Seaweed Gomasio

Adapted from MountainRose Blog

A sesame seed seasoning blend from Japan, this makes a great addition to rice, salads, sandwiches, wraps, pizza, popcorn, soup, and veggies!

Ingredients

1 cup sesame seeds, raw
1/2 cup dulse/nori/kombu seaweed flakes
1 Tbsp sea salt

Directions

Toast the sesame seeds in a pan over medium heat, tossing or stirring constantly to keep the bottoms from burning.

Once the oil starts to release from the seeds and they start turning golden, remove from the heat. Pour the seeds into a bowl to cool for about 8 to 10 minutes.

If you are unable to find seaweed flakes, just toss some sheets of nori (or other seaweed) into a grinder until about the same size or a bit larger than the sesame seeds.

Once cool, mix the seaweed flakes and sea salt into you sesame seeds.

Pour into a shaker and enjoy!

Optional:

You can also experiment with adding variations! Try using hemp, flax, pumpkin, sunflower, or milk thistle seeds. Or try including garlic granules, peppercorns, oregano, basil, orange zest, or chili flakes for different flavours.

Hypothyroidism, Salt, and Iodine

Periodic Table - Iodine

The government began adding iodine to salt to prevent Iodine deficiencies over a century ago. This worked great until we started moving towards Sea Salt and other gourmet options for cooking. 

So, suddenly we have iodine deficiency conditions on the rise again, especially for infants whose mothers were already iodine deficient. To combat this, try consuming natural sources of iodine like eggs, navy beans, pinto beans, lima beans, corn, and seaweed or kelp on a more regular basis.

New Products and the CHFA Show!

Recently the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) held one of their two annual trade shows in Vancouver. Every year retailers of all types descend upon the show looking for new products to introduce to their customers. Green Earth Organics is no exception and we thought you might like to hear a little bit about how we go about finding new items to bring in.

Throughout the year we rely mostly on suggestions from you, as well as reaching out to companies whose products fill gaps in our offerings. Recently we filled one of those gaps in Vancouver by bringing in Gentle Earth, a Victoria based company, who has helped expand our selection with items like Sun Protection and a Recovery cream for tired and aching muscles. Just in time for summer!

CHFA West is the largest trade show in Western Canada for natural and organic products. It takes up the entire main floor of the Vancouver Convention Centre with a whopping 65,000 square feet of manufacturers, distributors, and brokers. As a lark, I turned on my running app and set it to record my walk throughout the show. We spent 4 ½ hours and walked over 23 kilometers. Note to self: next time wear my good running shoes. A full two aisles of the show were set aside as completely organic products and other companies with both organic and non-organic products were scattered among the exhibitors every where else.

Our first stop was Westpoint Naturals where we were thrilled to discover a new organic corn starch in their trademark resealable bags. Later in the day we also found kelp noodles, which are an awesome gluten-free noodle that look similar to vermicelli. They don’t require any cooking, so they work great in salad, stir-fry, soup, and veggie dishes. Seaweed/kelp products are definitely one of the biggest trends in organic right now.

Gimme Organic, they make roasted seaweed snacks in both regular sea salt and sesame flavours, had a new item. Resealable mini packs of seaweed crumbles in a honey Dijon flavour that are meant to go on salads or be eaten as a snack. They brought a ton to pass out and let people try, so since it was getting close to the end of the day, they happily handed over an entire box to me when I asked to try some. One less thing for them to take home, but I looked pretty silly lugging a box under my arm for the rest of the show.

As a request from one of our Vancouver customers we also were also on the lookout for some black rice and discovered Lotus Foods, who have a whole line of different rice grains and rice noodles. I’d love to try and see if the Lotus Forbidden black rice works for making sushi. It always looks so neat when I see the black rice sushi in restaurants. Also, good news for fans of alternative milk and So Nice (known for their soy milk), they have just introduced a brand new organic Almond Milk. We tried it at the show and absolutely loved it. It won’t even be hitting the market until next month, so let us know if you’re interested!

There were so many new products I'd never have enough room to list them all, but keep checking our products as over the next couple months we have some exciting items coming.

Tofu Musubi

Adapted from my
Spam Musubi recipe


Picture from Bread without Butter blog
 
INGREDIENTS

Half package of firm tofu
1/4 cup tamari / soy sauce (low sodium is best, if you have)
1/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cup cooked sushi rice
2 sheets of roasted seaweed, cut in half


DIRECTIONS

In a small saucepan, begin dissolving sugar into tamari/soy sauce. Remove from heat once sugar is completely integrated.

Slice tofu into 1/4 inch thick pieces and press excess water out using paper towels. Heat up a frying pan on the stove top with one tbsp of vegetable oil. Lightly salt pressed tofu and pan fry over medium heat for 5 minutes each side, or until just starting to brown.

Add generous amount of the sauce to the tofu and cook off for another 2-3 minutes, until the sauce begins to reduce. Remove tofu slices from heat and let marinate in the sauce.

Using a bamboo sushi mat, or any non-stick flexible surface, lay down the halved seaweed sheet. Place a 1/4 inch thick layer of sushi rice, covering about 1/3 of the seaweed sheet. Place a tofu slice on top of the rice.

Wrap the seaweed around the rice and tofu, using water or extra sauce to seal the seaweed. Use the mat to gently press musubi into a rectangle.