Borlotti Bean and Buckwheat Soup

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

In my previous post I mentioned that we adopted a lifestyle change and I talked about how we achieved our healthy balanced diet.

Today, before the recipe, I would like to speak of our personal experience with the well-known second condition of a healthy life, which is reagular physical activity.

The famous phrase goes as "Rome wasn't built in a day". :) Our physical activity improved gradually with time.

We can say that everything started with our 45 minutes - 1 hour walks which we did every other day after dinner. 
However, after a while we noticed that they weren't as efficient as we needed them to be. Besides, at times we were back home as late as 10 - 11 pm. So Stefano suggested running instead of walking. Even though I, as a person who hated to run all her life and ran only maybe a few times after a ship or a bus which is about to sail/drive away, wasn't very sold to the idea at first, later I decided to give it a try at least.

We started to run around 3 km in the evenings every other day. Although 3 km was not much of a distance, I'd been huffing and puffing, often panting for breath but at the end I kept running.

After some weeks passed I noticed that I didn't need to stop anymore and the distance wasn't enough.
Since I had free time in the mornings, I decided to start running longer and earlier. (This has also other benefits as it is said that exercising in the morning also helps boost your metabolism and burn calories throughout the day). I walked 4 km and then ran 4 km which amounted a total 8 km exercise.

We have some friends from our neighbourhood and they also started to run around the same period. We formed an amateur runners group with them where we shared our experiences by whatsapp messages and we started running together from time to time.

For a fun experience we decided to participate a race which was held in Ancona in last November. It had 4 km, 10 km and 21 km categories. We decided to sign up for a 4 km run for our first race. None of us had a similar experience before. The instant they blew the whistle we lost each other and everybody was for himself. It was fun to run with such a crowd. We also loved "very Italian" gifts we were given at the end of the race: wine and pasta! I can't think of a better motivation, can you? :)

(As a side note, in my first race I missed the 4 km sign which I was signed up for and I ran 8 km instead :) This funny mistake made me see also my own potential. I started to run 8 km since then and in my next race in Jesi I signed up for a 10 km run! )

We participated in 6 different races since November 2014. Of course we've never even dreamt about to be amongst the highest rankings. What we cared was to challenge and improve ourselves and have fun. Nevertheless, once you're in a such a race with crowd it's the fact that you end up pushing yourself beyond your limits and often break your own personal record ;)

The penultimate race we participated was DeejayTen which was held in Bari, 400 km from where we live. Because of the long distance we needed to spend one night in a hotel. This gave us also the chance to visit Bari, which we'd never been before.

On Sunday 8th March, 5.000 participants of DeejayTen with their blue tshirts, which were gifted the day before, "ran" like a river throughout the streets of Bari. It was a scene worth seeing. 
It was a sunny and joyful day. An experience we'd like to repeat in future, in Florence or Milano streets...

Another reason which made us choose running as exercise is its simplicity. All you need is your running shoes. You are free to decide on the timing, day, place and the distance according to your own circumstances. We set a 10 km distance for ourselves to run in the mornings 3 - 4 times a week.

By the way, I said all you need is your sneakers but we have two other things we get with us before to go out. Our cell phones and earphones. We use our phones to listen to music and also record our performances. This way we are able to evaluate our self-improvement by seeing the recorded distance, speed and pace of our runs (or walks). 

Final words before closing this sport topic.. In many sport articles they mention about the importance of cross training and its help to overall body health and improvement. We are too cross training by exercising pilates and strength training besides running.

I surely do not consider myself as an expert in nutrition and sports, but I will share with you what I've learned, by reading and then experimenting on myself: 

Constancy: the body adapts to what you usually do, and so does your metabolism. I'd recommend you to walk 3 - 4 times a week instead of a single 2 hour long walk. 

Increase activity gradually: start walking, add some jogging to walking, slowly increase the intensity, so both your body and your mind become accustomed and accept the change taking place.

No excuses: If you really want something, find a way, otherwise, you will find an excuse. This has become my husband's motto: before he used to blame his overweight problems onto his thyroid condition, accepting it as uncontrollable.

No matter what you do, if you want to see results you need to be commited. Even something that you practice without much will nor enthusiasm, if you give it enough time and do it constantly, can become a part of yourself and your identity.

If I, who hated so religiously to run, transformed to someone who runs 4 times a week, even participating in races, I strongly believe that anyone can! 
This reminded me a TED talk by Matt Cutts where he says "Try something new for 30 days". 

And finally the recipe...

Today I'd like to share with you guys a delicious soup recipe which I make very often

Ingredients:
1 - 2 cloves of garlic
2 - 3 sprigs of rosemary (leaves only)
25 g extra virgin olive oil
500 g cooked borlotti beans or 2 cans of borlotti beans (1 can = 400g; drained amount is 240g)*
200 g canned tomato puree (or canned diced tomatoes)
120 g buckwheat
1000 g boiling water**
1 tsp Thermomix vegetable or meat concentrate***

Optional;
Freshly ground black pepper
Hot pepper sauce
Grated parmesan


* I often cook my borlotti beans myself in my pressure cooker by boiling 250 g dry beans with 1 litre of water and 1 tbsp olive oil addition. 

** If I boiled my beans, I use the remaining cooking water in the soup. I first add and weigh in the cooking water from the beans, then I add boiling water to reach to 1000 g.

*** As you know Thermomix concentrate contains quite a bit salt. If you are using canned products, since they also contain salt, 1 tsp of Thermomix concentrate will be enough. You can add more concentrate or salt if needed. Since I boil my beans with no salt addition, I use about 30 - 35 g of Thermomix concentrate in the soup.


Preparation:

• Chop garlic and rosemary leaves for 10 seconds on Speed 7. Scrape down the sides with spatula and repeat if needed.  

• Clean down the sides with spatula, add oil and cook for 3 minutes at 100ºC on Speed 1.

• Add half of your cooked borlotti beans (or 1 can of drained beans) and tomato puree. Purea for 5 seconds on Speed 5.

• Add rinsed buckwheat and Thermomix concentrate. Add and weigh in the remaining boiling water from the beans if you have any. Add boiling water to reach to 1000 g. Cook for 35 - 40 minutes at 100ºC on Reverse / Soft Speed.

• Add your remaining cooked beans (or 1 can of drained beans). Cook for 5 more minutes at 100ºC on Reverse / Soft Speed.

• Let it rest in TM Bowl for 10 minutes and serve.

If you wish you can add black pepper, hot pepper sauce and / or grated parmesan.

Enjoy.