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I didn’t have time before to update you on this week’s bento #86: Gringo Bento. Called that way because of the Mexican foodies :) Although the American Heritage Dictionary classifies gringo as ‘offensive slang’, it has a positive ring for me because it sounds like the name of my gorgeous tomcat Ringo :)
Don’t you love the (organic) blue maize tortilla chips?! This must be a very healthy bento because I even exceeded the five colour rule ;) How many tints do you count?
The tier on the left contains corn cob, a slice of zucchini, parsley, homemade salsa picante (recipe below), a piece of carrot and something I call an avocado gringo, because it’s neither a quesadilla nor a burrito since it hasn’t been baked or grilled afterwards like the first, nor wrapped liked the latter. It consists of four layers of multigrain wheat tortilla with guacamole, salsa, lettuce and cheese in between.
As you can see I brought some red grapefruit in another side container. The bento box tier on the right contains pepitas (popped pumpkin seeds), sour cream for the bean dish, dried strawberries as a sweet, a mix of corn salad and plain lettuce and frijoles (kidney beans) with red bell pepper, corn, onion and zucchini.
It was yummy :)
CSA (and organic): lettuce, corn salad, corn, parsley, carrot.
Organic: wheat tortilla’s, tortilla corn chips, onion.
Salsa picante
Making salsa picante is really easy!
Needed:
- 4 tomatoes without skin & hearts, roughly cut (look at Gnoe’s tip!)
- 1/2 onion, peeled and roughly cut
- 1 red pepper, de-seeded (or sambal, chili sauce or tabasco to taste)
- 1-2 cloves of garlic (to taste)
- 1 teaspoon of cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon of oregano
- 4 tablespoons of tomato ketchup
- salt & pepper to taste
Put all ingredients in a food processor and shred until smooth — or almost smooth. Et voilá!
If you don’t have a blender just cut the ingredients with a knife. This recipe is so flexible! You can use leftover tomatoes that have gotten overripe, or you could replace them by canned tomatoes, pureed etc. Instead of ketchup you can also take some tomato paste and add a bit of sugar or honey for sweetness. There’s almost no excuse not to make this salsa!
Last but not least, here’s Gnoe’s tip to undress tomatoes ;) The easiest way to peel tomatoes is to immerse them in boiling water for 1 minute after cross-cutting the skin. Drain, and immerse in cold water for about 5 seconds (or hold under the cold tab). The skin comes right off!
Recipe courtesy of Eethuis Iris
This first bento of the month should definitely make up for my bento-less last week!
Two years ago we went to Cappadocia, Turkey in October and had an amazing time. This bento contains some leftovers of Turkish take-away (dôh not that old of course). YUM! Unfortunately I don’t know the correct names for these mezze dishes, but I will try to add them later on.
Upper tier:
Hot pepperspread, eggplant spread (I don’t think it was baba ghanoush), summer couscous salad with watercress leaf, blue grapes, fishy with dressing, sundried tomato.
Lower tier:
Bean salad with paprika and onion, choggia beet stars, snow peas, dill and red batavia lettuce.
On the side:
Organic butterfly biscuit, mandarin (and I also took an apple and some toast for the vegetable spreads).
Last time I got some choggia in our weekly veggiebag I cooked it like ordinary beet, but then it became a homogeneous red. Now I kept it raw to preserve the beautiful pink and white pattern ;) When cooked for just a minute or so the pattern stays alive as well, but not as fresh as it is now. Someday I’ll try steaming it!
BTW a tip for Dutch people who would like to try more organic g/foods: until November 7th you can collect EKO-marks of products and swap them for fun fair trade and environmentally friendly Goodforall products!
CSA & organic: grapes, beet, lettuce, dill
Organic: watercress, biscuit
Lekker, deze week zowel blauwe druiven als appels in de groententas van de Aardvlo! Verse appels wel te verstaan — en geen restant uit de koeling (zoals bij de supermarkten het geval is, volgens het NRC van afgelopen maandag ;) Verder staan komende dagen op het menu: bloemkool, kropsla, maïs, rode peper (en ons eigen plantje doet al zo zijn best op het balkon!), en prei.
Trouwens, tijdens openingstijden van het Aardvlo winkeltje kun je bloemen plukken in de pluktuin (v.a 0,15 per steel). Da’s een leuke afsluiting van een wandeling op Amelisweerd. Nou ja, je moet natuurlijk eerst nog wat groente kopen en dan thee met iets lekkers nemen bij Theeschenkerij Amelisweerd. Wat een heerlijk middagje heb je dan!
Well, this bento really was an ordinary lunch bento and not meant for tonight, but because of the shooting star, moon behind the tree (houmous container behind mint) and peppermint planet, it made me think of summer nights. Especially together with my new dark furoshiki, as you can see on Flickr. Now I keep hearing ABBA’s song Summer Night City in my head with a different chorus line… who’s to say they are not subtitling the song Summer Night BENTO in this Japanese broadcast? :P
Left tier: apple, radish, container of houmous, a few pistachios, mint for tea, my very last special babybel from France (emmental), bruschettas and a peppermint candy for the end of the day.
Right tier: fresh kapucijner beans á la Provence (in tomato sauce with herbes de Provence, zucchini, shalot, leek and garlic), green beans (hiding behind grass divider), radishes, yellow cherry tomatoes, lettuce, parsley and… tsukemono of turnips (meiknol).
Making tsukemono (pickles) is a Japanese way to preserve food so you usually do that some time before you want to eat it. It is a side dish with totally different texture (bite) and flavour from the rest of your meal. When I say “Japanese ginger pickles” you’ll probably all know what I mean ;)
The mixture I used to make my turnip pickles contained rice vinegar, mirin (rice wine for cooking), a bit of lemon juice and some cayenne pepper because we’re out of shichimi powder. But before I mixed the dressing with the turnip I extracted water from the vegetables by coating them with salt en putting them in a colander for about 15 minutes. Next time I’ll really need to use less salt! After wiping the slices dry and mixing them with the dressing, I put the tsukemono in an airtight container in the refrigerator overnight.
As you might have noticed by now, quite a bit of pre-preparation time went into this bento! Thankfully the kapucijner beans are a leftover from diner so the work had been done yesterday. It did take me some time because not only were the peas fresh and had to be taken out of their pods, we also never have any pre-composed herb mixtures. So I made the herbes de Provence myself.
And here’s another one of Gnoe’s tips! First I dried some thyme in the microwave. You just have to put the fresh herbs (without the woody parts) evenly between two layers of kitchen paper, about 3 minutes on 600 Wt. You know that they’re ready when they are crunchy to the touch. That’s all :)
Ingredients of herbes de Provence:
- 4 parts of thyme
- 4 parts of oregano (since we were out of marjoram)
- 4 parts of savory (bonenkruid in Dutch)
- 2 parts of rosemary
- 2 parts of basil
- 1 part of sage (salie)
- 1 part of tarragon (dragon)
You could also add fennel, chervil and — preferably — lavender if you have some, but I didn’t want to make my mixture too outrageous ;)
Summer Night Bento… for those of you who can’t get ABBA out of their heads either: here’s another cool version of the song in Wembley Stadium (1979). Enjoy :)
Here’s the recipe for the tzatziki that I took in bento #58. I’ts really easy to make and tastes great. A fresh dish that will make you think of vacation on any summer day!
Ingredients
- 1 organic cucumber
- salt
- 3,5 dl Greek yoghurt
(I like it full-cream) - 1 piece of garlic
(2 if you wish)
- 2 table spoons of olive oil (extra virgine)
- pepper
- 2 table spoons of fresh dill (finely cut); see Gnoe’s tip for cutting herbs below!
Preparation
Wash and roughly grate the cucumber (including the skin). Because you’re not peeling the cuke, it’s really best to use organic! Put in a colander, sprinkle with salt en put a weight on it for half an hour. I often use a saucer and small pan filled with water to weigh something down.
In the meantime crush the garlic. Mix yoghurt with garlic, olive oil, dill and pepper to taste (blend by mixing). When the cucumber is ready it can be added to the mixture.
You can make tzatziki a while in advance if it’s kept refrigerated.
Use
Use as a starter or side dish with salad and black olives (think mezze!), as vegetable dip, for a picnic or buffet — you can even put it on your sandwhich, but it will get soggy ;) I like to serve it with Turkish pide bread.
To give you an idea of the quantity: it’s about 4 servings as entree.
Gnoe’s tip for cutting herbs
An easy way to cut dill (or parsley) is putting the leaves in a cup and snip-snap with your kitchen scissors! You can’t use this method for all herbs though; e.g. basil leaves should be torn to allow their fragrances to appear.
Last but not least: I like the smoothness of a tzatziki that’s low on garlic but some people might want to use 2 pieces of garlic :-o In that case, remember my post with natural tips against garlic smell ;)
Oops, it took me a whole week to post about bento #52! It came to work on Wednesday May 20th — and it’s been my last bento up until today. I was too busy! And I don’t have to go to the office for a while now, so bento’s will be sparse in the next few weeks.
In the picture my lunch looks quite cute — but don’t be fooled! The hint is a packet of Smint…
The red stuff you see in the left hand tier is Mediterranean bean paste, which erm.. had a bit too much garlic in it :-o I don’t like tasting garlic all day, so I came prepared.
Here’s another one of Gnoe’s tips: natural & healthy remedies against garlic smell (and taste) are drinking milk, eating an apple and – last but certainly not least — chewing on a bunch of parsley. That’s after you’ve eaten garlic, not before ;) In my experience these solutions work best if you don’t apply them immediately, but after you’ve brushed your teeth without result.
Well, my apple is not in the picture but it did come along. And in the photo you can also see some fresh parsley (not enough though, LOL) — and the before mentioned package sugar free Smint for emergencies ;)
What else could be found in bento #52?
- red leaf salad (hiding)
- 3 conchiglioni (pasta seashells) with herbs, slightly greased with olive oil so they wouldn’t stick together
- black olives
- slices of orange sweet bite
- capers, small & large
- yellow cherry tomatoes
- parsley (like I said)
- yogurt coated apricot
- roasted sunflower seeds as topping for:
- leek salad (leeks marinated in a basil-garlic dressing)
- Mediterranean bean paste made of white beans, tomato, red bell pepper (paprika), onion, olive oil and oven-roasted garlic (to eat with the pasta)
- grated cheese for the conchiglioni
- pistachios and cashews
- cranberries
Both the leek salad and the bean paste were easy to make. But… the bean spread was best on the day it was prepared. Next day it had gotten a bit ‘watery’ and needed the salty & sour addition of capers and olives.
So, bento #52 was like a wolf in sheep’s clothes: looking cute, but with a sharp bite! Well, I got a lot of work done that day with few colleagues disturbing me ;) Which is good — is it? It was really my day off… :\
Bento #51 was not only a good beginning of the next fifty (on the way to 100!), but also a great start of the week :)
I’ve been getting questions about preparation time. Well, this bento to me a relaxed 12 minutes in the morning! Could have been quicker if I had been in a hurry! :) Of course I’m only counting throwing in the quiche, not baking it LOL. I also had the steamed green beans ready to go and I cleaned my yellow tomatoes, radishes and a carrot the night before. Nothing I couldn’t have done in a sec this morning :)
Gnoe’s tip: did you know that steaming vegetables is so much quicker and healthier when you do it in the microwave? Do follow instructions though (LOL). It sounds obvious but I know a lot of people who don’t use the microwave for cooking veggies.
Well, I’ve already mentioned some of my bento’s content but here’s the complete list:
yellow grape tomatoes- strawberries
- red salad leaves
- spinach pie with blue cheese, leeks, pinenuts and black sesame seeds
- some cranberries
- walnut and hazelnuts
- carrot hiding under green beans
- garden cress
- radishes
- basil
- and… mini rhubarb-raspberry crumble!
As you can see I tried to do something creative with the radishes :-o I had hoped the carefully peeled skin would ‘flower’ after I had put the veggies in some ice water but… it failed ;) And yes, that experiment took place within the before mentioned 12 minutes! ;)
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