FITNESS FIESTA PRIZE WINNING RECIPES

HEALTHIEST DISH
by Judy Hubbard

BEETROOT, SALMON & MASCARPONE PATE 

12 oz. mascarpone cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 oz. cooked beets, drained
5 oz. smoked salmon
1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
ground pepper

Put in Vitamin in order.
Turn machine to Variable 1.
Increase to Variable 5
15 seconds
Chill
Best consumed within 24 hrs.

BEST APPETIZER
by Mary Lee Stein

GREEN CHILE CHEESECAKE with PAPAYA SALSA

Ingredients

1. For crust
   • 1-1/2 cupes finely ground blue corn chips (from a 9-oz bag)
   • 1 TB unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2. For filling
   • 8 fresh green chiles such as Anaheim or poblano
   • 1 1/2 cups sour cream
   • 2 large eggs
   • 1 pound cream cheese, softened
   • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
   • 1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese (about 4 ounces)
   • 1 1/2 cups grated sharp Cheddar (about 6 ounces)
   • 1 tablespoon minced fresh dill leaves
   • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
   • 1/2 tsp sale
3. For salsa
   • 1 (1-lb) papaya, firm but ripe
   • 2 minced garlic cloves
   • 1 medium  finely chopped red onion
   • 1 cored, seeded and finely chopped red bell pepper
   • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
   • 1/4 cup rice vinegar
   • 1/2 tsp salt
   • 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

   • Preparation

     Preheat oven to 350°F.

   • Make crust:
   • (Put rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350)
     1. Stir together corn chip crumbs and butter in a bowl until evenly moistened.  Press mixture onto bottom of a 10-inch springform pan.  Bake until fragrant, about 10 minutes.  Cool on a rack.  Reduce oven temperature to 325 F
   • Make filling:
     1. In a food processor blend sour cream and eggs. Add cream cheese and butter and blend until smooth. Transfer mixture to a bowl and stir in chiles, cheeses, dill, cilantro, and salt to taste. Pour filling over crust and bake in middle of oven 45 minutes, or until center is just set. Cool cheesecake completely in pan on a rack.
   • Make salsa:
     1. Peel and seed papaya and coarsely chop (you will have about 2 cups). Stir together papaya with remaining ingredients in a bowl.  
     2. Serve cheesecake with salsa.
     
     COOK'S NOTES:
     Chiles can be roasted and peeled up to one day ahead.  Refrigerate, covered.
     The Cheesecake can be made up to one day ahead.  Cool completely, uncovered, then refrigerate, covered, and bring to room temperature before serving.
     
     
     BEST SALAD
     by Dega Schembri
     
     
     
     
     
     QUINOA-ADZUKI BEAN SALAD
     
     
     Ingredients:
     1 can of Adzuki beans, well rinsed in a strainer
     1 cup quinoa, rinsed (I use ¾ c white/regular and ¼ c red quinoa - it's prettier)
     1-1/4 cup water (or a mix of  1 c OJ or tangerine juice mix +1/4 c water)
     Generous pinch of salt
     Grated rind and juice of 1 tangerine or orange (I use this mainly for the dressing. Rind can be bitter, so I use it to taste, I don't always use all of the rind)
     1 tsp curry powder or Garam Nasala (I do a mix of the 2 if I have them both)
     1/3 c extra virgin olive oil
     1 tsp apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar
     Salt to taste
     2 Tbsp golden raisins and currants or dried cranberries (I use ½ c golden raisins and 2 TB currants)
     2 carrots, peeled and diced
     1 small fresh zucchini diced
     2 scallions minced
     2 Tbsp minced parsley or more to taste
     2 Tbsp minced basil or more to taste
     ¼ cup lightly toasted sliced or slivered almonds or pistachios or pine nuts
     
     
     Preparation:
     1.      Bring water, half the tangerine juice and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add quinoa. Cover the pan and reduce heat to low. Simmer gently until quinoa is cooked through, about 20 minutes.
     2.      Fluff up the quinoa with a fork. Scoop it into a larger bowl.
     3.      In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, remaining tangerine juice, curry powder, olive oil and salt to taste. Drizzle over quinoa, tossing gently.
     4.      Add adzuki beans, tangerine zest, raisins, carrots, zukes, scallions, parsley, basil, nuts and adjust seasonings as needed.
     
     
     
     
     
     BEST ENTREE
     by Rebecca Milliken
     
     SPINACH CASSEROLE
     
     
     
     3 pounds fresh or 2 packages frozen spinach, cooked and drained well
     

     12 ounces small curd cottage cheese

     1/4 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated

     2 eggs, beaten

     2 tablespoons flour

     
     

     4 tablespoons butter, melted

     salt, pepper

     
     

     Preheat oven - 300 degrees. grease 1-quart casserole

     Mix together all ingredients and put in casserole. Freeze at this point if you wish

     bake an hour ( longer if frozen). 

     
     

     Easiest dish in the world!!!! My go-to comfort food and good side or even main course for a dinner.
     
     

A Giving Community: The City Fitness Crowdfunding Campaign, by Dega Schembri

Launching a Crowdfunding Campaign is a bit daunting for so many reasons.  For me, however, the biggest challenge, plain and simple, was the sheer fact that we would be asking for donations.   Asking for anything is particularly hard for me unless it is for a donation to a charity that I believe in, and this was a little different.  Although City Fitness is a community, we are also a business, and we are asking people to show their support for it by making donations.

Before we even launched our campaign, the first step I had to take was going out into the Cleveland Park Community to ask for donations from our area merchants.  As part of our Crowdfunding Campaign, we wanted to offer “perks” for anyone that made a financial donation.  For example, if you donate $50.00 you will receive a 20% discount from an area merchant.  In the past, we have received tremendous support from these businesses when we hold our annual Fitness Fiesta Fundraisers to support various non-profit charities, such as Girls On The Run DC.  This time, we are asking them to support our business.  These are other small businesses, like us, struggling to keep afloat. 

My first stop was Weygandt Wines, our downstairs neighbor in the Park-n-Shop.  Without hesitation, they agreed to offer a 20% discount on any wine purchases.  I was met with success again and again right in our own center with Ibhana’s, the new woman’s clothing shop that just opened, Parcel Plus DC and Paragon Thai.   From that point on, I would say that 99% of the merchants that I approached readily agreed to very generous “perks” - discounts on services, discounts on meals, free eye exams – it was simply unbelievable.  Our own trainers offered discounts on their training packages.   A member offered a discount on acupuncture and our staff massage therapist offered a discount on massages. In less than two days, we accumulated so many perks that the Indiegogo site could not handle the volume.  We had to combine some of the perks to fit into the site’s template to fit them all!

This was just the beginning of my being overwhelmed with the amount of generosity shown.  We launched the campaign and as of right now we are almost at 50% of our goal.  We received two very generous donations of $1,000.00 and another of $500.00.  Unbelievable.  Many of the women who are students of mine at our corporate site, the US Supreme Court, who do not even and will probably never come to City Fitness Gym donated.  We had one member who is struggling financially and offered to help in any other way than with a monetary donation and then ended up donating anyways!  Another member not only donated, but is offering to buy a drink to the first 25 folks that show up to our public Crowdfunding event, the date and location to be determined.

I understand the expression, “my cup runneth over”.  It is with a very full and grateful heart that I offer my deepest thanks to everyone that has participated so far.  It does indeed take a village to create and continue our special City Fitness community.

Finding the Fountain of Youth...in the Potomac River, by Dega Schembri

Somehow I got it into my head that when I turned 60 I would do a triathlon.  But, then I had a minor health scare at age 57 and the perfect counter strike was to strengthen my lungs.   So I decided to take up swimming and what better motivator to learn how to swim than by signing up for a triathlon?  Don’t get me wrong; I was no stranger to the water having been raised in Detroit in the proximity of the Great Lakes. But swimming free style, breathing properly, and going for 750 meters (1/2 mile) in the open water was, in a word, frightening!  I couldn’t even swim 25 meters without stopping and that was in a pool. Open water would be even worse. So what was I thinking? 

For the sake of full disclosure I have been in the fitness business for 30 plus years steadily teaching aerobic and body sculpting classes and providing personal training sessions at the fitness facility in Washington, DC that I co-own, City Fitness Gym. I also do my own weight training workouts. While I am not a cyclist, a runner and clearly not a swimmer, I knew that I had the physical ability and endurance to do all three.  I would just be completely out of my comfort zone.  I decided that this would be a good thing. 

I believe that as we age, our fears often become bigger and we stick with what we know and take fewer risks. I also believe that when you stop exploring, stop trying new things, and stop pushing yourself beyond your own level of comfort, you accelerate the aging process. 

At age 57 I signed up for the 2009 New Jersey Sprint Triathlon and immediately enrolled in the DC Triathlon Club’s “New Triathlete Program” (NTP).  Their first training session began with a 5 K run and I was undoubtedly the oldest in the group.   I quickly discovered, though, that most everyone was nervous about the run, not everyone was a runner and “triathlete wannabes” came in all sizes and shapes. It was a hopeful start.

During the NTP program I participated in all the group workouts and clinics.  Not only did I stand out because of my age, I also had a bike that was not your state of the art “Tri-Bike”.  It was a bike that I was emotionally attached to, having been given to me by my staff when I turned 50.  With it’s purple flower decorations, I was constantly asked if THIS was the actual bike I was going to use in the NJ Triathlon, to which I would proudly reply, YES!

When the day finally arrived, I was a wreck.  A few weeks prior to the real event I participated in a practice triathlon sponsored by the DC Tri Club.  It’s called “practice” for a reason.   First, the swimming was done in a pool – a far cry from the open water of a lake – and though I completed the swim, I was the last one out of the pool. Next, I had to immediately hit the bathroom (nerves) before I could get on my bike, and to top it off I started my run with my bike helmet on. 

The memory of all of that forced me awake even earlier than I needed.  We arrived at the event at about 6 a.m. and as I waited for my group to get called into the water, a woman about my age standing next to me could feel my fear (and probably also see my entire body shaking). She told me not to worry and that once I got out of the water I would probably pass her up on the run. The open water is intimidating because as you follow the big orange buoys that help you keep track of where you are going, you have a pack of other folks swimming over you, doing the same thing.  Despite all my freestyle training, my swim on that day consisted of a combination of the backstroke, sidestroke, and breaststroke and sometimes the front crawl. But I made it out of the water, the endorphins kicked in, the hardest part was over and I was in competitive mode. 

When you participate in triathlon events, they make sure that your body is marked using a bold black marker to write your race number on your arm and your age on your calf. This mortified me until I passed someone younger than me and was elated that they could see my age. The encouraging woman that calmed me down at the beginning of the race was correct – I did pass her during the running segment.

I don’t think I will ever forget the feeling of crossing that finish line, especially with my son watching and cheering me on.  I did it!  I wanted to do more!  I was hooked.  And most importantly, from that day forward, I could say that I AM A TRIATHLETE!

Since my first triathlon, I spent a lot of time and money learning how to swim better.  I now enjoy the quiet, meditative, and rhythmic back-and-forth of swimming laps; my Zen of swimming.  I bike almost one hour to and from work whenever I can and get a short run in about once a week.  I even sign up for some 5K and 8K runs.

I have since participated in four more triathlons, three of which were on the Potomac River.  Of those five I have actually won my age division three times! Even though winning isn’t really my goal, getting up on the platform and being number ONE is quite the emotional boost! My goal is to do one triathlon a year.  I love the cross training aspect of triathlon training because it does not limit you to just one sport. Swimming has made my entire upper body noticeably more toned and the running and biking have strengthened my lower body.  I still participate in other types of fitness activities including Yoga and Pilates.

Today, I feel physically younger at 62 than I did at 52 and attribute it to my triathlon training.  Who would have thought that I would find the fountain of youth swimming the notoriously murky waters of the Potomac River?  So, don’t let your chronological age hold you back either mentally or physically.   I challenge you to TRY A TRI!  It only takes completing one to say “I AM A TRIATHLETE!”