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Spiced Rice and Sprouted Lentil Salad with Chiffonade of Leaf Lettuce
Sprout brown lentils for 2-3 days and use while just showing sprouts.
Cook one or more types of whole grain rice (here a mixture of red and brown rice) (I like to use a rice cooker).
Let rice cool. Mix rice with lentils.
Add some oil to keep the rice a good texture. I used sesame oil. You could use the oil recommended for your Ayurvedic type if you are familiar with the recommended oil for your type. Though this does not really resemble traditional kitcheree, the basic/unprocessed elements of the dish –the mixture of rice and lentils and the spicing — are the same.
Add a mix of spices. Here, too, you could vary the spicing according to your dosha if that is something with which you have experience. I used turmeric, ginger, clove, black pepper stirred into the salad mixture and then minced some green coriander seeds from the garden to sprinkle on top. I think a squeeze of lemon, had I had it, would have added extra zest.
Serve the salad on delicate, freshly picked greens–spinach and baby chard would be good, though I used lettuce because it was what needed most to be harvested.
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State of the Garden
The white flowers growing with the tomatoes and cucumbers (cages) and the beans (red supports) are coriander that over-wintered, and gave lots of good leaves from late winter through mid-spring. I’m now letting them go to flower and then seed. I like to use the flowers as a garnish. Still green and newly forming coriander seeds minced, along with whatever greens are still tender on the plant, are delicious in lightly cooked young vegetables. Almost flowery, like some Persian cooking. The fig in the right foreground, alas, has no buds this year. It wants to be planted in the ground on a sunny side of someone’s house. Local readers, if you want a healthy fig tree, comment or send an email.
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening | Photos
Sun Burning Through Clouds
We need protection from the sun as much as we need the sun. The yogi philosophers could perhaps point to this pair of opposing forces/needs as an example of the elemental pulsation of opposites (spanda) that is universal to all manifest being.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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This Evening on the Catio
The snow pea shoots were
Especially exquisite.
And the kale flowers.Hydroponic tomato from one of the farmers at the Penn Quarter Thursday market and organic avocado, tossed in tahini and then sprinkled with fine balsamic vinager, supplement sprouts grown on the counter and an assortment of tender garden greens.
Cool infusion of peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, and licorice mint.
The season has turned.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Slow Cooker Granola (and Intentions)
It is my intention to write a newsletter talking about the shift in my life that is leading me, effective this week, to take a partial sabbatical from teaching yoga. I will still have my Tuesday night class at William Penn House and hope to see many on at least an occasional basis. I will also be available for single and group privates and expect to teach a workshop or two in the Fall. But after eight years, I will no longer be traveling up to Takoma Park every weekend, currently on Friday nights and before that Saturdays, to teach. In this shifting, I have much to say about Kali–goddess of sequencing–and moving within the limits of time and space and some other things beside.
In the meantime, while I am wrestling with how to say what I believe are among the things I want to express and as I deal with a bout of being very busy at work and spending far too much time at the computer to want to spend more time writing in the evening, I just want to mention that it is indeed possible to make decent granola in the slow cooker. I experimented with that today, in between conference calls and emails and document reviews (slow cooking, after all, takes very little consistent attention). The cooking reached its conclusion while students and I gathered for Wednesday night practice. More important than requiring little attention after the initial preparation stage, the slow cooker doesn’t heat up the kitchen, and I refuse to turn on the oven if it is going to be 80F or above. Slow cooker granola is an excellent compromise between no homemade granola in the hot months and turning on the oven.
When I’ve experimented some more, perhaps I’ll create a recipe, adding to the many dozens on the internet. My first attempt was relatively low fat and no refined sugar. Yum. And if you’re a local, do come join me this Friday for a sweetly nostalgic and celebratory evening of restoratives. 5:45pm-7:15pm, Willow Street Takoma Park. Drop-ins and make-ups welcome.
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Mostly Anticipation (State of the Garden)
It changes daily this time of year. In the sink, the last of the spinach that over-wintered. Making way for new plantings. A garden can only be this full at the beginning, if there is a commitment to thin constantly; otherwise the garden would suffocate itself. This kind of gardening plans on picking shoots and baby vegetables, while things that need to mature progress. A constant harvest, though because of the limited space, I need to supplement–mostly from local farmers’ markets for produce.
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Signs Around Town
Do you know who is growing and transporting your food? How about your clothes? What about home furnishings and electronics? Sometimes we cannot avoid consuming things that were created under dangerous and harmful conditions, but we can be progressively more aware and thoughtful in our consumption if we put our mind and will into it.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
















