New fun things from the store

We found some interesting stuff last night in addition to the new toy for the cats (which they are playing with now). Our local health food store had one pound bags of kelp leaves. I grabbed one immediately and tossed it in the cart. The one pound packages are much cheaper than the two ounce bags on a per pound basis. If you are local the big bags are on the bottom shelf below the small bags of sea vegetables. They aren’t the easiest to see. You can expect to see more kelp with recipes going forward. Also for those of you with felines ours love nori and kelp. We allow them to have a little as a treat every once in a while.

In addition to the kelp the health food store had yacon root powder. Since this has been turning up on a lot of raw food blogs and is low in calories, sugar and has a very low GI so I grabbed a bag. Since we don’t use much sugar I am expecting the bag to last a very long time. As soon as I crack into it I will let you know what we think.

The Natural Market also had frozen wheat grass juice. I almost bought some but decided we could wait for mine to grow at home. My poor husband, how does he put up with me?

The remainder of our shopping trip was uneventful. Many bags of dried beans (about 20 I think). Wegman’s has a nice selection of organic dried beans so I always stock up when we are there.

I was also surprised to see that Wegman’s has expanded their Indian food section. At least they have at the Hunt Valley location in Maryland. If you are looking for Indian food you may want to take a look. Since I have been buying fresh curry leaves as Wegman’s recently too so it does make sense that they have expanded the Indian spices, condiments and beans.

I also picked up a couple pounds of organic millet, which is my hubbies favorite grain. There were also a few packages of water packed tofu, and lots of fresh produce.

This brings me to a question. How do you grocery shop? What I mean is to you work from a list, or do you buy the produce that looks good and then build meals from there? When I shop I have a short list of pantry items we need. Other than that I buy what looks good. This only works because I keep a very well stocked pantry at home. My hubby calls it my home grocery store. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t be able to make meals without planning. I would love to hear how you shop and cook. I have always envied people who can plan their menu for the week and actually stick to it. That never happens at my house no matter how much I want it to.

Unrelated Note:

Since I have no idea what I making for dinner, I need to go flip through a cookbook or two for ideas. I am thinking of Japanese tonight, undoubtedly inspired by the kelp. However, there is a good chance I will change my mind before dinner. Whatever it turns out be I will let you know.

Rice Bowl and a New Cat Toy

Last night we ran out to the health food store and Wegman’s before coming home to a late dinner (after 9pm). As I expected we both came in the door starving. Needless to say I didn’t measure and document the recipe from last night, so I will be giving you the method instead with rough measurements.

I make something that I call rice bowls for dinner when I don’t want anything fancy. They are wonderful quick meals because they use things that are in the refrigerator. Earlier in the day I had cooked a cup of brown basmati rice and stored it in the refrigerator for this evening. Rice and black beans became the base of the meal. Here is what I did.

Water sauté half an onion, thinly sliced, three garlic cloves minced and ½ inch of fresh minced ginger. When the aromatics are soft add a thinly sliced red bell pepper and a hand full of snow peas (about a cup). After two minutes I added the cold rice I cooked earlier and about a cup and a half of cooked beans for protein. I also added liquid aminos (you can use low sodium soy sauce) and mirin and cooked until everything was warm. Turn off the heat and add about 1/4 cup thinly cut kelp and sliced green onions to the mixture and stir to combine. The residual heat will be enough to warm both the kelp and onions. Serve with fresh minced cilantro. This makes 4 servings at our house.

Since the rice and beans were cooked and in the refrigerator this meal took 15 minutes and 10 of those were spent waiting for the allicin to develop in the garlic before cooking it. While the garlic was standing I had time to clean and slice the other veggies. Any vegetables will work in this dish, as will any beans although adzuki are my favorites in this.

Even though this is very similar to the beans and rice dish we had a couple of days ago with queso it tastes very different due to the seasonings. This is how I like to use “leftovers” in a way that makes them a different meal but doesn’t require a lot of work from the chef.

Unrelated note:

While we were out last night we bought this adorable squeaky toy for the felines. We always buy them something when we see it. My hubby decided to give it to them this morning when all three of them are wake and active. The first few minutes they were really adorable with the toy. Then I realized what we had inadvertently done. This squeaky little toy is the feline equivalent of buying your children a drum set. It is cute and they love it but it has a motion sensor and as long as they are playing with it, it is squeaking. I will be hiding this at night so they don’t decide to play with it in the bedroom while we are trying to sleep.

As for a review, three very enthusiastic paws up from the feline members of the family. The humans are glad the cats are happy, but find the squeaking to be a tad annoying. Our two thumbs up are much less enthusiastic.

No exciting plans for today. I have some soy beans soaking for soy milk later today. Laloofah has been encouraging me to make Bryanna’s okara miso pate so I want to try that today or tomorrow. Figuring out twitter is also on my short to do list. I think I need to spend a few days following what other people do and hopefullly then it will make sense. For the moment it is a bit of mystery. If anyone wants to share any tips on twitter please feel free to comment here or send me an email. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.

For now it is time to work on crossing some items off my to do list. I will be back later with a post, or two. I hope you are all having a wonderful day

Vegetable and Cheeze filled Nori Wraps

As those of you that read often know I have been trying to reduce our flour consumption. Friday night I made a little appetizer that used nori in place of bread of a cracker.

First I made an easy nut cheeze. This is another method, rather than recipe. I combined raw pumpkins seeds, raw cashews and raw macadamia nuts until I had one cup total of nuts. Next, the nuts were soaked in 2 cups of filtered water for a few hours. I drained the nuts and moved them to the food processor. Next I added a peeled garlic clove, two tablespoons of white miso and turned the machine on. I drizzled water into the processor until I liked the texture of the cheeze. You may need to stop the food processer and scrape the sides of the bowl. Taste again for seasonings and adjust as necessary.

Smear the cheeze on the nori and add whatever veggies you like (we used red pepper strips and avocado). I also added a few raw sesame seeds for texture. Roll the nori like sushi and slice into bite size pieces and eat. If you have felines be aware they seem to be attracted to nori. We ended up eating our nori rolls standing up to keep the felines at bay.

I wouldn’t call this sushi, but it is similar to sushi. It would also be good with wasabi in the cheeze if you like spicy food. This will be something that I make again. It was easy and different. It solved two issues for us, no bread and more sea vegetables.  We thought it was a winning concept worth sharing.

What are Sea Beans?

That was a question I asked about a year and a half ago when our chef friend Ian had them on the daily special’s menu. It turns out sea beans are a very mild tasting, salty sea vegetable. The flavor it not at all like seaweed, it is very mild and reminds me of the taste of baby spinach, only less intense.

When I saw the sea beans yesterday at Wegman’s I knew I had to buy them. I remembered Ian telling me to soak them to remove some of the salty flavor so when I got home I tasted one raw. Wow, are they salty! Today the sea beans soaked in cold water in the refrigerator for about 6 hours. When I tasted them again they were less salty, but still salty. So I decided to quickly blanch them to see if I could encourage more of the salt to come out without making them mushy. I blanched the beans in simmering water for about 45 seconds and they were less salty.

I served them over rice that I didn’t salt so that together the salinity would be correct. I also added sliced almonds on top (unpictured because I didn’t like the way they looked in the photo). We had this will thinly sliced porky seitan on the side.

If you haven’t tried sea beans please consider them. They are high in protein and have a very pleasant and mild taste. The texture is most similar to a very thin asparagus. Most importantly they don’t take long to make. A quick blanch of less than a minute and they are ready.

Soba, Spinach and Sea Vegetable Salad

Sea vegetables are so packed with nutrition that I really want to learn to like them. Okay, I really want to learn to accept them enough to eat them every week in a form other than sushi.

This salad is something I made up to get a little seaweed into us at lunch today. Surprisingly the seaweed blended into the background and except for one bite, which had more seaweed than the other bites, I couldn’t taste it in the dish. Even my husband said this was good, and he doesn’t like any seaweed but nori and sea asparagus. I was quite pleased with the end result.

If you are wondering why I want to cultivate a taste for seaweed that is easy. As usual the reason is all about nutrition. Sea vegetables are said to contain more minerals than any other food. They are an excellent source of iodine and vitamin K. Additionally they also contain iron, calcium and a few B vitamins. Sea vegetables also contain lignans, which has been shown to inhibit angiogenesis. Cancer needs a rich blood supply to grow and when you inhibit the growth of blood vessels (angiogenesis) you are shutting down the food supply for the tumors. The fucans in sea vegetables is also thought to reduce inflammation, also a good thing. Consumption of sea vegetables is also associated with a reduction in menopausal symptoms.

I am hoping that we grow accustomed to the taste and texture of seaweed like we did the green drink. As I find new ways to use seaweed I will continue to post the recipes. Here is what we had for lunch today.

Soba, Spinach and Sea Vegetable Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:

120 grams (1 bundle) Soba Noodles (Yamaimo Soba)
10 grams mixed dried seaweed (mixture of brown, green and clear sea vegetables)
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon liquid aminos
½ tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 clove garlic, peeled and grated (or finely minced)
3 cups baby spinach, julienned

Directions:

Fill a medium sized pan with plenty of water (at least 1 ½ quarts) and bring to a boil.

Begin by soaking the seaweed in plenty of water for at least 15 minutes. I changed the water once during the soak. Now drain the sea vegetables and move to a large bowl.

Add the soba noodles to the boiling water and cook according to the package directions. My package indicated to cook for 4 – 5 minutes (much less than regular pasta) and to drain and rinse. Use cold water to rinse the noodles so that won’t wilt the fresh spinach.

Place the noodles in the bowl with the seaweed. Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and toss to combine.

Serve cold.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 265.48
Calories From Fat (19%) - 51.24

Total Fat - 6.36g
Saturated Fat - 0.63g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 1548.72mg
Potassium - 375.73mg
Total Carbohydrates - 48.28g
Fiber - 1.26g
Sugar - 0.24g
Protein - 11.73g

Comments:

This salad was surprisingly in its lack of “seaweediness”. If I hadn’t made the dish I am not certain I would have known it contained seaweed. I would suggest that you do what I did and start with a small amount of seaweed and make certain it is evenly distributed and flavored with an intense sauce. That seemed to work well for me.

The nutritional information was also impressive for this dish. The dish contains over 4200IU of vitamin A, and 220 mcg of vitamin K, and almost a 100mcg of folate. I think that is quite a lot of nutrition for a little bowl of salad.

Next time I will be more careful when I buy soba noodles. I didn’t realize until today that the package I bought had over 1000mg of sodium per serving just for the noodles. There must be a few brands with less sodium than that. Overall this was a nice flavorful salad and one that I will be making variations of in the future.

Marinated Hijiki Salad

I imagine the first question you are asking yourself is what is hijiki and why should I eat it. Hijiki is a sea vegetable that is full of vitamins and minerals but has a fairly strong taste. Hijiki is sold dried in small bags in the Asian section of most large supermarkets. Sea Vegetables of all types contain high levels of iodine, vitamin K and B vitamins. They are also reported to be a good source of lignans, which is a plant compound that is thought to have cancer-protective properties. Lignans have been shown in laboratory test to inhibit angiogenesis (the proliferation of new blood vessels that promotes rapid growth of cancer cells). Lignans have also been credited with inhibiting estrogen synthesis, which assists in the reduction of risk of hormonal based cancers (breast and prostate). With these benefits, why wouldn’t you want to give hijiki a try?

When I am serving it to someone that is new to sea vegetables I soak it overnight in the refrigerator to remove a lot of its flavor. As your palate becomes more accustomed to the flavor a quick 30 minute soak is more than enough for this sea vegetable. The soaking liquid can be saved in the freezer for the next time you are making soup; it is full of minerals and would be a shame to throw away. If you don’t like the flavor the soaking liquid it is great for your plants.

This is my version of a Mediterranean sea vegetable salad. The same salad can be made with arame (a more mild sea vegetable that is also sold dried).

Ingredients:
1 40 g bag of dried Hijiki
Water to cover the Hijiki by a volume of 5
2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, grated
salt and pepper to taste
½ a red onion, sliced thin
1 cup of grape tomatoes, sliced in half

Directions:

Place the hijiki in a colander and rinse thoroughly before moving it to a large vessel with a lid. Soak the hijiki overnight in enough liquid to cover the sea vegetable by at least 5 times. The hijiki will expand by 4 times while it soaks. If you are new to hijiki soak it overnight to remove much of the strong flavor, otherwise a thirty minute soak is sufficient.

Drain and rinse the hijiki thoroughly.

Make the dressing for the salad. Combine the vinegar, oil, garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Toss the hijiki with the dressing. Add the sliced onions and tomatoes and store in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours to allow the hijiki to absorb the dressing. After 4 hours taste the salad and add more dressing if you think the hijiki taste is too prominent.

I eat this salad cold sometime alone, or sometimes over greens or with julienned greens tossed into the salad. I also have been known to add a little bit of this to a wrap sandwich in place of the lettuce. Even though it has salad in the name this is not meant to be eaten in large quantity. I eat a tablespoon of hijiki salad once of twice a day when I have it in the refrigerator. Prepared as a marinated salad hijiki will last for a week in the refrigerator.

Comments:

This salad is an acquired taste. However sea vegetables are so healthy for everyone that they are a taste that is healthy to acquire. Initially you will find yourself wanting to add more dressing to overpower the sea flavor. After eating sea vegetable a few times the flavor of the vegetables becomes much more palatable.