Backdated Bento #57 – Good morning to everyone who has just tuned in to this program!

Originally posted to :

I didn't really need to pack a bento today, but I felt the urge to do so anyway! So I packed some breakfast/snack goods.

Blueberry toast sammich polyhedron (uh… I need a nice cookie cutter…) with a star cutout; apple slices, grapes and physalis; a babybel cheese and Oreo cookies.
And a Mango Lassi – style yoghurt (not quite Lassi but it tastes nice!)

The HK box is really good for breakfast/lunchbox style bentos. The arrangement works rather well if you start putting things in starting in a spiral. I also like that a lot of prepackaged food is just the right size to fit, e.g. babybels and Actimel yoghurt bottles.
The depression in the lid that contains the fork and spoon is a little tricky to work with as you can't put anything too solid below it. But with a little tricking you can usually work around that.

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Backdated Bento #56 – What came first?

You know you're addicted to bentoing when you get a new box just to show off your new tools…

HK box: Fried vegetable rice with an omelette chick, and sweetnsour sauce in an extra container because I'm not such a fan of ketchup.

Breakfast/Predish: All the ingredients for a miso soup in the upper tier of my Totoro set.
Here's a picture of the soup all assembled in the bowl (taken with my cellphone cam, sorry for the bad quality!):

;)

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Backdated Bento #55 – Small but good!

Just a small bento today, as we were having a good-bye party for a colleague this afternoon – lots of cake were expected!

Top tier: Bok Choy fried/steamed with a little red onion, some soy sauce and garlic, sesame seed deco
Tamago (just from one egg – so tiny)
Mini fried champignons with parsley and a dash of vinegar
One plain mini-onigiri
Strawberry for dessert
Bottom tier: Three mini-onigiris made from brown arborio rice, one with black sesame, one very lightly toasted with nori, and one with furikake mixed in.
Bed of chopped salad, which I mixed in with the mushrooms.

I must say, onigiri with black sesame or furikake mixed in = the win. I wasn't that fond of furikake so far, but they're much better that way!
I will experiment with other onigiri mix-in fillings soon, I think. I think that egg works well, but I was thinking of less traditional flavors to mix in as well – curry might work, as might chives or other herbs.
The pattern in the nori was made by creative application of my spiral punchout on a triangle of leftover nori – I was going to throw it away, but I liked the pattern so much I kept it for later use.

;)

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Backdated Bento #54 – Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar new year, because I don't believe in V-Day. I know I know, I'm a few days early, but Dumplings! Yay!

Lower tier (left): 2 Kimchi-filled and 2 veggie/egg filled dumplings (both storebought from my freezer), carrot flowers and a radish rose, a salad leaf. And hidden underneath some avocado. Not shown is the sauce bottle, because I forgot it until last.
Upper tier (right): Radish, leek, okra, avocado and carrot on a bed of rice vermicelli, all for putting into a miso soup for which I took premade soup packs and a bit of extra seaweed (in the bowl). The okra didn't work as well as I expected, it just got glibbery.

Breakfast: Soyghurt and again chocolate wheats.
Snack: Almond Crunch Pocky!

;)

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Backdated Bento #53 – Monday bento

Originally posted to :

I made this one on monday… wasn’t too thrilled with it at that time though, so I didn’t bother with posting it until now:

Breakfast (top): Physalis, pb/blueberry rolls (which got messy when I cut them), tomato slices, basil leaves. And a vanilla soyghurt.
Lunch 1 (middle): Rice with more tomato, dahl spinach with sesame deco. I can’t seem to get the taste right. I must be using the wrong curry or spices. Also, all recipes say to add tomato but it always tastes way too tomatoey for me.
Lunch 2 (bottom): Colorful wild tomato wedges with basil leaves and a bottle of dressing; bread to go with the curry; a coffee sweet.

Also, I saw those cute little egg/pancake shapes in an advertisement and my grandma sent me some!

The only problem is that they are way too big for my bento boxes. Now I’m conspiring on what other boxes to use so I can show them off!

The recipe for the Dahl Spinach was found online, but doesn’t seem to work quite as I want it yet.
Generally, red lentils seem to work very nicely for me because they don’t need excessive soaking to be ready to cook and eat. I was recommended to let them soak for an hour before eating but I think that with this type of broiling the soaking time can easily be reduced further. They are also filling and tasty, but not mushy – an excellent compromise between my vegetarian protein quandary and my BF’s hatred of mushy bean-type veggies.

One of the clues to getting the taste right, besides the obvious “choose the right curry”, seems to be to use Ghee – cleared butter fat which gives Indian food a distinctive taste. After melting the butter, the spices should be added successively to give taste to the sauce and vegetables as they fry. Another idea is to add turmeric and chili to the cooking water of the lentils so they already get a spicy taste before they are mixed in with the stirfry.

;)

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Backdated Bento #52 – Mixed pickles

Originally posted to :

This bento is kind of Sweden-themed, but mostly showing how I love to have lots of mixed foods :)
Top layer (Breakfast): Soyghurt, some carrot-apple salad, 1/4 egg, 1/4 wild tomato, chocolate wheats, rye bread, one red dalahorse made of bell pepper and one chocolatey one :)

Middle layer (Lunch): Ovenbaked potato slices, fried red and green bellpeppers and mushrooms in balsamico, Grana (hard cheese rather like parmesan) sprinkles and a basil leaf on top
Lowest layer: 3/4 egg with crab paste, more Grana, some green-red wild tomato, more carrot and apple salad and a bell pepper heart.

The lunch is leftovers from a tapas dinner: I love to make a bunch of mixed foods if I don't feel like anything in specific. The recipes are not particularly Spanish, but generally mediterranean-themed as small mixed foods can be found everywhere around the mediterranean coast.
One of the staples in this type of food are fried, vinegared bell peppers. The recipe is from an Italian chef and has been a long-time favourite in my family.

Fried vinegared bell peppers recipe:
Slice 2-3 bell peppers, preferably each of a different color, into thin strips.
In a deep pan, heat extra virgin olive oil. Add 1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and quartered. When the oil is hot, add the bell pepper strips and cook them in the oil until they start to become soft, but still have some bite. Take the pan off the heat and pour a generous amount of Balsamic vinegar over them. The dictionary tells me the term for this is to “deglaze” but in fact what we are doing is to cool down the peppers and finishing the cooking by broiling them in the residual heat in the vinegar. The “sauce” itself is not actually used after cooking.
Pick out the garlic bits and serve the peppers hot or cold with fresh Basil and preferably a crunchy Baguette.

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