Monthly Archives: March 2011

Cauliflower Soup

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Mike enjoying cauliflower soup & salad dinner (barefoot photos)

This easy easy soup is a delight to make as well as enjoy.

If you cut the milk portion in half you can use it to replace a side dish of mashed potatoes.

This is Mike’s recipe; I like to use even less oil. As the onion begins to cook, I then add a bit of water to the pan which helps to steam cook the vegetables.

 

INGREDIENTS

1 large cauliflower chopped

1 onion chopped

1 T. canola oil

Abt. 2 C. rice milk

Salt & pepper to taste

 

DIRECTIONS

1.       Saute the onion in the oil.

2.       Add chopped cauliflower and continue to sauté for a few minutes.

3.       Add rice milk and boil until soft.

4.       Use immersion blender or potato masher to whip it until smooth.

5.       Add more milk to desired consistency.

6.       Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

Spinach and Tofu, Saag Paneer

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Spinach & Tofu (barefoot photos)

In my continual quest for GREEN dishes, I have been enjoying this fairly simple spinach and tofu meal. Saag aka Palak Paneer, is a delicious and satisfying staple of vegetarian Indian cuisine. Unfortunately, we live over an hour away from the nearest Indian supermarket, so don’t often have fresh Paneer (a type of Indian cheese) available. Tofu is substituted in this recipe, and while it is not a taste equivalent, it is nonetheless delicious in its own right.

INGREDIENTS

3 cloves minced garlic

1 chopped onion

2 T. canola oil

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1 lb. chopped fresh spinach

2 tsp. ground cumin

2 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. cayenne

1 lb. frozen spinach

14 oz. tofu, cubed in 1/2 inch cubes

2 tsp. arrowroot p[owder

1 C. rice milk

DIRECTIONS

Saute 3 cloves minced garlic with 1 chopped onion in 1 T canola oil and ½ t. turmeric until soft.

Add 1 lb. chopped fresh spinach. Continue to sauté.

Add 2 t. ground cumin, 2 tsp. ground coriander (freshly ground preferred), ½ tsp. ground ginger, and ¼ tsp. cayenne.  Cook until spinach wilted.

Add 1 lb. frozen spinach and continue to cook on low heat.

Meanwhile, sauté 14 oz. (container) of firm  tofu,  sliced into ½ inch cubes in 1 T. canola oil in no-stick frying pan until brown. Combine with spinach mixture. Cook 2-3 minutes  for flavors to meld.

Mix 2 tsp. arrowroot powder in 1 C. rice milk and stir into spinach mixture. Cook an additional 3 minutes.

Serve alone, or with fragrant basmati rice, or heat up a couple of spicy papaduum to eat alongside the “curry.”

Savasana, aka corpse pose

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Savasana, corpse pose (barefoot photos)


I am an experimental yogini. Lately, I have been approaching savasana, the pose of deep relaxation that I “do” at the end of my asana practice to see what I can learn from ten or twenty or thirty or sixty minutes reclining in a prone position.

The physical aspects of savasana are quite simple: stretch out on the floor on your back, roll the palms up to face the ceiling, allow the legs to flop away from each other, gently lower the eyelids, part the teeth slightly, cover yourself with a light blanket, place an eye pillow on your eyelids, use a folded blanket beneath your head and neck and a bolster beneath your knees, if you’d like. There are other variations and possible supports that can be used to induce a greater level of comfort, but I’ll cover those in another post.

Here are my journal notes after a savasana “lab:”

10 minutes: a sudden drop into physical relaxation. The body felt as if it were melting into the floor

13 minutes: another drop deeper ~ a deeper release down

17 minutes: Oh, now this drop felt nearly blissful ~ a tumble into bliss ~ so lovely

I was shaken out of it when hearing voices upstairs talking loudly and I picked up the phrase: “She’s really in bad shape.” Felt my mind turn on with adrenaline ~ thought maybe I should get up ~ racing thoughts, but felt my body still relaxed, so decided to drop back down into the deep relaxation, knowing the alarm was set and I could get up in three more minutes. Later note: this was an amazing realization: that I could CHOOSE whether or not to relax deeply!

20 minutes: the alarm rang and because I had already “come back” a good way, I decided to remind myself to come back s-l-o-w-l-y and resist the urge to run upstairs and find out what had happened (what had happened was in fact, a continuing deterioration of an 86 year old relative’s condition, and certainly not an emergency in the immediate sense of the word)

I’d love to hear of your experiences in savasana!