ginger

30 Day Challenge: Home Retreat 

| Liz Thomas

Self-Love, care and nurturing is the most important love, we all know this. Sometimes we need to intensely focus through retreat from the everyday. Sometimes a day, a weekend, at other times a longer respite is needed. 

After observing an energy drop and a tendency for inflammation/illness in my system and a growing need to express artistically I decided to devise a home retreat for myself, and to take an extended period off. This has been difficult to do, my clients still want massages and yoga, I’ve just met an awesome new man, socialising, activist commitments etc all need to go on hold, especially during the first week.

For the month of July classes will pause and I am creating a space for myself to explore my creativity, clean-out and go deep into my personal yoga practice. 

Week One: reset, I will use yoga practices to revive my life force.

Week two: perspective, reassessing my focus in life and how I will be my empowered, unique self.

Week three: simplify, create, playful approaches to everyday activities.

Week four: integrate ideas into daily life and share knowledge with others.

Paint

Walk

Massages

Play records

Love

Half-fasting 

Journal

Asana

Meditate

Laugh

Garden

Skinny dip

Organise 

Bike

I’m looking forward to this time to nurture my art and envision a different format for offering yoga practices to my local community and online. 

In the meantime, keep your inner-flame burning, your heart and toes warm, try simmering grated ginger and sliced lemon together and add some honey for soothining sweetness. 

 I will see you the last week in July. ❤️ Liz 

All your Veg Asian Slaw with Cashews and Crunchy Noodles

| Liz Thomas

 

 
The most delicious way to get your veg is to make a dressing that is hot, salty, sweet and sour. Fresh lime, chilli and ginger are the champs in this salad: chop it all up and stir it through the salad veg and voila! It tastes like a cross between a Thai and Vietnamese salad.

Clean out the crisper with this one. You can use any crunchy veg sliced up fine in any combination. Make up a huge container it stays crunchy for days without the dressing. You will look forward to your lunch everyday.

I used the leftovers of this salad to make a delicious kimchi-like wild ferment mmmm

Inspired by the recipe on the back of the noodle packet, this version is punked right up with big flavours. Enjoy making your own versions with whatever you have on hand. The most important part is to get the balance to your liking in the dressing which depend on the sweetness in your lime and the heat in your chilli, so taste it before you dress it.

lovely on its own or even better with some tofu marinated in soy, fivespice powder and seasame oil.

Salmon grilled, sliced steak, prawns or chicken also make this into a wonderful meal. Even a can of tuna, for a work lunch, is a good match.

Ingredients

Fried Noodles, handful

Cashews, dry roasted in a warm pan for a few minutes

Zest of two limes

1/4- 1/2 wombok, chinese cabbage or any cabbage, finely sliced

10 cavalo nero, black cabbage, stripped from the stem, very finely sliced

1 red capsicum/pepper finely sliced

1 green capsicum/pepper finely sliced

1-2 cucumbers cut into strips

1-2 carrots sliced with a vegetable peeler nd cut on diagonal

1 cup coriander or vietnamese mint or lemon basil or combo, roughly chopped

optional red chilli finely sliced

Dressing

1 tespoon seasame oil

2cm knob of fresh ginger, if you keep your ginger in the freezer its easier to grate

1 clove of garlic finely grated

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1-2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce or fresh chilli & 1-3 teaspoons sugar

optional fish sauce

2 limes squeezed, plus lime wedges to serve

Method

  1. Mix all the veg and lime zest together and refrigerate until ready to serve.
  2. Put all dressing ingredients in a jar and shake, taste and adjust to your liking so the flavours are balanced.
  3. When your ready to serve assemble all ingedients in a bowl reserving some nuts and noodles for the top, mix thouroughly and taste and adjust for balance.
  4. Serve with lime wedges, nuts, noodles and any additional protein of your choice. MIX!

There you go Yogis! This is one of our recipes from Monday Munchies, a little sharing of food love after class, this one was requested by Julia. Love my yoga friends.

namaste 

Liz