Vacation Eats

Raise your hand if you eat way too much on vacation?

I do !!!

Vacation just screams...

"What new restaurant should we try tonight?"
"Oh well, I'm on vacation!"

And other dangerous quotes.

However this vacation, I cannot afford to eat out every night. Let's just say my yearly car insurance bill and home insurance bill came on the same day. Awesome. Oh yes, and I've gained 5 pounds since Thanksgiving. OOPS. I know it couldn't have anything to do with the extra Lindt chocolates I've been popping. Or perhaps the unusual number of cookies I have been savoring?

Point is, we can eat out sometimes (hey! we are on vacation!), but not every meal. We have a kitchen down here, but it's funny how many kitchen essentials you forget you need when you are using a different kitchen.

Last night I tried out one of the Amy's individual size pizzas. In high school I use to always eat the Amy's spinach pizza but I avoid cheese these days so I tried the veggie pizza...

Here is a peek at the nutrition facts...

410 calories is not bad for a meal, but 14 grams of fat is pretty high for my tummy. An even bigger problem is the 780mg of sodium- Gina would not be proud. So why eat these high fat and sodium pizza?

Well...it's delicious for one thing. Also, it's ridiculously easy to cook. It's got 5 grams of fiber AND I actually know what everything on the ingredient list IS...

A quick meal with onions, artichokes, peppers and mushrooms? Can't be all bad...

Still though, I have to please my tummy, so for dinner I ate half of this pizza (2 small pieces) with a side of leftover mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes were made only with low sodium chicken broth, so I figured they would bring the fat percentage down a lot and not add TOO much sodium.

If you are a salad person I think this pizza could be paired with a delicious salad for the same effect. Yum.

Tonight I got to enjoy Eric's sweet potato risotto. He tried a couple of new things today including brown Arborio rice. Eric thought it was terrible, but I didn't mind it, though it never got quite as soft as white rice does.

Eric also tried cooking the sweet potatoes in the oven instead of on the stove today. Both of us loved this change, the sweet potatoes were so soft and delicious. I enjoyed the risotto with a glass of wine I bought at Newport Vineyards when I was in Newport for Tiff's Bachelorette.

It's called "In the Buff" (insert middle school giggle right here) and it's Chardonnay. I normally do not like Chardonnay but it is not oak aged, which apparently is what I generally dislike about Chardonnay (according to Eric, my wine expert, apparently I don't listen well during all the wine tours we have been on).

Stay tuned for more about wine tomorrow. Eric and I are going to take on a portion of the Southeastern Wine Trial in RI and Southeastern MA.