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Yay, number 180: the last of my bento backlog! Now I’ve only got today’s Meatless Monday Bento left to blog, which hasn’t been assembled yet at the time of writing this post (in the weekend).
When
Tuesday April 17th 2012.
Why
I went on an outing with my colleagues of the Nederlands Politiemuseum (Netherlands Police Museum), recently merged with the (‘Firefighter Museum’) under the working title Nationaal Veiligheids Instituut (‘National Security Institution’). We wanted to meet our new co-workers in Hellevoetlsuis and travelled along to Almere, to check out the building in which the new museum will reopen in a few years. On the way there we shortly went into Almere Public Library to drool — oh my what an awesome place that is! I wanted to be sure I’d get to eat vegan, so I packed myself a nice bento – sort of an emergency meal. ;)
What
Nasi goreng, braised pak choy, peanut sauce and serundeng. Grilled courgette, plum tomato, garden cress, pickles, tempeh bacon, dried cranberries and a salad corner with alfalfa, sundried tomato and caper berries. the all familiar buttered gingerbread with agave syrup for a moment of sweetness. Not shown: a country cookie to have with tea, when the others were having cake.
It feels really good to be up-to-date again with my bento posts! I hope I haven’t bored you?
On Sunday March 25th we had a very special — BIG — picnic bento to celebrate spring with our friends. Like every year, we held our own Hanami Matsuri (cherry blossom feast) in the Amsterdamse Bos sakura garden. Unfortunately the Japanese cherry trees were only just starting to bloom, but there hasn’t been a better spring day afterwards so we were lucky anyway!
First of all I had to bake ‘something cherry’. Browsing brought me to a Martha Stewart recipe for vegan chocolate cupcakes with a cherry frosting, tried by BakedBree (substituting raspberry vinegar for plain and using cherries from a jar as fresh are not in season). Bree and her omni friends were quite positive so the choice was easily made!
At the risk of sounding immodest: don’t you think they look awesome?? :) And yes, they were nice as well.. but I don’t think I’ll make them again. I didn’t much care for the buttery topping and you can’t really have the cupcakes without.
Here’s the rest of what we brought to the picnic.
Up front is my sakura box loaded with tofu puffs or inarizushi (a recipe from The Vegetarian Table: Japan cookbook by Victoria Wise), onigiri rice balls filled with umeboshi (pickled plum) and chickpea-wasabi mixture, rolled in respectively plum furikake and nori seaweed.
Both tiers of my yellow Circle bento box are filled with raspberries; behind that stands a small bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce. There’s an oval tier with Japanese style coated peanuts (the other two contain more sushi), a can of wasabi peas (which we didn’t eat) and white chocolate Mikado “Pocky’s” that are not vegan but a leftover from my life as a vegetarian that I wanted to get rid of. ;)
For drinks: plum wine, sake and lots of hot water for a choice of sakura hoija tea, plum vert, sencha, gyokuro asahi and genmaicha.
Dôh, of course we overdid it. But it’s o-hanami only once a year, so who cares? ;)
And if you thought that would be all… There’s more! Because our friends are foodies too. :D They contributed their own yummy goodies, like vegan apple pie, dolmas, dorayakis (sweet red bean paste pancakes) and cheese cookies for the non-vegans among us, cucumber and more nibbles. We think alike because additional batches of inarizushi and onigiri (with cucumber and plum filling) were brought to the party.
Here’s a picture of our belly-pleasing banquet…
Are you getting hungry yet? ;)
Next up is my Bihun Bento!
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Join Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking with a food-related post!
Yesterday was Spring Equinox ánd I was going on a hike with my brother, so I couldn’t let the chance pass to make a celebratory bento. Especially since I wanted to do something with quinoa for week 11 in the Vegweb Cooking Challenge 2012.
What I didn’t consider was that I really didn’t have much time to cook… So I just got to make the salad and ended up with a not-so-spectacular, half-a-bento to share with @variomatic. Still, it may not look very festive — we were quite happy with it. And I’m learning to be less of a perfectionist. :)
Contents
South-West American quinoa salad with avocado, sweet potato, orange bell pepper, red onion, cilantro and a lime dressing on a bed of red Batavian lettuce and rocket. Pepitas for topping hiding under two ‘sour key’ candies (zure sleutels). Rosemary crackers on the side.
Although we enjoyed the salad during our break, I was a little disappointed by it: it tasted a bit dull even though I had added African Peper Mix to spice it up. It was okay, just nothing special — and I like my foods to be exactly that! ;P
I have some other interesting quinoa salad recipes up my sleeve, so let’s wait what those shall bring.
Today was definitely a feast of new beginnings. It marked my brother’s AMAZING accomplishment of loosing 50 kilos in 14 months. It was the first time in about 7 months that we took up another stage in our Groene Hartpad hiking project. And I hadn’t made a bento in two weeks. ;) YAY for spring! :)
Bento no.149 was quickly put together for a hike in the northern Dutch province Fryslân, on our way to a family photo shoot in occasion of my mother-in-law’s upcoming birthday. We got going pretty late so we only had time for the 7.5 kilometer walk in Spanga and not 19, nor 11.
I’m combining this post with my weekly logging of our CSA vegetables since I got to use several of the greens in our lunch! As you will be able to check out for yourself down below. :)
Both containers carry blue potato salad (Eliza potatoes, apples, red onion, gherkins and a raspberry dressing) on lettuce, corn on the cob and parsley. Mr Gnoe’s tier also has a non-vegan vodka candy. Oh – and he had to drive! ;) A cup of golden mandarin green tea accompanied this yummyness.
Amelishof organic CSA vegetables week 32, 2011
- Lettuce
- Fennel
- Corn
- Red onions
- Blue Elize potatoes
- Collina apples
As you can see the only thing that didn’t make it into Spanga Bento is fennel!
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I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last made a bento… But yay, Gnoe’s back on track!
Bento #145 was my five o’clock ‘snack’ on stage 8 of the Groene Hartpad I’m hiking with @variomatic. We had to walk 21 kilometres from Woerden to IJsselstein, starting around lunchtime — and there wouldn’t be any dinner until we had walked each and everyone of those miles! We defied rain and thunder and had a great day. :)
So, what vegan goodies did I bring?
First tier
@Petra_Utrecht’s lemony couscous salad, grilled veggies (yellow paprika, fennel, courgette, red onion), garlic olive, raspberries from the balcony, radicchio leaf and romaine lettuce.
Second tier
Spicy roasted chickpeas, gherkin, dried apricots, mushrooms & leek in Bulldog tonkatsu sauce, half a tomato, orange-teriyaki tofu with extra sauce (should have added sesame seeds as topping but alas, I forgot).
Round container
Melon & homegrown organic strawberry.
And here’s what I had on the side.
Apple juice, almond cookies and forest fruit Evergreen.
It all came along in my kawaii *** new *** thermal bento bag!
On Thursday, Ascension of Jesus — a national holiday, the weather was so good we decided to take our Mexican dinner to the park. A great opportunity to use my new sakura bento!
I know: baaaad picture — sorry! But I was so hungry that I didn’t have the patience to make a good one… Not to mention the growling tummy of Mr Gnoe next to me. ;)
Contents: flour tortillas with chili (kidney beans, zucchini & red bell pepper), rice, salsa picante, avocado with lime and sea salt, blanched spinach with red onion and jalepeño, salad (lettuce, tomato, spring onion, gherkin, black olives) with balsamic vinegar dressing and nachos. The beer is Grolsch, which I prefer over Heineken any day.
Now it would be foolish to tell you this was supposed to be a burrito bento that I messed up, right? ;)
I couldn’t wait to use my new, super tiny bento so on Saturday I filled it up with snacks for our hike with @Petra_Utrecht and R. in the Betuwe; a district famous for its fruit production, surrounding the Linge stream, that is very popular at this time of year because of the blossoms. Last week I went to explore another part of the area with the Wandelgrrls.
Unfortunately we didn’t get to eat the ‘ieniemienie snack bento’ till we were home, so Petra & R. never even saw it! :(
‘Ienieniemie’ is Dutch slang for Súper Tiny ;)
Contents: fresh date, dried fruits (cranberries & apricot) and cinnamon coated almonds. The nuts were store-bought (organic) and not really cheap, so I may try my hand at making them myself, tweaking the recipe of sweet ‘n spicy nuts I’ve posted before.
Every once in a while when we go hiking, we get to see something marvellous. This time it was an occupied stork’s nest, with adult & baby! You’ll have to look closely, but the picture is proof!
Have you been going out, enjoying the wonderful spring weather?
Yesterday we had our yearly celebration of Hanami: cherry blossom viewing, in the Amsterdam Woods’ Japanese sakura garden. The weather was FABULOUS and I have not seen so many people in the blossom parc before! A sign with flowers in remembrance of the earthquake/tsunami victims attracted quite some attention too.
Mr Gnoe was reading part 3 of Murakami’s 1q84 but Poor Me had to do some homework for my film review class: writing about Barney’s Version — a movie that was more entertaining than I had expected and evoked thoughts about Rossetti, Dante, (William Blake), heaven and hell. I wonder if my fellow classmates had the same associations.
Hanami 2011 Bento (#139)
Of course there can be no Hanami Matsuri without a picnic — meaning: bento. I didn’t have much time to prepare so it was a small afternoon snack/late Sunday lunch. But GOOOOD. :) Unfortunately my cute usagi picnic bento *died* on the way back from Amsterdam Woods two years ago and I still haven’t gotten myself another Big Box. So we used some Emsa lock & lock containers instead. They’re leak-proof and that’s always great for transport. ;)
Contents
- Italian Linghue crackers with rosemary
- Root vegetable crisps
- Cherry tomatoes & Cherry Belle or Champion radishes (de ‘ballenbak’)
- Cucumber
- Pistachio nuts
- Sesame bread sticks
- Edamame hummus — another yummy recipe from the La Dolce Vegan! cookbook I got on my birthday
- Apricot-coconut treats from Vegalicious (super easy!)
- Drinks: shincha tea (first flush sencha) and ‘prosecco royale’
Quick Snack Bento (#140)
Since I had to finish and mail my review of Barney’s Version when we got home from our day under the sakura trees, I had only a little time to make a Monday bento. So it was just regular sammies today, accompanied by an apple, banana and this snack box. No complaints here though! ;)
Contents
- Edamame hummus
- Sesame breadsticks
- Nuts & dried fruit: apricots, cranberries, hazelnuts, walnuts
- Vegetables: spinach leaves, gherkin, radishes, cucumber, cherry tomato, caper berries, parsley
Have you been celebrating the blossoming of trees?
Today is the 10-week anniversary of Gnoe going ExtraVeganza! It has been going well and I feel really good about it all; I finally have some peace of mind. Of course it’s not all easy (like spontaneously eating out), but I expect most hurdles will get easier in time. Although I’m not sure yet what to do about Easter… :\
We’ve got nothing special planned for today — in fact there’s usually something easy for dinner on Thursday and tonight it’s falafel. Yum!
Hiking Bento (#138)
Even before I started my ExtraVeganza! pilot project at the end of January I had already taken on the challenge of veganizing my bentos. Resulting in a 100% plant-based bento year!
Yesterday’s was a box of four o’clock goodies that I ate on stage 6 of the Groene Hartpad with @variomatic, a 12 km hike from Nieuwkoop to Slikkendam. We wanted to walk on a bit longer but then we would have had to continue for another 10 kilometres and that really was too much… The weather was absolutely awesome so we had a great day out! Let’s get that summer going! ;)
Left tier
- Braised eggplant
- Nasi goreng (fried rice)
- ‘Facon Bacon’ strips (tempeh)
- Endive, radish, cucumber and wasabi sesame details
Right tier
- BBQ-style mushrooms (cremini and portobello)
- Stir-fried spinach & leek with sesame seeds
- Radish divider and cucumber flower
Side container
- Dried fruit (cranberries & apricots)
- Nuts (cashews, walnuts, peanuts & pecans)
I had some leftover mushroom risotto and inspired by Uniflame‘s recent risotto ball bentos I decided to make my own vegan version.
Risotto is sticky in itself so it doesn’t really need any egg or cheese. Still, since I have an open package of soy mozzarella — which tastes like nothing and I certainly won’t buy it again — I grated some and added it to the cold rice mixture along with a handful of bread-crumbs. I rolled 12 small balls, covered them with more bread-crumbs and put ‘em in the fridge to rest a little. Then I baked the round ‘croquettes’ in a skillet with sunflower oil.
Preparing the risotto balls didn’t take a lot of time, but the baking did! :( Next time I’ll try either frying or oven-baking.
Next to the risotto balls there’s radishes on a skewer, a basil flower and chilli bean-rice mix topped with parsley on a bed of red-leaf lettuce.
The other tier holds mustard dip for the risotto balls (a simple mixture of mustard & veganaise; recipe will be up on Saturday), small caper, leek sprouts, a few slices of shiitake mushroom, cherry tomatoes with fresh basil, salted pecans, dried apricots and… NO cookies! The small flowers are toasted tortillas to eat with the chilli, made according to the recipe I’ve posted in the summer, except that I used a cookie cutter for a nice spring-inspired shape. And I left them in the oven a bit too long…
A perfect bento to take along a hike on a perfect springtime day!
I walked the ANWB Aetsveld Route in Weesp polders. It was not as good as I had hoped; although it was supposed to run through diked marshes, most of the track went over asphalt. The view on the Vecht river was nice, but the traffic noise kept distracting me and made it hard to clear my head for the first 2/3 of the hike. But I’m not complaining! The weather was awesome, sunny all afternoon. And I saw a tiny, pure white baby goat, it must have been born just before! It still trembled on its little leggs and part of the navel cord was hanging from its belly. I stood and watched for ages — it felt like such a present to get! :))
My BX bookshelf
