Tonight’s dinner was simple and quick. I cooked up some sardines (I really do love the fish guys in Chinatown) in butter and served them alongside some veggies, roots, and miso-tahini dressing. Macrobiotic? For me it is! It’s really all about balance.

Maggie’s Simple Sardines

Ingredients (1 serving)

• 3 whole sardines
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Prep the sardines – cut off the heads and gut them. I promise, this is really easy! Run a slit down the belly and just pull out the gross stuff. Rinse them in water and try to wipe off the loose scales. (Wow, I sound disgusting.)
2. Heat the butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Saute the sardines on each side for 2-3 minutes. You can put a cover over them and cook for another couple of minutes if you’re not sure they’re cooked through.
3. Eat! You don’t have to worry too much about the little bones – those ones are digestible. Just don’t eat the backbone and the bigger rib-like bones.

My veggies included kabocha, purple sweet potato, spinach, burdock, and daikon. The miso-tahini dressing on top is my new addiction.

Onto my day. So work – work is quite awesome. Some things happened last week that were odd at first, but I am really really enjoying my job. Wish I could say more!

My boss ordered lunch for us today from New York Burger Company and I got the “Tropical Grilled Chicken” salad. It was a garden salad topped with grilled chicken, perfectly ripe avocado, fresh mangoes, dried cranberries, and a few stray chickpeas. I used the yogurt-dill dressing and it was absolutely divine. I don’t think I could have asked for a more perfect salad… not to mention the sweet potato fries that rocked my socks.

Something else that rocks my socks…

Is my new project with my friend (and bridesmaid) Kate! Kate and I grew up together. We were both homeschooled (that’s how we met); I abandoned her for public school in the middle of sixth grade, but we remained close. We drifted apart in college and rekindled our friendship when I moved back to the city and discovered she was here. It gets even better – our fiances are good friends now too.

Eat the Damn Cake.

Go. Read. Give us feedback. We want YOU to help us make this awesome.

Happy almost Tuesday!

Just stopping in. Here are some things that make me happy:

This was me in Islamorada at age 6 months (ish). My parents went down to Key West on vacation and I’m pretty sure I loved it. We drove through Bobby’s hometown so we like to say that maybe we caught a glimpse of each other when we were babies.

Jamba Juice oatmeal:

They make the most perfectly cooked bowl of steel cut oats I’ve ever had. I was getting their $1 Wednesday breakfasts, but starting this week it went up to $2. Still a steal!

And I can’t forget salad…

This is from Chickpea, a cute little mediterranean place by my office. Their motto is: “always baked. never fried.” The layout is similar to Chipotle – you pick between a pita, a salad, a platter, or a hummus plate. I got the salad, topped it with original hummus, falafel (spinach flavor), my choice of 4 veggies (pickles, cabbage, black olives, and a cucumber/tomato mix), and tahini dressing. Yum!

Chickpea is located on 6th ave around West 23rd Street I believe. They do have other locations.

I’m out. What makes you happy?

I have gotten some great questions today. (I still have some to answer.) I may post them here eventually, but in the meantime, check out my answers to…

• Do you have a dream honeymoon?
• What exactly is your past with eating disorders? You’ve alluded to it before, without going into much detail. I’d love to hear more!
• Why do you call yourself Salad Girl? I like you in that you don’t only eat greens, and you actually allow real food. Was that "salad girl" name just bc when you started the blog, you had eating disordered tendencies? If so, do you plan to change it?
• Who’s your best friend?
• How many blog friends do you have?
• Who’s your favorite sister? (Hi, Jules)
• Who do you like better? Bo or Cous? (Hi, Bobby)
• Do you prefer the West Coast or East Coast?

Ask me more!

What are your plans this weekend? I have 2 brunch meetups to go to! My stomach has been really bothering me today (I think I ate something bad last night) so I hope I can go.

The other day I got a package from Maranatha – 2 jars of nut butter. They sent me one jar of no-stir peanut butter and one jar of no-stir almond butter.

Let me tell you – I thought I didn’t really like almond butter… I was so wrong. This almond butter is great. Both the almond butter and the peanut butter are slightly sweetened with organic cane sugar. I love them!

Thanks, Maranatha! I can’t wait to experiment with these. So far I’ve just had them plain, in oatmeal, and on rice cakes. All divine.

You all know that I work long hours and don’t really have much time to cook anymore. But I’m not complaining – the most wonderful cafe in the city is right nearby: Gourmet Park.

My favorite thing to get at Gourmet Park is the unlimited topping salad for $6.95 ($7.60 with tax – yes I do have that memorized). You pick a base (I get romaine), one “meat’” (I get either bacon or shrimp, depending on my mood), and unlimited gourmet toppings.

This one had (and I’m definitely forgetting some): roasted oily eggplant, roasted oily Brussels sprouts, broccoli, roasted peppers, corn, peas, water chestnuts, baby corn, mandarin oranges, artichoke hearts, sprouts, and probably some other things. I always get the honey mustard dressing (best I’ve ever had) on the side.

Gourmet Park also has a sale on their prepared food after 6:00pm – it’s all half off. So I get prepared food for $4/pound (normally $4/half pound).

This one was some Asian-inspired cooked salad of broccoli, black sesame seeds (Coco likes these!), peppers, and some other unidentified veggies. Underneath (hiding) are a bunch of oily peppers. I’m really into oily veggies lately – they are so good. Loving the fat.

Tonight I got a big dish of something with cauliflower. It was Indian-inspired, I think.

I topped it with some beef, salmon, and crab (salmon and crab are in that left corner). I also got some oily eggplant and some mashed potatoes. This whole things was just $9 (yikes… that means I just ate over 2 pounds of food). It was very yum. I am very full.

Gourmet Park is helping me eat a variety of foods without having to worry about planning my meals. Kinda nice. I wish I had discovered the wonders of eating out earlier in life (and I wish I wasn’t so cheap!).

In terms of exercise I’ve been sticking with my walking routine. Today I actually walked 4 miles instead of 2 because I walked home from work while chatting with my parents.

How often do you talk to your parents? Sometimes I talk to them every day and then other times I will go a week or even more.