baking gluten free

So I am not gluten free or dairy free or really any dietary restrictions. But I am intrigued by these styles of cooking. When I eat at restaurants with these foods, they always seem to be so rich in flavour yet so healthy, all this despite a lack of traditional ingredients.

Having explored different foods I have discovered the joys of quinoa, kamut baked goods, steel cut oats (once I found an efficient method to cook them of course!), to only name a few!  My latest obsession is everything Almond flour!

Almond flour just tastes so good. For the majority of my life I always pretended to be allergic to nuts so that I wouldn't be forced to eat them. Crazy right, well I never really enjoyed their flavour with the exception of peanut butter (they tell me that's because of all the sugar Craft inserts! Surprise, not really), so it was just easier to tell someone that I was allergic then sit through someone telling me how good they are, and me trying to explain myself.  I'm still not inclined to eat nuts just as is, I like some toasted, or at the very least mixed with fruit and/or chocolate.  I know I'm strange, but I also don't like popcorn, I think its a teeth/texture/chewy thing.

So almond flour, although intuitively not the easiest to bake with but once you get used to it its a great alternative.

With my experimentations I have discovered that almond flour like most nuts has a natural fattiness.  So by cutting your fat content in a recipe is important. Depending on the recipe I might cut it in half but at the very least I would cut a quarter or the amount.

Second thing is to remember, it isn't really flour.  It is ground up almonds turned into a relatively fine powder. It won't rise, especially if it is too wet and fatty.  So in my latest almond baking attempt I did a 1 to 1 ratio of almond flour and an alternate, if you don't mind wheat go for it.  In the recipe I will post after this I put a cups worth of quinoa in the blender and created my own quinoa flour. Which was easier then I expected.

I might add here that by doing a 1 to 1 ratio you will save money not using so much Almond flour since like Almonds, it's expensive.  But Almond flour is worth its weight in gold, it really is that good!

Finally I want to say that when I bake these treats, I don't feel as bad (or guilty...), it really is easier on the digestive tract.

So I hope you enjoy my Gluten free banana muffins!

Sita Sings the Blues

I watched this film months ago.

It is a great parody on a serious story/legend/history. It is told creatively and realistically as one person wrote on youtube, "If someone stops on the street and asks you to narrate the Ramayana, this'll happen."

I hope you all enjoy just as much as I have.

This is an open source project by questioncoyright.org, so please donate and support their projects and this film.

Check out the film's site at http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

The enlightening of our spirits (at least the pots are stirring)

So people have been wondering what my first two weekends of Teacher Training have been like.

Well, they have been the most amazing and intense experiences that could be imagined!  The best way to describe these weekends with my 23 other comrades is that they are these mini weekend therapy retreats.  You enter into the room Saturday morning look around, help set up and just settle.  Immediately you know when you see everyone's faces that it is safe; everything you have been reading, thinking about, practicing is worth it.  That devoting yourself to the now is so important and worth more then anything.

That is what it is like.

Yoga Teacher Training is about growth, it is a growth into the beautiful guiding being that will inspire others to want to dig inside and find their own beauty. (and maybe practice some yoga too!)

I can only say that if you are ready to find out more about yoga, to find out how everything in our lives tie together then do it. Anyone can do yoga, but I don't think anyone can anticipate the magnitude that teacher training has to offer.  It really is a beautiful thing!

That is the best way I think that I can sum up the four days that I have had in my program, and things are shifting.  I can not be more grateful for the two week breaks between weekends, it really allows me the time to process and implement what I have been inspired with into my life.

Hari Om

Getting ready for first day

Over the last few days I have received various emails regarding the first day.
One about our first day schedule, one about what to bring, one welcoming us to the program...

Each one helpful for my preparation, but each also helping build my excitement (mixed in with my nervousness!).

I'm just about to go to sleep but I thought I should share about how I have already packed my bag, picked my outfit, made my lunch, gotten snacks; I am leaving nothing for chance!

It reminds me of when I was in primary school and I was actually excited about going to school on the first day, of course, then it would have been my parents getting everything ready for me.

Well my fingers are crossed and my eyes are wide open!

Here is a glimpse of what my first is going to look like...how can anyone complain about this schedule:

8:30-10:30- Meet and Greet
10:30-10:45- Break
10:45-12:30- Yoga Class
12:30-1:30- Lunch
1:30-3:30- Course Overview
3:30-4:00- Tea Time
4:00-5:00- Games
5:00-6:00- Asana & Meditation

Namaste

Books for School

My new books quite literally just arrived, and I am so excited!  Who ever thought that School textbooks could ever be so exciting and not frightening! (well maybe with the exception of the anatomy books...)

I always love new books, but I always have to resist because the excitement of owning them usually wanes. So if I get too many at once they usually begin to collect dust before I have have properly enjoyed them.  Hence my yoga library is very small.  With the internet I can usually find what I need in the moment, but as with most other subjects books are so much richer for their information and the love that was poured into their creation.

The 5 books I had ordered are for my yoga teacher training that starts next week.  the books are:

1. Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student relationship by Donna Farhi
2. Yoga Anatomy by Leslie Kaminoff
3. Ayurveda, The Science of Self Healing by Dr. Vasant Lad
4. Yoga Mind, Body and Spirit: A return to Wholeness by Donna Farhi
5. The Anatomy Coloring Book by Wynn Kapit and Lawrence M. Elson

I have every intention of reviewing all five of them as I read them and we integrate them into learning during the next 6 months (hopefully it won't take me 6 months to build an opinion)

All I have left to get and find is a yoga blanket...