Preparation Day

My day began with a beautiful solitary lunar flow yoga practice and 30 minutes of meditation. I then attended a very special three hour workshop entitled "The Four Turnings of the Mind" with Tibetan lama Anyen Rinpoche from Denver, Colorado. I've previously learned this teaching as "Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind to the Dharma". It was my first encounter with Anyen Rinpoche but I hope not my last. His talk spoke very directly to me. I was fortunate to be able to attend lunch with him and his wife who is also his interpretor (although he speaks excellent English). Very inspiring!

On my way home, I stopped at Bridgehead coffee shop for my last latte and brownie for a couple of weeks.

I warned my daughter today that I was starting a cleanse tomorrow. "Oh No," she moaned, "a week of grumpy Mama." A bit of an exaggeration - I'm usually only grumpy for a few days. I'll try to be kind to my family while I go through the peak of the cleanse, which for me, has previously been about days 3-6.

In the afternoon, I shopped for a few detox essentials: veggies, 3 boxes of brown rice crackers, almond butter and tins of chickpeas and lentils, plus food for dinner tonight to which I'd invited my mother. After dinner, I got to work on lunch food for the first day of my cleanse. While snatching a few minutes here and there to watch the Grey Cup with my husband, I prepared hummous and Red Lentil Soup. Unfortunately, Saskatchewan lost to Montreal in the last seconds of the game. Oh well.

Here's the recipe for the soup which seems to have been more successful than the Roughriders. Now to enjoy my last glass of wine for 2 weeks ...

Red Lentil Soup
(from the "Moosewood Cooks at Home" cookbook)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups red lentils
6 cups water
3 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 slices fresh ginger root, each about the size of the quarter

2 medium carrots (1 cup grated)
1 cup canned tomatoes
1 small red or green bell pepper (1/2 cup finely chopped)

1 1/2 cups chopped onions
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
pinch cayenne
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
salt & ground pepper to taste


Method:

1. Sort and rinse the lentils. Put them in a soup pot with the water, bay leaves, garlic, and ginger. Cover and place on high heat.


2. Prepare the carrots, tomatoes and bell peppers, and add them to the pot. Bring to a boil, stir and reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are tender.


3. While the vegetables simmer, saute the onions on medium heat in the olive oil in a heavy skillet for about 10 minutes or until browned. Add the cumin, coriander and cayenne, and saute for another minute, stirring to prevent sticking.


4. When the lentils are tender, remove the bay leaves and ginger root from the soup. Stir in the sauteed onions and the lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste.