Daily Loaf

Where else can you get this for $6?

May I present the new Fleming’s “5 for 6 till 7″ menu. Essentially, you can almost eat for free. Almost. Every night from 5-7 pm, Fleming’s now offers a menu that includes five cocktails (like the Basil Lemon Drop you see above), five full-sized appetizers and five glasses of house wine by the glass. All for only six dollars each. I still just can’t get over it.

Last night I was presented with tantalizing dish after tantalizing dish, Read the rest of this entry »

It’s 7:00 a.m. I poke around the kitchen in a daze, adding ingredients to my Vita Mix (high speed blender) for an energizing shake. I add a frozen banana, a scoop of almond butter, a cup of almond or hemp milk and… four cups of organic spinach. Yes, you heard right. I add fresh spinach to my smoothies. Let me introduce to you the Green Monster.

Before you gag and stop reading, let me explain. First of all, you really can’t taste the spinach! I promise you that you can’t. I did a test run on my boyfriend, who, like most guys, prefers hot dogs, tacos and nachos over spinach, tofu and fruit. Sigh. He was adamant at first, too, but once he tried the legendary Green Monster he never went back. He was amazed that you really could NOT taste the greens in the drink and now he adds an obligatory four cups of spinach daily to his protein shakes. I swear. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for a way to get off the juice but still have a small burst of caffeine to power you through your work morning? Enter yerba mate, a natural alternative for Tampa’s documented coffee addiction.

I only recently discovered this South American rain forest plant myself and now consider myself thoroughly entranced. Why? Well, after you read the stats of this miracle tea you, will be too! Read the rest of this entry »

Today I ate lunch at Cafe Hey, a small hole-in-the-wall cafe downtown. My first thought was I can’t believe I’d never heard of this place before! Vegetarian and vegan options, free trade coffee and tea, house-made baked goods — it had my name all over it. Plus, the price is right. Most sandwiches range around $6.99, and for only a $1.50 more you can have yourself a steaming hot cup of authentic cuban coffee. Hell yeah.

Of course I had researched Cafe Hey’s menu online the day before, when I found out that was where my friend and I would be headed. I love the names of the sandwiches — Turkey in the Grass, the Ric Ross and Summer Lovin’ are a few that jumped out at me. In the end, however, I went with a cup of the soup of the day and half of the hummus vegetable sandwich wrap. Read the rest of this entry »

You can’t help but notice that juicing is all the rage today. And I don’t mean just squeezing an orange into a glass. I’m talking about beets, celery, kale, spinach, bell peppers and carrots. Juice bars are popping up everywhere while smoothie shops are slowly losing customers. What gives?

Juicing is one of the healthiest things possible you can do for your body. When you juice whole fruits and veggies you are basically just squeezing out all the healthful nutrients and vitamins and drinking them down. I recently was asked to review the Mercedes Benz of all juicers for my food blog, a Breville Fountain Elite. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re looking for an affordable weeknight dinner, look no further. Let me introduce one of my very best friends: the dried bean.

You see, dried beans are so often looked over at grocery stores but they provide a plethora of nutritional benefits as well as being tasty and filling! For only about $1.29 per one pound bag, you really can’t get any better.

And now you are going to tell me you don’t have “time” for dried beans. Umm, yes you do. You really do! Read the rest of this entry »

So if you have shopped at any grocery store in the past year (and I’m sure you have), you must have noticed the complete take-over of the dairy aisle by Greek yogurt. The brands are different; there’s Chobani, Fage, Oikos and Voskos, but the idea is the same. Basically, all Greek yogurt is strained plain yogurt.

When you strain yogurt in a cheesecloth for about six hours, you drain off all the liquid and only the “yogurt cheese” remains. This, in turn, nearly doubles the protein content of the yogurt (one cup of yogurt contains a whopping 20 grams of protein!) and creates a much thicker, denser product. It also costs a pretty penny! For a four-cup serving of Fage, most supermarkets charge about $5.69, whereas a four-cup serving of regular yogurt sells for only $2.99. What’s the deal?
Read the rest of this entry »