Delicious homemade Chinese Vegetable Dumplings filled with sautéed snow pea leaves, Chinese chives, shiitake mushrooms and tofu. Recipe includes homemade wrappers but you can also use store bought wrappers with this filling.

Sweetened black sesame paste is a mega-superstar in desserts. This is well known in east asian countries like Japan and China where it is a quintessential staple in sweet treats like ice cream, pastries, cakes and glutinous rice balls. In western culture we know how well nuts like pistachios, almonds and pecans work in all sorts of sweet applications, too many to list really. Black sesame lends a similar nuttiness to desserts although for some reason has not enjoyed the same ubiquity. The color maybe? Perhaps now is the time to give yourself to the Dark Side!