Ichi Ni San Bento (#123)

Learning to count fatty acids with this 1 2 3 bento ;)

Left tier

• baked chestnut mushrooms with leek, green chilli, sweet soy sauce and roasted garlic
• mini Milka chocolate
• mandarin
• cucumber slices
• tamagoyaki with nori
• fresh mint leaves

Right tier

• Jerusalem artichoke in shallot vinaigrette with caper berries on a bed of aragula and topped with roasted walnuts
• peanut sauce dip for cucumber
• a tiny bit of emping crumbs
• mini plum tomato with basil ‘pears’

On the side

• the rest of the clementine and walnuts

As a vegetarian I need to make sure my daily nutrition contains enough omega-3 because the human body can’t produce these fatty acids by itself and they’re essential for our health. Uhm.. this is true for omnivarians as well: the majority of people doesn’t get enough omega-3 as it is.

Anyway, that’s why my bentos  frequently contain walnuts. 35 grams of these (= 3 tablespoons; 5-6 walnuts) should be enough. Other plant-based providers are mainly flaxseed (10-15 gram = 1 heaped tablespoon) and flaxseed oil. In lesser amounts it can be found in soy (oil), sweet chestnuts, pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts, canola oil, wheat germs and leafy greens (especially Miner’s lettuce (winterpostelein)).

Today’s bento contains 4 walnut halves = 12 gram = 1/3 of what I need. But I also ate half a tablespoon of ground flaxseed in my yoghurt this morning. Together with the rocket lettuce in my lunch, peanut sauce, use of canola oil, light & sweet soy sauces (in the Japanese egg and baked mushrooms), and more of those marinated earth apples & walnuts with additional corn salad for dinner tonight, I bet I’m getting enough ω3 today!

Find more Wednesday bento lunches at Shannon’s What’s for Lunch Wednesday (week 25)!

Advertentie

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

Monday bento #65

Salad of leek, tomato, cucumber, gherkin, lettuce, grilled zucchini, red onion and parsley, to be topped with pine nuts & walnut from the other tier.

Houmous with harissa, yoghurt coated apricot, plum tomatoes, cucumber & carrot sticks, homemade parsley pesto with walnut.

Cracker and yoghurt with cooked red currants on the side.

Bento-sixty-four

Last Friday’s bento (#64):
Licorice (sugarfree), crushed walnuts for the salad, farm cheese, red berries, radishes, parsley and a rice salad (rice, dried apricots, tomato, sundried tomato, parsley, cucumber, gherkin, capers, peas) with a dressing of honey, wine vinegar, raspberry vinegar, oregano, salt ’n pepper.

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 4.3 van de hamsterrace: koyadofu

Zoals ik al aankondigde in mijn post over ochazuke, gebruikte ik in juni nóg een Unidentified Cooking Object als onderdeel van mijn hamsteruitdaging: koyadofu, oftewel gevriesdroogde tahoe. Ik had een kinderversie van kleine blokjes met figuurtjes van Anpanman erop: ideaal voor in een bento natuurlijk ;)

Gedroogde tahoe moet je eerst 10 minuten wellen in (kokend) water of bouillon, daarna kun je het verwerken in misosoep of noodles. In ons geval was dat een van onze all-time favourite miegerechten: soba met spinazie, oesterzwam en walnoot. Zonde, want de tofublokjes waren hartstikke smerig! Ik kan er geen ander woord voor verzinnen :\ Of misschien… MUF?! Toegegeven, net als de ochazuke waren ook déze ruimschoots over tijd ;)

De tofu uit Madeira moeten we maar sneller opmaken! LOL Gemarineerd/gesudderd in een sausje wel te verstaan, met soja, mirin, sake, miso of dashi: mogelijkheden genoeg! Maar het blijft jammer van de Anpanmannetjes want die gingen linea recta naar de groenbak in plaats van in mijn bentobox :(

De naam koyadofu komt van Kōyasan, een berggebied in Japan waar zich een belangrijk boeddhistisch centrum bevindt dat beroemd is om zijn (traditioneel) vegetarische keuken. Misschien moet ik daar maar eens heen om te leren hoe je koyadofu lekker klaarmaakt! ;)

Recept Noedels met spinazie en oesterzwam

Jaah, dit recept is veganistisch — maar zelfs verstokte vleeseters smullen ervan! Het is een favoriet gerecht dat we ons bezoek graag voorzetten. Het komt van de website van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Veganisme, maar omdat ik al vaker heb meegemaakt dat links naar recepten doodgaan (en we het geheel ietwat hebben aangepast), zal ik jullie hieronder uit de doeken doen hoe je deze makkelijke en heerlijke maaltijd voor 3 á 4 personen maakt.

Ingredienten

• 500 ml dashi, uit een pakje of zelfgemaakt (recept zit in het vat ;) of evt. groentebouillon
• 220 gr soba, somen of andere soort Japanse noedels
• 2 eetlepels sake (rijstwijn) of mirin (rijstazijn)
• 2 eetlepels sojasaus, liefst Japanse (Kikkoman)
• 120 gr oesterzwammen, schoongemaakt en in plakjes gesneden
• 450 gr wilde spinazie of biologische grove bladspinazie, schoongemaakt en grof gescheurd (gewone spinazie is ook goed hoor ;)
• 3 eetlepels olie om te wokken (bijv. arachide, maiskiem, zonnebloem)
• 1 teentje knoflook, uitgeperst
• vers gemalen zwarte peper naar smaak
• 10-15 walnoten, grof gehakt of gemalen
• 1 eetlepel gesnipperde nori (gedroogd zeewier)

Bereiding
De bereiding van dit gerecht duurt ongeveer 10 á 20 minuten, voorbereiding (schoonmaken en snijden van ingrediënten zoals boven genoemd) niet meegerekend!

Kook de noedels maximaal 5 minuten in de dashi (bouillon). Let op dat ze niet te gaar worden want dan vallen ze uit elkaar bij het eten met stokjes… Doe intussen de olie in een wok en fruit de knoflook 30 seconden. Doe de oesterzwammen in de wok en bak ze 1-2 minuten. Voeg de spinazie, sake/mirin en sojasaus toe en blijf nog 1-2 minuten roerbakken, totdat de spinazie iets zachter wordt. Doe het vuur uit. Breng op smaak met peper. Giet de noedels af als ze klaar zijn, doe ze in de wok en meng ze voorzichtig met een vork of eetstokjes door het roergebakken mengsel. Serveer de noodles bestrooid met een mix van de walnoten en nori. Yummy!

Hoewel de proeftuin in juni qua Japanse ingrediënten niet echt een succes was, ben ik wel tevreden over mijn inspanningen! Op naar de juli-etappe van de uitdaging :)

Unusual bento (#59)

I can see the questioning looks asking WHY this bento (#59) would be so unusual… Well, normally I don’t have a Wednesday bento :) And this was a really good one as well! Containing:

• salad of organic romaine leaves, potatoes, oven roasted red beet, spring onion, red onion, dill and gherkin in a yoghurt dressing
• piece of (organic) rucola (rocket), potato, cheese and pine nuts quiche
• tiny radish
• edamame sprinkled with sea salt
• hot pepper (from the balcony) filled with houmous
• walnuts
• homegrown bean sprouts
• organic gooseberries

It was a well balanced bento with that spicy red pepper and some fresh bean sprouts to cool down with. Yummy!

I’m looking forward to today’s surprise bag: what kind of organic vegetables will we get this week?

Charon bento #57 (RIP MJ)

Elma from Chasing Chatwin gave me some chocolate euros to use in my bento. How appropriate on the day Michael Jackson died! The ancient Greeks put money in the mouth of a deceased, for paying Charon (ferryman of the river Styx) to bring his / her soul to the world of the dead.

I didn’t have much preparation time so I had to get through the day with just one tier of food in bento #57 :\

Contents
Chocolate money (obviously), radishes with gherkin, raspberry vinegar and dill, mushroom noodles, broccoli with black & white sesame seeds, walnut and nori seaweed.

Having just admitted to being a teenager in the Eighties, you might have guessed I was a Michael Jackson fan in those days. I even had a poster hanging on the wall (among many others though ;) No matter what came of him in later years, he was and still is an icon. I find it a fascinating idea that on Friday June 26th, a huge part of the world population has been playing Wacko Jacko’s songs all day on the radio, television, internet and at home. It’s so profound it’s almost unimaginable.

RIP MJ. And now, life goes on.

Good beginnings bento (#51)

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! ;)

Count down… (bento #49)

This is the bento I took to the office on Monday May 10th. It was put together quite quickly!

It contains broccoli quiche (bought), radishes, basil, a small piece of emmental cheese, homegrown mustard cress and dito bean sprouts (taugeh), cucumber and a dressing of soy sauce, lemon juice and sesame oil. Homegrown bean sprouts taste soooo much better!

Yay, my next bento will be number 50! :-o