By Yard Athletics – Feb 19th, 2019

Hope everyone had a restful Family Day weekend! Great news… for the next few weeks, Yard Athletics will be hosting a promotion from EPIC Provisions, giving away some of their famous performance and meat bars, free of charge.

EPIC Provisions was founded by Katie and Taylor Collins in Austin TX, after years following strict vegan and vegetarian diets that left them with many unidentified ailments and health issues. Deciding they needed a lifestyle change that satisfied both their active lifestyles, as well as environmental beliefs, they started EPIC, offering a variety of grass fed meat, fruit and nut bars and other products.

Yard Athletics is really excited about the promotion, so the next time you’re in the gym ask us for a sample and we will HOOK. YOU. UP.

#YardHard

The post Free EPIC Bars at Yard Athletics! Feb 19th – March 8th appeared first on Yard Athletics.

By Natalie Cumberbirch – Jan 16th, 2019

New year, new you. New goals, resolutions, ambitions, intentions. Drink more water, eat more greens, try new recipes. They’re all great. I’ve set the goal of writing food posts – one per month, maybe you’ll get two. Now I’ve said it, it’s out there; no backing down now!

As I made my dinner tonight, I did some things I wanted to share. Little “tricks” (at least I think they are) that will up your cooking game 100%. All are simple, easy adjustments that bring flavor and body to any meal you’re making.

Tip 1:

ALWAYS use equal parts butter and extra virgin olive oil when cooking. This could be when you’re sautéing an onion, frying an egg, finishing off steamed broccoli or roasting a chicken. You’re going to get that buttery flavor, but also the fragrance of olive oil. Best of both worlds.

Tip 2:

Anytime you’re using aromatics- spices- cook them out first. You’re making curry, chili, tacos, a wet spice rub. Get your butter and olive oil in the pan, then toss in all your spices and let the spices open up. You’ll smell them. They’ll be that much more potent and intense in your meal.

Tip 3:

Whenever you’re diluting something, use a stock. Whenever you’re cooking a starch – rice, quinoa, bulgar – use a stock. Anytime you’re making a sauce from drippings, use a stock.

You get the idea. Where you traditionally would use water, switch it up for a low sodium veggie, chicken, or whatever stock you prefer. Low sodium is key. You’re just adding flavor to your dish, where water would stretch your flavor thin.

Here’s a simple recipe using all these tips. Maybe you’re into it, maybe you’re not. But it’s damn delicious and full of them healthy fats and greens; all things good for you. Suitable for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight snack.

BOWL

In a frying pan, add roughly ½ tsp butter and ½ tsp extra virgin olive oil. Over medium low heat, add your spices. I went for a Moroccan mix. Sweat these out for 5-8 minutes, till the smell intensifies.

Add ½ c red or white quinoa, and toast this up a bit. You’ll hear them popping, crackling; that’s all good. Stir the quinoa in your spices, and once you feel they’re toasted enough, add in your stock. For exact liquid volumes, follow according to package.

Once your quinoa (or grain of choice) is cooked, add in a can of black beans or chickpeas. If you’re well prepared, you’ll have made these from dried bean state. But I’m rarely that organized.

Still on the heat, I add two massive handfuls of raw spinach to the pan, and cook those out.

So you’ve got Moroccan spiced quinoa with black beans and spinach. Great! Now, separately have some water boiling with a splash of white vinegar in it. Poach yourself an egg. I love me a soft – medium poach; that yolk doubles as a dressing.

TO ASSEMBLE

In a bowl, place a handful of mixed greens, arugula, or spinach. Whatever you prefer. Spoon on some of your hot quinoa / bean / spinach melange.

Sprinkle on a tablespoon of hemp hearts.

Crumble a little goat cheese, or feta, on top.

Get half an avocado on there.

And that poached egg.

Salt and pepper.

The post Up Your Cooking Game w/ Natalie Cumberbirch appeared first on Yard Athletics.

By Henry Gould – Oct 3rd, 2018

It’s Thanksgiving weekend! For some of you, that means going home to families houses, eating the traditional roast turkey with cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy mashed potatoes, the whole 9 yards. And that’s all great. But for others, it might mean a smaller gathering of a few friends, maybe two or three, which doesn’t necessitate getting an enormous turkey and spending half the day trying to brine it because Bon Appetit said you should.

As every cheesy infomercial always says, “There’s got to be a better way!”. Indeed… there is. Instead of struggling to wrestle a 20lb bird all over your kitchen, simplify your life with just the turkey breast, which is rolled around delicious smoked speck (similar to prosciutto), goat cheese and arugula. There’s even steps to make a wondrously easy balsamic sauce that will make your forget about grannies gravy you can stand a fork up in.

Keep in mind, this is all very easy to do. Do not be intimidated, any beginner cook can put this together. It’s also about 1/10th the work of roasting a turkey with all the trimmings, so if you were dreading the thought of that, do this instead.

Speck can be found at Oyama in Granville Island, Bosa Foods (multiple locations), or usually pre-sliced in the deli fridges at supermarkets. Feel free to sub in another cheese for goat cheese, should you have a preference.

Ingredients

• Turkey breasts, boneless (1 breast will feed ~2 people)
• Goat Cheese
• Arugula
• Speck, thinly sliced (or prosciutto)
• Sea Salt
• Pepper
• Toothpicks
• Turkey wings, necks, or drumsticks (for the sauce)
• Balsamic vinegar
• Butter
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• 1 garlic bulb, cut in half

Start by making the stock for the sauce. Heat a large pot over medium heat, add some olive oil to coat the entire bottom of the pot, and then add your turkey wings, necks, drumsticks (or all 3). Sear for a few minutes to give a nice brown crust, then turn over. After another few minutes, add the onion, celery and garlic and cover everything with cold water. Bring to a boil, then lower to a very low simmer and let bubble for ~2 hours. After cooking, strain the stock from the bones and vegetables and allow to cool. **NOTE if you have good quality bone broth or stock, feel free to use this. The cartons in the grocery store will not work**

Take your turkey breast(s) and lay on a cutting board. With a sharp knife, cut into the turkey breasts lengthwise, about 1/3 of the way from the top. Cut across but DO NOT cut all the way through. You’re trying to open up the breast like a book. Once it’s laid open, cut from the middle of the breast back outward, so that you now have 3 segments. If you picture the first phase like an open book, you will be cutting from the “spine” of the book back outwards.

With your open turkey breast flat on a board, lay several slices of speck (or prosciutto), then a few knobs of goat cheese and a handful of arugula. Fold each side of the breast back into the middle and seal closed with toothpicks.

Preheat your oven to 450F. Rub the outside of each rolled breast with olive oil, then season aggressively with salt and pepper. Once the oven is heated, stick the rolled breasts on a roasting pan and into the oven for 20 minutes.

In a separate pan, add your turkey stock and put on high heat, reducing until it starts to thicken. At this point, season with some salt and balsamic vinegar. Ideally you want a bit of acidity and sweetness from the vinegar, without it being overpowering. Add as much salt as your palate likes. Reduce more until it starts to thicken. Stir in a knob of butter (maybe the size of a golf ball, depending how much sauce you’re making). Something to keep in mind with sauces like this: don’t be scared of adding a lot of butter because a) fat is actually good for you and b) you are only eating a small amount of sauce, not the whole pot. Plus, it’s thanksgiving…

Take the turkey breasts out of the oven – if the cheese is starting to ooze out, that’s usually a good sign the inside is cooked. If you’re unsure, cook a little longer or cut into one and check.

Slice into rounds (removing the toothpicks) and serve with the sauce.

The post RECIPE – Rolled Turkey Breast w/ Speck, Goat Cheese and Arugula appeared first on Yard Athletics.

Hope everyone had a great long weekend! As we get into the week and reality sets in (…wine at 1pm isn’t appropriate on a Tuesday?!?!?!) it’s always nice to plan some meals for a few days so that the tempting piece of pizza or donut doesn’t pull you off track.

This recipe of Braised Chicken Thighs with Leeks, Bacon and White Wine is awesome because a) it’s easy and cheap to make b) it’s healthy and c) you can make a large amount and portion for the week, or freeze in batches.

If you don’t have any white wine on hand, or don’t feel like opening a bottle for the recipe, a small amount of white wine vinegar will substitute in it’s place. Generally when you’re cooking with wine, the desired result is the acidity and a slight amount of sugar (the actual alcohol burns off after heating) so a tablespoon or two of white wine vinegar helps replicate that.

If you do feel like cracking a bottle but want to keep it on budget, Cono Sur Viognier from Chile is a great wine for cooking and drinking, and retails for only $10.99 at the BC Liquor Stores.

This chicken is great served on it’s own, or over anything from sauteed spinich, roast cauliflower, a baked potato, polenta, brown rice or pasta. If tossing with pasta, it’s nice to cook the chicken a little longer and then shred the meat so it forms more of a ragu to cling to the noodles.

Or, if you want to get real crafty, remove all the meat from the bones, shredding slightly, then put in an overproof dish and cover with puff pastry for a fancy “chicken pot pie”.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

INGREDIENTS

• Chicken thighs – bone-in, skin on, or boneless / skinless
• Leeks
• Garlic
• Butter or Olive Oil
• White Wine
• Bacon, Pancetta or Guanciale, sliced into chunks
• Sea Salt
• Pepper
• Whipping Cream (optional)
• Chicken Stock (optional)

 “Guanciale” or cured pork cheek

**As with any braise or stew recipe, the amounts of each ingredient are up to you. If you’re only cooking 4 chicken thighs, 1 or 2 leeks is probably sufficient, but there’s no right or wrong amount. If you have 2 cloves of garlic, just add 2. If you like a lot of garlic, put more. Tasting throughout the cooking process is the best way to gauge how much or little of something to add.**

Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Heat a large pot or pan (preferably with a lid), add the butter or oil, then add the chicken thighs in batches (skin side down if using skin on). Resist the urge to touch or flip the thighs for at least 3-4 minutes, as you want to develop a very dark brown crust. Using tongs, flip one over to check on browning; if they’re still too pale, keep searing until dark brown. Once browned, flip over, sear the other side then remove all the chicken to a plate and rest.

Wash the leeks, then trim off the top green part of the leeks cutting just below the last little notch where the green transitions to pale white. Slice very thinly.

Add the bacon / pancetta / guanciale to the pan and cook until the fat is redered. Then add the thinly sliced leeks to the same pan and sautee until softened. Add some white wine and scrape up the brown “fond” on the bottom of the pan. This “fond” is actually the caramelized sugars and proteins of the meat, which have undergone the Maillard reaction from extreme heating. They taste great, and by deglazing with a liquid like wine it allows these bits to dissolve into the sauce. Keep cooking the leeks for 10+ minutes until soft and beginning to caramelize. Seasons with salt and pepper.

Add the seared chicken back to the pan with the leeks, top up with a little white wine and water (or chicken stock), cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes. Chicken thighs are very forgiving, so even though they’re technically cooked through you could continue cooking for longer to get them to a “pulled” state, if you so chose.

Once finished cooking, you can remove the lid and turn up the heat to reduce the liquid, depending on how much is left. If you want to make the sauce more luxurious, add some whipping cream near the end and reduce slightly.

Enjoy!

The post RECIPE – Braised Chicken Thighs with leeks, bacon and white wine appeared first on Yard Athletics.

Despite the power of the food trend juggernaut (Poke bowls? Kale Caesar? Turmeric in everything?), “bone broth” is nothing new. Since humans started using water as a medium to cook with, meat, bones and vegetables have been boiled together to extract more nutrients and make the digestion of food easier.

Bone broth can be as simple as simmering a chicken in water for a few hours, or can involve roasting various bones and meats with vegetables to develop more flavor, then boiling with aromatic herbs and spices to develop something more complex. Cooking bones and meat in water over time raises their temperature, which eventually dissolves collagen into gelatin at 160F – 180F; hence why a long simmered stock will solidify at colder temperatures.

The miracle claims you’ve heard about bone broth are likely overstated, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t any less delicious or satisfying to make. Unless there are dietary restrictions, I prefer to simmer a variety of different bones and meat together such as chicken wings, backs, drumsticks, veal bones and pork bones. A lot of butchers will give you bones for free, or for very cheap if you ask nicely.

Vegetables are great, but can also add a lot of un-intended sweetness, particularly onions and carrots. I love the flavor of onions so they almost always go in, but usually give carrots a miss (personal preference). Garlic is a must, as are mushrooms (fresh or dried) which help amplify meat flavors.

The addition of spices is a complete blank canvas, so have fun experimenting. Black pepper is the world’s most ubiquitous spice, and fits with almost any flavor profile. Soups like Vietnamese Pho’ contain star anise, cinnamon, cloves and fennel, which give them a distinct flavor. Japanese ramen stock usually contains dried mushrooms, kombu kelp and smoked bonito flakes (katsuobushi), all of which add a strong element of glutamic acid or “umami” flavor.

Italian “Bollito Misto” or mixed boil

Roasting the bones and vegetables prior to cooking will begin to caramelize them, adding depth of flavor and color to the bone broth. Roasting bones is best done in a sheet pan at around 425F for 30-40 minutes.

Take your raw or roasted bones, add to a pot with enough cold water to cover, bring to a boil, then lower the temperature and simmer for 2-3 hours. You may need to add more water if the level drops too low. Obviously for a more concentrated broth you want less liquid, but that comes at the price of volume. Again, up to you.

After 2-3 hours, strain the liquid to remove all the bones, vegetables and spices. This is now the finished product, and can be reheated and seasoned with plain sea salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, miso, or used as a base for a soup or braise. Bone broth freezes really well, so consider making a lot and portioning into Tupperware and freezing.

1. Bones, with or without meat attached (Chicken wings, chicken drumsticks, chicken backs, veal bones, marrow bones, pork bones, pork shanks, turkey drum sticks, beef bones)
2. Vegetables, Roots & Rhizomes (onions, carrots, celery, leeks, celeriac, parsnips, garlic, ginger, turmeric, fresh or dried mushrooms, kombu seaweed)
3. Aromatic herbs (thyme, rosemary, bay, sage, parsley)
4. Aromatic flavorings (cumin, all spice, cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, black pepper, white pepper)
5. Seasonings (sea salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, miso, bonito flakes)

The post RECIPE – Bone Broth appeared first on Yard Athletics.