Run(ning) Bean & Courgette Soup

After turning half my bumper crop of runner beans into relish (as yet untested - still a month to go!) I decided to turn the rest, plus my courgettes, into a soup.  .  The results were rather good - although I did have to really blitz it as I didn't bother de-stringing the beans beforehand.  Give it a try with a swirl of either fresh pesto - which was delicious - or half fat creme fraiche depending on your preference.

Ingredients:
500g runner beans, sliced (and destringed)
500g courgettes, chopped
1 large white onion
1.5 pints of vegetable stock (I used Antony Worrall Thomson's Gluten free stock cubes as my mum is celiac)
1 tablespoon of oil - I used Black & Gold's Rapeseed Oil

1. Heat the oil before adding finely chopped onion and fry until soft (but not brown) in the oil.

2. Add the runner beans and sweat for 5 minutes before adding courgettes and sweating for another 5 - 10 minutes.

3. Add the stock, then bring to the boil before turning down and simmering for 25 - 30 minutes.   Season to taste.

4. Either serve chunky with a swirl of pesto or creme fraiche or, if your kids are like mine, blitz to within an inch of its life then serve!

Admittedly, it is a slightly odd shade of green but it tasted good!







The running reference is because, having been out for a run that morning (our weekend was rubbish on the weather front unlike the south of England who were experiencing sub-tropical conditions for October!) I was glad of a wee bowl of soup and a roll when I got back.  Felt very wholesome and healthy!



Runner Bean(tastic)!
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Thrifty Ways to Get Your Groove Back!

Since having kids - as I'm sure many will agree - resulted in life becoming one long roller coaster where my needs pretty much come last in the house - even behind the cats! 

So, after a lifetime spent on the couch (well, not quite but I've never been accused of being a gym bunny, that's for sure) I took up running a couple of years ago.  2nd April 2009 to be precise.

I've always said running wasn't for me, I don't have the build, I'm too busty, I'm more of a dancer blah, blah, blah.  However, when a good friend's mum - who used to smoke a few a day, was still partial to a wee whisky and, more importantly than either of those facts, was 65 at the time - decided she was running the Edinburgh Marathon in 2009, I realised that my excuses for not getting out there and putting one foot in front of the other were paper thin. 

So, I originally took up running - run a minute, walk a minute, repeat for 3 minutes, then 5 etc. - as a bit of a challenge to myself and to prove that I could actually run for a bus (after years of knowing quite the reverse was true!).  Even though I'm not a fan of the gym, I do walk everywhere and always have done and I wasn't particularly overweight - so I was completely shocked at a) how hard I found it to run for a minute and b) how much pain I was in the next day after a paltry 10 minute session. 

However, even though it was awful and I felt sure that I probably couldn't run as I'd always suspected, after only 1 week of frankly pathetic efforts, I signed up for the Cancer Research UK's Race for Life 5K around Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh (i.e. up a bloody great hill!) and emailed all my friends to ask them to sponsor me.  Talk about no way out!

The first 4 weeks of training were fairly awful.  I was still counting my running in minutes rather than miles and, as the date for the 5K drew nearer, I began to panic that I wouldn't make it past the 'running for 10 minutes without stopping' stage.  However, by week 6 I'd turned a corner and was happily putting on my running gear 3 or 4 times a week.  So, I was delighted to finish the Race for Life in a quite reasonable (although not anything to write home about) 34 minutes. 

Panicked that I would suddenly develop lazy-itis, I immediately signed up for the 10K Race for Life, trained for it and completed it in just over an hour (1 hour 6 minutes).  Again, I don't think Paula Radcliffe needs to be losing any sleep but given that it hadn't been that long since I'd struggled to run a minute, walk a minute, I was chuffed.

(That's me 2nd from the left coming over the finish line - phew!)

Although there have been the odd glitches here and there and weeks that have gone by without me so much as looking at a running shoe, I've always got myself back into my 'groove' and have more or less steadily kept running since April 2009.  There have been days when 2 miles seemed like 20 and days when I've done 6 miles feeling no pain at all.  I've even managed to run a half marathon (which admittedly was an accident because I got lost!) but that's not the point.  I ran, 13.5 miles.  Me.

Nothing quite beats lacing up my running shoes, plugging in my iPod and setting out around the beautiful countryside where we live.  And the added bonus - apart from feeling better than I've ever felt and having more energy to keep up with the kids - is that somehow, without reducing my food intake (or wine) at all, I've lost 10lbs!

Oh, and apart from investing in good running shoes, I don't have to pay a penny so it's a pretty thrifty way to get fit, enjoy the scenery and do something that's just about me.  Despite all my misgivings running definitely helped me get my groove back.  Big time.