Back and currying it up

Not the best day on Thursday, had breakfast at 8am - 2 slices of toast and scrambled egg - and then nothing until very very late lunch at half past 3. Suffice to say, I was starving by then and the 3 small glasses of white wine sat badly enough before the 2 glasses of red and the 1 of champagne. I was as sick as a dog and fell asleep at 6pm until I was woken at 9pm. I just can't do that. Yes I drank quite a bit but it shouldn't have made me sick, not like that. Lack of food made a heck of a difference and I felt like shite. The barbecue lunch the next day made a huuuuge difference to the state of my well-being, despite me being a bit of a pig and having 1 pork steak in a bun, followed by 2 beef burgers in buns. With a little greenery and some ketchup. And then some wedding cake. The barbecue made me feel so much better.

However, I wasn't happy with any of the photos except this one.  Major double-chins and flabby arms going on, so really quite unimpressed with that.

Anyway. We're home now and gymmed this morning, which was nice. I showed off a bit with my press-ups on medicine balls. I really fancied curry tonight, so dinner is a tad experimental, but basically a chicken Phaal and aloo gobi. And, well, the Phaal is a teeeensy bit hot. I based it on a Patak's recipe, but obviously made the paste myself from scratch as it's much more fun that way (though it meant guessing a bit from the ingredients on their web site which don't tell you know much of everything is in the paste).


Chicken Phaal, Serves 2

Calories (kcal)	347
Carbohydrate (g)	25.1
Protein (g)	36.2
Fat (g)	11.7
Fibre (g)	4.7
Fruit & Veg	3.0

• 6 cloves of Garlic
• 3 Large Chillies
• 1½ Tsps Cumin Seeds
• 1½ Tsps Coriander Seeds
• ½ Tsp Black Peppercorns
• 1 Tsp Turmeric Powder
• 12g Root Ginger, peeled
• 20ml Grapeseed Oil (or other flavourless oil)
• ½ Tsp Mustard Seeds
• 2 Fillets/250g Chicken Breast Fillets
• ½ Tsp Fenugreek Seeds
• 2 Tbsps/30g Tomato Puree, Double Concentrate
• 1 medium Onions
• 1 Tin/400g Tomatoes, Plum, Tinned
• 1 chunk (15g) Tamarind

1. First make the Madras paste.  Toast 1tsp cumin, 1tsp coriander, 1/2 tsp black peppercorns in a dry pan.  Grind them up with pestle and mortar and add to a blender.  Also add 1/2 the oil, 1 of the chillies, 4 cloves of garlic, 1/2 the ginger, the tomato puree and the tamarind.  Blend.  (You can use a hand blender but it may struggle with the small amounts here).
2. Chop another of the chillies and slit the final one down the middle.  Finely chop the last 2 cloves of garlic, onion and remaining ginger.  Cube the chicken.
3. Heat the rest of the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, stir over a medium heat until golden. Add the chicken and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the Madras Paste remaining cumin and coriander seeds, the fenugreek, ginger and garlic and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes.  Sprinkle in some water if the mixture begins to stick.
4. Stir in the tinned tomatoes and the chillies and bring to a gentle simmer.
5. Cook for a further 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
6. Check the seasoning and serve garnished with a dollop of yogurt if you find the curry a bit hot. Also remove the whole chillies before serving if desired.

Good gym

Apart from the skinny little diva who showed up in microscopic gym shorts (Abercrombie and Fitch dontchyaknow!), a teeny vest, trainers and no bra; and proceeded to spend 10 minutes in front of the mirrors, making sure her baseball cap was on perfectly before throwing gym equipment around because it was in her way (though she could barely lift much of it, so hah!) and then struggling to do some puny hanging bent-leg raises. It was veeeeery difficult resisting laughing at her. Yeah it's good that she's actually in the gym doing some resistance training, but the -attitude-!

Me, I burned off a very respectable 499kcals in 52 minutes whilst being careful with my leg. I kept the weight lower on the lunges and leg curls and made sure to warm up gently first. For the first time, I managed 10 pressups in a row with no rests in between and I've changed my planks to be straight arm planks - mmmm, much harder! :o) Shame I ran out of time, 'cause it'd be nice to have done 3 sets of 10 pressups rather than just the one. Ohwell. Rest day tomorrow (and using the foam roller for 15 minuts at home, following Rachel Cosgrove's foam rolling exercises/stretches to get the kinks out of my legs and shoulders, might squeeze in some pressups there too) and then new trainer on Friday!

Nice eggy salad for lunch today (shown here in unmixed state - I like my eggs to sit on top so they don't go mushy during the morning):-


This is becoming one of my favourite evening meals; lightly smoked salmon fillets are so incredibly flavoursome:-



B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop vanilla, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - banana
*gym*
S - 1 scoop chocolate in skimmed milk
L - salad - spinach, tomato, capers, walnuts, 2 boiled eggs and lemon juice
S - a pear and a mini Babybel Light
S - beef jerky
D - salmon fillet with couscous, peas and sweetcorn
S - slice of banana and raisin malt loaf

Exercise - 52 minutes gym (HRmax 184 HRavg 158)

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1800 2231]
Protein (g)	157.7 (36%)
Carbohydrate (g)	164.6 (35.2%)
Fat (g)	56.1 (28.8%)
Fruit & Veg	8.0

Quick little intervals session

Brekkie was a slightly overcooked pile of scrambled egg+egg whites on a toasted bagel with Marmite. Nommy, but sub-optimal due to the eggs being ready too quickly. Bah. Then I slobbed about watching Saturday Kitchen (mmmfoodporn), followed by lunch.



A Japanese-style dressing spiced up an otherwise quite boring tuna salad; lemon juice, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and wasabi paste. Very very tasty on its own and a subtle change to the overall flavour of the tuna when mixed in with it. The tuna was lovely by itself. The salad was nice by itself. But, ew, they did not go together so well. I suspect it was the tomato that broke the flavours.

I was going to swim today, but changed my mind. I'm a tiny bit bored with swimming (better get my ass out of that attitude sharpish with only 12 weeks to the first triathlon!) so decided to do a little bit of intervals on the cross-trainer instead and some core work. The pleasant surprise was that 3x 60s planks weren't hellishly hard; side pulsed planks x60 were clean and almost "easy"; and I did 5 full press ups in between sets of planks without shuddering and grunting and thinking "I can't do these" after only the second press up of each set. :oD

But.

*yawn*

I just want to play around with cooking food right now and taking pictures of it. To be honest, the idea of these triathlons is scaring me as I've not run in a while and cycled even less recently. I didn't want to do any ironing or vacuuming today either, but they needed doing. Bah. And, indeed, meh! Glad I pulled my finger out and did them, so.

Er, anyway...

Afternoon snack experiment:-



Gosh it's nice. The almond butter tastes more like cream with the sharpness of the apple (which was one of the nicest apples I've had in a long time, thank you Waitrose.) And, as well as being delicious, it fulfils "protein plus fruit or veg" :o)

Dinner was one of my favourites. We make a huge vat of beef chilli every now and then and freeze it down in portions. Occasionally, we make lasagne using the chilli instead of a beef bolognese and ohhhh is it tasty!



B - scrambled eggs (1x egg and 3x egg whites) on a toasted seeded wholemeal bagel with Marmite
L - salad - lettuce, sweet peppers, tomatoes, capers, tuna and Japanese-style dressing
*gym*
S - 1 scoop milk chocolate whey in semi-skimmed milk
S - sliced apple spread with almond butter
D - lasagne made with basic beef chilli

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1669 2188]
Protein (g)	141.6 (34.9%)
Carbohydrate (g)	146.4 (33.8%)
Fat (g)	55.5 (30.7%)
Fruit & Veg	7.9