Anyways, now that the gifts are all wrapped, my bags are packed for our trip to our family's home, and only a few hours stand between us and a wonderful Christmas celebration, I finally have some time to blog about some of the food I have made in the past month. I will separate out the blog posts, but this was one of my favorite dishes of the past month.
I was at the farmer's market one chilly Saturday morning, and a woman was selling, amongst other things, a section of what was once a much larger pumpkin. It wasn't your average halloween pumpkin, it was clearly of a different variety, and as I was told, a very flavorful squash.
I brought it home and roasted it, and indeed it was very flavorful. So I decided to make some dumplings with it. I had some wonton wrappers (which I am so happy are vegan!) so I pureed the squash, and because it had so much natural flavor, the only thing that I had to add to it was a bit of sea salt and red pepper flakes. I spooned the puree into the wonton wrappers and created the cute little dumplings that you see pictured above. I then steamed them for about 12 minutes in my bamboo steamer.
Simultaneously, I started a broth with fresh ginger, garlic, tamari and filtered water. I let this simmer for 15 minutes and added in fresh bok choy. I removed the broth from the heat and added in some miso paste. Miso paste is a fermented soy product, which contains beneficial bacteria. You never want to heat miso very high, certainly not to a boil, as the high heat will kill all of that beneficial bacteria.
I finished the broth off by adding my dumplings (probably more than I needed but they were sooo good!) and some fresh chopped scallions. The combination of the squash, the chewy dumplings, the bok choy, and the complex ginger was just heavenly.
