beans and legumes

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Beans are a wonderful food that seems overlooked in the American diet. Not only are they nutritionally dense but also provide ample fiber and diversity to meals. They’re full of vitamins and complex carbohydrates and every study I can find says they should be added to our diet. They’re inexpensive, easy to grow and make soil better by fixing nitrogen that plants need to grow. Wait for photos of my summer garden and you’ll see southern peas in every spare space.

Here are a few recipes I think you should try. As we’re entering spring and summer I tend to eat lighter and want things that aren’t as heavy. Beans fit the bill nicely. They’re a fun way to eat less heavy meat or at least up the fiber content in your diet.

Split Pea Soup

I love split pea soup in winter. It’s a great warming food but there’s no reason you can’t have it for lunch with a sandwich during the summer. If you desire ham or bacon feel free but a veggie version is simple as well. The first time I ever made split pea soup I decided I liked it, however many times I’d seen the exorcist.

Ham or bacon (optional)
1 onion diced
3-5 carrots chopped
2-3 yukon gold potatos diced
1 1lb bag green split peas
3 tbsp olive oil
black pepper to taste
sea salt to taste
8 cups water
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar (optional)
2 tsp mustard powder (optional)

If you use bacon or ham brown them in the pot to start. The browning that occurs produces a fond that is highly flavorful and contributes to the final dish. Then add olive oil (or leave out if you’ve enough fat from the bacon or ham) and all of the ingredients other than salt. If you presoak the split peas overnight they cook faster. Bring the pot to a boil then turn down to simmer on your stove top. You can check the peas after around 30 minutes to judge their level of doneness. I prefer when they’ve completely broken down and disintegrated into that wonderful green broth. Add salt to taste at this point.

If you let this sit in the fridge overnight it may thicken substantially. Just add some water if you wish to thin it after reheating. If you go the vegetarian route try the balsamic vinegar and mustard powder. They’re wonderful flavor additions to the soup.

Dahl

Dahl is a traditional Indian dish with curry spices and lentils. I typically use yellow lentils or yellow split peas but any lentil will work. If you can’t find the spices in your local store find an indian market close to you. The curry leaves make a huge difference, they’re extremely fragrant.

1 1lb bag yellow lentils
2 tbsp turmeric powder
1 green chili slit length wise
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp grated ginger (squeeze the pulp and reserve the liquid in a small cup, toss the pulp in the compost)
cilantro for the dish and to garnish (leave out if you dislike it)
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 tsp whole mustard seeds
8 curry leaves
3 tbsp ghee or just plain butter
sea salt to taste.
8 cups water or enough to cover

You can soak the lentils overnight to speed the cooking. Saute the garlic, cumin and mustard seeds in the ghee. Once the mustard seeds spurdle and pop add the rest of the ingredients. Allow the pot to come to a boil and simmer for 30+ minutes covered. Check to see if the lentils have disintegrated and if so you can let it sit. Salt to taste.

Serve over basmati rice. You can read the package instructions for this. Basmati is extremely fragrant and perfect with this curry. This meal digests easily and goes well with papadums as a light meal.

Red beans and rice

Growing up in Louisiana red beans and rice are served on Monday nights. Traditionally this was because Monday was wash day and the beans could sit and simmer. It’s a hearty healthy meal that goes well with greens and cornbread.

1 1lb. Bag of red beans (soak them overnight) You can cook the beans in water until they are soft then drain and set aside. Reserve a small amount of the cooking water to add to the beans.

1 1b package of sausage (this is optional but if you use sausage try to find a pork sausage that’s pecan smoked. Andouille is best if you can find it.) Slice on a bias thinly and brown in a pot with a little olive oil. Once browned set aside.

Brown half a small can of tomato paste. Stir regularly, we’re allowing it to carmelize lightly not burn. Once this is browned add all remaining ingredient and simmer till beans are done, onions are cooked and everyone is drooling.

1 onion diced
1 bell pepper diced
3 cloves garlic minced
water to cover
salt and pepper to taste

Serve over rice and a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce on the table is appreciated.

If you’re going for red beans as the meal, everyone will appreciate these sides.

Greens (collards, mustard, turnips or beets)

I make most greens in a nearly similar way. Part of it is the south, part Italian. I sometimes hybridize. No one complains. People who’ve told me greens are bitter often eat mine and change their mind.

3-4 bunches of greens rinsed and chopped (excess water on the leaves just goes in the pot)
1 onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
3 tbsp olive oil or bacon fat…both are great and have their benefits.

Toss all ingredients in a stock pot with a nice lid. Saute for a minute or two then add the juice of 2 lemons. If you care to add a pinch of chili flakes…do so. Add sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Once they’re cooked down and soft they’re ready to eat.

Cornbread

I have strong feelings about cast iron skillets and cornbread is the perfect use of a good skillet. Once seasoned it’s an heirloom, a pan you’ll use for the rest of your life.

Turn on the oven to 425F. I prefer to use bacon fat for my cornbread but you can also use clarified butter or ghee. If you’ve not made clarified butter do so, it’s easy to make, inexpensive and…it’s butter, just do so. Keep it in the fridge for when you make french toast.

Put 4 tbsp of bacon grease or clarified butter in the pan and place in the oven. Let preheat fully and assemble your drys and your wets.

Dries:
2 cups cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1 and ½ tsp salt

Wets:
2 cups buttermilk (milk will do but…come on it’s buttermilk!)
2 eggs
Whip the eggs into the buttermilk and let sit till ready to combine.

Mix these ingredients once your pan is almost ready and let sit for 3 minutes. The skillet is extremely hot so use an appropriate oven mit. Pour the mix into the pan and be cautious about spurtles or pops…no burns!

Let cornbread cook for 15 to 18 minutes. Check at 15, if it’s browning on top it’s probably done. You can stick a toothpick through it, if any batter comes out wet let cook longer. If it’s done then set on a cooling rack in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn onto the cooling rack. It should come out cleanly of a good skillet and will cool to have a nice crust.

Optional ingredients:
I occasionally add a handful of chopped pickled jalapeno slices or cubed cheddar cheese. All are good, just depends on what you’re serving the cornbread with.

I hope that expands on different ways legumes can be used in meals. These won’t be the last meals containing them that I post but it’s a good start. Don’t forget Esau traded his birthright for some lentil soup.

Thai Yoga Massage pt. 2

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Thai massage has it’s own story. As with any story, the best one wins. The best story is that Dr. Zhivago created traditional Thai massage while he was the Buddha’s doctor. Along with Buddhism, Thai massage spread into Thailand from nothern India. There the work was preserved by monks who used it to aid their health and facilitate meditation practice. Monks worked on each other to help them with the rigors of sitting and meditating for hours. Then the work was used as a health regimen for those in the villages who went to the monks for healthcare. The sick and infirm would receive the work from monks as the monks worked on their practice of loving kindness and compassion.

Thai massage was surely influenced by Chinese medical doctors who passed through the area and also influenced by traditional indigenous medical practices in Thailand. In the end, regardless of the truth of the story the work has been practiced for so long in Thailand that it’s just considered traditional bodywork in its homeland.

Over time the work was shared. Not until recently has Thai massage been promoted and used in the west. Harald Brust or as he was called, Asokananda, was a German gentleman who learned the work by observing, receiving and asking questions about the work from monks and practitioners in Thailand. Over time he was accepted as a qualified teacher of the work and began teaching it to westerners who wandered through. He helped translate the work into other languages and wrote books on it in addition to classes he taught.

My teacher learned from Asokananda amongst others and taught me, so you see the lineage goes back for a long time traditionally but is fairly new to the west. The work is easy to learn, it does take some practice and doesn’t really resemble massage as we think of it in the west. It looks much more like someone doing yoga to someone else, thus it’s commonly being called lazy yoga. Thai Yoga Massage is more of a dance with a client than table work. You’re moving the client and they move with you.

The energy lines called sen within traditional Thai massage bear a slight resemblance to meridians in Chinese medicine but there are no points on the line, it’s just a line. For this reason I think of them as being much closer to the experiential lines one feels when you stretch deeply within a yoga pose. The line that goes down the back of the leg and to each toe, the line that extends from the shoulder joint down to the fingertips being the most common examples one would feel.

A regular yoga practice benefits the practitioner of Thai Yoga Massage and allows one to work with joints and mobility to understand how to move clients for their benefit. The work you do on yourself will help you understand physical limitations and how to work with them. Thai Yoga Massage is the future of bodywork in the U.S. It’s seed is being planted and in coming years it will grow and produce fruit. It’s far too beneficial to remain Thai in the same way that yoga is now practiced by more Americans than those of Indian descent.

Here’s a good video from an American school.

Want more? Sign up! Two classes are being offered that you can register for and more will be added over time. You do not need have experience as a massage therapist to take these classes. If you are a licensed therapist in TX I can provide continuing education units through the state. If you wish to sample the work contact me to make an appointment. The most secure way of knowing you want to learn the work from me is to interact, receive what I’ll be teaching and see if it’s the work you’ve been looking for.

Yoga and Thai Yoga Massage have arrived in Austin, Round Rock and the vicinity.

 

Thai Yoga Massage

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Living in an area where this bodywork isn’t common I feel it’s necessary to work to educate massage therapists and the public on this healing path. I’ve been a massage therapist for 9 years and worked with Thai Yoga Massage for 7 or so of those years. Even after all this time the work is seen as an oddity to those who’ve never had anything else but a table massage.

I remember years ago doing a demo where I lived in Baton Rouge and people walked by looking at me as if this was the oddest thing they’d ever seen. In retrospect, how does one demonstrate…massage? To put it in context we’ll have to go to where Thai Massage originates, Thailand, in southeast Asia.

Thai massage in Thailand is the traditional healing method. It’s been practiced since time immemorial and it’s no different than going to a barber to get your haircut. Young, old, infirm and in between go and get work semiregularly and it’s integrated into the culture as a part of daily life. In Thailand it’s not really massage, it’s just what we do when we ache. Massage in our culture has roots in swedish and deep tissue massage primarily and is a western anatomical model of how bodywork is done. Thai massage has more roots in yoga and chinese medicine.

Thai massage is done in public. It’s not done behind a closed door where you can go to sleep in the near dark. It’s not uncommon to be in a public space, mats on the floor and have 10 mats with 10 clients each receiving the work from 10 therapists. One of the more famous places to go receive a Thai massage is in a buddhist temple from blind monks.

The history of Thai bodywork is influenced and hard to seperate from Buddhism and the practice of yoga. They’ve intertwined and influenced each other in myriad ways but as a practitioner one has to delve into these ideas and practices to understand how well they integrate. I started practicing yoga several months before I had my first Thai Yoga Massage and the work was so seamless it seemed like the exact same thing except one was active, the other passive.

After a single Thai Yoga Massage I decided to study everything the teacher taught without exception. This work was some of the most healing I’d ever experienced. Gravitating towards feeling good and healing my body I knew this would become key to my growth and healing.

So again, what is Thai Yoga Massage? Primarily it’s passive stretches, kneading and pressing on the body and musculature to help relieve tension and pain. Swedish and deep tissue massage is wonderful at treating muscles like a sponge, squeezing out blood flow and then allowing it to return so that muscles can heal rapidly. Thai Yoga Massage in contrast seems better at working with lengthening muscles and has more focus on ligaments, tendons and joints. After a Thai Yoga Massage one doesn’t typically want to go to sleep and there isn’t the lymphatic dump that happens after a swedish session.

After a swedish or deep tissue massage many clients report wanting to take a nap or go to sleep. A Thai Yoga Massage client usually stands up and says, “I feel great. I feel taller.” Then they can return to work, but their mind is clear and that clarity seeps out into their thought and work.

So, how does feeling unencumbered sound to you? Thai Yoga Massage is the best bodywork I’ve encountered and it changes peoples lives. I’ve been working for nine years. I’ve studied, learned, pressed, kneaded and done all in my power to help people and it’s all right here. Come experience the work, take a class for yourself. It’s time Thai Yoga Massage was common in Austin, Round Rock and in central Texas.

This video is by a wonderful teacher named Kira. She also studied with Asokananda as did my teacher.