Great Discoveries

I made an amazing discovery today. Actually, my friend Heather discovered it, but today she shared it with me. But first, let's start the day right. With waffles! We were out way too late last night (2AM! I can't remember the last time I was out that late!) and I had a little too much wine, so this morning I whipped out the waffle iron and fixed us an indulgent breakfast. Buttermilk waffles with strawberry sauce and yogurt.

Overall it was a very satisfying breakfast, but I was disappointed with the strawberries. I should have known better than to buy strawberries in March and expect them to have flavor. Really they just added color to this dish. I chopped a pint of strawberries and cooked down half of them with a little water and agave syrup. Once they were nice and saucey I stirred in the rest of the strawberries and the juice of 1 meyer lemon. You could definitely taste the lemon and it was very nice and sweet/tart. I spooned the strawberries on the waffles, and then mixed up some nonfat plain yogurt with a little more agave and some good quality vanilla extract. I was glad I had all these extra flavors in this dish since the strawberries had none!

After breakfast, I braved the pouring rain and went to a yoga class at the Boston Sports Club in my neighborhood. I've been to this class a few times, and I'm liking the instructor more and more. He's great at guiding you through the postures and goal of each position. He's definitely more of "yogi" than most of the the gym yoga instructors I've taken classes from. Often times the instructor is just a personal trainer and focuses more on the fitness aspects of yoga practice, rather than the bigger goals of getting in tune with your body and quieting your mind. I'm definitely going to try to go to this class more often.

After yoga I met Heather for an exciting afternoon of grocery shopping! She recently moved to Watertown and discovered this market called Russo and Sons.  This place is amazing! There were huge bins of any kind of produce you could think of, plus a gorgeous cheese selection, bakery, deli, and a fresh pasta bar! AND its really reasonably priced. I bought way more stuff than I needed because it all just looked so good, and still ended up spending less than I normally do for a week. The pasta bar was great - all fresh, homemade pasta and ravioli. I bought fresh porcini ravioli - I can't wait to try it.

I also got a bunch of random stuff that I don't even know what to do with, but it just looked so interesting. Like wild dandelion greens. What the heck am I gonna do with those?! Tonight I'm going to figure out some way to cook a bunch of baby artichokes. The only downsides to this place are that its tight quarters and super crowded on the weekends, and I didn't see any organic produce. But they do stock local produce - I'm sure there's a lot more in the Spring and Summer - and I'll definitely take local over organic.

At the deli counter, we picked up some sandwiches and then ate them back at Heather's. I always have trouble when you have to create your own sandwich or salad on the spot - I usually go overboard and end up with a bunch of random things that don't go together. This sandwich threatened to be one of those odd, mismatched assortments, but ending up being really good!

I got a wrap with smoked gouda, pesto, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and pickles. The pickles were really the wild card - but they were huge homemade pickles and were so good!  

I just put everything away, and now I'm sipping some chai and about to start looking for recipes. I realized as I was going through my photos that I forgot to fess up to a piece of dark chocolate almond bark I bought at Godiva yesterday. Opps! Here it is - enjoy :)