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Easy Eggplant Pizza

Posted on by Cory Norbutus
Delicious and nutritious kid approved eggplant pizza.

The kiddo and I have been watching Chopped Junior on the Food Network lately. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s a cooking show that starts with 4 young competitors age range of about 8-13. They get a basket of 4 random and usually bizarre ingredients, and have to put together an appetizer. One kid then gets chopped.

The three remaining competitors move onto the entree round, then final 2 move on to the dessert round before the Chopped Junior Chef is granted $10,000 and a Chef jacket.

All of their meals look amazing, creative, and delicious.

I would hope that I could be on their cooking level, but that would be far from the truth. What can I say, we got inspired by watching a kids cooking show.

This week we picked up an eggplant at Aldi, (I love Aldi) and the kiddo was a bit hesitant as she didn’t like it much the last time she tried it about a year ago. So we went with a Chopped Junior episode vibe while creating our version of Eggplant pizza. I figured pizza would at least be a fun (and easy) opening to giving this healthy food another try.

Here’s how we did it.

Successful Eggplant Pizza!

Ingredients:

  • One eggplant
  • Olive oil
  • Minced garlic
  • Salt and pepper
  • Pizza toppings- we used chopped mushrooms, chopped peppers,chopped onions. Spinach would’ve been good too, but didn’t have it in the fridge
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Grated cheese
  • Parmesan cheese

1. Pre-heat oven to 425. Get a baking sheet with parchment paper on top.

2. Slice eggplant length-wise or around the middle. We went with circle shapes instead of ovals.

3. Mix olive oil and minced garlic in a small bowl, then brush both sides of each slice of eggplant and place on parchment paper baking sheet. Lightly sprinkle salt and pepper.

4. Put eggplant in oven for 7-10 minutes.

5. While eggplant baking, sautee pizza toppings of onion, mushrooms, and peppers in a small skillet. I used a separate small pot to heat up about a cup of spaghetti sauce.

6. Take out eggplant when done, and quickly spoon and spread some spaghetti sauce on each eggplant slice. Spoon some sauteed veggies on each slice.

7. Sprinkle cheese on each slice. Since we were ran out of cheese, we also sprinkled grated Parmesan cheese on top, just to make sure we were covered in the cheese department!

8. Put the eggplant back in the oven for 5 minutes.

9. Enjoy an easy and healthy home cooked meal, while your kid tells you that your meal is totally worth the $10,000 prize money.

Easy Healthy Dinner

Posted on by Cory Norbutus

It’s been a busy few days, and after a full day of work and a trip to the DMV, I was in need of a quick easy healthy dinner.

Riced cauliflower, mixed veggies, and Polish Kielbasa.

We tend to have a few bags of a variety of frozen vegetables in the freezer. I like frozen veggies in addition to weekly fresh veggies in the house, because I don’t stress about them going bad if we don’t eat it right away.

Today we went with mixed veggies, which included scallions-my kid’s favorite, and riced cauliflower. Both bags were a quick steam in the microwave.

I’ll admit when I added the riced cauliflower into the rotation last week, my kid didn’t immediately love it. But today she said it tasted great.

I added a little butter and salt for taste to the veggies. So that probably helped!

We also had Polish Kielbasa in the fridge. So 10-12 minutes to boil, and dinner was ready.

Voila, dinner made in 12 minutes!

Anyone else have easy healthy options on hand to use for quick meals?

My Kid’s Swim Lessons

Posted on by Cory Norbutus

My kid has always loved the water. When she was 3, she could easily spend 5 hours in the pool during a family BBQ.

She has been fortunate that her older cousins were experienced swimmers on their respective swim teams and had the added benefit of being life guards. They helped me teach her the beginning of swimming, and how to be safe in the water. That was living in New England.

Once we moved to Florida, we were around pools year round. She knew enough to be safe and swim to the edge from anywhere in the pool. But with some prodding from grandparents, I signed her up for swim lessons.

It was quite frankly, a little stressful wondering if I was making the right decision of where to take her, and what level she would actually need to start off.

Fortunately, I found Goldfish Swim School (by total accident, it’s right next to my nail place). I walked in for information, and they were incredibly helpful. They also allowed her to sign up for a free trial swim class so they could assess which class she should start off with.

Just got certificate that she moved up to swim force! Excited kid, Mom, and Grandparent.

Huge stress relief. The class size had a max of 4 kids per one instructor for the 30 minute weekly class. They did an excellent job of teaching the skills of swimming, and corrected and instructed til she got it right.

She loved it.

Swim lessons started about 2 months ago. Since then she has progressed nicely.

This past Friday, my kid had an audience of 6 of us during her swim lesson, as family and friends were visiting.

On her second time of trying, she busted out the butterfly. Like super amazingly. I almost proud Mom cried. I don’t think I can do that one, it’s definitely a challenge!

Practicing her Butterfly, tonight.

She finished with a non stop 4 minute swim for the end of class. Of which she tested out of that level, with all of us there to see and cheer her on. She now gets to build on her skills with the swim force/team.

Then I held back more proud mom tears.

Happy crazy faces for passing swim lessons, plus an ice cream coupon. Sweetness.

Best of all, she worked hard for that accomplishment, and she’s proud of herself.

She’s even asked to come out and practice at our local pool to prepare for her now 60 minute swim lesson each week. I’m happy that she is motivated!

Water safety is important. Teaching kids how to be safe in and around water, and to respect water is a big life skill. Hope you’ve had as much fun teaching your kids in the water, or seeing them learn at their swim lessons!

Just keep swimming!

Jet Skiing Vacation Kick-off

Posted on by Cory Norbutus

Let me tell you how we kicked off vacation with Jet Skiing.

We survived the 11 hour long road trip, with multiple stops to stretch our legs, a gallon of water to refill our water bottles, and books on CD to listen to.

We arrived to beautiful weather in Williamsburg, Virginia of low humidity and comfortable low 80 degree weather. After a delicious lunch and a shared Strawberry Daiquiri, it was official kick off of vacation!

We changed into bathing suits, grabbed our visors, and headed to the James River for a quick swim to cool off. Unbeknownst to me, we had a rare treat in store for us.

Earlier in the day, while my step-mother was at her Toastmasters club, telling her friend that her daughter and granddaughter were visiting, Jet Skiing came up. Vinny had a jet ski, and had offered to give us a ride. Sweet!!

Now, we had arrived at the river, everyone had remembered to put on watershoes except for me. So my daughter and my dad quickly went deeper in the water as a picked my way slowly, managing whatever was at the bottom of the river; sand, rocks, and James River surprises.

When the time came, my 9 year old daughter and I put on life vests, and climbed aboard the Jet ski, also known as a wave runner. We built up some speed, and learned about leaning with the twists and turns. My daughter was not loving the waves, so we turned back to let her off.

After my daughter’s first time jet skiing, she was brave, but happy to be back!

Now the real jet skiing began! Vinny took me for a serious ride! We did speeds up to 66 mph, to where it felt like the wind was blasting the skin off my face. We did figure 8’s, S’s, and caught air!

As I held on for dear life, I got an unexpected total body workout. I did better at leaning with core body strength, but most surprising, was the gripping and balancing with my legs!

We went Jet Skiing on Friday, and my legs are still feeling it. Good stuff.

All calm before the “real” jet skiing began! Hit 66 mph!

Per Vinny, and Maverick, “I feel the need, the need for speed!”

Anyone else Jet ski, and feel their body work?