Book Review by Berita Harian

My book ‘Fitness Food Made Simple’ was reviewed by Berita Harian in its Saturday paper over the weekend. The interview, which was done two weeks ago, took place at Coffee Bean in Sunway Pyramid i.e. during my family vacation there. Not only that, I also managed to squeeze in a photo-shooting session for a workout poster during the stay. It was all done in the ‘relaxing’ way and I enjoyed it very much. Now, I wish I could do this for the rest of my life, full time .

The journalist, Fairuz, was very enthusiastic about the book and I thanked him for that. He’s such a professional person to work with, and we had great time sharing stories. I specifically mentioned during the interview that healthy cuisine is all about moderation. Moderation should be in the ingredients, but not in the  flavor.  This book contains recipes of a wide range of dishes to suit a healthy lifestyle whilst satisfying our appetite for great-tasting dishes. Hope you enjoy the article (hey kash, I wore your autism tee!).

 

 

Mudah dan ringkas

Oleh Fairuz Zaidan

Buku masakan berasaskan kecergasan bimbing gaya hidup sihat SESUAI dengan gaya hidup moden yang serba pantas dan ringkas, idea penyediaan makanan juga harus ringkas dan praktikal untuk keperluan seharian.

Namun, apakah bentuk sajian sihat yang boleh dihasilkan dalam tempoh kurang daripada 10 minit? Semua ini tidak mustahil melalui panduan yang diperturunkan buku resipi Fitness Food Made Simple, sekali gus membantu anda menyediakan makanan berkhasiat secara mudah dan ringkas.

Penulis buku ini, Ian Yusof, berkata buku resipi kecergasan itu antara lain menyediakan panduan penyediaan makanan berkhasiat seringkas mungkin serta menekankan aspek kesihatan untuk keseimbangan tubuh badan.

Beliau berkata, adalah penting untuk meneliti kandungan pemakanan yang diambil bagi mengelak kesan jangka panjang pada tubuh badan. Ditambah lagi dengan pelbagai kandungan perisa makanan diragui, adalah lebih baik menyediakan sendiri resipi yang sihat untuk dimakan.

“Tidak semua resipi sukar untuk dibuat kerana pada zaman sekarang ini semuanya harus ringkas dan mudah. Namun, saya cuba mempelbagaikan resipi dengan mempraktikkan elemen kesihatan dalam penyediaan resipi masakan ringkas.

“Inilah yang terkandung dalam buku resipi Fitness Food Made Simple,” katanya kepada XY – Ikon Lelaki. Menyentuh mengenai idea penghasilan buku resipi itu, Ian berkata, beliau sering diminta untuk memberi pelbagai tip pemakanan sepanjang terbabit dalam dunia kecergasan. Dengan pengalaman menyediakan menu berasaskan makanan sihat, sajian berkhasiat menurutnya, amat mudah dihasilkan.

Berbeza dengan buku resipi biasa, resepi yang disyorkan dalam Fitness Food Made Simple seberapa mungkin mengelak pengambilan garam, gula dan serbuk perisa. Sebaliknya, Ian mengolah resipi baru yang lebih praktikal dan berkhasiat dari sudut kesihatan.

“Memanglah kalau berkait rapat dengan kesihatan, semuanya menjadi hambar termasuk makanan. Tetapi, apa yang saya buat ialah mempelbagaikan resipi baru yang boleh dipraktik secara mudah dan yang penting, ia tetap menyelerakan.

“Malah, sesetengah resipi itu cukup mudah dihasilkan dalam tempoh lima minit. Bukankah mudah untuk menyediakan menu sihat andai kita tahu cara yang betul,” katanya yang juga seorang jurutera sivil dan jurulatih kecergasan peribadi sambilan.

Mengulas lanjut mengenai buku resipi Fitness Food Made Simple, Ian berkata, lebih 40 resipi berkhasiat dan ringkas disediakan di mana ia dikategorikan kepada beberapa bahagian seperti menu sajian ala barat, aneka nasi dan sup, minuman, roti serta pencuci mulut.

Kata Ian, tabiat pemakanan tidak seharusnya disekat namun harus arif dalam soal penyediaan makanan untuk memastikan tahap kesihatan dijaga.

“Tidak mahulah nanti pelbagai masalah yang timbul apabila tua kerana tidak menjaga pemakanan. Sebab itu, dalam asyik kita bersenam, harus juga seimbangkan dengan pemakanan yang diambil. Bukan saja kadar gula dan garam pengambilan lemak, sumber berminyak juga harus diambil kira,” katanya.

Tunggu apa lagi, buku masakan Fitness Food Made Simple sesuai dipraktikkan sebagai gaya hidup baru untuk menjaga pemakanan. Harga pasaran buku ini ialah RM69.90 dan boleh didapati esklusif di MPH Mid Valley.

Tiada alasan lagi untuk mengelak daripada memasak sendiri di rumah!

INFO: Petua kesihatan Ramadan

Elak

• Makanan berlemak dan bergoreng.
• Makanan yang mengandungi terlalu banyak gula.
• Makan terlampau banyak terutama pada waktu sahur.

Digalakkan

• Karbohidrat kompleks ketika bersahur kerana ia kekal dalam perut lebih lama dan tidak cepat lapar.
• Pisang ialah sumber yang bagus untuk kalium, magnesium dan karbohidrat.

Minum

• Sebanyak mungkin air atau jus antara berbuka puasa dan tidur supaya badan dapat menukar tahap bendalir dalam masa yang ditetapkan.

Well readers, you can also get an autographed copy from this website by e-mailing me the details of yourself, your mailing address, your contact no. Additional postage fee of RM5.00 will be charged for express delivery within Malaysia. Thx & rgds – Partner, in food & fitness.

 

a ‘bready’ bunch

Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the Neolithic era. Bread has a long history for a reason. It is a healthy and nutritious food that fills the stomach as well as the soul. Today, even with the competition of a growing variety of foods, bread remains important to our diet, just like “bread and butter” .

My family is truly the ‘bready’ bunch. We just love breads, especially the fresh ones. Fresh bread is prized for its taste, aroma, quality, appearance and texture. Retaining its freshness is important to keep it appetizing. Recently, we bought many wonderful fresh breads crafted by Chef Jeffry cum baker at The Gourmet Shop @ Sunway.

 

 

In our household, we only buy the wholemeal bread. In fact, our taste-buds are so used to it that we could no longer take the white bread anymore. We just love the texture and the ‘nutty’ flavor that wholemeal bread offers. They are healthier, and less-refined. I guess healthy-eating is always about that – once you get used to it, you will never want to go back to other one. Hmmmm, must try to like brown rice from now on. So guys, how well do you know your bread?

• White bread is made from flour containing only the central core of the grain (endosperm).
• Brown bread is made with endosperm and 10% bran. It can also refer to white bread with added colouring (often caramel colouring) to make it ‘brown’; commonly labeled in U.States as “Wheat” bread (as opposed to “wholewheat” bread.)
• Wholemeal bread contains the whole of the wheat grain (endosperm and bran). It is also referred to as ‘wholegrain’ bread.

I managed to find this Wholewheat Bread recipe from the net (with the healthiest list of ingredients). Will definitely try it one day. Or why don’t you try it and let me know .. hehehe

Ingredients:

2 tsp yeast
7 1/2 C whole wheat flour (divided)
3 C warm water (divided)
2 tsp salt
2 T honey
2 T oil

Directions:

1. Put honey in large bowl, add 1 C. warm water, sprinkle yeast on top, agitate a bit to dissolve. Put in warm place for 10 minutes.
2. Add other 2 C warm water, beat in 3 1/2 C flour.
3. Stir in salt and oil.
4. Add rest of flour 1/2 C or so at a time. When it gets too stiff to mix, turn out on a floured surface and mix in most of the flour by hand, saving some to use while kneading.
5. Cover dough with a damp towel and allow to rest 10 minutes.
   [While you wait, wash and oil the bowl.]
6. Knead dough 20 minutes, using up most or all the remaining flour.
7. Cover with damp towel (the dough, of course …hehhe) and allow to rest 10 minutes.
8. Knead a few times, make ball, and put in oiled bowl. Cover with that damp towel and put in a warm place to rise  ~ abt 1 1/2 hours.
9. Knead gently a few times, return to bowl, cover, put in warm place for 1 hour.
10. Divide dough in half [Each half of mine is usually 1 pound 12 oz - 800 g.]
11. Knead the dough balls a few times, cover with the damp towel and allow to rest 10 minutes.
12. Form loaves (a delightfully ambiguous term) and place in well greased (or Pammed) pans, find that damp towel again, cover, put in a warm place for 1 hour.
13. Preheat over to 350 degrees.
14. Slash tops of loaves [A straight longitudinal line the length of the loaves is OK, but so boring! Be imaginative.]
15. Bake 45-50 minutes.
16. Turn out on a rack to cool.

Have a good weekend!

crabmeat pasta with capers

Have you tried capers? I love capers. Capers, just like olives, are always cured or pickled in salt or brine. They preserve well, making it easy to transport them around the world.

Capers are loaded with quercetin which are flavonoids used for blood vessel protection. Capers have been known for centuries for their medicinal properties – headaches, rheumatism and hair loss, but most appreciate the enhanced flavor found in meat and pasta dishes, salads, sauces, pates, tartar sauce or by themselves.  

Let me show you a recipe using capers. I love all sorts of pasta, and you can always find it at my home. Few weeks back, we prepared some crabmeat pasta where we added capers to it. It is  a perfect carbo-loading meal for your KL International Marathon this Sunday . Here’s how we made it;  

 

Friends, we need to start cooking again, to make sure our children don’t grow up on a diet of processed food, so that they won’t have to battle obesity and diet-related illnesses when they grow up. A small change in the kitchen could save the life of someone you love.

Cooking skills give people a basic knowledge of food and help us to make informed decisions about what to eat. Without these skills, people have no choice but to eat fast food and processed meals.

tidying up the pantry

For some people, the reason they cook at home is to save money, other people just really enjoy a home-cooked meal. Bottom line, it is just not practical to eat out every night of the week, and it is much cheaper, and healthier to eat at home. Besides, it is fun to go grocery shopping, especially if you have children, and you make it a free outing that is educational as well.

Unfortunately, when the pantry gets full, food items can be put all over the place, and it can become difficult to use all the products and foodstuffs before their best-by-dates, and before you know it you are throwing food away. This can become an expensive exercise.

On the other hand, pantry organizing can save you money, and make it a pleasure to use your pantry effectively. So, I started an ‘organizing project’ of my own over the weekend. How do you get started? Well, I started out at the freezer.

Tupperware® offers a great line of food storage containers including a nice assortment of airtight, freezer-safe containers like the ones above, in all the most convenient sizes and styles. Tupperware® offers great colors too. While Tupperware® containers tend to cost a bit more than those you will find in your favorite stores, the price is in line with the quality. Most people find Tupperware® containers to be a good value.  I also re-organized my pantry and this is how it looks like now. I wanted all the cooking ingredients to be within hand-reach and visible.

My next project is to label them.

signing books at Mohsin

Last Sunday, right after a stretching session by dear friend MsJewelz at Kiara Park, friends and I went to Mohsin Restaurant at TTDI for our Tribute TT to Sundowners.  As always, I really enjoy meeting friends, especialy those who share the same passion.  It was also the venue for my unofficial book signing. Thank you so much to those who have bought my books. I really hope they love the recipes, and enjoy preparing these healthy meals. There are very easy to prepare recipes.

This book is different from a normal cookbook. I substituted many common unhealthy ingredients in the recipes. This is one of the recipes, extremely simple and worth the try;

p/s – Friends blogged about the event too. Do visit their blogs;

Kash : http://run-kooky-run.blogspot.com/2010/06/hearty-week.html

Yimster : http://yimster.blogspot.com/2010/06/stretch-it-babe.html

Syah : http://iamsyah.blogspot.com/2010/06/time-by-original-bell-ross.html

Diket : http://wcr1414.blogspot.com/

meeting chef laura calder

Few weeks back, I was given an opportunity to meet up with the alluring and very sexy AFC host of French Food at Home; Laura Calder. Laura’s culinary expertise has led her to host more than 70 episodes of French Food at Home, with two seasons shown exclusively on the Asian Food Channel (AFC) Astro CH703. She has also written food articles in several publications, including Vogue Entertaining and Travel, Gourmet Magazine, Gastronomica, The Times of London, The Los Angeles Times, The Wine Journal, and Flare magazine.

Following university studies in Canada and the UK, Laura studied cooking at Dubrulle Culinary Institute in Vancouver and L’Ecole de Cuisine LaVarenne in Burgundy. She also undertook wine studies in France and California.   After a decade in France, she’s now based in Canada.

When thinking of French cuisine and cooking, many things come to mind – elegance and exquisiteness. In that session with Laura, she taught us basic French cooking techniques and prepared 3 simple and extremely delicious and ‘elegant’ recipes; Asparagus served with Orange Sauce and Shallots, Steak au Poivre (Pepper Steak) with Potato Gratin and heavenly Apple Cream Tart.

 

p/s – I’ve been very grateful that there’re now demand for my cooking demo and fitness & health talks by companies/individuals. This is new, and of course, least expected. It wasn’t even in my wildest dream to share my passion for nutrition, health & fitness with bigger audience. I’m still learning myself and that was the main reason why I attended this session with Laura Calder. I wanted to learn the presentation techniques of celeb chefs (more than learning the cooking techniques itself … hehehe) in preparing myself for my next demo show for a company mid next month.  There are also few more events lining up, and I’m just so excited to have  it accomplish one step at a time.

 

super healthy Laghman

I blogged in my previous posting how dissatified my wife and I were with Laghman (a middle asian noodle)  that we ordered at The Turkistan restaurant few weeks back. It was so watery and bland. I could definitely cook better

Last Friday, right before I went for my LSD training, I prepared Laghman (for the very first time) for family dinner and it turned out fantastically well. This is how I made it;

 

There you go, a very simple recipe and a very healthy one too. It’s also good to eat it with bread.

take home chef

Besides being a Personal Fitness Trainer, I am also a Personal Fitness Chef – a certification that I took earlier last year to gain more knowledge in healthy food preparation/cooking. This way I am able to provide a complete package to my clients, both from the fitness side as well as the nutrition and food part.

In Malaysia, it’s a bit tricky to find good and healthy food out there. Even when there are (or claimed to be one), food labeled to be low in fat normally will be high in sodium, and what’s low in sugar will be high in fat. I don’t blame the food makers as their main aim is to come up with delicious and tasty food so that consumers will buy their products over and over again. But the truth is, there are so many hidden and artery-clogging ingredients in the food that can be harmful to the consumers.

I wanted to take control over the ingredients in my food and that was the reason why I took up this certification. Basically, if you cook yourself, not only you’ll save up a lot of money from buying those fat&sweet-laden food, but you can come up with lots of interesting recipes on your own.

I created Fitness Kitchen (the F&B arm of Corporate Athletes) last year and since then, has caught the media’s attention where I’ve been invited to talk and even cook in studio by Astro, appeared on newspaper giving tips on nutrition and healthy eating, and later being offered to write my own book (see below for the latest development).  Fitness Kitchen’s other programs were also in demand too, especially Personal Health Lifestyle Program where the client gets to spend a day with me for meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking. I’ll even go through the basic eating habits, eating out strategies etc. Best of all, I will prepare wholesome food for the client to eat in a week!

A client of mine requested for the program last few weekends, and she agreed to allow me to document it for blogging purposes. So, if you guys are thinking how I become way too busy over the weekend, well here’s the reason ;

Towards the end of the program (4hrs), I’ve helped her to prepare 14 dishes altogether, among others; chicken stew, vegetarian pasta, puddings, jam, teriyaki fish, cream of mushroom etc. Indeed, it was a fun day of cooking, talking and eating.

 

Latest Update on Fitness Food Made Simple book

 

sandwiches on-the-go

I love sandwiches and eat them on daily basis. Sometimes, I eat 4 sets of sandwiches (8 slices of bread) a day. They are so easy to make and very healthy too (provided that you use whole-meal breads and stay away from processed sauces and fattening mayo). Scrumptious sandwiches can be made in 10 minutes or less. Whether you’re looking for something hot and hearty or quick and light, you’re sure to find just what you need with tasty sandwich recipes.

This morning, my colleagues and I organized a do-it-yourself Sandwich Picnic at the office pantry. Each of us brought a sandwich filling – we had a good spread of tuna, sardine, egg, hotdogs and of course lettuce, sliced cucumber and tomatoes. Here are some of the pics taken;

Wifey and munchkin also love the fast-food sandwiches and most of the time, we end-up at Subway. Last two nights, we had another round of their foot long sub. We chose the high-grain bread, loaded with heapful of fresh vegetables and cold cuts (avoid the heavily marbled cuts – these are fat) and stayed away from other sauces except mustard (this is the healthiest choice). Simply delicious.

a terrific lunch at the pantry

Mid-day breaks at my office pantry is always busy with lunches and parties. Few weeks back,  the engineers at my workplace came up with an idea to organise a steamboat lunch. The weather was hot and we decided to have it at our pantry. We brought many ingredients from home and threw together a steamboat feast. It was absolutely delicious and so very colorful.

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