Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all enjoy­ing this beau­ti­ful weather! It’s amaz­ing how peo­ple seem to smile more when the sun’s shin­ing and the tem­per­a­tures are warm and comfy.

I for one, am lov­ing get­ting out on my bike and putting all of my hard win­ter train­ing to the test. I gotta tell you though, that first out­door ride can be very hum­bling. Although I spin and train con­sis­tently and intensely through­out the cold win­ter months, there’s just noth­ing like being on the road, bat­tling the wind and hills. Don’t despair though; it only takes a few rides to get back in the sad­dle, so to speak.

Mak­ing the tran­si­tion from the tread­mill to the road how­ever, isn’t as easy for me. I’ve been train­ing all win­ter long on the tread­mill, partly because I really don’t enjoy run­ning in the freez­ing cold and am ter­ri­fied of falling on the ice, but mostly, because injuries tend to plague me once I hit the pave­ment. I was feel­ing great; log­ging the dis­tance and then it happened.…I went out on a long run (about 18k) and was forced to endure some nag­ging glute pain for the last 3 – 4 k. It got so bad that I had trou­ble walk­ing once I got home and it’s still both­er­ing me, almost a week and a half later! I’ve decided to lis­ten to my body and lay off run­ning for this week at least, and see how it goes from there. So frustrating!!!

Enough about me…let’s talk food instead.

Last night, I enjoyed a yummy meal which included a grilled chicken burger with caramelized onions, slow-​roasted toma­toes and sliced avo­cado. So good!

My chicken burger is really juicy and so sim­ple to make. Unfor­tu­nately, I for­got to take a pic­ture but I will share the recipe anyways.

Enjoy!

Grilled Chicken Burger

Ingredients:

450g-​500g lean ground chicken

2 tsp olive oil

1 medium onion, minced

2 gar­lic cloves, minced

1 egg, beaten

1 Tbsp dijon mustard

2 Tbsp fresh dill, minced

2 Tbsp fresh pars­ley, minced

¹⁄₄ −1÷2 tsp sir­acha or your favourite hot sauce

salt and freshly ground pep­per, to taste

In a fry­pan, over low heat, saute onion and gar­lic in oil until soft­ened and fragrant.

Com­bine remain­ing ingre­di­ents, being care­ful not to over­work mixture.

Form into 4 pat­ties. With your thumb, press an inden­ta­tion into the cen­ter of the burger. This will keep the burger flat on the grill through the cook­ing process.

Serve with your choice of top­pings. I enjoyed mine with roasted toma­toes and avo­cado but tzaziki and fresh spinach is another deli­cious combo!

Slow-​Roasted Tomatoes

12 ripe plum tomatoes

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp bal­samic vinegar

2 Tbsp fresh thyme, chopped

salt and freshly ground pepper

Pre­heat oven to 275 degrees.

Slice toma­toes in half; toss in oil, vine­gar and herbs. Sea­son well.

Place on parch­ment or foil-​lined bak­ing sheet and bake for approx­i­mately 2 hours or until very soft.