breakfasts « Go Faster Food

On 3rd September Kasabian Bassist, Chris Edwards and his brother Jay start their gruelling MONSTER Lejog cycle challenge from Lands End to John O’Groats in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. Lucky me, they’re stopping over at my place in Bristol for a Go Faster Food Supper! So on 6th September, after a little photo shoot with the local press at the Clifton Suspension Bridge,  I’ll be preparing a Go Faster endurance meal special for Chris, Jay and their dad, who is  accompanying them in a support vehicle. Will it be Moroccan Lamb Shanks with Toasted Almond Couscous or Smoky Black Bean and Chorizo Chilli with Herby Salsa and Basmati Rice? Decisions, decisions…

They’ve had lots of training advice from my lovely friend and chief supporter of my flapjack recipes, Charlotte Thompson, although how they find time to do any training in their busy tour/work schedules completely defeats me.

Now they need to get their nutrition right!

Riding any distance burns a vast amount of calories and makes you ravenously hungry.  The boys need to make wise food choices to help them complete their challenge with consistently high energy levels. High mileage on the bike day after day means the boys need to keep their glycogen levels (ie the carbohydrate stored in the muscles which provides the body with energy) topped up all the time . They’ll also need plenty of water and electrolytes to replace fluid loss, and protein to repair muscle cells.

Carbohydrate is stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen. Glycogen
levels become depleted after a workout and the quicker they are
topped up again, the quicker your recovery will be and the better
you will feel for your next session.

For sustained energy levels, Chris and Jay should base their main meals on low-to-medium Glycaemic Index (G.I.) foods, and try to have heaps of carbohydrate (about 60%) and a fair amount of protein (about 20%) each day. They should also steer away from too much fatty food, as this could make them feel sluggish. Low to medium G.I. foods break down slowly during digestion, releasing glucose gradually into the bloodstream and thereby providing the body with a more consistent level of energy. A good low G.I. breakfast of something like porridge or muesli and fresh fruit, followed by poached eggs on wholemeal toast will set them up for the day.  ’Little and often’ will be the key to a good day’s ride - they will need to ‘feed’ every hour or so with a mix of salty and sweet foods like wholemeal sandwiches, healthy snacks, flapjacks, malt loaf, nuts and raisins and they’ll need to take on plenty of fluid (both water and sports drink, a cup every 30 mins -see my hydration post)  Snacks during the day should also include some higher G.I. carbs, carbs which will be absorbed rapidly into the bloodstream to give instant energy, such as honey and jam sandwiches, sports drinks, jelly beans etc.

smoky black bean chilli

The main focus of each evening will be eating! Plenty of carbohydrate to replenish depleted glycogen levels, plus some protein to aid muscle repair, so that they can start the next day with renewed strength and energy.

Anyone wanting to make a donation to the cause, click on Teenage Cancer Trust.

I can’t believe a whole week has passed since I completed the Virgin London Marathon – in 3 hours 39 minutes – not my PB by any means, but I was relatively pleased with it anyway, as I’d missed 4 weeks of my 12 week training progralondon marathonmme for various reasons. More importantly it was a fantastic experience: the weather was perfect, the support from the crowds phenomenal and my family came to cheer me on. I also managed to put lots of names to faces and met some lovely Facebook friends and supporters of Go Faster Food.  I even met up with celebrity trainer  Charlotte Thompson and her two celebrities she was running with – Tara Smith and Natalie Imbruglia for whom I had made some tasty flapjacks (unfortunately I didn’t get to speak to Natalie). I also saw Princess Beatrice and the two Branson offspring on the start-line in Virgin’s longest caterpillar! A great day all round…. I do believe that I got my nutrition and hydration strategy absolutely spot on too,  so I’ll go into detail on that in my next blog…

I’m now going to give the mileage a little rest (just the Bristol 10k next weekend) and turn my focus to other things. I’ve got myself a job at Clifton High School to boost my meagre author’s income and I’m going to start developing some new recipes ready for the launch of Go Faster Food for Kids! I’ve also got to start thinking more seriously about what the BEST swimmers are going to eat and drink during their Cross Channel Swim. These courageous 12-year olds are training hard to be the youngest relay team ever to  swim the English Channel. The swim is planned for August, but it’s going to be absolutely freezing all the same. The children each swim for one hour, spend the next 5 hours on the support boat and then swim again for another hour, and so on until they reach France! The cooking facilities on the support boat are very limited, the children will be cold and they will get sea sick bobbing up and down for 5 hours at a time. It is going to be difficult to keep up their energy levels and keep them warm.

I’ve just been sent a big box of Grasshopper porridge, which I have to say is amazing stuff – much better than any microwaveable porridge I’ve ever tried – instant porridge in a pot, totally organic and natural. All you have to do is pour on boiling water, wait 5 minutes, open the lid and you’re presented with steaming hot, creamy porridge. Team Grasshopper have sent me two different flavours for the kids – chocolate and coconut and date, so I’m hoping they’ll like it….everyone in my family thinks it’s delicious.

Another good use for this Grasshopper Porridge that Team Grasshopper may not have considered is for those of us who are reduced to making porridge in a hotel bedroom before a marathon – all you need is a kettle to boil some water and you have a delicous, sustaining and healthy breakfast!

BEST (Bristol English Channel Swim Team)

I’ve been given the great privilege of helping out on the foodie front for BEST (Bristol English Channel Swim Team), a totally inspirational group of 11-12 year olds who are training to be the youngest ever relay team to cross the English Channel.

Anyone feeling disillusioned with the youth of today should take a look at the BEST website. These kids are phenomenal! 11 year-old Lewis decided that he would like more than anything to swim the English Channel and the idea blossomed from here – his parents took him seriously and established a superb professional team to take this initial idea to a whole new level. This team includes head coach and GB swim team physiotherapist, Penny Porter,  assistant coach, Chris Eynon, who won the 2007 British Long Distance Swimming Association Lake Windermere 17.5km Championships and was part of a successful English Channel relay at the age of 16, plus a highly professional medical and safety team.

The swim across the Channel is planned to take place on 17th August, weather permitting, and will take anything from 12.5 to 15 hours. The 6 children, selected from over 40 hopefuls, each have to swim for an hour at a time in choppy, cold, cold water (15-17 C) with jellyfish, floating debris of a dubious nature, cross channel ferries and possible hypothermia to content with. They will not be wearing wetsuits! – just one hat, goggles, basic swimsuit and grease…. Between each swim they must then wait for 5 hours in a tiny fishing boat until their turn to swim comes around again.

I am still getting my head around what they are going to fuel themselves with in this boat as there will be very minimal cooking facilities on board – perhaps even just a kettle.

I gave the children a talk about nutrition on Saturday. It is going to have to be an important part of the children’s training to eat properly over the next 8 months, and integral to their well-being and ultimately their overall performance – they will be training six days a week, and that’s on top of all their school work, not to mention their school sport and the fact that they will all be going through major growth phases! They will also have several cold water/open water training weekends so that they can acclimatise their bodies to low temperatures. Tough and busy kids!

Not surprisingly for such go-getting kids, they appear to be good eaters and understand the importance of following a balanced training diet. I think that encouraging them to eat well is not going to be fun, rather than an uphill struggle. Even the boy who refuses to eat fruit had a little taste of the strawberry smoothie I whizzed up for them after the talk – I have never seen a kilo of strawberries disappear before my eyes quite so quickly as it did on Saturday!

Click here for the recipe for  Stawberry Mint Vitamin Rush.

For more delicious smoothie recipes, see my book Go Faster Food.

Apple Power Pancakes with Spiced Apple Syrup

I’ve been overdoing it a bit on the running front, what with the Bristol 1/2 followed immediately by the Monster Duathlon, so Mark has enforced a week’s rest on me – probably a good idea as I now feel full of beans and raring to go for my run later today.  So I dedicated this weekend to more apple harvesting and feeding the family with delicious apple-related meals, whilst Mark provided the  ”dad’s taxi service” to rugby, football, triathlon club  etc. I’ve made  the following so far:

  • 20 pots of apple, apricot and ginger chutney -I’m not going to post the recipe until I know that it is good (need to wait for the chutney to mature for a while before I can really tell).
  • 3 litres of deliciously sweet apple juice (juiced in my new juicer) – a very messy but surprisingly satisfying process!
  • an apple and apricot crumble – very nice pud after our roast pork last night (with apple sauce of course!) – recipe to follow
  • fab apple power pancakes – these were really, really tasty and packed with nutrients to power you through hours of sport-related activity or to wolf down after a massive morning bike ride, as Mark did on Sunday morning before the rugby session (no peace for the wicked!)…. here’s the recipe, it makes about 15 or so pancakes which is plenty for 4 people:
Apple Power Pancakes with Spiced Apple Syrup
  • 400ml semi-skimmed milk
  • 1 tbsp sunflower oil or melted butter
  • 3  tbs caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 120 g porridge oats
  • 200g plain flour
  • pinch salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 3 large bramley cooking apples, peeled, cored and diced into quite small pieces
  • 40 g butter
  • 1-2 tbs  sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon or mixed spice
  1. Put the milk, eggs, oil and sugar into a bowl and mix together.
  2. Add the porridge, flour, baking powder, ground ginger, salt and 1 diced apple and mix until you have a thick, smooth batter.
  3. Make the syrup – melt the butter, spice and demerara sugar together in a small saucepan and then add the two remaining diced apples. Saute gently for a couple of minutes until the apples are soft but still have their shape.
  4. Heat a frying pan. Add a knob of butter and then spoon in a few mounds of pancake mixture (about 1 tablespoon of mixture makes a nice little round pancake about the size of a drop scone). Heat gently until you see a few air bubbles forming on the surface and then flip over to cook the other side for a minute or two, until cooked through.
  5. Serve the pancakes (about 3 per person) with the spiced apple syrup poured over the top and perhaps some more demerara sugar sprinkled over the top if you are feeling like that extra boost to power you through the day!

    American Blueberry Pancakes

    I’ve been busy this afternoon making little lemon tarts and and a rather tempting-to-the-eye apricot tarte tatin…delicious. Well, they probably are, but they’re for a friend so I mustn’t touch unfortunately!

    blueberry pancakes

    We’ve had a really fun weekend of activity. I went along to the Bristol Half Marathon Training weekend, held by Run Bristol and the team at Full Potential,  sold a few copies of Go Faster Food, and then did a 9 1/2 mile run in the evening….in the sun (I think that was the last time it peeked out from those heavy rainclouds we’ve got here in Bristol at the moment). I felt really good and even sprinted at the end! Nick at Full Potential recommends that you should incorporate a few race pace sessions of 10 minutes or so into your weekly long run, so that your body learns to know what to expect. That makes sense to me and it gave the run a nice focus point.

    On Sunday, Mark  took hold of my book and cooked up some of my American Blueberry Pancakes which he served up as a late breakfast with maple syrup and some crispy bacon…yes, the kids are away!!  He misread the abbreviation 2 tsp as 2 tablespoons –  of baking powder (!)- but I managed to thwart his attempts at sabotaging my recipe and the end result was completely delicious. We were nicely stoked up for our cycle along the Bristol to Bath railway path for lunch with our lovely friends there. Door to door is only about 20 miles but the rain was torrential from start to finish and what is normally a gorgeous cycle ride was pretty unpleasant really!

    The American Blueberry Pancakes  are in the breakfast section of Go Faster Food – Page 60 – (maybe I’ll make them recipe of the month at some point?). They are actually fantastic for post exercise recovery; a great fun and tasty way to get some high G.I. carbohydrate and protein into your system after a serious workout, with the added kick of the blueberries, now classed as a superfood and bursting with nutrients. It is really important to feed your tired muscles with some fast-acting carbohydrate to replenish your glycogen stores after exercise, and you need some protein to help repair any muscle trauma. What’s great about these pancakes is that you can make the mixture before you leave the house, dream about them when the going gets tough on your run and then cook them on your return, even while you’re doing your stretches. Hey presto, you’ll be sitting down and pouring maple syrup over your first one within the 15 minute magic window of recovery!

    Just staggered in from running the Stockholm Marathon to find this lovely book review waiting for me from the resident runner at Fitness Footwear. Thanks a lot Adam, I’m glad you liked the book!


    Go Faster Food Book Review

    May 29th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under
    feature photo

    Go Faster Food already has a list of recommendations as long as your arm with endorsements from Olympians, running magazines along with a foreword by double Olympian Liz Yelling, but what stands out about this book is not only the excellent advice and recipes, but how wonderfully written it is.

    From the very start, Kate Percy’s personality shines through, delivering helpful tips concisely, but in an everyday language that’s a pleasure to read. So not only are you taking advice from a real person with their own real life experiences, but this person is also being realistic about what to eat and when to eat it.

    Even a nice cold beer is recommended as a recovering drink if you’ve been working particularly hard, simply because you deserve it.

    Before getting down the recipes, Kate speaks about her own experience in running and how diet is such an important part of it. It’s not about just eating well, it’s about eating the right things in the right amounts and how to maximise the energy they offer to literally Go Faster.

    The book is very well laid out and easy to follow, especially for someone who reads as impatiently as myself. As such, the book is divided into two sections, the first detailing nutrition and training, like what to eat and when, as well as the importance of hydration.

    Meanwhile the second half is all about the recipes, which run from morning meals to midday and evening. With over 100 recipes, Go Faster Food deserves a permanent place in your kitchen.

    Quotes from Kate’s running friends can be found throughout the book, recommending their favourite meals, all of which have been included within this 280 page volume. Naturally, these vary from steak and chips washed down with a beer to pasta and more exotic dishes, proving that to train efficiently you don’t have to eat nothing but sensible salads.

    Go Faster Food is an essential recipe book that will turn runners into faster runners, food connoisseurs and maybe even master chefs. Who ever imagined that beautiful cooking could go hand in hand with health and fitness?

    To buy the book, learn about the nutritional value of food which will help you go faster and read Kate’s regularly updated blog for her latest dishes and training methods, visit www.gofasterfood.com

    Go Faster Food is available from the 2nd of July and is priced at £12.99


    Report on Stockholm to follow in next post…


    Happy New Year and welcome to 2009! Numbered List

    I am very excited about 2009 – my book is coming out in July, I have great plans for two further recipe books, I am signed up to run the London and the Stockholm marathons and I am on target to qualify for Boston in 2010.

    This is the week when hundreds of runners start their marathon training schedule…and it is bitterly cold and icy out there. I ran 9 miles yesterday without even taking off my gloves. Running or not, there are few better ways to start the day than with a bowl of hot, steaming porridge.  I have carried out a small survey of a number of athletes, both amateur and professional, and porridge, often with fruit and/or nuts is most certainly the favourite breakfast by far, especially on race day. So why is porridge such a hit?
    1. Porridge oats are low in fat, low G.I. which means that the carbohydrate is released into your bloodstream slowly and will therefore sustain your energy levels and help prevent those eleven o’clock cravings.
    2. A nice warm bowl of porridge will provide a little internal central heating for your body and make leaving the house for work or for an early morning run that much easier on these cold mornings.
    3. Porridge oats are also a good, natural way of lowering cholesterol.
    4. If trying to tighten the belt financially rather than physically, porridge is a much cheaper breakfast than any of the sugary processed overpackaged cereals.
    Everyone has their own favourite way of eating porridge. Some make it with milk, some with water, some eat it salty and some sweet. In my house, maple syrup, honey or dark Muscovado sugar seem to be the most popular. If I am running, I always make my porridge with water as it is lighter on the stomach.

    One thing is really important though. Forget the quick-cook variety – use unrefined porridge oats, as they have an infinitely better flavour and texture and they are more sustaining. My favourite are the Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Jumbo whole rolled porridge oats. Even if you cook them with just water, they give a deliciously sweet, nutty and creamy result.  Cook them on the hob with plenty of liquid rather than in the microwave – it really doesn’t take long and if you rinse the saucepan out with cold water immediately it cleans easily.

    This is my fail-safe porridge recipe:

    Go Faster Porridge, with Blueberries, Toasted Walnuts and Honey

    Pop the walnuts in the oven while you cook the porridge and you will be sitting down to breakfast within 10 minutes. The amount of liquid depends on the type of porridge you use. The less refined the oats, the more liquid you will need.

    Serves 2


    Ingredients

    100g porridge

    550 ml water or milk or ½ and ½

    Pinch of salt

    Punnet of fresh blueberries

    Handful of walnuts

    Good quality runny honey (Manuka is very good but very expensive, Greek runny honey is delicious)

    Preparation

    1. Put the oats, water and/or milk into a pan with a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil over a high heat and then turn the heat down and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. The porridge with become thick and creamy.
    2. Meanwhile, pop the nuts onto a baking tray and roast in the oven at 160°C for 5 minutes.
    3. Pour into two warmed bowls, sprinkle with the blueberries and nuts and drizzle over the honey.


    I have found it very difficult to do any blogging over the past few weeks. The deadline for my book Go Faster Food has been drawing ever closer and I have been working flat out to get it finished. I am in the final throws of proof-reading, dotting i’s and crossing t’s and such like. I have been working so hard that running has been put on the back-burner as well. I have to say that rather than feeling unfit after a break, I feel that the old joints and muscles have had a nice well-earned rest and I am now ready to start again, afresh, ready for the next few months of hard marathon training. My plans are to do London, for which I have another Good For Age entry, and then to do Stockholm with Mark (long-suffering and gorgeous husband) and some friends.

    And so to food, the stuff of life…and running…

    I have been experimenting with buckwheat recently. Despite its name, buckwheat, or sarrasin, is a member of the rhubarb family and has absolutely nothing to do with wheat. It is naturally gluten-free and has a deliciously sweet, nutty flavour. It is traditionally used in Brittany in “galettes au sarrasin”, or buckwheat pancakes. Breton galettes can be filled with any number of fillings. You could try this recipe with traditional savoury fillings – slices of brie, goat’s cheese, smoked salmon, caramelized onions or eggs, or with sweet fillings – bananas and syrup is one of my favourites. Buckwheat is a very good source of manganese, magnesium and dietary fibre. It contains flavenoids and good quality protein and is said to control blood sugar levels. It certainly keeps you full of energy for hours. The Bretons not only tend to make their galettes with dry Breton cider rather than milk and water, but they also wash them down with a few glasses of the delicious nectar. By all means try this, but not if you are about to go to the gym or run a half-marathon. This is my non-alcoholic breakfast version, which I prefer with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, or ham and cheese and a crisp, green salad.

    As with traditional pancakes, the batter is lighter if you leave it to rest for a while.

    Serving size: makes 6-7 galettes

    Ingredients

    100g buckwheat flour

    50g plain flour, wholemeal or plain

    ( The addition of plain wheat flour improves the texture of the galettes. If you want to make the pancakes gluten-free, just use 150g buckwheat flour instead)

    30g melted salted butter

    1 fresh free-range egg

    200 ml water

    100 ml semi-skimmed milk

    Scant pinch of salt

    Butter to cook

    Slices of ham and grated cheese

    Preparation

    1. Mix the two flours together, add a pinch of salt and make a small well in the centre for the egg.
    2. Break the egg into the mixture and then add the milk and half the water.
    3. Beat together with an electric hand whisk until the mixture is nice and smooth. Mix in the rest of the water and the melted butter. The mixture should be the consistency of thin cream.
    4. If possible, leave the mixture to rest for a few hours or overnight.
    5. Heat a pancake pan or large non-stick frying pan. Add a knob of butter and move the pan around so that the butter melts to cover the base of the pan. Add a small ladleful of the batter and quickly swirl it around so that you have a very thin layer of batter covering the whole of the pan. You can use a palette knife or an egg slice if you have one to spread out the mixture. Let this cook for two minutes over a medium heat, or until it comes away easily from the pan when you shake it. Then toss the pancake over and cook for a minute or two on the other side.
    6. Flip the pancake back over and then pop a very small knob of butter, a thin slice of ham and a tablespoon of grated cheese onto one half of the pancake.
    7. Fold the plain half of the pancake over the filling and then fold in half again and cook on a very gentle heat for a minute or two to melt the cheese.

    Crunchy Granola
    I think I’ve just made the perfect granola. Sprinkle it over yoghurt and fresh fruits for a quick and easy breakfast, or just snack on it whenever you feel inclined. It takes minutes to make, it keeps for ages and it is light, healthy and sustaining! And it really is one of those things that tastes so much better than the sweet, sickly packet stuff.
    I had this this morning before a quick 4 mile run. It didn’t take long to digest and kept me going perfectly.
    Crunchy Granola
    Ingredients

    200g unrefined porridge oats
    250g mixed nuts – I like flaked almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, walnuts and pistachios. Pecans and hazelnuts are nice too
    100g mixed dried fruit – raisins, crystalised ginger, dried apricots, figs and/or dates, chopped (optional)
    2 tbsp honey or maple syrup
    2 tbsp water
    2 tbsp sunflower oil or melted butter
    ½ tsp cinnamon
    ½ tsp ground ginger

    Preparation

    1. Heat the oven to 180°C.
    2. Mix together the oats and nuts with the spices and the honey, oil and water.
    3. Spread the mixture evenly onto a large baking sheet.
    4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown, turning the mixture around every 10 minutes or so for it to brown evenly.
    5. Leave to cool and crisp up and add the dried fruit if using.
    6. Store in an airtight container.
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