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You will love the texture of this stir fried lotus root dish.

I have a love/hate relationship with Japanese shiso (which you might know as green perilla) - you know, those large sweet mint leaves with serrated edges you get when you eat sushi and sashimi at a restaurant.) don't get me wrong - I love eating the leaves - not just with sushi but also in salad, or mixed with miso (a dish which is called shiso miso) on rice but I hate buying shiso leaves - they are sooo expensive! Shiso So, the ideal solution is to grow them myself which I n

Chilled Japanese Soba Noodles are called Zaru soba in Japanese. Zarusoba is easy and quick to cook and healthy dish as well.

How to grow your own Daikon / White radish.

Simple, quick and very satisfying salad - Tomato Bean and Shiso Salad recipe blog.

Here's another recipe featuring Japanese pumpkin, AKA kabocha.

Japanese easy stir fry vegetables.

Classic Natto and Rice I made my latest batch of natto last week & posted a "How to make natto" article on the blog - I hope you liked it if you saw it. Now that I've got a nice stash of the sticky superfood prepared, I'm ready to provide some ideas for how to use it to create some tasty and very healthy dishes. I'm starting with the "classic" way to eat natto - with a bowl of steamed white rice - this is widely eaten for breakfast in Japan but don't let that stop you eating

Onigiri-Rice balls.

The Japanese love their eggplant/aubergine (or nasu as it's called locally). It's far more a part of Japanese cookery than it is here in the UK, which is a shame for the Brits because aubergine is very good for you. Traditionally, aubergine was thought to have a cooling effect on the body (because of its high water content) but modern science shows it's also high in vitamin B6 and C as well as minerals like potasium and manganese. Eggplant /Aubergine and Pepper Nabe Shigi N

Two layer Fruit Kanten Hello everyone. Here's my latest offering - a kanten based dessert made in two layers. For anyone who hasn't come across kanten before, (agar agar is a close relative,) it's an algae based product used to make jellies and other desserts. It's similar to gelatine but it's completely a non-animal product, so suitable for vegetarians and vegans. It's also full of fibre so it's also great for your digestion. This recipe is healthy, a cinch to make and it a

Sweet Potato Miso Soup Today, I'm posting one of my favourite miso soup recipes - sweet potato miso soup. This is a great combination - the sweet potato enhances the flavour of the miso and makes for a more substantial meal - you could eat this with a bowl of rice for your lunch and not feel short changed. Along with the sweet potato, you get onion and shiitake mushrooms for 3 of your 5 a day veggies. Making sweet potato miso soup is simplicity itself - as always with a miso

Broccoli with black Sesame Here's another simple vegetable side dish - Broccoli with black Sesame /Goma Ae- that's packed with nutricious uber-goodness and top scoring in the flavour chart too. What's more, it's ready for the table in a matter of minutes. I ground my own toasted sesame but you can make this even more quickly by using ready ground sesame instead, if you prefer. I used the whole broccoli head in this recipe including the stalk, which I cut into small chunks. If

How to grow your Edamame at home.

Wasabi Rocket I don't know if you're well acquainted with wasabi rocket. If you are, maybe like me, you are a recent convert. Earlier this year, I was looking through my seed catalogue to see what new additions I could make to my little vegetable garden and, low and behold, I came across wasabi rocket. "Rocket leaves that taste like wasabi," I thought, "now that's something I have to try." So, the order went out to my seed supplier and I had a few hundred, tiny, grain-like wa