Pav Bhaji Recipe

I'm joining in a Tasty Tuesday link-up hosted by Lean Lena and Fairytales and Fitness. Thank you for hosting!

Pav Bhaji is a common street food in Mumbai and one of my favorite Indian dishes.  It's the first type of Indian food I made for my husband and he loves it too.  It's a spiced vegetable mash served with buttery, pillowy bread called "Pav."  The closest bread I've found here is hamburger buns, though it's not the same.

Wikipedia photo of traditional Pav Bhaji

The thing is... it's not generally a healthy option if you eat it out at a restaurant.  It tends to have a ton of butter.  So I've tinkered with some recipes to find one of my own that's relatively healthy.

The following makes 4 servings.

1 small head of cauliflower
1 medium potato
1 tablespoon of oil
1 Bell Pepper, diced
1 clove of garlic
1 teaspoon of grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon of turmeric
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/3 cup of frozen peas
2 teaspoons of pav bhaji masala (specialty spice mix that can be found at Indian grocery stores but can be replaced with equal amounts of coriander and cumin powders and chile powder to taste)
Salt and additional chile powder or hot sauce to taste
Hamburger buns to serve
Optional Garnishes - diced onions, cilantro, and lemon slices

Boil the cauliflower and potato and then set aside.  In the same pan, heat the oil.  Once hot, add in the bell pepper, garlic and ginger to saute for a couple minutes.  Add turmeric and saute for a couple seconds more.  Add in the tomato, peas, cooked cauliflower and potato as well as the pav bhaji masala (or replacement spices).  Use a potato masher to mash the vegetables together a bit (I like mine to stay a little chunky) and then let simmer for around 20 minutes.  Add in salt and additional chile powder or hot sauce to taste.

Serve with a toasted hamburger bun, chopped onions, cilantro and/or lemon slices.  The vegetable mixture would traditionally be topped with butter but I skip that when trying to be healthy :)

Weekly review

Time for a weekly review again. This week's running was pretty good. Tuesday was the last track workout with my running group. Winter couldn't let the group's last week go easy so of course there was snow.

Snow falling on the track.

But it was a 30 minute run so at least we weren't out there too long. It wasn't too bad except for when the snow was blowing directly in my face. The time below is a but off since I forgot to turn of runkeeper until after we finished out post workout stretch. So it was probably more like 40 minutes.

Thursday was a run on the treadmill at the office gym, 5 intervals of 5 minutes running to 1 minute walking. It went well.

And Sunday was the 5k goal race for our training group, the Piece of Cake 5k. I'll be doing a full review later this week. It went ok but the wind and rain did result in a slower time (by about 2 minutes) than the practice 5k we did a couple weeks ago. At least we finished running before the hail and I got home before the snow.  Whatever happened to March going out like a lamb!?!

I also got in yoga on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.  A friend loaned Mike DVDs for DDP (Diamond Dallas Page) Yoga so we're giving that a try together.  I'm sure I'll be reviewing that as well once we've gone through some more segments of the DVD.

I have a similar plan for this week. Yoga on Monday, a run on Tuesday and Thursday, yoga on Friday, a 5k on Saturday (Ben's Run) and yoga on Sunday.

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Friday Five favorite yoga poses

I am linking up with the lovely ladies from the DC trifecta again, Mar, Courtney, and Cynthia. This week's theme is fitness activities and I've decided to talk about my favorite yoga poses.

So, when I started running with a group, yoga kind of fell by the wayside just for scheduling reasons. But I've picked it up again by practicing yoga at home since it feels like such a good complement to running for me. All my muscles that tighten up during running feel so much better after some yoga.

1. My absolute favorite yoga pose is pigeon. It is a really deep hip opener. I hated it the first couple times I tried it at a yoga studio but I ended up loving it because it hurts so good! It's one of those poses that I can feel myself relaxing into the longer I hold it and it returns a lot of flexibility to my hips which is good for running but also just for like in general.

2. I also enjoy the warrior series of poses. They really work my leg muscles and I know this will make me a stronger runner! But more than just that, those muscles are used for so much in our daily lives and having them be stronger will help with my daily activities. According to Yoga Journal, Warrior 1 has the following benefits:
•Stretches the chest and lungs, shoulders and neck, belly, groins (psoas)
•Strengthens the shoulders and arms, and the muscles of the back
•Strengthens and stretches the thighs, calves, and ankles

3.  I've been experiencing a lot of tightness in my quadriceps since I started running and I've been turning to hero's pose to help with that.  It's a simple pose but has really felt helpful for my quads.  This is another one that is uncomfortable at first with my tight muscles but feels great after a couple minutes once I've loosened up and can relax into the pose.  This article discusses the following benefits of the pose: increases energy and blood circulation throughout the feet and body, stretches foot muscles and quadricep tendons, and helps the knee joints.

4.   I keep hearing cautionary notes from more experienced runners talking about stretching your IT bands.  Eye of the needle pose seems to help stretch the IT band for me.  I always end workouts with this and with pigeon and feel really good afterward.

5. And I'll be honest, one of my favorites parts of any yoga class is corpse pose at the end.  It feel great to just let all your muscles go and relax into (hopefully) a meditative state for at least a couple minutes.  It always signifies a job well done to me.  Here's Yoga Journal's information on this pose.

Shelby's favorite yoga pose is cat pose :) But today, she'd rather sleep on my papers and prevent me from working too much.

Several of these poses are very deep stretches so I don't do them directly when my muscles feel tight.  Pigeon especially I only do after a yoga or other workout has already loosened me up a bit. I hope everyone has a good weekend planned! I'd love to hear any of your favorite stretches or yoga poses.

Dragon Noodle Salad

I bought a new cook book last weekend, Isa Does It, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  It's a vegan cookbook.  I'm vegetarian, not vegan, but I love Isa's recipes and I was very excited when I saw she had a new cookbook out.  I had to buy it.

The first recipe I tried from the book was "Dragon Noodle Salad."  It ended up being super easy and quick, and made 4 servings so we had leftovers.  You cook 8 ounces of rice noodles according to the package directions.  While the noodles cooked, cut the fresh veggies you have on hand and make the dressing.  The recipe used cucumbers, radishes and salad greens.  I made some changes by just using the vegetables I had available.  So bell peppers instead of radishes.

I also didn't feel the need to blend the dressing as the recipe indicated.  I just threw all the dressing ingredients in a measuring cup and whisked until it came together.  It was 1/2 a cup of peanut butter, 2 cloves garlic, 1/3 cup water, 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon agave syrup,1 tablespoon sriracha, and 1 teaspoon sesame oil plus extra salt to taste if needed.

I cut down on the sriracha, probably 1 teaspoon instead of 1 tablespoon, since Mike just likes a touch of heat.  I used honey instead of agave since that's what I had available.  I didn't have  sesame seeds or cilantro for the garnish but it was absolutely delicious even without them!  The only thing I might change next time is cutting down the vinegar to 2 tablespoons instead of 3 since it was a bit tangy for my taste.

 Not exactly like the photo but still tasty :)

I think the whole thing took 15 minutes, start to finish.

Weekly review

I took it easy the beginning part of the week to give my knee a rest. I skipped the Tuesday track workout but I did a lot of stretching, foam rolling, and iced my knee every day.

I felt better by Thursday so went to the gym after work. The treadmills and ellipticals were all full so I started out in the bike. I still didn't have full range of motion in my knee and the degree to which I had to bend my knee on the bike made it start hurting :( Thankfully, one of the ellipticals freed up so I got off the bike and claimed it. I had a decent work out on there and my knee felt pretty good afterward. 

More resting on Friday and then I went out running with the group Saturday morning. We were doing intervals of 12 minutes running and 1 minute walking. I was fine for the first three intervals but my knee started hurting during the 4th running interval. So I walked a little extra during the 5th interval and ended up walking the 6th interval entirely since I wanted to be careful with the knee.  My runkeeper also died part of the way through :(

It was an out and back route, and it looks like 3 miles out so we must have done around 6 miles total. I think I ended up walking the last mile to mile and a half.  This was the farthest I'd ever gone and I was sore afterward, even though I walked some of it. Therefore, more stretching, icing and foam rolling. I woke up Sunday morning with my legs feeling pretty good and minimal soreness.

Sunday evening I did some yoga. I definitely have to try to be better about incorporating yoga back into my weekly routine for the strength training and stretching.  The good news is I felt a lot better after the

yoga. 

The plan for next week is running Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. I'm planning on yoga Wednesday and Saturday with stretching every day. I'm hoping that the predicted snow we get on Tuesday is minimal. I hope everyone has a good week!

Friday Five - Family and Friends

It's time for another Friday Five linkup with the DC Trifecta. Thank you to Mar, Courtney, and Cynthia for hosting this week's theme of Family and Friends.

I'll be honest, I have never been a very athletic person in the past. I was always the one who would rather be sitting in a corner reading a book. Athletic activity is something new to me though healthy cooking is something I've been trying to do for a while. I've been enjoying sharing my journey with family and friends in various ways.

Homemade granola... a delicious and healthy gift that I gave to my mom.

1. Cooking healthy (but delicious) at home - I really think the key to making healthy eating a sustainable habit is making sure the food tastes good! I really try to make food which makes me want to eat it again but also happens to be healthy. My husband was never big on healthy eating before we got married but he enjoys the food I make and the side benefit of it also being good for him. He's even joined me on a Weight Wathcers journey and I like to think that part of the reason is that he knew he could do it and still eat tasty food. I lvoe scouring cook books and the internet for healthy, delicious food. I think I have as many cooking blogs I follow as running blogs :)

2. Entertaining with healthy food - I love catching up with friends over a meal. We used to always go out to do this. Let's face it, most restaurant food is not healthy. Now that we've moved to a house and have more space, I love inviting people over to our place. And this allows me to make sure the food is healthy. Again, I never announce it as healthy food but I just try to strive for delicious food with natural ingredients that happens to be good for you. I had some friends over for a movie night and served vegetables with a yogurt dip, black bean frittatas with guacamole, homemade chili lime popcorn, and sangria (it's got fruit!).

5k with my dad

3. Running together - Due to some strange coincidence, several of my friends got into running at the same time. We keep each other motivated by signing up for races together. I have Ben's Run as well as the Semper Fi 5k coming up with that group of friends. And I even did a 5k with my dad at the beginning of this month, which was a lot of fun. Race day excitement is even better when you have people to share it with :)

4. Fitbit - Back when I started my getting active journey but before I had started running, I decided that I wanted company. So I bought my dad a fitbit. I bought myself one as well adn my brother joined us by also getting one. It's been extremely motivating to link up with them online through the fitbit and seeing how active we're being. I'm not going to lie, the competition aspect of it is fun. My brother and I send each other little taunts and my dad and I share encouraging comments. If one of us seems to be slacking off we can reach out and ask what's going on. It's been a great was for the three of us to have some extra family bonding. And it's a great way to keep track of how active or sedentary I'm being in my daily life, not just while excercising. It's definitely caused me to change some habits and try to walk more throughout the day by just doing things like parking further or taking extra water cooler trips.

5. Sharing about my journey - I've definitely noticed that by posting things on pinterest or facebook, people ask questions. Other people I know who may be new to working out or cooking healthy food then know that they're not the only ones out there trying new things. We can ask each other questions, share information, point out interesting articles, etc.

I'm looking forward to a beautiful spring day tomorrow for the last long run with my beginning running group.  I hope you all have a great weekend as well!

5k rehearsal

I thought it was strange when the coaches for our running group told us that we would be doing a rehearsal for our March 30th 5k. After all, we're not putting on a stage production!  But now that we've done it, I think it was a great idea.

It was a beautiful day, and I could run without my jacket.

The 5k race we'll be doing is the Piece of Cake 5k at Seneca Creek State Park. It's generally a 10k but this is the first year they've added in a 5k option. The race director came out to run with us as well so she could try out the new 5k course.

It was a hilly course so it was great we had this opportunity to do a rehearsal. I never thought about it before but familiarizing yourself with a course really helps. I like that I'll know where I'm going on race day and have certain markers for myself to help with distance, pacing, etc. I also don't have to worry about getting lost race morning or wondering where the parking lots are.

I did much better than I thought i would.  I had repeatedly heard about this being a hilly course so I was a bit worried. My goal for the race was to try to finish in 45 minutes or less. Well, I finished in the rehearsal in 42:33 for 3.19 miles according to runkeeper. That means I need a new goal for race day itself :) I'm not going to get too ambitious so I think I'm just going to try to at least match my rehearsal time.

This was  also the first time we didn't have defined walk intervals. I ran 30 minutes in a row, which is the more than I've ever run without a break before. After 30 minutes, I took a walk break up a hill, which was less than a minute. I finished by running until the end.  This was definitely a good thing for me because before this run, I wasn't sure that I could run this long without a walk break. So that was the other purpose of the rehearsal, it gave me an added level of confidence for race day.

We ended the run with St. Patrick's Day cupcakes.  Does anyone else try to run a course before race day for local races?