Saving Face with Seaweed

I took a look at my face last week in good lighting, which is a scary thing to do if you don't do it very often and like to spend 3 out of 4 days subsisting on a diet of peanut butter and coconut rice.

I also don't wash my face. Ever.

You wouldn't either if you had a massive case of impetigo at the age of 15 and spent weeks sponge-bathing your blistered face while mournfully singing selections in the shadows from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and shunning the harsh light of day.

As of last week, my skin had taken on the unhappy splotchy and lumpy look of a teenaged boy who can't summon the fortitude of spirit to ask Jenny to the prom. It looked like cottage cheese.

At the prompting of May, we went on a week-long sea vegetable binge, and WOW, what a difference! I should note that May grew up using traditional Chinese remedies that are usually the exact same thing as macrobiotic remedies, so she's got a great intuition when it comes to "prescribing vegetables." We did a push on the winter seasonal vegetables (squash, root veggies like daikon, carrots, and burdock, and short grain brown rice), and my skin is already starting to smooth.

I also bought soap for my face. Lots of soap. More cleansers, exfoliators and toners than I know how to handle. They arrive in a few weeks, and I'm pretty amped to get washing. I plan on being very clean. I might just buy a special "face only" wash cloth for the occasion. It could get crazy.

After this week, I can truly reaffirm what I've said before: eating sea vegetables is one of the best ways to get beautiful skin and hair from the inside out. Here are some fun ways you can get your sea veggies in:

-Toss raw soaked wakame with sea salt and raw garlic cloves.

-Throw some wakame in your morning miso soup.

-Cook all your beans with a strip of kombu.

-Roll those leftover pickles with the leftover brown rice in a strip of nori.

-Make a stir fry with hijiki! It adds amazing flavor, and is especially hearty and delicious in winter. If I cook with hijiki, I usually make sure to use a heavier sauce so it doesn't taste too "oceany." I will make a "cream" sauce using grated squeezed ginger juice with tamari, or a thick white miso sauce cooked with some sesame oil for creaminess.

I don't go too crazy eating sea veggies with every meal. Let your body be the guide. I find that if I eat too many of them, I feel a little nauseated, so it's best to take a day off for me in that case.

The other amazing long-term effect I've had of eating sea vegetables is stronger and thicker hair. I've been told by every single hair dresser I've ever been to that I have the finest strands of hair they see outside of children under the age of four. My hair is usually as soft and fine as infant hair, and breaks just as easily. Since beginning my macrobiotic journey last year, one thing I've noticed is that the thickness and texture of my hair has become totally different. It's now thicker, tougher, and my eyelashes are fuller. Take that, Latisse!

Seriously, in three days I've seen amazing improvement. Add some sea vegetables to your diet today, and look forward to better skin and hair in the long run!

*Note: Wash your sea veggies before cooking. I found a tiny shrimp in my miso last night. It was intense and reminded me of last year when I found a lady bug inside my Tazo tea bag.

Seasonally Inappropriate Chocolate Peanut-Butter Ice Cream!

I thought I'd repost an earlier recipe with my new modifications now that I've made it a billion times. I have a picture this time, and in my head I made it with peanut-butter. I didn't put actual peanut butter in it because my copilots May and China don't love peanut-butter with the scary intensity that I do.

But in my head, it's in there.

Beautiful Vegan's Gluten-Free Raw Chocolate Ice Cream

Modifications by Becky. Re-modifications still by Becky.

(I typically double quadrouple this recipe. Replace Agave with your preferred sweetener)

From BeautifulVegan.com :

In a blender mix:
1 avocado (pitted and peeled of course) -should be a ripe one
3 heaping Tbsp of raw cocoa powder (you can use normal cocoa powder if you don't have raw)-
1/6 c raw agave nectar

1/6 c brown rice syrup

more agave nectar if you're addicted to sugar like i am.
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp vanilla extract (or the scrapings from a vanilla bean pod)
1/2 c water (or more depending if your blender wants more water to work or not)-sometimes it needs quite a bit more.

healthy dollops of peanut-butter. go ahead. go nuts.


Make sure it's really creamy, use a spatula to get the pieces of avocado that get missed. And that's it. I know it sounds weird to make chocolate pudding with avocado, but it turns out creamy and absolutely delicious! It can be used for a breakfast, snack or formal desert. Just add berries (especially strawberries) or use it as a fondu with cut up bananas and other goodies. this recipe serves 2 big bowls.

Becky's Notes:

I don't care what haters say about agave, I still cook with it. I've heard convincing arguments both ways, and I rarely use it anyways, so I'd say that a little in moderation goes a looong way towards achieving butteriness. I don't use only agave in the recipe above. I think it dominates the flavor of the vanilla and overwhelms the dish. Since I double the recipe, here's the break-down:

1/6 to 1/4 cup agave, with the rest of the 2/3 cup of sweetener as brown rice syrup

1 extra tsp. vanilla

When I dollop this into the frozen popsicle maker in my head, I add 2 tsp. cinnamon and a TINY hit of cayenne pepper. Ole!

Winter Wonderland: Vegan "Meat" Chili with Cornbread

As regular followers of this blog can attest, there are few refrigerator staples I rely on as much as I rely on Soyrizo. The stuff is amazing. I've made Sloppy Soyri-Joes, Soyrizo Spaghetti, and I'm about to bring you:

VEGAN "MEAT" CHILI ON CORNBREAD

Why yes, that is an enormous pat of vegan butter waiting to melt on hot cornbread. And indeed, I HAVE gone up a dress size since beginning my Snackro-cooking this fall.

I always have trouble timing my dishes in macrobiotic cooking. I think it's because I have spent the last five years subsiding wholly on takeout, and when you order takeout, it's all done at the same time. So here's a chili chronology:

CHILI CHRONOLOGY:

24 Hours to Chili: Soak beans

2 hours before: Preheat oven for cornbread to 425 F. Gather your ingredients, rinse kombu I didn't rinse my kombu this morning, and I kid you not, I found a tiny shrimp in my miso today. Out. Rageous.

1 hour 15 minutes before: Begin cooking your beans

1 hour before: While beans are cooking, make and bake your cornbread.

30 minutes before: While beans and cornbread are cooking, begin caramelizing onions.

CHILI RECIPE (see previous entry for Cornbread):

Ingredients:

-Aduki beans (1 to 1 1/2 cups)

-Kombu

-Soyrizo (1 package)

-4 onions, sliced into eighths

-5 carrots, sliced into wedges

-1 tsp garlic salt

-1 tsp red pepper flakes (leave this out if it's too radical for your system)

-1 tbsp. oregano flakes

-1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes

-Grated vegan mozarella to taste

Soak aduki beans overnight. I used about a cup/cup and a half.

The next day, cook your aduki beans, covering with water and add your strip of kombu. No sense losing the valuable nutrients provided by kombu! Bring to a boil uncovered, then reduce heat and simmer for about an hour to an hour and a half. Sample the beans. They should be soft but not gelatinous.

While the rice is going, boil your onions in one pan, and your carrots in another until the carrots are soft and the onions are milky-blue in color. Throw the ingredients in the blender. Add water as needed, and season with oregano, basil, parsley, and sea salt. Hit it with a shot of umeboshi vinegar (or white wine if you don't have ume).

Add Soyrizo and "marinara," and begin to season. I season as needed, but as the marinara and the beans can make things too sweet, I'm pretty generous with the garlic sauce. Once the soyrizo and marinara are heated, dump in your beans. I would stir it all together and taste test, and then spice as needed.

Grate your soy cheese, take the cornbread out of the oven, and enjoy it all!!

Becky