Hi there,

Hope you all had a nice and relax­ing weekend.

I always enjoy my Sun­day work­outs which typ­i­cally run a lit­tle longer, due to the fact that I don’t have to rush any­where and can instead add in another few sets. Best of all, I can take my time cool­ing down and stretch­ing, which I never used to have much time for. In all hon­esty, I just didn’t think that stretch­ing really made much of a dif­fer­ence in terms of my per­for­mance .That was until I pur­chased my foam roller and began using it daily. I am now a total con­vert. Break­ing down the fas­cia or con­nec­tive tis­sue through self mas­sage greatly reduces mus­cle sore­ness and can help to pre­vent injuries related to tight­ness and inflex­i­bilty. If you haven’t yet pur­chased one of these amaz­ing inven­tions, I urge you to check it out. My roller has been a sav­iour to my tight glutes, quads and IT bands. Gotta love running!

Last night, after trim­ming our tree and light­ing the meno­rah (we are a proud multi-​faith house­hold), we sat down to a deli­cious din­ner of roast chicken with a Moroc­can inspired quinoa salad. This protein-​rich ancient grain actu­ally con­tains all 9 essen­tial amino acids and almost twice as much fibre as most other grains. I also love it because it is so sim­ple to pre­pare and tastes won­der­ful with a vari­ety of ingre­di­ents and flavour combinations.

This warm salad is a per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment to roasted meats, fish or enjoyed sim­ply on its own.

1 cup quinoa

1 sweet potato, baked until soft, peeled and diced

2 cups chicken broth

1 tsp each ground cumin, cinnamon

¹⁄₄ cup fresh Ital­ian pars­ley, chopped

¹⁄₃ cup each raisins and toasted, sliv­ered almonds

sea salt and freshly ground pep­per, to taste

1. In a medium saucepan over low heat, sweat onion and gar­lic until soft­ened and fra­grant. Add spices and stir to combine.
2. In another saucepan over high heat, bring chicken broth to a boil.
3. Add quinoa to onion mix­ture and stir until lightly toasted (about 2 min­utes). Add chicken broth and stir well.
4. Reduce heat to sim­mer; cover and cook until liq­uid is thor­oughly absorbed (about 12 minutes).
5. Remove from heat and let stand cov­ered, for about 15 minutes.
6. Fluff quinoa with a fork; add sweet potato, raisins, almonds and pars­ley and toss well. Sea­son to taste.