A gift from the sea
Seven reasons to love seaweed
Seaweeds are incredibly resilient! They’ve been around for 1.6 billion years and survived multiple mass extinctions.
Seaweeds absorb carbon dioxide and play a vital role in mitigating climate change.
Seaweeds provide homes and nourishment for many marine species that we need for a balanced ecosystem.
Giant kelp can grow to 33 metres long!
Seaweeds are edible: chock full of vitamins and minerals to keep us healthy.
They also contain anti-inflammatory and anti-bicrobial agents making them great for medicinal use.
There are over 10,000 species and they are beautiful!
Sea lettuce experiments
It’s the green stuff that looks like, well, lettuce!
Sea lettuce foraged from the beach
As with all good experiments, this was unplanned, last minute and just a bit of fun!
This beautiful green stuff is abundant in the shallows at the moment and the waves bring it up to the surface. I collected a small bucketfull, dried it out at home and experimented with whatever was in the fridge.
Seaweed, avocado and cream cheese dip (vegan)
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Serves two
Two tablespoons of dried seaweed
A large avocado
Two tablespoons of plant-based cream cheese
Mixed herbs, salt and squeeze of lemon
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I caveat this with saying that I’m not a natural chef and there are probably many better ways to do this. But we learn by doing, right? It did also taste a lot better than it looks!
Rehydrated the seaweed by placing it in a bowl of water for 10 mins
Put all the ingredients in a bowl and used a hand blender to smooth it out. This didn’t work that well so next time I’ll try a full blend. Also the avocado was slightly overripe.
Served it up and ate with dinner (vegan beetroot burger, celery and pasta salad)
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Seaweed and avocado hummus (vegan)
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Not my picture, sadly, but this is what I’m aiming for next time!
Serves four
Four tablespoons of dried seaweed
One large avocado
125g cooked chickpeas
A few good slugs of lemon juice
1 tablespoon tahini
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
I/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
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Whacked all ingredients in the blender together. Might have been better to do it in stages. Next time I’ll also save some dried seaweed to sprinkle on top for a bit of added texture.
Sea(weed) biscuits
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Makes 18 biscuits
2.5 tablespoons sea lettuce
125g lightly salted butter
50g caster sugar
180g white flour
1 egg yolk
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From p. 148 The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook. I have to say, these were divine!
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Cut the butter into small chunks and mix with the caster sugar, seaweed and egg yolk.
3. Sieve the flour over it
4. Kneed and make into a roll
5. Wrap in a damp cloth and leave in fridge for 30 mins
6. Slice into 1cm biscuits
7. Bake for 8-10 mins
