recipes – Page 3 – 2nd Avenue

Celebrate with ice cream

One of my favourite ways to celebrate someone is by making them an ice cream cake. In honour of one of my favourite person’s birthdays today and because I no longer have a springform pan, I thought I’d share… and maybe inspire an ice cream celebration!

The process of creating an ice cream cake is easy – all it takes is smoothing layers of softened ice cream into a springform pan – it’s just time-consuming. Often the hardest part involves standing in the ice cream aisle at the grocery store deliberating which flavours would go best together, taking into account which brands are on sale and the preferences of the cake recipient.

Easter bliss

Homemade bliss ball treats in front of potted flowers

Easter (or Ostern) is a big deal in Germany. There are Easter specials and corresponding displays in every store, just about everything closes over the holiday weekend, residential windows show off Easter decorations (like branches hung with decorated eggs), church bells ring, and there’s tons of chocolate!

As a slightly healthier alternative to all the Easter chocolate (which is fantastic… but sometimes a bit too much), I made a couple batches of bliss balls – although I’m calling them Glückseligkeit Bällchen in keeping with current surroundings and because I love the word Bällchen 🙂

Home cooked comfort

Cooking is one of the things I miss most while travelling. Although we had a stovetop, fridge, and sink in the camper, space was very cramped and the ventilation system wasn’t great. Our most successful camper meals were pretty much bread, cheese, and paté.

I’m very much enjoying cooking in a real kitchen and have been making some old favourites. Relatively easy and very comforting meals like ravioli with mushrooms and sage, chili with baking powder biscuits, gnocchi with lemon and arugula, and this delicious ham & cheese loaf.

Birthday cookie recipe

I really enjoyed teaching on my birthday yesterday. There’s nothing like lovely, appreciative students to make this birthday girl feel valued 🙂

It was great leading the class through some of my favourite yin postures while listening to some of my favourite yoga music (the playlist was heavy on Wah!, Snatum Kaur, and Deva Premal) and even more wonderful to chat with students over cookies afterwards.

As requested, here’s the chocolate spice cookies recipe.

An apple smoothie a day…

Hunger-busting smoothie and a couple apples

Yoga can wreak havoc with eating. Between not eating before doing yoga (ideally eating lightly two hours before practicing) and teaching classes that coincide with regular meal times, I often find myself starving, but not wanting to eat heavily.

Thankfully, smoothies and energy bars (I like Larabars best) are there to fill the gap and soothe my grumbly tummy 🙂

The only problem with smoothies is that they need a supplement like protein powder to up their nutritional and calorie content and I’ve yet to find one I like the taste of. I also lean towards vegan protein powders, which sometimes means that they taste even worse!

Anti-negativity muffins

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling a bit low and struggling to combat negative thoughts. Needing to raise my spirits before teaching yin yoga at Bound Lotus in the evening, I decided to bake a batch of muffins.

Baking generally distracts me from whatever’s swirling around my brain, but I needed a little something extra to clear those negative thoughts. Cue the Gobinday Mukunday mantra, perfect for overcoming negativity. With SatKirin Kaur Khalsa chanting in the background I stirred my way to more positive thoughts and a dozen muffins.

Listening to meditative music while baking, cooking, or doing dishes is wonderful. I can’t help but start chanting along and it turns into a quasi-meditation as my mind starts to clear.

Weekend warrior

Laura holding Warrior II at Mosquito Creek

After teaching a Friday evening yin yoga class, I was lucky enough to escape the city for a weekend away with friends. The time away (even though we didn’t go far) was fabulous. Nothing like a bit of time away from the usual routine to refuel and reconnect.

Great food, great company, great weather… and the Superbowl on Sunday. Amidst all the eating and relaxing I managed to do my sat kriya meditations on Saturday and Sunday (despite the smell of smoking meat for the Superbowl feast threatening my concentration!) and do a lovely hatha sequence – complete with Warrior II.

My contribution to the amazing food came in the form of homemade cinnamon buns. The recipe is a holdover from my eight months or so eating vegan, but you’d never miss the eggs and dairy. If you’re not concerned about keeping animal products out of the cinnamon buns, I’m sure butter would work in place of the vegan margarine.