My Meals: 3/7/10

Breakfast

Okay, wanted to show you all how I use sea vegetables.  I get them from Larch Hanson's Maine Seaweed Company.   One spring about 30 years ago, I spent a few months in Maine working with Larch as an apprentice.  He gave me room and board and I helped him harvest seaweeds, about 1500 to 3000 pounds a day, by hand.  Grueling work done at low tide once or twice daily in very cold Atlantic waters.

 Harvesting Alaria.  Maine Seaweed Co.

We would go in a sauna to get hot, then put on a wet suit, then take the boats Larch built (and finished in nontoxic vegetable oil) out to sea to harvest kelp or alaria (on rock outcrops).  After we collected the many baskets full (below) and the tide had risen, we returned to land, and hung the seaweed to dry.  Then we might get a few hours of rest before the next low tide.

 Alaria in baskets.  Maine Seaweed Co.

Anyway, seaweeds provide a myriad of trace minerals including very important iodide.  I made chili and in this picture you see the seaweed strips lying atop the chili at then end of the long slow cook (about 5 hours).  I just stir them in and they break into little pieces.

The chili recipe (about 4 servings):

1 yellow onion chopped

1 jalepeno pepper chopped

~1 cup loosely packed cilantro chopped

3 cloves garlic chopped

4 T olive oil

2 lbs. grass-fed ground beef

14 ounces canned crushed tomatoes

1 T chili powder

1 T cumin

1 T Hungarian paprika

1 T dried Mexican oregano
1 T Wright's Liquid Smoke HIckory Seasoning
2 strips of digitata kelp, each about 10 inches long

juice of ½ small lemon

2 T arrowroot

I heated the olive oil and added the first four ingredients to sauté until they soaked up much of the oil.  Then I added the beef, tomatoes, chili, cumin, paprika, and oregano.  I brought it all to boil then simmered about 5 hours on very low heat.  Then I refrigerated about 6 hours (overnight).  Then I reheated, and as it warmed up, I juiced the lemon and mixed the juice with the arrowroot.  Next I stirred the lemon-arrowroot mixture into the hot chili and stirred constantly as it thickened.

I ate a large bowl of it (about ¼ of the recipe) for breakfast with vegetables, an apple, and a bowl of ½ cup walnuts mixed with ¼ cup raisins (not pictured).

Lunch

Pollo asada (1/2 pound chicken thigh)

Yukon gold potato

Stir-fry of broccoli, scallions, and red pepper in olive oil

Blueberry ice cream (recipe below)

Instant Blueberry Ice Cream

1 serving

½ cup coconut milk

2 tsp. honey

½ teaspoon dried ginger powder

1 cup frozen blueberries

Put coconut milk in blender.  Add honey and ginger.  Turn on blender on “blend” speed and gradually add blueberries.  It will thicken to a slightly runny soft serve.  Pour out of blender and consume immediately.

In some future post I will show you how to make an instant soft-serve that is really fluffy.