stuffed peppers

Good morning everyone!

I'm happy to tip my toes into the blogosphere again. Hospital is great but also so intense: at the end of the day my brain is so mushed that I can't fathom writing coherent words.

Cooking proper food has been a struggle throughout the winter term. I was very low and demotivated, which reflected on my (non) cooking. I ended up absolutely exhausted by the end of term and almost fainted after giving blood. And I don't do fainting (no offence to anyone who does).

It prompted some questioning: am I eating right? Am I getting enough protein? I realised that last year I was cooking a lot more, combining pulses and grains, not just throwing  chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce in with some tinned chickpeas. 

Right now I'm trying to cook more. And add some fish in the diet, because I can't sustain that level of sheer exhaustion just before exams.

I took the inspiration for this recipe from the stuffed peppers we used to make on the kibbutz.

Ingredients:

-6 peppers

-1 tin of chickpeas, drained

-1 tin of butter beans, drained

-a handful of spinach 

-100g of bulgur wheat (or cous cous or quinoa) cooked and cooled.

- 2 onions, chopped

-2 courgettes, chopped

-2 tomatoes, chopped

-salt

-pepper

-za'tar

-cumin

-2 tablespoon olive oil

-lemon 

Put the butter beans, chickpeas, spinach, olive oil and lemon in a bowl and  whizz with a food processor until it forms a coarse paste. I left some beans in coarser pieces. Incorporate the chopped vegetables and the rest of the spices  in the paste. 

Cut the top off the peppers and scrap out the seeds. Spoon the mixture inside the peppers. If you have any leftover stuffing, you can shape them into little balls and roast them...they are yummy!

Roast in the oven at 180C for 1 hour, until the peppers are roasted on the outside and the top of the stuffing is golden and crisp.

Take them out, let them cool slightly and enjoy (maybe with some tahini on top)!

Sunday happiness

Hello everybody!! How are you? How was your weekend?

I have just got in from dance practice, Mr body is all sore, especially my abs! I'm enjoying this little dish of goodness right now:

As next week is going to be horribly busy, I cooked some food to freeze and keep me going!

GREEN  VEGETABLE THAI CURRY

Ingredients (for 4 people):

-4 courgettes in big chunks

-250g green beans, trimmed

-1 leek, chopped

-a handful of spring greens, roughly chopped

-400 ml tin coconut milk

-a handful of coriander chopped

-a handful of cashew or almonds, chooped and toasted (optional)

-300g tomato passata

-salt and pepper

For the curry paste:

-1 red onion finely chopped

-1 garlic clove roughly chopped

-1 big chunk of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

-2 green chillies, deseeded and chopped

-1 tsp ground cumin

-1tsp ground coriander

-1tsp ground turmeric

Combine all the curry paste ingredients in a bowl with a couple of tablespoon of water and whiz to a paste with a food processor or a blender. 

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large deep saucepan and fry the curry paste over medium heat for 3-4 minutes stirring constantly. Add the courgettes and stir for a couple of minutes until covered in the spices. Add the tomato passata, the coconut milk and the leeks. Simmer half covered for 10 minuts. Add the green beans and the spring greens and simmer for an extra 5 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper and stir in the fresh coriander. Scatter the nuts over the curry and serve with brown rice.

QUINOA AND RED LENTIL BURGERS

Ingredients (makes 5 small patties)
-2 cups of red lentils
-1 cup of quinoa
-1tsp paprika
-1 tsp dried chili flakes
-1 tsp nutmeg
-salt and pepper
-2 tbsp oats
-3 tbsp strong brown flour

Soak the red lentils in warm water overnight. Cook the quinoa, leaving it a bit "behind". Briefly whiz together the lentils and the quinoa, obtaining a coarse mix. Stir in the oats, flour and spices. WIth your hands form patties and roll them in  a brown flour and oats mixture. Place on an oiled tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake at 200°C for 30 minutes or until browned and crunchy on the outside.
Serve on a wholewheat bun with some mango chutney and green tabasco, with a side salad of cucumber and tomatoes.

Outside the weather is glorious, a breathtakingly wonderful autumn day: I love these luminous, fragrant days. 

What did you do this weekend?

healthy zucchini bread:)

This "bread"- more of a cake really- it's the perfect post-run snack: a good mix of complex carbs, proteins, healthy fats, fiber and vitamins. It works well as a dessert, especially if your guests are runners:)

ingredients (for a  20x10 stamp): 

- 250g whole wheat flour

-75g cane sugar/ 1/2 cup of honey 

-3 eggs 

-5 tablespoon fat free Greek yogurt (Fage works best)

-a teaspoon olive oil

-walnuts or almonds or pumpkin seeds if you have a nut allergy

- sultanas

-1 courgette, coarsely grated

- 1 tsp baking powder 

-1 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium bowl combine flour and baking powder. In a large bowl beat together the eggs and sugar/ honey, then  incorporate the yogurt, vanilla extract and olive oil. Combine the wet and dry ingredients: I prefer slowly pouring the flour/ baking powder mix in the wet ingredients bowl. Add sultanas, nuts and the grated courgette.

Line your tin with baking paper, pour the mix in and bake in a preheated oven at 170C for 1 hour or until it's golden at the top and the toothpick dry. You can add some walnuts on the top halfway through. 

Leave it to cool, slice it up and enjoy!

( it will last around a week if you wrap it in cling film but it normally doesn't last that long!)

running progress and an update on the veggie experiment:)

oh hello:) how are you all? 
are you ready for #marathonmonth? April has three biggies lined up: Paris (April 7th), London (April 13th) and Boston (April 21st). Is any of you running/spectating one of these?:)

All of them are on  my bucket list of races and I can't wait to watch the clash of the titans in London: as an adoptive Briton I have a soft spot for Mo but I don't know if he can take down the East Africans.
Also, one of my friends from uni is running it, so... go Michelle, I will be cheering from afar:)

I am at the end of my vegetarian streak and I don't want to stop! I feel very good and light in spite of the scale and the body mass evaluation which gave roughly the same results as when I was 16. What is changed since then is that I dropped one jeans size and my running times. 
I have seen a massive improvement in my long run times, in which I am now clocking 5 mins/km as average pace: foe me this is amazing!! Also on Sunday, I ran the course around the lake which is roughly 28 km long and ran it 10 minutes faster than my PB of 2H32! 

The first time I ran this course vs Sunday's run: this is what I call progress!

I know that these improvements aren't due only to my nutrition: I also increase training load and intensity and going to running club regularly certainly helped (thank you Tyne Bridge Harriers!) but...I can't deny that not even during marathon training I saw such improvements on my average pace.
Now I am very confused on whether to stick to my plans and eat meat as I used to for the next month or keep being vegetarian, maybe eating meat or fish once or twice a week. 

What is your opinion?

the big veggie experiment: an update!

Hello everyone! I didn't forget about my little blog, just uni and life got in the way! The past few weeks were so stressful and hectic: this term is packed with two big assignments and lots of lectures. Put training and a little social life on top of that= no time for blogging!*end of the apologetic rant*

I baked bread to relieve some stress!

some of you may remember how I embarked in a food experiment, namely the big veggie experiment in which I would give up animal proteins to see the effect of a vegetarian diet on my training.
It was meant to last a month, using Parkrun as a time trial to see any improvement in my running.


However...
Life got in the way, as it often does: Parkrun was called off twice because of the ice and I raced a relay for my club, which was very good fun but didn't get me to do the 5k. On top of that I had a mole removed a week before the end of my trial and was not allowed to run for that week: 7 days of sitting on a chair eating lots of biscuits didn't do any good to my form (that is true of any diet).

I really enjoyed this month and a half of running on plants; it makes me feel lighter, better and generally more focused: once I got the hang of it, it's easy to cook without meat!

Stir fry...

or huge omelette with purple kale and broccoli?

I ate quite a lot of eggs, because I was wary of not getting enough proteins and I don't want to resort to protein powders: if I couldn't do this naturally, then by all means I would have started meat again.

Eggs on toast!

So what's my plan now? Well, as I am feeling this good, I will keep going until I go home for Easter (in a month time), when phase 2 of this trial may start: while in Italy I will follow my mum's diet (as in way of eating) which is called zone diet. It is a high protein-low carb regime aimed to balance all the nutrients in every meal and that rules out every chance of being a veggie. Before going back to eating meat though I plan to get my lean muscle mass assessed so I can evaluate the effect of vegetarianism on my muscles and hopefully give blood so I can see if my iron levels are ok!

Valentine's day pizza: my half and his half (before we added ham)

On a personal note, being vegetarian pushed me out of my comfort zone, because it forced me to reconsider everything I ate: for example, I was so used to come home from training and shove a piece of chicken in my mouth, to curb my appetite until dinner/rebuild muscle. Dinner used to be some lean protein of any sort with a sadly steamed vegetable on the side. Going vegetarian forced me to experiment, be creative, try new food and recipes, which made me discover new flavours. Last week I used quinoa for the second time in my life and cooked it with leeks, peppers and kale: it was so good!

 Tonight's dinner was veggie burgers with salad and parsnips, which was inspired by the dinner my friend Suzie cooked on Friday night. 

Being a vegetarian makes consider what you eat: I was at a conference on Saturday and the lunch provided was a vast array of sandwiches. Before this experiment I would have gotten any that was made of whole wheat bread without much thought...on Saturday, I took my time to try and identify what I was putting on my plate (which is always a good thing).

I never believed I would enjoy this so much to actually looking forward to continue this experiment longer than expected, I guess it's just how life goes, right?

Hummiliciousness: carrot, original, beetrot+walnut hummus (i eat so many chickpeas)!

Good night!!