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Broad Bean & Pea Salad w/ Zingy Dressing

DSC_0172 DSC_0140Let’s talk about me and my attempt to be fit and healthy. I’m not very good at it. My excuse? Work. The real reason? Lack of motivation/pizza. All the pizza. But also, kinda work. Since coming back from Kenya, on a number of occasions I have said “I don’t feel right in my body”. Meaning, my bod needs some fruit, veg and vitamins and such. My heart rate needs to be raised a little. And unfortunately the increase in heart rate caused by the anticipation of watching the dominos pizza tracker probably doesn’t count as “cardio”. I wish. I know the root of the problem is me. But I am about to launch an attack on Social Media….

Bean & Pea Bean and Pea

Everybody uses social media these days. Even grandparents! I know right?! I am not really going to launch an attack on social media. I am just going to moan a bit about how deluded we are at risk of becoming, should be believe everything we see on our instagram feed. Still haven’t got to my point have I. There’s two parts to my point. The first is about “healthy lifestyle”, the second is about “body image”. Let’s go with body image first. It’s a well known fact that young people these days have issues with “body image”, largely due to social media. We see all these girls (I am taking the ladies point of view here) looking great, wearing great clothes, with great faces, and we think “well great, I sure don’t look like that”. Even if we don’t think we are consciously affected by what we see, it must have an effect on us right? I reckon so. I also reckon I got my effects and my affects the wrong way round.

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The other day I saw this article on The Independent “What the ideal woman looks like in 18 different countries”. As I was looking through I found I was a little surprised and relieved at what people considered to be “beautiful”. I was surprised because very few of the women pictured were stick thin and they all seemed pretty “normal” looking. This was when I realised that I clearly had been sucked in to accepting the medias portrayal of what a good, healthy body looks like. We forget that half the pictures we see are either edited or are taken at just the right angle so all the wrong lumps and bumps are hidden. We forget that the Kendal Jenner’s of the world pay good money to look the way they do. We forget it’s probably not healthy! (We also forget they are like 17 and have probably never worked a day in their lives).

DSC_0168So with our warped view on “body image” we then have to deal with having a “healthy lifestyle”. According to instagram you’ve gotta eat a smoothie bowl for breakfast, drink “detox water” all day, have a carb free lunch, gluten-free vegan dinner and a chia pudding for dessert. You also must do yoga at 6am every morning, run to work, run on your lunch break, work-out when you’re done with work and sleep 8hrs every night.  WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?! Seriously. As if I didn’t feel bad enough about the number of times I go to Stokey Bears in a month. As with the body image thing, what we don’t realise is that people just pick and choose to show you these perfect little snippets of their life. Ok, I am sure there are some super humans out there who some how manage to maintain this “healthy lifestyle” but I am also sure that half of these people probably eat a large bar of cadburys in bed on a Sunday night. I don’t do that because I don’t like cadburys.

DSC_0142These things bother me enough to make me feel bad but clearly don’t actually motivate me to want to change my life because it just seems unrealistic. All I do is turn my nose up and tut a bit. I think my point was, being healthy and fit and loving your body should be something you do for you. You should be comfortable in your own skin and you should be comfortable with how you go about trying to achieve this. Don’t let the queens/kings of social media fool you into thinking their way is the right way or that you need to look like them! (I say “you”, as if I am talking to anyone but myself. AS IF.)

DSC_0173 DSC_0172To end this rant nobody wanted to read I will make you a promise. I promise I will think about exercising at least once a day and eventually take action upon this thought. I also promise to never eat pot noodle for dinner again. It was a one time thing. No-one had topped up the gas so I couldn’t exactly cook anything…

Here’s a salad that won’t break the bank or cause you to break into a sweat.

Recipe

This is a KB.eats original. I highly recommend purchasing unpodded peas and broad beans. There is something quite satisfying about podding your own peas. Maybe that’s just me! I guess you could also use the frozen varieties but fresh is always best!

Serves: 4
Prep Time: 15 mins (not including podding time)
Cooking time: 20-25 mins
Skill level: Pease a cake

Equipment
Chopping board
Knife
Non stick frying pan
Saucepan x 2
Mixing bowl
Hand blender
Ingredients
200g wild/brown rice (I used a mix)
1 medium courgette (sliced into thin rounds)
clove garlic (crushed)
1 tbsp olive oil
500g fresh peas
500g fresh broad beans 
250-300g fresh spinach leaves (up to you how many leaves you want)
Dressing
(The quantities of the ginger and chillies is really dependent on how much spice you like. Take this as your minimum and add more if you like! Same goes for the honey.)
red chillies (deseeded)
10g ginger
150ml extra virgin olive oil
juice of lemon
1-2tsp honey 

 

Method

  1. Begin by cooking the rice according to packet instructions.
  2. In a frying pan over low-med heat, add 1 tbsp olive oil and crushed garlic. Cook until garlic stars to becomes slightly golden.
  3. Add courgette slices and stir, coating the slices with oil and garlic. Increase heat slightly and cook until courgette pieces become slightly translucent (you want a bit of bite to them). Set aside.
  4. Bring a pan of water to boil. Add broad beans and cook for 2 mins before adding peas and cooking for a further 3mins. Remove from heat and drain (if you’re feeling fancy, put peas & beans in a bowl in ice cold water so they retain a vibrant green colour).
  5. When the rice, beans, peas and courgette are ready, mix together in large mixing bowl and season to taste.
  6. To make the dressing, blend together chilli, ginger, oil, lemon and honey using a hand blender, until you have a smooth, thick liquid.
  7. Taste your dressing adding more of the above ingredients if you so wish.
  8. To assemble salad, make a bed of spinach leaves. Spoon on rice and veg mix. Drizzle over dressing.  Best served al fresco in the garden or by a window if you live in the city and don’t have a garden!

I THINK YOU’LL FIND THIS SALAD VERY RICE AND PEASING

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Todays tune is by Belle & Sebastian. I am going to be working at Festival No.6 with Yolk in a couple of weeks and will hopefully catch these guys. They were pretty swell at Glastonbury.

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