Seaweed Shaker

I love all of the health benefits to adding seaweed to your diet.  I will often throw a couple of tablespoons into dishes like chili, pasta, and soups.  Sometimes I forget, so I found a great and easy way to shake a little onto our meals is making my own seaweed shaker.  I just used an old glass salt shaker and put a little of each seaweed I had on hand inside.

This blend has kelp powder, sea lettuce flakes, dulse, and nori flakes.

Here is my well shaken blend, labeled and ready to use!

(Featured on GNOWFGINS and The Nourishing Gourmet)

Fermenting Part 2

 For this post, I thought I would share a very easy recipe for sauerkraut, which is an excellent fermented food, once called the poor man's doctor.  For this recipe, you don't need any kind of starter.  Some people do add whey, but because my son is sensitive to whey, I make mine using only salt.

Sauerkraut:

*2 large, heavy heads of organic cabbage
*5 T sea or pink salt (it has to be non-iodized and sea or pink salt work best)
*1 T nori seaweed flakes (optional)
*2 six cup canning jars

Wash off the cabbage.  On a clean surface (you want to keep everything as clean as possible, avoiding touching other things during this process to keep as little as possible other bacteria entering your fermenting jars), roughly chop your cabbage, then place it in a shredder or cuisinart using your shredder blade.  Evenly fill your two jars with the shredded cabbage.  Add 2 1/2 T salt to each jar, or if you are using seaweed, only add 2 T salt to each jar.  Next take a meat pounder or similar kitchen tool and pound the cabbage down until you see juices starting to form.  Once the juices reach the top of the cabbage, you can stop pounding.  You will be surprised how compact it gets!  Make sure the salt and seaweed are well blended.  Cover the jars loosely and  place the jars in a dark cabinent in your kitchen for 3 days.  In this cooler weather, you make have to leave it out a 4th day.  The finished product may fizz a little and should expand in your jar.  It will have a sharp tang, but discard if you taste anything that tastes bad or smells foul.  Enjoy!

For those interested in the added nutritional benefits of seaweed, I highly recommend Seaweed, by Valerie Cooksley.  She discusses all the amazing health benefits of seaweed.  I understand the book is no longer being printed, but you can buy it on amazon.  Just click on my amazon link to the right.  I love this book because of all it's information and she also tells you how much to take, which is quite helpful.

Mountain Rose Herbs carries a number of kinds of seaweed and they are all from Canada or Iceland, which I recommend as you do not want to be buying seaweed from Japan or China since Japan's nuclear accident.  Some of my favorites are nori and dulse flakes and sea lettuce.  You can click on my Mountain Rose Herb link to the right to see more varieties of seaweed.

(Shared at Real Food Wednesdays, The Nourishing Gourmet, A Glimpse Inside , Ani's Favorite Things, A Little Nosh, Gnowfgins , Ms. Helen's Country Cottage, Momnivores Delimma, Somewhat Simple, Delightful Order, Food Renegade, Real Food Whole Health, Jo's Health Corner,  Bacon time with the hunger hypo, Diet Dessert Dogs, KB and White Snake Home, 

Seaweed

I have a recommended read for those who are interested in the health benefits of seaweed, which you can find here.  I became interested in seaweed once we stopped using iodized table salt and switched to unprocessed pink salt, which I buy here and here.

It's amazing all the health benefits that can be derived from seaweed.  It's a very inexpensive way to provide trace minerals and many wonderful health benefits for yourself and your family.  Just be sure that the seaweed you buy is from a clean water source.  I personally would avoid buying any from Japan at this time due to the nuclear spill that happened during the earthquake earlier this year.  Be sure to read the section in Valerie's book about how much seaweed to take and what kinds to take before you buy your supply, as you do want to be careful not to eat too much seaweed.

I bought our seaweed from Mountain Rose Herbs and have stored it in a jars in my pantry.  I alternate the types that we use.  If I cannot hide the taste in food, then I put it in capsules for my husband, which is easy to do and a lot cheaper than buying it already encapsulated.  Mountain Rose Herbs sells a capsule machine that is very inexpensive.