Another trip to Palermo's...

Chris was in the mood for pizza, but I just was not feeling lots of dough, grease and cheese. I also didn't want to get the Mediterranean/Isreali combo we got last time. So I just got the Isreali salad and asked them to plop a dollop of hummus on top. Yum!

Isreali salad is chopped cucumber, tomatioes, red onions, lemon juice and salt/pepper to taste. So good!

What have you been eating lately? Has the weather been so hot and humid that it stops you from cooking up a storm?

Panera

Going out to eat can be hard when you are trying to stay healthy and eat right. It gets worse when you are trying to be vegetarian and eat as little animal protein as possible. But it is possible.

Once in a great while Chris will meet me for a quick lunch. He leaves work, I leave work, we take a break and just hang out together for an hour. Panera is close by for both of us, so that is where we have gone on more than one occasion.

Chris likes to have something different pretty much every time we eat there, while I usually stick to my old standbys.



Chris had the Strawberry Poppyseed Salad and a half of the Mediterranean Veggie sandwich- the you-pick-two option on the menu is great because you get the best of both worlds. He also had this amazing Strawberry smoothie. Yum!




I also had the you-pick-two option, but I went with the Mediterranean Veggie Sandwich (my fave! I even buy the bread they use, get the other ingredients at the grocery store, and make it myself. It still doesn't come out quite as good as theirs, for some reason. Panera must mix crack into the feta they use, haha) and a cup of the low-fat Vegetarian Garden Vegetable. The soup was good, but my favorite soup will always be the Creamy Tomato soup with Asiago croutons. Sadly, it is off the menu for now :(

I also had the iced green tea to drink. I figured, green tea is full of antioxidants and it might have less sugar than the soft drinks they offer.

Chris is not a fan of my new habit of taking pictures of my food when we go out to eat. He gets embarrassed. Ha!

Do you have a hard time ordering when you are out to eat? Do you try to "stay on the wagon?" Do you figure you are out to eat, so you can eat whatever you want?

A rack and then some

I just had to post this picture. That is a rack and a half of baby back ribs. My friend ordered it at a happy hour get together a while ago, and I took a picture of it because I thought it was enormous. I don't know if they were any good because I didn't have any, but she seemed to enjoy them!

If you like ribs, and you want to try these, they can be found at The Audubon Ale House, in Audubon, PA.

Dinner out- Isreali food at Palermo's Pizzeria

Dinner out can be high calorie and high cost for my husband and me, so I insist on not doing it often. We like trying out new restaurants, and we LOVE food, so we make it worth it and go all out. Since I try not to eat chicken, beef, or pork I stick with seafood or pasta. There are plenty of healthy options in both categories, but inevitably I start thinking, "we're out to dinner, why eat healthy?" And then I end up ordering something with lots of pasta, lots of cheese, just LOTS of everything. And I also tend to eat everything placed in front of me (thanks Mom for making me clean my plate, you have created a monster, haha.) My husband orders steak or fish entrees- not always healthy when covered in sauce.

But once in a while we go to Palermo's in Phoenixville PA. It is a short drive, it is a very low-key place and the pizza is decent- the crust is thin and not too doughy, and the cheese isn't falling off the slice, drowning in grease, my only two pizza dealbreakers. Palermo's gets bonus points with me because they have good sauce, and they have OPTIONS. Like Margherita, my fave, veggie pizza and white three cheese. (I know, I sound obsessed with cheese. This is why I won't keep much in the house.)

But the past two times we haven't gotten any pizza at all. Instead, we chose from the Isreali food section of the menu. It includes hummus, babaghanoush, and felafel- it has other stuff, but those are the main attractions for us, haha.

Palermo's calls this food Isreali, but I guess you could just say it is Meditteranean/Middle Eastern since so many different cultures eat it. It's no wonder why, it is fabulous AND healthy.


I know this all doesn't look like a lot for dinner for two people, and it may not be fancy looking, but we both left stuffed. Even my husband, with his hollow legs. It is pretty healthy, full of fiber and protein, and qualifies as finger food if you dip the pita in the hummus and eat it like you would chips! And the meal is vegetarian!

The only thing I would want them to change? If they offered wheat pitas in addition to the white ones- that would be the bees knees.

The things that look like poo- not to worry, they are felafel. Felafel are fried patties of chick peas and onions. I should have shot a picture of one of these broken open- they are green inside. We agreed that they were the best we ever had.

If you are ever in Phoenixville PA and looking for a cheap dinner- try Palermo's, and order off the Isreali Food part of the menu.