My Favorite Winter Treat

Do you think that a stick of peppermint in a lemon sounds gross?  I totally 100% don’t blame you if you do.  In fact, I’ve been eating this winter treat since I was little but this is the first time I’m sharing it at HH. I think it looks insane but I promise you it’s freaking DELICIOUS!  All you do is cut a hole in the lemon with a knife and stick a peppermint stick in it.  You have to bite each end of the peppermint stick, but when you do you should get a straw that sucks up lemon juice.  Squeeze the lemon to help get more juice and you will get a sweet lightly minty treat. It’s freaking delicious and now that we have a lemon tree at our new house I’ve been eating it non stop.  All I have to say is don’t knock it till you try it!  We have my Grandma to thank for teaching me about this one!  Let me know if you try it!

[clickToTweet tweet=”A winter treat you definitely won’t expect! #paleo #dairyfree #glutenfree” quote=”My favorite winter treat is something you definitely won’t expect, all I have to say is don’t knock it until you try it! #lemons #vegan #vegetarian #dessert #peppermint! “]

HH Survey Results

Alright, guys!  So at my last blogiversary, I decided to share my survey results and many of you said you really liked that I did that, so I figured I’d do it again!  So here we go!

Who Answered

•  Most of you are female
•  All different age ranges
• All over the US, but around 50% in the EST time zone
  • Because of this, I will make it a priority to get my posts up by 4 am MST time. Of course, I can’t always guarantee but I’ll definitely keep in mind that a lot of you are three hours behind!
• There was a split of new and OG readers from the beginning who answered the survey.

Posts You Want To See More Of

1. Nutrition and Health topics
   • Most requested were: intuitive eating, hormones, weight loss, GI Health, autoimmune, inflammation
2.  Slow Cooker Recipes
   • Since the IP is kind of a fail at slow cooking, I asked for a slow cooker at Christmas.
3. Easy Weeknight Meals
   • Um Yes.
4. Minimal Ingredients
   • Absolutely.
5. Day in the Life/What I Ate Posts
   • I’ll keep up with this on the Friday Favorites post!

Post You Would Be Okay Seeing Less Of

1.  Facebook Lives
2. Mocktails/Cocktails
3. Recipe Videos
4. Recipe Round Ups
5. Smoothies

I already cut the drink recipes because you guys said you weren’t into them last survey, great to see you are sticking to your guns on that one.  To be honest, I’m not one to drink that much anyway, so that’s not a huge loss. I’ll likely continue FB Lives and Recipe Videos but those won’t take away from the topics you want to see more of.  I’m not a HUGE smoothie person so I can keep that to a minimum too.  As far as Recipe Round-Ups, I’ll probably continue those occasionally.  The reason I do those is that I have over 4 years of recipes on HH.  It’s likely you haven’t seen them all or forgot about some of them from one, two, three, or four years ago, that’s why I do the roundups!

Recipes You Would Want to See More Of

1.  5 Ingredient Recipes
2. Dinner
3. Meal Prep
4. Breakfast
5. Quick

Your wish is my command.  Last year I was ALL ABOUT the One Pan Recipes once a week.  This year I can totally do a 5 ingredient recipe once a week.  Someone said they really enjoyed me sharing my meal prep on IG last week, so I’ll keep going on that.  I’ll do my best to share my meal prep on the blog as well! I’m about quick breakfast and dinner recipes, so let’s do this! I’m excited!

Readers Dietary Restrictions & Preferences

1.  gluten free
2.  dairy free
3.  avoiding red meat
4.  soy free
5. low carb/keto

Very interesting!  While there are some old HH recipes that contain wheat or gluten there are very few now.  My husband eats 100% gluten-free at home, and I keep it to a minimum.  I eat grass fed dairy but I can do better at providing dairy substitutes if I use them in a recipe.  I don’t avoid red meat anymore, but I do eat only high quality 100% grass-fed meat. We eat 100% soy free in our house do to Mr. Hungry’s sensitivity and my hormone issues.  Occasionally I accidentally purchase something with soybean oil, but that’s about it. We eat lower carb than the standard American diet but by no means keto.  I’ve written a ton about carbs like how to chose high-quality carbs and how carbs affect hormone balance.

Sponsored Posts & Giveaways

Most of you are cool with the sponsors, that’s awesome! As you guys know, I’m pretty picky about who I partner with.  I only partner with brands I use in my own home, that’s the rule!  Thanks for supporting the brands that partner with HH!

Fo giveaways about half of you don’t care and the other half of you would like more!  I’m thinking more giveaways would be fun so I’m looking to line up one per month for you guys!

What Brings You To HH?

1. Check out a new recipe
2. See what I’m up too
3. To find an old recipe
4. To get a workout
5. For giveaways

Post Content

(The stuff before the recipe.) Most of you are skimming it or love reading it, so that’s a win!

Posting Frequency

Most of you said 5x/week is perfect! Some of you wanted more, some of you wanted less, but most of you are good with what I’m doing so we will keep rolling with that!

Biggest Struggles With Cooking & Healthy Eating

1. Time (See Tips for  Busy Lifestyle Posts)
2. Meal Planning/ Ideas
3. Meal Prep (See Meal Prep Posts)
4. Having All Ingredients On Hand (See Meal Planning)
5. Cost (See Healthy Eating On a Budget)
6. Sticking With It Throughout The Whole Week (See this post)
7. Keeping Up With Variety (See Meal Planning) plus I think I’ll do a post on this, so stay tuned!
8. Avoiding Food Sensitivities ( I know it’s rough!)
9. Cravings
10. Feeling Guilty For Indulging (see intuitive eating series)
11. Low-Calorie Foods (See this post about low-calorie foods)
12. Not Being Sure What Is Healthy (see this post about foods that pose as healthy)

A little plug for the health tab on the blog, see it on the top menu? Hover over it and you will get tons of stuff to explore!

And another plug here for my new meal planning subscription service What to Eat? Meal Plans!

I developed these meal plans to provide a convenient, affordable way to help you get your sh*! together when it comes to meal planning.  I know it’s hard, I know I can post a million recipes and give you all the information in the world and sometimes it won’t help.  The old saying, give a man to fish and you feed him today, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime just straight up does not apply here. Because in today’s world, you can teach that man to fish but he would end up in the fast food drive-thru.  You know why?  Because he doesn’t have time to go out and hunt or fish, in today’s world we call that a vacation not a day in the life.  That’s why my meal plans are all about making your life easier.  Weekly meal plans with 5 whole days of breakfast, snacks, lunches, and dinners.  Schedule and print your shopping list.  This solves almost every challenge you guys listed above!

 

What Do You Love Most About Hungry Hobby?

1. Recipes
2. Variety
3. Health Information
4. Holistic Nutrition Info
5. Nala
6. Personal Stories/ Life Updates
7. RD Perspective Information
8. Keepin it real!

What Would You Change?

1. More Giveaways
   • Will do! How does one a month sound?
2. Make the Font Easier To Read
   • A couple of you said this, is it to thin? What can I do to help out here?
3. Less Ads
   • One of the unfortunate side effects blogging as part of your career.  Right now the ads not only help pay my mortgage but they also help pay for some of the expenses of running a blog.  You’d think there wouldn’t be there many, but I promise you there is a ton! In order to continue keeping HH going they kind of have to stay, I really am sorry if you feel like it’s super annoying.  If I could get rid of them I totally would, but right now it just isn’t feasible. If they bother you a ton, just click out of them!
4. Calories/ Macro Details Added to Every Recipe
   • happy to say that because of my meal planning service, I will be able to provide these. I’ll also be going back through and adding/updating calories to old recipes!

What Is Your Favorite HH Post Of All Time?

1. Friday Favorites Series
2. Southwest Omelet Bowl
3. Holiday Recipes Round-Up or maybe holiday recipes in general?
4. Overnight Oats How To
5. Collagen Post
6. Seed Cycling Post
7. Carb Cycling Post?
8. My Job as a WIC RD
9. My Job as a Life Time Fitness RD
10. My Battle with Amenorrhea
11. Flax & Hemp Seed Energy Bites
12. 52 Healthy Habits

Congrats to Megan and Catherine for winning the HH Survey Amazon Giveaway, your gift cards are on their way to your email!  And thanks to everyone for all their input!  Remember I’m just an email away if you ever have suggestions or feedback! hungryhobbyatgmail.com