Early mornings and seaweed

Quinoa with cashew *cheese* over a bed of shredded cabbage.

I am finding the cashew *cheese* fairly addicting. You can find the recipe here. I changed the recipe quite a bit - I am still tweaking it to my liking but I will post my version when I get it just right.

Self control won out this morning and the cashew *cheese* was off the breakfast menu.

Miso soup, quinoa and seasoned nori.

I was reading about potential dietary deficiencies that can occur when eating a plant based diet. It seems low levels of iodine can be a problem.

But I doubt this will be an issue for me since I almost always eat some form of seaweed everyday. 

For some reason I woke up very early this morning. It was so early that the dogs didn't even bother to wake up.

What do you do when you wake up hours earlier than everyone else? You make miso soup, of course! (you can find my basic process here)

Assembling the soup was easy - 

Cubes of tofu and some wakame went into the bottom of a bowl.

 Then I poured the miso soup on top.

It was a bit of a seaweed bonanza this morning. I used Kombo seaweed to make the dashi broth, wakame seaweed was in the finished soup and the small bowl of quinoa was a wonderul excuse to enjoy tons of seasoned nori.

Yes, I do believe my iodine levels are just fine.

I am looking forward to watching the Oscars later this afternoon.

Happy Sunday all!

Soup for thought

I really wanted homemade chicken soup tonight - but since I still haven't made it out of the apartment - I was limited to what I had at home.

Miso soup.

If you want the step by step process on how to make the dashi and the miso soup check out an earlier post here.


I am always thrilled when I can find the individual serving sized containers of tofu.

This way I am not stuck with opening a big container and then having to change out the water everyday so that is stays fresh. Ugh, I hate having to do that.

Chopped tofu and scallions.

Miso soup with tofu and scallions.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will have enough energy tomorrow to make it to the store for the fixings for chicken soup.

When life gives you a stomach ache - make miso soup

The asparagus was a little too hard on my tender tummy.

For dinner I opted for liquid sustenance. 

First I made dashi. 3 cups of water into a soup pot. Add in one piece of kombu (about the size of a deck of cards) and let the pot come up to a boil. When the water begins to boil - pull out the kombu and throw in a handful of bonito flakes. Let it come back up to a boil and then pull it off the heat. 

I let it steep for 20 minutes and then strained out the bonito flakes. I put the strained broth back on the burner on low heat and stirred in 3 Tbsp. of miso. Be careful to whisk/stir it in well or you will end up with a sludge of miso on the bottom of the pan.

 

I will admit that although I added some chopped scallions for the photograph - I fished them out before I drank the soup - I didn't want to risk eating the onions with the delicate state of my stomach.