Baroque Bow Tie & Brownie Bento (#147)

Bento no.147 had already been baptized Bow Tie Bento but when I saw all the frills I had put in I decided to add the term ‘baroque’ as well. Roccoco might have been better but I like alliteration. Have you noticed? ;)

And then there was that whole tier full of brownies that couldn’t be ignored… So today’s bento is a real tongue-twister! ;)

Clockwise:

• fruit — classic combination of melon and red berries (with a few cherries added)
• pasta salad with green beans, tree onions and caper berries (in fruschetta dressing) on a bed of curly red leaf lettuce
• green olive
• curled carrot (hehehe I bet you want to know how to do that! ;)
• half a veggie sausage hiding underneath spring onion tassel
• radish flowers
• spicy roasted chickpeas (bento #145 contains link to recipe), sunflower seeds and pepitas
• cucumber flower cup with hummus to dip
• switchback cut gherkins
• beach ball radish
• golden raisins
• mini carrots
• not shown: tumbler of fresh orange juice

And here’s the box full of vegan brownies!

Now you didn’t think I was going to eat them all by myself, did you? I baked a whole batch for a friend’s birthday on Sunday and these leftovers are to be shared with my co-workers at coffee time. Did I mention my colleagues are always happy to see me? ;P

You can find a link to the recipe for these popular vegan brownies in my Belated B-day Bento post.

Find more bentos at Shannon’s What’s for Lunch Wednesday  (week 60).

CSA (local & organic): green beans, St. Jansui, lettuce
Local & organic: carrot, cucumber, spring onion, red berries
Organic: vegan sausage, pasta, chickpeas

Last greens of spring (CSA vegetables week 24 and 25, 2011)

Organic CSA vegetables week 24, 2011

Our tomcat Ringo coming to check out the escarole among the organic vegetables again…

• Radishes
• Broad-leaved endive
• Romaine lettuce
• Chinese cabbage (napa, michihli)
• Red & green basil
• Broccoli
• Scapes (garlic flowers)

Organic CSA vegetables week 25, 2011

• Pointed green cabbage
• Rhubarb
• Red lettuce
• Rapini (turnip tops)
• Courgette (zucchini)
• Snow peas
• Parsley

It’s the last rhubarb of the season and I haven’t figured out yet what to do with it. Any ideas?

Here’s the rest of our menu plan!

Menu plan June 22-27 2011

• Pea soup from a can [Wednesday]
• Sambal goreng cabbage tahu (Vegetarisch Indonesisch kookboek p.93) [Thursday]
• Szechuan noodles (leftover sauce) and Chinese cabbage with coconut (Exotic & Traditional Vegetables p.2) [Friday]
• Simple dinner with guests before going to piano recital: Cream of tomato soup (La Dolce Vegan p.114), salad with snow peas, brownies [Saturday]
• Imam’s Eggplant, mashed carrot salad & tabbouleh (World Food Café p.37, 39 & 31)
• Tomato, cucumber and green pepper mezze (World Food Café p.37), Turkish lentil soup (Met machtig mooie menu’s de wereld rond p.36), leftovers

From the menu plan I previously posted I’ve already shown you the Couscous salad with Orange Basil-Tempeh and Sweet Miso Dressing. Here are the pictures of two other dinners I photographed.

Lentil loaf (from Food for Thought podcast) and Turkish takeaway leftovers

Szechuan noodles from Vegan Family Meals

Join Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking with a food related post!

Belated B-day Bento (#134)

Last week we spent my birthday in the cinema watching Oscar nominated movies all day long. A perfect way of celebrating as far as I’m concerned, but of course it’s fun to have some family over (and get presents!) too. So I had a belated B-day party on Sunday and some leftover yumminess ended up in tomorrow’s (Tuesday) bento.

Right container

• The Adirondack Chick’s ‘Unstuffed Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers‘: brown rice with tomato, green peppers and zucchini (really good recipe!)
• marinated mushrooms (cremini & namelo)
• radish flowers
• parsley olives on a skewer
• garlic olives on a skewer
• lettuce lining
• basil, courgette and carrot details

Front container

• marinated grilled courgette
• raw vegetables: orange pepper, cauliflower, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, corn salad & rocket
• store-bought baba ganoush (really wanted to bring some of my homemade creamy hummus but ran out of it at the last minute)
• fried tofu
• mixed nuts

On the side

• 1/2 apple
• 1/2 Poire Williams

The gorgeous tulips were a present from my mother-in-law. Yep, the in-laws are awesome. :) My sister-in-law gave me my very first vegan cookbook for a present: La Dolce Vegan! by Sarah Kramer. And she didn’t even know I was looking for a cookery book to suit my new eating habits! She’s also the one who gave me the World Food Café cookbook that I recently raved about. So you may expect another review somewhere along the line. ;)

And finally — no birthday without cake! Newbie vegan or not. Here’s what I’ll be treating my colleagues to: vegan Brownies & Spicy Applesauce Cake with Lemon Frosting. YUM!