I recently made dinner for Laura at her apartment. Saddled with overwhelming piles of work, she seemed on the verge of exhaustion and in much need of some TLC. As I like playing personal chef, I was more than happy to oblige.

I didn’t have much for lunch that day and was scrounging around in her fridge for something to nibble on while cooking. She directed me to some miso dip that she had made earlier, and a nice little mound of snow peas. Maybe she hadn’t thought that I would eat all of her snow peas and inhale the dip like air . . . but I did.

Sorry, Laura.

This recipe is a riff on her riff on a recipe posted by blogger extraordinaire, Heidi Swanson. Heidi’s website (she has a cookbook too), 101 Cookbooks, is a treasure trove of delicious, healthy recipes that taste great and make you feel good. As the weather gets oh-so-slowly warmer, eating more fruits and vegetables sounds like a welcome and wholesome idea.

Ingredients:

3 ounces of white miso paste

3 ounces of red miso paste

1/4 cup of sake

1/2 cup of mirin

4 tablespoons of agave syrup

Red chili pepper flakes to taste

How to prepare:

1. Combine the miso pastes, the sake, the mirin, and the agave in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over. Once the mixture has started to boil, reduce the heat and simmer it for about 20 minutes, whisking occasionally. You want the dip to thicken a bit.

2. Once it has thickened, add the chili pepper flakes. Remove the dip from the heat and let cool. The dip will keep in the refrigerator for between 1-2 weeks. Serve with fresh vegetables, blanched asparagus, anything really!