curried spinach pea soup
6-8 servings, 20 min prep, 45 min cook

saute:
-4 c chopped onion
-1 T oil
after a few minutes add:
-8 cloves garlic
-4 c diced potatoes
-1 1/2 T grated fresh ginger
-1 1/2 t turmeric
-1 1/2 t ground cumin
-1 1/2 t ground coriander
-1/2 t cinnamon
-1/8 t cayenne
-1/4 t black pepper

once the spices get fragrant add:
-5 C water or a mix of veg broth and water
-2 t salt (or more to taste)
-1 1/2 T fresh lemon or lime juice

once potatoes are soft add:
-3 C fresh or frozen peas
-4 C fresh spinach (chopped if you're not going to blend it)
-1 3/4 C (14 oz) coconut milk

- fresh cilantro as desired
- blend or serve chunky. Its really nice blended and chilled too!

Just heard an encouraging statistic on NPR, and its not often that one hears encouraging stats so it must be shared:

Local and organic food industries are growing by 20% per year consistently over the last 3 years. Conventional food industries are growing at a rate of 1-2%. Take that factory farms, pesticides and GMOS! Slowly but surely we seem to be coming around!

I just became a member of Bailey's Local Food Buying Club. Check out their website and consider joining if your in KW, if you're not check your local area for one or consider starting your own!!! Bailey's was started by Nina Bailey-Dick who once lived in Goshen and worked for Rachel's Bread. She's sourced an amazing array of local products and goes weekly to pick stuff up for the club. Saturday or Sunday you check the website for what's being offered that week. You make sure to place your order online by Tuesday at 8pm. Then Friday between 3-7 pm you pick up your fresh local produce, yogurt, breads (100 local spelt!!), cheese, dried beans, peanut butter, oils, etc etc!! The pick up is a km from my house, so it saves the effort of going all the way to the market and the offering in terms of local foods other than produce is much more than I've been able to source elsewhere!
yum.

Also, if you haven't seen Food, Inc check around to see if its playing in a theater near you, or make sure to rent it when it comes out later this fall.

Sweet and Spicy Coconut Curry

curry base:
- 1 onion stir-fried
- 2-3 cloves garlic
sauté in veg. oil, when tender add...
- 1 c veg broth
- 1 can coconut milk (go for the creamy not the light!)
- 1-2T curry paste (depending on how hot you like it, i recommend green curry paste)
- 1 t turmeric powder (optional)
- zest from half a lime
- splash of lime juice
- 1 T fresh grated ginger
- 1/4 c brown sugar or maple syrup
- salt or a dash of tamari

to that add your choice of:
- peppers
- carrots
- broccoli
- potato
- sweet potato
- sweet peas
- egg plant
- bok choy
- dry-fried tofu
- chickpeas
(add green veggies later, potatoes, eggplant tofu and chick peas right away)

right before serving add 1/4 C + each of basil and cilantro

serve over brown rice or rice noodles

YUM!

You can watch a full length version of HOME by Yann here for free!

Hanging out (upside down) on a Satuday afternoon!
today i went to fergus with meaghan and nancy from queen street yoga where i now teach a few classes a week. they are hosting a retreat at this awesome little studio/retreat center there in july, so we went to go check the place out. its a fully equipped iyengar studio with TONS of props to play with, including wall hooks and straps. you can see some of the fun ways we used them in the pics.

headstand with no pressure on the head! my cervical spine is so happy!
flying backbend!inverted child's pose. so so relaxing. there was so much sighing going on in this pose!

the studio is in an old converted mennonite barn, with gorgeous exposed beams. there are 5+ guest rooms each with stained glass windows and lots of character. and the property is beautiful with gardens, patio and a hot tub! it made me super excited to go on/help out at the retreat!

nancy and meaghan

if you're interested in the retreat, here are some more details:

Queen Street Yoga's very first weekend retreat! Meaghan Johnson, owner of QSY, and Nancy Shaeffer, author of the Body Means Well, and long time meditation instructor, will be joining their creative forces to bring you a weekend of fun and embodiment, health and restoration. We also plan to rock out around the the campfire Saturday evening with Charlena Russel, local musician and long time yoga student! This weekend getaway will be held July 10th to 12th, at the Soul Garden Retreat Centre in Fergus.
Go to the following two websites to see how beautiful it is!
http://www.yogaoffthewall.ca/
http://www.soulgardenretreat.com/
Come and enjoy a weekend of yoga, meditation, mindful walking, swimming in the gorge,good food, soaking in the hot tub, bonfires, music and singing.
The Yoga studio is a fully equipped Iyengar based studio with lots of fun props to play with!
We can take 12 residential participants and 10 non residential (drive from k-w is 40min, or guelph, 20min)
Cost:
Residential (room two nights, brunch and snacks Sat. and Sun.) $350 plus GST
Non-Residential (brunch and snacks included Sat. and Sun.) $280 plus GST The retreat centre is only 40min drive from Kitchener.
On Saturday night we will go to a wonderful Indian restaurant in downtown Fergus, please budget $20-25 for the meal.
Please email us to reserve your space. (email queenstreetyoga at gmail dot com)

Schedule of the weekend:
Friday night:
6:00-7:30 Arrivals, and registration
7:30-8:00 Greetings and Introductions
8:00-9:30 Restorative Yoga

Saturday
7:00-8:00am Mindful Walk (optional)
8:00-10:00am Yoga
10:00-11:15am Brunch
11:30-12:45pm Meditation and Mindful Movement
1:00-3:00pm Yoga
3:00-6:00pm Snack followed by free time for hiking, swimming, napping, etc.
6:00pm Dinner
8:00pm Camp Fire with music and sing along gudied by Charlena Russel
& hot tubbing (within ear shot of the music!)

Sunday
7:00-8:00am Mindful Walk (optional)
8:00-10:00am Yoga
10:00-11:15am Brunch
11:30-12:30 Closing activity and good byes!
You can plan to stay for the afternoon to enjoy Elora and Fergus or head home if you need to.

thanks ben for sending me this- ha! its SO great. watch along with weightless (below). my favorite scene is jumping off the diving board. can you imagine how long the video took?

check out our garden blog! 

groovyrootskw