Deep Dish Chicken Pot Pie [Recipe]

It's fall y'all (aka my favorite time of year). And with the cooler temperatures comes comfort food. On Friday night when our desert temps dipped to 60 degrees, I decided to dust off my deep dish chicken pot pie recipe I found several years ago from Kraft. It's simple, looks fancy and I'm pretty positive you'll love it. I always forget how much I enjoy this dish.

I made a few slight variations to the original recipe and here's how.

WHAT YOU NEED

• 1 lb. chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1/4 cup KRAFT Lite Zesty Italian Dressing
• 4 oz. Neufchatel Cheese, cubed
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 1/2 cup fat-free reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 3 cups frozen mixed vegetables
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter (optional)
• Salt, pepper & parsley to taste (optional)
• 1 ready-to-use frozen pie crust
• Egg wash (one egg + 2 Tbsp water)

Sautee veges in 2 Tbsp. of butter over medium low heat to soften. In a separate skillet, cook chicken in dressing in large skillet on medium heat 2 min. Add cream cheese; cook and stir until melted. Add flour; mix well. Add broth and vegetables; simmer 5 min. 

After you pour mixture into deep dish 10-inch pie plate, arrange pie crust over filling and flute edges. Cut slits in crust to allow steam to escape. Brush pie with egg wash. Bake 25-30 min. or until crust is golden brown.

The cream cheese is the secret. Enjoy.

My HIIT Cardio Routine

I've had several people ask me on Instagram (@thebargainblonde) what cardio plan I am doing. Just popping in really quickly to post the High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) portion of my workout. This is the very first thing I do during my workout. I'm working on a comprehensive post about my entire routine and weight loss progress so far and will post soon because I get that question a lot.

I found this 35 minute HIIT on Fit Sugar, which has a ton of different cardio routines to fit your needs/wants. If the elliptical isn't your thing, search for something else that is. They have great printable cardio programs on that site. Anyway, more on that in a future post. Here is my elliptical HIIT work out:

I follow this with 25 minutes more of cardio and weight trainng, but I will explain more about that later. If you're looking for a cardio plan that burns a lot of calories in not a lot of time, I highly recommend this one to get you started. Warning: mins 18-23:30 are absolute hell, but you'll feel so good after.

 I've been doing this routine since Memorial Day and it still kicks my butt every day and I have every interval memorized now. I used to bring my printed paper to the gym with me every day. Ha!

OK, let me know if you have any questions. Happy cardio-ing.

Operation Get Hot

Guess who has a birthday coming up? This old hag. And by coming up, I mean I am just two and a half months away from turning 29. That is correct. I am about to embark on my last year in my roaring twenties. I cannot believe I just typed that. I swear it was just yesterday I was getting depressed over turning 22. WHERE DID THE LAST SEVEN YEARS GO? It disturbs me greatly how quickly time passes.

Cousin, bro and I on my 22nd Birthday/College Graduation. Mama is not that size anymore. Can we say goal weight?

Do you want to know what is more disturbing? My cellulite. My arm jiggle. My stomach rolls. I am not even exaggerating. I am the largest I have ever been in my life. No, you are not getting a photo. Just use your imagination.
So with a big birthday on the horizon, I thought now is the perfect time to get super serious about ¨operation get hot.¨
Fat + birthdays = deep, dark depression.
You may have noticed I do not have the amount of free time I used to (Instagram is the new blog, OK?). I am running out the door every single morning to get to work at a decent hour. I do not get home until 7PM or later depending on what errands I have. So I just have to make time.
Last week I had no lunch, didn't get home from work until 8PM and allllllll I had my sights set on was plopping my fat ass on the couch and pressing play on that remote. My head said gym but my heart said Real Housewives. Something in me snapped and you know what I did? I worked out anyway. I put on 4 shades of pink, grabbed a water bottle and I. just. did. it. And you know what else? I felt a hell of a lot better after that work-out.

Guess what else happened after I just did it? I worked out 5 times last week. I'm not saying one week made me hot, but you have to start somewhere. I'm sick of wishing for it. I have to work for it and time is ticking. One only hopes my arm will one day get back to my 24th birthday arm:

So what about you ladies? Have you ever had an argument between YOUR head and heart about losing a few? Tell me in comments! Entries will be pooled between participating blogs and two lucky winners will be picked at random to each win a $1,000 SpaFinder gift card. Nice!

Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: "#SweepstakesEntry"; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 6/13/13 – 6/30/13.

Be sure to visit the Slim-Fast brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win! 

Don't forget to check out Slim Fast on Facebook!

Miracle Red Wine Stain Remover

I have slowly but surely been trying to decorate my new apartment. I guess it's not so new anymore, but that's neither here nor there. After I moved in, I searched high and low for a living a room rug. And by high and low, I mean I scoured the internet for months. I finally decided on a rug I wanted from Overstock when low and behold, the one I had my eye on sold out. Your standard first world problems.

Defeated, I put my rug search on the back burner. That was until I stumbled across exactly what I had been looking for the entire time at Target for only $79. Yes, this Maple Fretwork 5X7 rug was only $79. Here she is:

Ignore the atrocious balcony blinds please.

It was love at first sight and exactly what I had my eye on. I'll have to tell y'all about my TV stand purchase and assembly in another post because that is a new too. Naturally, I spilled RED wine on my brand new rug a few weeks later. Would you expect anything less? I tired everything to get it out, but to no avail. I wanted to cry and I almost considered buying a new rug. I mean, who am I?

I can't remember who told me to try Wine Away, but someone did and I need to send them a thank you gift. I bought the 12 oz bottle because it was only a few more dollars than the 2 oz. I sprayed the solution on my several weeks old stain (bescause yes, I'm lazy, and it took me that long to buy it) and the red wine literally started disappearing in no time. I didn't even have to really blot it. I'm telling you, the stuff was magic.
The red wine was on the CREAM pattern and on the beige and you would never know. Do you see a red wine stain? I don't.

I purchased mine at Total Wine, but you can totes buy online. Linked in the paragraph above.

Everybody knows you use Wine Away to get out red wine stains. Duh. Get ya some and thank me later.

[RECIPE] Mock Mashed Potatoes Using Cauliflower

I typically don't get home from my Skyrobics trampoline class until almost 9PM at night. I go straight from work to make it to the 7PM class. Since I am getting home so late these days, I am trying to limit my carb intake so at dinner, which resulted in me finally trying this dupe for mashed potatoes.

I saw Laura from Laura Must Lose Weight vlog her recipe and I was still skeptical when I watched it a few months ago. And if you've never tried this, then I'm sure you're going to still be skeptical after I tell you how great it was. I don't blame you. But I'll also tell you that you are missing out. This stuff is legit. I Instagrammed a photo of the mashed cauliflowers and I had a few requests for the recipe, so here you go. It's super easy to make.

You need:

1. A head of cauliflower, chopped
2. One ziploc steam bag (can be found where the oven bags are)
3. 1/2 C of cottage cheese
4. 1 clove of garlic minced
5. salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Put chopped cauliflower in ziplock steam bag and steam for 5 to 6 minutues or until soft
2. Mix all ingredients in a blender and blend untill smooth
3. Enjoy!

 

I served mine with zesty tilpia and sauteed mushrooms (I use a slight variation of that recipe). I didn't use oil for any of this, just fresh lemon and lime juice, salt, pepper and mrs. dash original seasoning. BAM.