The Vegetable Challenge With AO.Com And BioChef
Ah January, time to dry out, shape up, and make lists of goals and dreams. As the month draws to a close I can tell you that I have been feeling splendid. Absolutely fricking busy and overwhelmed with work, but health-wise there's been some changes. Due to a knee injury I haven't been able to become the semi-professional athlete I'd hoped this month (jokes!), so instead I've turned to food to kick-start what will hopefully be my healthiest year yet. I've got electrical retail giant ao.com to thank for this, they set me a challenge to eat only vegetables (and a few pulses and herbs) for dinner for one week to prove that they provide all the balanced nutrition we need. You don't need a bit of this food group and that food group in every single meal; veggies can deliver protein, fibre, calcium, and vitamins, and they look real nice and colourful too. ao.com kindly gave me the BioChef Professional Cold Press Juicer (above) and it has been so good for making veggie juice, fruit juice, and even nut milk. I've always been put off juicers as they seem kinda complicated and hard to clean, but my stay at NuBeginnings included a whole session on juicing with a nutritionist, and I've been using the recipe book NuBeginnings gave me to whip up some tasty juices (the juicer also comes with a recipe book too). The BioChef is insanely easy to use and clean, by the way, take it from someone who struggles to even open doors sometimes, and will pull them when they need to be pushed as other people stare at me like I'm mental.
For the challenge ao.com sent over a box of fresh vegetables and some recipe ideas, but gave me free rein to come up with what I'd like. Usually I buy veggies to be side dishes for meals, or at the very most to star in a stir fry or salad on their own. To have a box of items that would make up all my evening meals for a week was quite exciting, and it struck me how much I loved having so much health in the kitchen in one go. I should remember to display bowls of fruits and vegetables all the time, it really spurs me on to eat healthily. Here's a few things I came up with. This one (below) is actually a go-to meal I do when I can't be bothered to cook much. It's mashed sweet potato with steamed vegetables, and I would probably just have kidney beans with this, but didn't have any so I opened an old tin of mixed beans (which was pretty grim). Weird beans aside, it's a nice easy meal, prepared and cooked in 20 minutes tops, and sweet potatoes are great for potassium, fibre, and vitamins A and C.
The whole world and his wife is trying courgetti at the moment; spaghetti made from courgettes instead of pasta. Of course I had to give it a go, using a very handy hand-held spiraliser that I nabbed on Amazon for about £5. It's easy to use and clean afterwards - my key objectives for any cooking appliance. I make my own chickpea 'bolognese sauce' for pasta, so I tried it out with the courgetti, and it was scrumptious! Here's how I made it.
ao.com had suggested making a vegetable curry, and given me the ingredients to make a madras, including the hottest sauce known to man. I'm not good with spicy food, so luckily they gave me some creme fraiche to cool it down, a healthy alternative to sour cream. Pretty much like a stir fry, you can pile whatever you want into a veggie curry. I made new potatoes and cauliflower my main ingredients (the latter being great for omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins), with added carrots, sweet potato, green beans, spinach, and lots of onion and garlic. It definitely warmed me up, and I liked how filling and exciting some humble vegetables could be made. During the week I also enjoyed making lentil and vegetable soup, and one night just enjoyed a bowl of steamed broccoli with garlic salt - so filling and nutritious.
Do you think you could do the vegetable challenge for a week? You can add some little extras like tin tomatoes, curry paste, soy sauce, pulses and beans, maybe some freshly squeezed citrus or delicious fresh herbs. You can roast, stir fry, boil, steam, bake, mash, juice and blend. I'm vegetarian, so it's no loss to me to just have vegetables, but it made a refreshing change to do without things like rice, pasta, and 'meat-replacements' (hate that term) such as Quorn.
ao.com have made it super easy for everyone with this amazing online cook book - there's recipe ideas for a range of vegetables, methods for preparing and cooking them, and ideas for electrical appliances that can help you be a veggie whiz in the kitchen. I'm loving the beetroot ones (feta cheese, yes please!) and the kale section - I love adding this to my juicer or turning it into chewy chips. This has been a fab challenge, and I'm hundred percent into my juicing now. Pass the kale!