Simply irresistible

Anyone else completely unable to resist the sickeningly sweet taste of store bought frosting?
As embarrassing as it is I know I can't...
Lets just say there were a few licks while frosting my sister's birthday cake...

But it came out great, my sister immediately said "yum" when seeing it!
For afternoon snacks, somehow two small 'defect' chocolate covered strawberries hopped in my mouth... I have no idea how...
and then I had 1/2 a cup of 1% whipped cottage cheese to hold me until dinner.

We ate dinner in Newport, which was lovely- I love Newport, even in the winter- it's so pretty!
We ate at Mama Luisa's, a cute authentic family owned Italian restaurant. I got to use my Italian while ordering!
We started with hot fresh bread and olive oil...

and for antipasti, I had two halves of bruschette- one with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and caper, the other with tomatoes, olives, and mozarella. Both were delish but I have to say the goat cheese one was to die for!

For my entree, I ordered something out of the ordinary. I wasn't feeling pasta because we just had eaten bread for appetizers, so I decided to try a very southern-italian specialty that I didn't get to try in Calabria when I was a vegetarian. Picatine di vitello- veal scallopine with artichokes, capers and a white wine lemon sauce. Ohmigosh. Light, flavorful, and just enough! Fantastic, truly.

I also shared a bite of my parents' dishes- squash ravioli and spinach ricotta gnocchi.

The waitress overheard us talking about it being Ali's birthday so she brought out a bowl of fig gelato with a candle in it! I LOVE figs, in any form- so I was excited to have two tiny bites!

The entire meal was fabulous, and I felt great after- full, but in no way stuffed. That meant I had enough room for cake and ice cream!

The birthday girl with her cake:

I was good and I only chose a small sliver of cake with one strawberry, and had a couple small scoops of light ice cream.


It was just enough for me, and the family enjoyed it very much as well!

It was such a nice night, I hope Ali enjoyed herself!

This morning I slept in because it's my rest day from exercise. I made myself my regular choco banana berry smoothie when woke before I went to work.

Work was busy, to say the least! I'm glad I packed my snack:

Because I didn't get to eat lunch until half past one! (I usually eat between 11-12) I packed the leftovers of my sloppy joe mix from Friday's dinner, as well as a 100-calorie whole wheat Lavash bread, some carrots and an apple I ate mid afternoon for a snack.

Just relaxing at home tonight; I'm relieved to be completely done with the holidays, and back into my usual routine of eating healthy every day!! I have the day off tomorrow so I'm looking forward to trying a couple new recipes! =)