Early Victorians grew aubergines purely as ornamental plants, suspicious of their resemblance to nightshade. As with a few other things things – workhouses, child labour, ignoring women – they got things quite wrong.  Aren’t aubergines great? Aren’t we glad to live in such enlightened times? A source of B vitamins and fibre, they’re adaptable to pretty much any cuisine. We’ve said before that aubergine dishes ain’t pretty, but taste beyond brilliant.

This Baba Ganoush, with some slight tweaks, is based on a Rose Elliot recipe from her “New Complete Vegetarian”, which is one of my favourite go-to cookbooks ever. It’s a perfect picnic food, or mezze dish for picking. As above, I served mine with plain old ryvita, but it’s also lovely with sliced of fennel or carrot; or pitta breads drizzled with olive oil an paprika and baked in the oven for 10 minutes.

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 aubergines
3 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves
2 heaped tbsp tahini
2 tbsp lemon juice

Salt & pep

To finish

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp flat-leaf parsley

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C / 400F / gas mark 6

2. Remove the stems from the aubergines and cut them in half. Rub them lightly with olive oil and place purple-side down on a baking tray. Leave the two cloves of garlic in their skins and rub with a little olive oil to stop them catching, and tuck on the baking tray too. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until they can be pierced with a sharp knife.

3. Allow to cool, and chop the aubergine as finely as you can then mix with the other ingredients, squuezing the roasted garlic out of its skin into the mixture. You can blend the whole mixture here, but I really liked the texture with the small pieces of skin and the meltingly tender flesh.

4. To serve, either leave on the board that you cut on, as I did, or transfer to something more elegant. Drizzle a little olive oil over the top and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Eat with crudites, ryvita or pita bread.

We’re doing the Edinburgh Half Marathon soon so we’ve been experimenting to come up with delicious carbo-loading dishes. This Leek and Celery Barlotto with Lemon Thyme is a winner. As we’ve said before, we love a risotto but get frustrated by the faff of all that stirring, checking, slowly adding stock etc. We like to keep things simple and a barlotto is just the ticket; like a good risotto, it can be big on taste and texture but, unlike risotto world, barlotto land is a fuss-free place. Our Root Vegetable Barlotto was a huge hit in winter. This new one has a lighter, more summery taste.

Celery has anti-inflammatory properties and is rich in vitamins and minerals and the lemon thyme contains important minerals and antioxidants and has anti-fungal properties (cure for athlete’s foot, maybe!)

Pearl barley isn’t considered a whole grain, as the polishing (or ‘pearling’) removes the hull. This isn’t a problem for tapering runners though; in the run-up to a big race, you need to reduce the fibre content in your diet to help prevent the dreaded runner’s trots. That said, serving this with steamed vegetables should help ensure that you’re don’t short change yourself in the fibre department.

This is great cold too, so you could add a light vinaigrette and serve it as a salad for a picnic or summer buffet.

Leek and Celery Barlotto with Goats’ Cheese and Lemon Thyme
Serves 4

Ingredients
6 sticks celery, sliced
1 large leek, sliced
250g pearl barley
500-750ml vegetable stock
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
10-12 sprigs lemon thyme
20g soft goat’s cheese per person for serving

Method
1 Saute the celery and leek in the vegetable oil for 5 minutes until just starting to soften.
2 Add the rinsed pearl barley and stir well, coating it with oil.
3 Add 500ml of the vegetable stock and stir thoroughly (don’t add it all at once – you may not need it). Bring to the boil and reduce heat to a simmer.
4 With a tight fitting lid on the pan, simmer 30-40 minutes, checking every 10 minutes and adding more stock if necessary. Stir in the lemon thyme after 20 minutes.
5 It’s ready when the barley is chewy but not tough.
6 Serve dotted with the goat’s cheese with steamed vegetables or salad.

Recipe Number Two for #recipeaday for #nvw2013. This meal is a great showcase for National Vegetarian Week, showing that veggie eating doesn’t need to be a pastiche of your traditional meaty dinner with a “star of the show”.  In fact, I had some trouble naming this recipe. None of the ingredients is really ‘with’ the other ones – they all take centre stage, playing off each other. There is no Diana Ross to the Supremes here, no Martha Reeves for the Vandellas. It’s more a Shirelles situation, if you’re still following along with me.

This is based on a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe, but I found the original a little flat. I countered the earthy courgette and nutty grain with sharper feta and citrus-y sumac, both of which boosted the Middle-Eastern feel to the dish.

Health-wise, you’ve got micronutrients and protein in your quinoa, calcium in your feta and fibre and vitamins in your courgettes. I don’t believe in hugely changing your diet for carb-loading before a race (why would I start eating huge amounts of white flour now, even if it is disguised as pasta?), so I’ll be having this towards the end of the week before we do the Edinburgh Half Marathon on Sunday. Even if the race profile wasn’t all downhill, which thankfully it is, I’m sure I’d fly through.

Quinoa with Courgette, Feta and Sumac

Serves 4

Ingredients

800g courgettes
Olive oil
3 onions, halved and sliced into half moons
½ tsp thyme or lemon thyme, leaves only
2 garlic cloves, mushed
200g quinoa
Handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Half a lemon
50g pine nuts

To serve

100g feta
1 tsp sumac
Salt & pepper

Method

1. Cut the courgettes into thin slices on the diagonal. Heat the oil in a very large frying pan or wok over a medium heat. Add the onions, courgettes, thyme and season. Cook gently for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The onions and courgettes will be breaking down and going golden. Add the garlic and continue to cook for another few minutes.
2. At the same time, cook your quinoa. Measure out 200g in a measuring jug, then rinse under cold running water. Put in a saucepan with a tightly fitting lid, and add twice the volume of cold water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer and cook until the water is just absorbed (about 10-12 minutes). The grains should still be al dente – not just a big mush. If you feel you’ve got your volumes wrong, you can always drain it in a sieve, no great loss.
3. In a little frying pan, toast your pine nuts. They burn in the blink of an eye, so keep a careful watch on them.
4. Add your quinoa and nuts to your courgette pan, and squeeze your half a lemon over the whole lot and scatter with the parsley. Serve with feta crumbled on top, and a good pinch of crimson sumac dusted over.

I strongly believe that cuisine is like language – living, and ever changing. Orthodoxy has no place in my kitchen. The quest for “the authentic ratatouille/baba ganoush/tikka masala” is not that interesting. I’d prefer to have the best one! Besides, playing by the book is not as much fun as a bit of experimentation. (I mean in the kitchen, people.)

Tikka Masala is one dish that has morphed to become unrecognisable through time and tweaking. While originally based on Indian home cooking recipes, the concept of tikka masala is distinctly British – Glaswegian, to be precise! Between differences in each restaurant in their approach to marination, spicing, added vegetables, consistency and heat, it is said that the only thing consistent about chicken tikka masala is the chicken.

And that’s about to change here! My TOFU tikka masala recipe marinates the tofu overnight in yogurt and spices, then bakes  in a hot oven for a lovely toothsome consistency, before adding to the brightly coloured sauce. The almost luminous colour is all natural, as you’d expect from Veggie Runners, coming from a marriage between ochre turmeric and bright red tomato paste.

The tofu is low in fat, and the sauce is a great source of anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial ginger and garlic. There are 52g of protein in a block of tofu, so if you even just eat 1/4 you’ll put a good dent in your protein intake for the day. Give it an extra boost by eating with quinoa. The cooked tomato is a source of lycopene, which is known to be an anti-carcinogen.

This may not be the first tikka masala recipe, but it’s up there with the best, and it’s good for you too!

What’s your favourite curry? How do you think you could make it a bit healthier? 

Serves 3 – 4

For the Tikka Tofu

250g natural yogurt
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated ginger
½ tsp tumeric
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp garam masala
2 tbsp groundnut or other low-flavour oil
juice of half a lemon

1 block firm tofu, pressed

For the Sauce

1 onion, peeled and cut into half moon
1 tsp grated ginger
2 peppers of different colours
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp chilli powder
150ml natural yogurt
tin of peeled plum tomatoes
handful of coriander leaves, chopped

1. Press your tofu and leave to one side. Mix all the other ingredients in a medium oven-proof dish. Cut your tofu into pieces and add to the curry sauce, turning with your hands to get a really good coverage on all sides. Leave to marinate for at least two hours, preferably overnight.
2. Bake your tofu in an oven at 190C/375F/gas mark 5 for 30 minutes, checking every 5-10 minutes and basting with the creamy sauce. You want some brownness on the tofu, but if it starts to burn, but a piece of kitchen foil over the top of it.
3. Meanwhile, fry your onions and ginger in a large frying pan, then add your chopped and deseeded peppers. Cook for 10 minutes until softened. Add the tinned tomatoes and yogurt, bashing the whole tomatoes with a wooden spoon to break them up. When your tofu is ready, add to the sauce and serve with chopped fresh coriander and rice.

Anonymously blogging her journey from fattish to fabulous, @onlyeatsguitars has given up fasting (hurrah, for us, healthy eating is the only way to go). And, and, AND she’s started running! Baby steps, but we all start somewhere. We’re delighted for her and will be standing by with running tips when she’s ready for them (indeed, we’re in the process of writing a new series on starting to run – maybe we can send her a preview copy).

It’s been a roller coaster couple of weeks. Not in terms of weight loss; that’s flat-lined. More in terms of decisions made and being brave. I’ll explain.

Fasting is not for me. The fast days feel like a punishment; the feast days feel out of control. My main issue with weight gain and loss is psychological. I comfort eat, I treat myself, I indulge when I deserve. I love food. Really good, really posh, lovely food. And cheese and chocolate and three courses and taster menus and eating out and having people round for dinner and I just get fatter and fatter. Left to my own devices I gain weight.

When I got together with my husband, a chef, twenty-odd years ago, we gained six stone over a two year period. It was love. It was a ménage a trois – me, the husband and food. That’s why Slimming World worked for us. For those not familiar it’s low-fat, with a touch of food combining thrown in. Fruit and veg are always unlimited with a choice of protein or carbs and then stuff like chocolate, bread, cheese, butter and booze are fairly limited. We (he) rose to the culinary challenge and we ate amazing, beautiful food and lost lots of weight – over seven stone between us. But twelve years later we were bored and maybe I needed to check out an alternative in order to properly remember why Slimming World works. Oh, and the weekly classes are awful, a real drag. The upshot is that we are going to try to do it for a month – without going to a class. And see what happens.

My real achievements this last fortnight have been with exercise. I went swimming! I took my teenage daughter and we swam, and went in the jacuzzi, and it was really really lovely. A real treat. And we’re going again this weekend. I’ve also made some baby steps with running at the gym. I did three minutes, then four, then five. So, now, I can run for a whole five minutes. I know it may not sound like much but I’m going to keep increasing it by a minute each time and when I can do it for fifteen minutes I’ll try to run outside.

Just to catch you up on couple of issues that I discussed in my last post. My bra issue has now been resolved, I have still only lost four pounds and I’m confident about getting out of breath. The challenges for the next two weeks? To kick start the weight loss again, to keep going with the running and swimming and to try out a class at the gym. The class will be the biggest challenge. I’m dyspraxic, which means I’ve got poor co-ordination, no balance and I’m not brilliant at left and right. I’m also still pretty unfit.

Any suggestions? Please tweet me @onlyeatsguitars

 Image from www.shapesense.com

The Author:
Paul Harlow is conducting PhD research on post-exercise rehydration at Leeds Metropolitan University. For more information on this topic, you can contact him at: p.harlow@leedstrinity.ac.uk

Don’t wait till you’re thirsty! Drink 2 litres a day! Don’t just drink water! Cut out caffeine! Athletes and everyday exercisers alike have been bombarded with these messages on a daily basis. When you’re standing at the drinks machine what do you choose – water, cola or a sports drink? And what do you base your choice on – science… or marketing?

You may have guessed the next bit – some of the same scientists who develop sports drinks were also influential in the sports medicine organisations that developed guidelines for sports performance. These same guidelines are filtered down to the average exerciser and into everyday health advice.

Sports drinks are not the only thing that can meet your hydration needs though. There’s growing interest in the effectiveness of milk as a hydration beverage. Recent research suggest there’s no difference in time to exhaustion in athletes consuming milk when compared to sports drinks during exercise. In addition, milk doesn’t negatively influence the cardiovascular, metabolic, or thermoregulatory response to exercise. This is important as an increase in heart rate, blood lactate or core temperature during exercise could have a negative impact on performance.

Why does any of this matter? Quite simply, the role of a drink during exercise should be to replace water lost in sweat, to replace electrolyte losses (mainly sodium and some potassium) and to provide a source of energy. Milk does all of these things.

Studies on post exercise rehydration also indicate that milk is a potential candidate, given its naturally high electrolyte content and the presence of carbohydrate in a concentration similar to many commercially available sports drinks. In fact, following exercise dehydration, milk has been shown to outperform both water and sports drinks. This may be due to its superior sodium content, as the recovery of sodium lost is a prerequisite of fluid recovery.

Post-exercise it’s important to drink 150% of fluid lost to allow for ongoing urinary losses.  The simple message from recent research is don’t drink water alone (though it’s fine with food if you have time) but don’t assume your rehydration fluid has to be a sports drink.

Recovery from exercise is not limited to rehydration. It is vitally important that energy (glycogen) is replenished and that protein is available to promote an anabolic environment for muscle repair. In the two hours following exercise these mechanisms are up-regulated, creating a ‘window of opportunity’ for recovery.  Milk may win over sports drinks as it contains both carbohydrate and protein in appropriate amounts to facilitate recovery. So much so that some evidence suggests greater recovery in muscle force 24 and 72 hours post exercise compared to sports drinks. The bottom line is don’t wait until after the hour drive from the gym to eat; plan ahead and take a humble carton of milk with you in your gym bag to assist immediately with post-exercise recovery.

Hydration and recovery isn’t rocket science, it’s simply the supply of the right nutrients at the right time. Recent research suggests that we should search for those nutrients in our fridge rather than from drinks designed in a laboratory.

The Author:
Paul Harlow is conducting PhD research on post-exercise rehydration at Leeds Metropolitan University. For more information on this topic, you can contact him at: p.harlow@leedstrinity.ac.uk

It’s almost National Vegetarian Week 2013 AND we’re training for the Edinburgh Half Marathon. Good news for us all round – both great excuses to make tasty, runner- friendly dinners, such as this vegetarian twist on a classic kedgeree. Traditional kedgeree uses smoked fish. Traditional vegetarian kedgeree doesn’t used smoked anything. Upshot? Vegetarian kedgeree is usually rubbish. Sad but true.  Not this time, though! No, no, noooooooooo. We’re always keen to be authentic, even in a dish as inauthentic as this one.

Smoked tofu is the thing that gives this kedgeree its kick. That and the curry spices. The tofu is low fat and gives the dish a boost of protein. The kedgeree is also great for carb loading – down with dreary pasta dishes! We’ve done our research and this is easily the most delicious veggie kedgeree ever. At least on this planet anyway.

This recipe uses half rice and half ‘riced cauliflower’, a little trick we learned from the fab Scottish vegetarian blog, Tinned Tomatoes. Simply cut cauliflower into florets and buzz in batches in a food processor or with a hand blender until it’s in rice-sized bits. It gives a great depth of flavour; try it! Broccoli would work just as well, though we’re not sure what kind of colour the dish will end up if you use it.

Serve with salad or on a bed of raw spinach. It’s good cold too so fab for your lunch box.

Vegetarian Kedgeree
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 cup rice
1 cup ‘riced’ cauliflower (see Tinned Tomatoes)
3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 teaspoon each curry powder, turmeric, garam masala, cumin
4 eggs
1 onion, diced
1 teaspoon grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, sliced
800ml vegetable stock
225g smoked tofu, , diced in 1cm pieces
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Method
1 First, boil the eggs for 6-8 minutes, according to preference (I like the yolks hard but boil them for 6 minutes if you like them a bit softer). Plunge into cold water to prevent a dark line forming around the yolk.
2 While the eggs are boiling, saute the onion, garlic and ginger in the vegetable oil.
3 Add the curry spices, stir well and cook for 2 minutes.
4 Add the rice and ‘riced cauliflower’ and stir well.
5 Stir in the tomato puree and tomatoes, then add the vegetable stock.
6 Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until almost of the stock is absorbed (about 20 minutes). Keep an eye on it as it’s simmering and stir now and again to prevent it sticking.
7 Add the smoked tofu and stir well. By the time the rest of the stock is absorbed, the tofu will be heated through thoroughly.
8 Remove from the heat. Cut the eggs into quarters and stir into the kedgeree, keeping a few quarters aside for garnish.

Serve with a tomato salad or on a bed of fresh spinach.

As you know, we’re big fans of exciting vegetarian dishes. We’re also very fond of a good curry. So when Prashad, an Indian vegetarian restaurant just outside of Leeds, invited us to sample their wares we were, to put it mildly, deeee-flipping-lighted. Prashad is not just any old restaurant, it’s one of Britain’s best. It was a finalist on Gordon Ramsay’s Best Restaurant 2010 series, has been featured in The Michelin Guide and The Good Food Guide and gets only rave reviews on Trip Advisor (a more or less unique achievement, we think). Now, with head chef Minal having her eye on a Michelin star, they’ve upped their game even more. Their blend of home-cooked Gujarati cuisine with locally-sourced, fresh Yorkshire produce is unique – and very, very tasty. We were there mainly to sample their National Vegetarian Week offer, their Sharing Platter. It serves 2, is half price (£5.25) and comes with a bottle of Kingfisher beer each. It’s an amazing deal – every single one of their starters on one delicious bundle. Unbeatable, really.

We didn’t stop there, of course. Well, how could we? We tried a couple of their stunning mocktails – a Mango Lopez and a Berry Indian. Some of the prettiest drinks you ever did see. Tasty too. Our main courses were Chole and Seasonal Vegetable Handi, served with Mixed Veg Rice and fluffy Puris. I realize here that I could use the vocabulary so beloved of restaurant critics: it was sublime, earthy, luminous, zesty etc. Let’s dispense with the fancy stuff though; it would be easier and more accurate to say simply that it was absolutely wow, yum, mindblowingly and then some.Click to view slideshow.

Luckily, running burns off a lot of calories so we’re always able to find room for dessert. Praise be, because that took us to another level of bliss. Three desserts: Kulfi with pistachios, almonds and cardamom; Non-Dairy Ice Cream that miraculously managed to taste like the creamiest thing on earth; and Faluhda, a rose flavoured milkshake with vermicelli and rehydrated basil seeds. Faultless, every one, and beautifully presented.

I’ll admit it’s getting tricky here. A review is meant to contain at least some minor criticisms, isn’t it? What can we say, though? The food was interesting without being faddy and everything we ate elicited ‘Ooh, that’s delicious – what is that flavour/taste/ingredient?’ The service was impeccable – not a spot on the tablecloth, not a dish served at the wrong temperature. We also got to have a good chat with Chris Blackburn, more commonly known (by us) as the Yorkshire Pudding Champion of the Universe. He’s probably the only Yorkshire Pudding celebrity on the planet and he really knows his stuff. A mine of information on this great British delicacy, he set us thinking about what would be the perfect YP for runners. So far we have peanut butter, goats cheese and sesame (separately, of course). If you have other ideas on this, do let us know.

Anyway, back to Prashad. It’s hard to believe that a gem like this is tucked away just a mile or so off the M62 between Leeds and Bradford – but it is so if you’re in the area, you really should treat yourself to the Prashad experience. Prashad’s National Vegetarian Week deal runs from 20th-26th May. The restaurant is in Drighlington, BS11 1AT.

If you can’t make it there, treat yourself to The Prashad Cookbook – if you buy it from that link to their website you get a bonus free gift (a secret ingredient!) too. Follow them on Twitter @prashad_veggie for news on upcoming offers and some home cooking inspiration. National Vegetarian Week events and offers take place all over the UK. Follow @VegSoc and @NVW2013 on Twitter for info and updates. Our gorgeous photos were taken by Naomi Moores. If you’d like her to photograph your dining experience, email her here.

Two weeks in and I’m doing OK. I’ve lost 4 pounds, joined a gym and been three times. I’m doing intermittent fasting, using the 5:2 system and not really loving it. Not loving it at all.