HealthyHoggin.com

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Google Reader Update!!

Hi friends!

It has recently been brought to my attention that ever since I switched over to self-hosting for my blog, my new domain name hasn’t been updating in Google Reader! Ugh!! Fortunately, I figured it out.

Please update your Google Readers to:

http://healthyhoggin.com/feed/

Problem solved!! Thanks to all of you who let me know it wasn’t working.

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And make sure you don’t miss out on my Kitchen Gadget giveaway!!

Kitchen Gadget Giveaway

For those of you who haven’t updated your bookmarks and/or Google Reader, from now on you can find my blog updates at http://healthyhoggin.com

This week, you could win your choice of a vegetable spiralizer, mini food processor or immersion hand blender!

–> Enter Here

Extreme Blog Makeover!

Hi everyone! Thank you for your patience as I worked on my blog this weekend!

Now that I am self-hosted, please adjust your bookmarks and Google Reader to my official domain name: http://healthyhoggin.com

Please excuse my mess!

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know that my little bloggy is going through some changes today– I’m switching over to being self-hosted! So if the blog is down for a bit today, that’s why!

Hopefully I’ll be up and running soon! (Wish me luck, I’m doing this by myself!!) Gulp.

In the meantime: Check out this CSN giveaway!

Creamy Comfort

Happy Friday! I feel like this week flew by, and I can’t believe it’s almost the weekend! I guess time flies when you’re shocked, too!

To satisfy our “comfort food” cravings last night, I decided to make a warm, creamy soup.

Vegan Potato Leek Soup
Adapted from The Great American Detox Diet

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 leeks, white and light green parts washed and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
2 cups chopped yellow onion
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and cubed into 1/2-inch cubes
4 cups vegetable stock
Spike seasoning, to taste

Making this soup was really easy! Start by heating the olive oil, onions and leeks in a 4-qt. soup pot, over medium heat:

Cook for about 5 minutes, or until tender. Add the garlic, and cook for one more minute. Then, add the potatoes and vegetable broth:

Cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to low, and let simmer for 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender.

Then comes the fun part! Using an immersion hand blender, puree the soup until it is smooth and creamy.

Before:

After:

Using an immersion hand blender is SO much easier than trying to transfer the soup in batches to a traditional blender. I’ve done that in the past, and it was a mess! If you don’t have an immersion hand blender of your own, stay tuned to my blog next week! You might have one sooner than you think.

Season the soup to taste, then serve immediately. We rounded out the meal with some roasted broccoli and garlic toast.

Mmm, mmm, good!

I’ve got a training run in my future this afternoon, then we’re excited to see Dear John tonight! Has anyone else noticed that Nicholas Sparks has a tendency to kill-off at least one of his romantic leads in all of his stories?! I wonder if the movie tonight will continue the tradition…

Hope you all have a good day!!

Emotional Drinking?!

Well, I’ve already had a wrench thrown into my February Challenge this week! While I know I shouldn’t let random life circumstances get in the way of my healthy lifestyle goals, I still seem to struggle with emotional eating. And, in this case, emotional drinking:

Yep, I broke my streak and gave into the coffee-monster. It was just one of those days, you know?

What news could possibly cause me to fall off the wagon so soon?

Well, the other night we found out my husband is going to be traveling in Europe with his boss for 6 weeks! That’s a long time!! The longest my husband and I have ever gone without seeing each other is 2 weeks, and that seemed LONG. And in that instance, I was the one doing the traveling! I’m never the one who is left at home.

This is an AMAZING opportunity for him. Who gets to travel around Europe AND get paid for it?? This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and he’s going to take advantage of it! But it doesn’t mean we’re not bummed about being away from each other for so long…

That being said, I have a feeling this time apart will make us appreciate each other even more, and will be a good thing in the long run. I’m excited about feeling independent and taking some time to work on myself! I’ve got lots of ideas running around in my head on how to spend my free time, so we’ll see what I end up doing.

I’ve got less than two weeks to appreciate my hubby while I’ve got him, so we’re going to make the most of it! Currently, we’re spending lots of nights on our couch catching up on last season’s Damages and Big Love. (Gotta love Netflix!)

I also feel the urge to make him lots of tasty homemade dinners and treats while I have him… that ever happen to anyone else?

Reader Feedback: How long have you ever been apart from your loved ones?  Do you think it helped your relationship and/or yourself?  How did you spend your time apart?

Pizza-creamed Spinach

The past two days, I’ve been having MAJOR pizza cravings. The first week of getting “back on track” is always the hardest for me, but luckily, I’ve got a detox-friendly recipe that totally hit the spot! (and it’s quick, too!)

Pizza-Creamed Spinach
Adapted from DetoxTheWorld.com

6-oz bag of fresh spinach
Splash of water
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup high-quality marinara sauce
1 ounce raw cheddar-style goat cheese
Sea salt, dried basil and oregano, to taste

In a 3-qt. saute pan over medium heat, add the garlic, water and spinach.

Cover for 1-2 minutes, until the spinach is bright green and wilted:

Add the marinara, and cook until hot and bubbly. Transfer to a serving bowl, and immediately top with shredded raw goat cheese:

This was pure heaven. So decadent and rich, with all the pizza-flavors I was craving– yet, properly combined so it will digest seamlessly! This served one hungry me, but could probably serve two as a side dish.

The only change I’d make for next time is omitting the water used to cook the spinach. You could use the marinara sauce instead, reducing the moisture content so it would be more pizza/pasta like.

Hope you enjoy!

LOST supper

Hi everyone! Did you all enjoy the season premiere of LOST as much as I did??

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Last night’s episode was everything I expected it to be– it answered some questions, but ended up leaving me with more than I started with! Isn’t that always the case with this show? I’m so excited to see how the last season plays out– will they ever answer ALL of our questions?!

In celebration of LOST, the husband and I wanted to have a special dinner. His first request? Some fresh pineapple!

I had my serving of pineapple as a post-workout snack after my 30-minute run– so it was on an empty stomach, and didn’t interfere with my food combining for dinner. It was so sweet and juicy! I forgot how much I love pineapple.

My husband wanted to have some sort of “cheat meal” for dinner, but I didn’t want to go too overboard… so we settled on veggie burgers with homemade spicy fries! Since I prefer to avoid soy products, I was adventurous with a new-to-me veggie patty:

I’ll pretty much eat Indian-spiced-anything! YUM. What I loved about these patties, is that they’re potato-based, vegan and soy-free.

There are a couple ingredients in there that are less-than-desirable, but overall, I felt okay eating these for our splurge night. I grilled it in my cast iron pan over the stove, until it was warm and crispy, then served it over a bed of mixed greens:

Along with some homemade oven fries and organic ketchup! I ended up squeezing some mustard on top of my burger, too. I love mustard. Overall, it was an awesome meal.

And for dessert:

Some 72% dark chocolate. I gave myself two squares, but for some reason I only ate one! Somehow LOST was just that captivating– enough for me to forget about chocolate! That doesn’t happen very often.

Gotta get back to work, but I’ll be back later with a yummy pizza-like recipe!

Morning Insurance Policy

Happy Tuesday!

Anyone else excited for the season premiere of LOST?! I can’t believe it’s finally here!! My husband got me into the show a few years ago, and now we’re addicted! If you’ve never watched it, make sure you don’t just jump in at the middle–you have to watch every episode from the beginning– or you’ll be confused as heck! We still get confused at times.

Last night, we celebrated our first “Bad Movie Monday.” My brother-in-law wanted to start this Monday night tradition, where we watch only the WORST of the worst movies ever made. Sounds fun, huh? Last night, we struck bad-movie gold with Deadline.

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Not only was this the slowest moving movie ever, the story was seriously lacking! What was really sad, was seeing how sickly Brittany Murphy looked! I’m not sure if this was the last movie she made before her death, but you can tell that something was off. We all found her appearance to be very distracting throughout the movie! Overall, the movie would not be something I’d recommend. Unless, of course, you’re hosting your own Bad Movie Monday!

Fortunately, last night’s dinner was much better than the movie we watched.

A simple green salad and roasted sweet potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, and onion. I went back for seconds of the roasted veggies! They’re just SO tasty seasoned with Spike seasoning.

And while watching The Bachelor, I satisfied my sweet tooth with some dark chocolate:

I love Trader Joe’s 72% Dark Chocolate bars! They’re really affordable, and last me a week! Plus, they’re so rich that two pieces totally satisfy me. YUM.

Can anyone believe that Vienna is still on The Bachelor?! What the heck? I think the final 3 girls will be Tenley, Ali, and Gia, but you never know what kind of surprises they might throw at us! I have to say, I’m thoroughly enjoying this season, and I love that my husband loves it, too!

This morning, I started Day 2 of my February Challenge with my little “Morning Insurance Policy“

Fresh juice! I feel like starting my day off with fresh vegetable juice ensures that I’m filling my body with the nutrition it needs, and setting myself up for a healthy day. Drinking this does kind of feel like “health insurance.”

Check out all the fresh produce I stuffed in today’s juice:

A head of romaine, purple kale, one beet, one lemon, and one golden delicious apple. This created a very TART juice! I had to use my straw trick: stick a straw in the juice, aim it at the back of my throat, and gulp it down quickly so that I don’t taste it very much! Works great every time. After all, fresh juice begins to lose enzymes quickly, so I might as well chug it!