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?

a vegetarian dinner

"so you have become a vegetarian?"
"yes"...." and what do you eat?"

I had this conversation with a friend from home on Facebook, shortly after becoming vegetarian.
At the time it wasn't hard to answer: everything except meat and fish (translation: Pret salad/kid's cheese sandwiches; porridge, vegetables, eggs and LOTS of chickpeas). When she asked me to cook a vegetarian dinner to show her what I ate...the trouble started. because, despite my amazing vegetarian cookbook, I ended up living of steamed/sautéed vegetables with some pulses or eggs. Devising a proper vegetarian dinner was not going to be an easy piece of cake. Luckily, my friend Mareike came to save me and suggested to take a look to this amazing website, Green Kitchen Stories: I was overwhelmed with recipes and had a hard time picking one.
I ended up making their mushroom and hazelnuts loaf with minor changes and it tasted very good! So here's the recipe for you.

Green Kitchen Mushroom and Hazelnut Loaf
Ingredients:
-250 g leek
-250 g mushrooms
-200 g toasted hazelnuts
-100 g cold boiled brown rice
-4 eggs
-100 ml milk
-rosemary
-nutmeg
-salt
-pepper

What to do:
-Sauté the sliced mushroom and leek with the chopped hazelnuts and some rosemary and garlic for 30 mins on very low heat.

-In a bowl mix eggs, milk, rice with salt, pepper and nutmeg

when the measuring jug is nowhere to be found...running water bottles work well:)

-add the vegetables, after removing the garlic cloves

-put in a loaf tin (or two) and cook in the preheated oven at 180°C for 1 hour.

I also roasted some chickpeas with salt, pepper and nutmeg to serve as an appetizer:

The loaf was very good: it was crunchy to the point but not crumbly and it wasn't dry as I feared! I served it with my mum's signature ratatouille and it was great.

To round off the dinner we had a wonderful ricotta cake (like a cheesecake) that my friend made.

so good!!

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!!

the big veggie experiment.

"If you are you, breathe. If you breathe, you talk. If you talk, you ask. If you ask, you think. If you think, you search. If you search, you experience. If you experience, you learn. If you learn, you grow. If you grow, you wish. If you wish, you find. And if you find, you doubt. If you doubt, you question. If you question, you understand and if you understand, you know. If you know, you want to know more. If you want to know more, you are alive."- National Geographic Society

I really like this quote, as to me it describes perfectly natural curiosity and the will to discover. I always thought of myself as a curious person, I have always loved learning, even the subjects that did not come easy to me once I started getting an idea of how things worked. 

I guess that by now you will all be puzzled by how mismatched the title and the content are, right? What have curiosity, doubt and learning to do with a vegetarian experiment? Well, nothing, except that I started questioning my certainties in nutrition and decided to find out more.
I've always thought that animal proteins were essential in any athlete's diet as they are needed to repair muscle damage and also for maintaining weight. Vegetarian diets were good for people with low exercise rates and also dangerously close to have way too many simple carbs in it. When I was 16 I was running on a high carb/low protein diet and ended being slightly overweight and with a stress fracture, which wasn't pretty and made me very diffident.
Then, in November, I read this book my friend Suzie gave me...

...and started thinking.

The author of the book, Scott Jurek, is a world level ultra marathoner who has won some of the toughest races in the world. At some point he describes the change he made from a meat eating diet to a vegetarianism ( and then to vegan, but I think that is a step too further for me): he noticed that his training improved, he increased muscle mass and became leaner than before. Which is exactly the opposite you would expect. Now, his narrative is very powerful and makes it sound like a very good idea while you are reading it, but what about critical judgement? How is it possible that by eating less proteins (or at least proteins which are not so readily available as a rare steak), he got better muscle mass? I can still get the better recovery as by cutting out meat, he probably reduced oxidative stress on cells, but becoming leaner?

I was really intrigued by this "mystery" and chatted about it with two of my running friends, Suzie and Mareike, during her last visit up here. Turned out- but I partially knew that already- that their diets are mainly vegetarian (or have been at some point). Suzie eats fish/meat one or twice a week, while Mareike last year ate pretty much as a vegetarian and saw-we all did!- some amazing improvement on her running. Now, for the records, they are both better runners than me.

However the problem wasn't going anywhere: I had 3 people, one unknown to me, except from his book, whose training was consistently more intense than mine, who thrived and performed quite well on a vegetarian diet. This is hardly any evidence  for someone with a bit of scientific background.

So I took one (geeky!) step further: I searched the medical databases (shame on me!). Believe me guys, it's war out there: the scientific community is divided in two with the conservatives in the middle, unsure on where to place themselves.

From there, I drew my own conclusion, which is very indecisive: it depends on individuals. We are all different and our metabolic machinery works at different speeds, depending on our genes, levels of activity, muscle mass level, age, sex and just the first factor has thousands of variables with it.  

I knew from endless chats about food with Mareike and Suzie that we probably had quite a similar metabolic speed, so maybe this whole vegetarian diet could work for me. However, I figured out that the only way to be 100% sure was to experiment on myself, using me as a control for the "study". I decided I would be on a strictly vegetarian diet for a month and see how I go. I will monitor my muscle mass, for what is possible without a scale, my levels of energy (as one of the criticism I got was that I won't have enough energy), my performance at training and in races (using Parkrun as a scale) and satiety because I don't want to starve myself.

If by any chance I notice that this is not working and is leaving me tired, exhausted, struggling to finish training, I will go back to eating meat.

I have started this last Monday, so I am 10 days in. I feel ok, just a bit hungry sometimes and find hard to think what I can eat for dinner. My boyfriend, even if sceptical about this whole thing, is being really supportive and even got me this amazing cookbooks for Christmas!

 As I was on holidays last week I cooked some meals in advance and froze them so I can face the challenges of my term with a tummy full of vegetables.

Have you got any experience of vegetarian eating? Any tips/advice?