Recipe: Lentil Risotto

a wonderful dish from Meri’s kitchen......

1 cup rice
1 cup green lentils
1 cup split red lentils
1 brown onion
200g mushrooms
200g baby leaf spinach
salt
black pepper
ground paprika
ground cumin
dried or fresh basil, oregano, marjoram
1 cup single cream or soya cream (optional)

Cook the rice and lentils together in twice their volume of water.
Chop the onions and mushrooms and fry on a pan with a little oil. Add herbs and seasoning.
Mix together onion/mushroom mix with rice and lentils. Add the cream and fresh spinach. Bring to boil and simmer until spinach wilts. Serve with parmesan, cottage cheese and/or roasted nuts or seeds. You can substitute the lentils with beans of your choice or marinated tofu and add any other vegetables to your risotto. Yum!

Chris Gladwell in Newcastle...

by Meri Erkkilä

Chris Gladwell, an ashtanga teacher from Bristol, held a workshop at the Buddhist Centre November 20th-21st. Chris has been practising yoga for over twenty-five years and teaches in a way that is especially suited for the Western practitioner.
I attended the second day of the workshop where I met Chris for the first time. The day began with kriyas, methods of cleansing that can be used to compliment the asana practice. We practised kapalbhati (forceful out breath), uddhiyana and nauli kriya (abdominal churning). A lot of the day was spent on looking at hips and knees and discussing preventing injuries to the knees. We did a lot of postures and stretches that are targeted on opening the hips as knee pain is often due to tightness in the hips.
Chris is due to hold another workshop in Newcastle in September 2010. For more information on Chris check out www.radikalfreedom.com.

Meri Erkkilä - Registered Yoga Teacher!

Just a quick note to congratulate Meri who has just completed her yoga teacher training and who is now an official Yoga Alliance member - Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT).

Well done!

Nancy Gilgoff Workshop, Wiltshire 2009

It was a wonderful experience assisting Nancy Gilgoff in Wiltshire this year. The workshop (9th-11th Oct), hosted by Ollie and Daniel Petkoff was held at Slaters Barn, a lovely retreat hidden away in the lush Wiltshire countryside. The workshop ran over the course of a weekend and included a 2nd series session. It is great to see more people moving into 2nd series - a topic which nancy covered in quite some detail over the weekend.

There is always such a deep sense of touching upon something timeless and authentic when Nancy is in the room and, of course, many stories dating back from the early days with Pattabhi Jois were duly told with great enthusiasm. Nancy hasn’t veered away from the original teaching handed down to her from Guruji so you can be sure that you’re getting the time-tested traditional system when working with her.

If you’re serious about ashtanga yoga then you gotta go meet Nancy!

To see all pics of the weekend then click HERE

Visit Nancy's site at Ashtanga Maui