All Hail to the Hatch | Hatch Green Chile & Chicken Cheesecake with Avocado Drizzle Recipe

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Jennifer FIsher

Holy hot peppers, the mother of all Hatch green chile festivals is about to hit town right here in the ATX (that’s Austin for you non-locals). Delivered straight from the fertile farms of New Mexico to greedy grocery shoppers like myself, Hatch season is a much anticipated event that only comes around once a year. The best way to prepare the peppers is by fire-roasting; it lends a yummy smoky flavor. Central Market and some other stores take care of this step for you, roasting them in a huge tumbler and then packaging them up read to go. While it’s not as convenient, it’s definitely well worth the time and trouble to roast them on the grill at home. This precious pepper is a versatile addition to nearly every food imaginable, from classic quesadillas and rellenos to unexpected sweet dishes like ice creams and quick breads – seriously!

How would I know such a thing? Well, I’ve seen all sorts of eye-popping, taste bud-blasting Hatch creations as I battled it off time and time again at the Central Market Hatch Green Chile Festival Cook-Off. In the last four years, I’ve taken 3^rd place, 2^nd place and 1^st place – and then last year my recipe made the finals but I had to bow out due to the Hood to Coast Relay with Nuun Hydration. Right now, my creative juices are flowing, trying to figure out just exactly how I’m going to use the signature punch of Hatch peppers in my next recipe creation. Good thing I still have a good portion of a past prize, about 75 pounds of fire-roasted peppers, processed and packaged up in the freezer.

I’m sharing one of my past winning recipes and hopefully the rest of the recipes if time permits this month. Hatch Green Chile & Chicken Cheesecake with Avocado Drizzle isn’t exactly the most low-calorie recipe in town, but I did make some low-fat substitutions to bring it down a notch. Also, if you’re in a time crunch, I’ve found a great fresh product by Litehouse Foods (Avocado Dip) that can be substituted for the Avocado Drizzle portion of the recipe.

Hatch Green Chile & Chicken Cheesecake with Avocado Drizzle

For Cheesecake:

1 1/3 cup crushed Central Market Hatch Green Chile tortilla chips (or plain)
¼ cup butter, melted
3 (8-ounce) packages reduced-fat cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons minced green onions
1 ½ cup finely shredded cooked chicken (white meat)
½ pound fire-roasted Hatch green peppers, skinned, seeded and chopped*
1 ½ cups shredded pepper jack cheese
8 ounces light sour cream
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
Garnish: hatch green chile tortilla chips

Avocado Drizzle:

2 large Hass avocados (approx 8 ounce each), seeded, peeled and diced ½”
½ cup chicken broth
¼ cup fire-roasted Hatch green peppers, skinned, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon of jalapeño pepper; seeded and diced (more to taste if you like hot-hot)
2 cloves roasted garlic
1 teaspoon lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste

In medium bowl, combine the tortilla chips and melted butter. Press mixture onto the bottom and 1-inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside

In large work bowl of electric mixer, beat the cream cheese at high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. By hand, stir in the chili powder, cumin, Worcestershire sauce, salt and minced green onions.

Pour half of the cream cheese mixture into the prepared pan. Layer with chicken, Hatch peppers and pepper jack cheese. Pour remaining cream cheese mixture on top.

Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes; then reduce the heat to 300 F and bake for an additional 1 hour or until set in the center. Remove from oven and cool completely on a wire rack.

Combine the sour cream and seasoned salt and spread evenly over the top of the cheesecake. Cover and chill for at least 8 hours.

While chilling prepare sauce by adding avocado, chicken broth, roasted hatch peppers, jalapeño, garlic and lime juice until pureed. Add salt and pepper to taste. If coulis seems too thick, blend in a tiny bit of water a time until desired consistency.

To serve, remove sides of springform pan; slice into 8 servings. Place each slice on a serving plate and pour a share of the hatch-avocado coulis on top. Garnish each slice with a tortilla chip wedge artfully sticking out of the top.

*If you can’t get your hands on fresh peppers, you can substitute the canned variety. The recipe will still be great, but it just won’t have the same unexplainable effect of a true Hatch pepper.

Prevent Bonk & Bodonkadonk with Berry Cheesecake Power Muffins Recipe

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Jennifer FIsher

Imagine nervously waiting at the start line of the most important race of your life, a run that would be the final test of more than a year of dedicated, intensive training and one where you have put the reputation of your family, faith and country on the line. Now imagine that instead of carefully monitoring your diet and eating “clean” for maximum performance leading up to and on the big day, you are fueled on cheesecake and will be running in the nude.

As crazy as it sounds, historical records reveal that cheesecake was served to athletes participating in the first Olympic Games in Greece back in 776 BC. However, the ladies didn’t have to worry whether or not a slice of this decadent dessert would give them a glycogen-depleting bonk or big ole naked bodonkadonk come race day – female athletes weren’t allowed to compete, nor were married women even allowed to spectate.

A dollop of whipped cream might not make you run faster, but it’s fun!

But, let me stop my digression on discrimination here and get back to the cheesecake nutrition plan. I can’t imagine that a slice of cheesecake, such as we enjoy here in the 21st century, could be the best way to finish off a pre-race meal. A single slice of Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory tops out at over 1,300 calories and 40 grams of fat per serving; even a low-carb, Splenda-sweetened slice of Original Cheesecake from the same restaurant has 570 calories. Sheez, instead of the aforementioned cheesecake offender, you could eat more than HALF of my Whey Cool Strawberry Protein Pie.

But, don’t get me wrong, I love cheesecake. I just don’t eat it everyday and when I do indulge, I share a slice with a partner in crime. Since National Cheesecake Day is July 30th I wanted to honor this icon of the dessert cart in a more nutritious way. I found a description by the rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus on how cheesecake was prepared back in ancient Greek times. While it looked like the recipe was actually filled with healthy carbs and protein, the lack of measurements left me puzzled.

“Take cheese and pound it till smooth and pasty; put cheese in a brazen sieve; add honey and spring wheat flour. Heat in one mass, cool, and serve.”

Instead, I came up with a cheesecake-inspired recipe with a healthy spin; a nutritious little nosh that could be enjoyed before running a race without any negative consequences on my gut or butt. Since I’m usually running and racing in the morning, a muffin was the perfect solution. Sized just right to take on the go, my recipe for Berry Cheesecake Power Muffins offers more than 8 grams of protein and less than two grams of fat – all for about 100 calories per muffin.

Berry Cheesecake Power Muffins Recipe

2 cups rolled oats, ground in a blender
1 cup fat free cottage cheese
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup sugar-free maple syrup
1 cup egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp Stevia
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Remaining ingredients:

1/2 cup fresh blueberries
½ cup fresh strawberries, chopped
½ cup fat free cream cheese
1/2 tbsp Stevia

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.

Grind up oats in blender using pulse button. In pitcher of blender, add ingredients for muffin batter –cottage cheese, applesauce, syrup, egg whites, vanilla extract, Stevia, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Blend in blender until smooth and divide mixture up equally in a 12-muffin tray fitted with muffin liners (or coated with baking spray).

In a separate bowl, mix together cream cheese and 1/2 tablespoon of Stevia. Sprinkle blueberries and chopped strawberries on top of muffins; then dollop cream cheese on the center top of each muffin. The fruit and cream cheese will sink down to the middle during baking.

In 350 F degree oven, bake muffins for 20 – 22 minutes or until lightly browned.

Let cool before removing from muffin tins.

Makes 12 muffins.

Nutritional info: per muffin: Calories: 103, Total fat: 1.9g, Total carbs: 12.1g, Sugar: 2.7g, Protein: 8.3g

The berries and cream cheese is put on top of batter and it sinks to the middle during baking.

Oh ‘Row’ is Me – Inspired by CrossFit Games to Row 21,097m

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Jennifer FIsher

I woke up this morning and it was raining! Austin has been in a drought for quite some time and the rare occurrence of precipitation stirred up a feeling that my day wasn’t going to be normal. Still fuzzy-headed and a little sore from running 400s the day before, the rain was becoming another lame excuse to postpone my planned long(ish) run. My husband convinced me to “just come to the gym” and, just as I predicted, something unusual did happen – I decided on an impulse to row a half-marathon, 13.1 miles. Hey, if the fittest people on earth had just knocked out this little workout at the 2013 CrossFit Games, then there was no keeping me from giving it a go.

Feeling confident.

Even though I really don’t know what all the measurements on the row machine mean and have never finished a workout longer than 3 x 2k, I’ve be strutting around the house since the Women’s Row 1 and Row 2 events announcing that I could totally win or place in the top three at this event. It was all about the strategy; it was all about endurance; it was all about having that ‘eye of the tiger.’ All true but, boy, was I full of it!

As most of you following the CrossFit Games know, the Row 1 event measured the time it took each athlete to cross the 2k mark and the Row 2 event was scored for the entire distance. This would mean hauling butt right out of the start to finish in the low 7 minutes (winners reporting they went at 90 -95% effort) and then settling into a brisk pace to finish somewhere in the vicinity of 1:27 to 1:29.

I could do this all day (and almost did).

Well, truth be told, I don’t have the strength and body type to excel at rowing and have been told by a past CrossFit Games superstar that my form stinks. I’ll row a bit if it’s in a WOD and occasionally just for fun, but there were no colleges back in the day knocking on my door with rowing scholarships. At best, I could hope for a 2k of 8:45 in Row 1. But, what I lack in strength I make up in endurance (so I thought) and I naively extrapolated my 2k to yield me a 1:30 . . . . perhaps a 1:35 due to lack of experience. So, maybe I wasn’t going to “win,” but I was going to get close! The humbling outcome was a 1:49:53, about 25 minutes SLOWER than it takes me to run a half marathon! And, on top of that, I was a few strokes short due to a mid-row math miscalculation. Oh well, there were no judges around.

Couldn’t find “mile” option and had to calculate meters during row — hence, coming up 92m short.

What I didn’t take into account was what a chore it was to be in the saddle for so long! I never got to that point where I felt like I was giving a max effort or anywhere near it; I was so distracted by how numb my butt was getting, that my knees were starting to feel weird from the unfamiliar deep, repetitive movement, and that (how do I say it politely) exercising on a machine for that long and going nowhere is @#$% boring. But, I ‘m not playing a poor-me violin here. I’m pretty certain by the grimaced looks on their faces and all the rear-end shifting that the majority of the CrossFit Games competitors were also suffering the side effects of this wicked workout. After the Games are over and everyone has headed home, I seriously doubt if any of the competitors will fondly remember the Row 1 and Row 2 showdown as their favorite event.

I’m not doing that again (famous last words).

It’s pretty safe to say that I won’t be rowing a half-marathon anytime soon – as a “runner,” I’d probably choose to run it. But, I know I COULD row it if I needed to. What I love about CrossFit is that since supplementing my running routine with WODs about two years ago, I’ve become a stronger, well-rounded athlete who can easily pull off a crazy stunt like this impromptu 21,097 meter row without suffering any serious aches or pains. Even though I was uncomfortable during the 13.1 mile row, I was never so distressed that I wanted or needed to give up, either physically or mentally. CrossFit has prepared me to be ready for anything, at any time. For example, I’m still basking in the afterglow of a recent 50 mile ultra-marathon I ran on a whim my friend, Valerie Hunt. Never had I run an ultra and never had I planned to before this. With a decision making process of about 2 minutes, I went from “just” being a pacer planning on dropping out at 22 miles to a feel-good, kick-butt finisher of 50 miles. So, no “woe” is me, it’s all “whoa” is me thanks to CrossFit.

2013 CrossFit Games athletes cheering each other on, even in the heat of battle!

Grilled Fig, Blue Cheese & Prosciutto Pizza – Now That’s Umami!

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Jennifer FIsher

My mouth is still salivating over this grilled pizza recipe I created for Litehouse Foods. Gourmet enough to serve guests as a prelude to dinner yet simple enough to make for a quick weeknight meal, theses pizzas are seriously scrumptious. The aged artisan blue cheese crumbles, salty proscuitto and sweet fig jam mingle together for a massive explosion of umami flavor. Head over to the Living Litehouse Blog to find out out how salty, sweet, tart and bitter aren’t the only categories of taste — there is also a fifth taste receptor called umami! Translated from Japanese, umami means “delicious essence” and I couldn’t agree more!

Also, if you’re a fig fan like myself, check out my recipe for Fresh Figs with Balsamic Fig Jam — this is a beautiful and simple dish for dessert. Remember, to view the full recipe for the grilled pizzas along with lots of other drool-worthy ideas for healthy living, visit the Living Litehouse Blog.

Favorite Gear #Giveaway – Fitness Skort, Run Shirt & Fuel Belt

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Jennifer FIsher

My running swag runneth over and I would like to share some of it with you! There’s nothing like slaying a workout wearing a new piece of fabulous fitness clothing, that’s true for me anyway. I always seem to feel stronger, faster and more motivated when I have a fun, functional and good-fitting outfit on – this may explain why I can’t close the drawers on my dresser! I’m giving away a few piece of great fitness gear that were given to me, but I just can’t wear for one reason or another. I would LOVE for you to LOVE one of these brands as much as I do. Everything is new, with tags, etc. and so on. Enter for one piece or all of them, just know that I only have the sizes shown (Smalls and a one-size-fits-most) and it is shipping directly from me, so there’s no negotiating on the size. Really sorry that I don’t have a more diverse selection, but it is what it is. Oh, and by the way, all three pieces look cute together – so if you’re a size Small or have a friend who is, enter for everything! Just add some running shoes, and you’re ready to rock the next race in style!

First up for grabs is a Green Tribal-print Athletic Skort from YMX by Yellowman. I really love this skirt. First, the bold, unique print is sure to get you loads of compliments and, secondly, it’s marvelously flattering and modest enough to wear when you have a workout followed by errands. No one wants to see me in the grocery store reaching for cereal off the bottom shelf wearing my super-tiny running shorts. Here I am rockin’ my YMX skort:

Here’s the description for the skort from YMX by Yellowman:

“This green tribal-print athletic skort combines the appearance of a skirt with an attached short lining. Features gusset to promote full motion, and a 1 1/4 comfort waistband. Perfect for running, hiking, walking, fitness and workout.”

Please note, I only have size Small – which I would guess, from the looks of it, fits a size 6 – 8. For a point of reference, I have this skirt in a XS which seems to fit a 2-4. Whoever wins this can be twinsies with me!

Second up for grabs is a women’s Inspire Tee in grey by Mizuno Running. Features Mizuno DryLite™ moisture management technology to keep your body dry so that you can enjoy running in comfort and style. Other features include anti-abrasion labeling (also good thing in sweaty weather) and and V-neck. This photo makes it look like a tight compression shirt; however, it’s not — although it does have a shaped, figure-flattering cut (not super loose and boxy).

Please note, I only have size Small in this shirt. I have several running shirts in this exact style and size and I feel like it runs a little small to size. But, then again I have medium-ish shoulders.

Third for the taking is a Fuel Belt brand Super-stretch Waist Pack in black. I don’t see a size on the package, pretty sure it is one-size-fits-most. Package says “lightweight, fully-adjustable stretch mesh pocket.” The zippered pocket looks plenty big to carry along snacks, gels, salt pills or whatever else you need on a run.

If you’d like to enter, just follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter app below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

thefitfork.com

The Fit Fork

All Hail to the Hatch | Hatch Green Chile & Chicken Cheesecake with Avocado Drizzle Recipe

Prevent Bonk & Bodonkadonk with Berry Cheesecake Power Muffins Recipe

Oh ‘Row’ is Me – Inspired by CrossFit Games to Row 21,097m

Grilled Fig, Blue Cheese & Prosciutto Pizza – Now That’s Umami!

Favorite Gear #Giveaway – Fitness Skort, Run Shirt & Fuel Belt