Vegan Recipes to Enhance Your Yoga Life: Food to balance and invigorate your chakras

By Sarah Wilkinson

Discover 60 delicious, all vegan recipes designed to work with your chakras and nourish the mind, body and spirit.
In Vegan Recipes to Enhance Your Yoga Life, Sarah Wilkinson focuses on the importance of well functioning chakras in helping you attain optimal health and wellbeing. On the physical level, one way to achieve this is through the foods you eat. Be inspired to prepare meals that will nourish you in a whole new way, including light bites, main meals and Sarah's wonderful chakra cakes suitable for vegans and vegetarians and wheat and gluten free. The recipes are organised by season and colour-coded for easy cross-referencing to an explanatory section on the chakras, including corresponding information on nutrition. Each chakra is linked to a different aspect of your mind, body and spirit. By learning to recognise how your personal system is functioning, you will begin to see noticeable positive shifts in your world. To further energise your chakras, Sarah has included a section on how to harness the power of crystals as you cook. Vegan Recipes to Enhance Your Yoga Life will open you up to the amazing health benefits of seasonal and plant-based conscious eating.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CICO Books
• Release date: Jan 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781782499114

Book preview

vegan recipes TO

ENHANCE YOUR yoga life

food to balance and invigorate

YOUR CHAKRAS

Sarah Wilkinson

To the earth, with gratitude for all the bountiful produce gifted to us.

This edition published in 2020 by CICO Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

20–21 Jockey’s Fields

London WC1R 4BW

341 E 116th St

New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

First published in 2015 as The Chakra Kitchen.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text © Sarah Wilkinson 2015 and 2020

Design and photography © CICO Books 2015 and 2020

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

eISBN: 978-1-78249-911-4

ISBN: 978-1-78249-847-6

Printed in China

Contents

Introduction

The Chakras

Harnessing the Power of Crystals

Ingredients

Clarity Juice • Detox Tea • Low-GI Marmalade • Super Spring Greens Soup • Nutty Sprouting Salad • Vegetable Rice Rolls • Asparagus and Paprika Tart • Rainbow Chard with Smoked Tofu and Cashews • Cauliflower, Butter Bean, and Lentil Curry • Avocado, Lime, and Raw Cacao Cake • Dandelion and Burdock Cupcakes • Rhubarb Yogurt Pot with Ginger Crunch • Matcha Brûlée

Super Berry Smoothie • Chilled Pea, Mint, and Avocado Soup • Chakra Salad • Full of Beans Salad • Quinoa Tabbouleh with Spinach Falafel • Fattoush Salad • Green Vegetable Curry • Raw Lasagna • Stuffed Bell Peppers • Lentil Moussaka • Sunflower Power Cake • Banana, Almond, and Raw Cacao Ice Cream • Chia Pudding with Cardamom and Pistachio • Sexy Summer Sorbet • Raspberry, Pecan, and Goji Berry Pudding

Raw Spiced Energy Bars • Warming Smoothie • Orchard Hedgerow Juice • Beet and Rosemary Soup • Grounding Sweet Potatoes • Moroccan Pumpkin Stew • Leek, Kale, and Mushroom Risotto • Spaghetti Squash with Tofu, Nori, and Kale Pesto • Roasted Cauliflower and Potato Crunch • Spiced Fruit Scones • Sacral Bliss Cake • Hazelnut Plum Tart • Almond Rice Pudding • Baked Pears with Cinnamon and Blackberries • Chai Latte

Wake-me-up Porridge • Sacral Juice • Three Squash Soup • Winter Slaw • Spiced Patties with Roasted Winter Roots • Brussels Sprout and Artichoke Stir-Fry • Rooty Daal with Sweet Naan Bread • Magical Mushrooms with Polenta • Bean Feast Chili • Ginger and Pecan Puddings with Star Anise Ice Cream • Raw Spiced Chocolate and Walnut Cake • Mandarin and Thyme Polenta Cake • Coconut Snow Balls • English Muffins • Christmas Jam • Hot Chestnut Chocolate • Cranberry, Macadamia, and Cayenne Cookies

Index

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Vegan Recipes to Enhance Your Yoga Life is the result of consciously working with the chakras as a key element within my healing practice since 2012. Back in 2011, I decided to leave my 10-year career in the arts and higher education to pursue a spiritual path and to help others and the planet. Chakra Cakes were born out of a light-hearted parting gift to my co-workers to introduce them to the ancient chakra system. Then came my signature Chakra Teas, Flame and Flora and catering at Mind, Body, Spirit and Yoga events. This book is a beautiful and timely opportunity for me to share with you the benefits of eating foods to support your chakras.

Conscious eating

This means literally taking a loving and caring interest in choosing, preparing, and eating your food. If you start to do this, then you will automatically be working with your crown chakra. There are many ways in which you can achieve a more conscious connection with food. One way is to buy seasonal organic and biodynamic foods, local where possible (so lowering your carbon footprint). Another is to introduce veganism into your life, thereby respecting and extending love to all animal life as equal inhabitants of this planet. Many people who are in touch with their spirituality are increasingly aligning to a more heart-centered vegan lifestyle.

As we rise in consciousness with the planet (which is happening rapidly now), our bodies are shifting. Food sensitivities and intolerances are another indication of this. Over-processed products, including mass-produced bread containing modified wheat and preservatives, seem to be causing digestive issues in many of the more sensitive people. Avoiding gluten or at least opting for freshly prepared food made with unadulterated whole grains, such as spelt and rye, can help. Sugar consumption is something else to watch and I hope that the recipes in this book will help you to enjoy experimenting with alternative natural and unrefined sweeteners (see page 24). Other stimulants, such as coffee and tea, if consumed, are best taken in moderation. Garlic is not recommended by yogis and is certainly best avoided around times of dedicated spiritual practice and healing work. You may therefore choose to remove it from the recipes it is contained in within this book, or at least keep consumption to a minimum. Alcohol is extremely detrimental to the chakras, and to physical and mental health, and should in my opinion be avoided completely. For more on this and other useful advice, please refer to Nutrition: Food, Health and Spiritual Development, Rudolf Steiner Press.

I would also recommend keeping your body in an alkaline state for optimal health (you can test saliva with PH strips). One way to help with this is to take half a lemon or lime, juiced, and/or 1 tsp of Bicarbonate of Soda with warm water every morning 20-30 minutes before food.

Do take your time when selecting produce. We are all made of subtle vibratory energy and it is possible to feel the life force in a plant-based food by holding it in your hands and focusing on it; closing your eyes can help. When preparing meals, make it a time of creative celebration—sing, put light-hearted music on in the kitchen, and send in love as you work with the food; it’s best to avoid arguments or gossiping! Once your meal is ready, serve it at the table and take a moment to thank the earth, and the farmers and producers, as well as the food itself. Gratitude is always a winner! Try to share food with friends and family when possible and make it a sensual, joyous experience. Take the time to eat slowly, chewing and noticing the colors, textures, tastes, and aromas. You will digest with more ease, absorb more nutrients, and have an all-round beautiful experience. You will also feel fuller quicker. It is not advisable to overeat or force yourself to consume anything that you don’t like; learn to listen to your body. I can also recommend using your body as a human pendulum by holding the food in front of your solar plexus chakra (see page 7), and seeing if you sway toward or away from it. This will help you to understand what your body wants to ingest and what it doesn’t at any given moment. Food waste is best kept to a minimum for the sake of all and the planet, so try