Off on a little adventure this weekend! We packed up the dogs and made our way to Omaha tonight. Tomorrow morning, Neil will be racing his car at Mid-America Motor Plex. It’s our first time at this track, so there’s definitely some nervous excitement in the air, but I beyond thrilled to see my brother Eric, who I haven’t seen since Christmas.
I’m excited to announce that the winner of the Jawbone UP giveaway is Chrissy! Congratulations!! Drop me a line before the end of the weekend to claim your prize!
Thank you to everyone who entered. Look for more giveaways in the future, you never know what might pop up!
Happy Wednesday! I’m still major de-load from my trip to Adobe MAX (which I’m still writing about — slowest blogger ever award please), but I wanted to pass along the recipe for the awesome quinoa salad Neil put together for our BBQ at CrossFit this weekend. It was a complete hit, so much so that we made another batch the next day and took it to my parents for Mother’s Day dinner.
We found the original recipe via Pinterest, and then tweaked it a bit to make it more “us.” I think the other version would obviously be equally as good, but I’m partial to the addition of bacon in ours.
Ingredients
¾ cup uncooked quinoa
5 or 6 strips of uncured bacon, cooked and chopped
1-2 cups shredded red cabbage
1 red bell pepper, diced
½ red onion, diced
1 cup shredded carrots
½ cup chopped cilantro
¼ cup diced green onions
½ cup cashew halves
Squeeze of fresh lime
Dressing:
¼ cup all natural almond butter
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
3 tablespoon Dr. Braggs Liquid Aminos
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon coconut sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
Water to thin, if necessary
Directions:
In a mesh strainer, rinse quinoa thoroughly with cold water until the water runs clear. Bring a 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil and then add quinoa. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all of the water. After 15 minutes remove quinoa from heat and put in a large bowl and toss to help cool. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
If you did not cook the bacon beforehand, now is a good time to fry it up until crunchy/chopp-able.
Heat dressing ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until smooth. Mix dressing in with the cooled quinoa until thoroughly combined, adding water to thin if necessary.
Add all of the vegetable ingredients and bacon to the dressed quinoa and fold over to mix so that the dressing coats evenly.Add cashews and fold over again until combined. Cool thoroughly in the refrigerator before serving.
It’s the perfect summer cold salad. It’s packed full of veggies and flavor and it complements other dishes as well. I haven’t made a ton of things I’ve found via Pinterest, despite pinning nearly everything in sight lately, but I’m so happy I gave this a try. So with that being said…
I stole away from work on Saturday for a little BBQ at CrossFit United. It was to celebrate the culmination of the Whole 30 Challenge as well as send the students off as we begin summer break. While I’ll definitely miss them, I’m happy to have a little peace and quiet. A few pics from the day:
How CrossFit does buffets, with boxes!
We made an awesome Quinoa salad we adapted from Pinterest. So good!
Paleo cookies and bars. The cookies were right out of the oven, to die for!
And the BBQ pork, beef and turkey…
Laura and Boone. Isn’t he the cutest kid ever!?
Sake
Lee catching some sun…
Charlie and Nate
Earlier that day a few of the girls and I had gotten on the topic of fitness inspiration. While it seems there is no shortage of places to find it these days, as it turns out, we all revealed that we look to specific people to stay committed to our goals and motivated to push ourselves in workouts. Each one of our idols was different, from Christmas Abbott to Andrea Ager.
I absolutely love Jenny Labaw. Not only has she managed to overcome the challenges of epilepsy to become the 6th fittest woman in the world, she completed all of the 2013 CrossFit Open WODs with a broken foot. Badass!
And Now a Giveaway!
So with fitness motivation in mind, I wanted to offer you guys an amazing giveaway! Through my ambassadorship with Verizon, I’m giving away one UP by Jawbone! ($129.99 value)
What is UP? UP is small, flexible and strong to accommodate an active lifestyle and help people reach their goals for a healthy lifestyle. Some of the features of device include:
Designed to be worn 24/7; up to 10 days of battery life
Tracks sleep and activity using advanced sensor technology
Log what you eat and drink, and track nutritional info
Get personalized insights that help you set and achieve your goals
Set a Smart alarm to help you wake up feeling refreshed
Set Idle Alerts to remind you to move and stay active
I am so jealous of you guys! So, ready to win an UP system? Here’s what you need to do:
Before midnight CST on Friday, May 17, answer the following question in the comments below: “How has technology helped you reach your health and fitness goals? Or if it hasn’t, who is your fitness idol?” Also be sure to confirm your comment with the Rafflecopter giveaway widget below!
I will randomly choose one winner from the comments to win an UP by Jawbone and I’ll announce the winner Friday morning. Good luck!
Side note: You might come across other UP wristband giveaways around the blogosphere this week. Verizon requests that you only win on one blog.
height="215">
Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Health and Fitness Voices program and have been provided with the Motorola Razr HD and six months of service in exchange for my honest review and opinions about the product.
Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Health and Fitness Voices program and have been provided with the Motorola Razr HD and six months of service in exchange for my honest review and opinions about the product. Hi guys! So I’m a month into my ambassadorship with Verizon (Parts 1 & 2 of the kick-off [...]
In the absence of personal photos from the gym last week, I thought I’d link a great video I came across last week. If you’re unfamiliar with Barbell Shrugged, it’s a great video/podcast for not only CrossFitters, but athletes or the fitness-enthused altogether. Lots of great info and tips, and in this case, some ways [...]
It’s a sad story. Our garden progress thus far this spring has been almost non-existent. The weather has been absolutely abysmal — persistently cold (like in the 50s during the day, 30′s at night), windy and rainy, not like any April I’ve seen in quite some time. By this time last year, we had a [...]
Sometime last week, Neil woke me up to watch a YouTube video of Chef Jacques Pepin deboning a chicken. Before you ask, this is totally normal for us. Despite being groggy, I was completely enthralled by how little time it took for him to completely debone a chicken making minimal use of knives. When the [...]
Kohler Created chronicles life as we grow our freelance business and live as healthfully and actively as possible. Learn more about our miscellany here.
