Roasted kabotcha with broccoli and peanut sauce

Roasted kabotcha squash with broccoli, peanut sauce and brown rice. I got the peanut sauce recipe from The Enlightened Kitchen: Fresh Vegetable Dishes from the Temples of Japan. The author, Mari Fujii suggests it with fried kabotcha but I roasted it instead. This book is gorgeous by the way: color photos, diagrams, simple but elegant recipes. No onions and garlic though, as this is all vegetarian (mostly vegan) Buddhist temple-style cooking.

Japanese yam dumplings and sesame lemon asparagus

Behold: your inner dumpling.








In trying to re-create a favorite guilty pleasure from Vegetarian Dim Sum called, ahem, treasure balls, I stumbled across a magical flavor combination: Japanese yam (the purple ones that are white inside), Earth Balance, tamari, fresh minced ginger, garlic and sliced scallions. Difference that the infamous deep-fried golden dim sum orbs, but when stuffed into a little flour wrapper, a glorious, new dumpling is born. Served with some asparagus briefly boiled, tossed with earth balance, lemon juice and sesame seeds.

Chocolate chocolate chip pistachio cayenne cookies!

Recipe is a modified JOVB recipe; remove the peppermint from the chocolate cookies, add pistachios and cayenne. Yum.