Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups dessicated coconut

4 Tbs cacao or carob powder

2 cups of dates

1/2 cup almonds

1/2 cup cashes

3 Tbs Honey or agave syrup

1 Tbs coconut oil

Method:

- In a small pot add the dates and enough water to cover.

- Bring to the boil and then strain.

- Add all ingredients to a food processor and blend until almost smooth.

- Roll mixture into balls and coat with a little extra dessicated coconut.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup cashews

3/4 cup almonds

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup dried apricots

1 cup dates

5 dried figs

2 cups coconut

3 Tbs cacao or carob powder

3 Tbs tahini

1/2 cup sesame seeds

1/2 cup chia seeds

3/4 cup honey or agave syrup

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend to desired consistency. Then roll into balls and store in an airtight container.

- Stretch and strengthen your body and redevelop core strength

- Bond with and delight your baby

- Calm and centre your mind and body with deep yogic breathing

- Be uplifted by yoga sound meditation

- Meet with other mums in a supportive and sharing environment

- Followed by light refreshments

WHEN: Every Tuesday at 12:00pm-1:30pm

WHERE: CWA Hall, 169 Griffith st Coolangatta

BRING: A blanket and a firm, flat pillow

COST: $14

Ingredients:

4 cobs of sweet corn

3⁄4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 heaped tsp sweet paprika

Salt

Pepper

Chilli (fresh of dried)

Method:

1. Drop the corn in boiling water and cook for five minutes.

2. Combine the olive oil and sweet paprika in a small bowl.

3. Removing the corn from the water, allow to drain and then liberally brush with the oil mixture.

4. Place corn on a large square of aluminum foil and add salt pepper and chopped chilli to taste (as an alternative to aluminium foil, rewrap the corn in its own husk and bind with wire or cotton string).

5. Wrap up the corn and place on the BBQ, gas stove or on any open flame (traditionally I have seen it cooked over open coals…yum).

6. Once the corn has started to make popping sounds and blacken in sections, remove from the flame, unwrap and coat in fresh lime juice and coriander.

Ingredients:

2 eggplants/aubergines

2 cloves garlic

extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground corriander

1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika

2 Tbs fresh lemon juice

2 Tbs tahini

1 Tbs yogurt

2 Tbs flat leaf parsley, chopped

Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Slice the skin of the eggplant/aubergines with a sharp knife and place whole under a hot grill. Turn occasionally and cook until soft. When cool, scoop out the pulp and set aside.

2. Add whole, peeled garlic cloves, cumin seeds and a generous covering of olive oil in a small baking dish and cook until garlic is golden.

3. Place all ingredients (reserving a little olive oil and cumin seeds) in a food processor and blend until smooth. You may wish to add more lemon juice, yogurt, tahini, salt and pepper until you reach the consistency and flavour  you prefer.

4. Garnish with parsley leaves and remaining olive oil and cumin seeds.

Ingredients:

12 large Shiitake mushrooms

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 Tbs rapadura sugar

1 strip of Kombu seaweed cut into small slithers

1/4 cup soya sauce

200g tofu

A splash of sesame oil

1/4 cup soya sauce

1 sheet Nori seaweed

1/2 Tbs coconut oil

A splash of sesame and/or chilli oil

1 large knob of ginger, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 onion, sliced

1 large carrot

1 zucchini

1 red capsicum

1 red chilli (optional)

500g fresh rice noodle

1/2 cup dark soya sauce

1/2 cup sweet soy sauce (Kecap Manis)

Method:

1. To prepare the mushrooms…

- Cut Shiitake’s and Kombu into strips with a pair of scissors, add the water, sugar and soya sauce.

- Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer until the mushrooms are soft and the water has reduced to a couple of tablespoons in the bottom of the pot.

2. To prepare the tofu…

- Slice the tofu in rectangles about 5cm by 3cm, and about 1cm thick.

- Fry tofu with sesame oil in a hot pan until golden on both sides.

- Add the soya sauce and fry until all the sauce is reduced and coating the tofu.

- Cut the Nori seaweed in strips about 15cm by 2cm.

- Wrap the hot tofu in the Nori and set aside.

3. To prepare the vegetable and noodles…

- Slice the vegetables into strips.

- Heat the oil in a large wok, then add the garlic, ginger and onion and fry until golden.

- Add the sliced vegetables and fry until their colour becomes more vibrant (be careful not to overcook the vege’s so that their crisp flavour isn’t lost).

- Add the fresh rice noodles and sauces and fry until all ingredients are coated and sauce has reduced a little in the bottom of the wok.

Finally, stir in the pre-prepared mushrooms and tofu and serve with freshly chopped coriander and lime wedges.

Ingredients:

• 2 sml zuccinis
• 2 sml eggplants
• 2 green banana capsicums
• 1/4 medium butternut pumpkin
• 1 cob corn
• 1 carrot
• 1 cup pre-cooked chickpeas
• 1 large white onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup sultanans (optional
• 1 Tsp cumin powder
• 1 Tsp coriander powder
• 1 Tsp whole cumin seed
• 1 Tsp whole coriander seed
• 1 Tsp sweet paprika
• 1 Tsp turmeric
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• 1 cinnamon stick crushed
• ½ tsp chili powder
• ¼ cup rapadura sugar (can be substituted with raw sugar)
• Large pinch of sea salt
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Water to cover

Preparation Method:

1. Line the targine with a generous splashing of olive oil.
2. Roughly chop the onions and garlic and add to the targine.
3. Slice all the vegetables into long, large pieces.
4. Add all the other ingredients until all the spices, salt, sugar and stock are coating the vegetables. Add water slowly over the top until the base of the targine is just a couple of centimeters under full.
5. Cover and bring to the boil.
6. Reduce the heat and cook until the vegetables are just softened. Carefully stir occasionally.

Serves 4

• 400 grams mixed vegetables (can include thai eggplants, green banana, green beans, carrots, snow peas, capsicum, pumpkin, white cabbage, ockra)
• 100 grams firm tofu, sliced into 1cm cubes
• 1 cup coconut cream
• ½ cup green curry paste
• 3 cups coconut milk
• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons palm sugar
• ½ cup sweet basil leaves
• ½ cup fresh coriander, roughly chopped
• 7 kaffir lime leaves, torn

Preparation method

1. Wash and chop vegetables and set aside.
2. Pour coconut cream into a pan and place over medium heat, when the oil surfaces add green curry paste. Sauté until fragrant and green oil appears on the surface. Add tofu, toss to coat well.
3. Transfer to a curry pot and coconut milk and vegetables, seasoning lightly with soy sauce and palm sugar. The sauce should taste spicy, salty and creamy sweet.
4. Bring to the boil and cook the vegetables lightly. Turn off the heat and sprinkle with fresh Thai basil and coriander. Serve with steamed rice or rice vermicelli.

QLD Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6:00 am			classes closed during winter		classes closed during winter
8:00 am
8:15 am
8:30 am
9:30 am
4:30 pm
5:30 pm

Note: All yoga classes are in QLD time and are 1 ½ hrs in duration. Please arrive 10mins early to class if possible. Wear loose, comfortable clothing and bring water, a towel and yoga mat if you have one (spare mats are available for loan or sale).

Yoga Class Prices

Venue

All classes are held at the bright and breezy CWA Hall, 169 Griffith St, Coolangatta

“I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.” Mahatma Gandhi

“Our task must be to free ourselves… widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein

Eating for a more sustainable future…

Written by Amy King

"Eating for a more sustainable future". Words and images by Amy King

Since early childhood I have found myself feeling most at home when I’m somewhere outside of my comfort zone, somewhere unknown and new. As a child my adventurous nature (coupled with a dangerous taste for adrenaline) resulted always in a new injury, break, sprain or parental disapproval. As an adult, looking back over the last five or ten years I realize little has changed. Having worked, lived and traveled in over twenty different countries I have been so fortunate to have seen so many beautiful and wonderful sights, constantly and unexpectedly amazed, inspired and humbled by the magnificence of Gods creation. Throughout this magnificence I have caught just a glimpse of the common thread that runs throughout every country, every culture and every living being. As a whole, we are all interconnected with a much bigger scene and we all are reliant on our planet to provide us with the necessities of life…with clean water to drink, clean food to eat and clean air to breathe. However, inseparably coupled with the interconnectedness and magnificence I have witnessed in this world is perhaps, more devastatingly, the trail of environmental degradation that cannot be ignored

On my travels to South East Asia I have stood on idyllic island beaches, where only months before thousands of dead bodies lay following the aftermath of typhoon Nanmadol caused by rising temperatures over the north-east pacific. Later, I received emails from dear friends following cyclone Ondoy, who in their humanitarian efforts where unable to describe the devastation.

I have witnessed kilometer after kilometer of forest slashed and burned. I have hiked through 24kms of national park in Thakek, Laos and found it almost completely devoid of the slithering of lizards, calling of the morning symphony, laugh of the monkeys or roar of the tiger.

Traveling through Europe I have passed for days on end through endless crops…sunflower fields...

On traveling through Europe I have passed for days on end through endless crops…sunflower fields, vineyards, cornfields, wheat fields, orange plantations and olive groves. Pushing aside romantic notions I began to ponder…where are the forests?

The Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland. One of the many glaciers of the world in serious decline.

After eight hours of hiking towards the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps we finally reached our destination only to have my friend, who had visited the glacier only eight years before drop his jaw in surprise and say “where has it gone?”.

I have snorkeled for hours in the warm, clear waters of the Mediterranean Sea only to be left wondering…where are all the fish? Later, in a tacky tourist store I picked up a postcard picturing a dolphin diving from its warm Mediterranean waters and smiled with a little reassurance, only to have my hopes shattered by my friend (a local) looking over my shoulder and laughing, “that must be a old postcard…we haven’t seen a dolphin here for nearly ten years”.

Then came Almeria, Spain. I stumbled upon this agricultural nightmare quite accidentally, having spent the last week in a nearby national park. Suitably named ‘plasticulture’ vegetables are grown all year round in vast colonies of plastic tents. When stopping to look into one of these tents the growing process resembled something out of a Frankenstein movie, rather than a process resulting in a product with some kind of nutritional value. I was even more horrified when I realized I was in the organic sector. My experience (of what I felt at the time could be the future of our planet) exacerbated by endless 45-55 degree heat and air thick with smoke while fires ravaged a small remaining pocket of forest further north.

Growth in Almería Greenhouses 1974–2004

Later, I met two travelers who where walking with their dog from Germany to the southern most tip of Spain (insanity). They told me (in a raspy voice) that they had just burnt their throats drinking water from a well in the area contaminated with fertilizer.I later found out there are 11, 000 illegal wells (not to mention the number of legal wells) in Almeria, all endlessly irrigating precious ground water reserves into over 2.7 million tonnes of produce per year. The contaminated remnants of which are then pumped into the ocean.

Irrigation water and synthetic fertilizers underneath, plastic on top. There are now an estimated 40,000 hectares of greenhouses in the Campo de Dalías, Almeria, accounting for over €1.2 billion in economic activity.

Green house city…

The man who ate the world? Positioned suitably between a greedily grimacing automobile and an electricity pole, this grotesque but somehow relevant carnival statue sits in a storage bay just kilometers from Almeria’s agricultural sector.

Further down on my travels through northern Africa the extent of desertification was harrowing. Seeing firsthand its impacts on the livelihoods of the nomadic peoples living on the edge of the ever-expanding Sahara, now displaced and forced into bulging cities or refugee camps.

The Sahara is expanding at a rate of 5-10kms per year.

I met one young man who told me he would soon be leaving his small town of birth on the edge of the Sahara because there was no longer natural fodder for his thirty or so camels to eat.

He gazed sadly at the dry, diseased date palms as he told me that only twelve years ago the children would eat nothing but dates…

Diseased Date Palms

“the people here were rich in heart and rich in pocket, but now there is no more water”. Sensing his very deep connection with the land around him I felt deeply saddened and a little guilty of conscience knowing that this man, who had never owned a car or even a motorbike and used an average of 6 liters of water a day for all his necessary needs, was experiencing the very real consequences of climate change more than many of us in the western world who use an average of 600 liters of water a day.

"the people here were rich in heart and rich in pocket, but now there is no more water"

On my return back to Australia I was devastated to hear news of over 2200 houses burnt and a death toll of over 100 people as fires still raged in Victoria, while most of the rest of the country was still in severe drought.

Australia's severe drought

It’s not hard to see that over the last 50 years we have changed the face of our planet. We have slashed and burned more than half of the world’s original forests, clearing land for livestock and crops for which 80% is fed to livestock. On land, we face widespread aridity, water scarcity, erosion and desertification. At sea, we edge closer everyday towards creating a biological wasteland; most of the worlds fishing reserves being either exhausted or under severe depletion. We have polluted, strip mined and cut bare, we are facing extinction at a rate faster than ever before.

The world has changed, we can no longer afford to be ignorant toward the devastating environmental situation we find ourselves in. Even the most skeptic of scientists are starting to accept that by 2050 we will be living in a very different world, a world where resources are scarce, disease and famine widespread, and quality of life greatly hindered.

But instead of feeling hopeless or helpless, or to simply shrug our shoulders and hope the problem disappears, we must look towards the positive steps we as individuals can make towards a more sustainable future both for ourselves and for the future generations of every species, organism and life form on the planet.

Not all of us can afford to fit our houses with solar panels or waterless toilets, not all of us can stop driving or buy a more fuel efficient car…but something we can all do is limit our meat intake or, better still, switch to a vegetarian diet.

A 2006 United Nations report summarized the devastation caused by the meat industry by calling it “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” The report recommended that animal agriculture “be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.”

Many leading environmental organizations, such as the National Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, are now establishing the link between eating meat and eco-disasters like climate change. According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

Not only will the choice of switching to a vegetarian diet help ease demands on the planet, but will improve health, save money on a global and personal level…and expand a whole new level of flavour and creativity in the kitchen. Furthermore, it will save the needless suffering of trillions of animals.

Looking at the topic of agriculture in today’s world we find that the once humble endeavors of farming and agriculture, managed in harmony with the laws of nature has now become an intensive industry dependant on fossil fuels, breaking the link between food and nutrition and very much taking its part in the ravishing of nature.

Referring back to what I witnessed in Almeria, Spain we can take, for example, a seemingly innocent tin of tomatoes…more than likely grown using chemical fertilizers and irrigated fossil water (a non-renewable resource) over 35000 kms away from where it now sits so conveniently on the grocery store shelf. Its production, processing, packaging and transportation has not only used up huge quantities of fossil fuels and polluted soils and waterways but also supplied you with a product laced with cancer causing elements and devoid of nutritional value. It’s a fair generality to say that the more a food is processed, the more fossil fuels have been burned to provide a food with less nutrients.

Our vege garden in our last house spread over both sides of the property and bought us (and the neighborhood) a daily bounty of fresh food and joy.

Now that we live in a smaller, suburban house we have simplified our garden into small pots, but still with a delicious daily harvest.

However, by making the choice to buy locally grown, organic produce we directly reduce the use of resources and harmful chemicals and we give to ourselves the nutrients our body needs to be healthy. A better choice still is to grow vegetables in the backyard or veranda. Growing herbs, fruits and vegetables (no matter how small scale) is a joyous experience, reconnecting us with the wonder of nature. Surely, it is a most wonderful and satisfying experience to return from your own backyard or apartment garden with fresh produce, adding it with colourful, flavorful and healthful results to the dining table.

Harvesitng Zuccini's

This section is dedicated to delicious vegetarian recipes inspired by countries all over the world. I will also be including various tips and hints on organic gardening and positive consumer food choices that I hope will inspire you towards your contribution of a more sustainable future. I should be adding new information every month so keep an eye out for regular updates.