Our little gift to you is a mini-health-day á la O·live Retreat for you to give yourself. A simplified version of our teachings that you could try at home, however without our Mind Detox that is the fundamental part of all health quest where we begin with the crucial questions to understand why we don’t do what is good for us in the first place, and why we sometimes even take pleasure in harmful behavior. In any case it could serve as a mini detox for your body, the mind can wait until we meet online or in person. Doing both will no doubt lead to what we refer to as the spiritual detox, on the energetic leverl, where we dig deep into the ancestral Karma.
If you do the below over a few days you will most surely notice a difference, both on the inside and on the outside. We suggest you start here:
Morning routine:
- Rinse and clean your mouth and scrape your tongue. Drink a glass of clean water.
- Put your mind to your body; feel and respect your limits while stretching your body doing a few yoga Sun Salutes, a soft Yoga series, or lay on the floor and stretch the same way moving your legs to both sides.
- Sit down comfortably with fresh air around you, and do the Pranayamas we did at the retreat. It takes some 8 minutes, or just do a few deep breathes and feel the air go in and out. Hold the air in, and in between breathes.
- Allow yourself to float into meditation, let everything that comes to you come, don’t try to ‘let go’ or quiet your mind, but also don’t try to start a conversation in your head, don’t try anything, just observe, be and relax your body from head down.
Now you deserve an Olive Retreat breakfast with loads of protein and multivitamins.
Quinoa & Buckwheat Porridge
Serves 4
- 20 grams of Almonds
- 100 grams of Quinoa
- 100 grams of Buckwheat
- 100 grams of water (or as much as is needed)
- 150 grams of homemade almond milk or soy milk
- pinch of salt
- 1 Cinnamon Stick
- a pitted Dates
At Olive Retreat we make many different porridge in lots of different variations. We like to mix our grains (we explained why in class – ask me for an update on this if you wish) also we like to use different mylks – which we make ourselves – almond, soy, grain, coconut and hazelnut milk are some of many options. What you choose to top your porridge off with is also up to your own taste. Frozen berries, fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts and seeds are to name a few!
Method
- Rinse quinoa and buckwheat using a sieve until the water runs clear. Put it in a pan and bring the quinoa and buckwheat to a boil for a few minutes.
- Take off the stove and rinse again we do this to get rid of the bitter taste that the grains have.
- Put the buckwheat and quinoa back in the pan and add some of the soy or almond milk, agave syrup, sea salt, cinnamon and water. Reduce heat to a simmer. Let simmer until quinoa & buckwheat are fluffy and all liquid has absorbed (about 15-20 minutes).
- Turn off heat and fluff gently with a fork. Remove cinnamon stick.
- Quickly, before it gets cold, divide into bowls. Top each with about 2 tablespoons of soy/almond milk, along with some almond slivers and a sprinkle of dates, if you want that extra sweetness!
- At the Retreat we use different types of grains/herbs/seeds for different types of porridge. Examples of these are quinoa, millet, rice, amaranth, chia etc. The choices are endless! As long as you bear in mind to always combine the grains (see text on Wheat/Grains).
Mid morning, if you are sitting still for a while, it is time to show love to yourself with a walk or at least a 4 minute body work. If you are hungry you can do an energizing green drink, add some vegan protein if you need it, maybe bring it from home already made in the morning; see the blog from February 5th for inspiration.
When you meet people through out the day use the meetings to detox yourself by being good and you decide what that means. On your way to work, at work, on the phone, in the supermarket, to strangers and lovers, be kind and good for the only purpose to be extra kind, and notice what it does to you and what the respond is back to you. Remember that it is for yourself that you do it.
Olive Indulging Pasta with Famous Sauce for Lunch
- Corn or other pasta – whole grain with its fiber is of course better!
Vegan Parmesan
- 100 grams of hazelnuts
- Pinch of dry chili
- Pinch of salt & pepper
- Few drops of lemon in you want the sour of cheese
Sauce
- 1 yellow onion
- ½ a leek
- 2 garlic gloves
- 1 zucchini
- 1 red pepper
- Some cherry tomatoes
- 200 grams of tomato purée (or very good quality jarred tomato)
- Some fresh basil
- Rocket or spinach
Method:
- Lets make the parmesan first! Put the hazelnuts, chili (if it’s the little dry ones, one should be enough) pinch of salt & pepper into a (coffee) grinder. Grind it altogether until you get a light powder, add lemon if you want it a bit more sour – voila! That’s your topping, set aside.
- For the sauce chop all your vegetables. Start of by frying your onions, leeks and garlic first until soft. Then add peppers, zucchini and cherry tomatoes, when they are nice and soft add tomato frito and salt & pepper to taste.
- When the sauce is evenly heated put to the side.
- In a big pan put water to boil for your pasta. Non-wheat pasta usually need more water. Boil it up, then add your corn pasta. As I mentioned before the yellower the better, if it is mixed with rice flour the pasta tends to be sticky which is not always nice!
- Corn and buckwheat pasta generally needs more time to boil and to be stirred so that it does not stick together. Rice noodles is good as well, but not as healthy. Take the pasta out when it still has a slight bite (Italian: adente) to it, as it will continue to cook when you mix it with the sauce.
- Combine the pasta with the sauce and add fresh basil and the rocket or spinach right at the end and mix in carefully. Serve it with some fresh basil leaves and your vegan parmesan.
- Serve with a big sallad of lettuce of all kinds, fresh tomatoes, any veggies you like and a little bit of apple or other sweet fruit. To help digestion we need all tastes. Add any home made dressing form our cook book.
Serve this dish straight away! Easy and loved – this is one of our clients favorite dishes, as it shows that you can still have comforting food but with a healthy twist! To be completely honest I prefer this pasta to any other. Its simple and delicious.
Mid afternoon
If you get tired, respect it, don’t fight it. Depending on what we eat it can be caused by something that is heavy to digest, we don’t tolerate very well, or that the blood sugar drops as we kept it high with coffee and sweets in the morning. There are so many healthy ways to get energized that that doesn’t always imply ingesting. Go out for a walk, even if it is just a 5 minute walk around the block, go out and breathe fresh air, or if you can’t leave your desk stand up and stretch like in the morning to get your body moving and bloodstream warming you up in this winter weather. The best is doing a 4 minute work out every 90 minutes.
If you still need an energy drink (apart from the water and herbal teas during the day) you can make a smoothie with apple carrot and ginger. Top it off with some spinach if you want to chlorophyll you. When you are done for the day, plan a 30-40 minutes exercise. The gym, aerobics, playing with your kids (I used to carry them as weights laying on the floor playing with them), basketball, running or whatever you like is good. It is not about which kind of exercise it’s about doing it. Both aerobic and anaerobic.
A light dinner is usually better than a light lunch as we digest better at noon (if we are not stressed!), but very often we don’t eat the larger meal at noon because we don’t give ourselves the time to do so. Feel what is good to for you. When you normally get back late and tired, it is a good idea to have your dinner planned before. If you like soup that is an excellent dinner, easy to digest and good to allow you to sleep well. If you need to loose weight it is perfect. I prefer mixed vegetable soup. Add pumpkin seeds, grains with beans or rice to get the protein.
Pumpkin & Coriander & Coconut Soup
- 1 Leek
- 1 Small Or ½ big Pumpkin
- Small Peach
- Bay Leaf
- Turmeric
- Coconut milk
- Curry
- Pinch of Salt & Pepper
Toppings
- Sunflower Seeds
- Fresh Coriander
- Orange Zest
- Pinch of Sea Salt
Method:
- Chop the leek, pumpkin and peach.
- Start of by frying off the leek in a big pan until soft. Then add the chopped pumpkin,the bay leaf, turmeric, curry, salt and pepper.
- Cover with water and bring to a boil until the vegetables are nice and soft and right at the end add a splash of coconut milk.
- Blend the soup together, when serving top off with sunflower seeds, fresh coriander, orange zest and a pinch of sea salt.
Make it easy to be healthy. Don’t leave eating to a mere impulse, that’s not being kind to yourself as you will probably eat packaged food (if that’s what you have available). Allow yourself to plan your nutrition, exercise and more to make it habits, with awareness that habits are going either help or not help your body. As an example we always keep pre-cooked grains and rice and beans in the fridge, so that anyone in the family can chop up veggies and make a stir fry quickly when the hunger kicks in. If it’s a snack or breakfast add fruit, cinnamon or cacao to the rice – easy. That is fast food!
When the calmness and silence rolls into your home and mind, it is perfect to reflect upon your life, try to figure out the universe in you and outside you. Do what excites you so much that it makes you lose time. Train your senses, talk about the deep questions or take a creative meditation. Let nature become a part of the healthy habits.
Learn about what you like learning about and love the way you want to be loved. Make the Love Exercise again – write up all the ingredients in Love – and love yourself as you want to be loved.
Feel when it is time for you to sleep, then allow yourself to go to bed. All you didn’t have time for that day can wait. Love yourself and take care of yourself as you would your child.
Have a self-loving weekend!
O· L I V E 