Charleston Love & Corn and Squash Soup

How has your weekend been treating you? Ours has been fabulous. We have spent a good portion of it in downtown Charleston. Friday night, we met up with some of Josh's friends from work at the Vendue Inn Rooftop Bar & Restaurant:

I was a little nervous that the bar wouldn't offer many vegetarian options, but was excited to find out they had an awesome vegetarian sandwich, Rabbit on the Roof. The sandwich contained "Cucumbers, Carrots, Tomatoes, Roasted Red Peppers, Cream Cheese, Fresh Greens and 3‐Herb Pesto." I got the sandwich on marbled rye with a side salad.

This morning, I taught Body Step and then we headed out to the first farmers market of the year downtown. I picked up some fresh goodies (white sweet potato, yellow squash, tomatoes) and goat cheese:

The farmers market was definitely hopping.

Afterwards, we headed to Pita Pit:

I held off on getting food there because I had a giant tub of froyo on the brain ;). Josh got a chicken crave pita:

And then we headed to FRESH BERRY!!! I got vanilla froyo with mango, pineapple, and kiwi. It was amazing:

Josh got Fresh Berry tart with raspberries, pineapple, and kiwi:

Wonderful day out in the fresh air! We came home and I got to cooking and baking. I made up some mint chocolate chip cookies to bring to my parents tomorrow:

I also made up some soup for dinner. I have been eyeing this recipe Kath put up for some time. I made some adjustments and popped it in the crock pot for dinner:

Ingredients:

¼ cup chopped onion
2-3 medium yellow squash, diced
2 1/2 cups frozen corn
1 15 oz can Lima beans
3 cups vegetable broth
¼- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper
S&P to taste

Directions:

Put all ingredients into crock pot except 1 cup of corn. Cook on high for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Blend using immersion blender. Turn to low, add in 1 cup corn. Cook for additional ½ hour. Serve with more red pepper, hot sauce, cheese, Greek yogurt, etc!

It was VERY tasty! We had some toasted Flat Outs on the side. Josh had his flat out in quesadilla form.

Now its time to relax! I have a few more things I need to put together for our Easter meal at my parents tomorrow. What have you been up to?

Blogger Act of Kindness (BAoK)

It is a beautiful Friday here in Charleston. I hope it is nice where you are as well. First off, I wanted to send a big thank you to Kristina from Stonyfield for sending me this lovely Oikos package (you've probably seen this around blog world already...but its just so darn cute):

Oikos yogurts, wrapped up like chocolates:

I tried the caramel yesterday at work and I am in love! The yogurt is just lightly sweet- kind of reminded me of a caramel macchiato. It is a fabulous dessert yogurt! Stonyfield has lots of exciting things going on this month, including a contest to win a trip to a Vermont organic dairy farm during fall foliage season. Check out more info here.

I have been thinking a lot about how great foodie blog world is and was thinking about how I could show my appreciation. I came up with the idea of a Blogger Act of Kindness (BAoK). Is there a certain blogger out there whose posts you always look forward to? whose recipes just rock? someone who always makes you laugh? Let them know! You can do this in a number of ways: 1. Send them an email just letting them know what they mean to you, 2. Send them a card, 3. Send them a little goodie, or 4. Anything else you can think of! If you end up sending a BAoK, let me know. Shoot me an email (with pictures if you have any) to Itzyskitchen at gmail dot com. I sent my first BAoK to a blogger who I think just rocks! More info to come....

One last thing. I have to attend a work event with Josh tonight, so I got a sub for my Body Attack class. This left me with some open time this morning to squeeze in a run outside!!!! I rocked through 6 miles in the heat- felt wonderful. I am SO ready for summer, how about you?

What are you up to this weekend?