Yesterday I embarked on a "creating special spaces" journey.  I had been reading about the art of vastu, which is the traditional Indian system of architecture and space arrangement, and became inspired to make some shifts in our home.  I initially focused on my yoga teaching space, bathrooms and kitchen and today will be giving some love to my bedroom.  

The image here is of my yoga space.  In our world of Zoom, I was getting a bit too comfortable with being alone and I wasn't really tidying and loving the space in the way I used to last winter.  I've brought in colorful flowers, stones and shells from walks with my family, reminders of my spiritual anchors and teachers and candles of course.  Just doing this has made my already huge love of yoga and yoga teaching all the more abundant.

It is suggested that in your kitchen space, that you try (as best you can) to have only items that one would use in a kitchen.  The idea is that if we are distracted by other non-meal preparation or meal sharing items in the kitchen that we will not connect with the specialness of making and enjoying a meal.  So, I pulled out the bins of coloring books and games and cleared out the messy nook that is the storage place for everything random.  I moved the inedible flowers and plants to other areas of the house and instead brought in clippings of herbs from my garden.  It feels different and very fresh and happy.

Moving onto the bathrooms was interesting.  Here it is suggested to make this room your sanctuary for healing.  This is where you do a lot of caring for yourself and the bathroom at home can feel like a spa that you retreat to.  So, I cleaned and removed extraneous clutter.  I brought in plants and special items that had personal meaning.  I reduced the amount of synthetically fragranced items and brought in more nature.  My children even noticed the difference.  Brushing my teeth felt so peaceful this morning and I found myself taking a bit more care applying my face lotion and deodorant.:)

I hope you might find time to make your sweet spaces even sweeter and more special.

Stay well and safe,
Amy

A favorite meal these days is inspired by the old fashioned practice of making soup with what vegetables you have in the refrigerator, garden, etc. but instead of adding them to a pot to make broth or soup, we add them to ground meat of some kind.  The result is a really delicious and nourishing protein patty.  We've made these with both ground beef and turkey and I am surprised to say that I prefer the beef.  We haven't tried ground lamb but I'm going to do so this week.  We normally do not serve these as traditional burgers.  Instead, we make Italian flatbreads, that require no rising and cook very quickly in a skillet, similarly to cooking Indian naan.  We've also eaten these with a side of a hearty grain.  We always make a cabbage slaw or some other salad and use whatever is in our house at the time to find inspiration.  I don't like over-purchasing and wasting so this meal is a great means to enjoy all the produce you have in your kitchen.

Ingredients:

1-2lbs ground protein (we use 2lbs for 6 people who basically all eat like adults)
1-2 cups chopped vegetables and herbs.  My favorite combinations are broccoli, parsley, onions, swiss chard, and carrots.  You'll need to chop the vegetables small enough so they easily mix into your protein.  A dice sized vegetable works very well.  
Salt and pepper to taste
Greens for side salad
Grains or flatbreads

Directions:
Dice vegetables and mix together.  Add the vegetables to your protein as you might knead bread.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Form into meatball sized shapes or burgers depending upon your use.  Heat a skillet and add a bit of oil to the pan.  Cook about 5 minutes/side but using a quick read thermometer is not a bad idea.  The inside should not be pink or red but you also don't want the burgers to be dry.  The vegetables seem to help maintain moisture.  Transfer to a plate and allow to rest.

Assemble a side salad or slaw to top the burgers.  We like red and green cabbage, onion and radish.  An arugula, red onion salad is also nice.  For the slaw, shave the cabbages thinly and slice the onion and radish thinly too.  Salt and pepper and drizzle with red wine or apple cider vinegar and olive, grapeseed or avocado oil.  Adjust to your taste.  For the arugula option, place the arugula in your salad bowl and add thinly sliced red onion to top.  Sprinkle salt over the onions and some vinegar.  Allow the onions to macerate in this way to reduce some of the sharpness of the onions.  Allow to rest about 10 minutes and then toss with the oil and maybe more vinegar, salt and pepper.  

If you use flatbreads, you could freshen them by quick frying them in a dry, hot cast-iron skillet.  No more than 30 seconds each side or until they're warm and a little charred.  If you want to make a grain, just choose your favorite grain and serve on side or beneath the burgers.  

Enjoy!

 


My husband works from home and I'm often in between classes around his lunch break so I can make him something yummy to eat mid-day.  Today, I made for him this "tuna salad" which omits the mayonnaise that he likes to avoid.  This version also allowed me to be inspired by the vegetables in our garden and those we just picked up at our local CSA, Norman Market.





Recipe:
1 can water packed tuna
1/2 can (or to taste) garbanzo beans (feel free to cook from dried)
Handful of yellow cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 white onion, slivered
2 small green bell peppers, roughly chopped
red cabbage, julienned and amount to your liking
fresh ground sea salt
fresh ground pepper
drizzle of thick balsamic vinegar
2 tsps. olive oil

I like to assemble the salad like a parfait, so, in layers.  I placed the beans at the bottom of a good sized salad/soup bowl.  I scattered a layer of vegetables over top and gave it all a little salting and peppering.  I then placed the tuna and shredded it a bit so it was in pieces.  I lastly scattered the remaining vegetables over top, salted and peppered to our liking, drizzled some vinegar over top and then the olive oil.  I left it un-tossed hopeful that the parfait layering and seasoning would be the right flavor experience.  He enjoyed his lunch so I suppose I did ok.

Get inspired by gardens and farm stands and find your own combinations that help you celebrate the season you're in.  Cucumbers, radishes, beets, fennel all sound like other great ideas to me.  

All classes at Sweet Life Yoga are cancelled 4/7-4/14.

​All classes I teach at Grace YPS and Sky House Yoga are being taught by my tremendous yoga colleagues.

​Enjoy the yoga and happy spring,
Amy
​

Classes at Sweet Life Yoga studio are cancelled 12/26 thru 1/2/16.
12/27 and 1/3 Grace classes are being taught by Lika Elwood.
12/28 Grace class is being taught by Jade Olabuyo.
12/31 Sky House class is being taught by Anjali Sarkar.

Please take note of the following schedule adjustment for the dates July 2-July 12:

7/2 6am Sky House, 7:30pm SLY, cancelled
7/3 9:30am SLY cancelled, 12:30 pm Sky House subbed by Caprice
7/4 8am SLY cancelled
7/5 8am Grace subbed by Lika
7/6 9:30am SLY cancelled
7/7 6am SLY cancelled
7/9 6am Sky House subbed by Rasha, 7:30pm SLY cancelled
7/10 9:30am SLY cancelled, 12:30pm Sky House subbed by Jia-Hui
7/11 8am SLY cancelled
7/2 8am Grace subbed by Suzanne