The Seacret To My Success

Every so often, both my husband and I start to feel a little chunky. Neither of us are outside of the "normal" weights for our heights, but we both try and pay attention to what is going on with our bodies. As we sprint towards Middle Age, neither of us wants to wake up one day and realize we have gained 50 pounds! So, we try to nip it in the bud. Every so often, we'll just spend a week or 2 eating a bit lighter than usual, and then, everything is fine. But last night, I discovered the true secret to keeping your weight in check: Make something for dinner that you can scarcely manage to eat! This is one sure way to ensure proper portion control!!!

I decided to marry my quest to eat light this week with my quest to get better adjusted to seaweed / sea vegetables. I made a Rice Noodle and Edamame Salad. This ended up being a bit of an adventure, due to one pesky ingredient: 1 cup arame or dulse seaweed. But I was sure I could get away with this! Sure, those dried seaweed snacks never did stop making me gag, but I have no problem putting down kappa maki like there is no tomorrow! I figured there should be no problem putting some seaweed in a rice noodle salad, considering it wasn't going to be dry and crispy like tissue paper, which is what I was assuming was making me have such a problem with those atrocious seaweed snacks.

You probably won't be surprised to know that Whole Foods had a rather large selection of "sea vegetables." And you will also not be surprised to hear they mostly ranged from expensive, to ridiculously expensive! Most cost between $8 and $22 for a package! I couldn't do that, so I decided on the cheapest one I could find, which was a small pouch of Wakame for $3.

Now, the wakame needed to be reconstituted before using it, which you do by just soaking it for several minutes. I poured the entire package into a 4 cup measuring cup, and realized it only contained 3/4 cup, which was less than the recipe asked for. But I figured it would be ok to go light on the sea vegetable. So, I covered it with water, and then, went about my business. And boy, was I in for the shock of my night!

This is what the wakame looked like when I put it into the measuring cup.

Next time I looked at it, it looked like this!

Guys, I knew it was going to expand with water, and I was prepared for it to double in size, hence giving me about a cup and a half of the stuff. I'm not kidding, when I looked back at the wakame 4 minutes later, it was literally overflowing the 4 cup measuring cup! I was stunned! Needless to say, I had more then enough wakame to go around!!! I ended up using about a cup of the reconstituted stuff in my Rice Salad!

Well, I have now confirmed for sure that my issues with seaweed run deep. YUCK! I could barely manage to eat half of my salad. I had to just try and shovel it in without thinking about it, because if I stopped to contemplate what I was eating, it made me feel queasy and nauseated! Seaweed is very troubling! At least in every other context besides wrapped around some sushi rice and sliced avocado!

Doesn't it look pretty? And yet, it tasted so ugly!

So, yes. I achieved great success when it came to eating a light dinner. But as for being able to tolerate a hefty dose of a sea vegetable? A complete and total failure! :-/

I did a little research on Greek Mythology. Here is Echidna, sea monster associated with slime, sea-rot, fetid salt-marshes, and I'm assuming, sea weed. No wonder it tastes so ugly!

Anyway, I guess I need to try more seaweed in the near future, but the thought fills me with dread! I think I'd rather deal with Echidna herself than with another plate of wakame!!!

Finally, THANK YOU to all of you who have brought my view count to 1000!!! That was very exciting to me!!! And, as promised, I am no longer upset about those losers who were going around calling me a bad wife!