Jodh Kaur
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What I Ate Today During Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training

2/19/2019

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We are now in the midst of our first week of Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training at Urban Yoga Chicago where we have 9 radiant women taking the course. This year we are blessed with a team of teachers who come in daily to prepare the lunch for the group.  It is such a treat to have meals prepared by such generous souls and to have others prepare recipes that I have created.  So far, they are working out nicely!

I'm not doing great with the picture taking, but I want to share what we are eating this week.  For breakfast each morning, we offer crock pot oatmeal, toast, dates, walnuts, almond butter, apples, bananas and clementines. I love having oatmeal with a big spoonful of almond butter, a couple of dates, some banana and maple syrup as well as a piece of toast with coconut oil. We start our day with yoga and meditation at 5:30am so by the time breakfast rolls around, I'm hungry! 
For lunch this week, we had Kitcheri and Potent Potatoes - a very Kundalini Yoga combination, Stir-Fried Vegetables with Miso & Mirin and Baked Tofu and Veggie Chili.  The next 3 days of training will offer Lentil Loaf with Mashed Potatoes, ChickPeas and Fennel with Polenta and a Lentil MustGo Soup (where all of the left over veggies will go).  ​
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Dinners this week have varied from a meal out at Chicago Diner to a bit of leftover kitchari. I'm not always hungry after eating a big lunch, but try to eat a little something so my stomach isn't grumbling during sadhana the next morning. ​😳 Overall I'm feeling very excited about how this week is going. The food has been so tasty and being in training again is inspiring and energizing. It's truly an honor to witness and support these new teachers on their journey. 
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Budget Friendly Meal Planning Tips

2/16/2019

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Over the last two weeks I have had the honor to work on the meal plan for our Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training which begins tomorrow. Two years ago, when we had our last training, the meal planning felt like a daunting task - managing the budget, variety, dietary restrictions while offering hearty, nutrient dense meals.  An angel in our community made the brilliant suggestion to focus each day on a different type of cuisine. She made a list of different flavor profiles, ingredients and recipes and we were off with a solid, exciting meal plan with a good bit of variety.  Making notes on what worked and didn't during each week of training helped me prepare for this year's course.  While we are cooking on a larger scale, these are tips you can apply to meal planning whether it's for yourself or your family.  Meal planning helps to save money because we can focus on sale and in season items and when we know what we are cooking for the week, there is less temptation to eat out or grab something on the run. 

Here are a few more of my meal planning tips:
  • Trying different cuisines throughout the week brings in variety and encourages us to try new foods. During training we pull from Mediterranean, Latin, East Asian, Indian & American influences.
  • Plan for simpler meals on the busier days and make something more ambitious when you have the time. I love making enchiladas, but it takes a couple of hours so I save this for a Sunday afternoon.
  • If you do a weekly grocery run, consider using leafy greens or items that may wilt faster toward the beginning of the week and heartier items toward the end of the week
  • Look for common ingredients across recipes. We have all purchased celery for a recipe only to use 2 stalks and have the rest wilting in the fridge.  I like to make a soup toward the end of the week to use up left over veggies and herbs. Something simple like a lentil soup is a great base for the extra carrots, onions, celery, cilantro and other veggies that may still be in the crisper at the end of the week. Soup is quick, easy and forgiving - a nice thing to have cooking away on the stove while you spend time with your family or finishing up work.

I would love to hear from you too, what are your meal planning tips?
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What I Ate Today - Mixing it Up

2/13/2019

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Sharing my food is prompting me to try new things.  I'm one of those people who could eat the same thing every day and be content. But something I'm working on this year is to mix it up a bit.  

With that said, when it comes to my pre-run eating that will remain the same & it's boring so I won't post a photo every time. I started my day with the brown rice tortilla, date, hemp seeds, almond butter delight that I shared in my previous What I Ate Today post and headed out for a run. I felt like I was running on the moon. It was freezing and the snow and ice crunched loudly with each step. But there is such a feeling of accomplishment to complete an activity in less than ideal circumstances - and we are about 50 degrees away from ideal circumstances. 🤷🏻‍♀️
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For lunch, I took store bought pasta sauce up a notch by adding in chopped mushrooms, zucchini, onion, garlic, green bell pepper, carrot and  jalapeño. I sautéed the veggies in oil and added marjoram, oregano, crushed red pepper, garlic & onion powder, salt & pepper to the mix.  Once the veggies were softened I stirred in diced tomatoes and the pasta sauce with about a tablespoon of maple syrup to balance the acidity of the tomatoes. I used wheat pasta today, but this would be just as tasty with brown rice noodles.  I finished this with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast. 
Dinner was a date night at Urban Vegan. The awesome part of going to a vegan restaurant is - we can eat everything on the menu, no questions asked. The challenge is - we can eat everything on the menu and there are so many options! Which is why I usually order the same thing every time. In the spirit of doing something different, today I had miso soup followed by steamed dumplings in a green curry sauce which were creamy, slightly sweet and spicy, and Spicy Thai Basil Tofu with perfectly cooked green peppers and onions. I would definitely order this meal again and feel inspired to replicate this dish in my own kitchen. 
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Joy + Chewing = Happy Digesting

2/10/2019

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I have struggled with my digestion since I was a child and over the years, my digestive challenges have manifested in different ways. Learning about ayurveda and how to prepare my food and eat ayurvedically have helped me to enjoy my meals and digest them more easily.  Two of my biggest takeaways from ayurveda is enJoy my meal and to chew my food, chew it well, chew it into liquid.
Admittedly, I don't always take my time with my meals. Sometimes I am really hungry, or just in a rush, but if I know I'm eating a food that can cause me a challenge - I take my time and enJoy it.  For example, sometimes I want salad - crispy, fresh, raw veggies can be so appealing, especially in the summer. Other times, I'm out at a restaurant and salad is the only plant based item on the menu. In these circumstances, I enJoy eating the salad and my experience of eating it as much as I possibly can. I feel gratitude for the food and who I'm eating with. I eat my meal with pure joy AND I chew the heck out of it! I eat slowly and savor each bite, tasting each element of the food. When I eat this way, I have no problems, I feel happy and satisfied*.
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*Note to self, eat every meal like it's a salad. ​​
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What I Ate Today - I'm back to running

2/6/2019

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While I'm not a fan of running in the cold (Ok I don't like it at all!), I'm working to shift my perspective. And let's face it, when the weather shifts from -20º to +20º - it makes 20º feel downright tolerable - dare I say warm? At the beginning of the week, I mapped out my running goals, scheduled my races and wrote out my training plan for the year and it all needed to start this week. So here we go! 
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I ran today and I always have the same thing before running, coffee with half of a brown rice tortilla (heated on the stove) with about 1 Tbsp almond butter, 2 dates and a sprinkle of hemp seeds. It's not pretty, but it is a light breakfast that is filling enough to send me out the door without feeling like I'm running with a  brick in my belly. I also try to drink about 24-32 ounces of warm water during my morning sadhana so I'm well hydrated as my day begins.
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​I came back from my 3 mile run hungry so I had 2 slices of this polenta pumpkin bread toasted with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of Everything But the Bagel Seasoning.  I absolutely love this bread and it kept me satisfied until lunch. 


​If you saw my post from last week, you know  last week was a bean fest in my kitchen.  I pulled out the chickpeas and some kale to make this hearty and delicious pasta recipe. One of my favorite things to do is to take what I have on hand in my fridge and see what I can do with it.  This dish was a successful experiment. The sun dried tomatoes and lemon juice balance the flavors out nicely. Plus it was all ready in about the time it took to boil the water and cook the pasta. Hearty and satisfying, just what I crave fo lunch. 
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​You will come to learn that I love tacos. For dinner, I made portobello mushroom tacos and vegan ground beef tacos which I jazzed up with some diced onion and jalapeño and seasoned with chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper.  We topped them with my cheeze sauce, salsa, lettuce and avocado and served with pinto beans over rice.  I love these creamy pinto beans. The rice and beans inside of a tortilla make for a yummy taco on their own. 
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    I am an animal loving-Vegan runner, I practice and teach Kundalini Yoga and I love to cook and eat flavorful plant-based food.

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