TOMATOES AND CHOCOLATE

Sunday Afternoon

After blogging in the Burger King parking lot this morning and observing some rather sketchy characters there...we lounged around just a bit before suiting up for the gym! 


Their kitty Penny spent a good deal of her weekend in our suitcase :)

Their gym is the University of Tennessee Knoxville gym and it is HUGE!! There were several levels with an indoor and outdoor pool and so, so many machines. I had a fantastic workout! Started with a mile on the treadmill. Then moved to our own studio!! Apparently there are like 11 studios and you can write your name down so only your people can be in the studio. Sole access to mats, weights, bosu balls, workout balls, medicine balls, punching bags, etc.

I went in our studio and did a full arm routine with dumbbells while standing on a bosu (I really want to buy a bosu for home). It’s great to do this because you get double the workout by strengthening your core at the same time. Then I did a full round of the best abs circuit followed by some lower body toning moves. Next moved on to the elliptical for a furiously fast 12 minutes :) Finished it all off with...5 minutes on the Jacob’s Ladder!!!! I have always wanted to do a Jacob’s Ladder (they use one on Biggest Loser all the time) but have never been somewhere that had one. It is literally a rotating ladder that you just climb hand-over-hand and it is a FULL body workout- I loved it!! Now I am even more jealous that we don’t have one...

After our great hour+ workout we had worked up an appetite! We headed to what is touted (on Urban Spoon, Trip Advisor and other sites) as Knoxville’s #1 restaurant- Tomato Head. It did not disappoint!!

This was another restaurant that uses organic and locally sourced products with a menu that you can feel good about! There was SO much to choose from that we took forever picking something. Finally I settled on a slice of pizza that was: no sauce, goat cheese, roma tomatoes and basil and a small southwestern salad: 

Romaine Lettuce  Roma Tomatoes  Sweetwater Valley Sharp Cheddar  Organic Black Beans 
Organic Baked Tofu  Organic Blue Corn Chips  Corn Salsa, Southwest Vinaigrette.

Of course I traded half of my pizza slice for half a slice of Zach’s pizza: 

fresh spinach, red onion, roma tomato, kalamata olive, banana pepper feta cheese, fresh oregano & andouille sausage 

and bites of my salad for bites of his Kepner Melt sandwich:

fresh spinach  organic baked tofu  monterey jack  herbed tomato  pineapple  roasted onion, walnut  pesto  mustard  heated

! FAN-TASTIC :) The tofu was exceptionally good as was my southwestern vinaigrette which I ordered on the side ;)

Tomato Head is number one for a reason!!!

We walked around Market Square and ended up at a place called Coffee and Chocolate that was filled with exquisite looking desserts. We of course each ended up with one!

Mine was a peanut butter mousse.

Zach’s was a chocolate dulce de leche.

Heather’s was a dark chocolate hazelnut mousse.

John’s was a giant macaroon.

We all shared bites of each, of course ;), and while they were all really, really good, I think I liked Zach’s the best!!

We also bought a box of chocolate to have for later :)