked the bacon (in the oven), sliced the onion, made the dressing and assembled everything else when I got to the party.

Dressing…

Brussels, onion, and bacon ready to go!

When I arrived at the party, I added the almonds, cherries, and grated the cheese fresh on top!

Then tossed with dressing:

I left the nuts in a small dish to the side as some people can’t eat them.

I LOVED it!  I tweaked the recipe as written below to have a tad more honey and olive oil than what I had made.  Make sure to taste the dressing as you go to make sure it’s as sweet or sour as you like it!

Here’s what I did for a big party size salad:

Brussels Sprout Salad with Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette

• 2 lbs (or just under) Brussels Sprouts, washed, stalks trimmed
• 1/2 large red onion, thinly sliced
• 5-6 slices apple smoked bacon (nitrate free!)
• 1/2 cup dried cherries (or cranberries)
• 1/2 cup Marcona almonds (or your favorite nut!)
• Pecorino Romano cheese, about 2 oz, grated
• 1/3-1/2 cup olive oil
• 2-4 Tbsp lemon juice (just from 1 large lemon)
• 1 T honey
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• salt & pepper to taste

1. Shred or thinly slice Brussels sprouts (use food processor or knife).  This can be done the day before.  Set aside in large bowl.
2. Cook bacon until just crisp (I did this in the oven).  Drain on paper towels then give the bacon a rough chop.
3. Thinly slice red onion and add to the Brussels sprouts.
4. Prepare dressing in a small mason jar…easy to transport and then just shake it up real good.  Otherwise prepare in a bowl and whisk until combined and frothy.  Taste and tweak as needed.
5. Pour dressing all over salad.  Add in bacon, cherries, almonds, and grate the cheese on top.
6. Toss all together..SERVE!

 

Other goodies from the party…

Fresh Challah bread from the bakery!  No, my family is not even Jewish…we just love good bread!! 

Feast!!  Unpictured was also a HUGE platter full of twice baked potatoes!!!  Haven’t had one of those in ages and it was delish!!   

Hope you try the salad!  I want to try it again and maybe make it as a warm salad :)

I LOVE BRUSSELS!!

It’s beginning to feel a lot like SPRING around here :)

Owl Station: Sushi & Sake Bombs

This past Saturday night was yet another 30th birthday party to add to the list this year… but I think this one wins as most fun and possibly the  funniest night I’ve had in a while!!

My blog-friend-turned-real-friend Elizabeth turned the big 3-0 last week and her awesome fiancé, Nick, threw her a fabulous birthday dinner with friends, fun, and ridiculous cupcakes.

Oh and this…

but I think that was a spontaneous addition at the end of dinner ;)

The groups of us met at a new sushi restaurant in South Boston. 
Owl Station hasn’t been open for that long, but apparently Nick and Elizabeth are already frequent customers and now I can see why…the food was AWESOME! 

Since sushi is a great food to share, Nick went ahead and ordered a bunch of appetizers and rolls for the table to try. 

I was a little nervous at first because even though I love sushi…I’m still not too adventurous with the actual raw fish…aside from tuna and other common choices.  Lucky for me Nick went with an array of delicious, interesting, and what I would call FUN sushi!

We started with…

Edamame

Gyoza…the pork and vegetable options.  These are the veggies ones:

Calamari

There was also a delicious appetizer of thinly sliced rare beef and tuna…delish.

Oh and there were drinks…

They just kept arriving magically at the table!  That scorpion bowl was dangerously good.

Elizabeth, Tina, and I dominated the bowl…

And I discovered a Sake that I really love!

I sipped a small glass during the meal! 

Then the sushi train made it’s grand entrance…

Those amazing specimens were Volcano Rolls:  Deep fried seaweed wrapped crab meat, shrimp, avocado, asparagus, with spicy tuna & tobiko on top. 

I’m still dreaming of those volcano rolls!

On top is Vegetable Dreaming: sweet potato topped with avocado & mango

These were little bites of veggie heaven.  Mango, sweet potato, and avocado??  YES!

The bottom is Red Sox Maki: Lobster, asparagus, avocado, cucumber, lettuce, tobiko, & spicy mayo.

Almost like the lobster roll of sushi.  I was getting so full by the time those came out I only had a bite of one but it was very good!

Another favorite of the night was this masterpiece

The Phoenix: Soy paper wrapped with spicy soft shell crab, asparagus, avocado, toiko, and spicy crab stick on top.

The soft shell crab was incredible.  So flavorful!!

There was also spicy tuna rolls, a delicious one made with scallops, California rolls, and avocado rolls. 

So.much.sushi.

But we weren’t done yet.

Sushi Cupcakes!!!

Nick ordered these adorable confections in three flavor options for the group: chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet.

Look at the detail!

the “rice” was coconut.

And if we weren’t stuffed enough…

Sake bombs for all.  I’m not even sure these are on the menu but our waitress was awesome and made it happen.  Nick and his friend assembled.

My first Sake Bomb!

 

Actually pretty good.  At least not as bad as I was thinking…I mean it’s not like a car bomb where there’s fear of curdling. 

The night just got funnier from there, including lots of shenanigans… trust falls?

   

I’ll leave it at that ;)

I had such a fun time, but even more excited that I have a new favorite sushi place!!  I’m already dying to go back to Owl Station!! 

What’s your favorite type of sushi… are you a purist and stick to a variety of raw fish?  Or do you enjoy the “fun” stuff ;)

Paleo Treats and Physical Feats

Ok, it took me way too long to think of a title for this post and it’s still lame.  But I had many different things going on here and no good way to wrap it up with a pretty bow (title) on top ;)

On Saturday, my Crossfit box had a little Intra-gym Throwdown to celebrate a year of being open!  The actual 1-year mark was back in early February but the celebration didn't’ happen until this weekend. 

The “throwdown” was just an extra special workout (actually 3 different workouts) followed by a Paleo potluck!

I love weekend workouts when there’s a big crowd, so I knew this would be fun, and I was excited to try my hand at a Paleo baked good that I would actually serve to other people besides Brian.

I’m still by NO means eating Paleo, but I still like to try out the recipes!  My Paleo almond-coconut pancakes have been a favorite weekend breakfast around here ever since I first made them (as you’ll see again shortly).

I was bummed I wasn’t going to have any pictures from the actual Throwdown but look what I saw when I checked my gym’s website today (they post each workout, usually with 1 photo from the day):

ME! (and my lovely frizz ball of a ponytail)

Obviously I didn’t even know my coach took this, but it’s a pretty cool photo!! 

This was the last workout of the day which was a ladder workout of Thrusters (45lb for women) and pull-ups.  Basically, the ladder means you do 1 thruster, then 1 pull=up, then 2 thrusters, 2 pull-ups…and so on.  We had 6 Minutes for this.  I ended up with 7 full rounds of each. 

A Thruster is when you squat with the bar, then”thrust” it up over head as you stand. 

The first 2 workouts before this one were:

1. option of the Open’s workout 12.2, which I had done on Thursday and did not feel like repeating it, or a 10 minute AMRAP (as many reps as possible) of:

30 ground-to-overhead (GTO) at 35lb

30 GTO at 55lb

30 GTO at 75 lb

I did the first 60, but 75lb was a bit too much for me so I just did a few 65lb GTO’s until the time was up.

2. Workout 2 was:

8 Min AMRAP:  100 sumo-deadlift-high-pulls, followed by 50 kettlebell swings (35lb), and then box jumps until the time is up.  Unfortunately the KB swing weight was a bit much for me and I didn’t make it to the box jumps (which I actually like!). 

So yeah, that was the throwdown!

For the pot luck I made some Paleo brownies and I’m currently obsessed with them!!

I was unsure at first, but I love them and want to make them again.

I used this recipe by Baker Gal with the following substitutions:

• used 1 cup raw honey
• 1 cup raw almond butter
• 2T apple sauce added
• used 1 egg
• added 1 oz of 72% dark chocolate to the honey in the pan to melt together.
• Baked for 40 minutes but my one change next time would be to check them earlier, I wish they were a little underdone :)

You’d never know there was no flour in those.  I was even asked what kind of flour I used.  They are not too sweet, just deep dark and chocolaty! 

Even Brian loves them.  I’m making sure he saves me the last one. 

Inadvertently, our breakfast this morning also ended up being (mostly) Paleo!  

I’m telling you, those Almond Coconut pancakes are damn good!!

Also had a few slices of ham that we threw on the griddle.

I made extra this time.  I wanted leftovers to stash in the freezer.

Lovely flowers from Brian…I was joking that my Valentine’s day flowers needed to be replaced since they were dying.  And this is what I came home to Friday!

A breakfast feast.

After some digesting and cleaning, we went out for a little run!

I was pumped to try out some of my New Balance gear

I’m wearing:

• the Icefil Short Sleeve
• NBx Prism Capris
• Tonic Crop sports bra
• NBx Cocona Low Cut Socks
• the 870v2 sneakers

Also wore:

The NBx Prism Half Zip 

Thoughts:

• Everything is SOOO soft!  Love the materials.
• The half zip is probably my favorite thing so far.  It fits great and I love that the sleeves can fold over your hands as mittens!  This was great for today’s run.
• Love the t-shirt, especially the neon pink color.  I’ve never really worked out in t-shirts (in warm weather, like instead of a tank) so I’ll have wait until it gets warm out to try that.
• The capris are great, they have a draw string which I love and felts so smooth on my legs.  The material isn’t as thick as some of my other capris but I’m sure that will be much better for the warmer weather.
• I like the sports bra, very comfortable, but I’d probably go for something with more support normally.  I even added cups from another sports bra (I always like a little padding), and was happy there was slots for my to insert the cups.  BONUS: is that it has a little cleavage stash pocket! 
• Verdict is still out on the sneakers.  They are stability shoes which is good for me, but I think I need a bit more arch support so I added my inserts that I always wore with any other running sneaker.  At one point I thought the inserts were bothering me so I stopped and took them out mid run.  But then once we started running again, I started feeling a little arch pain so I put them back in.  We’ll see.  In the end everything was fine, and I might just need to break them in. 

You have until Saturday to use my discount code for 15% off + free shipping at newbalance.com!!  There have been some issues with some of the other girl’s codes so please let me know if you try to use it and it doesn’t work!! 

By the way we did a 3 mile run, plus 2 mile walk with the dog :)

There’s a whole part 2 to this weekend’s activities that include MANY shenanigans at Elizabeth’s 30th birthday party but for now I’m going to keep this post all “healthy” ;)

Blueberry Almond Muffins and New Balance Gear!

Happy Leap Year to me!!

The awesome crew at New Balance generously provided our Reach the Beach blogger team:  “Team Off Balance” with enough gear to get us through training AND the relay itself!!  Check this out…


The 870v2 Sneakers
NBx Prism Half Zip
Impact Capri
Heathered Short Sleeve
NBx Prism Capri

Icefil Short Sleeve
Get Back Racerback
Prism Running Short
Fun Run Shorts



Tonic Crop Sports Bra
Socks!
PDA Running Gloves
Tri-Viz Running Cap
NGR Bars



Um, wow!

Pictures don’t even do it justice…but that hot pink t-shirt is HOT PINK, and incredibly soft!! 
The 870’s are their stability shoe, and I don’t even think these particular sneakers(870v2) are out yet!  I’ll let you know how they feel next time I run.  I’ve always needed some stability in my running sneakers and this will be my first time trying New Balance since I started running a few years ago. 

I even tried on all the bottoms right away.  All the material is so soft, and nothing feels like it’s going to fall down, and most have drawstrings!  I currently own a pair of nice capris (not NB) but they are a lower rise and always need to be tugged up..annoying.  I’m liking the higher rise of these (not high rise, but you know…normal!).

I’ll be sure to get photos of myself when I’m wearing the gear so you can see! 

In the meantime, if you want to get some sweet New Balance gear yourself, they’ve provided me with a coupon code for my readers to get 15% off AND free shipping!! Pretty sure even Brian is going to get something after seeing my new items.

From now until March 10, 2012 you can use the code: NBRTB1279GDCT

Awesome right?!  I can’t wait to try everything on!!  If you have any specific questions about the products leave a comment or shoot me an email :)

Ok Muffin time.



This was one of those recipes that I had made before and my initial assessment was that they weren’t that great and can’t use them on the blog.

However, that was after a bite when they were still warm.  My feeling with “healthier” muffins, is that they taste better once they’ve cooled and flavors come through better.  See, the next morning I went to eat one (I mean they were still good to me!), and they tasted so much better!!  I was actually bummed I didn’t take photos that first time.

So this weekend when I was craving muffins for the week, I went back to the recipe.  Since my initial gripe with them was that I thought they weren’t sweet enough, I added a bit more honey.

Banana muffins are the best kind to make healthy versions of because bananas themselves are so sweet and flavorful, but blueberries, not so much. 





These use equal parts almond meal and oat flour so they are a little denser than your standard muffin, but they stay really moist from the almond meal, blueberries, and eggs!  Also higher in protein!!

If you have nice fine blanched almond flour then your muffins will be lighter in color and possibly a little less dense, but for now I just buy the cheaper Almond Meal from Trader Joes and it works perfectly fine.
The almond flavor is there, but not too over powering.  You can always increase the almond extract a little (that stuff is potent!) if you wanted more almond flavor.  These have more of a natural almond flavor rather than an almond extract flavor.




 Almond Blueberry Muffins 
(makes 12 muffins)

• 1 cup almond meal (almond flour)
• 1 cup Oat Flour
• 1/4 cup Flax Seed Meal
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup almond milk (plain or vanilla, unsweetened)
• 1 tsp Almond Extract (add another 1/2 tsp for more almond flavor)
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 Tbsp canola oil (or butter or oil of choice)
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/4 cup slice almonds (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 350*
Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl (almond flour to salt), whisk to combine.
In a separate bowl beat eggs and egg whites, add almond milk, oil, honey, almond extract, and vinegar. Whisk to combine. Add wet to dry, mix with a spoon until just combined, fold in blue berries.

Distribute batter into a regular 12-cup muffin tin lined with paper liners.

Top with slice almonds if desired.
 

Bake for 16-18 min, or until toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean. Let cool.


(my little “cake tester” from Crate and Barrel)




Enjoy!

I guess this if for bloggers, but have you ever made something “not for the blog” and wish you had taken photos because it came out so good!?   

Do you wear New Balance Gear?  Like it??  I’ve always liked the company.  I used to work right near their Outlet store in Lawrence…that place is awesome! 

Lets hope this is finally The Snow for the season and from here on we can move to spring???  Wishful thinking??