Something New for Your Family Table Grilled Naan Pizzas

Happy Monday friends! Sharing a super simple recipe today, but I feel funny calling it a recipe because there’s not a ton involved. Grilled naan pizzas are such an easy option for dinner in the Summer. You can grab naan bread at most grocery stores, and then let your family build the pizza they want! Add some fresh cut veggies or a salad on the side and dinner is done. 

Last week we made a barbecue chicken style.

You can use whatever toppings you want. For this one, we used barbecue sauce, Monterey, Jack, chicken (shredded from a rotisserie), black olives, cilantro, avocado, red onion, and  smoked Gouda.

Just spread a thin layer of your sauce, whether that’s pizza sauce, or in this case we did barbecue sauce. I have also done them with a white sauce by adding a thin layer of ricotta cheese. Those are also delicious!

Then add all your fun toppings, and on to the grill they go. Once you heat the grill, I usually lower it to a lower heat, so the bottoms don’t burn. I would say they grill for about 5 to 7 minutes,  just until the toppings and cheese are melted, and you begin to get a little bit of char on the bottom.

You have to stay really close to them, because you don’t want those bottoms to burn. I have also read people put foil on the grill to avoid some of that if you’re nervous about the burning. But I say just keep the grill on low, and keep an eye on them and you’ll be good to go!

Quick and simple meal idea for a Monday night!

We’ll see you back here on Wednesday. So excited to share the details about our trip to Charleston. There’s always room for one more at our family table.

xoxo

Genevieve

 

 

Friday Favorites July 5th

  Happy Friday friends! I hope you all had a fun Fourth of July! This has been kind of a wild week. We were on vacation last week and then coming back to work to kind of a short week, and then we head out again a week from today! I guess this is why I love Summer so much. Just a little less stucture to the days, travel, and lots of fun stuff!  

As always, I am linking up with Andrea & Erika for a little Friday Favorites. A peek into a few of my favorite things from the week. 

one

So last week was the first of our college visits! I am still in disbelief that we are already here, but we had a fun week. I shared all the details on the first part of our trip here. We visited a couple of schools and then spent some time and beautiful Charleston. 

You can check out all the details on our trip and what we thought about the first two colleges we saw here. I’ll be sharing more on our trip to the college of Charleston and our time in Charleston next week!

two

My flowerpots made me really happy this week! My mom has a very green thumb. She has beautiful flowers and gardens. And that was just a trait that I didn’t seem to inherit. So when I plan something that I don't kill and actually seems to be thriving, it makes me pretty excited!

And speaking of flowers, Trader Joe's has the best out there! I bought these beauties this week. Their prices are also very reasonable!

three

I got my delivery of electrolytes this week. I typically order the watermelon, but wanted to mix it up this month. So I also got the sampler pack. That’s a great option if you’re looking to try these. Just a very clean way to get the electrolytes back in the body. No added junk, just some of the good stuff your body needs!

 

This was me off to work this week, and my Stanley was full of this!  I will also say that when I first tried them I found them to taste salty. It took a bit for me to fight the right amount of water. For me it is about 25-30 oz of water with one packet. 

four

 I saw some Old Navy activewear online and grabbed some pieces a few months ago. I have to tell you I love them. Way more affordable than some of the more premier athletic brands. So if I want to buy an outfit in a fun color, I go with Old Navy. Then if I get bored of the color, I didn’t spend a lot of money- they have 50% off sales so often. If I am buying a higher end athletic wear I got with a staple black. 

This color was a favorite for my workout this week. The tank you can grab here, and the pants are here. I got the color Orchidding Around. 

Also a favorite it was this nail polish color!  I borrowed it from Ella while we were a way. It looks much more coral-like in real life. The color is RainGlow. And I love my necklace that I got from the kids for Mother’s Day.

five

This sauce from Trader Joe’s is so good! Unfortunately, I think it’s seasonal, because I went back Wednesday to get some and my store was out. If you’re lucky enough to find it, grab a few jars. Super simple dinner with pasta, grilled corn and then top with either shrimp or chicken. I use this marinade on repeat for chicken and shrimp.  I think it would also be delicious to add some grilled zucchini. It’s a really light sauce. I hope you can find it!

After being gone all week, I loved my trip to the grocery store. I know I’m probably alone in saying this but grocery shopping is hands down one of my favorite things. I’m sure it’s related to my love of cooking and food, because I just love it. Now I don't love waiting in line on a crazy busy weekend afternoon, but early Saturday or Sunday morning is my jam!

On our way home, I planned out our meals for the week. If you follow along on Instagram, I share our meal plans every week! 

Looks like a beautiful weather weekend for us, hoping to enjoy most of it outside! Wishing you the best weekend friends!

 See you on Monday, there is always room for one more at our family table.

xoxo
Genevieve

College Visits Part One

Hey there, friends! So I’m not sure how I am at the stage of my life to write this post, but we have begun the search for colleges for Ella. It’s funny, because she has dreamed of going to college in South Carolina since probably the fourth grade. I don’t know what sparked it then, but now it’s definitely driven by warmer weather and sunshine!

We made our plans to visit three colleges last week. Starting with High Point, North Carolina, and then moving through to colleges in South Carolina. Driving through the mountains of West Virginia has some wild views. 

To be honest, I had never heard of HighPoint, until Ella told us about it. She had done some research on it and added it to our list to visit. 

A big draw for her was they are rated like one of the top dorms in the country. And what 16-year-old girl doesn’t want to live in the best dorms out there! 

They have the programs she is looking to study, so we put it on our list to check out. When we pulled in, Paul, and I thought we royally screwed up, because the campus was absolutely stunning! 

The buildings were brand new, the flowers were gorgeous, there was classical music playing throughout the campus, her name was in lights in the parking lot, and we had a catered ride on the purple golf cart through the campus.

 We thought, we set the bar way too high for our first visit! LOL

We saw lots of components of the campus, including the athletic facilities, several the academic buildings, the dorms, eating and common areas.

They have some really cool learning labs around campus. This one was designed like an airplane. You cannot be on your phone in this area, but rather be ready to chat and network. The whole concept of "you never know who may be sitting next to you on a plane". 

This arcade center was by far Luke's highlight!

We all left Highpoint thinking it was pretty fabulous. 

 After we left our tour, we were ready for some lunch and made our way to Stock and Grain. This is like a newer food hall style area in High Point, North Carolina. Lots of options for food. 

Ella went with sushi, while Luke, Paul and I got some barbecue. Mine was delicious! It was brisket over a salad, which I had never seen before. 

We got some coffee on our way out, refueled and headed down to South Carolina for our next stop. 

As we drove down, we discussed our pros and cons of High Point. The definite pros were the safety of the campus, the academic program, the newness of the buildings, there was a lot to love at High Point. 

We weren’t really crazy about the town that it was in, as there was not a whole lot to do outside of campus. Apparently High Point is, or was the furniture capital of the world. And it seems as though some of the industry has died down, so there was a lot of vacant areas and not a ton to do outside of the campus or at least not what we saw. 

Our second college stop was at the University of South Carolina. So, we made our way to Columbia and checked into our hotel. The boys were both wiped from our walking tour that morning, so they stayed back at the hotel while Ella and I headed out to do a little shopping and check out the downtown area of Columbia. 

Afterwards, we met the guys for dinner at what we thought was a cool taco and live music place. It ended up to be a bit of a dud. They were out of tortilla chips, and they were playing some sort of live music bingo, where you could win shots. We were not looking for shots- ha!  

We stayed for a little bit and shared some tater tots and then moved on. We ended up finding a really cool spot with amazing desserts. And made the executive decision to do dessert for dinner! 

We saw a pretty sky on our walk back to the hotel and we were all ready to crash!

The next morning, we got up and took a walk to find breakfast, and ended up at sort of a random little crêpe and croissant spot. 

We had some delicious crêpes and then moved on to my favorite coffee shop. I knew there was a Bitty & Beau's in Charleston where we were headed next, but didn’t realize there was one in Columbia as well.Friends, if you have not been to Bitty & Beau's coffee shop, you need to visit. You are guaranteed to walk out smiling!

Bitty & Beau's Coffee describes itself as a human rights movement disguised as a coffee shop, where people with intellectual & developmental disabilities are valued in the workplace. It's a place where diversity isn't just appreciated, it's celebrated. Bitty & Beau's Coffee proudly employs 400+ individuals with disabilities nationwide.  

Each drink comes with a beautiful message written by one of the baristas. This was Ella's message. 

We love this place! We have now visited in three different cities!

  We enjoyed our coffee and made our way to the University of South Carolina. 

This campus was also beautiful, very rich, old looking buildings, with a pretty main corridor and grounds with great shade and trees. We did not have a private tour, as they were all booked when I tried to schedule this a couple months ago. We did the self- guided tour. 

The campus was nice, but it definitely felt more dated than what we had just seen. This is also a much larger school with nearly 27,000 students,  and I think at the end of the day Ella feels that a smaller or midsize school is the right fit for her. The school had some neat architecture, but the insides seemed a little bit dated. I think this is probably one of those schools were most of the money goes to the football team. The campus was right in downtown Columbia, and I didn’t feel like there was as many safety measures as we had seen at High Point. 

But it was still fun to see and visit. We took our picture with the mascot, Ella grabbed a T-shirt at the bookstore and Luke grabbed some golf balls. I think the highlight from his trip was collecting golf balls with the team mascot on it from each of our school visits!

An action packed and fun first two days into our college tour. We loaded our stuff back in the car and made our just under 2 hour drive to Charleston, South Carolina.

I’ll share more about our trip to Charleston and our visit to the college on my next post. 

One thing was for certain, my girl felt right at home in the Carolinas!

See you back here on Friday for Friday Favorites. There is always room for one more at our family table. 

xoxo

Genevieve

Something New for Your Family Table Sheet Pan Lemon Balsamic Chicken

 Happy Monday friends! How in the heck is it July???? I am so sad that we are already through one of our Summer months... please slow down! We are back to reality today after an amazing trip to the Carolinas. Our trip was to see a few colleges and spend some time in Charleston. It was a successful trip all around. I'll share more later this week. 

Today I am sharing a sheet pan dinner that I made from Half Baked Harvest. This meal was so full of flavors and I am always a fan of a meal that cooks on one pan!

The recipe was pretty simple, in laying out some chopped potatoes tossed with simple seasonings. Then you nestle the seasoned chicken with the potatoes and bake. I added some lemon slices and fresh thyme on top, because I had it on hand. the recipe did not call for it. 

I forgot to take a picture of the olive mixture, but once this is done cooking you add this olive mixture to the pan that brings out another level of flavors!

I followed the recipe as written, however I skipped the tzatziki sauce & feta mixture and just topped ours with feta. I also added some steamed green beans to get in some veggies. You can grab all the recipe details here. 

 

Wishing you a great first day of July! 

See you back here on Wednesday. There is always room for one more at our family table. 

xoxo

Genevieve