Archive for August, 2007

Speedy teriyaki & pineapple meatball lunches

I overslept this morning, so today’s lunches were a true test of the speed lunch system (”This is not a drill!”). Having ready-made meatballs in the fridge provided a quick protein; you can also make them from scratch ahead of time and freeze a stash of them. We did wind up being late, but that was because I stopped to snap photos before running out the door. Darn you, lunch blogging obsession!

Contents of preschooler lunch: Blackberries, teriyaki & pineapple chicken meatballs, plum tomatoes, honey-simmered kabocha squash with butter, and sliced pita bread. These meatballs are my favorite — Aidell’s brand, sold at big stores like Safeway and Costco (other store locations listed here). Nice short ingredient list, also good in soups or wraps.

Morning prep time: 4 minutes, using leftovers and convenience food. The pita was already cut from dinner the night before, and the kabocha was leftover from lunch the day before. So all I had to do in the morning was cut a few meatballs in half to fit preschooler mouths.

Packing: Bug & I shared a single container of pita bread (although I photographed it with both lunches), so his lunch wasn’t as large as it looked. Packed in two 350ml containers from a Lock & Lock lunch set. This is the container I always reach for when I’m in a hurry. I like its built-in subdividers — all I have to do is fill three little spaces and I’m done, no real thought required for arrangement (easy on my brain when I’m slammed). Unfortunately I don’t know of a reliable U.S. source for these, so I’ll just apologize in advance.

Contents of my lunch: Same as Bug’s, but I packed little skewers of plum tomato and store-bought marinated bocconcini (mozzarella balls) instead of the blackberries. Bug didn’t like the look of the bocconcini when I was packing, so I omitted them from his lunch and tried to make them look fun in mine to see if they would pique his interest when we ate. No such luck with Bug, but all of his little friends were interested in the little Anpanman-themed picks. Anpanman is a popular cartoon for kids in Japan, with characters based on food (the villains are Bacteria Man) — pretty amusing.

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(Disclaimer: I have no commercial affiliation with Aidell’s or any other business listed here.)

Published by Biggie on August 8th, 2007 tagged bento, for kids, lactose free, phyllo or pancake or other, poultry | 15 Comments »

Kabocha squash box lunches

My son decided to go on strike against playgroup this morning, so I had more time to think about and prepare lunch before going out for a playdate. Reminds me of a tip I read in a bento cookbook: the night before, think of one item you’ll pack in the next day’s lunch. This’ll help you start to form an image of the lunch so you’re not totally paralyzed when you walk into the kitchen in the morning.

Contents of my lunch: Rice balls wrapped in nori, ham croquettes and Lizano sauce (sources here), honey-simmered kabocha squash, and cucumber and tomatoes tossed in sanbaizu sweet vinegar. Ah, tangy Lizano sauce — is there anything you don’t improve?

Morning prep time: 15 minutes, using frozen food, leftovers and one speedy side dish. A few weeks ago I made rice balls with extra fresh rice and froze them, so it was just a matter of microwaving to warm and restore texture, and wrapping in pre-cut nori. The croquettes were frozen from a box (Goya brand), so I deep-fried them in a tiny pot to conserve oil while speeding up heating and clean-up. While the oil was heating up and the rice balls were in the microwave, I prepped the squash for the microwave and packed the leftover marinated cucumber and tomato.

Packing: I put the fried and cooled croquettes into an oil-absorbent food cup to keep them nice and crispy. I picked up the paper-lined food cups for US$1.50 at Daiso, but you can also just line the container with a bit of paper towel as I did in Bug’s lunch below. My subsequent concern was to keep anything juicy away from the crispy croquettes, which meant that the drained and cooled kabocha would go next to them, then the raw cucumber/tomato salad in another food cup at the farthest end in case juice or dressing leaked. The lunch’s color contrast might have been nicer with the salad in the middle, but I’m not going to go for form over function here. Packed in a 580ml Urara dragonfly box (250ml & 330ml tiers).

Cooking: I adapted a quick recipe for honey-simmered kabocha squash from Toshiko Okuzono’s book “Konban no Okazu & Ashita no Obento” (roughly, Tonight’s Dinner and Tomorrow’s Bento Lunch). Because I didn’t have frozen, pre-cooked kabocha chunks, I started with small chunks of raw kabocha that I cut from half of a very small squash, but you could also substitute other squashes like butternut in its place (butternut will take less time to cook). In a microwave-safe bowl, combine 1/4 cup water, 2Tb of honey and a dash of salt, add the kabocha and stir to coat. Cover and microwave on high for 4 to 5 minutes until soft, stirring halfway through to ensure even cooking. (Cooking time may vary depending on the strength of your microwave.) Let it sit, covered, for an additional 2 minutes to let the steam and residual heat finish cooking the hard squash. Drain and toss with 1Tb of butter if desired.

Contents of preschooler lunch: The same as mine, but with a pre-filled sauce container of tonkatsu sauce (recipe here) for the croquettes instead of Lizano sauce. Wrapping the whimsically shaped rice balls in nori would have covered up the shapes, so instead I rolled them quickly in aonori (seaweed flakes) and sakura denbu (pink, sweetened fish powder — better than it sounds! A kid favorite.).

Packing: I decided to use two containers so that I’d be able to separate the dry items from the moist items, and lined the area under the croquettes with a folded-up paper towel to keep them nice and crispy. Bug ate the croquettes and rice balls with his hands, and the squash and salad with a little fork. Packed in one 350ml tier of an insulated Lock & Lock lunch set and one 180ml tier of a Thomas the Tank Engine 4-tier nesting bento set.

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Published by Biggie on August 8th, 2007 tagged bento, for kids, lactose free, meat, onigiri or sushi, phyllo or pancake or other, recipe, rice | 7 Comments »

Box lunches: Hot or cold?

A question I’m often asked is if we eat our box lunches hot, cold, or at room temperature. I mean, I often pack fruit next to savory foods that could heat up nicely in the microwave, so what do I do? Nuke the fruit?!? Unpack our lunches and then replate after warming? What a pain.

The answer is that because Bug hasn’t started preschool yet, we usually have our lunches outside at a park, zoo or playgroups where there is no microwave. So we eat them at room temperature or chilled unless I’ve packed them in a thermal food jar or a thermal lunch jar such as the Mr. Bento. But there are a number of tricks to keep in mind when deciding how to pack…

For a room temperature lunch:

First off, read my post on packed lunch food safety so you don’t get sick. This is important. I don’t want anyone spooning yogurt into a bento box, carrying it around at room temperature, and then wondering why they feel ill afterwards. Be smart about what you pack to eat at room temperature, or be sure to carry it in an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack (edible or plain) to keep things cool.
Season food more aggressively than you would if you were going to eat it warm: add more spices and flavorings. This is an often-touted tip in Japanese bento lunch cookbooks as the secret to delicious room-temperature food, and spices often have antibacterial properties (see the food safety post).

If there’s a microwave where you eat:

First, be aware of recent health concerns about microwaving food in plastic, and microwave safely. You may want to line your container so that the food doesn’t come into direct contact with the container, repack/heat the food in a non-plastic container, or skip the microwave altogether. Figure out your comfort level and adjust accordingly.
Pack one microwaveable container solely with microwave-friendly food, and put cold foods in another. You can dedicate one tier of a two-tier bento box, use separate Tupperware containers, or use removable sub-containers. The Laptop Lunchbox (shown at right, click photo for lunch details) has easily removable sub-containers, as do some better quality bento boxes. Packing hot/cold foods separately means you won’t have to unpack and replate warmed food.
Oily or greasy foods can overheat in the microwave and cause pitting or discoloration to plastic food containers, so protect your lunch container by packing especially oily food in cupcake liners, on paper towels, or on an edible equivalent such as lettuce (yes, you may not want to eat lettuce after it’s been through the microwave, but your container will be undamaged and you’ll still have a environmentally friendly lunch).
Season the food to be warmed as you usually do — no need to spice especially strongly as you might for room temperature food.
In the portion of the lunch that’ll be microwaved, avoid aluminum food cups and any lunch accessories that cannot be microwaved.
When microwaving most Japanese bento boxes, do not microwave the lid (if all-plastic it may warp, if hinged it may contain metal).

If you’re using an all-metal lunch container and want a warm lunch:

Pack all food to be warmed in one tier of your metal lunch container, so that cool side dishes like fruit or dairy can be easily separated out in a separate tier. The Chinese stacking lunchbox or To-Go Ware food tin are examples of this sort of multiple-tier container. Indians have been using this kind of tiffin tin forever!
If you have access to a microwave, you can jury-rig a microwave steamer to warm your entire lunch in its covered metal container. Find a large microwave-safe container large enough to hold your lunch container, and fill it with a half inch or so of water. Heat the larger covered container in the microwave until boiling, remove, and put your covered metal container into the larger container. Wait for 10 minutes or so until warm, depending upon how much food you’ve packed and the dimensions of the containers. If that doesn’t do the trick, you may want to rewarm the water in the larger container, and stir up the food in the metal container.
If you have access to a stove and a couple of frying pans where you’ll be eating (but no oven), you can jury-rig a steamer to warm your entire boxed lunch. Put half an inch of water in a deep frying pan or wok, elevating the metal container if possible on a steaming rack or shallow dish, and cover with another frying pan. Steam gently on the stove until warm, stirring the food as necessary. If you have access to a deeper pot, you can use a regular lid instead of another pan.

(EDIT: I’ve fixed the bug that prevented readers from being able to comment on posts over the past couple of days — some comment code got scrambled up with the Feedburner form to subscribe to daily Lunch in a Box posts by e-mail. All good now, sorry for the inconvenience!)

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Published by Biggie on August 6th, 2007 tagged equipment, parenthacks, tips | 29 Comments »

Pasta salad box lunches

I didn’t have any nice leftovers to pack for lunch today, so I reached for pasta I’d frozen earlier for just this sort of occasion. I threw together a quick pasta salad for the adults using frozen unsauced pasta, and microwaved frozen spaghetti cups with sauce for Bug as he’s decided he doesn’t like the shape of gemelli pasta (ah, preschoolers!).

Contents of my lunch: Blueberries, fresh pineapple, and pasta salad with roasted red pepper, plum tomatoes, feta, green onions, cilantro and a ponzu vinaigrette (recipe here, with extra vinaigrette in the sauce container).

Morning prep time: 14 minutes to slice the pineapple and make the pasta salad from scratch, using frozen unsauced pasta and already-made ponzu vinaigrette.

Packing: I decided that any juice leaking from the pineapple would complement the flavors of the pasta salad, so I elected not to put it in a separate food cup or plastic sub-container. The little plastic fish holds extra ponzu vinaigrette to freshen up the pasta salad just before eating. Packed in a 500ml Leaflet bento box with movable divider.

Cooking: I made a quick pasta salad with frozen unsauced pasta and ponzu-sanbaizu vinaigrette that I had on hand. Threw in some roasted red bell peppers from a jar, halved plum tomatoes, pre-crumbled feta cheese from Costco, chopped cilantro leftover from a chili dinner earlier in the week, and freshly chopped green onions (a.k.a. scallions). I considered using frozen pre-chopped green onions, but decided that those were better suited to cooked dishes as they soften a little in freezing. I dressed it lightly with vinaigrette before packing, and then packed extra dressing on the side to give it a flavor and texture boost.

Contents of Bug’s lunch: Fresh pineapple, spaghetti with Italian sausage, and green beans with ponzu vinaigrette and toasted sesame seeds.

Morning prep time: 12 minutes, using two frozen spaghetti cups with sauce that I microwaved with a splash of extra water to restore texture. I quickly cooked the green beans in my microwave steamer for two minutes, then tossed with vinaigrette and sesame seeds. Everything is cut smaller for easier preschooler eating.

Packing: Packed in the divided 350ml tier of a Lock & Lock lunch set.

My husband’s lunch is the same as mine, minus the blueberries. Packed in two tiers (450ml and 100ml) of a 4-tier nesting Thomas the Tank Engine bento box.

Click for frugal African pineapple drink recipe using leftover pineapple trimmings…

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Published by Biggie on August 4th, 2007 tagged bento, for kids, pasta or noodles, recipe, salad, vegetarian | 8 Comments »

Chocolate chipotle rib lunches

This past weekend my husband pulled out the grill to smoke some chocolate chipotle baby back pork ribs a la Raichlen on Ribs, Ribs, Outrageous Ribs. Definitely not fast food when we made it, but the leftovers are. Don’t hesitate to make extra food on the evenings or weekends when you’re cooking anyway — the leftovers pay off throughout the week in the form of fast lunch fodder. When you run short of appetizing leftovers, you can round out the meal by making one speedy dish or pulling out lunch staples from the fridge or freezer. That’s what I did here: made the green beans quickly in the microwave, with everything else from the fridge or freezer.

Contents of my lunch: Chocolate chipotle baby back ribs with extra sauce in the squeeze bottle, cheese wheel and triangle, green beans with vinaigrette, fresh lychees, blueberries, roasted Okinawan purple sweet potatoes with butter and maple syrup, and a frozen pudding made at home.

Morning prep time: 12 minutes, using dinner leftovers and freezer backup. The one thing I did make in the morning was the green bean dish, which I cooked in my microwave steamer for 2 minutes on high with a little water, and tossed with vinaigrette that I had in the refrigerator.

Packing: Packed in a Laptop Lunchbox, which I haven’t used in a while. I removed one of the inner containers in order to fit the ribs in (most of my bento boxes were too small for the meaty ribs), and put the green beens with liquidy vinaigrette in the lidded yellow container. I also put the closed case into their “bento sleeve” for carrying. The Laptop Lunchbox is larger than my standard bento boxes, but it’s just the right size for large or bulky foods like the ribs, salads, sandwiches, etc. I like the lidded inner container and insulated carrying case, allowing you to throw in an ice pack to safely carry perishable food like yogurt.

The frozen mini pudding was: 1) proof of concept that you can make and freeze your own mini pudding cups in condiment cups, and 2) a test of instant non-sugar pudding that went horribly wrong. In my post on edible ice packs, reader Jeff commented that the texture of 5-minute instant non-sugar puddings deteriorated after being frozen, so I wanted to see for myself after having had good luck freezing other puddings. Man, was Jeff right!! The thawed pudding became clumpy and unappetizing, which reader Jessica attributes to the lack of sugar (hat tip to the authoritative On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee). Beware! The minor upside is that the flavor was unchanged (although unexciting), and Bug ate it happily. You can still make little frozen treats in condiment containers, just avoid the 5-minute sugar-free pudding mixes.

Bug’s lunch: Same as mine, with the addition of a tiny Manzano banana (smaller and drier than a baby banana, with a slight apple flavor). Packed in two tiers (180ml & 280ml) of a 4-tier nesting Thomas the Tank Engine box.

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