A family meal

Eating out of shallow bowls will always be my preferred medium for meals. Bowls are so colorful, so diverse, so fun. They never go out of style. Here is a recent one from my house with one of my favorite current toppings - sauteed mixed mushrooms in butter and thyme. These gorgeous mushrooms smell just like a steak as they cook and are great on bowls, omelets, smooth and pureed soups, stir frys, or if you’re feeling lavish - on top of crusty chunks of toasted bread with more butter sauce and herbs for dipping.

Do your kids eat mushrooms? Mine don’t. It can be a difficult texture and form to wrap your head around - but don’t sweat it. I modify many of the meals I cook for our kids by adjusting or omitting 1-3 items, if needed. This is a great example pictured above - both my boys ate this same bowl but decided against the butternut squash, amaranth sprouts, or mushrooms. But, focusing on the positive, they ate almost 100% of their brown rice (with coconut milk for one), green beans, romanesco, avocado, and ground turkey. Win-win. Do you modify meals for the kids? Do you struggle with how to make one dinner for the whole family? Bowls are a great solution - make a grain + several toppings (at least 2 you KNOW they will enjoy) and let the kids choose what they want to go in it - or just create their bowls for them with their favorite things, keeping your favorite things to yourself! Presenting all healthy options, you won’t stress about what they eat - even if it’s just a bowl of brown rice with coconut milk and nothing else (this happens with my 3 yr old often, you are not alone if it’s happening at your house too!).

Using seaweeds in your daily meals

There is such a wide variety of sea vegetables, or seaweed, to use when cooking at home. Outside of the ubiquitous dried nori snacks, we can easily use hijiki, kombu, dulse, wakame and more. Pictured above is salmon + hijiki rice made together in one pot - a very simple way to cook a filling meal, just add some fresh vegetables on the side and you’ll have plenty of leftovers for lunch. I found this recipe over on Happy Donabe Life, a great resource for Japanese inspired cooking.

Seaweeds are some of the most nutritious, naturally salty foods on the planet, with many benefits:

They supply all the minerals that we need, most significant being iron, sodium, phosphorous, calcium and iodine.

They are rich in vitamins, including vitamin B12.

They can help with thyroid disorders, blood deficiency disorders like anemia, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and can even help stabilize blood sugar levels. They can also aid in fat digestion.

Each variety of seaweed is slightly different and here is a quick breakdown for your reference:

Nori - highest in protein of all seaweeds, coming it at around 45% of dry weight. Has more vitamin A than carrots, and is the most easily digested of all the seaweeds due to its delicate structure.

Dulse - a dark red color seaweed, best for building blood as it has the highest iron content of any known food and is medically used to strengthen the adrenals, kidneys, blood and muscle.

Hijiki - stronger taste and needs to be soaked prior to eating due to its tougher texture. Has an extremely high mineral content, especially of calcium. It contains more than 10x the calcium of milk. It is said to strengthen the hair and help lower blood sugar levels.

Kombu - kelp is super high in minerals, and kombu is one variety that can be easily found and used at home. Many people actually prefer using kelp powder in place of sea salt as it has such a substantial amount of macro and trace minerals, the most important being iodine which is required by the thyroid gland to produce thyroxin. You can use kombu to make dashi broth, while cooking beans to make them more digestible, or in soups and seaweed salads, but if not cooked properly it can be tough and slippery.

Seaweeds are naturally cooling and moistening to the body and enrich the yin. They can soften nodules and hard masses when used clinically, moisten dryness, improve water metabolism, act as lymphatic cleansers, and help in weight loss.