50 Best Restaurants in the World

Sometimes the simplest lunches are the most delicious.

I am not a fan of regular hummus (it’s too bland for me), but roasted red pepper hummus is a whole different story.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus = Yum

I first discovered roasted red pepper hummus when the lovely free sample lady at Publix offered it to me on a pretzel chip.

It was like a flavor explosion!

(Side note: I would love to be the free sample lady as my retirement job one day.)

For today’s lunch, I smeared the hummus on a toasted sweet wheat Alternative bagel and topped the other half with roasted zucchini which I had leftover from last night’s dinner.

Hummus + Zucchini + Bagel

Lunch Time!

On the side of my hummus and zucchini bagelwich, I snacked on a bag of Brothers-All-Natural apple crisps.

Apple Crisps

My friend Minda gave me a bunch of these a while ago because she wasn’t a fan, but I think they’re light, airy and delicious.

Plus, I love the ingredient list!

Only One Ingredient

Sweet deal, huh?

50 Best Restaurants in the World

Today CNN released a list of the 50 best restaurants in the world.

The restaurants that made the list include:

1) Noma (Copenhagen, Denmark)

2) El Bulli (Roses, Spain)

3) The Fat Duck (Bray, England)

4) El Celler de Can Roca (Girona, Spain)

5) Mugaritz (Errenteria, Spain)

6) Osteria Francescana (Modena, Italy)

7) Alinea (Chicago, Illinois)

8 ) Daniel (New York)

9) Arzak (San Sebastián, Spain)

10) Per Se (New York)

11) Le Chateaubriand (Paris, France)

12) La Colombe (Cape Town, South Africa)

13) Pierre Gagnaire (Paris, France)

14) L’Hotel de Ville – Philippe Rochat (Crissier, Switzerland)

15) Le Bernardin (New York)

16) L’Astrance (Paris, France)

17) Hof Van Cleve (Kruishoutem, Belgium)

18) D.O.M. (São Paolo, Brazil)

19) Oud Sluis (Sluis, Netherlands)

20) Le Calandre (Rubano, Italy)

21) Steirereck (Vienna, Austria)

22) Vendôme (Bergisch Gladbach, Germany)

23) Chef Dominique (Helsinki, Finland)

24) Les Créations de Narisawa (Tokyo, Japan)

25) Mathias Dahlgren (Stockholm, Sweden)

26) Momofuku Ssäm Bar (New York)

27) Quay Restaurant (Sydney, Australia)

28) Iggy’s (Singapore)

29) L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon (Paris, France)

30) Schloss Schauenstein (Fürstenau, Switzerland)

31) Le Quartier Français (Franschhoek, South Africa)

32) The French Laundry (Yountville, California)

33) Martin Berasategui (Lasarte-oria, Spain)

34) Aqua (Bath, England)

35) Combal Zero (Rivoli, Italy)

36) Dal Pescatore (Montava, Italy)

37) De Librije (Zwolle, Netherlands)

38) Tetsuya’s (Sydney, Australia)

39) Jaan Par Andre (Singapore)

40) Il Canto (Siena, Italy)

41) Alain Ducasse Au Plaza Athénée (Paris, France)

42) Oaxen Krog (Oaxen, Sweden)

43) St. John (London, England)

44) La Maison Troisgros (Roanne, France)

45) wd~50 (New York)

46) Biko (Mexico City, Mexico)

47) Die Schwarzwaldstube (Baiersbronn, Germany)

48) Nihonryori RyuGin (Tokyo, Japan)

49) Hibiscus (London, England)

50) Eleven Madison Park (New York)

Have you been to any of them? What restaurant do you think should be included on the list?

I haven’t been to any of them. Something to add to my to-do list, I guess! 😉

31-Cent Scoop Night at Baskin Robbins

Are you an ice cream lover like me? If you are, then you might wanna venture over to Baskin Robbins tonight from 5 – 10 p.m. for 31-Cent Scoop Night!

25

Exactly 25 years ago today, I was born!

My mom gave birth to a little red-headed baby and I actually had a natural mohawk for my first year on this planet!

Eventually my red hair turned blonde, but I still think it’s crazy that I was a little red-headed baby. 😀

Breakfast

My birthday started out on the perfect note.

How is a Peanut Butter Finger lover supposed to kick off her birthday?

With a peanut butter finger (or two), naturally!

Birthday Peanut Butter Finger

Nom, nom, nom.

Peanut butter was the star of my breakfast!

Peanut Butter Bagel

I topped a toasted sweet wheat Alternative Bagel with creamy peanut butter and a freshly sliced juicy pear.

On the side I munched on a small serving of roasted peanuts.

Birthday Breakfast

PB & P Bagelwich

It was a great birthday breakfast!

Workout

Today’s workout was all over the place!

I wanted to take Sadie for a run to test out my new Garmin now that I think I figured out how to get it to report my statistics in miles vs. kilometers, but I forgot to charge it!

Bummer.

Instead of a run, I hit the gym for quite the random cardio hodgepodge:

• 2 rounds of the At Home Cardio Blast workout
• 20 min. elliptical
• 10 min. run

Jessica’s At Home Cardio Blast workout is so entertaining! It’s perfect for those days where a typical cardio workout on the treadmill or a machine simply won’t do.

Age Old Question

In honor of my birthday, I figured I would turn the tables on you and ask you the age old question:

How old are YOU?

Poppin’ Ham

This morning my breakfast included what I’ll call poppin’ ham.

Have you ever tried to microwave ham or Canadian bacon? Inevitably the meats seem to “pop” in the microwave.

Today a woman even asked me if I was making popcorn for breakfast! Um… no. But that’s a fantastic idea! 😉

I reheated a ham steak I had leftover from last night’s dinner and used it as the core of my breakfast bagelwich.

Ham + Cheese + Bagel

After spreading one half of an Alternative Bagel with Laughing Cow light Swiss cheese and heatin’ up the ham, I inhaled my bagelwich.

Bagelwich

Yum, Yum

I ate this baby so quickly that when I was done I actually thought to myself, “That was good… I think. I don’t really remember how it tasted.”

Sloooow down, Julie!

Are you a fast eater or a slow eater?

I am a (lightning) fast eater. I really need to learn to savor every bite and take my time when eating meals. Sometimes I just get so excited to dig in that I inhale my food!

Poaching an Egg: Revisited

It was nice to see that I’m not alone in my poached egg failure, though some of you seem to have mastered the art!

Here’s a great tip Melanie shared yesterday:

“I actually found a great way to poach eggs You take some clingwrap (microwave safe) and lay it out over a small bowl, break the egg inside of it and then bunch it up on top, tie a knot in the top part of the clingwrap. Then you just drop it in the water, boil for 6-8 minutes and it comes out perfectly poached. Basically you’re making a little bag for the egg to go in – kind of cheating but it works!”

I love this idea and will definitely use it next time! I’m all for easy-peasy cookin’.

CSN Stores $40 Credit Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered the CSN Stores giveaway!

Using Random.org’s True Random Number Generator, the winner of the giveaway was…

Number 28!

Congrats to Laura who said,

“Awesome giveaway! I’d love a waffle makers…but I think I’d go for the Cap Barbell 40 lbs Dumbbell Set – Free Shipping! Wow!”

Please email me (pbfingers@gmail.com) with your mailing address!

Breakfast Bagelwich + Giveaway!

This post is chock-full of FUN STUFF!

First, your regularly scheduled morning blogging… 🙂

Workout

Today’s workout was very entertaining. I didn’t get bored once, which is a little rare for 50 minutes of straight cardio.

I started my workout on the treadmill with 35 minutes of incline walking and running… All mixed up!

35 minute alternate incline walking + running workout:

35 Minute Incline Walking/Running Workout

After treadmill time, I hopped on the elliptical with Real Simple magazine and cranked out another 15 minutes of light cardio.

Breakfast

Last night Alternative Bagels were buy one get one free at the grocery store, so I snagged two bags of ’em!

I love the sweet wheat bagels. They’re the perfect size and have only 110 calories with 7 grams of filling fiber. Not too shabby for a bagel, huh?

I topped my toasted bagel with Justin’s maple almond butter and sliced strawberries for a yummy breakfast bagelwich.

Justin's Maple Almond Butter

(Half of this pack went directly into my mouth and didn’t quite make it on top of the bagel. 😉 )

Almond Butter + Strawberries

Tuesday's Breakfast

It was deeeelish!

CSN Stores $40 Giveaway!

I was a lucky little blogger and won my first giveaway ever when Lisa hosted a giveaway for a credit to CSN Stores. (See, it is possible to win a giveaway!)

CSN Stores

After browsing their site (they literally have everything from barstools to kitchen appliances) I used my credit toward a new vacuum.

Now it’s your turn!

To enter this giveaway for a $40 credit to CSN Stores, simply comment on this post stating which product on their site you would like to have. (I have a feeling you guys will be most interested in the products listed on their Cookware.com site.)

I will randomly select a winner tomorrow morning.

Good luck!!!

Use ‘Em or Lose ‘Em

For lunch today I knew I had to use up some veggies that were threatening to go bad before I abandoned them in my fridge for the weekend and they stunk up the joint.

Well, I guess they wouldn’t really stink, but they would shrivel up a bit and look like wrinkly skin. I’ll deal with wrinkly skin in due time, just not in my fridge… and not when I’m 24.

The looming overly ripe veggies made the decision to make a veggie bagelwich for lunch an easy one.

I toasted a sweet wheat Alternative bagel before spreading it with a French onion Laughing Cow Swiss cheese wedge.

Laughing Cow & Bagel

Cheesy Bagel

I used yellow squash and portobello mushrooms as the “meat” of my bagelwich and dug in.

Veggies

Cheese and Veggie Bagelwich

This was pretty darn good, but I’m glad I had a bowl of my cocoa oats at 11:30 this morning, otherwise I think I’d be hungry in no time.

I’ll see ya later from my parents’ house in St. Pete.

To my family: “Get ready, ’cause here I coooome!“