Hello Everyone,
As you probably know after all my talking about it my friend Faye and I hosted a yoga supper a few weeks ago. It has taken me an age to put this post together but it’s nice to be here today remembering the good vibes and many smiles of the evening and being able to share it with you all. It was a really lovely evening full of sweaty vinyasa and green food. It was beautiful and I can see that better now than on the evening when my nerves were on high and I focused in on feeding our guests.
It was my first real life event meeting some of you and being able to share my cooking with paying customers. That’s were most of the nerves came from I guess but I think I can leave the nerves at home next time because the evening turned out the way we planned and everyone was very kind and positive which is the best reward a girl can get.
This has inspired Faye and I to start working further on our collaboration. We’re claiming the name The Good + Wild for our future get-togethers and are of course hoping there’ll be many of them. Now we’re scheming for a morning event somewhere in Copenhagen in the new year so keep your eyes peeled for more information about what’s next. Can’t wait to share more with you when I have a clear handle on what’s up. All I know is that it will be good, I trust myself to say that now.
All in all we couldn’t be more pleased with the evening and we were very lucky to have awesome participants, thank you all for that. We were equally lucky to have awesome sponsors for our goodie bags. My personal guilty pleasure at events are goodie bags, events are great but it’s always such a treat to get to take something home to continue the experience. Therefore I wanted to gather goodies from brands that I really believe in and that resonate with what I do in this space and I’d like to send our sponsors as warm a thank you as I do our guests for the evening. Let me introduce them to you so you can create your own goodie bag at home:
- Clean Nettle Tea by Love Arctic
- Moringa Sachets by Aduna
- Oatsome Recovery Drinks by Oatly
- Raw Bites by RawBite
- Raw Chocolate by Ombar
Now that I’ve shared these treats with you I hope you’ll scroll through the post, read a little bit more about the food and enjoy the two recipes I’ve included in this post from the evening. You could actually recreate the whole evening at home after scrolling through the post!
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THE FOOD
First of all it was fantastic to bring yoga and vegan food together under one umbrella. For me being mindful of what and how I eat, and being vegan, is yoga. It’s a practice of compassion, mindfulness and ultimately love. Both love for what the earth has offered us, love and kindness towards animals by choosing not to harm them for food as well as love for myself in making sure that I take care of my mind and my body by choosing food to support and nourish me.
For the dinner I wanted to serve food that felt warming and cosy to continue the atmosphere from the candle lit yoga flow they’d been doing right before. I also focused on local and seasonal foods, I think this is the best way to feel connected to the world around us and it’s a way to reflect the mood of the season in our meals. Of course there were a couple of sneaky not so local ingredients that turned up in the meals too but they were there more as an accent rather than the base.
We kicked of the supper with some seeded maize crackers and whilst that recipe is not yet up here on the blog you can find my similar crackers right here. To go with them I served the red beet and white bean dip that you might have caught a glimpse of in this blog post. It was such a beautiful pop of colour on the table and I was hoping this would energise our guests as they joined together for their meal.
Following a chat over the crackers and a kombucha shot flavoured with apple, cloves and star anise we plated up a curried pumpkin and lentil soup to really bring some warmth to the table. This dish you’ll find the recipe for if you scroll a little further. It’s truly a hearty and heartfelt dish with some heat and spice but also a smooth velvety texture from the blitzed pumpkin and lentils. Possibly the bowls were a little too big to be a starter but the soup seemed to go down a treat and it was time to lighten things up just a little.
For the main plate of the meal I served what I decided to call a winter rainbow salad. Meaning that it had many colours and many winter vegetables. The base was whole oats and kale spruced with quick pickled golden beet, red cabbage sauerkraut and pomegranate jewels. The kale was massaged with tahini and nutritional yeast making it a little heavier to carry the freshness of the pickled vegetables and fruit. To go along with the salad I served miso glazed roasted carrots which definitely brought more weight to the meal with it’s miso saltiness. So whilst the dish has more raw elements making it light it has these opposing forces making it dynamic and hopefully made the guests forget that you are chewing much more than a little while before. You’ll find this recipe a little further down as well.
To finish off I decided to bring out my all my Swedish and served these stewed apple crisp pots with vanilla cashew cream. Whilst it might sound a little heavy after eating the previous dishes I think that fruit desserts always lighten things up rather. The crunch from the granola crumb also keeps things fresh in terms of texture and the weight only comes from the cashew cream which simply has to be there because apple crumble has to have custard right?!
I was very pleased with my first menu created for anyone else but my family and friends and I look forward to explore this area more. I hope you stick around to see me evolve. Now enjoy the recipes and if you try anything let me know, I love to hear your thoughts and ideas! x
CURRIED HOKKAIDO PUMPKIN AND LENTIL SOUP
YIELDS: 6 servings / TIME: 60 min
Cooking oil, such as rapeseed or sesame (not toasted)
1 tsp black mustard seeds
2 medium brown onions, chopped
1 inch fresh ginger, grated
5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 medium/large hokkaido pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into rough cubes
2 carrots, cut into coins
1 cup red lentils
5 cups water
1 cup coconut milk
1 tbsp vegetable stock powder or one stock cube
1 1/2 tbsp hot masala curry powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2-1 tsp cinnamon
Black pepper and sea salt, to taste
Flavour enhancers:
1/2-1 tbsp brown rice syrup
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1-2 tbsp tamari/soya sauce
Heat a little oil in a large pot over medium heat before adding the mustard seeds.
Temper the seeds until you hear popping sounds.
Add onion, garlic and ginger. Cover with a lid and turn the heat down, let sweat until onion is translucent.
Add carrot and pumpkin and cover with lid again, keep sweating until the vegetables have released some liquid, roughly 5-10 minutes.
Add the curry powder and other spices to the mix and fry off for a minute before adding red lentils, water, coconut milk and stock powder.
Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer for roughly 20-25 minutes.
When vegetables have cooked through and the lentils are cooked blend your soup until smooth, I usually use a stick blender.
Taste your soup and correct the flavour balance the way you see fit, I have found that adding apple cider vinegar. soya sauce and brown rice syrup (or other sweetener) at the amounts listed creates a nice balance.
Top with coriander and seeds.
WINTER RAINBOW SALAD w/ MISO GLAZED CARROTS
YIELDS: 4 servings / TIME: 40 min
2 yellow beetroots, julienned
1/4 lemon, juice
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
Black pepper
8 small carrots, halved
4 tbsp oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp dark miso paste
200 g kale, stems removed and chopped into bite size pieces
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1,5 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp white miso paste, or substitute with tamari/soya sauce
1/2 lemon, juice and zest
2/3 cups whole oats, soaked over night and cooked
(This grain can be substituted with any other grain such as freekeh, kamut, barley, brown rice etc)
1/2 pomegranate, kernels
2/3 cup sauerkraut
A handful of pumpkin seeds, optional
Combine julienned beetroot, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, salt and black pepper in a shallow bowl.
Blanche carrots for 3 min and then pat dry with a kitchen towel.
Whisk together oil, maple syrup and miso paste to make the glaze.
Coat the carrot halves in the glaze and roast for 20 min at 200 degrees celsius, flipping them over half way through.
In the meantime place chopped kale, nutritional yeast, tahini, miso paste or soya sauce as well as lemon juice and zest in a large mixing bowl.
Massage the components together until the kale is tender and the mass has shrunk by about one third.
Add the cooked whole oats or other grain as well as quick pickled beetroot, pomegranate kernels and sauerkraut to the kale and mix well.
Serve the salad with a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds and the roasted carrots.