Yes, I know it’s been a looong time since I’ve posted…but here I am! Did you miss me? You’ll never guess what I’ve been busy doing! I’ve been shelling with my friend! We head out to the beaches early and spend hours hunting for beautiful shells, empty of course, and lately we have been collecting gorgeous purple sea urchins. You’ll see some photos in this post. Don’t worry, I’ve still been making some delicious meals, I just haven’t posted them yet.
The other day I whipped up a hot & sour soup for Gary who was not feeling very well. This soup literally took me about 25 minutes to make…it would have been faster if I already had the broth made. It definitely did the trick and cleared him right up!
I wanted to share with you some of the beautiful sea treasures that I’ve found. These purple urchins have become some of my favorite finds even thought they are the worst to clean out! Bleaching and scraping and scrubbing until they are perfect. I love how each one is a different size shape and color.
It’s fun to find all of the other shells too. I’ve found some huge Humpback cowries, sea pottery, drupes (the spotted ones), cones, sea glass and snakehead cowries (the small cowries). Each day is different and we never know what we’re going to stumble across. Some days we find a lot sea pottery and some days we find a lot of urchins. It all depends on what the ocean has decided to give us that day.
Along with picking up and collecting all of these treasures, we also make it a point to pick up any trash we find along the way. Everything is placed into a bag and when we get the chance we dump it all into a trash can. Here is a photo of trash we picked up in just one day on one beach. It’s mostly styrafoam, fishing line, rope and plastic. It’s amazing what’s in the ocean and what washes up onto the beaches…we even found a glow stick and some balloons! All of this is very harmful to sea life as the animals can mistake these for other fish and food. For example, sea turtles will think that a plastic bag is a jellyfish and try to eat it.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you. Here is the recipe for my hot & sour soup. Please comment below and let me know how yours turned out. cheers!
- broth:
- 6c water
- 1oz dried shiitake mushrooms
- 1 carrot diced
- 1 onion halved
- ¼c cilantro stems
- 1 jalapeño, sliced
- soup:
- 6c broth
- 4-6 fresh shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
- 1c fresh bean sprouts
- 1 block extra firm tofu, drained, pressed and cut into small cubes
- 2-3 scallions, sliced thin
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro
- 2T tamari
- 1t kosher salt
- 2T rice wine vinegar
- 1T brown sugar
- 1t cracked black pepper
- fresh lime (optional)
- for the broth: Bring the water to a boil and add the dried shiitake mushrooms. Turn off heat and let this steep for about 5 minutes. Strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve. Reserve the liquid and discard the mushrooms or save them for another use. I feel that the fresh mushrooms are a lot better for this soup. Add the rest of the ingredients. Lower heat and simmer gently for about 20-30 minutes. Strain through a fine mesh strainer and reserve for soup.
- for the soup: Heat the broth over medium to high heat and once it comes to a boil, lower the temp and simmer. Add the tamari, rice vinegar, brown sugar, pepper , salt and shiitake mushrooms and let them cook for 3-4 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings--you may need it to be more sour or sweet or even spicy. Meanwhile, in your soup bowls, divide the tofu, sprouts and scallions. Pour the hot broth and mushrooms into the bowls carefully and top with fresh cilantro and a squeeze of fresh lime.
- enjoy!
katie says
December 2, 2015 at 12:50 amthank you!!! so excited to make this..will let you know how it goes..ok, next we’d {the internet world} like to have your green bean casserole recipe…
thank you/love you!
sundya9@gmail.com says
December 2, 2015 at 6:40 pmyou got it Katie!
love you!!
Laura says
December 2, 2015 at 7:28 pmYum! Looks perfect for chilly Hawaiian evenings!