Peri Peri Grilled Tempeh

A few months back I was introduced to African Volcano Peri Peri Sauce. Until then my only experience with peri peri had been at Nandos, a mid-market restaurant chain that UK dwellers will likely be familiar. They’re famous for their “legendary, Portuguese flame-grilled PERi-PERi chicken” (and for being a threat to independent businesses).

But nevermind all the politics, I admit to having a soft spot for Nandos. When I worked at The Bank, we’d sometimes go out for lunch as a “team”. Nandos was often the only place that could seat a bunch of people comfortably. They also did a decent black bean burger which was far better than having some kind of pasta or pizza bomb as was the usual alternative. And, plus, they have an all-you-can-drink soda fountain, one of my guilty pleasures from the States that is virtually unknown here.

Anyway, back to peri peri. Last year Grant Hawthorn, creator of African Volcano (both the business and the sauce), got in touch because he wanted some veggie ideas for his Peri Peri. Even in my few brief Nandos forays, I was never really privy to the peri peri phenomenon given I don’t eat chicken, so I didn’t really know what how to help. But then again, I’ve never been one to say no to chilli-based products, so I decided to give his Peri Peri a try and see what I could do for Mr. Hawthorn.

I tried Grant’s Peri Peri as a slather on all manners of vegetables and tofu. It worked pretty well as an all-around base for grilled mushrooms, peppers, onions, zucchini and so-on, but I sometimes found that the flavour was a bit overpowering for the veg (it was designed with meat in mind, remember). So I decided to try it as part of a marinade in one of my favourite tempeh recipes, the Hot Sauce Glazed Tempeh from Veganomicon. It was here that the African Volcano Peri Peri came into its own for me.

The original recipe calls for “hot sauce”, and until now I’ve also used Sriracha. But the African Volcano adds a little something special – it’s smokier, richer, and takes exceptionally well to the inherent flavour of the tempeh. And for the record, it puts Nandos’ peri peri to shame.

I like to serve this tempeh with sautéed greens or in a corn tortilla with avocado and some of Thane Prince’s Carrot, Chilli and Lime Slaw.

The leftovers are delicious crumbled up into a raw kale salad with apple or orange and lots of toasted seeds (and more avocado):

I was able to meet Grant recently while on an outing to Maltby Street Market in London with Kavey and Pete, where I was able to witness his Peri Peri in the way that Grant originally intended: with lots of meat!

Pulled pork and burgers were on the go that particular morning, and I watched people line up for various Peri Peri spiked sandwiches, piled high with meaty stuff and pickles. Grant also makes bread with Peri Peri, which I did try, and I’ve since been meaning to do it myself. Even though I’m not a meat-eater, I appreciate Grant’s enthusiasm for his product, and openness to experience it in new, non-meaty ways. I hope he tries my tempeh – I’d like to hear how it stacks up next to his pulled pork!

African Volcano Grilled Tempeh

Adapted from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook

Ingredients

8 ounce package of tempeh
½ cup red wine (or vegetable stock)
¼ cup African Volcano marinade
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon oregano
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions

Bring a pot of water to boil.
Whisk all marinade ingredients together in a bowl large enough to fit the tempeh slices.
Cut the tempeh in half widthwise then cut each of those squares diagonally to form 4 large triangles. When the water is boiling, add the tempeh, lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Use tongs to remove the tempeh and then immediately place them in the marinade bowl for at least 1 hour, flipping them every now again to cover with the marinade.
Preheat a greased grill pan over medium high heat.
Grill each side for 5 minutes. When the second side is almost done, spoon some of the marinade over the tempeh and let cook for 30 more seconds.

4 Comments

Ancho Rhubarb Ketchup

My friend Gloria makes this amazing rhubarb ketchup. She gave me a jar a while back – it didn’t last long, because it’s basically good with everything (and I was in a particularly intense veggie burger stage during that time).

A few weeks ago I came into possession of a large quantity of rhubarb so decided to try making Gloria’s rhubarb ketchup myself. Upon reading the recipe, I noticed the inclusion of two small dried red chillies, and my mind immediately turned to my massive chilli stash courtesy of Cool Chile Co. Brain wave. I decided to get creative.

Cool Chile Co suggested I try ancho chilli in the recipe: “the fruitiness of the ancho would work well with the rhubarb”. They weren’t wrong.

Here’s how I did it:

Make ancho puree (see below)
Make Gloria’s rhubarb ketchup
Add ancho puree to the resulting ketchup to taste (I added the puree of 4 anchos to about 1/4 of Gloria’s recipe – I advise making lots of ancho puree; any extra can be saved for adding to other things like chilli, scrambled eggs, whatever!)

The ancho puree transformed the rhubarb ketchup into more of a BBQ sauce than a ketchup. It’s my new favourite condiment! I’ve been using it in place of Sriracha, usually with a few sliced green chillies for extra heat (Anchos are very low in the Scoville heat scale – they have a lot of flavour, but very little spicy heat).

Here was lunch today: cauliflower fried “rice” with a fried egg and ancho rhubarb ketchup. Superb! Except for my choice of serving implement – fried egg is not easy to eat with chopsticks.

How to make Ancho Puree: Dry toast some ancho chillies in a large heavy skillet, turning every so often until they darken slightly and become fragrant. Remove the chillies from the pan and put them in a bowl. Cover with boiling water. After about 20 minutes, remove the chillies and save the soaking water. De-stem and de-seed the chillies. Add the chillies to a blender and blitz, adding just enough water so that they blend into a thick puree.

Easy Pickled Jalapeños

Following my recent Tamale Party, I had a couple dozen jalapeños leftover that didn’t make it into the smorgasbord of salsas, sauces and chilli-infused tequila bombs going around. The leftover jalaps were starting to show their age, and because I can’t bear to see food – especially precious jalapeños, so hard to find in the UK – go to waste, I decided to pickle them.

This is a dead simple recipe that takes about 10 minutes to make, including slicing time. And the result is better than any pickled jalapeño I’ve ever had. The recipe includes sugar in the brine, which I was a little wary of, but as it turns out, I love the slight sweetness. They’re obviously great with Mexican food, but I’m also digging them with basically anything that involves tahini: hummus, falafel with tahini drizzle, tahini licked off a spoon. In fact, I’m about as addicted to tahini as I am to pickles these days. It’s just as well they go so well together.

Next time I’ll be adding carrots and onions to the pickle. All I need is a good source of jalapeños at a bargain price. I am aware that the source could have been me had I been industrious enough to grow my own jalapeños, but I wasn’t. Such is my gardening life!

Easy Pickled Jalapeños

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Adapted from a recipe on allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

¾ cup water
¾ cup distilled white vinegar
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon oregano
10 large jalapeno peppers, sliced into rings

Instructions

Pack peppers into sterilized jars.
Combine water, vinegar, sugar, salt, garlic and oregano in a saucepan over high heat. Bring mixture to a boil.
Pour the mixture into the jars, enough to cover the peppers. Seal and refrigerate until ready to use.

5 Comments

Braised Eggs with Potato, Onion, Sumac & Tahini

Last weekend I hosted a Mexican dinner party here at Orchard Cottage. I called it Tamale 2.0 as it was a follow up to my first Tamale party last Easter. But this was more than a party; this was a Tamale Sleepover. On Friday night we feasted on all manners of Mexican goodies, from homemade corn chips and guacamole to the best black beans ever, salsa macha to go with flatbread and Homewood’s pickled ewe cheese, salads and, of course, the main event: butternut squash tamales with mole sauce, all the while enjoying some amazing beer and wine. We even had queso fresco thanks to Gringa Dairy and proper corn tortillas from the Cool Chile Company (it’s a joy and a relief that Mexican ingredients are becoming easier and easier to buy in the UK).

But as much as the Mexican feast was the main event, I found equal bliss in the “morning after”. A good handful of party-goers stayed the night and for breakfast I served up a few of my specialties: a healthy vegan breakfast salad, of course, one of my recent favourite combos with cucumber, tomato, red onion, carrots, tahini, lemon juice and lots of Tim Clinch‘s dukkah. Plus sourdough bread, some of Sharon’s exquisite homemade hummus and moutabal, and the centrepiece: braised eggs with potato, onion, sumac and tahini.

I learned how to make this dish on Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookery class at The Vegetarian Cookery School last year; he made braised eggs for breakfast while talking us through the class and imparting a few nuggets of wisdom. Two memorable quotes that I’ll never forget: “You can never have too many fresh herbs” and “I’m fortunate to be a part of the vegetarian world without having to suffer the consequences of actually being a vegetarian myself.” (Priceless!)

Braised eggs with potato, tahini, yoghurt and sumac

Eggs and potatoes are common companions but this dish brought them together in a way I’d never experienced: the potatoes get cooked with lots of onion and sumac, the eggs get cooked on top of the potatoes, and the whole thing is served with lots of tahini, greek yogurt, grilled tomatoes and chopped coriander (aka cilantro).

I’ve done simpler variations on this concept many time since, using spinach or chard instead of potatoes, and often skipping the tahini (which seems like sacrilege now). It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I made the recipe properly for Karen and Kanna: then Airbnb guests, now two people who feel very much like old friends. It had been a while since I’d actually eaten this dish, and felt like I was taking a real breakfast risk (poached eggs on toast is so much more reliable). But the hooting and hollering that resulted from this breakfast told me I’d struck guest-breakfast-gold (and for Karen, a life-changing obsession with tahini).

One of the great things about this breakfast is that it scales extremely well. It also is extremely good hangover food. So for post-tamale breakfast, I decided to break out the tahini jar and see how the braised eggs went down with a wider audience. They were still a hit, and we discovered two combo that work especially well: (1) tahini and dukkah and (2) yoghurt and salsa macha. You could do all four at the same time, but one could argue that’s a little over the top (as if the rest of Tamale 2.0, wasn’t?)

It’s a very special thing to be responsible for one person’s tahini obsession, but it’s even more special knowing that you’ve created memories for people that are good enough to write about, and so I was super chuffed to read about Tamale 2.0 across the interwebs after the event: see Karen’s A Flock of Foodies, Sharon’s Tamale 2.0 with Monica et al and Fiona’s Guacamole, salsa and a citrussy pale ale on Matching Food and Wine. Colour me humbled. Roll on Tamale 3.0!

In the meantime, here’s how to make those kick-ass braised eggs – be prepared to start your first ever tahini budget.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Braised Eggs with Potato, Tahini, Yogurt & Sumac

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 2

Inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi and The Vegetarian Cookery School.

Ingredients

3 Tbsp olive oil
3 medium onions, thinly sliced
200g baby potatoes, cut into 5mm thick slices
½ red chilli, finely chopped
½ Tbsp sumac
½ tsp sugar
300g cherry tomatoes, on the vine
1 tbsp chopped coriander
tahini
Greek yogurt
salt and pepper

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan. Add the onions, potatoes, chilli, sumac and some salt and pepper. Cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are completely soft and the potatoes are well and truly cooked. Stir in the sugar, taste, and add more salt and pepper if needed.
Meanwhile, heat up the grill /broiler and grill the tomatoes on the vine until they are charred (you can also do this on the stovetop in a cast iron skillet on high heat).
When the potatoes are cooked, spread them evenly over the base of the pan, then carefully break the eggs on top. Cover and cook until the egg whites are almost set. Drizzle a little tahini on top, avoiding the yolks, cover again and cook for another couple minutes until the egg whites are set (cook longer if you don’t want runny yolks).
Sprinkle with coriander, place the tomatoes on top and bring to the table in the pan. Serve with extra tahini and Greek yogurt.

5 Comments

How To Eat More Vegetables

This week is National Vegetarian Week, 20-26 May, a week devoted to all things veggie. Loads of people are now singing the praises of a meat-free (or mostly meat-free) diet. Even notorious carnivore Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall now eats little meat or fish, declaring in the Guardian recently: “we need to eat more vegetables and less flesh because vegetables are the foods that do us the most good and our planet the least harm.” (Which I basically agree with.)

It just goes to show that you don’t need to be a vegetarian to appreciate that vegetables are a good thing and most of us should be eating more of them. National Vegetarian Week, and its subsequent outpouring of recipes and resources from all those involved, can be a good starting point for those who need a little vegetable inspiration.

Here are my suggestions for how to eat more vegetables, including easy vegetables to start with, and a rock solid vegetarian recipe that will please all palettes (provided they can handle a bit of spice).

Get Some Vegetables

Start with easy vegetables. By “easy”, I mean easy to clean, prepare and cook (a muddy beetroot is not a good place to start). A beautiful vegetable, raw or cooked can form the basis for any number of dishes, be it pasta, lentils, omelettes, pizzas…even a humble green salad can be perked up with a few grilled bell peppers.

Here are my go-to staple vegetables, organised by cooking technique, for easy-to-make and tasty-to-eat vegetarian and vegan meals:

Easy to cook greens (stir-fry with onion and garlic, season with salt and pepper – add chilli flakes if you want a kick): Kale, cabbage, spring greens, spinach, swiss chard
Good stir-fry vegetables (a great basis for tossing with pasta, rice, beans or lentils for a complete meal; garnish with crumbled feta or some toasted nuts and seeds and you’ll be glad you did): Carrots, peppers, mushrooms, greens, broccoli, asparagus, green beans
Good raw vegetables (simply slice / chop and eat, with hummus or salad dressing if you’d like): Carrots, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, radishes
Vegetables that are good on the BBQ (baste with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, throw it on the BBQ – this is a basic one-stop solution to making vegetables amazing): Asparagus, courgettes / zucchini, mushrooms, bell peppers

A Good Vegetarian Meal Doesn’t Try to Fake it

Of course, a few vegetables alone don’t make a meal. So what are your options? My advice is to cook something that is inherently vegetarian and not some kind of mock-meat sausage in disguise (this will only leave you banging for bangers). If there’s one cuisine that I have had consistent success with in pleasing all food lovers, vegetarians and omnivores alike, it is Indian food. And if there’s one dish that has rocked all of their worlds, it’s my lentil dal.

Dal is awesome because it’s vegetarian (vegan, in fact) by nature, easy and quick to make, and very adaptable to all manners of vegetables. You can make it as is, as simple lentils, or you can add in whatever vegetables you have on hand (cauliflower and spinach work especially well, but I’ve also had good success with carrots, chard and purple sprouting broccoli).

Served with some basmati rice (and if you’re feeling adventures, a cucumber and coconut salad), then you’ve got yourself a meal that’s nutritious, flavoursome and won’t make you think about the meat you’re not eating. Seriously, I have meat-eating friends who ask for this dal specifically when they come to visit. And a recent Airbnb guest, a real dal aficionado declared it “better than the dal I usually make at home”. It’s pretty special.

5.0 from 2 reviews

How To Eat More Vegetables

Serves: 6

Panch Phoran is a spice blend of fenugreek, mustard seeds, onion seed, fennel seeds and cumin seeds. You can buy the blend in Indian supermarkets, or make it yourself by combining equal parts of each of the above seeds. If you do make it yourself, make a lot of it, because you’ll be making this dal again and again. No joke.

Ingredients

250 grams red lentils (masoor dal)
4 cups water
1 teaspoon turmeric
olive oil
1 tablespoon panch shoran (a seed blend of equal parts fenugreek, mustard seed, onion seed, fennel seed and cumin seed)
10-20 curry leaves
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp minced ginger
400g tinned diced tomatoes
pinch of chili flakes (optional)
salt to taste
1 cup (or more) of spinach, cauliflower or any other vegetable you’d like to use in your dal

Instructions

Combine the red lentils, water and turmeric in a pot. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer until the dal is tender, about 20-30 minutes.
While the lentils cook, heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the panch phoran and curry leaves. As soon as the seeds start to pop, add the onion, garlic and ginger. Cook until the onion is soft (it should not brown).
Add the tomatoes, cooked lentils, chili and salt. Cook for at least 10 minutes to allow the flavours to bend. Add your desired vegetable and let them simmer in the dal until they are cooked. Note: if using spinach or any other quick-cooking green, add this at the very end just before serving.
Garnish with cilantro, if you’d like. Serve hot with basmati rice or warm naan bread.

This post originally appeared on Great British Chefs website.

8 Comments

Wild garlic pesto, two ways

I was recently given two very large bags of wild garlic foraged from London by recent-Airbnb-guest-turned-friend-and-colleague Kanna Ingleson. Wild garlic is a leafy herb that tastes and smells much like garlic and grows wild in woodland across the UK. It’s a forager’s favourite but is oddly hard to find in my local area in Wiltshire. Thankfully, there are hard-foraging people like Kanna in this world and I like the slice of irony that found the big bad City saving my wild garlic day here in the countryside (let’s take a moment now to give it up to London for rocking the green space).

There is lots to be done with wild garlic: soup, frittatas, risotto, ravioli… and being so akin to garlic, wild garlic can easily be used in any recipe where garlic is called for. Add a few chopped leaves to a salad, stir the greens in with pasta, add to soups, stews, you name it. Yes, options abound, but even so, to eat all of this wild garlic within the couple of weeks it would survive in the fridge would not have done my breath (or my social life) any favours. So the question turned to storage. I did freeze some of the leaves, but decided to turn a fair bunch of it into pesto, too.

The first pesto was a no-brainer: walnut and wild garlic pesto adapted from this parsley pesto recipe that I love. I’ve made it before and it’s perhaps my favourite pesto (be it with wild garlic, parsley or any combination of herbs) because it is most versatile – I love it as a topping for pizza, swirled into soup or blobbed on toasted sourdough with sautéed mushrooms and arugula.

The second pesto is a sun-dried tomato and wild garlic pesto adapted from this recipe for sun-dried tomato and basil pesto. I omitted the garlic and parmesan, substituted wild garlic for basil and added lemon and more pine nuts. Kanna also gave me the idea of adding lemon zest and chilli, so that went in there too. Props to my friend Sam from Shipton Mill who knows a thing or two about delivery devices for good bread and was on hand to help bring the pesto together. We ended up eating a fair bit of it as an appetizer with Turkish flatbread, hot off the grill.

(Hefty tip for UK fans of sun-dried tomatoes: you can buy them in bulk on Amazon: £11.55 for a kilo, and they’re organic!)

If I have one struggle with pesto, it’s this: getting the consistency right. I like mine chunky, but it’s easy to over-process the nuts, creating more of a pesto paste, which is fine, but I like some texture. The easiest way I found to achieve this is by putting the nuts in towards the end of the pulsing process, or leaving them out altogether and hand-processing the nuts with a mortar and pestle. It all depends on what your up for, and how much you can be bothered.

You’ll also notice that both of these wild garlic pestos are vegan – and you totally won’t miss the cheese.

The wild garlic pesto keeps well in the fridge for a few weeks, as long as you keep it covered with a good layer of olive oil. Or do as I do and store it in the freezer (I freeze the pesto in ice cube trays).

Here’s some more wild garlic stuff you might like:

Wild garlic and potato frittata, one of my earlier wild garlic discoveries [smarterfitter.com]
Last year’s wild garlic forage in the Forest of Dean with Gloria Nicol [flickr.com]
Gloria’s delicious wild garlic pesto, made with the traditional way with parmesan and pine nuts [laundryetc.co.uk]
Why wild garlic is good for you [guardian.co.uk]
Wild garlic recipes from Rachel Demuth, including her neat wild garlic malfatti, sort of like a gnocchi made with ricotta [vegetariancookeryschool.com]
How to have wild garlic all year round, Kavey’s super simple method of preserving wild garlic by blitzing it with oil and freezing it [kaveyeats.com]

5.0 from 1 reviews

Wild Garlic & Walnut Pesto

Ingredients

100g walnuts, toasted
50g wild garlic, washed and dried
About 150ml good olive oil (or extra-virgin rapeseed oil)
Zest and juice of ½ lemon
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Put the walnuts into a food processor and process until finely chopped but still with some granular texture.
Add the wild garlic and blitz again to chop the leaves, then begin trickling in the oil while the processor runs. Stop when you have a sloppy purée.
Taste, season as necessary with lemon juice, salt and pepper.
Store in the fridge – if you completely cover the surface of the pesto with oil so all air is excluded, it should keep for a couple of weeks. Or freeze it!

5.0 from 1 reviews

Wild Garlic & Sundried Tomato Pesto

Ingredients

150 g sun-dried tomatoes, soaked in boiling water
100g wild garlic, washed and dried
½ cup pine nuts, toasted
zest and juice of one lemon
2 tsp red chilli flakes  (optional)
1 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Instructions

Combine sun-dried tomatoes, and a bit of the oil in a food processor and pulse until the sun-dried tomatoes are roughly chopped (adding more olive oil as necessary).
Add the pine nuts and pulse until those are roughly chopped, too.
Add the wild garlic and pulse until it approaches the consistency you like for pesto (I like mine chunky).
Add the lemon and a few good grinds of black pepper, pulse a few times, then taste. Add more lemon, salt, or pepper as you see fit.

9 Comments

Asparagus: making healthy food less boring

We’re in the prime of British asparagus season, with May being Asparagus Month and a great time to explore this vegetable in all its many shapes and guises. Asparagus is, in general, a pretty awesome vegetable and happens to be extremely handy for people who do the intermittent fasting (aka 5:2 fast diet) thing. In fact, asparagus is good for anyone watching their calories – one medium spear of asparagus has just 3 calories but packs loads of flavour and can make traditional, boring “diet foods” into something quite interesting.

Case in point: salads. This is a favourite for many fasters and calorie counters because it allows one to have a big ol’ pile of food – quite nutritious food, at that – without necessarily having a big ol’ pile of calories along with it. But salads can be problematic: how many of us have eating a gargantuan salad only to find ourselves deeply unsatisfied at the end of it?

Let’s face it, there are many dimensions to food satisfaction: not only quantity, but flavour and texture, too. This is where asparagus can come to a salad’s rescue with its notable flavour and crisp bite (provided you don’t boil it to death). It also pairs extremely well with other fast-friendly foods like eggs and potatoes, plus fresh herbs like dill, tarragon and chives, which all together can make a salad so much more than a pile of leaves.

Dressing helps, too, but even a simple treatment of lemon juice and olive oil with salt and pepper can go along way (a little Parmesan helps, too, which is fairly low-calorie as far as cheeses go). But if you want to take it a little further, I can heartily recommend the tarragon vinaigrette recipe I’ve posted below, a little something I learned from The Vegetarian Cookery School that has proved infinitely versatile and especially stunning with potato, eggs and, yes, asparagus. All together it makes for an incredibly flavoursome fast day lunch or dinner dish – it clocks in at about 250 Calories, leaving you plenty of extra calories (250 if you’re a woman, 350 if you’re a man) for another asparagus session for later in the day.

Asparagus, Egg and Potato Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

You can adapt this recipe to use whatever salad vegetables you have on hand; the dressing is marvellously versatile, but is especially good with potatoes and light cheeses like ricotta and fresh goats curd. Calories: ~250.

5 asparagus spears, blanched and slice into 3cm pieces
2 boiled new potatoes (~1/2 cup or 80g)
1 carrot, julienned
1 tomato, sliced into wedges
Lettuce leaves
1 Tbsp tarragon vinaigrette (see below)
1 boiled egg
salt and pepper
lemon to serve

Tarragon vinaigrette:

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp chopped fresh tarragon
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp honey
pinch salt & pepper

Method:

Make the tarragon vinaigrette by whisking together all of the ingredients in a bowl (this makes more than you’ll need so store the rest for future salads).
Combine the asparagus, potatoes, carrots, tomato and lettuce leaves in a bowl. Toss with ~1 Tbsp of tarragon vinaigrette, plus a pinch of salt and a good grind of pepper.
Serve garnished with the boiled egg and a lemon wedge (in case it needs a little extra zing).

This post originally appeared on Great British Chefs.

4 Comments

Fitbit Review and a Giveaway

Lately I’ve been thinking lots about gamification and using game strategies to achieve goals, particularly those related to health and fitness. I’m the sort of person who responds well to numbers and data, and quite like the idea of attaching rewards to data-driven results.

So last December I decided I wanted to buy a pedometer to help motivate me to stay active while visiting Chicago over the holidays. A little research and some chatter with my sister, Stephanie, quickly saw my $12 pedometer lust balloon into something more sophisticated. And so we found the Fitbit One, a $90 gadget that tracks steps, distance, calories burned, stairs climbed and sleep. We both bought one (go Team!).

In the four months since owning the Fitbit, I find I’ve become – quite literally – attached to the thing.

It’s not just about the device – it’s the whole Fitbit website / web app package that syncs up with it. The app lets you set goals for various parameters (steps / miles walked, floors climbed, weight, etc) and then tracks your progress towards those goals on a daily basis. Feeling good is very much a one-day-at-a-time thing, and the Fitbit really does make the whole fit and active thing a lot more interesting. Who doesn’t like a good chart?

The Fitbit features I like the most:

Good apps: The Fitbit web and iPhone apps allow you to track other things besides data recorded by the Fitbit, including weight, activities (handy for swimmers like me – the Fitbit is NOT waterproof!), and food. In fact I’ve even read on some of the Fitbit forums that there are people using the apps without actually owning the Fitbit – the food, weight and exercise tracking is good enough to use even without the Fitbit.
iPhone friendly: And speaking of the app, I especially like the iPhone app, which is almost exclusively what I use. Even the Calorie counting aspect is better than most I’ve seen.
Social: The web app lets you follow friends who have Fitbits, which I love because my sister has a Fitbit, too. Go Team Shaw!
Motivating: I guess this is the most important thing of all. The Fitbit really does motivate me to walk more and reach my daily target (currently set at 10,000 steps). What really shocks me is when I wear it on a day out in London and I realise how LITTLE I walk now that I don’t live in the City. Not that I’d give up the country idyl and working from home, but it’s a much needed reminder to get off my duff once in a while and go for a stroll.
Gamifying: Steps walked, floors climbed, calories burned, they’re all “points” in the game of getting fit, and Fitbit “rewards” you with various badges for different achievements (e.g. walking 40,000 steps in a day, getting to 100 total lifetime miles, and so on). I’d like to come up with a system for attaching these achievements to more interesting goals – it’d be nice if I could define my rewards in Fitbit, so it could tell me when I’ve earned, for example, something off of my Amazon wishlist, or a pint at the pub (though having said that, one of my goals in using the Fitbit is to find non-food / non-alcohol motivators, so I better stick with Amazon, or tattoos, or original art).
Hackable: The Fitbit API lets you program your Fitbit to trigger events. For example, one guy hacked his Fitbit to turn off the power to his fridge if he didn’t walk enough. You could do the same to turn off your TV, computer, Internet, etc. Hardcore, though I’d be more apt to use the API for good (reward) verses evil (punishment). This would, of course, require me to be a mad elite computer programmer, which I’m not. So I hope someone else will step up to the plate for me.

The Fitbit isn’t perfect, however…

It’s really easy to lose, but on the plus side, Fitbit has a very responsive and understanding customer support team.
In order to track sleep, you’re supposed to wear their Fitbit on your wrist using a velcro wrist strap thing. It’s kind of uncomfortable and is prone to fall off in the middle of the night.

My sister, who presents a slightly different use case, adds…

Android syncing only works with two phones: Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II. This is just crazy given there are over 70+ models available in the US alone. Yes, iOS is more popular, but the Android share can’t be ignored! [You can read Fitbit's reason for developing their apps this way on their blog.]
The Fitbit really should come with some kind of a security clip to attach to a belt loop…anything to secure it better. [Amen.]
I can’t track specific workouts unless I enter them manually. It means I often don’t enter them at all.
Some activities produce false step counts. Horse back riding, for example: it says I did x amount of steps, but obviously I didn’t. Yes I burned calories, but it’s just not calculated right. I have to remove the Fitbit if I want to keep my step count accurate.
It doesn’t track my average speed.

Verdict…

The Fitbit has a few flaws but what gadget doesn’t? I’m addicted to thing, which is really a testament to its worthiness as a great life hacking tool. Or maybe it’s just evidence of my geekiness? Either way, I do believe I’m actually fitter for owning a Fitbit. Or at least, I’m more motivated to keep my activity levels up, and motivation is often the hardest part. And looking at my monthly step average since owning the Fitbit, it seems to be working (this is why I love data):

And for the record, Fitbit didn’t ask me to say any of this. But they did give me something groovy to give away. Read on.

Giveaway time…

The folks at Fitbit kindly gave me one of their Fitbit Zip Wireless Activity Tracker to give away. This is much like my Fitbit One but it doesn’t have the sleep tracking capabilities. You can read all about the Fitbit Zip on the Fitbit website. And as you can see, it gets great reviews on Amazon!

To enter, simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below (disclaimer: I’ve never used Rafflecopter so I hope it all works smoothly, but if you have any troubles just let me know). There is one main way to enter and various ways to get bonus entries (which I will verify so please be honest).

This giveaway is open to everyone (fortunately the Zip is lightweight so I don’t mind shipping it overseas – Fitbits for all!). Entries close on May 21, 2013. The winner will be chosen randomly using Rafflecopter and notified by email.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

34 Comments

Darjeeling Express Supperclub, London

I recently had the pleasure of attending one of Asma Khan’s Darjeeling Express Supperclubs, a sort of practise run for her upcoming pop-lunch at The Cinnamon Club on April 27th. It was such a memorable evening in both flavour and experience that I wanted to share a few words about it.

Asma’s been doing supperclubs for a while now, cooking from the Nawabi/Mughal school of cuisine which is part of her heritage. Her experience shows in the way she’s totally nailed the whole supperclub experience. It begins in the dining room, which you could almost confuse for a restaurant; the place is spotless, devoid of clutter, but full of patterns and textures and great lighting for photographs.

The dinner, too, was incredibly well-organised. But of course, the real memory comes down to the food, which is just what you’d hope for: delicious, home-cooked Indian cuisine. But it was more than that. It was… surprising. While some courses were as you might expect… some samosas here, a paneer dish there… sometimes Asma emerged from the kitchen with a platter of something that just took everyone’s breath away.

Case in point was the mirchi ka salaan (above), which I can only equate to boiled egg curry. And then there was the khoobani ka meetha – Asma’s apricots in syrup with cream – which had us all very happy we’d (mostly) saved room for dessert.

The highlight for me was this Cashewnut Alo: chillis and cabbage in a sort of cashew like “sauce”. I’d never had anything like this before, and I’m a sucker for cabbage. I would take a cooking class with Asma just to learn this dish alone.

This to me is the key to a good supperclub, or really, any meal: surprise the guests. Give them the unexpected. Leave them with something to remember (Asma did this even further by sending us all home with a jar of her homemade tamarind chutney).

The other reason I loved this supperclub was Asma herself: you can tell with every dish she brings out that she is extremely proud of the food she’s created. And yet she’s humble, friendly and lots of fun, too. We laughed a lot that evening (at what I can’t totally remember, which may have something to do with the bottle of very good Sorelle Bronca Prosecco I brought from Life’s a Bottle and failed to share with anyone else at the table).

Yesterday I showed Asma my photos and she said: “I do not dress up and garnish my food excessively – you have captured the dishes in the way it is served traditionally.” Maybe that’s why we were all so enamoured by Asma and her supperclub: she really does cook from the heart, and she makes you feel at home.

Big thanks to Kavey for inviting me to Asma’s supperclub. If you’re in London on Saturday, I do recommend checking out her Darjeeling Express Calcutta pop-up lunch at The Cinnamon Club on 27 April 2013 (that is, if it isn’t sold out). Click here for more info.

More photos on Flickr.

3 Comments

Vegetable “Noodles”

A few people have been asking about the “noodle” dishes I’ve been Instagramming and which feature prominently in my food ideas for intermittent fasting. The basic idea is this: take any noodle or soup recipe for which you’d use pasta noodles and use julienned vegetables instead. You get the twirl-with-a-fork pleasure of pasta with fewer calories, more nutrients and, some might argue, better flavour, especially when you use really good vegetables. Soup in particular is very handy when fasting as liquid is very filling but low calorie.

My essential tool for the job is the julienne vegetable peeler pictured below. My mom gave this to me years ago and I have no idea of the brand, but an Amazon search for julienne peeler will turn up a few options (this Kuhn Rikon Julienne Peeler looks pretty flash).

The vegetables I julienne most frequently are carrots and zucchini, and occasional parsnips. Occasionally some swede (rutabaga) will come along for the ride.

Vegetable “Noodle” Soups

Here I tend to err on the Asian side. The two soups I make most regularly are Miso “Noodle” Soup and Vegetarian Pho; both are extremely quick and easy to make and basically work like this:

Make a delicious stock
Add some vegetables if you’d like: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, bell peppers, mushrooms, potato, pumpkin (be sure to be sensitive to cooking times and add those long-to-cook veggies ahead of the rest)
Add your vegetable noodles
Serve with your favourite garnishes

Miso soup can be as simple as mixing miso and water, then adding soy sauce and sesame oil to taste. I usually opt for white miso and follow this recipe as a guide: Basic Miso Soup.

Vegetarian Pho requires a bit more work, so I make the broth ahead and freeze it. This recipe on the New York Times is my go-to: Simple Vegetarian Pho Broth.

In both cases, I heat up the stock to a simmer, then add my vegetables, and try to be sensitive to their cooking times. (Broccoli cooks faster than cauliflower so I’d add the cauliflower ahead of the broccoli.) I like my vegetables crisp, so the vegetable “noodles” always go in last and only get a minute or two, otherwise they go floppy and their flavours disappear into the rest of the soup. If using leafy vegetables like spinach, I’d also add this with the “noodles”.

My favourite garnishes: spring onions, firm tofu (fried or raw), fresh herbs (mint, basil and cilantro are good), sliced fresh chilli, Sriracha sauce (who doesn’t love Sriracha?).

Vegetable “Noodle” Salad Bowls

As with noodle soups, noodle salads can also be adapted to use vegetable “noodles”. I absolutely adore this Noodle Salad with Lemongrass Dressing, pictured below, made with vegetable “noodles” instead of rice noodles.

Vegetable “Noodle” Pasta

I got the idea from this zucchini pasta recipe. You can make it with a vegetable peeler rather than a julienne peeler, making for “noodles” that are almost fettuccine like. The original recipe uses the zucchini raw, but I like to cook it for just a moment, with a few added carrots because I love them. And as with many foods in life, I like this one topped with a poached egg:

Other Vegetable “Noodle” Ideas

One of my favourite comfort foods: take thinly sliced onions and cabbage and sautee slowly until absolutely sweet and soft. Add carrots and cook for a little longer. Season with salt and pepper. Serve topped with a poached egg and garnished with smoked paprika. A little avocado on the side doesn’t go amiss.

Another great candidate is pad thai, and I’m somewhat addicted to Rachel Demuth’s Vegetarian Pad Thai recipe (alas, I’ve always devoured it greedily before getting around to taking a picture that doesn’t suck – if you don’t mind a sucky picture, then look at this one).

Some of you may be looking for Calorie counts on these recipes but I’m afraid that despite my mathematics degree, I haven’t done the math (my mode of fasting avoids calorie counting if possible). From time to time I clock the numbers and can say that the soups tend to be very low calorie (200-300) depending on how you garnish them. Other dishes can tend more towards the 400-500 calorie range. It all depends on what you add to it. But a really useful tool I find for quickly adding up calories is CalorieCount’s Recipe Analyzer.

Alright, hit me with some more vegetable “noodle” ideas. Why haven’t I made “spaghetti” and “meatballs” yet? Maybe that would be just a bit TOO much food pretending to be other food that it’s not. And perhaps that’s why most of these dishes aren’t very Italiany. Regardless, I’m open to suggestions, and the julienne peeler is open for business!

10 Comments