The Accoomplished Muesli

’ve become fully-convinced of accomplishment power. Our ability to recognize this superability makes us infinitely more productive, creative and effusively positive minded.I witness this on a daily basis through coaching, tutoring and running (i.e. my life neatly packaged in gerund form).

During a difficult workout indoors, it is crucial to my athletic well-being to think about the LAP at hand. The task at hand. Accomplish what is directly at stake and to hell with what’s coming next. For my Wellesley girls, I emphasize this same self induced blindness. If there is nothing coming, there’s no way you can worry about it. Applaud yourself every time you finish a lap “You killed that one,” then forget it happened. You have one task at hand, the lap of now.

When I start to stress about ohmygodamIgoingtograduateschool?! I have to immediately find something to occupy my thoughts to focus on right here, right now. Bring you back to the place as the yogis say.

Given that my current recipe well is on the dry side, if I need to refocus and accomplish something…anything…I toast nuts and oatmeal to make my own muesli. Alpen, a swiss version of the breakfast goodness, is available for the cost of your kidney at the local grocery store. I  like my kidneys and my stomach can’t handle their use of wheat flakes so this is a nutritious and gluten free Version of the breakfast classic.

Fruit and Nut Muesli

2 Cups of Pecans

2 Cups of slivered almonds

1 Cup of Oats (gluten free)

!.5 cups of dried fruit (I used Raisins and blueberries)

1 tablespoon of Cinnamon

1 tablespoon of Sea Salt

1/4 tsp Cloves

1/4 tsp Cinnamon

*2 tbsp Chia Seeds

Toasted Nuts

I have often lamented the exponential toasted nut property with DJK. The the nuts are finefinefinefinefineOHMYGODBURNTTOCINDERS if you aren’t careful. At Flour, toasting nuts was uber important to many of our recipes so I learned to smell for success (and use the timer!) 

Slivered almonds (LOW AND SLOW) at 300 4 minutes and then move them around on the pan reset timer for 3 minutes. They will be done when they turn Sand color and smell intensely like almond extract

Toasty P’s

300 for 4 minutes and move them around in the pan. Then they’ll have another 4 minutes. These guys should not have black char marks and if you break one open, they will have a snap to them and a slight golden lining to the meat of their interior.

Oats 

Take the Oven up to 350. These guys will be in there for 10-12 minutes and need to be jostled in the pan every 4 minutes. They will take on a more golden color and the smell is undeniably oat-y.

Thats it!

Find a large lidded container and pour all your toasted friends into the container along with the spices, dried fruit and chia seeds. Shake, shake shake it up!

And now pat your back because you have just made yourself killer breakfast for the week served with milk, yogurt and or fruit. Traditionally, muesli is on the softer side. It is left to sit and thicken in the dairy (or non-dairy milk!) of your choosing. I love it both ways; crunchy or porridge like it makes for a killer companion to my morning coffee.

Easy does it

We all find it difficult to take it easy on ourselves- myself included; Apologies to any coach I've ever had, I know I can be as thick as a doorstop.

Going hard on EXCITEMENT

While starting to feel anxious about my daunting list of nothingness I had to make up and then annihilate today,  I stumbled on this article about unnecessary battling. If you ever find yourself wanting to really sock it to yourself on an easy day, eat less than you should for the simple exercising of will power, remember you may need that strength for something bigger tomorrow.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/30-things-you-should-stop-putting-yourself-through.html

Roasted Health and Heartiness

Roasted Beet and Winter Vegetable Soup

I love the girls I coach dearly. They inspire and motivate me to be a better leader, a better athlete and a better coach. They have however, been feeling fairly lousy. Given the fact that they are sleep-deprived college students that are under a consistent amount of ever building stress- it should come as no surprise that many of them have gotten sick.

Although its rumored that sharing is caring, I would prefer to have opted out of this one. I woke up one morning more congested than Downtown Boston on a Friday.Mucus was omnipresent and in short, I wanted to curl up in a ball and melt into my bed.

So, what did I do? I went home and made soup. The kind of healthful and and clearing presence that would allow me to breathe again. Math was never my favorite subject, but food equations make perfect sense to me.  Beets+Ginger+Miso+Lemon=Feel better fast.

Beets are rich in calcium, iron and vitamins A and C, an excellent source of folic acid and a very good source of fibre, manganese and potassium. Its known as a detoxifier of the liver and a multiplier of white blood cells. Their job? Killing off sick, abnormal I’m going to make you feel like poop sick cells.

Ginger is an antihistamine and decongestant. Stuffy nose no more!

Miso, the rather reddish looking paste that is synonymous with Asian food, is a probioticc. That means intestinal flora are kept happy and healthy and it will clear out any foreign and ill desired invaders.

In case you were wondering, I feel completely better-not even 48 hours later.

Ingredients:

Ginger and Beets are Meant for Each Other

1 Medium Squash

3 Medium Beets

1 White Onion

Cinnamon 

Lemon Juice

Fresh Thyme

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper 

One Box of Whole Foods 365 Miso Broth

1/2 Inch piece of ginger grated

Aluminum Foil

1. Oven to 425, place aluminum foil on pan (you’ll thank me later when the clean up is quick)

2. Slice squash or other root vegetable into 1/4 inch rounds, drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper

3. After washing beets drizzle them with Olive oil and wrap in Aluminum foil

5. Squash rounds- 5 minutes per side, beets roast for 50 minutes to 60. Check for Doneness by stabbing it with a fork and knife- it should easily sink into the beet.

6. While those are roasting, dice your onion. Drizzle a medium sized to large pot with a tbs of olive oil on medium high heat. After about three minutes, or when you feel the heat coming off of the pan, sauté your onion for 5-7 minutes. 

7. Grate your ginger right into the pan and sauté with onion.

8. Remove pot from heat,  and squash from the oven.

Go do your laundry while the beets take their sweet time. 

9.  Chop the beets roughly (no need to remove the skin- packed with nutrients) and add beets and squash to the pot along with a tsp

Add box of Miso broth, and bring to a gentle boil. Turn the heat down and let simmer for 10 minutes.

10. Using your food processor or preferably immersion blender, puree until soup reaches desired consistency

Finish with cracked black pepper, squeeze of lemon juice and a knob of goat cheese for pureed perfection

*Toasted almonds or pecans also make for a great crunch

Algae to the Rescue

Grind, Definition. Mile 9 of a 15 mile run, hour 3 of an 8 hour car ride. These are points in a journey when the strain of what is to come seem insurmountable. Of late my days have seemed similarly Sisyphan, a perpetual struggle through a pile of tasks only to realize that the next day simply holds the same daunting list as the one that preceded it. Coach, bake, tutor, write run. Rinse, Repeat.

For a time, I enjoy the battle. I relish in the exhausted satisfaction of collapsing into bed, spent by the labors of my day. The only way I make it through these long days is properly fueling myself with healthful food. Some days it can feel like a its own battle as I spend a half an hour preparing each meal for the next day. But as Benjamin Franklin said, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” 

Fingers, toes and hamstrings crossed, I haven't gotten sick (Alto Cinque to a blueberry packed breakfast), the team I coach has been improving steadily and significantly and for the most part my body has stayed unbelievably healthy. With a few food allergies to maneuver however, ensuring I consume sufficient protein can be challenging. 

Looking for non-meat protein sources is tricky thanks to the cacophony of fitness, nutrition, athletic, emotional, spiritual, pathological and otherwise-ical experts that are constantly informing the public about their latest dogma. “Eat more almonds, more red meat, lamb, bison, heck even…bacon covered kale” http://www.yummly.com/recipes/bacon-cooked-kale. 

Well looking at things realistically, vegetables good? Yes. Protein needed? Yes. So low and behold I found something edible that satisfies all of these demands. Enerybits. Yup, these power packed tablets are straight algae.  Algae has the highest concentration of protein, chlorophyll, beta carotene, antioxidants and vitamins with health benefits that include increased energy, reduced blood pressure and prevention of colds. Its grown and not manufactured in a lab so rest assured the FDA isn’t going to come asking you questions about doping. Only power that you are working with here is that of Mother Nature.