Studying for my midterm test in my Yoga TT class I came across this quote that I can't remember reading before, but it hit a note with me this time around and I thought I should share it. Enjoy!
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to so the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
~ Marianne Williamson
Nameste
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Gluten-free Almond Banana Muffins
Delish!
Yields 12 large muffins or 18 medium sized muffins
1 cup Almond flour
1 cup Quinoa flour
2 tsp (Gluten-Free) Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Ground Gloves
1/4 tsp All Spice
1 cup Brown Sugar
*If using a syrup like agave or maple syrup as a sweetener, use 1/2 cup
3 large Ripe Bananas
3 large Eggs
1 tbsp Vanilla
1/3 cup Oil or butter
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Prepare muffin tray with muffin tray liners or coat tray with oil to make for easy removal of muffins when cooled.
Mix your dry ingredients separately from your wet ingredients.
Mash bananas, then add the eggs, vanilla and the fat. gently stir.
Once each bowl is mixed, pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until they are thoroughly mixed together. (no dry clumps!)
Divide mixture into tray evenly.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden brown and a pick comes out clean.
I find these muffins are at their best once cooled and they have set. Although they are still super tasty straight out of the oven.
Tip: don't have Quinoa flour (or don't want to buy it)? but have Quinoa in your cupboard. Stick a cup's worth in your blender and watch it turn into a flour!
Yields 12 large muffins or 18 medium sized muffins
1 cup Almond flour
1 cup Quinoa flour
2 tsp (Gluten-Free) Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Ground Gloves
1/4 tsp All Spice
1 cup Brown Sugar
*If using a syrup like agave or maple syrup as a sweetener, use 1/2 cup
3 large Ripe Bananas
3 large Eggs
1 tbsp Vanilla
1/3 cup Oil or butter
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Prepare muffin tray with muffin tray liners or coat tray with oil to make for easy removal of muffins when cooled.
Mix your dry ingredients separately from your wet ingredients.
Mash bananas, then add the eggs, vanilla and the fat. gently stir.
Once each bowl is mixed, pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until they are thoroughly mixed together. (no dry clumps!)
Divide mixture into tray evenly.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden brown and a pick comes out clean.
I find these muffins are at their best once cooled and they have set. Although they are still super tasty straight out of the oven.
Tip: don't have Quinoa flour (or don't want to buy it)? but have Quinoa in your cupboard. Stick a cup's worth in your blender and watch it turn into a flour!
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!
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!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
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/
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
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
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