My Big Fat Greek Salad Fest

Hi friends!

What a great way to start the day... with a chocolate Amazing Grass smoothie! I was too much in a hurry to make a Green Monster, to Mike's dismay since he loves this guys too. Today was an "off" day for my marathon training, but Mike was ambitious and got up early for a short run. Go Mike! :) After he got back, we left for the suburbs for a Greek family get together. I had a glass (or two?) of this Greek wine:

I should have gotten a picture of the saganaki (flaming cheese!) but I didn't get to my camera fast enough! I didn't have any anyway since I'm trying to give up dairy for a while, but it looked nice and greasy and delicious ;)

Everyone (except me) enjoyed some Greek zucchini and tzatziki sauce.... I'm not sure how traditional the zucchini dish is since I've never had it at a Greek function before, but tzatziki is good stuff.

What IS very traditional and is a staple at all Greek parties is avgolemano, which is made from chicken broth, lemon, and egg. I asked Mike for a quote about avgolemano and he said: "Come for the avgolemano, stay for the dancing!" Lol. Better keep your lawyer job Mike and stay out of the marketing biz ;) It is very delicious though! I have also made it before without the chicken and I still think it turns out great.

The dinner options were chicken or fish, and ever since I got food poisoning at a restaurant a couple years ago after eating whitefish I have shied away from whitefish at restaurants. I then requested a plate of veggies instead, but the waiter told me that it was impossible to serve them without butter so I just got another salad instead. I ate all of this deliciousness, minus the feta. Then I had my second "entree" salad, and a third salad for "dessert" :) I'm quite certain all of the carnivores were jealous.....

I didn't eat any of this, but this is a whole wheat barley and currant dish called "statti". I was told that this is a symbolic grain that is used to represent the family's deceased members, so is only served at certain family events (today was in memorial of Mike's great-aunt).

After the restaurant feast with the extended fam, Mike and I went to his parents' house for the rest of the day. After playing a few rousing games of cornhole/baggo/whatever-you-choose-to-call-this-game, Yaya and I threw together an easy Mexican dish. I just had some black beans topped with a tomato/cilantro salsa, but the rest of the fam also had tortillas, chips, cheese, and chicken with their meals. I had this plate x 2 or 3!

On the car ride home I snacked on this: I decided the fresh berry flavor was good stuff! However, I'm giving it a B because I find it very disappointing when a bar that is over 200 calories is so darn TINY. For that many calories, I expect to get a bit more substance, ya know?Back at home and still a bit hungry, I snacked on my first Jocalat bar. I had high hopes for this flavor - I expected "chocolate hazelnut" to taste similar to Nutella, the world's best food.

It was certainly decent and I would eat it again, but I would give it just a B because the flavors did not stand out very much. After being let down by the Jocalat bar, I had a couple squares of Lindt dark chocolate which definitely saved the day!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I can't believe that July is flying by so fast. While I've had a fabulous summer so far, I feel like I have been running around so much that I have neglected to spend time partaking in my favorite hobbies, like reading a good book on our patio. I plan to do a lot of that over the next few days!

Have a great week everyone! :)