Last summer I finally got the hang of fresh fava beans and we were hooked. This year we haven’t had any yet, but last weekend I picked up a few pounds at the Gresham Farmers Market.

Summer Rolls - Shiso & Favas

The combination of shiso in our garden and fresh favas inspired me to answer Christie’s desire for sushi.

The favas are pretty slippery, which made putting the roll together a little tricky.  I was also rushing a bit with the rice, which meant it was a little thick. Next time I try these out I’ll do a much thinner layer of rice and perhaps a really thin maki roll.

These make me want to get some purple shiso growing. I think the contrast to the bright green favas would be striking.

Although there’s a bit of labor involved in the whole “peel, boil, blanch, peel” process, fresh favas are amazing. I made sure to set aside a few for each of us to enjoy.

Beautiful Favas!

I also made us a very quick salad with purple cabbage, aged brown rice vinegar, and shiso flowers.

And the feast was rounded out by grilled tofu, two ways, and grilled kale.

Grilled Goodness

Yes, you read that right, I grill our kale. It becomes a little crispy, little smoky, a little wilted, and entirely delicious! I’ve also found that a drizzle of tamari and wasabi over the grilled kale is fabulous indeed

Tofu 1 (on the right): “Mushroom Ultimate” seasoning. We bought this seasoning last time we drove down to California. We make a regular stop in Corning to visit the Olive Pit. I used the seasoning like a dry rub for the tofu, then grilled. Really delicious!

Tofu 2 (on the left): “The Old Favorite” being a mix of nutritional yeast, freshly ground black pepper, and granulated garlic. This is such a favorite mix I’m going to start keeping a blend of it in our spice cabinet.

While shopping at Uwajimaya recently Christie spotted a fresh lemon relish made with very thinly sliced lemon, sea salt, sugar and rice vinegar. Some was out to sample and it was delicious. Sweet, salty, sour, tangy. I had to get some.

The result was another Japanese-inspired feast! No recipes yet, this is nothing but Food P0rn, but I am working on a recipe for my own version of the fabulous, fresh lemon relish!

By the time I was done cooking, prepping and plating we were too hungry to take photos with the Nikon and the light tent, but I’ve decided that phone-taken photos with our kitchen’s lousy light are better than none at all.

Of course, there was a roll!

Shiso, Avocado, and Lemon Relish Roll

But the rice ball with avocado and the lemon relish was my favorite!

Don't you love the little rose of preserved lemon!

There also was miso-tangerine glazed, grilled tofu, snow peas and asparagus.

Thus Begins the 2012 Grilling Season!

Plus a simple carrot and daikon salad.

Hurrah for the Plum Blossom Food Cutter!

I began making dashi because we missed having soups when out at Japanese restaurants. This is a real problem since fish, usually as bonito, shows up in so many stock bases. We’d even found out, after assuring other friends it was alright, that a once-favorite local restaurant had been serving us soup with bonito extract in it! I’d been using a recipe from the mighty VegWeb, but since I’ve made several variations, I thought I’d post what I’m really doing.

The Stuff:

• Kombu, at least 6 inches worth
• 4 large, dried, whole shitake mushrooms
• 4 cups cold water
• 1 t of wakame (just use a teaspoon to scoop out a big pinch worth, OK if it is a very rounded teaspoon!)
• 1/3 cup of sake (use something decent that you can enjoy with dinner later. We like Sayuri a lot)
• 1/4 shoyu or tamari
  Optional (look for these at a Japanese market, they add a lot to the flavor of the dashi)
• 1/4 cup dried lily
• 1/4 cup dried daikon
• 6″ piece of dried gourd

The Making:

Cut the kombu lengthwise, about 2/3 the way up. In a small stock pot add the cut kombu and dried shitakes. Let these steep at room temperature for at least 1 hour, more is OK.

Remove kombu and shitakes, making sure to squeeze mushrooms to get out liquid. Add the remaining ingredients and put pot onto medium high heat. Bring just to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Skim off the wakame and either use dashi immediately or store in fridge for a few days, but it is best when used immediately or the next day.

This makes a very strong dashi. I add a cup of water to it when I’m simmering for a soup and plan to add miso.

Note: The steeped kombu and shitakes can be used again!

• We actually don’t care for mushrooms much at all, except in stocks, so we compost the shitakes after steeping. Feel free to slice them up to add to soups.
• The kombu can be used in a kind of Japanese, fresh pickle. It is often sliced into small, thin pieces and marinated in some shoyu, rice vinegar and sesame seeds. This can be a nice kind of condiment to noodles or soup.

Yes, this IS the dashi I use for the miso udon stew already posted to this site!

The Stuff

• 1 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 medium shallot, diced fine
• 1 carrot, cut on bias in thin slices
• 1 medium head of broccoli, stem removed (and saved for later) and cut into small florets
• A few pieces of wakame, snipped into small pieces
• 3 cups vegan dashi
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup red miso
• 8 oz fresh udon noodles
• 4 oz age tofu, sliced very thinly

The Making

In one soup pot bring water to boil and add udon noodles. Simmer udon noodles for time indicated on package. Noodles should still be quite firm. We have often use rice udon, obtained fresh from a SE Asian market, and like them a lot. When noodles are cooked, drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Drain well and put into bottom of soup bowls.

Saute shallot on medium-high heat in another soup pot with canola oil until softened and slightly browned, about 5 minutes or less. Add in dashi, water, carrots, broccoli florets, and wakame. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until vegetables are just tender, about 8 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add miso. Stir well to incorporate miso fully. Do not boil!

Top noodles with the thinly sliced age. Ladle hot miso broth and veggies over the noodles and tofu. Garnish your favorite type of Furikake, sesame seeds, and shredded shiso leaves, if you like, and serve immediately.

I’ve been really curious about bento lunches, I like the way the food is neatly arranged and portioned. I’ve not gone so far as to invest in bento boxes from Japan or making tiny flowers out of carrots, yet, but I have experimented with a couple of dishes that pack well into small containers for lunch. One of the easiest and tastiest are these little pockets of abura-age filled with rice and roasted beets. The beets turn the rice a gorgeous hue and look like little jewels. Christie supplied the lovely name for this dish.

The Stuff

• 2 large pieces of abura-age (check out an Asian, preferably Japanese market for these, we get them at Uwajimaya)
• 1 medium, red beet, peeled & diced into 1/2″ cubes
• 2 cups of cooked, short-grain brown rice
• 1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar (“sushi” vinegar)
• 1/2 T canola oil
• salt/pepper
• Furikake (to garnish, optional)

The Making

Pre-heat over to 375. Toss diced beet in canola oil and a little salt & pepper. Roast diced beet in oven until tender.

Add rice to a bowl and drizzle vinegar over. Stir vigorously, tossing the rice well in the vinegar and set aside to let rice absorb it. Once all the vinegar has been absorbed, add in the roasted beets and toss together to mix well. Rice will begin to take on a rich, red hue.

Slice the pieces of abura-age in half and carefully open up. Stuff rice, vinegar & beet mixture carefully, but firmly into the abura-age pouches. Sprinkle tops with your favorite furikake mix if desired.

Either serve immediately or pack into your bento lunch! The abura-age pouches make for a very neat way to enjoy the rice & beets. These even pack well for a hand-held snack while hiking!

The ruby beet pockets are at the top of this picture of a great, stir-fry medley we had a few weeks ago featuring broccoli/tofu/leek, the rest of the roasted beets not used for the rice pockets, and garlic/green beans.

Really, this post is all about the food porn. I will be writing up the miso udon soup as a recipe, but for now I will talk about New Year’s Eve.

In Japan people eat a traditional meal to celebrate the new year, Osechi Ryori. It is generally involved, highly symbolic, and vegan unfriendly. Needless to say, I took this as a challenge and we headed off to Uwajimaya.

Udon is a big deal – there’s a special kind that gets made for New Year’s with extra, extra long noodles. It is a challenge to try and eat it without breaking the noodle (one long slurp). This represents things like longevity of life, luck, etc. The udon are served in a simple, dashi broth with a few veggies.

Since I’d recently made a quart of vegan dashi (hell, yeah) this was the easiest dish to make. We’d picked up some of Jorinji’s amazing red miso (small batch, miso made in Portland) and Christie wanted to include it in the soup.

The result as an amazing miso udon soup. There’s a scallion caramelized first, then the dashi added, a few small broccoli florets allowed to poach, the miso added (but never boiled). Udon cooked separately, rinsed, and added to bowls. Top with age (fried tofu, this with bits of sea vegetable & carrot in it) and then add several ladles of the broth & broccoli. Top this with furikake and a piece of baked mochi (thank goodness for the Internet with this stuff… we got it home and discovered that ALL the directions were in Japanese).

So delicious. I chomped a lot of noodles, more than I slurped, it was heavenly.

I did make a salad of carrot & daikon with a little seasoned rice vinegar added to it.

This was our first course of the evening. After enjoying this we moved onto the rest of the dishes for the night.

Next the burdock, a root vegetable that’s been recommended to us before. I have always been a little intimidated by it for some reason, but decided to try.

Here you see me already doing the wrong thing – peeling it fully! Apparently I should have lightly scraped off any rootlets, dirt and left the rest. I tried out a fairly simple recipe I found, but the final result was a little gray (maybe the pan, still not sure). It was fibrous and fairly tasty.

Oseschi Ryori seems to have all kinds of little fish cakes. I decided that instead we’d have sushi. I made a mango/sauteed aspargus inside-out roll, cucumber & fried tofu roll, and a shiso & avocado roll. There was some big pieces of fried tofu that I used as pockets to make a kind of inari from the last of the rice, mango & asparagus.

Here I am, looking tired after all that cooking! I’m happy we stayed home.

Some extra mango slices with lime juice for dessert, daikon/carrot salad, burdock root, sushi, and some lovely Sayuri sake

Hotpot stews, like gomamiso-yosenabe, are a type of winter dish popular in Japan. I’d had one of Napa cabbage, glass noodles and dumplings when I ate at Cha Ya in San Francisco in 2008 and loved it. With the bounty of this year’s winter squash harvest (thanks to Christie’s insistence on growing it) I wanted to go a different direction with the squash stews I’d been making and thought it would be fun & tasty to use red miso and sesame to make a rich, Japanese inspired hearty dish.

The Stuff

• 2 Tablespoons canola or olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 4 carrots, cut into thick rounds
• 2 large stalks celery, diced
• 4 cups winter squash cut into 1-2″ cubes
• 1 28oz can Muir Glen fire-roasted, diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup red miso
• 1 Tablespoon black sesame seeds (white is fine, black is more dramatic)
• 4 cups cooked Aduki beans
• 1 medium head Savoy-style cabbage chopped into large pieces
• 2 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 2 Tablespoons brown rice vinegar
• 8 cups water or broth

The Making

Saute onions on medium-high heat in a large metal pot with canola oil until the onions begin to go translucent (about 5 minutes), then add garlic. Continue to saute the garlic and onions until they begin to brown (about 5 more minutes) then add in carrots, celery and winter squash. Saute all veggies together for 5 minutes, add sesame seeds, and 8 cups of water or broth. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer together until squash is tender (20 – 40 minutes depending upon type of squash used).

Once the winter squash is tender add into the pot, remove a cup or two of the broth and mix with miso, then pour in and stir. Add the cooked Aduki beans, chopped cabbage, the Muir Glen diced tomatoes, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. Cover pot and simmer for 15 additional minutes to allow beans to absorb flavor and for cabbage to cook completely.

Serve stew with a steamed grain (brown rice or barley) or some crusty, whole-grain bread.

**I make this with great success in the pressure cooker. Instead of reducing heat to simmer, put lid on and bring up to pressure, then reduce heat & set timer. Using Delicata squash it takes 7 minutes. Hubbard squash take more like 9 minutes on full pressure. After that step I add the pressure cooked veggies into another pot containing the cabbage, beans and sesame oil. The intense heat of the pressure cooked veggies pretty much cooks the cabbage immediately.