www.affiliateconfession.com

Yes, it’s time for another reasonably healthy dinning adventure from Affiliate Confession. Salsas Mex Corp was the latest restaurant discovery we literally just happened upon in the historic downtown Melbourne Florida area and it will definitely be put on our list of favorites. We were really heading out to go to another restaurant downtown 2 Friday nights ago and Jean just happened to see Salsas as we passed by, so we stopped in.

I spent some of my earliest years in the Phoenix Arizona area where my parents took us out for Mexican at least once a week, consequently I am a Mexican food fanatic so this was a gem of a find for my wife and I. The Downtown Melbourne area has all sorts of old houses and buildings from the 1800’s and early 1900’s and Salsas is one of those quaint homes turned restaurant with loving care. As soon as we entered we were met by simple, but authentic Mexican decor and felt comfortable and welcomed immediately.

After we looked around and talked to the waitress about the restaurant and when Salsas opened, it was time to get to the ordering process. We started the meal off with fresh guacamole and when I say fresh, I mean they make it when you order it, no sitting in the fridge all day. After ordering, we talked with the waitress a bit more and the owner, Gus Sanchez, came over and told us a little more about the restaurant and offered us a free margarita. It was free because it wasn’t actually on the menu yet. We gladly accepted.

When we got our meals we were surprised to see that they weren’t covered in cheese and the portions weren’t ginormous as many Mexican restaurants these days now do. Another popular Mexican restaurant in this area serves such huge portions covered with a mountain of cheese that I have at times made three meals out of one of their plates. Salsas was unlike that and even gave us the light cheese we requested. Everything on the menu is made fresh at the restaurant including the tortillas and salsa. They even serve their dishes with fresh whole cream instead of sour cream and use Manchego cheese which is a sheep’s milk cheese originating in Spain.

My order of the Tacos Dorados with potato filling:

Next time I wouldn’t get the potato filling as it was not what I had expected. It wasn’t the restaurant, potatoes in a taco were just a little odd for me, someone else might like it better. I’d probably go with a pico de gallo or grilled veggie filling next time. After talking with the waitress and owner, they seem willing to accommodate your nearly every custom culinary wish. All you have to do is ask.

The owner has extensive restaurant management and owner experience and once managed the busiest Outback Steakhouse in the nation. That experience shows in everthing from the decor, to the friendliness of the waitstaff, to the overall experience at Salsas.

If you ever pass through the Melbourne Florida area and are looking for a nice authentic Mexican meal then Salsas Mex Corp is the place to stop in.

Affiliate marketing, blog contests, lame attempts to get a front page Digg, enough! It’s time to take a break and have a healthy lunch.

Today I’m featuring our easy Thai recipe with vegetable pasta and it is one of my favorite dishes that Jean has whipped up. The sauce on the left is the actual Thai sauce that goes with the recipe and it’s made from soaked almonds, soaked dates, tahini, lemon juice, orange, ginger and garlic and is 100% raw. Use a food processor to mix all the ingredients together into a creamy texture.

The other sauce you see on the right is our raw marinara sauce and is made from sun-dried tomatoes, plum tomatoes, onions, herbamare, garlic, basil, medjool dates and the liquid from the soaked sun-dried tomatoes. Again, all that is chopped up in a food processor and completely raw. We don’t usually make this dish with 2 sauces, but we had some leftover marinara sauce and decided to eat it up.

Next comes the vegetable pasta which this time was a mix of, zucchini, sweet potatoes, carrots, summer squash, red pepper, green pepper, scallions and daikon radishes. You can really use just about any veggie you find in the fridge. The pasta is prepared with a spiralizer or spirooli which is a pretty cool contraption that cuts veggies to look like different kinds of pasta.

This is a nice healthy lunch idea that’s bursting with nutrition and won’t give you that ‘I need to take a nap’ feeling after a heavy meal. I don’t know about you, but when you work at home, it’s way to easy to sit on the couch in the afternoon and take a power nap, especially when you’ve eaten too much at lunch time. A meal like this helps to solve that problem.

Alan

Tags: healthy lunch idea, raw food, blog contests, digg, thai recipe

Last night we ate at Island Pasta, our favorite restaurant in Melbourne FL. The restaurant got its start in one of the alcoves of the Historic Downtown Melbourne area as a small laid back place that had about 8 tables 5 years ago. It has since moved onto the main drag in the downtown area and is now 2 to 3 times the size and is one of the hottest restaurants in Melbourne. If you get there past 6:30 on a Friday night expect to wait at least 30 minutes to get a table.

You can sit inside or outside at Island Pasta and because there was a wait we took first available seating. We weren’t sure we wanted to sit outside because the temperature was in the 50’s and after waiting at a table out near the street, I was getting a bit cold. We ended up sitting in their alcove seating which does have a closed glass door to the outside and it turned out to be very comfortable.

We went with some friends we hadn’t seen in some time and I had the Portobello Ravioli which is usually served with with a roasted garlic cream sauce, but to make it a whole lot healthier, I always ask for the marinara sauce instead. The dinner comes with a salad and Island Pasta has some of the freshest salads around. I got the creamy curry dressing on the salad and I usually ask for it on the side because they put too much on, but was busy gabbing and forgot to speak up. The dressing is pretty popular and Island Pasta bottles and sells it.

After the salad came the ravioli, which was quite delicious, but had a little too much parmesan cheese on it.

Jean and I shared a glass of White Zinfandel to complement the pasta and she had the Volcano Salad with a side of spaghetti. We don’t drink very much, but some times it’s just nice to have a glass of wine with dinner.

We had a nice evening out and ended up going to our local Barnes & Noble where I always get a decaf, cafe mocha and usually get the medium size (the silly name for medium is Grande) but last night I got the small or “Tall” size. Next time I’ll get the Grande. It’s worth the approximately 30 cents more to get an extra shot of espresso. Even though it’s decaf, it gives it a much strong coffee flavor.

My friend Jeff and I spent much of the time at the restaurant and B&N checking out his new iPhone which is pretty cool. If you’ve never seen one up close and personal, the touch screen is truly amazing. The ladies almost left us at the restaurant because we were spending too much time surfing the web on Jeff’s phone (like I need to do that more). They were almost out to the car before Jeff and I even left our seats. I finally had to nearly drag my friend to the car.

Some of the pictures above could be better, but I’m still getting used to my new Nikon Coolpix S200. You press the button half way to focus and I haven’t completely figured out where that half way point is yet. I guess I need to take more than one picture of each item.

Alan

Tags: island pasta, melbourne fl, iphone, nikon coolpix

This morning I walked into the kitchen to see my wife Jean making pancakes. It was a bit of a surprise to see the griddle out in the morning and her pouring batter on it because we haven’t had pancakes in probably 2 years. Jean has been telling me for the last week or so that she’s been having a hankering (that’s how we speak in the south) for some pancakes and so this morning she decided to take care of it.

Fitting as close to hour healthy diet as possible, Jean whipped up a batter of freshly ground whole wheat flour, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, cinnamon, sucanant, safflower oil and homemade rice milk and proceeded to cook away.

To make the pancakes as healthy as possible, we don’t use any butter and use 100% pure maple syrup. The brand we use is SpringTree All Natural Maple Syrup. We also had some nice fresh orange wedges to compliment the pancakes.

We usually try to eat a mostly raw diet so the pancakes were a nice treat and a diversion from my usual breakfast of homemade granola with strawberries and homemade almond milk.

It was a great way to start the blogging day.

Alan

Tags: whole grain pancakes, healthy diet, blogging, maple syrup, raw diet

Sunday’s are pretty much a leisurely time around our home, especially in the evenings. We usually are finishing off our homemade pizza from Saturday night and watch some TV such as Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Masterminds.

This Sunday evening we had our leftover pizza with chocolate beer. Occasionally I try an exotic beer, or stout as it is properly called, that we get at Downtown Produce in the beer and wine section. This store sells not much more than produce, meat and beer and wine from all over the world. As I was perusing the beer section one day I happened to find a chocolate beer and decided to give it a try. It turned out to be absolutely delicious and is somewhat of a treat for us since it costs about $3.69 for a 17 ounce bottle.

The beer is known as Young’s Double Chocolate Stout and gets rave reviews over at BeerAdvocate.com except for an occasional weirdo that doesn’t like chocolate. Now, if you’re thinking chocolate beer would be gross, this isn’t. It doesn’t taste like chocolate milk or a candy bar, it’s more like a bitter coffee flavor with a hint of chocolate. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect at first, thinking it would be sweeter, but it turned out to be very good.

As you can see below it has a nice dark rich look and the flavor is as heavy as it looks.

I like my beer ice cold (cold enough to make your teeth hurt) so we usually put it in the freezer along with a couple of heavy glasses 30 minutes before it is to be consumed. Unfortunately this time the beer only got about 5 minutes in the freezer because I was busy writing another blog post and forgot about it before the pizza was being heated up. It was still delicious though.

We’ve tried other chocolate beers before, but Young’s Double Chocolate Stout is definitely the best. I don’t remember what the other one was, but the flavor was wimpy compared to this. If you find this anywhere or get a chance to try it in a restaurant you should. Make sure you ask for a frosty mug.

Cheers!

Alan
PS - This hardly fits in the Healthy Dining category, but I didn’t know where else to put it.

Tags: chocolate beer, beeradvocate, pizza, stout