We’ve been drinking a lot of this summer and I wanted to step it up a notch- compete with the amazing flavours available by GTs which you can buy at whole foods.

To step up your kombucha game:

1. make the kombucha as normal

2. Strain, bottle and add a little fruit syrup or cordial and leave out for 1-2 days more to further ferment.

3. Drink & refrigerate for up to a week.

This makes the most delicious guilt free “pop” you’ve ever had.

My amazing friend Kirsty inspired me to make kombuchasicles.

My latest kombucha flavours- blueberry lemon, mint spirulina and sassafras.

Blueberry lemon syrup

• 2 cups of organic blueberries
• grated rind from 1 lemon
• juice from one lemon
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup of sugar

Bring to a boil, cool, strain and add to kombucha bottles.

The bounty of our summer is hitting hard and fast.  While many of you may be getting out of the city on weekends and savouring the balmy evenings, you should try to spend a little time the kitchen preserving some of the summer’s  bounty.

My preserving season started with 10 pounds of strawberries and 30 pounds of beets (including the tops), I needed to be creative about those.

I wanted to be simple with the berries- I cleaned and froze them for smoothies, crisps and pies. I plan to make strawberry cordial with the next batch!

The beets were a lot more labour intensive- BUT worth every stained finger moment. See my Straight up-pickled beets recipe below.

Since it was my first undertaking of the season, I was inspired to make the most of beets. However, I struggled for an idea for the tops.

30lbs of beet tops is A LOT! If you havent tried them, they taste like a blend of kale, chard and spinach with a hint of chalk.  A few tops in a salad mix is nice or a few in a stir fry is colourful…BUT 30 pounds cant be snuck in anywhere.

How could I shrink them and make them a bit more tasty?

I’ve got it CHIPS. Kale makes chips- why can’t beet tops?

If you are ever stuck with a pile of beet tops- this is an easy out. They are delicious and completely guilt free. See beet top chip recipe below.

Straight up pickled beets

15 pounds fresh small beets, stems & tops removed

3 cups of beet water reserved

2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons pickling salt

1.5 liters vinegar whole cloves (3 per jar)

Bay leaves (1/2 leaf per jar)

1. Place beets in a large stockpot with water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook until tender, about 15 minutes depending on the size of the beets. If beets are large, cut them into quarters. Drain, reserving 2 cups of the beet water, cool and peel.
2. Sterilize jars and lids by immersing in boiling water for at least 10 minutes or by using a dishwasher on the hot setting.
3. Fill each jar with beets and add several whole cloves to each jar. In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, beet water, vinegar, and pickling salt. Bring to a rapid boil. Pour the hot brine over the beets in the jars, add cloves and bay leaf. Clean rims and seal lids.
4. Process jars in a canning pot fully submerged for 10 minutes. Let jars cool and ensure lids have sealed. Best after 1 month and will keep for 1 year.

Beet top chips

5 bunches of beet tops

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 teaspoon of Braggs

1 teaspoon of engivita yeast

1. Wash and dry tops and trim off stems.  Combine & toss ingerdents.
2. Heat oven to 350
3. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
4. Lay tops onto sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes until crisp and dry but not burnt!
5. Cool on rack- and EAT & share as snacks.  Good for 3 days.

1. If it doesn’t rot its not food (right- generally, if bacteria in the environment are not eating it- something is wrong with it).

2. Eat as a family! model behaviours- from talking about food, planning meals, making your meals, eating your food, sharing your food, CHEWING.

3. Know what your food eats! (as per Michael Pollan)

There were some fascinating questions and discussions.  If you’d like to know more here is the PREZI I presented.

http://prezi.com/ai3h8emkeq7p/present/?auth_key=qzp2r0o&follow=ezcjd0nv73lg

As well here is a list of resources for feeding your family:

Weston A Price Organization- www.westonaprice.org

Nina Plack- http://www.babble.com/best-recipes/healthy-snacks/the-healthiest-food-for-mother-and-baby/

They are what you feed them- http://www.theyarewhatyoufeedthem.com/home.php

Farm folk city folk- http://www.ffcf.bc.ca/

My personal opinion is that it does NOT require a massive workout routine and a cleanse to lighten up and energize yourself. Despite what many people think.  In fact, overly regimented plans- can often be too ambitious and not realistic.  It depends on who you are. Start small, let your changes be apart of your daily spring routine.

My suggestions to you are:

1. Look around (in the woods & fields)- for what is starting to grow and starting eating more of that. (Nettles, greens (lettuce, arugula, spinach, kale, chard, mustard greens, clover, chickweed), asparagus, garlic)

2. Stoke you digestive fire with digestive aids (Eg. upon waking and before meals- a splash of apple cider or lemon juice in a glass of warm water, lemon ginger tea after meals, kombucha, beet kvass (recipe below).

3. Cut out the crap (EVERYDAY)-  caffine, alcohol, processed foods.  As well as wheat and dairy for a couple weeks.  (this is not as easy as it sounds!)

4. Do not over eat

5. Get active on a daily basis

Voila- the 5 most vital elements of a cleanse.

Beet Kvass Recipe

• 3 medium organic purple beets (peeled and chopped coarsely)
• 1/4 cup of whey*
• 1 tablespoon of sea salt
• filtered water
• 1 large 1 litre glass jar

Place beets, whey & salt into jar.  Add water.  Stir and cover securely. Keep at room temperature for 2 days. Strain and drink or  transfer liquid to fridge.

If you’d like to make another batch- those beets are still good to go- just keep a little liquid beet juice in jar and add more water.  Strain and drink again. Discard beets after second use.

Beet Kvass is a Ukrainian traditional medicine. It is loaded with nutrients; it is a blood tonic, alkalizes the body, aids digestion, cleanses the liver.

* How to extract Whey

Use high quality yogurt- like Saugeen. Over a glass pitcher or jar- secure cheese cloth.  Pour 1-2 cups of yogurt and leave for 2- 12 hours.  The yellow liquid with you strain off is whey- a powerful lacto-fermenting agent.  The yogurt remnants is your very own delicious cream cheese! UM.

Who are you? Who do you want to be?

What patterns are serving you, what patterns aren’t?

What is holding you back, what is pushing you forward?

What brings you energy? What drains you?

Where do you want to head from here?

Pretty deep considerations, huh?

Retreats offer an environment to ask these questions.  Toreally sit, think and feel what the answers are. I snapped at this opportunity; heading into this New Year I wanted to reflect on the challenges and gifts of the past year and bring some intentions to the year ahead.  Which is where I’ve been this month- reintegrating and carefully shifting my energies to serve me and hopefully others.  Hope to see on the mat over the coming weeks.

My next yoga retreat:

Pranafication: Lasqueti Yoga Retreat July 20-22

See blog posts from August from last years retreat

Stay Tuned

While Im not necessarily into labelling diets- or “steps” to achieve- I did think these are good suggestions…

DON’T JUST EAT IT – LIVE IT

Here are six key elements of the Paleolithic lifestyle, according to Pedro Carrera-Bastos, a Swedish health researcher specializing in the effects of “ancestral” diets, and his colleagues.

1. SUNSHINE

Getting enough vitamin D is crucial to bone health, and may also play a role in preventing cardiovascular disease and some cancers. The simplest way to meet your needs: sunlight. But modern office-bound humans rarely spend enough time outside to get enough. Some hunter-gatherer cultures at high latitudes have found other ways – the Inuit, for example, rely on fatty fish for vitamin D.

2. SLEEP

Go to sleep when it’s dark, get up when it’s light. Our bodies have powerful internal clocks that try to enforce this simple rule. Even a night or two of disrupted sleep has immediate effects on your appetite hormones ghrelin and leptin. That’s why sleep patterns are closely related to obesity and metabolic syndrome: Too little sleep is most common these days, but too much isn’t good either.

3. NO POLLUTION

An obvious one – but easier said than done in the modern world.

4. ACUTE STRESS

The typical hunter-gatherer life punctuated long periods of low stress with short bouts of acute stress that triggered the fight-or-flight response. In contrast, modern office workers often show signs of chronically elevated stress, which can have consequences such as elevated blood pressure and a weakened immune system.

5. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Sure, paleo folks got more exercise than we do. But what kind?

-Large amounts of light-to-moderate activity, such as walking or jogging, while hunting and foraging. Estimates place the typical distance covered at five to 16 kilometres per day.

-Hard days were usually followed by easy days – though not totally sedentary.

-Short bursts of very high-intensity activity. This can be mimicked with interval training once or twice per week.

-Wide variety of daily activities that strengthen the whole body, ranging from carrying children and digging tubers to dancing.

6. FRESH, UNPROCESSED FOOD

The paleo diet is often hyped as a meat lover’s fantasy. While it varies from culture to culture, modern hunter-gatherers typically get only 35 per cent of their calories from meat, with the rest derived from plants. Even if we assume a 50-50 split, the greater caloric density of meat means that, by volume, the paleo “plate” would have had significantly more vegetables and fruit than meat on it.

BOTTOM LINE: So will going paleo really pay off with better health? As a big-picture guide to how to organize your life, definitely. But don’t get carried away with trying to recreate the exact details of a long-lost diet. Humans have changed and diversified even over the past few thousand years, so the only way to know what works best for your genes is to experiment. Go wild.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Whether you like downhill, snow-shoeing, cross country, tubing, hiking, mountaineering… do not be afraid of snow folks- recharge your battery and keep your juices flowing by keeping it moving in the mountains.

We will be prepping our ski & snowboard legs in yoga for the next few weeks.

Any suggestions?

New Year’s Pranafication Retreat in Costa RicaDec 24th, 2011 – Jan 1st, 2012 and Jan 1st – Jan 7th, 2012
At Nosara, Costa Rica
Recharge, Renew and Rejuvenate in one of the most pranafied places on the planet – Costa Rica – where we return for our seventh year to world-renown jungle surf spot – Nosara. Our one-week or two week transformation retreats allow you to create your own alchemical retreat experience with great community. From Ocean bliss to ecstatic breakthroughs, we will offer a way for you to create a living yoga retreat.
transformational prana flow® yoga • epic surfing for beginners/intermediate • ocean pranafication • tantric meditations and fire ceremony • flow arts: staff and kalari • mantra and ecstatic kirtan • yogadventures (horseback riding/ziplining) • ritual vision – New Year’s Eve-Day • salsa dancing with locals • yogatrancedance™ • optional living yoga sadhana teacher training