4-Bean Chili

Chili seems to be one of those foods that just connotes gluttony and overindulgence. Maybe that's because of all the ways that it's used as a prefix: chili fries, chili dogs, chili mac. Maybe it's because, at least in its "Texas-style" incarnation, chili is such a beef-intensive calamity. One pub in Somerville, which has a pretty good beer list and holds high romantic/sentimental value for me, but can't put together a good plate of food to save its life, boasts that its chili contains ground beef, brisket, AND two kinds of sausage. If that sounded even remotely appealing, I'd just go to Denny's, get the Meat-Lover's Grand Slam for a fraction of the price, and hasten heart disease in one fell swoop.

What really makes chili good is the stew-like texture and the complexity of seasonings. That complexity is intensified the longer the chili sits. If possible, I recommend starting the day before you intend to serve it. Sitting in the frige overnight really gives the flavors a chance to mingle.

My version makes for a fairly spicy bowlful, but that can be pretty easily adjusted if your palate runs toward more mild flavors.

Ingredients:
1 15-ounce can of kidney beans
1 15-ounce can of black beans
1 15-ounce can of pinto beans
1 15-ounce can of garbanzo beans
1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes
3 yellow onions, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped
1 tbsp white flour
1 piece (literally bite-sized) dark chocolate
1 tbsp butter
Vegetable Stock Cubes

Seasonings (to taste):
Salt
Black Pepper
White Pepper
Dry Mustard
Garlic Powder
Oregano
Chili Powder
Cumin
Cayenne
Ground Habanero (very optional)


Melt the butter and one stock cube in a medium-sized pot. Add onion, red bell pepper, jalapeno, black pepper, and salt. Mix together and cook covered over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add mustard, garlic powder, oregano, and white pepper. Reduce heat, stir, and cook for another 45 minutes. Check occasionally and add stock cubes one or two at a time if vegetables are drying out or sticking to the pot. You can also deglaze the pot with a splash of beer.

Rinse and drain all of the beans in a collander, then add to pot. Add the whole can of tomatoes (do not drain first; you want the tomato juice too). Add 5 stock cubes, stir, and cover.

In a pitcher, combine 2 cups warm water with chili powder, cumin, and cayenne (you want a roughly 2:1:1 ratio of these three seasonings, respectively). Add a few dashes of ground habanero pepper if you're using it. Stir until seasonings are dissolved and pour into pot. Continue cooking covered for as long as possible, 1 hour minimum.

(At this point, I like to turn off the heat, allow it to cool a bit, and refrigerate overnight. If you have the time, do this and then warm back up the next day and continue with directions below. If not, just continue.)

Mix 1 cup warm water with flour. Add to the pot and stir thoroughly. Leave uncovered and cook down, allowing the moisture to evaporate and the chili to thicken. When it reaches desired consistency, add the piece of chocolate. Simmer another 10 minutes and serve with grated cheddar, cornbread, and beer.

Hill Repeats

Any hardcore runner who reads the title of this entry is probably already shuddering a little bit.

Hill repeats are sort of the layup practice and fumble recovery drills of running.

OK, that's a pretty weak analogy.

But they are as fundamental to being a strong distance runner as the ability to sink a simple layup is to a well-rounded basketball player, or the instinctive pounce on a loose football (performed before the brain has even comprehended that the running back dropped it) is to a defensive tackle. That is to say, hill repeats instill in the runner certain instincts and automated responses that come in very very handy.

Run any community 5K or 5-miler, and watch the majority of runners - even very fit or fast ones - slow waaay down at the first serious incline. Because hills are not particularly fun to ascend on foot, a lot of people purposely design their practice run routes to avoid them. Race organizers, however, are seldom so courteous. With the exception of the infamously-flat Chicago Marathon, most major races, from 5K on up, will have at least one difficult climb. Heartbreak Hill, which makes its sinister appearance 20 miles into the Boston Marathon, is legendary. I got to run it in mile 6 of my first half marathon and, believe me, it is not to be trifled with. My personal favorite hometown race, The 5-mile Brew Run on Cape Cod, features an uphill in mile 4 that was clearly included just to break the will and enthusiasm of anyone who thought they might P.R. (set a personal time record).

Training with hills - not just picking hilly courses, but occasionally devoting your workout to them exclusively - works pretty efficiently to equip your legs and core (and mind) to deal with looming steepness. Hill repeats, then, are exactly what they sound like. Run a few miles to loosen up, and arrive at the steepest hill in town (preferably anywhere between 1/8 and 1/4 mile. Run up and down it. Rest a minute or two and hydrate. Do it again. And again.

Obviously, this isn't much fun. Tell a fellow runner you're doing hill work, and they will surely give you one of those cringey looks of sympathy that suggests "Aw, you're a trooper." And okay, so there's not really any way to sugar coat the monotonous grind of this particular workout. One little game I enjoy is timing the first ascent/descent repeat and then trying to break that time. Which, of course, becomes progressively more difficult, since each repeat is going to be harder than the last.

But it's worth it. Aside from the mental readiness of tackling hills in races, every leg muscle gets a rigorous (and slightly different from flat running) workout. It's also basically the best calorie-burning workout ever, if you're into that.

And in certain moments, it can be really satisfying in its own right. Like any activity that's repetitive but done with purpose and a goal in mind, the monotony can sometimes give over to a transcendent at-peace-with-the-universe kind of feeling. It helps to have the ideal hill-repeat hill only a few miles away. I'm not a big trail runner, but Middlesex Fells Reservation in north Medford - a 2,500 acre refuge from city life filled with winding, uneven dirt trails - sometimes holds a simply irresistible allure. One of these trails veers sharply off of the main trail to bring the intrepid hiker up to Wright's Tower along a 1/8(ish) mile trail that's just steep enough to look foreboding.


The Wright's Tower trail; this is what you see when you're about nine-tenths of the way up.

And at the top, this view is your reward.

Cornmeal-Crusted Tempeh over Mushroom-Lentil Stew w/ Pan Gravy

I've apparently saved the best for first. If there's ever a dish that will make you say "Who needs steak?", this is it. It's my attempt to blindly recreate a dish from True Bistro, a vegan restaurant in Somerville that was instrumental in making me decide to go veg. The gravy part is my own invention, though.

(photography by Tianna Tagami)

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 Block of garden vegetable or soy tempeh (~8 oz.)
1/3 cup dry lentils
8 white or portabello mushrooms, roughly chopped
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup white cooking wine
Vegetable Stock (preferably in cubes; see 5/3 blog entry)
2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1 cup ground cornmeal
1 tbsp Italian (or other vinegar-based) salad dressing
1/4 cup half & half
1/4 cup (max.) white flour

Seasonings (to taste)
Salt
Black pepper
White pepper
Dry mustard
Garlic powder
Onion Salt
Oregano

Prep:
Par-boil lentils for at least 45 minutes. Drain and reserve the water for another time (lentil stock is good stuff). Set lentils aside.

Cut tempeh in half and then each half down the middle to reduce thickness of each piece. Marinate in red wine vinegar. Put cornmeal in a bowl and stir in salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 225 F.

Cook:
Melt one tablespoon of butter and 2 stock cubes in a saucepan over medium heat. Add mushrooms, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Add all other spices, stir, and cover.

Simmer another 20 minutes. Add lentils and 2 more stock cubes. Cover. Mushrooms and lentils should form a thick, brothy stew. If too thick, add stock. If too thin, simmer uncovered to cook off moisture.

Add oil to skillet over high heat (turn on hood fan now). Wait for it to just start to smoke and reduce heat to medium. Dredge each marinated tempeh piece in cornmeal and put in skillet. Cook 2 minutes without moving, flip, cook another 2 minutes. Do not crowd the skillet; work in batches. When each one is finished, use spatula to cut in half diagonally, giving you a total of 8 triangular pieces. Put them in the in oven, loosely-wrapped in foil to retain moisture.

Deglaze skillet with white wine. Add 5 stock cubes and 1 tbsp butter. Wait for it to simmer, and add cream. Stir. Slowly add flour while constantly whisking. Continue until desired thickness is reached. You can always thicken with additional flour or thin with additional stock. Complete the gravy by stirring in salad dressing.

Divide the lentil-mushroom stew among 2 plates. Top with tempeh and drizzle gravy over the top. Sprinkle with grated parmesan and serve immediately with a side of steamed broccoli or asparagus.

Running, Addiction, Tolerance, Withdrawal

At a certain point I transitioned from running as a way to stay in relatively decent shape and get outdoors when the weather was nice to being a runner. I think I can pinpoint it, in fact, to a rainy day shortly before Thanksgiving of 2009, when I registered for my first half marathon and immediately - even though the race wasn't for another 6 months - wondered what the hell I'd gotten myself into.

Put it this way. Before that 2009-10 season, I actually took winters off.

That's when "running" became "training." But this is in most ways a good thing. It's good to have at least one thing in my life, other than work, that I feel like I'm doing to the hilt. And it's good to have purpose when you lace up your shoes and track your intended route online and start stretching on the front porch. And the whole "staying in shape and enjoying being outside" part sticks around.

But funny things start to happen. Distances that once seemed like major accomplishments are suddenly referred to as "my short run." The first time I ever logged 5 whole miles, I was in 6th grade. One sunny spring afternoon, I ran 8 laps around what my family termed "the long block" - a neighborhoody loop of .6 miles that happened to be contiguous with my paper route - plus a single lap around the self-explanatory "short block." The sense of achievement that accompanied this run was enormous, and right up until 3 years ago, a 5 mile run was basically the gold standard of a difficult workout. I could do it, but man oh man, I would sleep like a baby that night and be stiff as an old man the next morning.

When running turns into training, suddenly it's "Hmm, I have 45 minutes before I need to get ready for work. Guess I'll get 5 miles in."

And while it's surely a sign of ever-increasing endurance, strength, and drive, it's also kind of frustrating to not feel like you put in a solid effort if your day's mileage is anything less than 15.

Another issue is that having to stop running can produce physical and mental reactions that are, from what I've seen in mainstream movies and filmstrips from the D.A.R.E. era, not unlike withdrawal from hard drugs. I had to skip 4 solid days of training after spraining my ankle (to be fair, I thought I was going to miss a full week), and by Day 2 I was all but throwing things at the wall. I intensely envied every runner I saw on the sidewalk, whether he or she was out for a languid jog or performing the telltale acceleration from race-pace to sprint that suggests a fartleking* distance runner.

But so the point is that it wasn't just me fretting about lost training time. There's something more. The body actually becomes accustomed to the strenuous effort required to run multiple miles. The brain - and distance running is hugely psychological - begins to wonder why it isn't getting the dopamine rush that comes with a late-run speed kick or the mild runner's highs that ebb and flow on lucky days. Favorite high-energy songs suddenly seem bland when they're accompanying a drive to the grocery store instead of a nasty uphill at mile 12. I have no data or scientific background to offer this claim as anything but anecdotal. But when I can't run, even though I know logically that a few days rest is actually good for my training and that aggravating a sprained ankle will only make it worse, the irrational, id-driven, let's-have-ice-cream-for-dinner, immediate gratification-seeking voice - the Me Me Me that precedes the civilized human - wants only to run, shaky ankle notwithstanding. This kind of obsessive tendency could have worse objects, like, say, actual drugs. But it seems to work in the same way.


*Yes, this is a thing, albeit an unfortunately-named thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek

Vegetable Stock & Other Necessities

Before I get to actual recipes, I want to go over some items that every runner, especially those who have rejected animal flesh as a source of sustenance, should have in their pantry.

Vegetable Stock

Veggie stock is a staple of my cooking. Almost every recipe that I share on this blog calls for it. You can buy cartons of it at the store, but even Whole Foods sells salty, sodium-laden versions. It's easy to make it yourself, and satisfying to know that you're not wasting any vegetable material.

From now on, whenever you cut up vegetables, SAVE all of the scrap that you would normally throw away. All the onion peels and broccoli stalks and zucchini ends that you don't actually want to eat should go in the freezer in an airtight bag. When the bag is full (it doesn't take long), dump it into a good-size pot, add water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let it simmer as long as possible, up to 12 hours. If you need to leave the house, kill the heat, cover it, and turn it back on when you get home. Periodically take a potato masher to it to really churn all available nutrients into the liquid.

Let the pot cool a bit. Put a pasta strainer over a large bowl, and empty the pot. Continue using the potato masher to get all the liquid out of the (now completely waterlogged and mushy) vegetables. You should have a bowl full of orange-green liquid. Let it get to room temperature, and pour some into a jar for refrigeration and near-future use. Pour the rest into ice cube trays, freeze, and then pop out into a freezer bag. Now you have a whole bag full of single-use stock.

I use these little guys for everything. Lentil stew drying out too fast? Add some stock cubes. Making soup? Add a whole bunch of stock cubes to create broth. Eventually, you'll find yourself reaching for these instead of butter or oil when a recipe needs moisture. And since they're nothing but pure vegetable juice, you'll be adding 100% Healthy Awesomeness to your dish every time.


Protein Powder

You know how vegetarians tend to be stereotyped as weaklings? It probably has to do with the fact that the number-one vegetarian concern is protein intake. And protein is the stuff that allows muscularity to happen. While I'm very much of the belief that protein supplements should be exactly that - SUPPLEMENTS to a diet of legumes, beans, protein-rich fruits and vegetables, etc. - I'm also pretty reliant on Whole Foods brand whey protein powder. While you definitely don't want to just stir it into some water, as the package suggests (trust me on this), you can make a great recovery smoothie with this stuff as the final ingredient. I recommend the vanilla flavor (though I wish they sold a "plain" version).

Post-Run/Workout Smoothie Recipe
Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Plan Nonfat Yogurt
1 Banana
1/2 Cup Frozen Strawberries
1/2 Cup Frozen Blueberries
4 Baby Carrots, chopped
1/2 Cup Juice (I use Odwalla Superfood OR Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness)
1 Scoop Whole Foods Vanilla Whey Protein Powder
1 Egg (optional)

Blend all ingredients except last two. If mixture seems to thick, add juice. Turn blender to low and add protein powder. If you're feeling adventurous, crack a raw egg into it. Tell people you did this. They'll think you're hardcore.


Tofu

Tofu gets a bad rap, but it's tremendously versatile. Softer tofus can be blended into soups and sauces, and firm tofu can be cooked just like meat (although tempeh, which is basically the same soy-based product, only fermented, is more satisfying for this purpose). Basically, tofu has no inherent flavor of its own; it absorbs and highlights whatever flavor you cook it in. Some people just can't get past the texture; but it can be managed. My favorite technique is to braise it in small chunks, freeze them, and break them out for any recipe that needs a protein boost.

Braised Balsamic Tofu Recipe
Preheat oven to 375.

Start with a block of Extra Firm tofu. Cut it into rectangular hunks. I find the ideal size pieces are produced when the whole block is cut in a 5x7 grid.

Lightly oil a skillet and put over medium heat. Lay the tofu pieces in a single layer. Liberally season to taste. I prefer sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion salt, and oregano.

Sear tofu pieces for 5 minutes and flip. The underside should be lightly browned. Sear another 5 minutes.

N.B. The heat may squeeze milky liquid soy out of the tofu, which interferes with the braise. Carefully pour this liquid into a bowl, let it cool, then add it to your vegetable stock bag.

Put the skillet in the oven and let cook for 25 minutes. Remove, flip tofu pieces, and cook another 10 minutes. By now they should be crisp and dark. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and let sit for 10 minutes.

Transfer tofu to a paper towel-lined plate to cool. Put in an airtight bag to freeze. Now you can add a few protein-rich pieces to salads, rice dishes, curries, pizza, and anything else whenever you please. The cooking process leaves them flavorful and crispy (as opposed to the bland mush that is tofu's cross to bear).


As long as my freezer has braised tofu and veggie stock, and there's a canister of whey protein powder in the cupboard, I feel confident that I can get the protein and vitamins necessary for a long run.

Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate...

I consulted my training log shortly afterward and discovered that this injury - which has kept me off the road for four infuriating days and counting - occurred on my 500th mile of the year.

The day's goal was to log 22 miles in a nice circuitous loop through northwest Medford, Winchester, Stoneham, Malden, Somerville, and back into Medford. It was 4 weeks and 2 days before my first marathon and this seemed like the ideal time to do my longest training run.

My pre-run planning was meticulous. 4 ounces of vegan "breakfast sausage" scrambled with 2 eggs. Banana with peanut butter. Diluted Gatorade laced with creatine and Vega electrolyte powder. I stretched for hours and fiddled with an ideal playlist.

Perhaps it was all the preparation that made it difficult to just throw in the towel when I misstepped from the sidewalk down to the road and rolled my left ankle under my full body weight. Perhaps I should have accepted that I hurt myself 1/4 of a mile into the run and hobbled back home. Perhaps the fact that I could still see my house when it happened was a sign. But I am stubborn and I really really hate when I make a plan and it gets derailed, and so I pressed on and ran 17 miles.

And now here I am, blogging about running instead of running. Rewrapping my ankle for the zillionth time and wondering if resting it on my desk while I type achieves enough elevation to be helpful. Maybe the sprain was as bad as it was going to be and the 17 miles I forced it to complete under duress didn't really make any difference. And considering how much time I spend training on the rocky, uneven, steeply-pitched trails at Middlesex Fells Reservation, it's a little embarrassing that this happened on a sidewalk in the suburbs.

While there's no telling where I'd be if I'd done some things differently on Friday, I can begrudgingly admit that two good things emerged from this.

1. With encouragement from my beautiful, patience-of-a-saint-having girlfriend Tianna, who has already taken in stride way more whining about my not being able to run than anyone should have to, I've decided to spend some time writing about running in general and marathon training in particular. But since I don't have the writing talent to put into words the adrenaline-suffused thrill I get from running, and since no one wants to read a blog that just announces distances, times, and routes every day, I thought I'd also write about my other passion: cooking. Since every serious runner eventually realizes that "gee, it's almost like there's a correlation between what I put in my body and the way that my body performs when I make it do physically challenging things," I've become just as attuned to diet as I am to my training. I've also recently cut meat entirely out of my diet. I'll be sharing my own recipes that are both meatless and runner-friendly.

2. Up until now, the idea of taking more than one day off from running in a row was unthinkable. Now it's looking like I'll be laid up for at least a week. If nothing else, my appreciation for the ecstatic joys of running has been reified tenfold.

When this sucker heals up, I'm going to hit the road with a vengeance.