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Easy meals to fuel young athletes

Get your kids ready for summer sports with easy “spring training” meals for athletes. Capital City Kitchen’s Valerie Vanderpool and her nephew Ross make us a high protein and carbohydrate breakfast with a breakfast pasta, along with a nourishing brown rice and veggie bowl that is supposed to combat muscle cramps. Here are the recipes:

Breakfast Pasta

1 serving

1 cup cooked Banza pasta

1/3 cup low-sugar marinara sauce (we love Rao’s)

1 large handful of greens, such as spinach

1 link chicken sausage, cooked + cut into pieces

1 egg, poached (see recipe below)

Layer the ingredients into a bowl, cover and heat in microwave.

Protein: 35g Carbohydrates: 27g Fiber: 12g

How to Perfectly Poach Eggs

Don’t pull the eggs out of the fridge until right before you’re going to put them in the water. If the eggs are cold going into the water, the whites will stay together much better and you’ll avoid that jelly fish look. Instead you’ll end up with a beautifully compact and tidy egg.

Adding vinegar to the water also will help set the egg whites, and adding the sea salt will help season the egg while it’s poaching.

Add water 2/3 of the way up in a small, heavy-bottomed sauce pan; add 1 Tablespoon vinegar and 1 Tablespoon sea salt, then bring to a simmer.

Have a clean kitchen towel ready for draining, then with a slotted spoon, gently lower the egg into the simmering water and slowly count to 10. Using the same spoon, lift the egg out of the water and sit on the towel.

Using the spoon, stir the water rapidly to create a vortex in the middle, then quickly break the egg into the center of the vortex. Set your timer for 3 minutes. If you don’t want the center runny, set the timer for 4 or 5 minutes, depending on if you want it less runny or cooked through. You may have to experiment with the timing, as every stove burner is a little different and may be more hot or less hot.

After about 10 seconds use the slotted spoon to slightly lift the egg off the bottom of the pan. Every few seconds, check the egg to make sure it is not settling on the bottom of the pan, so it doesn’t get stuck there.

When the timer goes off, very gently lift the egg from the water in the slotted spoon, and rest the spoon on the dish towel to drain it.

Turkey Hash

2 serving

2 Tablespoons olive oil

½ pound ground lean turkey

1 small sweet potato, scrubbed and cut into small cubes (don’t peel it)

½ cup shredded lacinato kale

¼ cup diced onion

¼ cup diced red bell pepper

½ cup cooked black beans

1 Tablespoon dijon mustard

2 teaspoons honey

pink sea salt + fresh black pepper to taste

1 avocado

Over medium-high heat, in a heavy-bottomed pan, add the oil. When it begins to shimmer, add the turkey, sweet potato, kale, onion and bell pepper; season with sea salt + pepper. Sauté until the sweet potato begins to get soft. If it begins to stick, add a little water to the pan. You can lower the heat a little, if necessary.

Once the sweet potatoes have become soft, add the black beans, dijon, and honey. Stir to warm through.

Divide into 2 bowls and top each with ½ of the avocado.

**Note: Sweet potato, kale and avocado are very high in potassium, kale and sweet potato are high in calcium and pink Himalayan seas salt is an excellent source of sodium and nutrients. All of these help prevent muscle cramping.

Chef Bio: Chef Valerie Vanderpool is the Chef + Co-Founder of Capital City Kitchen.

Noah Grant’s Catering joined forces with Chef Valerie Vanderpool of Zest and Girlie Gourmet to bring you a Living Culinary Center!

And by living, we mean alive and breathing, and taking on all types of life! Like being your only delectable catering stop, and super fun interactive food experiences you won’t want to miss! We’ll be throwing pop-up dinners, teaching cooking classes, entertaining guest speakers, doing chef collaborations, judging Knife Fight competitions and more at our space in beautiful Carmel, Indiana!

As the Founder + Chef of Girlie Gourmet, Chef Valerie created healthy chef-delivered meals and catered private events. As the executive chef and co-founder of Zest! Exciting Food Creations restaurant and Twist lounge in the SoBro section of Indianapolis, Chef Valerie appeared on The Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Guy Fieri, and the recipe for her Caramel + Sea Salt Brownies appeared in the pages of Bon Appètit magazine.

To learn more, visit www.capcitykitchen.com.