Bento #357

Simple soup bento, made in the morning:
Sweet potato, potato and carrot curry “soup” with cress on top, homemade scone, sundried tomatoes, raisins, chocolate, and butter in a kitty container.

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Springy tomato soup

A lovely and spring-y tomato soup, full of flavour and goodness. Makes 2 portions as a light summery main dish.

1 packet (500ml) of pureed tomatoes
1 vegetable bouillon cube
1 Tsp. tomato concentrate
1 clove garlic
1 Tsp. olive oil
salt, pepper, chili flakes (optional), herbs (I used fresh small-leaf basil)
1 ball mozzarella, sliced (keep some slices for decoration)

Warm the olive oil in a wide skillet. Add garlic and chili flakes and fry for a minute, without burning the garlic. Add tomato concentrate and the bouillon cube and fry as well.
Add the pureed tomato in installments, allowing the sauce to boil down and thicken between additions. Finally, add spices and water to desired soup consistency (or keep thick if you want a sauce), boil up and stir down half the mozzarella.
When the mozzarella has melted, dish out into soup bowls and decorate with some slices of mozzarella and basil leaves.

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Bentos #313 and #314

Veggie maki rolls with cucumber, leek, wasabi, mayo and carrot, bottle of soy sauce, inarizushi, Tamagoyaki and more cucumber. Some dried fruit is tucked in the corner for dessert under the carrot flower decoration.

And the one from Friday, which wasn’t so interesting…
Pumpkin cream soup in the thermos jar. Bread and veggie sticks, apple bunnies and some dried fruit in the extra container.

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Bentos #293 and #294

Halloumi, lettuce, rucola, tomatoes and mini-pitas I baked myself (in a break from studying) on Sunday in the big box. Bulgur with sundried tomatoes in the small compartment. I might bring another pita on the side… not decided yet.

This one I made earlier this week but didn’t even have a chance of posting until now, I’ve been so busy. It’s minestrone in the thermos can, a mini-quiche and a whole tomato in the other container and a blue elephant containing butter for the dark bread that I took on the side. It all fit nice and snug in the bag that comes with this set, which is another reason I like this set so much!

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Bento #250!

Finally #250! Not much in the way of charaben, but the celebratory autumn theme definitely is in the food!
Pumpkin soup is just a part of autumn to me. Then there’s a piece of stuffed butternut squash in the extra box, together with apple bunnies (apples are also very autumny to me), mozarella cheese sticks, bell pepper and a cherry tomato.

BF can warm the soup if he likes, if he doesn’t there’s the same food plus an additional riceball saying “250”.

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Bento #244

Fried sliced potatoes, red bell pepper, zucchini and carrot heart cutouts, half a sliced egg and a bottle of pumpkinseed oil for dressing in the box. This is all going to be tossed and make a side salad.
The thermos flask holds cream of pumpkin soup with some pumpkinseed oil and parsley on top.

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Bento #169 – soup and salad

It’s that time again – autumn and time for Pumpkin soup.
Lovely butternut squash soup in the thermal container, decorated with a cream and pumpkinseed oil swirl and some oregano.
The top box holds crisp lettuce, a whole organic/locally grown tomato (YUM!), and sliced bell peppers, a bottle of olive oil and balsamico vinaigrette, and a piece of marzipan chocolate.
There’s also a piece of baguette that I packed on top to add some starch (and calories!) to the menu.

PS: You can also make the soup vegan and a little more asian-style by adding coconut cream (and some lemongrass) instead of the stuff squeezed from cows.

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Bento #131

Not as colourful today, but rather comfort food.
Tom Yum soup with prawns (I actually didn’t have the proper chili paste so it’s not as red as it should be), rice, some veggie wontons and a few sugar snap peas and a cherry tomato for decoration.

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Spring Fruit Sensations: Rhubarb (and asparagus)

I don’t know about you, but when I read “Spring Food Sensations” on Abby’s blog, my mind immediately sprang to rhubarb. Rhubarb is to me the ultimate spring messenger, and a delicacy to boot!
When I was little, I used to eat it in a preserve, or a sponge cake with rhubarb pieces on top (delicious!). But I never made anything with it myself – until now.
Since I wasn’t in the mood to try my hand at spongecake, the BF suggested Strawberry and rhubarb crumble pie. This pie can be made with or without a pie shell, but I prefer having something crunchy to whet my wererabbit teeth on.

Strawberry and rhubarb crumble pie

1 pie shell (or make a sweet pie pastry yourself from your favourite recipe; I used a sweet half-graham flour recipe that I like)
about 6 stalks of rhubarb
1-2 cups of strawberries (halve the big ones)
Sugar to taste
Flour (ca. 1/4 cup)
Crumble cover:
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cp sugar
ca. 50g butter
grated almonds or cocos flakes (optional)

Peel the rhubarb and chop it into ca. 1cm wide pieces. Toss with the strawberries, sugar and flour – the amount of sugar depends on how much you want to offset the natural sourness of the rhubarb, the flour is to stop the liquid from going everywhere during baking. Fill into the pie crust.
Mix the crumble ingredients until they become small crumbs. Spread them over the fruit using your hands – it just doesn’t get even with a spoon.
Bake at 225 degrees Celsius for ca. 20 minutes.

Enjoy with vanilla icecream or vanilla sauce.

It was nice – in hindsight the pie crust should have been sweeter to contrast with the tang of the rhubarb better. I wonder how a marzipan crumble would work on top?!
Not too happy about the picture (curse artificial light!) but the rest was eaten before I could get my camera in the morning. So have a bonus picture of rhubarb chunks.

Speaking of spring – another of those spring messengers is my beloves asparagus!
While the pie was cooking, I prepared a super-easy asparagus soup for first course.

Super-easy asparagus soup
1 bunch of thin green asparagus
1/3 cup spring onions, shopped
125ml (1 packet) cooking cream
125+ ml (more depending on desired creaminess) water
1 organic vegetable bouillon cube
1 tsp. butter or olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Blanch the asparagus quickly and cut off the tips to preserve for decoration. Chop the rest into chunks.
Heat the oil in a pot and sauté the spring onions. Add the asparagus chunks, cream, and dissolved bouillon cube and boil for about 20 minutes.
Puree everything with a hand mixer and salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with the asparagus tips in the middle and croutons or fresh baguette.

Super easy and you’ll never want instant soup again once you have tasted the real thing!

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Comfort food: Potato soup

Why do so many people complain that when they’re home alone or cooking just for themselves, they never make anything good?
My mom never did that, and neither do I. After all, I count myself as the person who appreciates good food in the household (so does she), and why shouldn’t we make good food for just ourselves?

These days, when I’m home alone, I make things I don’t usually make. The BF can be somewhat picky about food (boiled carrots? Beans? Nah.) and sometimes I do crave the stuff, or want to try out a new recipe I’m not sure he will like. So instead of doing double cooking, I put those on days where I cook alone – if it’s too much, I can always freeze single portions for later!

There has been one dish that I’ve been particularly itching to make recently. My grandma sent me dried porcini mushrooms that a friend of hers has been picking in the forest – a little treasure! (Did you see how much those cost in the supermarket?) I’ve remembered that she used to make a potato and mushroom soup with them, and wanted to try my hand at tweaking the recipe somewhat more in favour of my tastes.

The result? Quite good, so far.

5 big potatoes (they should be of the “floury”, not fastcooking sort), peeled
1 onion, diced
1 handful of dried porcini mushrooms
1 handful of chopped leek
2 Tbsp. butter and/or olive oil
Vegetable or chicken stock (I use an organic bouillon cube)
Salt, pepper, spices (traditionally: cumin and marjoram. To fit my tastes: rosemary and thyme)
Optional: Cream or sourcream

Rehydrate the porcini in boiling water, keep the liquid. Grate or cube the potatoes. Heat some butter and/or olive oil in a pot and saute the onion and leek in it. Add the raw potatoes, stir a few times and add the mushrooms with the water used to rehydrate them. Add stock (how much depends on how thick you want the soup to be in the end). Cover and simmer until the potatoes are cooked through.
Puree everything in a mixer, or leave some of the potatoes and mushrooms out for a bit more bite to the soup (that’s what I did, because I like to have something crunchy in my soup!).
Optional: Add cream or sourcream on top.
Serve and enjoy a nice quiet cup of soup for yourself :)

It’s easy and tasty, just the right stuff for the returning winter here. I also added a grated carrot to my soup, but I didn’t find it did anything great for the taste. In fact, it distracts a bit from the goodness that is leek, potatoes and porcini.

I did take photos (even if the soup isn’t very photogenic, just good), but I can’t find the connector cable for my camera among all the moving boxes. Meh. That also means I’ll have a bento backlog to post soon… and I promptly forgot my bentobox at home! What a great start in the week…

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