Next Rave Run Join Rob at Portscatho on 27th May 2012
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In our regular series, this month Hana shares a tasty sounding cake recipe. She assures us it’s virtuous, but seriously who wants to be virtuous where cake’s involved? Not me, slather on the butter Hana!
Not quite Malt Loaf
Well I have been very slacking of late with providing you avid readers/runners with a tasty morsel that could aid your recovery after a long race/run.
Well daughter has moved up north to further her education and to practise her “Northern accent”, the words Malt loaf were the easiest to say with such an accent. It then reminded me of an article I read in some walking or running magazine about the virtues of such an item of culinary delight.
Now my version is similar in texture and ingredients, but as the title suggests without the “Malt”. It comes from an old faithful recipe book I have, written by Mary Berry, and is so tasty and really sin free, you’ll love it.
The only fat in it, comes from one egg, and for even the most cake making shy person, you can’t fail.
It is of course a…
Bara Brith
 Mmmmm, cake! Ingredients:
- 12oz/350g mixed dried fruit (like the stuff you make an Xmas cake out of)
- 8oz/225g Light Muscovado sugar
- 10fl oz/300 ml strong hot tea
- 10oz/275g self raising flour
- 1 egg beaten
Method
- Measure the fruit and sugar into a bowl, pour over the hot tea, cover and leave overnight (or all day if you prep it in the morning before going to work)
- Preheat an oven 150c/300f/Gas 2 (fan oven 140c)
- Lightly grease and line the base of a 2lb/900g loaf tin with baking parchment
- Stir the flour and egg into the fruit mixture, mix thoroughly then pour it into the loaf tin and level the surface
- Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hrs (fan oven 1 ¼ hrs) until well risen and firm to the touch, a fine skewer should come out clean
- Allow to cool in the tin for about 10 mins then turn out onto a cooling rack.
You can eat this as it is, if you are virtuous, but if you are anything like me, I like it with a thick spread of butter, yes BUTTER on it.
SCRUMMY!
You’ll find it is much tastier than that “Soreen” malt loaf at Tesco’s, so why not give it a go?
Hana
 Hana I was reading the Telegraph the other day and came across an article perfect for a ‘nutrition’ review. It was titled
Alcohol-free beer helps runners avoid colds
The article stated:
“Marathon runners and other athletes should drink alcohol free beer to lower their risk of suffering inflamation and catching colds, researchers claim.”
At this point I wondered what planet they come from, so read on.
Scientists studied almost 280 healthy entrants for several weeks before and after the 2009 Munich Marathon giving some 1.5litres a day of alcohol free wheat beer and others a placebo. 1.5 litres of any liquid, fill me with dread…well not dread, but i won’t expand anymore.
What on earth would you use as a placebo…cold tea would never work…maybe they use beer with alcohol?????
“Tests after the race showed those given the beer had a third fewer colds and a 20% lower level of inflamation than those given the placebo” said Dr Johannes Scherr of Munich Technical University.
I’m not convinced.
“Non-alcoholic beer contains polyphenols, chemicals that have strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.” Doesn’t red wine and dark chocolate have the same properties?
Anyone wanting to try out the two theories? I bags the red wine one…how about you?
Read more about the study on Science Daily
Hana
Fancy trying something new? Our illustrious food and drink reviewer Hana Clitherow has procured some free tasters of For Goodness Shakes sports recovery drinks from Clive Mitchell. She’ll be bringing one of each available flavour to the club after Wednesday’s run when she’ll be shaking her stuff and handing them out for us to try. Some of our members “swear by them” says Hana, so why not stick around after your run and see why! If you like them you can get them from Clive Mitchell in Truro town centre or from Clive Mitchell on Amazon too – just follow the link below 
 Hana In the first of Hana’s monthly reviews, she tries out a sports recovery drink for the first time…
For Goodness Shakes
A very good friend of mine (Julie Johns) gave me for my birthday last year, a year’s subscription to Runners World (great read but not what I’ve been asked to write about). Anyway, a couple of months ago, attached to the front cover of this magazine was a sample sachet of “For Goodness Shakes” milkshake powder recovery drink. With the words ‘ENERGISE REBUILD and HYDRATE World class performance and taste’, written along side it’s brand name.
Now I’m not a great fan of food stuff like this, but I thought I’d give it go, so out it came in the race HQ at the Trevornick 10 mile race recently.
It’s a build it yourself drink i.e. open sachet and add to water then shake. Simple you would think, but not when you haven’t brought the right size bottle with you. I had read the instructions and it stated “easy to use”:
- Pour 450ml of water into your water bottle (I did that)
- Add sachet contents (I started to do that, but my bottle size was 500ml and powder plus the water already in the bottle didn’t give me enough room! Ah, luckily bottle number two came to hand and a little decanting did the trick.
- Close lid (in my case two lids)
- Shake and drink within 20 mins.
Throughout this process, two lovely little girls (Isobel’s daughters) watched avidly, hoping I would make a mess, but thankfully the shake behaved itself as did I. With a slightly screwed up nose and with a little trepidation I sipped the shake, then finished it off. Banana was the listed flavour, but there is no mention of banana in the list of ingredients, but it tasted like banana. A little sweet for me, but it’s texture wasn’t too thick so it was consumed with ease.
The nutritional information down the side of the sachet is far too small for me to read with my glasses on or off, and my husband’s arms don’t stretch far enough away for the print to become readable for him to read out, so I won’t be listing the endless details. If I could read it, would it make any difference to whether I drank it or used it to stick wall paper up with…..….probably not.
Drink consumed, tasted fine and my legs did not ache one jot that evening!
So was it the recovery drink that stopped my evening-after-race leg-ache or running on grass and sand at Trevornick? I can’t answer that one yet, but Lynne Donohue swears by them, and I’ll take one with me for after the Plymouth Half Marathon at the end of the month and give it a road trial.
The shakes come in sachets and a ready made version, which I found in the chilled section of Sainsbury’s, but the sachets have the advantage of not needing to be stored somewhere cold, which the boot of the car is definitely not this time of year!!! And they have a much longer shelf life!
Cost
Well the first sachet was free, but I have found a local supplier for them. (I’m a advocate of buying local I’m afraid!!!!)
Clive Mitchell Cycles
6 Calenick street
Truro
They sell the sachets at £1.99 each, or for £15 you can purchase the “World Class Sports Recovery Kit” which includes 8 assorted sachets
- 2 x choc malt
- 2 x Vanilla
- 2 x Banana
- 2 x Superberry
PLUS a 750ml water bottle… So no more not being able to get all the powder in the bottle and shake!!!!! Not a bad deal I thought. They even swapped the chocolate flavour for another, as I only eat chocolate in bars (no silly, not bars as in pubs!!!!!) or in a pudding, not in drink form…yuk!
As I said I was going to feature this item on our web site, Clive Mitchell’s also gave me 10% discount, maybe they would do the same for all you club members as well? However, if you can’t get in to Truro you can order single sachets from Clive Mitchell on Amazon (handy eh?!)
So go on, try one and then give your views on the taste, cost and whether they work. Easier than me mashing a real banana and trying to squeeze it down the neck of my 500ml drinks bottle then adding milk sugar etc…
Oh and before I forget, I tried the ready mixed “For Goodness Shakes” Super berry flavour recovery drink before driving home after Boconnoc this weekend. Tasted quite nice and the legs feel fine. Still have joggers head though!
Hana
And a good bowl of pasta apparently! Hana’s valiantly agreed to write us a monthly ‘nutrition’ review, which is a loose term for ‘food and stuff that Hana is going to try out and tell us whether she likes it or not’! I think we can expect frank opinions and a good dose humour; after all, Hana’s inimitable take on things is guaranteed to make you smile over your nutritionally correct pre-race carbo loading!
Before she gets down to business though she thought we might like to know a bit about her foody qualifications…
 Hana Over to Hana!
Whilst sat at my computer trying to book a hotel in Bedford for my son’s RAF graduation, and preparing my body with some hydration for the Trevornick 10, in the form of a large whiskey Mac (double measure of blended scotch with a single measure of Stones ginger wine), I received an email from Steph, asking if I would put together a monthly slot on nutrition.
I sat and thought, what qualifications have I got for this role…….none really. As I type I have a chilli, tomato and coriander sausage casserole simmering on the hob, and next to that I have chicken thighs simmering in white wine…..not all to eat tonight, but to put in the freezer in preparation for the horrid shifts I will be working from now on.
I have worked in catering from home and in a local private hospital, when the kids were small. From home I was cooking predominately for the squash teams at Truro squash Club. Their main criteria for team meals was that they sat well in the stomach when consumed alongside the main form of squash players’ rehydration: Beer, with Betty Stoggs on the label.
I have personally found, that after a session at a fitness class or a run on a Wednesday night at TRC, that a bowl of pasta and a glass of red wine, aid recovery well.
I put all my headaches down to “Joggers Head” not wine, and I have one right now, a headache that is, with not a drop of alcohol having passed my lips, not even when I added the wine to the chicken.
Can you see the main theme running through my food and nutrition knowledge??????
Perhaps I should write a wine and beer guide instead Steph????
I think my mistake was passing on my “Ironman bar” recipe to you all, but any way, I will attempt to write an article on the NEW Sports Recovery drink I tried today, called “For Goodness SHAKES” and see where we go from there.
Please feel free to make any comments you like, I am thick skinned, and at my age, I’m past caring any way!
Hana
 Tasty! If you were at the club on Wednesday night you might have been lucky enough to taste one of Hana’s Ironman Bars. She generously brought them in for us to share – and they didn’t last long! So did you taste one? What did you think, will you be making our next batch?! See Hana’s recipe if you’d like to give it a go, or maybe you’ve got a recipe of your own to share?
Happy munching!
Stephie
This is the first in an occasional series of favourite pre and post run/race meals enjoyed by our members. Nutrition for runners can be a tricky thing and it seems to take some experimenting for new runners to get it right, so why not share what works for you with the rest of the club? Equally, if you have something other than the favoured jelly babies that you take on your long runs for a burst of energy, let us know what it is. Email me with your recipes (photos would be great too!) and I’ll add them to the new blog section, which you’ll be able to find in the menu above under ‘nutrition’. Don’t forget to let us know what you think if you make one of the recipes and leave a comment too!
On a personal note – don’t eat poached eggs before a long run unless you want a dodgy tummy half way through!!
Over to Hana…
Hana Clitherow gives us her recipe for the perfect post race treat.
Tasty! Ironman Bars
This was a recipe i found years ago developed for people who were training for triatholons. I just ate them for fun!
Ingredients
- 175g/6oz Rolled oats (Porridge to you and I)
- 25g/1oz Desiccated coconut
- 125g/4 1/2 oz mix of dried fruits finely chopped (eg prunes and apricots or i use cranberries and blueberries which need no chopping)
- 25g/1oz sunflower seeds
- 125ml/4floz sunflower oil
- 4 tablespoons Runny honey or syrup
- 50g/1 3/4oz light muscovado sugar
Method
- Grease and line the base of a shallow 11″ x 7″ tin with parchment
- Stir all the dry ingredients together
- Place the oil, honey and sugar in a pan heat gently until the sugar melts, but do not boil
- Add the dry ingredients to the oil mixture and stir off the heat
- Spoon into the tin and bake for 20 – 25 mins in a preheated oven at 18ºc (if using a fan oven reduce the temp to 175ºc and don’t preheat)
- Take out of the oven when golden brown, mark out the slices you want but leave to cool in the tin, before turning out.
It takes a few trial runs to get the texture you want. If you cook them too long they become very crisp and the dentist might not like you eating them, and they will be very soft and collapse if you cook them for too short a time!
Tastes great with a cuppa after a long run, or short run or even a walk.
Enjoy!
Hana
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