Sharing Practical Tools for Joyous Living
Save money! Eat healthier! It’s super easy to prepare fibre rich, protein packed beans ahead of time. Use these pre-cooked beans instead of canned saving yourself the extra sodium and chemicals of processed foods. These beans taste great in homemade hummus, quesadillas , baked beans, black bean brownies and more.
This method works for all legumes including chick peas, black beans, kidney beans, navy beans and more. Everything except lentils.
Scroll down to a printable version of this recipe.
with Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Serves 4
See below for written instructions.
When fall was waning, I couldn’t bear to toss that porch pumpkin. So I cut it up, scooped out the seeds and baked it like you would squash. After scooping out the flesh, we’ve had a ton of fun creating delicious food like fudgey, vegan brownies and pumpkin spice protein bars.
These quesadillas are fast and nutritious. Protein from cheese and black beans satisfy hungry tummies while high fibre corn tortillas keep everyone full. With that surprise ingredient of pumpkin (you can also use sweet potato or squash), we amp up the nutritional value even more.
What truly sets this version of quesadillas apart is the roasted tomatillo salsa. You may have experience with these vegetables (fruits????) but I’m newer to them. I grew them in my garden on the suggestion of a friend and they were super easy and prolific. I’ve also seen them in grocery stores. Look for a papery skin covering what looks like a green tomato. The flavour is bright and citrusy. They can be eaten raw but we roast them to enhance the flavour in this version.
Variations:
You can use different kinds of melting cheese including havarti, pepper jack or mozzarella.
Add shredded cooked chicken instead of beans if desired.
I used corn tortillas but you can use standard flour tortillas.
Learn more about cooking your own beans from dried at home.
(Gluten free and vegan options included!)
Scroll down to download this recipe. Or watch the video and cook with me in real time!
Are you craving a fudgey, rich chocolate treat but want to stay on track with your nutrition goals? Here’s a beautiful, fast recipe featuring a powerful pack of pumpkin to amp up the fibre and vitamins. It’s easy to make this brownie for your vegan or gluten free guests.
You know how you put out pumpkins on the porch every fall? Being VERY frugal, I decided not to toss it come time to change the decor. I cut up the pumpkin, like you would a butternut squash, and roasted it in the oven. The resulting puree has a lot of uses. Check out my Pumpkin Spice Protein Bar recipe. Or in my Pumpkin Quesadillas with Tomatillo Salsa.
Beans are nutritional powerhouses. Relatively cheap, high in fibre and protein, keeping you full for a long time… these are a rich comfort food with zero guilt. This recipe features lower sodium, sugar and fat than canned versions. It makes 4 – 6 servings so plan for left overs.
My favourite way to enjoy these beans is with buttered toast. They also make a great accompaniment to a brunch menu.
Recipe:
Celebrate the season with quick and easy treats that pack a great punch of protein as well as fibre, vitamins and sweetness. Much lower in fat, sugar and gluten free, these bars can be frozen for mid week snack treats.
When the fall was waning, I couldn’t bear to toss that porch pumpkin. So I cut it up and scooped out the seeds the way you would with a squash. I baked it in the oven and scraped out the flesh when tender. This one pumpkin is still yielding wonderful food from my kitchen, including fudgey vegan brownies and protein packed quesadillas. What I couldn’t use in the first few days, I’ve frozen in 1 cup containers for future adventures!
When you survive in this modern jungle, your system experiences a chronic cocktail of stress hormones that were more suited to earlier days. Our systems react the same way as our ancestors’ when encountering a threat but we’re not running away from sabre toothed tigers anymore. We’re most likely chained to our devices and inhibited from burning off that adrenaline and cortisol.
It’s not likely that you’ll be able to fix modern day problems by tonight. But what you can do by tonight is take effective action to mitigate the effects of chronic stress.
The research on therapeutic rest is compelling. But the real reason you may want to incorporate it into your daily routines is that is feels good! Of all the self care you adopt, consider that therapeutic rest is free, has no published side effects and is available to anyone who is currently breathing.
Want to learn more? Here is a FREE six video course that explains what therapeutic rest is and how to do it.
Want a deeper dive? Here is a six session video course focused exclusively on iREST, a thoroughly researched protocol utilized by the American military for vets as well as many other groups from expectant moms to homeless individuals. Dr. Linda Chamberlain facilitates these one hour sessions, building skill from video to video.
Why do some people seem to manage stress well? What is the secret to finding hope even when things are messy? Research is pointing more and more to the concept of “resiliency”.
What does yoga have to help build resiliency? Tons! But let’s look at 3 key pillars of building resiliency.
Yoga helps by giving us a lived experience of getting comfortable with the slightly uncomfortable. Holding a pose or learning to balance on one leg is challenging! Your instructor lovingly, skillfully and gently brings you along to accepting more and more of this challenge. Eventually, you gain confidence that you’re flexible not just in body but mind too!
2. Gratitude: This is mindful awareness of what is really going well. Taking time to notice the gifts, no matter how small. We have to consciously cultivate this skill. We are hardwired to search for environmental risks as a survival skill. This can lead us into constantly striving to “fix” our environment. This leads to difficulty because not all environmental risks can be fixed, and our internal environment (ie emotions) are what they are. The way we can master a new language or quit a job does not work to control emotions.
Yoga helps on several levels. A complete yoga class should weave in mindfulness and a meditative focus. Dwelling in this present moment awareness literally shifts the activity in the brain from “gotta fix that” to “acceptance”. It’s like the transmission on your car. You shift gears from stress response to seeing things more clearly.
Yoga helps as well by drawing your awareness to what is really working well. The range of movements and topics is so vast, you’re bound to see things in a new light after your practice.
3. Make Choices: We always have choices. When faced with a choice, ask this key question: “will this decision serve me or help me? Or will it likely bring me harm?” Almost 90% of our behaviours are routine or guided by instinct/habit. Exercising your discernment muscle builds ability to say no when needed or to recognize when something doesn’t serve you well.
Yoga helps when the instructor constantly offers choices and reinforces his/her confidence that you will take your unique path. There are no categories or graduations in a yoga practice. Every time you hit the mat is a fresh experience. This is drastically contrasted with most of our modern activities. As you get more familiar with truly listening to your body’s sensations and messengers, you’ll take that skill into asking that all important question from above.
Want to feel what it’s like to utilize yoga to build resilience? A specialized 3 part yoga course is being offered on Tuesday evenings, April 6, 13 & 20 from 7 – 8 pm. Work with yoga to build the skill of resiliency and find more hope even on the most challenging days.
Plant based eating might be the best gift to yourself and the planet right now. This entree was a feast for my senses and provided complexity of flavour.
If you’d like to ditch meat for even just this meal, I promise you’ll be full and nourished with these “meat” balls.
The secret? Eggplant! A vegetable that I don’t enjoy on its own that much but am just understanding its versatility.
You can form the balls earlier, even freeze them, and bake while you’re preparing the sauce.
Recipe:
Step 1:
1 large eggplant, cut into 1″ cubes (don’t even peel)
Place in oiled skillet with 1/4 cup water. Bring to a boil, remove lid. Let cook over medium heat for about 10 – 20 minutes until eggplant is very tender and maybe a bit browned. Set aside and cool.
Step 2:
Mix 1 T ground flax seed with 3 T water. Mix well and set aside. This will be the egg substitute.
Step 3:
In the bowl of a large food processor, mash 1 can drained and rinsed black beans. Add cooled eggplant, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 1 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp garlic powder and salt/pepper to taste. Process just until the eggplant is lumpy. Too much action creates a “gummy” ball texture.
Form into uniform balls and place on oiled parchment paper. Balls can be frozen like this (packaged into containers after they are solid) or baked now at 400 degrees for about 15 – 20 minutes or until browned and firm.
Step 4:
Using food processor for efficiency, chop one cooking onion, 3 cloves garlic and 1 1″ piece of peeled ginger. Heat skillet over medium high heat and add 1 T coconut oil. Saute aromatic vegetables until fragrant and a little browned. Add 1 red pepper (seeded and chopped into bite sized pieces) and 2 cups broccoli (again, diced into bite sized pieces). Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until veggies are tender-crisp.
Step 5:
In the same bowl of the food processor, mix 1 cup salsa, 1/4 cup sugar or agave, 1 T chili paste (samba oelek or sriracha – go easy and add more to taste), 1/4 cup soy sauce. Blend well then add to pan. Simmer for a few minutes until sauce gets glossy and thickened. Gently tossed in cooked balls.
Step 6:
Serve over jasmine rice.
This reminded me of Korean bbq but vegan style.
Try these other healthy recipes: make vegan bacon, vegan mayonnaise, vegetarian breakfast sausage or a delicious holiday casserole.
Guest Blogger: Oda Lindner, E-RYT500, Yoga Therapist
Much of yoga is about embodying wisdom in our daily life. In practice our wisdom is often hindered by our reactions or by the patterns that are the result of our past conditioning and experience. Automatic reactions keep us often from embodying what we know to be true. Yoga has tools that help us see the dysfunctionality of these reactions and patterns, and it can help us become more who we truly are.
In traditional Yoga each human being is seen as a system that contains many lines [nadis] through which the life force flows. The flow of Prana in these nadis support our physical, psychological and mental functioning. The flow can often become interrupted, and the lines can become twisted and tangled. The reasons for the tangles can be found on the physiological, psychological level and mental levels. Many centuries ago yogic texts identified three major groups of tangles or ‘knots’ (granthi) that appear in our system. These knots are located along the central axis of our system. They are the ‘knot of desire’ in the lower belly, the ‘knot of action’ in the heart region and the ‘knot of ignorance’ in the center of the forehead.
The lower belly knot (Brahma Granthi) is associated with ego-centered desires -think Amazon ‘must haves’. The knot in the heart (Vishnu Granthi) is our attachment to ceaseless action, doing and achievement. And the knot in the forehead (Rudra Granthi) is the ignorance about who we are and what we are here for. In order to embody true wisdom in daily life we have to open and untangle all three of these knots.
Interestingly, yoga has different tools that can be applied to untie these knots. On the level of embodiment it can use physical poses like strengthening the lower belly, opening the chest and releasing tension in the neck and the head. On the level of energy we can use breathing, mudra and manta to untangle and guide our energies. And on the level of awareness Yoga can apply reflection, realization and meditation.
To further explore how yoga can help you “untie”, please consider the “Masterclass” starting February 4 and running for 6 weeks (Thursdays 7 – 8 pm EST). During this course we will spend 2 classes on each knot. We will explore each area on the level of embodiment, energy and awareness. We will then see if, with the help of these tools, we can surface some the reactive patterns that form the basis of each knot. And in the end we may be able to loosen each area a little so that the natural wisdom that is at the heart of our being can shine forth into the actions of our daily life.
A recent article in Alive magazine got me thinking. What is self care? The medical definition refers to a patient’s ability to follow through with doctors’ orders. How will they be able to take the steps necessary to build health.
In modern marketing, self care has been used to peddle spa treatments, luxury shoes and exotic travel. Are these items, for example, necessary to health? They may be very pleasant and desirable but they don’t have any direct benefit to your organism.
This is where it is important to understand that self indulgence (what’s a little dark chocolate between friends?) is lovely but it is not self care. By defining self care as those luxuries, we leave out huge swaths of individuals who can’t afford them or who don’t have access to them (maybe they’re tied down with family responsibilities or travel is unsafe).
And I’m in the business of supporting self care. Yoga therapy is not something that is done to you, like massage. Yoga therapy is the active process of evaluating where we’re at now and deciding what simple techniques can be employed (ie self care) to bring more balance. Almost anyone, anywhere can practice yoga therapy. As a yoga therapist, I spend considerable effort to communicate the tools clearly and freely. In this, I hope to include as many as are interested in the self care rituals.
When you are evaluating your lifestyle and thinking about improving your mood, physical health or mental abilities, please consider your responsibility in making that happen. Ultimately, no one practitioner can “fix” you. It’s up to you to take responsibility for your own self care. It’s not a “luxury” to hit your yoga mat or take time to therapeutically relax. It’s not something that goes on the “to do” list only to be outmuscled by shopping or travel (something more fun). Yoga is self care … health care.
Please try some of the free video resources on this site. It takes as little as 10 minutes a day, and can be absolutely free, to practice true self care.