Chopped Salad & TEAS’ TEA® Giveaway!

Since I work half time at my “regular” job (non group fitness instructor job), I have every Friday off. I love getting lots of Kaylin time in. This morning, I got up early and ran/took half hour pump. Once Kay and I were cleaned up, we ran a couple errands and then headed over to dip in Mimi’s pool:

After, we fueled up with lunch. Kay had watermelon, carrots and a quesadilla:

While Kay took a nap, I did laundry, ironed, and made bars. I also made a batch of granola for my Dad:

 

The rest of the day was spent playing. Dinner involved black beans. Kay is a pretty big fan, but it is a messy food. We usually do this one sans shirt:

Josh and I also enjoyed black beans on top of a chopped salad of sorts. Excuse the overexposure of the egg whites. The salad included spinach, iceberg, turkey, black beans, carrots, egg whites, cheese, avocado, and pepperoni (on Josh’s- I went sans pepperoni):

 

On the side, we had tortilla chips & watermelon. Great, easy Friday night dinner!

And now, for a giveaway! Despite being a “private” blog, TEAS’ TEA® was still willing to do a giveaway! A little bit about the company and the social media sweepstakes they have going on (according to the company):

“ITO EN’s TEAS’ TEA® brand, the all-natural, ready-to-drink iced tea, named from the Japanese expression Ocha no Naka No Ocha, simply meaning “The Tea of ALL Teas!” 

From Memorial Day through Labor Day, TEAS’ TEA® is kicking off a sweepstakes that includes a grand prize trip to Australia inclusive of a VIP tour of ITO EN’s Tea Farm.  To participate, fans can register at TEAS’ TEA® Facebook page and then use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to capture a refreshing summer moment and share it via the hashtag #Teafreshing.  On top of the grand prize, fans will receive hundreds of other prizes all summer long such as cameras, tablets, beach gear, and free beverages.”

To help promote the sweepstakes, TEAS’ TEA is giving two Itzy’s Kitchen readers a coupon for a free beverage!

To enter, leave a comment on this post by Monday, July 1 at noon telling me your favorite summer beverage. The winners will be randomly selected!

What are you up to this weekend??

Cauliflower Pizza Crust (& Puppies & Practice)

Hope your week is off to a great start! Before I get to the pizza crust recipe, I wanted to share a few things:

1. I did my first run in my ProCompression socks I won from Stuft Mama. 

Loved them! They’re really comfortable and not super heavy.

2. I have been learning lots of choreography. We launched half of Body Attack this AM and I’m launching the rest…on my own…tomorrow. Yikes:

3. My Aunt got a puppy! She is so cute. Kaylin is in love with her:

 

One of the items on my summer bucket list is to make 5 new recipes. Well, 1 down! A while back, I tried making cauliflower crust. Although it was yummy, it fell into a million pieces. I decided to give it another go, and used this recipe as my starting point:

Ingredients:

• 1 bag frozen cauliflower (16 oz)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions:

Cook cauliflower through according to package directions (microwave, stovetop, whatever!). Add cooked cauliflower and garlic to a food processor, and process until no large chunks remain.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Add smashed cauliflower/garlic to a bowl and mix in remaining ingredients (I used my hands). Form into a ball and transfer to parchment paper. Gently press ball into a large circle/oval, just less than 1/4” thick. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until edges of crust are brown.

Remove from oven, top, place back in the oven for ~5 minutes.

EAT!

  

This was delicious! It has a SPICY kick. If you’re going to feed it to a peanut, I recommend not adding the red pepper. The crust stayed PRETTY well together. Its not pizza pizza, but it is good!

Tell me what you’re cooking. Any links?

Summer Bucket List

How are you? How is your weekend so far? Good stuff over here. We had a relaxing Friday night at home, complete with breakfast for dinner. Today, I taught step, did a few things around the house, practiced choreography (Attack launch this week), and went to a great BBQ at Josh’s parents house. I have been really lazy about taking pictures (whoops).

I adore the idea of a summer bucket list. When I saw Janetha post her list, I knew I had to snag the idea. Here are 20 items on my list:

1. Go on lots of walks with these two (and Frank):

2. Laugh uncontrollably with the peanut:

 

3. Take Kaylin to two new-to-us parks:

4. Try at least 2 new restaurants, 5. Make at least 5 new recipes and post about them, 6. Grill, grill, grill (parties with friends), 7. Travel to see friends

8. Celebrate Kaylin’s 2nd birthday:

9. Go to the movies, 10. Do 2 date nights with Josh (one in, one out), 11. Go to the farmers market downtown with Josh & Kay

12 Eat ridiculous amounts of watermelon:

13. Dance, 14. Eat dinner outside on our screened in porch at least twice, 15. Eat frozen yogurt and ice cream, 16. Take Kaylin to the beach, 17. RUN

18. Swim Swim Swim:

 

19. Take Frank to petco to pickup new toys

20. Make and eat lots of guacamole. I made this “skinny” version again for the BBQ today:

What is on YOUR list?

Father’s Day weekend & A Broccoli Slaw

This weekend went by too fast. They all do…but this one seemed to be over in a snap! We enjoyed a nice dinner in on Friday night and relaxed. I made vegan chickpea soup. I always forget how yummy it is!

Saturday morning, I took Step and then Kaylin & I met Josh at Collective Coffee (to kick off the Father’s day celebration). I tried an iced almond milk latte. SO good!

Josh had his usual chorizo wrap:

 

The rest of the day was spent cooking, relaxing, cleaning, and pool-ing:

 

Sunday morning started with Chobani breakfast bowls:

and then we headed up to my Aunt’s house to celebrate Father’s day with my parents, my Aunt, Uncle & Cousin:

I made a fun Asian broccoli slaw. It was pretty good, I would suggest making it ahead and letting it sit for a bit before serving. I used pumpkin seeds, walnuts & sunflower seeds (instead of just pumpkin seeds):

 

My Dad cooked up steaks while my Uncle/Cousin cooked up shrimp:

We also had buffalo macaroni & cheese, pasta salad & amazing fresh fruit on the side:

 

and I made two different batches of cookies for dessert. It was an awesome meal.

After lunch, we played & swam:

  

This picture was extra awesome because I told Kaylin to go “sit with Daddy” so I could take a picture. She walked over, dragged a second chair next to his and climbed up on it.

Love my little peanut!

I’m really bummed because I didn’t get a picture of my Dad & I :(. Next time!

Once we got home and relaxed a little bit, we headed out to more food ;) to celebrate Father’s day with Josh’s parents. Such a great weekend! Tell me what you did!!

Kiddo & Cookies

Happy Friday! I’m so glad its the weekend. Josh has been on travel all week and we cannot wait to have him back home. Few pictures of the kiddo from this week:

She decided she loves cauliflower & carrots-

and Daddy (Happy Father’s day Josh!!):

 

our new favorite snack is rice cakes and peanut butter. When Kaylin gets bored of the rice cake, she licks the peanut butter off ;). Rice cake cheers:

After being awesome while I was getting some shopping done, I decided Kay deserved a new toy, pooh ball:

This week has been a little non-stop. I taught 7 classes between Monday-Friday, worked, and had the usual at home responsibilities (baby, dog, cleaning, etc). Kay also had her second gymnastics class. She did much better this week (she was super scared the first week). Her favorite thing to do is “cartwheels” over the mat.

We also got in some great time outside. I love SC:

and of course, baked! I made Maria’s GF vegan banana peanut butter chocolate chip cookies:

  

and I picked up a few new-to-me Quest products:

  

Off to prep dinner then go swimming. This weekend we have brunch and BBQ plans to celebrate Father’s day. A big happy father’s day to my dad and Josh’s dad too! What are you up to??

Wonderful Weekend (& a Peach Bake)

How is everyone? Things around here are going great. We are having a relatively quiet Sunday, which is awesome.

As for the whole weekend, I taught in the morning on Friday and then took Kaylin to Gymboree with her friend Ryan for the first time:

She was a little overwhelmed, but seemed to have a good time. Friday night, we had an amazing dinner at Grill 225. Our wonderful friends Amelia & Kevin watched Kaylin so we could enjoy adult time with Josh’s parents.  We had lots of delicious food including a spinach salad, my favorite orange/soy Brussels & Josh couldn’t visit 225 without a filet:

 

Saturday morning, Kaylin woke up and was covered in hives. We got her to the pediatrician for meds, looks like she has an allergy to some sort of detergent or perfume or something environmentally that she came in contact with. She is doing much better now! In other crazy news, my car overheated, so we ended up at the mechanic too. PHEW!

Once everything/everyone was doing better, I got started on prep for a dinner party we were having on Saturday night and snuck in a run. I made a peach bake using my strawberry bake recipe. I sliced up fresh SC peaches and placed them as the middle layer. It turned out great!!:

I forgot to take pictures of everything else until we were already eating (whoops).  I made black bean:

  

and spicy beef burgers:

Toppings (lettuce, tomato, avocado and un-pictured onion and pickles):

My friends brought a delicious kale salad from Whole Foods:

and homemade pasta salad:

I also cut up watermelon and made un-pictured chocolate chip cookies:

We had a blast! Its so fun to dine with other families who have little kids. We all kind of just talk louder over the craziness :).

Sunday morning, Kay and I went for a quick run and then we headed out to breakfast with Josh and his dad. We went to Honeycomb and had the SLOWEST service ever. Although I love the food at Honeycomb….I just don’t think we will ever go there again. The service has been TERRIBLE 5 out of the 6 times we’ve been there….Bummer!

The rest of our Sunday has been filled with errands and snacks:

Tell me about your weekend!!!