My chia seed and kohlrabi discoveries

I can't belive I haven't blogged since the weekend!!! Where the hell has this week gone????

soaking...

smoothie!

So, I have a new health-fix in my life - chia seeds. It turns out these guys are a superior source of calcium, fibre, protein, omega 3, antioxidants and an array of vitamins and minerals. I learned that here. They can be eaten raw but I like to soak my seeds, and chia go the weirdest gel-like texture when soaked that is ideal to thicken smoothies and puddings, for example. I made this green smoothie with the chia seeds, spinach, yoghurt, blueberries and barley grass. It tasted rather 'green' but it really had that feel-good after effect!


I have also made it into a kind of pudding, soaking the seeds in yoghurt for a couple of hours and then topping with fresh slices of pear. The seeds weren't 'bitty' or 'seedy' at all, and gave the yoghurt a smooth texture and seemed to me to take away some of sourness plain yoghurt can have.

chia pear pudding

Tonight I finally got around to using the kohlrabi from the market. I had some kohlrabi, I had some chickpeas. Googling these ingredients together threw up the most perfect, easy meal: Kohlrabi and Chickpea Stew. I followed this recipe to the letter (though I halved it and had it all to myself - YUM!) so I won't bother regurgitating it (....I mean the recipe). It was so delicious, though very spicey (my chia pear pudding did well afterwards as a fire extinguisher), and it turns out the kohlrabi has a flavour rather like broccoli stalks, which is unsurprising given that kohlrabi, like broccoli, is part of the brassica family. The stew had a very North African feel which reminded me of a recipe for Chachouka that I had read about in my Hugh Fernley Whittingstall book, which can also be found here. Chachouka incorporates an egg in the centre of a stew mixture, so to up the protein in my dinner, I served up my stew and made a little well in the centre and cracked an egg inside, cooking it together in the microwave for a few minutes. I was rather pleased with how it turned out :-)

In exercise news, I have been keeping up my lifting program and I'm steadily noticing improvements each time, particularly with my shoulders. It may go a little pear-shaped tomorrow though as I am travelling 200 miles to go to my graduation and 200 miles back again, meaning I'll miss my usual spin class and my scheduled back workout. There's a spin class at 7am which isn't wholly out of the question, though I think I'll see how I am in the morning ;-)

Speak to you again on the other side, when I'm officially a graduate!

Hannah xx