Chicken Satay

It's been a long time both since I've blogged and since I've had time to experiment in the kitchen. I'm hoping that now that I'm done university and starting a new career I'll have a bit more time to do one of the things I love most, which is cook healthy foods. (I've been fortunate enough to come up with TWO new recipes this week!)

Now, normally Tuesday's at our house are "Pasta Tuesday", because my husband volunteers Tuesday evenings. We normally make a huge pot of bolognaise sauce every 4-6 weeks and freeze portions, which makes it super easy to cook some pasta and get him home from work and out the door in under an hour. I however had pasta for dinner last night after a grueling self imposed 2hr workout at Blitz Conditioning, so I wasn't in the mood for another meal high in  processed carbs (we try to limit pasta to once a week tops)

A few weeks ago I went for lunch with a friend to a Vietnamese Sandwich shop, I had a fairly tasty chicken satay sub, but there was nothing healthy about it. A huge white sub bun, tons of mayo (I actually hate mayo and attempted to scrape most of it off), lots of salt, buttered bread, very sweet, and hardly any veggies. As I was considering what to have for dinner, I don't thought maybe I could make a healthier and tastier version of that sub, because it was both something spicy (which I love), and a chance to break out the kitchen note book and make a new recipe! I also had a couple of amazing chicken breasts in my fridge from my favourite local butcher, Acme Meat Market that were calling my name.

As a result, a healthy chicken satay sandwich emerged! It was so satisfying; sweet & spicy but with tons of fresh elements so I still felt like I was eating a healthy supper. The best part? It only took me about 15 minutes to prepare, which is exactly what I needed because I was ravenous after my evening yoga class! Sometimes that's the biggest battle, we're so busy that it's easy to fall into quick & bad food, because it's convenient. In any case, I'm sure I'm rambling because it's been ages since I've had the time to sit down and write, so here's the recipe! 

Chicken Satay (for two)

6-8oz chicken breast (in bite size pieces)

1-2 tsp coconut oil

1/4 c white wine (or 1/4 c apple juice & 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar)

1/3 c diced onion 

1 tsp soya sauce

1 clove garlic

1 tbsp lemon juice 

2 tbsp natural peanut butter

1-2 tbsp red curry paste (depending on spice level)

chili flakes, to taste (optional)

1 tbsp honey/brown sugar (or 1/2tbsp agave nectar)

water (for sauce consistency)

3-4 mushrooms, diced

1 c bean sprouts 

Sandwich

1-2 carrots, grated

Bread/Pita per person

Tomato diced, per taste 
Diced red onion

Fresh cilantro 

Spinach/kale/greens 
Other veggies!

1) In frying pan melt coconut oil on medium, add all above ingredients except brown sugar, water, mushrooms & bean sprouts. Sauté on medium until chicken is cooked & onions are soft. 

2) Add sugar & mushrooms (water if needed to thin sauce - I used all natural peanut butter and needed to slowly add about 1/4 c water to keep the sauce thin enough) and cook until mushrooms are soft on medium-low, stirring frequently. 

3) Remove from heat, add bean sprouts and cover for 2-3 mins.

4) In bread (I did mine on whole wheat pita), layer grated carrot, cilantro, tomato, red onion & greens

5) Top bread & fresh vegetables with chicken & bean sprout mixture (smother with hot sauce if so desired)

To be perfectly fair to the picture below: the chicken was amazing, the fresh carrot and greens (I added spinach, baby kale & baby arugula, mostly because I'm on an arugula kick and I've been adding it to everything for the past month) were so delicious. The pita itself lasted very minimally, probably because I spent too long trying to get a perfect picture, and the pita was a few days old, so the pita fell to the wayside, I added more greens and basically had a chicken satay salad. It was amazing. I added some baked yams that I had in the fridge! 

Energy Bits

Firstly, be warned that this post comes from an over tired, nursing student, training for a marathon, coaching and working . I basically exist on homemade shakes, decaf coffee (I quit caffeine 2 years ago - for better or worse?), homemade sourdough bread (from my amazing bread guy & friend Owen) and lots of butter.

With that as a preface, I have spent the last month trying out Energy Bits during my various workouts. I am the worst marathon athlete in training. I don't have time to give my training plan the time it really deserves, but few things make me happier than running. It's the real reason I coach biathlon and do dry-land training and drive my husband crazy with the amount of running shoes I buy. It's my therapy, and for that everyone needs fuel. 

I digress; I spent the last month testing out Energy Bits. They are an awesome company, based out of Boston, and were wonderful enough to offer me a some of samples in exchange for feedback on their product. As someone who has tried every type of gel and block and training supplement, I was overall mostly happy with the Bits. 

I have to say as someone with a background in science I was initially very skeptical over a zero carb option for running energy. Normally I take gels, which consists mainly of easily broken down sugars and caffeine. The downside of gels are the havoc they wreak on my GI system (you try downing 20 to 40mg of caffeine and 25g of carbs every 45 mins!!). Gels are definitely high in energy, but they certainly don't come without side effects. The lack of side effects was my favourite part of Energy Bits! I used them on speed workouts, hill workouts and three distance runs (25+km) and definitely didn't feel any of the exhaustion that comes with improper fueling! I also didn't have any of the typical GI discomfort I frequently get with many gels. After a ton of research in scientific journals (I learned a lot too!) I found that although Spirulina (the only ingredient in Energy Bits) doesn't actually provide energy directly, it allows for energy in your body to be available for use, which is why you don't get the sugar spikes and crashes associated with many sugar based supplements. They also boast being full of protein & tons of other essential nutrients which makes them a great nutritional supplement even if you don't find them effective as a training tool. One thing I found about Energy Bits was that if I was lacking energy it took a long time for them to kick in (so for those long end of the week workouts I definitely needed a carb kick too). I assume this is because my body was on a micro-scale at a nutritional deficit. 

The biggest drawback of Energy Bits was actually swallowing them. I had no problem taking them pre-run and pre-race, but taking them, on the fly, while running at race pace would be a huge challenge for me. I'm someone who is super sensitive to tastes and smells (which is usually heightened when I'm running flat out) and I gagged an awful lot trying to down 30+ tablets during a workout or race. To be completely fair, I also gag when trying to take gels on course as well. Part of the problem with Bits was the amount of water I take during a race, which is quite minimal. I don't normally slow enough to take enough water needed to swallow the equivalent number of Bits required to keep me going. In the case of a race I felt like a gel that would give me later GI discomfort was well worth the time I would save over trying to swallow Bits. At the advice of Catharine Arston, the delightful founder and CEO of Energy Bits, I tried chewing them as well. They taste awful, but it did cut down on the amount of water needed to swallow 30 tabs. 

Overall, my Eval is that I loved the Energy Bits for training, but struggled to use them in a race. I found they provided me with great energy for shorter workouts, but I think to gain full benefit during long training or racing runs I'd need to be taking them more frequently in order to ensure that I maintained a bioavailable energy level. I would hesitate to use them in a race because I don't know how I would actually be able to take the required number of Bits to keep me going, but will certainly continue to use them as one of my sources of energy for training! Maybe I'll try them out on some shorter races this fall, I plan on running a 5-8km trail series, which would probably be the perfect distance to pre-fuel with Bits! 

Finding My Jam - November Project

When I started this blog two and a half years ago, I was in search of developing healthier eating habits, and trying to get back into shape after gaining a bunch of weight during my first degree. I was preparing to have surgery for torn ligaments in my leg, and running 5km made me feel exhausted. The idea of running a marathon to me was laughable. After surgery I decided to try and get serious about running. I didn't have any friends that were into running, so I spent a lot of time trying to motivate myself to go running. I ran my first half marathon 1 year exactly after having leg surgery, and to my delight, finished in 2 hours and 7 minutes. After that race I couldn't walk for about a week, and contemplated if I actually was crazy for undertaking something as crazy as running 21.1km for fun.

Fast forward to August 2013. I was still trying very hard to keep running, but school was busy, work was busy and I still hadn't found any friends that were into running. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep myself motivated for another winter of running alone. Almost as if on cue I found the perfect solution; November Project (NP). The idea behind NP is simple. Two guys from Boston struggled to stay motivated to keep active over the winter, decided to form an exercise support group and force one another to exercise (you can read the full story here). The beautiful part was that a Canadian Tribe had just been formed, thanks to the recent trade of Andrew Ference (who had been involved with the Boston tribe) from the Boston Bruins to the Edmonton Oilers. So one Friday morning, I got up at 5am, laced up my Asics and stepped way outside my comfort zone and jogged solo over to my very first November Project Canada workout.

At the time I had no idea that I would find so much more than just some people to help keep me active through the winter. Over the last 11 months I've developed amazing running habits, found pleasure in pushing myself running hundreds of sets of stairs, and also become part of an amazing community. November Project is more than the #FreeFitness it touts on Twitter it is a group of like minded people who are crazy and funny and wonderful. It takes that to wake yourself up and be at a workout by 6am three days a week.

If I had never found the courage to lace up my runners and trudge (solo!!) over to run hills with a bunch of people I had never met I really don't know where I would be right now. I certainly never would have trained for or run my first marathon, I definitely would not have signed up for a second marathon and I absolutely would not have Boston Marathon firmly tacked on my bucket list. I also would not have amazing friends to share sweaty hugs with, or to eat oversized bowls of ice cream with (we just went running after all!).

Over the past year that I've spent with November Project Canada I've had the opportunity to meet amazing people, find wonderful training partners, taste the most delicious bread and continue to work on overhauling my lifestyle. My husband thinks I'm a bit crazy, but at the same time says he impressed that some random running thing I heard about on Twitter could change me from a stay-up-late-night-owl-kind-of-person to a wake-up-early-basically-every-morning-to-workout-kind-of-person. I have to say, I'm a bit surprised myself! The first few weeks were definitely a struggle, but a November Project Lifestyle has become my new lifestyle, one which I am incredibly thankful for!