Tag Archives: vegetarian

Summer Vegetable Gratin

Veggies are good for you!

It’s that time of year. The time when farmer’s markets abound with a profusion of summer produce: eggplants and pattypan squash and green zucchini with their bright yellow cousins. Ears of corn call to be shucked and eaten raw, right off the cobb. An abundance of tomatoes and basil sends one rushing for the good olive oil and oozy burrata. Beautiful golden squash blossoms call out to be stuffed and fried… Even at work, one of my coworkers with a prolific garden brings in trayfuls of her extra produce, to be snatched up by the garden-slackers (i.e., me).

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Takemura in Arashiyama

Takemura

This hundred-year-old restaurant is smack dab in the middle of Arashimaya in Western Kyoto. Although we stayed at a Zen Temple, meals were not included as part of our lodgings. We were, however, able to sample a delicious vegetarian yudofu – boiled tofu – meal at Takemura.

We didn’t go into this blind; we found Takemura via one of my favourite Japan bloggers (Blue Lotus) and decided that we were definitely stopping by when we went to look at the beautiful bamboo groves.

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Wild Mushroom Crostini

Wild Mushroom Crostini

DD rambles far and wide in his search for edible wild mushrooms, but he takes every opportunity he can to find them close to home as well.  This past Saturday, he spent 8 hours up north in a rather fruitless search save for half-a-dozen or so candy caps.  On Sunday, a 90-minute ramble through the park with the puppy yielded some nice Agaricus Augustus and Agaricus Lilaceps, which he turned into some beautiful mushroom crostini.

Say what, you mumble… Agaricus what? You were expecting something with chanterelles perhaps? Continue reading

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Goma Dofu

Goma Dofu at the Hug Hovel

How can a dish with no sugar in it be such a stunningly tasty dessert?  We fell in love with a number of things while in Japan, one of them being a fantastic dish called Goma-dofu, or sesame dofu.  It had a creamy, savory-nutty sweetness that was terribly addictive.  Note that it’s not actually soy-based tofu though; it’s made of ground sesame seeds and kuzu starch, and makes for a great vegan dish.  Kuzu (or Kudzu) is a perennial ornamental vine that’s a member of the pea family, and originally hails from Asia where its root starch is used primarily as a thickener for soups, stews, and sauces.  In Japan it’s used in both savory and sweet treatments.

We ate a number of tasty goma dofu dishes while we were in Japan, and before we had even returned to the states I vowed that I would try to replicate it at home.

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