Monday, December 28, 2009

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.


12 comments:

  1. Ummm my hand is raised! I always use the excuse that I'm on vacation or I'm celebrating so and so or it's Christmas! Always an excuse! Love your naked wine :)

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  2. I ALWAYS eat soooo much on vacay! But I try to balance it out with working out hardcore.

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  3. heck, i don't need vacay to gain weight, i'm so freaking good at gaining weight that i can do it any time :)
    have you posted eric's recipe for sweet potato risotto? i've seen you mention it a couple times and since i love sweet potatoes i would love to try out the recipe. pretty please!

    liz

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  4. haha, I just sent on vacation and ate my face off! And mmmm sweet potato risotto - I've never thought to combine those two!

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  5. I ate and ate and ate and ATE for the last 2 weeks and today I FINALLY started tracking again and I think my stomach has expanded or something because I ate 500 more calories than I normally would (should) and was still feeling hungry a lot today! Oy! I need to shrink my stomach back, haha!

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  6. i eat way too much on vacation - my husband and I are pretty good when it's the two of us, but with others we end up feeling like almost all we do is eat or talk about eating!

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  7. My family is chock full of healthy eaters, but we all managed to find our way into pumpkin ice cream and Christmas cookies! My body is always relieved to be back to eating "normally!"

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  8. I mean I think when you go on vacay its built in that you will indulge a bit right? if you enjoyed your time there thats all that matters!

    that pizza looks great!

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  9. You ARE correct my friend, I am NOT proud of that high sodium!! :) Actually I'm quite shocked that Amy's products can have that much sodium in them! Another example of how our society gets fooled by foods that are supposed to be healthy, you know? I mean it's healthIER, but not healthy. Either way, good for you for only eating half, then adding another side. That's how it should be done!

    Nick and I go on random "vacation" days throughout the year. IN other words, on nights we decide we want to go slightly off our healthy eating plans, we call them "vacation" days! It's fun, really. Regarding your 5 pound weight gain, it may have to do with water retention from eating out (and eating more sodium) so much. AND eating more sugar will do that too. I got on the scale the day after Christmas and weighed about 3 pounds more, which isn't possible, so it was water weight, yikes!

    Glad you're enjoying your vacation!!!

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  10. That sweet potato risotto sounds amazing! I love sweet potatoes and I love risotto- I never thought to combine the two!

    I love Amy's burritos... I haven't tried any of the pizzas before.

    I'm not a huge chardonnay fan either. Give me a glass of riesling or pinot grigio over chard any day!

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  11. I think it is great to be able to cook when you are on vacay! It's much healthier and more economical. My in-laws just left, and they wanted to eat out for most meals, even though we had food to cook for them. It drove me crazy!

    I want to start getting away from eating so much unnecessary sodium. But it is in EVERYTHING! :(

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