by Casey Weaver

Culinary Competitor:  Where Real Food Meets Racers

It seems that in the world of spandex and shaved legs, we occasionally forget the fact that nutrition comes in forms other than individually wrapped energy bars and calorie dense recovery drinks.  Although at Culinary Competitor we enjoy an artificially flavored vanilla cream shake with an perfectly balanced carbohydrate to protein ratio as much as the next guy, we also enjoy taking the time to plan and execute a well thought out, balanced, and nutritious meal. In the end the real food not only tastes better, but provides our bodies with some of the essential nutrients that manufactured products just can’t.  Below is a simple recipe selected from Culinary Competitor’s yet to be released November menu that will make you want to cook just as hard as you are training.

Lemon Chicken Soup with Whole Wheat Penne

This soup is a bit of a twist on one of the ultimate cold weather comfort foods, chicken soup.  Soups like this are perfect to make at the beginning of a busy week.  They are quick, easy, feed an army, and are packed with nutrition.  Double (or triple) the recipe and keep the leftovers in the fridge for up to about five days.  This way you have good, healthy food on hand when you come back from a bone-chilling fall ride and need to defrost.  Or, stick it in a container and bring it to work the next day.   

This soup calls for store bought broth, which makes it considerably quicker to make, and the flavor of the broth allows you to use boneless/skinless breast meat, making it very low in fat.  Broth is also fairly high in sodium, and is good for replacing any salts lost while training.  

Instead of calling for carrots as many chicken soups do, we call for yams, which have a very similar vitamin profile, but are considerably higher in carbohydrate.  We leave the skin on the yams (which we do in almost all of our cooking) for nutrient and fiber purposes, but feel free to remove the skin if you like.  By adding the yams towards the end of the cooking you ensure that the chicken will be well cooked and easy to shred, while the yams will not be overcooked and mushy. 

Serves 4 to 5

 

Ingredients

1 lb skinless/boneless chicken breasts (about 3 breasts)

10 cups chicken stock

4 stalks celery, trimmed and chopped

1 large onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium yams, cubed

1 _ cups whole-wheat penne pasta

juice of 2 lemons

_ t fennel seeds

_ t coriander

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper

4 T olive oil

cilantro for garnish

1 loaf crusty seeded bread

 

Instructions

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Place chicken breasts in the pot to brown and season with salt and pepper.  Cook for about four minutes per side.  Once browned, remove the breasts from the pot and set aside.   

In the same pot you used for the chicken, sauté the garlic, onion, and celery in two tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat for about five minutes. Once soft, season with salt and pepper.  Add the fennel seed, coriander, bay leaf, and stock to the pot, and bring to a soft boil.  Return the chicken to the pot, reducing the soup to a simmer.  Cover and cook for at least thirty minutes, then add the cubed yams, leaving the pot uncovered.  Cook for five minutes, then add the penne, cooking until the pasta is done.  Once the penne is cooked, turn the heat to low, or completely off.  Remove the chicken breasts from the soup, shred them with two forks, then return the shredded meat to the pot.  Squeeze in the juice of two lemons and season with black pepper to taste.

Eat Well.  Race Hard.

About

Culinary Competitor is a recipe resource for participants in lifestyle sports that are fully committed to their performance, but still want to retain a little bit of lifestyle in their competitive pursuits.  It is built on the foundation that there is more to pre competition eating than pasta and a jar of red sauce, and that competitors can get the proper nutrition they need, and probably even more so, from alternative and exciting pre-race meals.  Due to the sporting world’s general move away from heavy carbohydrate loading, all of our meals are balanced and contain appropriate ratios of carbohydrate, lean protein, and healthy fats, which not only make them suitable before competition, but for anyone who wants to maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

 

To read more, check out culinarycompetitor.com