Korean Rice Cake Soup

My original plan was to make a seaweed tofu miso soup with added Korean fish cake.  And then I remembered I still have half a packet of the fresh rice cake in the refrigerator and then the AHA moment, why not I just mixed it in together with the soup?  Now I had a one dish meal ready to consume hot in this cold weather day and I didn't have to worry about cooking the rice.  This makes one excellent meatless meal as well.

The fresh rice cake is good in stir-fry, spicy with gochujang or non-spicy with soy sauce and so good in soup too, so remember to grab a packet of this whenever you are in a Korean supermarket, it can certainly comes in handy.

Caution:  Don't overcook the rice cake, otherwise it won't be chewy anymore, it will expand and become soft.

Hijiki Seaweed Cold Side

I have to eat seaweed regularly to keep my Hypothyroidism under control.  2-3 times a week is sufficient for me.  The most regular seaweed that I consume is wakame, cook in miso tofu soup.  I also add wakame when I prepare my kimchi ramen, any chance I have for seaweed, I would use it.  When I am too lazy to make the miso soup, I will switch to Hijiki seaweed since this can be prepared pretty easily.  Right now, I would do a blood test once a year when I visit my OB/GYN to see if there is any changes.  I noticed that if the reason of your hypothyroidism is the lack of iodine, you can easily modify your diet to keep it under control.  For me,  the regular consumption of seaweed really helped.  It might not be for everyone but it works for me.

Brown Rice Kimbap/Gimbap (Korean Rice Rolls)

I am loving kimbap/gimbap because you can basically put everything you desired as fillings.  I loved to make kimbap using my leftover turmeric barley brown rice (hence the yellow color) or brown rice .  These days, I would keep some nori seaweed wrapper in my pantry so that when I feel like making some kimbap, I can.  I made the above for my girl's school lunch, she loved eating it and there was no mess.  I would make another for Edda as well when she comes home from school. 

Close up of my fillings above:  Fried eggs, imitation crab meat, spicy tuna, carrot, pickled radish and blanched bean sprouts (I wish I have some cucumber though for extra crunch).  The filling is very versatile, if you can think it, you can make it.  In fact, I like to make kimbap using leftover. 

This would make a great picnic lunch as well.  I can't wait for summer to arrive so that I can go picnic with my girls.  Well, if the weather turns nice like in the 70s, that's a good reason to go picnic, doesn't have to wait until summer. :-P

Mushrooms with Hijiki Seaweed

My first exposure to Hijiki sea vegetable was on ANA Japanese airplane.  It came in a small dish along with other small dishes in a set meal.  It think it was just a seasoned hikiji salad.  The shape and size was unlike any sea vegetables that I tasted and I actually liked it.  My girls said it looked like little black worms.  Hehe...  Then, I read some where that the ancient Chinese practitioners actually used Hikiji as one of the prescriptions for low iodine.  Interesting right?

Hijiki is a brown sea algae that cultivated in Japan, China and Korea.  Then, it was boiled and dried to be sold as dried hijiki, the color turned black when dried.  It is a rich source of iodine, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and soluble fiber.  Because it has 10 times the calcium of milk, Japanese eat it for the calcium intake and overall balanced diet.  All sea vegetables are low in calories and contains many minerals that our bodies need.  I read that seaweed can detoxify and convert the toxic metals in our bodies to harmless salts which then pass through the body's intestinal tract.

One drawback that I read about Hijiki seaweed is it contained inorganic arsenic and might cause cancer if consume in a large amount.  But there is no ban and no known illnesses associated with consuming hijiki seaweed to date and the Japanese have been eating this as part of a balanced diet for centuries.  You can read more about it here.  United Kingdom, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Canada have issued a warning on hijiki seaweed.  I think the health benefits out weight the negative as it's impossible to consume this in large amount anyway and I only cook it once in every two weeks and used it as an extra for mushrooms or noodle dish.  I put some in Japchae and it was delicious.

By the way, I think it looks like Chinese "Fai Chai", the one that looks like black hair that Chinese consume during Chinese New Year because of it's auspicious meaning.

 

Fresh oyster mushrooms and fresh Shiitake mushrooms