Unnecessary Sweetness Cooking Blog

My friend, Zita has this wonderful cooking blog, Unnecessary Sweetness, where she cooks a healthy vegetarian meal each week for 52 weeks. She also captures the whole process on video    I enjoy her blog very much and had the pleasure of appearing as a guest chef on her cooking blog and video recently.  We cooked macrobiotic millet and vegan banana bread together.

Thank you, Zita for having me and thank you, Mio for the camera work - good job!

Check it out here!

http://www.unnecessarysweetness.com/

My 2010 post on vegan banana bread can be found here:
http://veg-out-gillian.blogspot.com/2010/12/mmm-vegan-banana-bread-loaf.html

New moon

It is time to set your intentions for this moon cycle. Look within and plant the seed and then watch it flourish.

Ayurveda summary and simple tips for digestion

Ayurveda is a 5000 year old form of medicine and holistic health care system that originated in India.  It is the sister science to Yoga.  In Sanskrit, “Ayer” means “life” and “veda” is “science” and so it is the “science of life”.  Ayurveda is a preventative science that is about balance and harmony within one’s body, mind and spirit and the belief in the body’s innate capacity to heal itself. According to Ayurveda, there are three “doshas” or body constitutions — pitta (fire/water), vata (air/space) and kapha (earth/water).  These relate to a person’s unique proportion of the the five elements — fire, water, air, space and earth.  When the elements are in balance, a person is in optimal health.  Usually, though a person has more of one element than others (especially during particular seasons) and this is determined by consulting with an Ayurvedic practitioner.  In order to bring a person into balance, Ayurveda takes into account the season (Fall is Vata season), the person’s dosha and evaluates the whole person and then addresses the imbalanced dosha.  A practitioner will suggest modifications to diet and lifestyle, practicing specific yoga postures, meditation, mantra and more  in order to bring about balance.

A few symptoms that help to identify each dosha are:

Pitta: anger, heartburn, oily skin

Vata: anxiety, bloating, dry skin

Kapha: depression, weight gain/overeating, lethargic

Below are a few Ayurvedic tips that you can start using right away at meal times that will help with digestion, which is a common vata issue:

-Chew mindfully, 32 times for each bite of food.  Eat slowly.

-Do not eat standing up or on the subway.  Eat at a table and do not watch TV or work on computer while eating.

-Avoid ice-water or cold drinks while you eat.  Once you are finished eating, drink room temperature water.

-Eat fresh food — no leftovers or frozen foods, which lack prana.

A beautiful, colorful photo of the bountiful produce at the local market in Udaipur, India...

My 7-day no-cooking challenge

I was recently without an oven or stove for seven days, as a result of a gas leak in my old appliance.   I had two false starts, where I had two brand-new stoves delivered only to find the first one blew out my fuse box and the second one broke on the way into the building.  I can't make this stuff up!   Considering I do not own a microwave by choice and have a small toaster oven that heats up my apartment to India-esque temps, I was basically on a raw diet at home, which is no good for my constitution and particularly detrimental during vata season (Fall).  In other words, I ate out every meal. Sigh. Poor me.  Actually it is way harder than it sounds.  First, there is the expense considering I live in Manhattan, and in a pricey neighborhood at that.  Second, I felt ungrounded (read, vata imbalance) without being able to cook myself a hot nourishing meal and moreover, I  especially missed baking, which is a very grounding and meditative activity for me.  Anyone who knows me knows that I love baking and vegan banana bread is my specialty.

Now, I wish I could tell you I've discovered all these great, inexpensive vegan restaurants as a result of this challenge, but in reality, I only came out with three suggestions for inexpensive and clean food in Manhattan.  Breakfast was the hardest for me since I always have an Ayurvedic breakfast, which means hot steel cut oats with local, pure maple syrup and pumpkin seeds (for iron).  The best place for this is actually the 99% veg truck, which is parked at the corner of Wall Street and Front Street daily, which just so happens to be only steps from my office.  They offer hot oatmeal in a huge container with bananas and raisins (other toppings are available, too) for get this, $2.50.  Yes, that's right.  The problem with this is I was only in the office once this past week so I had to scavenge the rest of the mornings.  Several mornings I had an avocado, which is OK but not ideal for breakfast.

The second standout was Blossom Du Jour for "shrewd fast food" as they call it, on 9th Ave in Chelsea (nearby the Blossom Restaurant, which is top-notch for organic and gourmet vegan food).  I had a huge black bean burrito ("burrito grande" was a fitting name) for $7.50 with avocado for an extra $1.50.  Now, that was simple, just plain great food.  Really nourishing.  I was still thinking about this burrito the next day.

Third, was Loving Hut in Chelsea on 7th Ave (between 29th and 30th), conveniently located near my beautiful kundalini yoga studio, www.harinyc.com.  I came in for dinner late one evening near closing time and it was evident that I was annoying the woman working there with all my questions about the ingredients but despite this, I will happily go back.  I settled on the spinach quesadilla on a sesame tortilla with daiya cheese, which came with and a side of guac and a salad for $8.50 - a bargain for all that delicious food.  The tortilla was perfectly flakey, too.  Love!