Saturday 16 July 2011

Nature I love you


Raw  zucchini spaghettis and fresh pesto taught at my Demo "Raw Vitality for Summer" at Divertimenti Cookery School in London

EN FRANCAIS AU BAS DE LA PAGE!

I've been totally craving nature recently, i guess i always do but i have felt the need to see some greenery even more in the past few weeks. So here is a all-green post for you all to share a bit of my "Green moments" in nature but also in the kitchen.

The past couple of months have been very eventful, sometimes dounting and self enquiring, but also very exciting. Find out what's been going on, and to finish the blog, you'll find a recipe of Raw Taboulé, so delicious even my "not so keen on raw" collegues at work loved it....

In  June i had the chance to teach a Raw for Vitality "summer edition" at Divertimenti cookery school in London. The class was lovely, I demonstrated about 10 recipes in 2 hours. Recipes included fresh dips, Zucchini  spaghetti with about 4 different sorts of dressings, a Fennel Salad and to finish a 2 layers Raspberrry and vanilla Cheesecake.
It was a fun class, especially for my students who had quite a few occasions to laugh at me that day as I squeezed some lemon juice in my eyes, then found out only just before serving it that we had forgotten to take out the stones of the dates in the cheesecake crust base... It was one of those days. I think it made everyone relaxed about making mistakes in the kitchen!!
It was all delicious and they left full, satisfied, energised and inspired.
It was so good to see that people were so thirsty for new ideas and tips of how to become healthier and live life in a fuller way.



My fav spot on Yoga Camp with Lisa Sanfilippo in East Sussex

After a busy month of June I was lucky enough to participate to a Yoga camp week end with Lisa Sanfilippo, very inspirational Anusara Yoga teacher ( http://www.lisayogalondon.com/). We spent 4 days in beautiful East Sussex, on the South coast of England at Gayles retreat centre with lovely people. It was a time of deep rest, deep practice and also time for self enquiry and questionings. It's made me feel even more strongly than ever that I wanted to live life in Love and Truth as much as possible.

Gayles retreat centre in East Sussex, Yoga camp with Lisa Sanfilippo

The Yoga Barn at Gayles

After this wonderful Yoga camp week end, I had the chance to meet Sianna Sherman, another very respected Anusara Yoga teacher (http://www.opentograce.com/index_start.cfm) and do her week end "Rock the Bhakti" workshop at Triyoga in Soho. It was a wonderful workshop, full of challenges, emotional stuff and deep connecting.
Yoga definitely helps me to connect to myself and sometimes it does that so well that it even shows me stuff I did not want to see, or was denying to see! It can be quite emotional and it's sometimes churning things in yourself in a way that can be a bit disconcerting. However for sure this is really good as it made me think a lot and find ways to become more in harmony and aligned with myself and the world.
I feel like i get those times when i need to readjust something in my life, and sometimes i'm not sure how or what, but i know something needs to unfold. Yoga for me is my tool to help me see things more clearly. And before i can see clearly there is always a lot of fog!
Although dounting, those times are great as they make me go forward and take another step towards being more in tune with myself and the world (which of course changes all the time, so this is regular work to do...).

Anyway I decided that i wanted to study Anusara Yoga more and signed up for the immersion with Bridget Woods Kramer starting in september.
I've also been thinking i would like to teach Yoga more, and as if the universe had heard me (My friend Rachel always says "just ask the universe...") i've been asked to teach a lot recently!
The sun is shining again...



A beautiful old oak tree supporting me in Epping forest near London 

To Finish, here is a summer recipe of a very fresh and light raw vegan Taboule. Even my "not-so-keen-on-raw" collegues liked it a lot...

Wheat free Taboule, Raw and Vegan, delicious!

Raw Taboule

1 small cauliflower
1 small head of broccoli
1 handfull of pinenuts
1 handfull of raisins or currents
1 handfull of fresh mint, finely chopped
1 handfull of fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons
4 TBSP Olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper

Remove leaves and big stalks off cauliflower and broccoli. Cut Cauliflower and broccoli in chunks. Put them in the bowl of a food processor with the S blade and process until it is "couscous like". Don't overprocess or it will become too mushy. Put the "couscous" in a salad bowl and add raisins, pinenuts, mint, parsley, lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning. It may need more lemon or olive oil depending on thz size of your vegetables.
You can prepare this salad in advance and let the flavours infuse if you like.
Bon appetit!



EN FRANCAIS

J'ai toujours eu un grand besoin de nature mais ces derniers temps j'ai litteralement eu envie de dévorer la nature! Alors voilà un article Tout Vert, pour partager avec vous un petit peu de mes "moments verts" dans la nature mais aussi dans la cuisine.
Ces 2 derniers mois ont été bien remplis, pleins d'évènements, parfois pleins d'interrogations et introspectifs mais aussi tres excitants. Decouvrez ce qu'il s'est passé et vous trouverez à la fin une recette toute verte de Taboulé crû, sans gluten, que même mes collègues pas très pro-crû ont dévoré...