SNACK COMBO ROUND 2– A CHILLI

For our first period dish, we’ll be making a vegetarian or meat chilli. This dish is especially good to make ahead of time, up to 3 days before, in order for the flavors to mingle and spread through the ingredients.

Chilli ingredients; 1 can each of Black and Red kidney beans, 3 Tomatoes, 2 Green bell peppers, 2 large Carrots, 2 Celeri, 1 Onions, 2 Sweet potato, a handful of button mushrooms, 1 zuchinni, 2 tbls of tomato paste, 1 Dried Chipotle chilli and/or  1 Dried Ancho chillis(you can get the last two ingredients in other formats), tbls Cumin powder, 1teaspoon Coriander powder, 1 teaspoon Mustard seeds, Cayenne powder, chilli powder, 1 teaspoon curri powder, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds,a bay leaf, a Cinnamon stick, and finally beef, chicken or veggie stock,

If you want to add meat I would recommend a mix of  ground Veal, Beef and Porc. You can also add spicy mexican sausage pieces instead of the ground meat.

Cooking the chilli:

1. Make a mirepoix; a evenly and finelly chopped mix of onions, carrots and celeri
2. roughly chop garlic
3. Cut the rest of vegetables, including more carrots and celeri, into larger bite sized pieces,
4. in a Deep Cooking pot, heat about 2 tbls or olive oil over med. high heat. Add mirepoix and garlic
5. When the onions are translucent but not browned add Meat now if you’re using any, and if you’re not, add spices; cumin, coriander, curri, cayenne and hot chilli powders, also add mustard seeds and fennel seeds, —( if you can, over low heat warm the spices in a non-stick skilet)
6. after about 30 secs of the spices cooking in the oil and mirepoix, add tomatoes, tomato paste, beans, bay leaf, cinnamon stick— here you’re cooking with the tomato’s juices; reduce
7. When it’s starting to get thicker, and looks like it could use some liquid, add the other vegetables, cover the whole pot with liquid; either water, red wine, a dark beer;guiness for example, or stock, and add the dried chipotle and ancho chillis(whole or powdered in a grinder… You can also let them soak in hot water or even better–Warm rhum and grind them into a paste instead of a powder)
8. let simmer until the vegetables are cooked through and serve whenever you want

When serving the chilli, you can either serve it in a big pot on the table where where everyone can dig in or serve in in individual bowls.

You can also add cheese, and sour cream if you want.

 

SNACK COMBO ROUND 1-The setup

This snack combo is going to be influenced by central american and south american flavors. Not necessarily the traditional food from there but a mix of ideas and inspirations that i’m appropriating for the purposes of this post! haha

So, without further ado, here goes;

The setup;

For the pre game banter and for the rest of the game you’ll have dips available with low sodium corn chips or something similar that you enjoy.

During the game, at the beginning of each period or in the case of basketball quarter or half, you’ll bring out a more substancial dish.

There are a few things you can do to make it easier for you to organize. Most of the things you’re making can easily be made a day in advance if it makes it easier.– At times this even makes certain dishes taste better.

The dips;

The 3 dips/salsas that I’ve already made posts for; The Guacamole, The tomato salsa, and the Mango salsa. Here you’ll get antioxidants, Beta-Carotene, healthy fats, and more..

Buy some Sour Cream and long green onions. Cut the onions thinly, and add a bit of lime juice and that will be a 4th dish, which will give you a bit of calcium.

Put these four dips/salsas out before the game with some chips or low temperature baked pitas made hard.

Also put a bowl of cold cuts, these are always key and cheap to have; Carrots, Celeri, Cauliflower and Broccoli are all very healthy and extremely inexpensive ingredients.

Next post; the first period dish!

 

 

 

*Unrelated to Food*; My Hockey playoff picks!

Eastern conference

• Habs over Bruins in 5
• Rangers over Devils in 6
• Pens over Sens in 6
• Capitals over Flyers in 6

Western Conference

• Red Wings over Preds in 5
• Sharks over Flames in 7
• Wild over Avalanche in 7
• Ducks over Stars in 6

There you have it. I’ll do this again as the rounds go by.

My current pick for the Eastern conference are The Pens

For the West, I’m going with The Sharks

My ideal final would be Habs over Flames in 7!

PLAYOFF SNACKS; THE RULES OF THE GAME

Here we are back for more. The hockey playoffs officially started today with the Pens and Rangers having won their opening games, and the basketball playoffs are just around the corner.

Today we’re going to establish the basic rules for what is needed when preparing a get-together for the playoffs.

The rules:

1. Find out the amount of people you will be hosting and establish a budget
2. Plan ahead and make ahead; This means that you should have most of your dishes done  hour before the start of the game and if possible many ready the day before
3. Finger foods, finger foods, finger foods; This is all about a beer in one hand and a snack in the other
4. Variety. Enough said
5. Keep the food coming; plan the evening according the the amount of periods or quarters there are in the game. Place some foods which will be there all night and make the according number of dishes which you can pull out at the beginning of each frame of play.
6. Tasty healthy food means energetic active guests
7. Plan the night ahead of time; know what to do and when, and don’t get caught having to work while your friends are enjoying the game.
8. This is your night, so have fun

That’s all I can think of for now, please send me ideas if you have any and I will add them

Tomorrow, I’m going to start sharing full fledged menu options with you.

Game on!

My Appreciation for Sports

If you’re a sports fan this is a good time of year. The baseball season is starting and soon both the hockey season and basketball season will shift to second gear for the real grind of the year which is the playoffs. There something very nice about  watching sports despite them being generally a complete waste of time.(Feel the inner turmoil of my sports addiction!!! AAAAAAAAAHHH! haha) For one thing it allows people to get together and believe in something. It’s simple and there’s not much nuance to it; you like and support your team or you don’t.

I developed my fondness for following sports through mathematics. WHAT!? haha, Yup, my father would sit at the table during breakfast reading the newspapers important sections and I would plunge myself into statistic heaven, haha. ( I also did this with cars.) You could have have me anything about baseball or hockey statistics back then and I could have answered it.

Then, later during my teenage years, after having moved to Toronto, whose citizens are generally sports crazy, I began getting together with friends to watch the games while enjoying some alcohol.. haha, I was uncomfortable about using fake IDs because I had had a very late growth support which left me feeling very small despite being 5-11, ahah. It’s true, I grew a foot in one year! I went from this scrawny 5 foot tall 16 year old to a scrawny almost 6 feet tall 17 year old! It took me years to realize that I actually wasn’t the shortest kid in the group… hahaha

Anyways, when I moved to Toronto with my family, I scored a basement bedroom which was joined to a basement livingroom which had doors exiting into the backyard. My parents would watch T.V in their bedrooms upstairs which faced the front of the house and I would invite friends, feel cool, and drink beers while enjoying the company of a group of guys, ahah. OH, I was cooool alright! This is how I thought i would be meet girls… ? Don’t ask me how I developed this belief. Maybe it was the self esteem which went up because I had more of the cool guys hanging out with me.. Or just using me. Either way, I actually don’t really think it matters that much at this point. It served its purpose.

Now, I still addictively follow the statistics on the web and I still like to get together with a group of friends to watch something completely irrelevant which we can all talk over and cheer when things are going our way.

So, with this interest of mine having been described , all there’s left to say is GO HABS GO and to a lesser extent(you’ve turned me off this year raptors!!) GO RAPS GO.

Perhaps you are wondering why i’ve shared all this with you(I’m wondering this myself!), well there’s actually a pretty straightforward and simple answer to all this:

When you’re watching sports with a group of friends you need to have some snacks prepared if you’re the host. And i’m going to make sure that if you like it or not, from this day on, having dazzled your friends with fresh, exciting and energizing finger foods, that you’ll never ever ever again have the choice of not being the host!

So come back over the following few days as I share ideas, recipes, and of course my picks as to who will win it all, in order for you to blow your friends away!    

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

AUX VIVRES; AN OVERVIEW

I live in the plateau neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec where there resides a healthy, affordable and tasty vegan restaurant called Aux Vivres.

Aux Vivres has been around for quite some time now and enjoys a regular following. The restaurant is simply decorated; with art from local artists changing every few weeks. There´s a juice bar and an outdoor patio during the summer time where they grow herbs and vegetables as well. The restaurant offers a menu made with mostly organic produce. The recipes are simple but wholesome and tasty. There are sandwiches and wraps, organic rice bowls, salads, soups and plates of dips with breads. They make they´re own vegan sweets as well and they are well worth it if you have a sweet tooth. On saturdays and sundays they offer two vegan brunch choices starting at 11am.

I´ve always found the service to be friendly and casual although at times they take forever to bring you your fruit juices or smoothies. I must admit though, that they´ve improved considerably over the past few months. It´s a nice little place to go, where i enjoy going alone or with friends. The ingredients are always fresh and although the dishes never make me salivate, they always satisfy me . I always feel good after having eaten there; energized, pleased and strangely calm… Perhaps its my conscious giving me a break, haha.

If I have one criticism about the place, and arguably this has more to do with the vegan food movement in general, its that the menu is too repetitive and isn´t bold or experimental enough. Because of this, Aux Vivres becomes like some kind of high end, although inexpensive fast food joint… Not exactly what i want from a place which does so much business and has the potential to excite the palates of meat eaters and non meat eaters alike. They have daily specials but they always fall under the boring and ´this has been done a thousand times over category´. There are a lot of great vegetable items out there to experiment with; let´s celebrate veganism appropriately! haha ( Notice how i turned this post into a rant on veganism instead of a restaurant review!)

Other than that, almost everything is good: The curry dishes are a bit weak to satisfy the north american palate which is disapointing but understandable. My favorite dishes are the MACRO BOWL and the vegan BLT in Chapati. I also like the weekend brunch choices and the dip plate with bread. I should point out that they make a mean corn bread.

For a dinner that will cost you under 20 $ per person with tax, tip and even tea or fruit juice included, this place is great. Try it out.

Other reviews:

http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2004/052004/resto.html

http://restomontreal.ca/restaurants/index.php?section=viewresto&resto_id=15

http://www.voir.ca/publishing/article.aspx?article=42560§ion=21

NUTRITION LABELS

In 1993, the food and drug administration wrote the rules for nutrition labeling following the passage in 1990 of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act by Congress. Since the rules were established, there has been on ongoing implementation and revision of them as new standards and new information emerges on health.

Food labeling is a good of way of getting a basic idea of what you’re getting when you buy food. Of course, they aren’t on everything, and are deficient in many ways because of their lack of vitamin and mineral information. They list only 2 vitamins and 2 minerals which they claim are the ones which are most likely to be lacking in a person’s diet. This is a flawed system, especially given the Vitamins which they chose to label; Vit. C? Anyone with a mildly varied diet should be getting their vit. Cs easily…

Anyways, here are things which i look at when analyzing a product’s label;

1. Calories(although, i’ve always had a very fast and healthy metabolism, so i just skim this over)
2. Saturated and trans fats(No trans fats, as little saturated fats as possible, depending on the ingredient of course. I know that when i buy butter I buy saturated fats…)
3. Sodium; It’s incredible how much sodium is in ready made food. I try to buy cereals, bread, crackers and so on with as little sodium as possible
4. Dietary Fiber; the more the merrier
5. Sugars, the less the better
6. Protein; not very important( A North American’s diet consists of more than enough protein)
7. I ignore Vit. C, but look at calcium, Vit. A and Iron. Iron being the most important for women.

The label is based on a 2000 calorie a day diet, so take that into account when looking at percentages.

Mango salsa

 

My girlfriend invited me to a party the other night and she asked me to make the salsas I wrote about recently. I couldn’t find any ripe avocados so I decided to make them a fresh mango salsa instead. The smaller sized yellow mangos are fantastic right now so i thought I would make a savory dish out of something sweet.

It’s extremely simple and should be adapted to your likes.

Get a few mangos, green chilli peppers, red onions, cumin and coriander seeds, mint, fresh coriander(cilantro), lime juice and zest, pepper and salt.

Cut the mango following its large center seed; score the mango and take a spoon and scoop out the mango.

Toast the coriander and cumin seeds and grind. Using the already powdered form is good as well. I would heat it up in a non stick skillet over medium heat for a minute or so before adding it to the salsa.

Zest the lime and add it with its juice to the mango and spices. Cut the mint, cilantro, onion and green chillis, add them as well. Season to taste and enjoy!

It’s also nice to add something red to the salsa; tomatoes, or red bell peppers, a hot red pepper…

This goes very well with shrimp, calamari, chicken, pork…

If you can, having the 3 salsas together at a party is great. You get a mix of colors, flavors, textures and tastes. Not to mention the varied nutrients and vitamins.

Mango is a good source of vit. A, Beta-Carotene, vit. C and E.

EATING FOR EXERCISE

 

As some of you already know, there are a variety of ways the body “feeds” itself. Before exercising, during the exercise and afterwards for example, the body prepares itself differently. Additionaly, each person is different; because of the genetic composition, how physically healthy and active they are and also because of what they eat.

Looking at this, it is obvious that the simplest and fastest thing to change in your lifestyle if you want to become more physically active or energetic is changing the foods you consume. There are many aspects which can be taken into account when preparing food for specific types of exercises. I don’t know enough to go into great detail about it, however, these are a few basic things you should start to think about when you are eating before, during or after exercising.

First of all, eating differs for the different types of intensity levels at which you exercise and this is different for each person given their fitness level. Thus, the body burns more fat when performing a moderate exercise than a high intensity exercise.

For the sake of this article, let’s seperate the intensity levels into 3 groups; light daily activities, moderate energy dispensing activities, and high energy vigorous exercise.

Here are some examples of each:

• light daily activities; walking, cycling(for pleasure), housework/yardwork, active dancing, friendly moderate activity sports such as shooting a basketball, playing catch, dancing and so on.
• Moderate activities; jogging, light weight training, stretching and intensive yoga, swimming, cycling(for sport), etc.
• vigorous exercise; Running, competitive high activity sports, heavy weight training,

There are three other things to think about;

1. As mentioned befored, depending on your fitness level, your body’s relation to activity will differ
2. And secondly, it also depends on the amount of time you spend participating in the activity. The body uses different energy sources for the different intensity level and depending on the amount of time your exercising for. When your carbohydrate levels are depleted after a high intensity workout which requires quick, easily processable energy for example, the body will tap into your fat reserves which requires a bit more time and energy. Ideally, you prepare your body with the appropriate levels of carbs, proteins and fats for optimum performance.
3. Finally, your overall diet is also important in physical activity, not only the food you eat the day of the exercise or right before or after.

The fuel which is used for most low to moderate level workouts or activies is fat. The higher the intensity level the more the body switches to Glucose which is mostly derived from carbs. Glycogen, which is the stored form of glucose is also an important source of energy. Those who are very active should eat a high percentage of healthy carbohydrates in order to store glycogen which will help the person perform long, arduous arcitivies.

For quick energy for activities under an hour, eating a diet of healthy simple carbohydrates will be very useful. The best source for these are fruit. if you’re going to play tennis for an hour, load on simple carbohydrates which will last for an hour to an hour and a half before you’ll need to start repleneshing your body.

For sports that last longer, combine healthy complex carbohydrates which will be absorbed slower by the body.

Here are percentage levels of what you should eat for the basic 3 levels of activity.

low intensity; 10% protein, 70% fat, 20% carbs

moderate intensity; 5% protein, 35% fat, 60% carbs

high intensity; 3% protein, 7% fat, and 90% carbs

Watch out, these three energy sources give you different amounts of calories(energy)

protein; 4 calories per gram

carbs; 4 calories per gram

fats; 9 calories per gram

One last thing that i will mention is that you should take into account the energy used for digesting the food you’re eating for maximum efficiency. Meat protein will take longer to breakdown and stress your body more than eating a vegetable or nut protein for example. Also, heavy meals which are high in bad fats or healthy fiber can slow down your body’s intake of nutrients which is a factor you might want to consider.

Think about ways to go about helping your body help you. Puree ingredients, drink smoothies and soups that can accelerate the energy intake.

Preparing yourself for a healthy exercise regiment is complex but also rather interesting. Keep notes when exercising to observe patterns. When things go badly, you might be able to find the reasons behind your lethargy for example. And don’t only eat healthy when you know you will be exercising, try improving your overall diet to better prepare your body and have it run more efficiently when called upon.

Finally, good luck, remember to properly hydrate yourself, and don’t over do it.

FIBER, FIBER, FIBER

I’ve taken a few nutrition classes, read parts of health books here and there, and I’ve thought about my diet quite a bit. I know for a fact that there’s a lot I don’t know and yet i also know that without having taking those classes and read those chapters or articles that I would still have a pretty healthy food intake. I can thank my family for this essential trait.

I’ve pondered the habits which I developed in my environment and then compared it to those who ate in radically different ones from myself and I came to my one preferred, completely scientifically untested( by me ) thesis that the best thing you can do for your health is eat more fiber.

 You may be someone who perceives fiber rather negatively.

“It doesn’t taste good!”

“It has an awful texture!”

“It makes me fart!”

“It gives me diarrhea!”

It reminds you of All-Bran cereal when you were young and it took you too long to eat your bowl of cereal which left you with a pile of unappealing brownish colored sludge… YUM!

But these are all misconceptions for those of you who don’t know.

Fiber is a component of Carbohydrates. However, it isn’t a single substance, rather it’s a grouping of a variety of different compounds with affect the body in numerous ways. Fiber can’t be digested by the body’s enzymes and thus doesn’t count as a calorie. It isn’t digested by the body. Because of this, people used to think of it as a useless, as filler. However over the last 50 years, studies have started to show us its positive benefits.

It’s worth pointing out that one aspect of fiber which is inherently positive and doesn’t take a scientist to prove, is that it’s almost always a part of nutrient rich foods which are low in fat.  Eating high fiber foods mostly means eating foods high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Fiber is mostly found in legumes, vegetables, fruit and grains. You don’t get any from meat…(i eat meat alright, i just think we eat too much of it for various reasons that i will explain in my future blog posts.. so come back and visit the site frequently!)

Fiber is good for some of the following reasons. As mentioned before it fills you up without actually being digested by the body which means it’s impossible to gain weight by eating too much fiber. It’s found in healthy foods. It fills your intestines up which slows the intake and breaking down of foods in the stomach which means your energy and nutrient intake is done more evenly. It reduces constipation, protects you from Colon and rectal cancer, heart disease(by reducing your bad cholesterol; yes there’s good cholesterol), obesity and finally helps those who suffer from diabetes.

It’s true that suddenly changing your diet to high quantities of fiber will most likely give you diarrhea, gas and bloating, so it’s best to add fiber to your diet slowly and let your body adjust to the changes.

Add a fruit per meal, choose whole foods, eat more vegetables and less meat.

It is recommended that the daily intact be between 25 to 50g for women and men. 50g is alot, but eating around 30 to 35g per day should be easy once you make the right food choices.

Extend your life! Eat fiber! (ahahah, is there some fiber interest group paying me for this!? haha)