Seaweed Soup With Wild & Domestic Ingredients

Sea vegetable soup tastes better when it's made from scratch. Several types of sea vegetables can be used. But my favorite is kelp which can be found growing below the low tide mark in Northern Maine.

Maine Seaweed Soup with farmed and wild ingredients,
Copyright 2013 by Helen A Lockey

Before you go throwing seaweed and vegetables into a pot of water thinking that this is how to make soup, STOP. First you have to make a stock and then use it as the base for your soup.

I made my stock out of ingredients grown at Sparkplug Farm, Vinalhaven Island, a nearby island, and from a grocery store in Rockland, Maine. The farm vegetables were un-cured garlic, whole carrots including the green tops, young kale, fresh marjoram, fresh parsley, and cabbage.

Maine wild beach pea leaves, Copyright 2013 by Helen
A Lockey

The wild vegetables were beach pea leaves, heirloom bay leaves, and dandelion greens.

I threw whole vegetables and greens into a pot of water with enough liquid to cover them by about three inches (approximately 10 cm). I brought the mixture to a boil and then lowered the temperature to a high simmer for an hour or two or until the vegetables fell apart easily when cut.

Straining out the solid ingredients I set aside the liquid to start my soup.

Maine wild harvested Irish Moss and Laminaria Kelp,
Copyright 2013 by Helen A Lockey

I put in more carrots, but this time using only the orange root part, added more garlic, and some wild harvested Laminaria kelp. I also added some Florida grown rye grain berries.

It was a delicious soup enjoyed by all members of my family including the meat eaters.