Archive for February, 2007

Speed bento technique: jello cups

Another speed bento. I had made a stash of homemade juice jello cups, so I was able to just drop one in along with a shaped egg from the fridge. The scallop okonomiyaki was leftover from last night’s dinner, so this took about 5 minutes to pack. The containers have okonomiyaki sauce, Worcestershire sauce and katsuobushi, and next to the jello cup is a tiny spoon and an Anpanman pick for the kiwi.

To speed up bento making in the morning, I made extra-firm jello with straight blueberry juice and unflavored Knox gelatine (no sugar), poured into reusable plastic food cups for packing in lunches. They’re thicker than regular Jello, so they’ll hold up for several hours at room temperature (recipe is on the Knox packets). Just drop one into my son’s bento in the morning and go! Big time saver.

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Published by Biggie on February 14th, 2007 tagged bento, eggs, fish or seafood, for kids, parenthacks, phyllo or pancake or other, recipe, tips, tutorial or how to | 15 Comments »

Speed bento techniques: frozen spaghetti

This was a super-fast toddler bento (less than 10 minutes to pack both mine and my son’s). I nuked frozen homemade meatballs, steamed the broccoli and kabocha squash in a microwave mini steamer (photo behind the cut), and dropped in a foil cup of leftover spaghetti I portioned out for freezing.

Taking a page from Japanese bento cookbooks, I froze leftover spaghetti in foil liners set in mini muffin tins. Once they were frozen through a couple of hours later, I put them in shallow tupperware for longer-term storage. This way I have a cache of homemade pasta ready to drop into my son’s lunches when I’m looking for a red-colored dish. In the morning, I just put a frozen-solid pasta cup into the bento, and it’s totally thawed a few hours later when we’re ready to eat. If I were going to microwave them I’d have used paper cups instead of foil.

As for taste, I ate my bento today (with the frozen pasta) and had a bite of my son’s (with non-frozen pasta). They tasted about the same, no significant difference in taste/texture. I wouldn’t leave them in the freezer for longer than a few weeks, though — if they got freezer burn that’d definitely affect the taste. EDIT: I now like these with a little extra sauce in a small container on the side to remoisten the pasta.

I made today’s broccoli and kabocha in this mini steamer for the microwave — I picked it up at Daiso for US$1.50. It’s sold as a steamer for meat buns, but it’s just the right size for steaming small amounts of vegetables or dumplings for lunch. It speeds up steaming time by 50%. You put a tablespoon of water in the bottom, place the steam tray on the bottom, put the veggies in, then cover (aligning the steam holes to allow venting). Nuke for 1-2 minutes and let it stand for a couple of minutes afterward to steam. It can also be used for storage if you twist the lid so that the steam release holes are not aligned. Amazon lists a similar one here and a large one here.

Here’s my lunch — the same as my son’s except it’s got roast pork instead of meatballs.

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Published by Biggie on February 13th, 2007 tagged bento, equipment, for kids, freezing, meat, parenthacks, pasta or noodles, tips, tutorial or how to | 32 Comments »

Onion and pepper saute

A quickie meal, nothing fancy. I have decided that the cocktail sausages from Aidells (pictured here) are far superior to all other brands I’ve tried. I’m pondering what to do with the inferior sausages I’ve frozen…

salmon furikake onigiri stuffed with shiitake seaweed paste
chicken apple mini sausages
sauteed onions and green bell peppers, finished with mojito (garlic, onions & vinegar sauce)
tomatoes and ketchup

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Published by Biggie on February 2nd, 2007 tagged bento, lactose free, onigiri or sushi, poultry, rice | Comment now »

Meatball lunch for toddler

When I made meatloaf for dinner a couple of weeks ago, I also made up a batch of miniature hamburgers and meatballs for lunches and froze them. This is the first of those: ãƒãƒ³ãƒãƒ¼ã‚°ãŠå¼å½“ã€‚ Made as finger food that little hands can manage.