Missy Maintains » Dessert

How to Make Chocolate Covered Strawberries (or not)

MissyMaintains — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:02:17 +0000

Happy Friday! Hope everyone had a nice week! I had a lovely date with my roommate last night making chocolate covered strawberries and drinking wine! She has a potluck at work today and needed to make an easy dessert that only required a couple of ingredients. She was going to make an apple crumble pie but decided that chocolate covered strawberries would be much easier. Hmm…not so much.

I immediately knew we were going to have issues since we bought regular chocolate chips to dip the strawberries in. I know there is special chocolate out there that hardens as soon as you dip the fruit in. We were short on time so we bought the first two bags of chocolate that we saw in the baking aisle.

Can’t forget the strawberries!

It would not be a complete date without some fancy Trader Joe’s $3.00 wine!

We tried to melt the milk chocolate chips in the microwave. Our apartment started to smell like fire so Jackie decided that we should try adding some milk to the bowl.

Lesson # 1: Do not try to melt milk chocolate and almond milk together in the microwave!

The chocolate looked disgusting but I could not let half a bag of chocolate chips go to waste! I decided to dip my grapes in the chocolate and put them in the fridge overnight. Here is my attempt at chocolate covered grapes…

Lesson # 2: When chocolate looks like poop, throw it out!

I decided to sit down and drink my wine while Jackie attempted to make decent looking chocolate covered strawberries. She had much better luck with the white chocolate.

I felt bad just watching so I got up and decided to do dishes.

Lesson #3: When a glass has a slight crack in it, stop being a cheap ass and just throw it out!

I sliced my finger open on the glass and ended up under the sink for the next half hour gushing blood. I am such a romantic date.

I decided to stick with the only thing I am good at…taste testing and drinking. The strawberries came out delicious once I stayed far, far away.

They were very happy that I left them alone!

I am done trying to bake things in the kitchen! It is just not meant to be.

Final lesson of the night: NEVER MAKE CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES ON A FIRST DATE!

Bollywood Boogie Winner and Exciting Monday Announcement!

MissyMaintains — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:12:52 +0000

Happy Friday! It is time to announce the winner of the Bollywood Boogie Workout DVD!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random integers, generated with replacement:

Timestamp: 2010-08-20 14:12:03 UTC

3- Erin from A Girl and Her Mutt! Congrats Erin! Please send me an email with your address and I will ship out your DVD!

Week in Review

Let’s start with some food talk. I am happy to say that I brought both breakfast and lunch every day this week! I only ate dinner at home once but a girl’s gotta start somewhere right? It’s been months since I’ve had oatmeal at work but it really is the most affordable breakfast. I forgot how much I missed it!

I added banana, Navita’s Naturals Trail Mix, and Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. Thank you to Amie for sending me so many packets of this stuff! Amazing!

For lunch I brought turkey sandwiches, veggie burger wraps, and tuna in a pita! I also always brought some popchips to munch on.

Dinner included a wonderful Whole Foods salad:

Of course I went to Friday’s one night for cheap drinks! I got a usual salad for dinner so that I could enjoy this:

That thing is an entire day’s worth of calories but sometimes a dessert like that is just necessary. I had about half of it and enjoyed every single bite. I don’t know how people can eat one bite of a real dessert and feel satisfied. If something is good, I’m not stopping after one taste! Props to anyone who can have a warm, soft cookie topped with ice cream, Oreo’s, hot fudge, and whipped cream and feel satisfied after a spoonful! That’s just not me. You only live once!

As far as exericse goes, I went to intenSati Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and today! I took a nice rest day on Wednesday since I hadn’t taken one in about 10 days! I told you I love Equinox. Today’s class was amazing. Patricia (the creator) is due to have her baby in 2 weeks and was there at 6:30 am to sub for Natalia! She was still able to do so many of the dance movements!! Love it!

Monday Announcement!

In other news, I have a really exciting Monday coming up! In the morning I am going to be filmed doing intenSati! Natalia (the teacher I mentioned above) is a Lululemon Ambassador and will be the star of their promotional musical! They will be filming her teaching intenSati so I get to be one of 10 people in the background! I also get this free Lululemon tank out of it!

After that I will be heading to Philly for the Phillies game! My mom got invited to do Zumba with the Philly Phanatic at the game that night!! My mom got to choose a few Zumba instructors to dance with her. I am going to learn the routine and dance too! Scary but exciting! I just want to meet Chase Utley and Cole Hamel (maybe sneak them kisses too). I will try to get some nice pictures and video!

1) Can you eat one bite of a dessert and feel satisfied?
2) What baseball player would you love to kiss?

Have a nice weekend!

Yummus Hummus!

MissyMaintains — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:05:44 +0000

Last night I was given the opportunity to try a brand new hummus restaurant in Brooklyn called Yummus Hummus. I received an invitation from a woman named Elissa who used to be a consultant for Sonny & Joe’s hummus (I reviewed this hummus last June. Elissa’s husband Jay and their friend Sean opened up a hummus joint in East Williamsburg and asked if I wanted to try it out. I am in love with hummus so of course I said yes!

About Yummus Hummus (source):

The Space:

Located in the latest up and coming neighborhood of East Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York, Yummus Hummus has found it’s home at 55 Waterbury St, just 2 blocks off of the Montrose stop on the L train.

From the start the owners, James Leritz (Master Craftsman and Owner of Kiln design studio) and Sean Biloski (Master of many things) envisioned a cool neighborhood restaurant with gourmet style food that would be built from the ground up. Jay and Sean personally designed and constructed the Cafes decor entirely out of salvaged, reclaimed, raw materials rescued from New York City’s five boroughs. The hand crafted hardwood floors, tables, wall accents, plates and even the glassware are all exemplary of their professional motto:

“Instead of adding clutter to the streets of NY why not take it away and make something beautiful.”

The Food:

Staying true to it’s name, delicious and homemade, Hummus is the draw at Yummus. Everyday different home made varieties are served alongside freshly baked pita bread with a medley of different vegetables and toppings to make you crave your next visit.

In addition to the main menu. options Yummus will be open from the crack of dawn to serve you gourmet coffee, tea and breakfast goodies.

I was excited to go to Brooklyn since I’ve only been there once or twice! It was only a 20 minute train ride away from my work which was nice. My roommate and I walked over to the restaurant and noticed that there were a bunch of music buildings around. There were absolutely no restaurants except for Yummus Hummus! Elissa told us that this was great for business because now people had a cheap, delicious place to go during their lunch hour. The restaurant had cute outdoor seating. As you can probably see, the entire area seemed very artsy.

The restaurant was awesome inside! James and Elissa are both designers so they made all of the decorations themselves!

Everything on the menu looked great! Luckily we did not have to pick and choose because Elissa told me she would just bring us out whatever she thought we would enjoy most!

I love that the restaurant is BYOB! A typical glass of wine in New York is at least $8.00 so this saved us some money. We picked up a bottle of Pinot Grigio on the way to Brooklyn.

The first thing Elissa brought us was an avocado and grapefruit salad.

This was delicious! It also contained onions, olive oil, pepper, and a few other spices. Grapefruit and avocado make a wonderful combination!

Next she brought us a snack plate of pita, feta cheese, pickles, and olives.

The pita bread is made fresh all day. Just to prove it, here are some pictures of Sean making the bread!

Fun Fact: Sean is on a TV show called Food Party! It is on the IFC network.

Next Elissa brought us: The “Baked” Bulb: A plate of hummus topped with an oven baked garlic bulb, drizzled with olive oil, tahini, and sprinkled with yummus spice.

I loved this hummus!! I’ve never seen fresh garlic bulbs in hummus before. It was so creamy and flavorful!

Our next hummus to try was the “Hummus Hot” : Topped with a yogurt jalepeno harissa sauce and our house hot sauce, drizzled with olive oil and tahini, and topped with tempered with crumbled feta cheese, and then sprinkled with yummus spice.

Elissa warned us that this one is VERY hot.

How good does that look? I will be pouring feta cheese all over my hummus from now on! Elissa was right! My mouth was on fire! I loved it though!

We were not finished just yet! She brought us out some falafel to try next!

“The Fal-ini” 3 oven baked falafel balls, a dollop of yogurt jalapeno harissa sauce, tahini and olive oil, and a dash of the yummus spice.

Their falafel is baked and not fried. It was honestly some of the best falafel I’ve ever had! It tasted so fresh and you could see the actual veggies inside!

No…still not done! Elissa insisted we try one last salad!

“The Reta” Roasted red peppers Chopped thin, topped with capers and crumbled feta, with a fresh squeeze of lemon, olive oil and a dash of salt & pepper.

This was also amazing! Such a simple dish yet so flavorful!

Talk about a hummus coma! We still had to try some dessert of course but we decided to let our food digest for a while. We admired the pretty decor while waiting.

Candles made from the bottom of Guinness bottles!!

Alissa & Sean

I loved that Alissa went back into the kitchen and made the food herself each time she wanted to bring us something new! Amazing service!

Dessert was grapefruit sorbet!

It was super refreshing! There were fresh chunks of grapefruit inside. Loved it!

Full belly of hummus and wine=one happy girl!

I will definitely be going back to Yummus Hummus in the near future! Everyone was incredible friendly, the environment was artsy and cute, and the food was incredible! The prices are also very reasonable! Thanks Elissa for a wonderful dinner!

Restaurant Week: One if by Land-Two if by Sea

MissyMaintains — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:55:34 +0000

Last night I celebrated Restaurant Week with Dori. We love Restaurant Week because it gives us a chance to eat an appetizer, dinner, and dessert at a fancy restaurant for a fixed price. We browsed all of the menus until we found a restaurant with some vegetarian options. It was actually kind of tough to find one with vegetarian options but eventually we chose, One if by Land- Two if by Sea.

We got there and realized that they were celebrating Restaurant Week until September 5th! We were kind of upset that we did not choose somewhere with outdoor seating but who knew? The restaurant had beautiful, old- fashioned decor with pretty chandeliers and a piano player. There was also a pretty garden outside of the windows.

Photo: Daniel Krieger

We sat down and felt like we were on a date! We got a candle lit for us and everything!

We checked out the specialty cocktails. They all sounded great! They were also $15.00 each. EEEK. I went with the Strawberry Margarita.

It was delicious and luckily got me a little buzzed! It better be strong for $15.00!! Dori got the Watermelon Martini.

They served us whole grain rolls to start. The roll was one of the best parts of the meal (besides the drink and dessert)!

Next they brought us watermelon gazpacho. This was a nice surprise! It was very refreshing.

We got to choose from 3 appetizers. I went with the Haricot Vert Salad: grape heirloom tomatoes, goat cheese, slithered almonds, basil, sherry vinaigrette.

I had no idea what haricot vert was at the time but now I see that it is French for green beans!

I really enjoyed this dish. I pretty much love anything with goat cheese!

Dori started with the Cucumber Gazpacho: fage Greek organic yogurt, mint, dill, cilantro, and balsmic.

This was good but nothing special. I tasted it but don’t really like anything with cilantro.

For my main course, I went with the Wild Red Snapper: kalamata olives, preserved lemon risotto, herb salad.

I asked if I could get this dish with no olives but the server said that they were already mixed into the risotto. I can’t stand the taste of olives so I had to skip the risotto. The fish was pretty good but nothing special. I had about half of it and decided to save room for the dessert.

There is a funny story that goes with Dori’s entree selection! She planned on getting the only vegetarian option on the menu. The menu online says that this is Homeade Summer Squash Ravioli: rustic peperonata sauce, oregano, Parmigianino reggiano. Dori thought this was what she ordered. Her entree came out and it was fettucini! We were so confused. We could not remember if she told the server fettucini or ravioli! We probably would not have went to that restaurant at all if she knew it was fettucini. She ate a little bit of it anyway but it was not what she wanted.

The couple next to us had a menu so we tried to peak over to see if it said ravioli or fettucini! We could not see. We decided we would say something to our server because we barely ate our entrees and we really wanted to see if they brought Dori the wrong entree. Unfortunately the busboy took our plates away before the server could see all of the food we did not eat. I was really annoyed that we were about to pay so much money for not so great food. We did not say anything to the server but decided to just check the menu on our way out. Oh well. We both wanted to drink more but did not want to spend another $15 for a drink! We thought about ordering one to share but we decided to just leave after dessert.

We both ordered the same dessert: Gianduja Mousse: caramel bananas, banana bread ice cream.

We were both looking forward to this dessert for weeks! We were a little concerned that it would be tiny but luckily we were wrong.

The dessert was definitely the best part of the meal!! The mousse was so thick and creamy! The little bit of vanilla ice cream went so well with the bananas and banana bread. It was seriously so good. It was the only part of dinner that we actually finished completely! At least one thing was amazing!

We left the restaurant after dessert but decided to go back in to double check the menu. The menu really did say fettucini! The menu in the restaurant was different from the menu online! This happened to us one time before during Restaurant Week. So annoying. We had no way of knowing though so we did not get too upset. The dessert was great and the restaurant was pretty but it was way too overpriced. Oh well! It was a lovely date with Dori anyway!

1) Do you have a Restaurant Week where you live?

2) Any recommendations if you are in NY?

The Chocolate Banana Burger

MissyMaintains — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:39:59 +0000

Happy July! I wanted to let you guys in on a little deal before I get started! A few of you have emailed me expressing interest in attending my school, Institute for Integrative Nutrition. They are holding an Independence Day special where if you enroll by Tuesday, July 5, you will receive a $300 tuition scholarship plus a “Let Freedom Ring” gift bag .

Here’s what’s in the “Let Freedom Ring” gift bag:

7 Habits of Highly Effective People 50 Card Deck
Achieve Everyday Journal
EnviroSax MiniSax
Goji Cranberry Cacao superfood bars by graduate Moria Felber
How to Find the Work You Love book
Strengths Finder book
Write it Down Make it Happen book
IIN logo goodies

Just call (877) 730-5444 to speak with an Admissions Advisor about enrolling. You don’t have to live in New York to attend because they have a distance learning program. Feel free to e-mail me with any questions about the school! Also, if you mention my name when enrolling, I will personally send you an extra $50.00 check! Let me know if you are interested

Yesterday’s Eats

I’ve been having the same breakfast every single morning this week: a Chocolate Banana Burger!

It doesn’t get much better than that! I finally ran out of the Nature’s Pride wheat buns so looks like I’ll have to move on! Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter is dangerous in my apartment anyway. I will explain later. The tub is almost gone just after 1 week. Oy.

I brought a lovely lunch to work! I made a salad with a Morningstar Farms Mushroom Lovers burger, avocado, hard boiled egg, and grilled mushrooms.

Delicious lunch! I also brought a snack to munch on for the side. The folks over at Smile.ly sent me Snikiddy Cheddar Cheese baked fries to try out.

About the fries:

50% less fat than regular potato chips
Gluten and wheat free
No preservatives
No corn syrup
No trans fats
Low in saturated fats
No hydrogenated oils

I liked that there were a ton of fries in the bag for just 130 calories. I don’t think I would buy them because the ingredient list is just way too long and they don’t really have any nutritional value. They were fun to munch on though! I guess they are a better option than french fries!

After work I went to the gym and did 30 minutes on the elliptical and some hand weights. I also walked outside for another half hour to pick up a package at my sister’s. I made up for not going to the gym in the morning!

I made another fun salad for dinner!

It contained salmon cake bites, edamame, mushrooms, avocado, and hard boiled eggs. I used my cool egg slicer that I got at the Eggland’s Best event!

So fun! It made slicing my eggs much easier. Daisy spotted the hummus on my plate.

One more…

I had an intense chocolate craving after dinner, like always. I searched my fridge and freezer and found a Chocolate Heart Thrive bar. I heated it up in the microwave for 30 seconds and then went a little dessert crazy….

Apparently just the bar itself was not enough. I wanted more chocolate for dipping! Then I saw a banana and decided that it would be fun to dip in the chocolate peanut butter. Then I saw whipped cream and decided to make it like a sundae! It was delicious! That was all fine until I went in the fridge again. I made myself another banana chocolate burger earlier in the evening to bring for breakfast today and just could not let it sit there. I ate half of that too. Blah. I guess I can’t make such a good breakfast that involves chocolate the night before because it is too tempting! Maybe it is just a bad time of month. I don’t know. I didn’t let it get to me. Instead I just set my alarm for 5:45 am and hit up the gym this morning. I knocked out 45 minutes of cardio plus some arm weights. Good to go. I was just sad this morning when I only had half of a breakfast left! I ate it as my pre-gym snack. Perfect. I will try to be a better intuitive eater today. It was just one of those nights!

1) Do you struggle with intuitive eating? Can you stop when you are full even if you are craving something?

2) Are there any foods you crave after a meal? Chocolate and fruit for me!