Singing For Your Supper

I am a true music nerd at heart. I listen to just about everything and I am always scouring the internet for new artists. So I was excited to hear that Jonsi ( the singer from one of my favourite Icelandic groups, Sigur Ros) had a side project with his partner Alex. The project is aptly named Jonsi & Alex. I was checking out their site for mp3 samples and to my surprise they had a handwritten raw vegan cookbook and some raw vegan videos. It just makes me love them even more.

The Good Heart Recipe Book was made as a gift for friends & family and now they are sharing it with us too. It is available as a free pdf download from their website where you can also watch them making some things from the book. Some of the recipes a bit of a nut overload for my current diet but the book is so cute and crafty. I feel inspired to make my own book presents this christmas.

Go on. Check them out.

40 Day Yoga Challenge: Week Three

I have completely lost myself in the yoga and been neglecting my blog. But then I guess that’s a good thing right? More time on the mat and less on the laptop.

I noticed a real difference between my second and third weeks. I was going to The Waitahanui Lodge, my parents place in Taupo, for Labour Weekend, so I needed to get my five classes in before I left. Doing six days in a row was pretty amazing. I became like this little machine. I was so super organised with my laundry and making my salads and smoothies to take with me to work. Who knew I could get so much done all in one week! I had plenty of energy in class, my diet was all raw, I was fully hydrated from all the fruit I was eating and I generally felt amazing.

Things were a bit different once I rolled back into town after the long weekend. Note to self: Don’t drive five hours straight on a hot day and then go to a hot yoga class without eating enough fruit. I spent half the standing postures on the floor in child’s pose because I was getting all weak and dizzy. I literally thought I was going to faint several times. Once upon a time things like that would have really phased me. I would have felt really down on myself that I wasn’t doing as well as everyone else in the class. But over the last couple of years with my change in diet and through practicing yoga I have come to know what is up with my body and exactly why I feel a bit off when I do. There are ups and downs along this journey, and either way, it’s okay. You just pay attention and look after yourself in that moment.

I also wanted to mention a website that I am in love with. Philosophers Notes.  Brian Johnson summarises a shelf full of inspirational books into a set of cliff notes basically. Every morning I get an email in my inbox from them with a little pearl of wisdom. It’s a great way to start the day. I think my fellow 40 day challengers and aspiring raw foodies would love it too. Here is the quote from todays email…

“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: ‘Does this path have a heart?’”

Carlos Castaneda from The Wheel of Time

You can sign up to the daily inspirational emails here

I hope everyone is enjoying their 40 day challenge as much as I am. Keep at it!

Namaste

Peppered Pineapple & Cucumber Salad

This is a quick simple salad for those of you with a sweet tooth. Choose a nice ripe pineapple. Look for one that is yellower on the outside and smells fragrant. If it’s still quite green it will be tart and can burn your mouth. Unfortunately most fruit we buy from the supermarket is picked before is has fully ripened to extend the shelf life. However, you can sit your pineapple on the shelf for a few days to ripen if there are no ripe ones available. Eating fully ripened fruit is important. The fruit has properly developed and has just the right amount of enzymes to help you to digest it properly.

 

Peppered Pineapple & Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

1 Pineapple

1 Telegraph Cucumber

About 2 Handfuls of Spinach

About 1/2 Handful of Fresh Mint

Juice of 1 Lime

Cracked Black Pepper

 

Assembly

Slice the skin off the pineapple, quarter and core. Dice into small chunks and place in a mixing bowl.

Quarter the cucumber lengthways and dice into small chunks. Add to the pineapple.

Roll the spinach and slice finely to create thin ribbons and add to the bowl.

Chop the mint very finely and add to the bowl.

Finally add the lime juice and a generous amount of cracked black pepper and mix well.

Tom Kha or Tom Yum with Spiced Coconut Dumplings

I love Thai food. The flavours are always so fresh and vegetables are often the star. Tom Yum is one of the cooked dishes I will eat if I am going out to dinner with friends and there are no raw options. It’s still all vegetables in a light spicy broth. But making a raw version of Tom Yum or Tom Kha is so easy to do at home. The main difference between the two is just the coconut which is used in Tom Kha. So if you are looking for a fat-free version just leave it out and perhaps add extra tomato for a Tom Yum version.

 

Tom Kha

Ingredients

 

Stock

1 Stalk of Lemongrass

1 Lime Leaf

1cm Piece of Ginger

1cm Piece of Galangal

2 Stalks of Celery

1 Cup Dried Coconut

2 Cups of Spring Water

1 Tomato

2 Tbsp Lemon Juice

1 Tbsp Miso Paste

1/4 Tsp Cayenne Pepper

 

Fillings

Choose from a variety of fresh raw shredded or spiralised vegetables like cucumber or zucchini noodles, carrot, mung bean sprouts, snow pea greens, cabbage, tomatoes, turnips or anything else that you have. In the picture above I used snow pea greens and cucumber sliced into wide noodles with a vegetable peeler and a few slivers of avocado.

 

Preparation

Place the lemongrass, lime leaf, ginger, galangal, celery, coconut and water into a blender and process until well mixed. Strain through a nutmilk bag or a fine sieve. 

Pour the liquid back into the blender and add the remaining ingredients. Blend well.

You may like to gently warm the stock to a low temperature before pouring over the vegetables, but it does just fine as a cold soup as well.

Place your vegetables of choice into a bowl and pour the stock over the top.

 

Dumplings

As a way of using up the pulp left over from creating the stock, I tried making these little dumplings. Simply form hand rolled balls from the pulp. They will crumble if you sit them in the soup for too long, but you could place them on top of the vegetable of your tom kha or eat them right away. They would probably do well in the dehydrator also.

40 Day Yoga Challenge: Day 4 & 5

Well days four and five couldn’t have been more different. Talk about yin and yang. Literally!

I arrived nice and early to Thursdays Yin class and which began with an almost silent room, allowing me to fall into twenty minutes of meditation before class began. I am constantly amazed at how the energy of the room changes each day. Wednesdays class was loud with lots of chatter and movement before we began and Thursday, almost completely silent. I absolutely love Yin Yoga. I am more flexible than I am strong so at this point it feels more natural to me. It’s feels almost comfortable to lay down in sleeping swan, one of my all time favourite Yin postures. I love how all the clutter in my mind just falls away and I can spend the time really getting to know the subtleties of each asana. If you are not familiar with Yin Yoga, it is a practice that focuses more on stretching out the connective tissue in the body like getting your hips joints to open up for instance. It’s mostly floor based postures that are held for much longer than in other types of yoga and with each moment the body opens up more and more. You can just close your eyes, focus in on the breath and everything else falls away. I hadn’t done a class with Claire for a while and I’d really missed it. She has a special way of  putting you in that mindful state of relaxation as you practice.

So then Fridays class, whoah! I’d never seen the studio so packed out. It is a very popular class, and with the two for the price of one deal I’m not surprised. It was a room full of people all happy for the week to be over that’s for sure. It’s the first time I’d come to the Hot Happy Hour and it really is just that! Sometimes we can be so serious in our yoga practice, our faces all tense with concentration, not giving in to that irritating bead of sweat on the tip of our nose. In this class though, we were encouraged to smile and laugh and just have fun with it. Lou loves to crack some jokes to get a smile on your face especially when you are on the third section of utkatasana and feel like your arms are about to fall off. I am beginning to notice more strength developing as I practice things like Virabhadrasana or Utthita Parsvakonasana which is great. I can focus more now that I am not spending the whole posture thinking when is he going to let us finish!

There are some great teacher profiles of Claire and Lou at PranaFlow if you’d like to read more about them.

Namaste.

40 Day Yoga Challenge: Day 3

A few years ago the idea of doing some kind of ‘fitness challenge’ was on par with being dragged by my ponytail across a bed of hot coals. Throughout my school years I seemed to have some sort of allergic reaction to sports. Maybe it was the torture of being pummelled by large red rubber balls during lunchtime games of bullrush or the annual school cross-country that ran during magpie nesting season. (Yes, rather than holding the event on a more appropriate date, we were advised to wear bicycle helmets for protection during our run or if we did not have a bicycle helmet, as Mrs Tabernacle demonstrated at the school assembly, we could construct a sturdy makeshift headpiece from an icecream container and a reasonable length of string). Mine was a small town and a small school. You were either in the sports camp or the arts camp. Needless to say I spent a lot more time in the darkroom than on the rugby field. There weren’t a lot of options in between. During university I experimented with visits to the gymnasium, but we never really clicked either. The harsh flourescent lights and top 40 dance remixes combined with repetitive motions on grey machines only made me feel like I was in some sort of Orwellian torture factory. So we quickly parted ways. And then I found yoga. Finally there was something that didn’t involve a uniform or a competition. Something that made me feel amazing and happy every time I went. If PE class had only been filled with downward dogs instead of tackles and triple jumps my level of teen angst would have been dramatically reduced and repeats of The Cure on my walkman would have been on the steady decline. So now a few years on and several downward dogs behind me, I of all people have voluntarily signed up for a physical challenge. Since switching to a raw food diet I have so much energy and clarity and my body can do so much more that I can’t not do yoga now. It’s become part of who I am. And today as I was leaving work to go to class I think i may have actually done a little dance in the elevator at the thought of it.

Namaste.

Green Smoothies 101

So, many of you who are brand spanking new to this whole raw thing might be wondering what the big deal is with green smoothies. What’s so great about them? How many greens do I use? What kind of equipment do I need? How much do I need to make? How long will it keep for? Why can’t I just eat a salad? Or even just where to get started.  So this is a short guide that will hopefully answer many of those questions. Just a few things I have learned over the past couple of years. The good news is that it’s easy, it’s delicious and no, it won’t just taste like spinach.

What’s a Green Smoothie?

A green smoothie is a combination of tender green leaves blended with fruit and water. Pretty much any greens and any fruit you like.

Why should I drink green smoothies?

Green smoothies are very alkalising on the body, and an alkaline body is a healthy body. Disease loves an acidic environment, so the more alkalising food you can eat the better. They are full of vitamins and minerals and good types of carbohydrates. Greens are full of chlorophyll straight from the sun, which is very cleansing for the blood, making you smell nicer! Many people have cured themselves of all sorts of health problems by incorporating green smoothies into their diet. Your body is an amazing machine, if you give it the right fuel, it knows how to heal itself.

What’s the ratio of fruit to greens to water?

This is up to you really. You might want to start off with around 25% greens until you get used to it and then slowly build that up to as much as you like. Ideally if you are doing a 1 litre smoothie you should be looking at about the equivalent of 1 head of lettuce or more. The amount of water is also up to you. Some people like a thick soupy smoothie that you might even choose to eat like a pudding while other people like it thin and watery. Keep in mind though if you are going to make it a thin consistency you’ll probably want to make more overall so you can still get a good amount of fruits and greens in.

What kind of greens should I use?

You want to use any type of green leafy vegetable that is soft enough to wrap around your finger. Things like cabbage or broccoli are too starchy and don’t mix well with fruit. Spinach is a great one to start with as it has a mild flavour and blends easily. Among the many other greens to try are silverbeet, chard, many types of lettuce, romaine or cos lettuce is a great one, parsley, celery leaves, mint, coriander, beetroot tops, kale, cavolo nero, asian greens like bok choy, or wild greens like dandelions, cleavers or sorrel. You might even like to try a mixture. It is important to rotate your greens though. Don’t just stick to one kind. Greens have a very small amount of alkaloids in them so your body won’t like it if you overdose on one type of greens for an extended period of time. So try curly kale one day, spinach the next, then parsley and so on.

What kind of fruit should I use?

Whatever tastes good to you. You could stick to one type or use a few. I do suggest using what is fresh, local and in season if you can although it is nice to have a few frozen berries now and then. Bananas make an excellent base for a creamy smoothie and blend well with most other types of fruit. Then you have a whole variety of things to choose from, berries, citrus fruits, apples pears, tropicals fruits like pineapples and mangoes, you might like to add a some fresh dates for extra sweetness or throw in a few goji berries or raisins after you’ve blended for something to chew on.

Why blend? Why not just chew the greens?

Many people are not used to eating greens, especially a large amount of greens. It may make some people feel nausous due to low hydrochloric acid levels in the stomach. Blending greens with fruits makes them more palettable and easier on the stomach. Eventually the hydrochloric acid levels will normalise and you’ll be able to handle more greens. Blending allows the cell walls of the greens to be broken up, releasing more of the nutrients and breaking up the fibres a lot more. Often when we chew, we don’t really chew our food enough and it would take a long time to get through a giant bunch of kale! Of course it’s great to get in some extra greens with a salad or two, but green smoothies are just a quick easy way to eat your greens. It’s also a great way to hide them if you are trying to get your kids to eat them, or if you aren’t really into the taste of greens on their own. They are also handy if you are busy working and don’t have a lot of time to make a fancy meal.

When should I drink my green smoothie?

If you aren’t eating a full raw food diet you are going to want to drink your green smoothie before consuming heavier foods or quite a few hours after. Fruit digests very fast and if you eat it after foods that digest more slowly, like starchy foods or fats or grains or animal foods (if that’s something you are still using in your diet) then the fruit will have digested and starts to ferment on top of the other food, creating gas and digestive troubles and ultimately leave you feeling tired or cause things like candida. If you are eating foods that digest easily like other fruit, salads, steamed vegetables and so on then the timing is not as important. I like to have mine for breakfast, mid morning or as part of my lunch (before eating other food). I also like to drink them after my hot yoga class in the evening to replace the energy I’ve just used up. I don’t really like to eat anything too heavy that late in the evening, so a green smoothie is great.

How much should I drink each day?

Ideally you want to be drinking at least a litre to experience the full benefits of green smoothies. This means you are either drinking it as a whole meal or over the course of a morning or splitting it into a couple of smaller smoothies to drink during the day. If you’re not ready for that much just yet then start with as much as you can and slowly build it up. Some people go on entire green smoothie feasts where they drink only green smoothies and experience amazing and rapid results like weight loss or curing all sorts of diseases and health ailments.

What kind of blender do I need?

If you already have a blender, great, use that. Of course if you are really serious about it you’re going to want to get a high speed blender to pulverise those fruits ad greens. Look at getting something around 1000w or more. The lower quality blenders just don’t blend the greens very well and you end up with a pretty chunky smoothie. Here in New Zealand I use a Breville Icon 1000w Blender. The two most popular blenders in the raw food community seem to be the Vitamix or the Blendtec which aren’t really available here.

How long will my green smoothie keep for?

It’s definitely better to drink your smoothie fairly soon after making it, but it will keep a day or two in a jar in the fridge. It’s better to have a day old smoothie than none at all. One of my favourite containers to use is a wide mouth glass mason jar. It’s easy to carry them to work, the lids have a good seal so you don’t get green smoothie leakage in your bag and you just pop the lid off and drink it straight from the jar. I also like to keep my food in glass as plastic can leach toxins into your food.

Well that’s a few of the things I have learned over the last couple of years. I hope they are helpful. There are are great number of people more knowledgeable on the subject than I, so I have included a few resources below for further reading and viewing. I definitely recommend doing your own research. It’s your body and nobody knows it like you do.

Now get blending!

Green Smoothie Resources
Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko. She is the woman who made the green smoothie so well known in the raw food movement. Her book gets right into the details of it all and it’s a really easy read. Her FAQ’s on green smoothies are here.

Here are a few videos that demonstrate making a green smoothie it a lot better than I can explain it:

Sergei Boutenko talking about and making a green smoothie

Victoria Boutenko talking about green smoothies

Karen Knowler demonstrating green smoothies

The Lunch Bunch: Asparagus Nori Rolls

This was part of my delicious lunch today. I keep a packet of nori sheets in the cupboard at work so I can stuff them with whatever greens and veges I bring with me or grab from the supermarket. Sprouts make a great stuffing for nori rolls as they are nice and compact allowing you to roll it up nicely. Almost any vegetable works in a nori roll,  zucchini or cucumber, grated carrot, tomatoes, olives, herbs, the combinations are endless. Asparagus is right in season now and it’s the perfect shape for a nori roll.

Asparagus Nori Rolls

Ingredients

Untoasted Nori
Lettuce
Alfalfa Sprouts
Asparagus
Avocado
Lemon Juice
Tamari

Assembly

Lay your nori sheet flat on a board or a bamboo sushi mat and cover with the lettuce leaves first to prevent the nori getting soggy. Leave about 2cm clear on one side.

Then add your remaining fillings lengthways along the centre of the lettuce.

Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on the fillings and on the clear edge to help it all stick together once you have rolled it up. You could also use water for this.

Now using your sushi mat or just your hands roll up from the opposite side the the clear edge. Press the roll tightly in on itself as you roll it up.

Cut in thirds or in half and use a little tamari & lemon juice as a dipping sauce if you wish. It also tastes great without it.

40 Day Yoga Challenge: Day 1

Tonight as I practiced on my mat next to an absolute beginner I was reminded of both of how far I had come in my own practice and that at that moment I too was an absolute beginner stepping into this 40 day challenge. Thankyou yoga neighbour, this is why I love choosing a different spot in the room each time I come. I get to see things from a different perspective and practice next to someone new each time. While yoga is not about comparing yourself to your neighbour I believe you can always learn something new, sharing your breath and your energy with your next door yogi.

I felt a lot more energy in body throughout class tonight. I attribute that to my day of 100% low-fat raw vegan foods.  Over the winter I’ve been incorporating a bit of cooked food but I notice an enormous difference when I stick to 100% low-fat raw vegan. Not only does my digestion go about it’s business practically unnoticed, my energy and my mood are at a constant high level from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. The difference is so dramatic that I am really going to try and keep it up through this challenge. The other thing I remembered to do was to get in some sweet juicy organic naval oranges an hour before class so my body had some fuel to work with. If you are looking to improve your yoga practice there’s nothing better than fresh ripe raw organic fruits and greens to take you there.

As part of the 40 day challenge we drink a green smoothie each day. My glorious green smoothie for this mornings breakfast was 6 bananas,  3-4 cups of tightly packed spinach, 2 cups of frozen strawberries and about 500ml of pure artesan water from the petone aquifer blended til silky smooth. It sounds like a lot, but it’s less than a third of my calories for the day. A one or two banana smoothie is just going to leave me hungry in another hour. Which is fine, but to have it as a whole meal, you gotta think big. Mmm, I can’t wait for tomorrows smoothie.

Namaste.

The Lunch Bunch: Red Cabbage Tacos

Red cabbage is one of my favourite leaves to use as a wrap. It looks amazing, it’s crunchy and you can fit a lot into one leaf. It’s really one of the things we raw foodies use as a bread substitute. The ingredients below are pretty much what I had in the fridge today. You could just as easily use things like cucumbers, tomatoes, sprouts or leftover salad. Whatever takes your fancy.

Red Cabbage Tacos

Makes 5

 

Ingredients

5 smallish red cabbage leaves

2 medium sized carrots

1/4 avocado

1-2 tsp lemon juice

about 8 stalks of fresh chives

Greens of your choice  (I used a mix of spinach, chard and lettuces)

Dulse flakes (Karengo Seaweed) for saltiness

 

Preparation

Finely grate the carrot. If you have a fine grater like one usually used for parmesean you will get more juicy flavour from the carrot.

Mash in the avocado, lemon juice and finely chopped chives. Add a little himalayan or sea salt if you wish.

Take a red cabbage leaf and fill with a few green leaves of your choice and top with some of the carrot avocado mixture.

Top with some dulse (karengo) and a few chopped chives.