Purple Mushroom Bento #184

This office lunch for Friday May 11th completely consists of leftovers from previous days’ dinners. Fitting the theme, I had meant to submit it to the bento of the week challenge on the Bento Blog Network… Alas, I was too slow in posting. Never mind, the most important thing is getting to eat a meal like this! :)

(Apologies for the overexposed pic!)

Left tier
Spicy spinach with sesame, tempeh bacon baran, nasi goreng (fried rice), beet cress, oven-marinated cremini mushrooms, mix of red leaf lettuce, rucola & turnip tops hiding underneath mushroom mix (purple oyster, fennel & Japanese nemeko), purple asparagus and two radish flowers.

Right tier
White asparagus cosying up to mushroom gravy, cucumber, nut mix (raisins & peanuts), bruschetta, soy tofu and cherry-rhubarb crumble — a combination of Jamie Oliver‘s and this recipe (or in Dutch).

I’d like a lunch like this every day!

Leftover Love Bento (#181)

This week’s Meatless Monday Bento was chock-full of leftovers again.

There’s:

• rice hiding under chilli (actually the last chowder-y bit of spicy tortilla chip soup without tortilla chips ;)
• cauliflower-leek-radish stir-fry
• a cooked apple with cinnamon and lemon juice
• my very last hazelnut Easter egg
• and a strawberry especially saved for the occassion.

So the only things left to do were:

• throw in some seedless grapes,
• cut a white and a red radish
• & chop some cilantro.

Done!

Hello Japan! Weekend Cooking: Sesame-Crusted Rice Patties

Hello Japan! is a monthly mini-challenge focusing on Japanese literature and culture. Each month there is a new task which relates to some aspect of life in Japan. February’s mission is ‘Cooking Japanese’!

A while ago I promised you the recipe for Japanese sesame-crusted rice patties from The Vegetarian Table: Japan cookbook by Victoria Wise. They’re easy to make and you can do that from scratch — or use leftovers like I did. Don’t you just love leftover cooking? It feels like spring cleaning! ;)

Ingredients

This is what you need according to the recipe.

• 1.5 cups basic steamed rice, warm or reheated
• 1 tbs flour
• 0.5 ts salt
• 1 large or 2 small scallions, trimmed and minced
• 1 tbs sesame seeds, preferably black
• vegetable oil for frying

And here’s what I used instead. ;)

As you can see I took some wilting leek, a mix of black & (toasted) white sesame seeds and ordinary cooked (not steamed) leftover Surinaamse long-grain rice.

Preparation

1. Place rice, flour salt and scallions (= everything except sesame seeds and oil) in a medium bowl.
2. With wet hands, mix until well blended.
3. Form the mixture into ca. 6 patties, rewetting your hands as you go to keep the rice from sticking. But if you’ve ever made sushi you know that, right?
4. Sprinkle both sides of the patties with sesame seeds, set them on a plate, and let rest at room temperature for 1 hour. I put them in the fridge and continued the next day.
   
5. When ready to cook, pour a small amount of oil (more than enough to coat the pan but not so much as to float the patties), into a frying pan and heat until beginning to smoke.
6. Place as many patties as will fit in the pan and fry over medium heat until lightly golden; about 1 minute. 
7. Turn and fry until golden on the other side, about one minute more. Note: the frying took a little longer on both sides in my case and I actually turned them over twice.
8. Transfer to a platter and continues until all your rice patties are fried.
9. Serve right away.

Appreciation

Now it’s important to look at the last remark. Serve right away. That’s not what I did: I left them to cool and put them in the fridge for next day’s lunch. So I have no idea what they taste like warm… Pretty dumb, I know. :\ And when I had them in my bento the following day, well, I admit they were a bit dry. This may have been caused by either one or all of next three options:

• that I didn’t serve them right away,
• refrigerating the patties, both before and after frying (refrigerating is known to dry-out rice, you shouldn’t really put sushi in your fridge either),
• the use of Surinam long-grain rice instead of Japanese, which is supposed to be more sticky i.e. more moist.

Although the recipe didn’t call for an accompanying sauce I made a spicy soy-lemon sauce from the same cookbook for a dip. Alas, that was no real solution since it was too strong for the patties and took away their subtle flavour.

Will I make this recipe again? Yes, but only when I’ll be eating the sesame-crusted rice patties right away and/or have some Japanese rice to use up. I rather like Victoria Wise’s cookbook, so the fault probably lies with me. ;)

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New recipe(s) tried for the Whip Up Something New! Challenge!

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Join Beth Fish’s weekend cooking with a food-related post!

Quinoa Bento (#131)

My Monday lunch won’t be much of a surprise as I mentioned on Saturday it would contain quinoa. The following day I shared my Thai bean sprout salad recipe, revealing a tweaked version could be found in today’s bento too.

Well, I was glad with my meal anyway. ;) I made the leftover quinoa stir-fry with kale chilli and nuts look fancy by shaping it with an onigiri mold. But looks come second and yes — it still tasted good (both with and without shoyu)!

Upper tier

• Red lettuce
• Taugeh (bean sprouts) & cilantro
• Soy sauce fishy
• Toasted peanuts
• Homegrown garden cress
• Mix of cucumber, grated carrot, a little bit of celery stalk and cilantro
• Dressing container for the Spicy Bean Sprout Salad

Lower tier

• Quinoa stir-fry with kale chilli and cashews, nori details
• Cherry tomatoes with basil
• Radish flowers
• Sauteed mushrooms with fresh herbs (left over from my Sunday lunch of mushroom bruschettas, inspired by Stephanie in the Whip Up Something New! challenge)

On the side

• Pear and kiwi fruit
• Ontbijtkoek with soy margarine & agave syrup (last minute addition, not shown)

I hope someone can answer the following question for me. I know 25 grams of (dry) beans in a meal combined with grains provide sufficient protein. Now bean sprouts were mung beans just a few days before… And the nutritional value of sprouty greens is much higher concentrated than their full-grown adult versions. So: does eating bean sprouts and grains at the same time work as well?

Just for the sake of argument I’m ignoring here that quinoa is really a grass seed and no grain. ;)

Other sources of protein in this bento are cashews, peanuts, mushrooms.

I hate to throw away food — so I don’t

Oooooops, I forgot to EAT these cherry tomatoes… Can’t throw them away though — let’s make some fresh tomato paste!

Cooked in a little bit of boiling water for a few minutes with an additional tomato, black pepper, salt, one-third of a basil herb cube (crumbled) and a pinch of sundried tomato and basil mix from FairTrade. For sieving I like to use a saucepan so I can hold both handles in one hand, locking pan and sieve together. Oh, and don’t forget to wear an apron! ;)

And here’s the end result, to which I added a little boiling water in order to completely clean out my saucepan ;) Reheat to thicken if necessary. All done in less than 10 minutes!

Of course there are many ‘optionals’ as well: you can add Herbs de Provence, onion, garlic, smoked paprika etc. And the options for using your fresh tomato paste are endless!

Photo set of the making proces on Flickr.
Dutch post on the Kookgrrls’ weblog.

Why don’t you join in the Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads as well?

Gringo Bento (#86)

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

Bento #66 en route

I should have taken my 66th bento on my 13,5 km NS-hike with the Wandelgrrls: Bieslandse Bos, from Delft to Zoetermeer. Why? Because it makes me think of the famous song Route 66! And… MaaikeB brought her first bento ever for lunch! She’s got the most beautiful bento box, a gift all the way from Tokyo. Lucky grrl! :)

Anyway, we took off early (for a Sunday morning) so I didn’t have much time to plan a real lunchbox. That’s why bento #66 only traveled by train from Utrecht to Apeldoorn on Monday ;) And it contained the following…

Upper tier

• Salad of grilled zucchini and bell pepper, lettuce, tomato, spring onion, capers and basil leaves

Lower tier

• Dried cranberries and strawberries
• 1/4 mini quiche made of leftovers: chard, goats cheese (feta) with basil, pine nuts and egg
• Carrots
• Walnut
• Basil and parsley

Bento #61 for good luck on Monday the 13th

I’m not superstitious and I don’t believe Friday the 13th means bad luck. Hey, on Fridays it’s almost W.E.E.K.E.N.D.! But Monday the 13th… Yaiks, that’s something else indeed! I don’t like Mondays… And now both July and August bring us that black day :(

Today I hoped to balance things out a bit by bringing bento #61 to work: 6 + 1 = lucky number 7! :)

First tier:

• bed of romaine lettuce
• pesto egg with sundried tomato
• carrot
• hot pepper (from the balcony) with houmous
• slice of cucumber
• cauliflower florets
• black olives
• pine nuts

I also added some walnut after making the picture.

Second tier:

• mexican nut mix (‘pepita mix‘)
• carrot sticks
• seedless grapes
• pasta salad (corn, hot pepper, (fresh & sundried) tomato, pine nuts, pesto, basil, red tofu)

This bento really helped me get through my busy day! :)

Of course macaroni rigate is a bit too large for a real pasta salad but I am not small-minded when it comes to using leftovers!

BTW: did you spot the 3 song titles in this post???

Etappe 4.2 van de hamsterrace: ochazuke

Een belangrijk onderdeel van mijn hamsteruitdaging zijn UCO’s: Unidentified Cooking Objects. Daarmee bedoel ik producten die ik moeilijk kan verwerken omdat ik niet weet wat je ermee moet doen — of zelfs wat het is! Vaak komt dat doordat er geen instructies zijn… of in een voor mij onbegrijpelijke taal :) Dat vraagt om research en daardoor blijft het liggen ;)

Zo ook mijn ochazuke. Maar nadat ik dit kleurrijke pakje uit mijn kast enige tijd geleden had geïdentificeerd, heb ik het in juni eindelijk uitgeprobeerd!

Een zakje ochazuke (of chazuke) bevat gesnipperd zeewier met kruiden en verpulverde rijstcrackers dat je bij een restje rijst doet en overgiet met sencha (groene thee). Een soort Japanse cup-a-soup ;)

Helaas smaakte het niet erg geweldig als hoofdmaaltijd; we vonden het nogal flauw. Maar dat is vast mijn eigen schuld omdat ik het met een kliekje Thaise pandanrijst maakte in plaats van witte rijst of Japanse sushi. En ik moet bekennen dat de houdbaarheidsdatum al een half jaar (!) was verlopen, dus misschien is de smaak gewoon vervlogen! :\ Ik heb nog 2 porties over: volgende keer doe ik er een beetje miso of dashi door (geen thee, er zit toch al theepoeder in) en gebruik ik zéker een betere rijst. Ja hoor, dat durf ik best met zo’n zakkie over datum ;)

Recept ochazuke per portie (zakje 6 gram): 100 gram, liefst warme, gare rijst en 150 ml kokend water, (Japanse) groene thee of dashi (Japanse bouillon). Yes, that’s really all folks :)

Ochazuke is dus eigenlijk ‘koken met kliekjes’. In Kyoto heet het trouwens bubuzuke, zoals een geisha daar opeens geiko heet. Wanneer iemand uit die stad je vraagt of je bubuzuke wilt eten, kun je dat opvatten als beleefd verzoek om te vertrekken: je bent als gast te lang blijven plakken! :-o

Maar jullie hoeven niet weg, hoor ;) Stay tuned voor de laatste blogpost over juni’s hamsteretappe; ook dat was een UCO!

Fireworks for another bento jubilee! (#50)

Well, guess what we had for dinner yesterday… Gado-gado! Since my first — and very succesful — attempt to grow my own bean sprouts (taugeh) we have to think of recipes to use it all. LOL Gado-gado is an all-time favourite and had to go on the menu. It’s a salad of either raw or blanched vegetables, served with peanut sauce as a dressing and emping and (dried) fried onions as toppings. Fried tofu and boiled egg are essential ingredients as well. Can’t get any easier, can it? :)

Our meal was (of course) delicious and I had made enough to put some in bento #50. Yay, a real feast! Unfortunately we were out of fried onions and ate all the emping at dinner :\ In my bento I took a Japanese sesame-soy rice cracker instead; not the same — I knoooow — but something crunchy to bite anyway ;)

For those of you who’ve never heard of emping: it’s a type of krupuk (or kroepoek, as we say) that is made of melinjo nuts. No shrimp, so it’s a good alternative for vegetarians like me :) It seems you have to love it or to hate it (it has a bit of a bitter taste) but I really can’t understand that anyone wouldn’t like it! :\

About my jubilee bento. Gado-gado is a great bento filler because it should be eaten at room temperature. The veggies are either blanched or raw so it’s easy to use leftovers ;) Of course it can be nice to have a hot peanut sauce with it, but roomtemp or cold is fine. So what do you see in my bento?

Top tier (which is actually the bottom tier :\ )

• Japanese grape sweet (Anpanman mix fruit hard candy)
• 3 stars of dried apricot & wild berries snack
  
• mix of cashews and dried cranberries
• sesame-soy rice cracker
• container with peanut sauce
• strips of fried tofu for the gado-gado
• homegrown mustard cress
• little radish stars

The bottom tier contains a mix of the following

• red leaf salad (raw)
• white cabbage (blanched by pouring some hot water over it)
• bean sprouts (raw, but can be poured over with some hot water as well)
• cucumber (raw)
• carrots (blanched)
• green beans and haricots verts (blanched)
• slices of boiled egg (obviously)
• more radish stars
• radishes with gherkin stars

I’ll post a more precise recipe of gado-gado sometime soon… (oh, me and my promises..! :\ )

Tonight we will be having more Indonesian food with taugeh on the menu: loempia (spring rolls) and lalab taugé! Spring rolls and mushroom soup as a matter of fact, because I ran out of bean sprouts! :-o

I’m afraid the recipes are in Dutch (one of them is really Flemish, to be exact ;)