TOPICS: stories of a vegetarian gypsy, food for yoga bliss, eggplant. mangos

GUEST: Gitam Garden, vegetarian cook and author

GUEST RECIPE : a brand new one to help us deal with the mango mountain

MANGO TORTE

Preparation time:    15 minutes
Chill time:        30 minutes
Serves:        8-10

Ingredients

Base
2 cup almonds, walnuts and/or sunflower seeds
1 cup dates
1-2 tablespoons water
1 cup shredded coconut
 
Topping
4 cups mango flesh
1 teaspoon agar agar
½ cup water
Mango slices or toasted flaked almonds, to decorate

Method

   Put nuts or seeds into food processor and blend until they break up to resemble breadcrumbs
    Soften dates by heating with water in a small saucepan, add more water if necessary
    Add softened dates and coconut to the nut mixture and process until the mixture forms a smoothish paste, adding a little water if necessary to keep it moving
    Spread the mixture evenly over the base and sides of a small baking tray or 20cm springform pan and chill while preparing topping:
    Roughly chop the mango flesh
    Soak the agar agar in the water in a small saucepan for 10 minutes, then bring to the boil. Cook at boiling point, stirring often, for about 5 minutes.
    Add the agar agar to the mango, mix well
    Spread the mixture over the base and leave to set; refrigerate until ready to eat.
    To serve, cut into squares, topping each square with a mango slice or toasted flaked almonds.


EDIBLE QUOTE : from Gitam (her motto!) :

"growing food should be fun, preparing food should be fun and eating food should be the most fun of all"

LINKS:

Gitam Garden's new book, Gitam's Garden - healthy sattvik recipes from the Byron Yoga Kitchen, is available from this link:

http://www.byronyoga.com/gitams-garden-cook-book

Some more of Gitam's recipes there too - or go the Byron Yoga Centre

www.byroncollege.org.au - newish link for ACE courses

 - and the nasty stuff on old non-stick pans is perfluorooctanoic acid if you want to look it up - yes we managed to say that!