Turkey and Black Bean Chili with Sweet Potatoes

From Gweneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen’s It’s All Good

As responsible humans around the world are physically distancing themselves from one another, many of us are finding joy in cooking and sharing recipes. My employer has a #cooking channel on Slack and someone suggested we rotate making videos of ourselves cooking recipes we like. I volunteered to be the first. Here it is. Sorry/you’re welcome.

The Recipe

Serves 4

Recommended Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into ¾ inch pieces

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, divided

Coarse sea salt

1 large yellow onion, diced (about 1.5 cups)

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon sweet pimenton (i.e. smoked paprika)

⅓ teaspoon mild chili powder

1 lb ground turkey (recipe calls for dark, though I used extra lean light meat)

28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes

14 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained OR ~2 cups cooked homemade beans

Steps

Preheat oven to 425℉

Toss chopped sweet potatoes with 2T of olive oil and spread out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Evenly sprinkle with a good pinch of salt. Put the pan in the oven and roast for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. You’ll know they are ready when a fork goes through one of your larger pieces easily. Set aside when they are done.

While the sweet potatoes roast, heat the remaining 2T of olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, cumin, pimenton/paprika, chili powder and a big pinch of salt and cook, stirring now and then, until the onions are nice and soft but not too browned, 8-10 minutes. Note that some browning of the spices in the pan is normal, but you’ll want to adjust heat as needed to prevent the onions from browning.

Add the turkey to the pan and cook, stirring now and then to break it up, for a solid 20 minutes or so. You are aiming to release then evaporate the liquid and nicely brown the meat, if very gradually. It’s worth the wait to infuse the aromatic and spice flavors into the meat, so avoid the temptation to turn up the heat and char the meat.

Add the tomatoes and a large pinch of salt to the pot and turn the heat to high. Swish about a ½ cup of water in the tomato can to get the rest of the juices/bits and add that to the pot too. Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low and let the chili simmer for 20 minutes. As it cooks, gradually nudge the tomatoes apart with the back of a wooden spoon, being careful with the first nudge to avoid a spurt of hot tomato juice as you pop the tomato.

Add the beans and the reserved sweet potatoes to the chili and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes to bring it all together.

Pro tip: it will taste even better after a night in the fridge, though you may need to make a double batch if you want a decent amount of leftovers.

Possible substitutions

To make this vegetarian/vegan, just leave out the turkey (which also saves time!) and consider using more beans/veggies or even adding corn, mushrooms, grains or other chili-friendly foods you may have.

I haven’t made this with any meat other than turkey, but I’m sure other ground meats would work just fine. Consider that many others (especially mammal meats) will have more fat than turkey, so the cook time to browned will likely differ, and you may want to gauge doneness based on the browning vs. moisture, and possibly even drain off some fat once the meat looks good (though that would be sad so I would just leave it in and dance around more while things cook to burn some extra calories).

Missing some spices/aromatics? No problem! Play around. The onion would be tough to do without from both a texture and flavor standpoint, but a shallot would work – and it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you simply have to go without. Garlic powder is a decent substitute for garlic in a pinch. As for the chili powder, paprika and cumin, that’s just one flavor profile. Garam masala, cinnamon, zatar, and other spices would all be fair game to play with. Just have fun with it instead of stressing. Worst case you have something an edible and nourishing learning experience instead of a new favorite recipe.

Missing a plant or two? Have others you want to use up? Chili is about melding compatible flavors and textures so treat this recipe as a starting point. If you have vegetables in your pantry or freezer that you want to use up, or are partial to, go for it. Don’t like or don’t have sweet potatoes? Consider another root vegetable. Have a can of diced tomatoes instead of whole? Cool, you get to stir less. Just assess when to add based on how much flavor you want to infuse when, and how much cook time you think the item will need.

Don’t have black beans? No worries! Any other bean should do. Medium-sized beans like adzuki or pinto beans would work especially well. Lentils are also great. Kidney beans just make for a less delicate texture and you may want to give them a few more minutes to simmer with the chili if you want a nice infusion of flavor.

Serving suggestions

Garnish with cilantro, scallions, pickled jalapenos, yogurt, or cheese
Serve over rice
Put a fried egg on it
Mix in or serve over your favorite whole grain (e.g. rice, barley, quinoa, bulgur)

Race Report: Manhattan 7 Mile

It’s interesting how quickly one falls back into a routine. Whereas I put days of thought into preparing for the Joe K 10K a few weeks ago, I sort of showed up to the Manhattan 7 Mile. I raced it – and I had a good race – but I spent my energy on the parts that mattered, and managed the rest so it didn’t require stress, which was nice.

The day before, I stretched and rolled a bit extra after my workout and ate a bit of extra rice at dinner. I used the checklist I’d put together for the Joe K 10K to make sure I had the necessary gear set out before I went to bed, commenting about how much easier a running race is to get ready for than a triathlon. I set two alarms for 5:30am and went to sleep, with minimal nerves keeping me awake.

After a decent night’s sleep, I woke up at 5:30, didn’t snooze (a struggle for me), and got up to make coffee and oatmeal. I grabbed a water bottle and headed off to the subway at 6:15.

I made my way to the A/C but found that I’d just missed one train and it’d be another 15 minutes before the next would show up. The E, however, was right there, so I decided to take it with plans to transfer to the B. I made the transfer a couple of stops later and was trying to relax and visualize my race when the conductor announced on my alleged B train that it would be switching to the E line. So, I hopped out, thanked myself for giving myself plenty of time, and grabbed a cab to the park entrance closest to the race village.

I made it just after 7 as the race tents opened so there weren’t lines. I grabbed my number, thanked the volunteer, located the bag drop area, and tried to find a reasonably sheltered spot to hang out while I finished my water and killed time until I wanted to relinquish my coat.

After a quick port-a-potty trip, I reluctantly gave the bag drop volunteers my coat. As I exited the bag drop area, security commented, “You don’t look warm,” to which I said, “I’m definitely not.” I had carefully checked the weather the night before and was optimized for 40 degree weather, with running tights, wool socks that covered most of my ankle below the pants, two long-sleeve shirts, one of which was a half zip (that I’d fully zipped), fleece gloves, a hat, and ear warmer. The sun was still working its way up, however, so I tried to focus on how pretty the sunrise was and tell myself that it just needed a few minutes then we’d be back on track with the forecast.

I started a slow-paced jog at a fast cadence and started to “warm” up. I made my way over to the start and identified my corral entrance, then meandered around the park for a while, jogging at first then doing some strides, dynamic stretching and the drills my coach had had me practicing the last few weeks. While doing so, I caught a glimpse of a building’s temperature display and understood why I felt cold. Instead of the expected 40 or so degrees, it read 29 at the beginning of my “warm”-up. Cue kicking of self for not having a thermal hat, my Buff, or warmer clothes. It was still only 30 when I finished my warm up and headed to the corral, but at least I could feel my hands again, and wasn’t almost painfully stiff.

I had timed things well, so was only in the corral for a few minutes before the national anthem was sung, the gun went off, and we started the truffle shuffle to the start from corral I. It was quite crowded, and remained thus for the first mile and a half or so, making it hard to fall into a good rhythm. I felt chilly and a bit on the stiff side as a result, making it a bit harder to not be irritated by all of the people. But I managed not to snarl at or bump into anyone, and suddenly I found myself at the second mile marker with my target heart rate and cadence.

In short, that’s how I spent the rest of the race. I hovered around 170bpm and 90 cadence aside from some spikes on hills and a dip to grab a sip of Gatorade in the third mile. I wouldn’t say I ever felt warm, but I didn’t feel as cold – which sort of balanced out to “motivating.”

I had to restrain myself to keep from stepping it up in the 5th and 6th miles. 170 felt like a push and I wanted some energy to kick it up at the end, so targeted the 10k marker to let loose. As I finally got there, I concluded that was a good plan, as I was digging deep to get into a faster pace at the end.

I crossed the finish line at a respectable pace, with an overall time of 1:04:18, only a few minutes over my time for the Joe K 10K. Between the relatively efficient start and my efficient pace, my parents, sister, and brother-in-law didn’t make it in time to see me cross the finish, but my partner did and we all went out to a nice brunch after at which I enjoyed a recovery hot chicken and savory pancake after some stretching in their waiting area.

Finding a Rhythm

Since moving to New York from San Francisco in March, the hardest part of the transition has been the loss of my Bay Area triathlon lifestyle. I went from perpetual equinox to four seasons, almost none of which offer much of that 60’s and sunny weather that is perfect for being active outdoors. I no longer have my familiar routes with spectacular views, trees, ocean, hills – and often few cars. Gone are the days of swimming outdoors year-round in a combination of the cold but special Bay and a usually uncrowded, very clean pool with a nice hot tub to soak in after. I’d also cultivated an amazing community of triathletes, swimmers, cyclists and runners in the Bay and would regularly see multiple people I knew on the roads in remote parts of Marin, Sonoma, and San Mateo counties or in locker rooms throughout the city.

In 2019, I gave myself a break from heavy training and simply stayed active. I attended a few spin or yoga classes a week, ran a few miles along the West Side Highway a couple of days a week, and did strength training with a personal trainer twice a week. Though this kept me fit, it wasn’t the same and I found myself craving the structured variety and sense of progression of triathlon training. I also scored a lottery spot in the United Half Marathon in NYC in March 2020 and figured I might as well keep the momentum going from that. So I reached out to a coach I liked, signed up for Lake Placid 70.3 in September 2020, and started researching pools in NYC.

My coach has been structuring my training plan in Training Peaks since mid-December. Though I haven’t found a rhythm yet, I have at least made some progress, and learned a bit about what I’ll need to adjust if I truly want to make a triathlon lifestyle work for me here.

I like my job – and it takes a lot of my time and energy. I’m lucky enough to have some flexibility in when I come into the office, though it tends to prove challenging for me to consistently leave before 7pm – and I often stay later. I’m tired and uninspired to get to a workout at the end of my day regardless of when I leave.
I need sleep even if the city doesn’t. I really want 8 hours of sleep a night, and struggle to wake up without it. This is somewhat in conflict with the fact that there are a lot of wonderful things happening at all hours, and socializing tends to take place in the evening both after work and on weekends.
I need to change my dinner routine. There are many things I like about cooking a nice meal at home in the evening, but insisting on doing so after getting home from work means I end up eating around 9:30pm, which puts me in bed at 10:30pm-11pm. This routine also implies I have essentially no time to simply read, watch TV, etc. in the evening.
When I can get myself out of bed in time to do so, I like working out in the morning. It sets a tone for my day. It puts me in a good mood and reminds me that I am – and accomplish – more than my work. And I guarantee that I get my workout in without having to muster the time and energy after work. Eating two breakfasts also feels quite indulgent.
My skin hates the necessary evil of chlorine. I say necessary evil because most of the pools here seem to be pretty questionable. One was cloudy. Another had what looked like a turd at the bottom of the deep end. Though I appreciate that the chlorine helps mitigate the still likely chances I contract some disease from the pool, my very sensitive and already dry in the winter skin hates it. Lotion only does so much, unfortunately.
I want to learn flip turns and get more comfortable with fly. This should help me feel like somewhat less of a guppy at Masters sessions.
Indoor training isn’t as nice as being outside, but doesn’t have to totally suck. Thank goodness for Zwift and a smart trainer. I still need to deal with setting up my KICKR with the cassette that will work with my new bike though. Intervals help a lot to break up the monotony of a treadmill workout, and Woodways are incrementally better than standard treadmills.
I love my morning pour-over coffee ritual, but… Sometimes I will just need a quick caffeine infusion and would be best-served to avoid the temptation to sink into the couch and enjoy my mug of life-giving elixir.
I have some good go-to breakfasts and snacks, and manage with lunches. Though there is certainly room for further optimization of my lunch situation, I at least can always have Sweetgreen delivered to our work “outpost” – and our private chef’s kitchen will be back in action in another month or so.
Limiting alcohol has been great. I didn’t drink at all for the first two weeks of the year, and since have tried to limit myself to no more than a couple of glasses of wine only on weekends (usually). The lower tolerance makes it easier to stick to that plan, and I feel noticeably better so it’s been fairly easy to stick with it.

Though I’m not entirely sold on the idea, I’m going to experiment in the next couple of weeks with a variety of changes to my routine. My primary goal? To get to bed early, and wake up at the same time every morning. I anticipate a painful transition, but plan to commit to the following for at least 2 weeks:

Prep meals on weekends: acquire groceries by Saturday so I can use some of the weekend time to fully or partially prepare meals for dinners and possibly lunches.
No more snoozing. Leaving my phone in another room with its alarm set should help me not only to avoid getting sucked into the vortex as I try to fall asleep, but also to force me to get out of bed in the morning rather than hitting snooze. I’ll make every effort to stay out of bed at that point.
Stick to a bedtime and wake up time. I’ll aim for 9pm-5:30am, with the 5:30am remaining firm and the intention of making 10pm a “hard stop” for bedtime, with limited food and screen time after 8:30pm.
Aim to eat dinner by 7pm. This may imply bringing my meals to the office on nights I expect to work later, though hopefully this will also encourage me to cut myself off at work and go home. After all, it’s never done. I have been needing more true down time, and expect that enjoying some would help with the sleep routine.
Stretch and roll. Use some of that down time to stretch, roll and use my Hypervolt – or even go to some restorative yoga classes.
Acquire a Nespresso. Though I will still relish my pour-over ritual on the regular, it will be helpful to have something super quick and easy to simply throw back when I need to get going quickly in the morning.
Target matinees and daytime activities with friends. To encourage the early bedtime and early morning workouts (even on weekends), as well as limit my drinking, I’ll aim to mostly patronize the arts and socialize during the day.
Keep working on swimming. Carve out some time at the less crowded (and cleaner!) pool I found to practice technique, turns, fly, etc. and consider some private lessons or clinics. I also can’t wait for open water season to get going again…

Conveniently, I leave for the Bahamas two weeks from tomorrow for a nice vacation, so will have a lovely reward at the end regardless – during which it should be easy to maintain the important elements of the routine so I can come back and stick to it if all goes well.

Wish me luck!

Race Report: Joe K 10K

Not only was this the first race I completed in 2020, this was my first race since 2018. It was also my longest run in quite a while.

I’m happy to report it was also one of my best overall race experiences yet.

Nothing got in the way. I got a decent night’s sleep and woke up right before my alarm was set to go off. The weather was better than expected. Trains ran on time. Lines were minimal and moved quickly. Most people seemed in good spirits, and no one was an asshole. Technology worked. This all made it easier to just focus on being in good spirits myself, and doing the best I could to manage what I could control myself.

I readied my things the night before, laying out the outfit I wanted to wear and putting the items I would want to leave in bag drop into the provided clear bag. As there was rain in the forecast, I had even put my dry change of clothes in freezer bags to ensure they would be dry no matter what.

I woke up at 5:45 and made myself coffee and oatmeal, giving myself plenty of time to enjoy my breakfast before I had to get to the subway. After putting on my layers, I poured myself a travel mug of tea, donned my headphones and started a playlist to help me get in the zone as I headed out the door.

I used the subway ride to think about the race, breathing deeply any time I started to feel nervous or excited. I focused on my intentions: manage my energy so that I would feel like I neither held back too much nor burned myself out too badly – and finish ready to recover and do another workout the next day. This is, after all, only the first of many races on my calendar this year.

The 5-minute walk from the subway station to bag drop in Central Park worked as nice pre-warm-up. I dropped my bag, made a quick restroom stop, and then did a quick jog/walk to the start as a warm-up. I was in corral K, which both added a little distance to the trip and gave me a chance to do some drills while shuffling to the actual start line after the gun went off.

Unless people are being grumpy or weird, I leave my headphones off while in the corrals. I find that at running races, people are typically only inclined to speak to their friends, but I enjoy the sort of passive sense of community as you stand in the chilly fog with a bunch of other people who paid for the privilege to get up early on a Saturday to run a well-trodden loop through a public park. I also get a chuckle out of the people who hold their watches in the air and look up as though that helps their GPS reception.

Around 8:11am, I approached the chip timers at the start, hit play on my playlist, started my Garmin, and immediately started telling myself to stay in my own body rather than getting too caught up in the energy of those around me. I check my watch for my pace more often at the beginning of a race, since so many people bolt out of the start line – and I know I’m not fully warmed up yet.

It was pretty crowded so I tried to simply focus on my cadence and keeping my breathing steady and calm. Once warmed up and we hit the first few hills at the north end of the park, I was able to start leaning into finding a slightly less comfortable but also sustainable zone. My coach has had me thinking about my cadence in some of my recent training runs, and that helped a lot, especially as I encountered more hills than my training on the very flat West Side Highway has afforded.

For the remainder of the race, I was generally around an 86rpm cadence and had my heart rate between 165 and 170, with a couple of spikes up to 175. I was pretty confident that was the right heart rate for me for roughly an hour, and expected that would leave just enough energy for me to bump it up a bit at the finish. I figured if I was wrong and I started to hit a wall, it would come late enough that I wouldn’t end up with too shameful a performance. As for cadence, I hope to improve throughout the season to get to 90rpm over the coming months, but I was really happy at this point to be pretty much an 86rpm metronome until the last mile or so.

I felt good throughout the race. I felt strong in my core, and it feels nice to feel like I’ve found the sweet spot where I am pushing sustainably. My smile spread throughout and I at least felt like, if anything, my form improved as my confidence grew. I felt experienced and strong. It was a nice feeling.

This all culminated in the last mile. As hoped, my energy management plan – and training – worked well. As the first 5 miles had gone well, I’d devised a plan to treat the last mile as an “envelope run” similar to the assignment my coach had given me earlier in the week: find the edge of my comfort zone and push to hold it. I kept focused on cadence and holding my core while relaxing my shoulders and jaw. I tried not to look at my watch much, but the data shows my cadence came up to a nice, steady 88-90rpm during that mile, and my heart rate gradually increased over that mile from the lower 170s to my max (about 190). I crossed the finish line at a 7min/mile pace – which is quite fast for me. For comparison, my fastest 400m intervals during a recent training run were just a touch faster than pace.

As this race didn’t involve medals or fanfare, I grabbed a couple of waters and a bagel, made my way to collect my bag from bag drop and enjoyed a cool-down walk to the subway station. I and quite a few others stretched while waiting for the train – and continued our stretching once aboard like good Subway Creatures.

In reflecting, some things I could have optimized:

The weather ended up being more mild than forecasted and I could have packed lighter for my bag drop bag. Then again, I’d rather find I had a bit extra than to be freezing during the 40-minute journey home.
Similarly, more layers/optionality in my race outfit would have worked well. The main issue was that I had built the base for worse weather overall (the original forecast). Next time I should remember not to trust the forecast and have a couple of options to choose from in the morning based on the actual situation. Then again, the weather actually got worse over the course of the race, so even if I had started with less, it would have been smart to have a spare layer to throw on when the fog turned to mist if I’d done so.
I prefer my Flip Belt to the race belt that I have that will hold a bib. As this was not a triathlon with a transition, and I ended up using pins to secure the bottom of the bib anyway, there was no advantage to using the race belt so I should just pin the bib in future running-only races – and/or get a better race belt.
I should have packed something with protein for a recovery snack, along with a bottle of water. This would have been better than what they provided in the finisher chute, and expedited my exit. And/or researched the nearest coffee shop where I could have grabbed a latte and a nibble for the ride home.
Having a go-to running playlist on random worked fine, but it’s nice to have one custom-made for the mental/emotional progression I expect I’ll need during a race.
I’m 50/50 about whether it would have helped to have reviewed the course within the month prior. I’d done most if not all of that route before so was reasonably familiar, and also studied the route description online so didn’t feel unprepared. I think a certain level of uncertainty actually helped me to “be in the moment” in some ways as well. Then again, knowing exactly how long a descent would be and so on can be helpful for micro-optimization, especially in the final stretches.