Moving Toward the Light: A Sweet and Sour Dish for Spring

By Larch On February 11th, 2011

In deep winter, we tend to eat more heavily cooked, salted and fatty foods, but now it’s time to lighten up. This is a basic sweet and sour dish, easy as making a salad and dressing. Once you have made it, you will come up with infinite variations. First, the sauce: In a cup and a half of water, simmer a few strips of digitata kelp, half a cup of raisins, two teaspoons of caraway seeds, a teaspoon of honey, and a few drops of tamari in a small sauce pan. Stir to dissolve the honey. Squeeze a lemon, but don’t add it to the sauce pan yet. Now chop vegetables: a cup of thinly sliced red cabbage, half a cup of thinly sliced carrot rounds and half a cup of sliced red onion. Melt 2-3 tablespoons of unrefined coconut oil in a fry pan you can cover, and saute’ the cabbage/onion/carrot mixture at low heat. While these vegetables are being saute’d, cut a quarter cup of matchstick daikon radish and a quarter cup of thin rutabaga rectangles. Slice the body of a leek into quarter-inch rounds, and scissors-cut a couple of leek leaves into quarter-inch pieces. Remove the digitata from the sauce pan and scissors-cut it into triangles. Now arrange these veggies on top of the saute’d veggies, stir the lemon juice into the sauce, pour the sauce over the veggies, cover and steam at medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes. While the veggies are steaming, scissors-cut a scallion or two, and add them to the pan for the final minute of steaming. Don’t overcook. Spring is coming! It’s time to Lighten Up!

Sweet & Sour Veggies

8 Responses to “Moving Toward the Light: A Sweet and Sour Dish for Spring”

  1. That looks like lunch today! Thanks for the inspiration. Regina

  2. Sounds delicious! I can’t wait to try it in my own kitchen.

  3. God that looks good!

  4. I found your site today and to me it was like a bright star in a dark stormy sky. I had been reading updates on the disaster in Japan which included a hyperlink to your site. I am so grateful to be able to place an order for uncontaminated nourshing sea vegetables. Reading your blog and recipies is like a breath of fresh air. We are trying to maintain a balance of internal peace, awarness, and hope. We try to focus on all the wonderful gifts each day hold’s…Today it was the gift of finding your site. THANK YOU for sharing a bit of your life and wisdom. We live in West Virginia where we try to grow nourshing food and honour our creative gifts.
    Your offer to visit is very generous and one day I hope we can find a way to humbly accept.
    Green Blessings
    Ayla Heefner

  5. dear Larch,

    i’ve just ordered a ‘bunch’ of your hand-harvested ‘SEAwonders’ yesterday:)
    …am doing some more browsing today – loving your great new website!

    just want to pass on that i am HIGHLY inspired by your work – and already contemplating ‘how and when’ to at least visit and/or apprentice with you 🙂

    your work radiates the LIGHT that the seaweads STORE !!! (at least i imagine they do?)
    thank you for your great CONTRIBUTION of being your UNIQUE SELF on this EARTH – by truly LIVING your passion and SHARING your skills and joys with others.

    have a great day,
    lucia

  6. …sorry, Larch,…i spelt (of all words!) SEAweed wrong in above comment….
    chuckling at myself:)
    lucia

  7. …geee…another chuckle… (spelt ? or spelled ? )
    i give up (ha,ha,ha,) that’s too funny !!!
    lucia

    ps: you won’t hear from me in a while – i am blushing 🙂

  8. Thanks for the recipes. I am going to share them with mom to see if she will take seaweed into her healing regimen. They look great to me.