Find out a speedy dinner recipe that taste like you made an effort
We've officially hit peak 'what's for dinner?' fatigue. The average Brit now spends just 31 minutes making their evening meal – which, let's be honest, is roughly how long it takes to realise there's nothing in the fridge, panic-scroll for a recipe and then give up and eat toast.
It's a kale-laced chilli you can batch now and freeze for later. This kind of dish that make it look like you've got your life together – even when you absolutely do not.
Chicken and kale chilli
Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 mins | Cook time: 30 mins
Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
1 leek, sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground cumin
500g minced chicken
2 tbsp tomato puree
400g can chopped tomatoes
400g can black beans, drained and rinsed
250g bag kale
1 ripe avocado, diced
Soured cream and cooked rice to serve
Method:
1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the leek and garlic for 1 minute. Add the spices and then the minced chicken and fry until browned.
2. Add the tomato puree, chopped tomatoes along with ½ can of water and the beans. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, cook the kale in boiling water for 3-4 minutes, drain well then stir into the chilli. Season to taste.
4. Serve topped with avocado, a spoonful of soured cream on a bed of rice.
Recipe from
www.discovergreatveg.co.uk
The Independent
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gulf Today
07-06-2025
- Gulf Today
Are you guilty of wellness bypassing? Probably
Sam Parker, The Independent I once lived a perfect day. It started with sitting cross-legged by an open window for 30 minutes of meditation, with morning light beaming vitamin D directly into my face. After that, it was time to stretch: one, two, three sun salutations, timing the movement of my limbs to long, deep breaths. In the shower, I slowly turned the warm water to cold in order to flood my system with endorphins, before stepping out and repeating a round of positive affirmations into the mirror. In the evening, I chewed my dinner mindfully before switching on the TV. Then, two hours before bed, I put away all my screens and lit some candles. By the flickering flames, I wrote down all my worries in a journal and bullet-pointed how I'd tackle them the next day, before listing the multitudinous reasons I had in my life to be deeply, truly grateful. With eight full hours left before I needed to be up again, I lay down on my pillow, closed my eyes, took a round of deep, calming breaths and finally... panicked. The lure of the wellness industry can be incredibly strong, particularly if you suffer from anxiety. All my life I had experienced periods of vague, oppressive dread that could make entire weeks a misery, and in recent years, it had started to feel like the solution was only ever one more swipe away. My algorithm served up an endless well of gurus advocating journalling or diaphragmatic breathing or running in your underwear through the frozen tundras of Norway. I dabbled in all of it (OK, not the Norway one), figuring if I just landed on the perfectly optimised mental health routine, I'd banish my doom for good. The fact that no combination of these activities seemed to work made me quietly fear I might be broken, that anxiety was simply my lot in life. In 1984, the American psychotherapist John Welwood coined the phrase 'spiritual bypassing'. He used it to describe people in the hippie movement who used then-exotic practices like yoga and meditation as a substitute for working on deeper problems with their mental health. There is a 'widespread tendency', he warned, 'to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues (and) psychological wounds'. Welwood believed psychology and spiritualism could complement each other, but said he saw too many people trying to shortcut their way to inner peace and 'rise above the raw and messy side of [their] humanness before (they) have fully faced and made peace with it'. Fifty years on, we are now living in an age of wellness bypassing. The global wellness industry is worth $5.6 trillion, buoyed by an endless tide of Instagram-friendly self-care tips often presented as quick fixes for low moods, depression or anxiety. In many cases, the science backing them is spurious at best. An investigation published by The Guardian last week found that more than 50 per cent of the top trending videos offering mental health advice on TikTok contain misinformation. These spanned misleading claims about the powers of saffron and magnesium glycinate to dubious methods promising to 'heal trauma within an hour'. One theory posited that you can reduce anxiety by eating an orange in the shower (surely only true if you're anxious about having sticky fingers while you eat fruit). Jevin D West is the co-author of a book called Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Date-Driven World and leads research teams attempting to fight back against misinformation online. Health and wellness, West tells me, is the biggest problem area of all. 'Nothing comes even close to its ability to attract people's attention and convince them to let their guard down,' he says. 'There is the outright disinformation, of course, that has an intentional element. But a huge part of what we've seen is misleading content. Maybe it has some elements of truth. It might even be citing relevant science. But often, it's about an area there isn't much research on.' Take shilajit, for example, the tar-like supplement purported to boost testosterone. West's number one piece of advice for consuming online content is an oldie but a goodie: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Healing your decades-old family trauma by 'cozymaxxing' is probably not going to cut it. But he acknowledges that, even for savvy social media users, this can be incredibly difficult to follow. 'Because we want to be convinced,' he says. 'We want that elixir that can fix this emotional issue we might have. We want to believe.' We also want to belong.
Gulf Today
03-06-2025
- Gulf Today
Find out a speedy dinner recipe that taste like you made an effort
We've officially hit peak 'what's for dinner?' fatigue. The average Brit now spends just 31 minutes making their evening meal – which, let's be honest, is roughly how long it takes to realise there's nothing in the fridge, panic-scroll for a recipe and then give up and eat toast. It's a kale-laced chilli you can batch now and freeze for later. This kind of dish that make it look like you've got your life together – even when you absolutely do not. Chicken and kale chilli Serves: 4 Prep time: 15 mins | Cook time: 30 mins Ingredients: 1 tbsp oil 1 leek, sliced 1 clove garlic, chopped 2 tsp chilli powder 1 tsp ground cumin 500g minced chicken 2 tbsp tomato puree 400g can chopped tomatoes 400g can black beans, drained and rinsed 250g bag kale 1 ripe avocado, diced Soured cream and cooked rice to serve Method: 1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the leek and garlic for 1 minute. Add the spices and then the minced chicken and fry until browned. 2. Add the tomato puree, chopped tomatoes along with ½ can of water and the beans. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. 3. Meanwhile, cook the kale in boiling water for 3-4 minutes, drain well then stir into the chilli. Season to taste. 4. Serve topped with avocado, a spoonful of soured cream on a bed of rice. Recipe from The Independent
Gulf Today
13-05-2025
- Gulf Today
The reason why men are lifting weights more than ever
Ben Bryant, The Independent Paul Faulder is an enemy of cardio. 'It's a hangover from the Eighties,' he says. 'Cardio is dull as anything. I get bored out of my mind. For me, strength training feels like I'm building something that's going to last — whereas doing cardio just feels like burning fuel.' Some might find running appealingly meditative but for Faulder, there is nothing more mindful than perfecting the art of the incline dumbbell press. 'It is a real mindfulness-focused activity,' he explains. 'You pinch your shoulder blades back together. You point your elbows at 45 degrees. You start with the dumbbell over your wrists. Drive your heels through the floor. And now do your set. And by the end of it, you're adding the tempo of a one-second or three-second pause.' I am taking notes because Faulder is a gains guru. Only a few years ago, he was an 18-stone 'depressed Teletubby' with chronic pain. At the end of Covid-19, he decided to sign up with a personal trainer and fulfil a decades-old dream of becoming as jacked as Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. His pictures show that he has achieved his desire: four years on, he stands at six foot four with eight per cent body fat, and a body like a giant baggie of gleaming bronze conkers. 'The benefits it's brought me in business are just phenomenal,' he says. 'It's brought me a new level of mental clarity and focus. I've got loads of energy and people respond to that.' As the CEO of a tech company — Elixir software, which provides software to global pharmaceutical/biotech firms — Faulder has a demanding schedule. He has shaped his company in the image of his sculpted body: 'a lean, potent team that outperforms bloated, sluggish organisations.' And that includes requesting an unusual level of accountability for his board of directors. 'I've now got all my board having full blood panels,' he says. Wealthy businessmen used to be called fat cats for a reason: there was a time when men at the top of the status tree had a bulging waistline to match their wallets. These days, finance bros deadlift, wear slim-fit quarter-zips, idolise Patrick Bateman and post topless TikToks. Everywhere you look, male role models from neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and fitness influencer Chris Williamson to esteemed statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb are extolling the benefits of lifting weights, and Gen Z is taking note. Record numbers of Britons are going to the gym, with a 'notable rise in the popularity of strength training', according to trade body UKActive. PureGym's annual statistical report found that a remarkable 89 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds do some form of strengthening exercise every week. In 2022, ClassPass reported a 94 per cent increase in strength training class reservations compared to the previous year. 'Lately, there's a noticeable shift,' says Daniel Herman, a National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) fitness coach and founder of Finchley sports nutrition company Bio-Synergy. 'More men are asking for muscle-building programmes, even those who used to be all about running or cycling. There's a broader cultural interest in strength and a desire to look like they train. 'Leaner but more muscular' is a phrase I hear a lot. They're also often interested in optimising energy, mood, and longevity, not just aesthetics.' Most of Herman's clients are aged between 25 and 45, and in white-collar industries like finance, tech, law and startups. He sees different patterns in the people he coaches. 'Finance guys tend to want visible results fast. Think lean, defined, 'cover model' look,' he says. 'They like numbers and benchmarks: how much they lift, how much they weigh, their body fat percentage. Tech guys often come from a more sedentary baseline and want to undo the desk job.' He goes on to explain that many of these tech guys start with posture correction and general strength, then transition into hypertrophy — the growth of muscle — once they see initial progress. This represents a challenge to the brainless jock stereotype, which has deep roots. As far back as medieval Britain, men with muscles who toiled in the fields carried the signals of inferior class status on their bodies; physical frailty was a luxury of the effete aristocracy. Today, London's affluent elite are still shy when it comes to strength training. You can find them running or cycling, or perhaps doing high-intensity workouts like F45 and Barry's Bootcamp. Getting shredded is often framed as brutish, tragic or cringe – think Andrew Tate, Zac Efron, or Patrick Schwarzenegger in The White Lotus, whose twinky brother, tellingly, is almost killed by a protein shake. However, muscles remain an ambiguous symbol of male status. Nowhere is that clearer than in the minds of the most assiduous judges of men: women. A recent X/Twitter poll showed women two pictures of Olly Murs, who has recently undergone a bodily transformation. They were asked whether he was more attractive in his pudgy 'before' photo or his sculpted 'after' shot. The women overwhelmingly picked the former. Too much muscle, my female friends assure me, suggests someone who is vain, a try-hard lacking in spontaneity. The most popular heartthrobs of the current era are often built less like gladiators and more like Roman towel boys — see Timothée Chalamet, Harry Styles or Kit Connor. This is an outcome that confounds the kind of men who prefer the sureties of hard data to the mysterious and capricious desires of women. For them, the mounting evidence that the jocks were right all along is becoming harder to ignore – and now data-driven nerds from Bezos to Zuckerberg are defecting to meathead territory.
