Archive for the 'glutenfree' Category

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Lamb & spaghetti squash bento dinners

It’s been a really topsy turvy month around here! First the website was hacked (boo), then my bulk freezing tip went viral with write-ups all over (yay!). In the latest of the ups and downs, on Tuesday my computer bag was stolen from behind a store counter where I had checked it as per store policy. Mercifully, my computer wasn’t inside, but my checkbook and digital camera were (along with photos of lunches from the past few days). Filing police reports and doing paperwork is a pain, but upon reflection it could have been so much worse — I had my wallet, phone and car keys on me so Bug and I were able to drive home afterwards with minimal inconvenience. We dodged a bullet! I picked up a replacement camera on Wednesday, so the blog will go on.

Today I’m going back to some small bento dinners that I made for my husband and I to take to our running club last month, to supplement the snacks served after our run. According to the bento box size guidelines, they’re both too small for adults on their own. They’re filled with things that my three-year-old had previously rejected at dinner, so I packed a plain sandwich bento for him (not shown).

Contents of my bento dinner: “Confetti spaghetti” (roasted spaghetti squash with sauteed red bell pepper and zucchini, recipe from Kitchen Playdates), Moroccan-spiced grilled lamb (recipe from Steve Raichlen’s The Barbecue! Bible, my husband also made the same dish last year for this lamb lunch). Roasted asparagus, Moro blood orange and a banana segment round out the meal. Because the banana was just for myself, I didn’t bother cutting it into decorative banana wedges.

Afternoon prep time: 5 minutes, using all dinner leftovers. In the afternoon I cut the fruit, and microwaved the meat and squash to take the chill off. (Read on for an additional lunch, details, and a cookbook review.)
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Published by Biggie on April 24th, 2008 tagged bento, glutenfree, lactose free, meat | 30 Comments »

Speed tip: Make individual portions in freezer bags

Although it might be nice if I were organized enough to plan out all of our dinners and my son’s bento lunches in advance, that’s never going to happen — not my style. I operate from more of the spur-of-the-moment approach to cooking, so it’s essential to have a well stocked freezer and pantry. One drawback, though, is that if I’ve frozen food in big blocks, I can’t use just a bit quickly without defrosting the whole thing.

Enter my Japanese-language freezing books. A standard tip for freezing ground foods or thick sauces in small portions is to first put the food into a large freezer bag and press it out as flat as possible, eliminating air pockets. (Making it thin speeds up defrost time due to the increased surface area, and pressing out excess air guards against freezer burn.) Use a long chopstick or ruler to create divisions within the food, forming individual portions. This way when you freeze the entire bag, you’ll be able to quickly break off just as much as you want to use, no more.

Because you’re touching the freezer bag and not the meat directly when flattening it out, your hands don’t get messy, and the food and work surface stay clean. You also reduce the waste that would be generated by individually wrapping each little serving in plastic wrap. This freezing technique isn’t limited to ground meat, though. Think thick pasta sauces, mashed or pureed fruit or vegetables, cooked meat soboro, rice, fried rice, cookie dough, etc.

(Read on for variations and space-saving storage hints.)

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Published by Biggie on April 11th, 2008 tagged freezing, glutenfree, lactose free, meat, parenthacks, tips | 97 Comments »

Corned beef bento lunches

I made corned beef and cabbage for our St. Patrick’s Day dinner, so leftovers made their appearance in my three-year-old’s packed lunches last week. Surprisingly, he was a big fan of the cabbage and carrots, not so much the meat and potatoes.

Packing Tip: When packing moist foods in a standard bento box, be sure to drain them of excess moisture first. This helps prevent spoilage if the food hits room temperature before lunchtime.

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Cabbage and carrots in broth, corned beef, boiled potatoes, and orange segments.

Morning prep time: 5 minutes, using dinner leftovers. In the morning I pre-warmed the thermal food jar with hot tap water while I microwaved the vegetables, and cut up the beef, potatoes and orange into bite-size pieces for easy preschooler eating. (Read on for packing details and an additional preschooler lunch.)

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Published by Biggie on March 27th, 2008 tagged bento, food jar, for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, meat, sandwich or wrap, soup or stew | 8 Comments »

Microwaved thin egg sheets (usuyaki tamago)

Japanese recipes sometimes call for thin sheets of egg omelette (usuyaki tamago) as a garnish (think hiyashi chuka cold noodles, chirashi zushi scattered sushi, or little shapes cut out of the egg with cutters), or as a decorative wrapper for fried rice or little rice ball purses. Think of them as a low-carb alternative to flour-based wraps or nori, for those who don’t like the flavor of seaweed. I’ve made these egg sheets in frying pans before, but it takes practice and technique to turn out an attractive result. Unless I’m using a slick, perfectly non-stick pan just for eggs, my efforts are doomed to failure and I’m left looking at an ugly pile of egg scraps. Very frustrating. When I was browsing speed bento cookbooks in a Japanese-language bookstore recently, though, my friend Mami-chan volunteered that she whips up thin egg sheets on a plate in the microwave all the time for her son’s bento lunches. I was intrigued. Was there an easier, faster way to make thin egg sheets using the microwave oven?

I did some research into Japanese-language recipes and techniques, and found that there are some tricks to producing a good microwave version of this classic. Plate selection is crucial, and seasoning is key to making something tastier than just thin scrambled eggs. (Read on for the full recipe, tutorial, freezing instructions, and a review of microwave-safe plastic wraps.)

TIP: You can make these in advance and freeze them for a speedy shortcut on time-pressed mornings (freezing directions follow the recipe).

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Published by Biggie on March 19th, 2008 tagged eggs, freezing, glutenfree, lactose free, recipe, tips, tutorial or how to | 46 Comments »

Rice cube & mushroom bento lunch

One of our two cats has started scratching under our bed and on our door when we shut her out, so I wake up early some mornings when Squirrel decides it’s time for us to get up (grrr). I’d rather be sleeping, but figure as long as I’m awake I may as well do something a little more ambitious for Bug’s bentos than throwing something into the microwave and reheating leftovers. (On the cat front, please feel free to give me advice on how to change our cat’s behavior! I’ve tried squirting her with water and putting contact paper under the bed, so now she jumps at our hair through the headboard slats. I’d love to get that extra hour of sleep in the morning again, but short of putting her in a cage I’m not sure what to do…)

Contents of preschooler lunch: “Rice cubes” with salmon-flavored furikake rice sprinkles, Moro blood orange, teriyaki chicken cubes (recipe below), Chinese egg custard tart, and roasted mushroom cap stuffed with chevre, pancetta, sauteed broccoli rabe, garlic and butter (recipe below). This is the lunch I referenced last week in the recipe for roasted mushroom caps.

Morning prep time: 20 minutes, using frozen rice and a quarter of a leftover egg custard from a cheap takeout dim sum meal (from Good Luck Dim Sum in San Francisco). In the morning I popped the mushrooms in my convection toaster oven to roast while I microwaved the rice and made the onigiri rice cubes with a little rice cuber (details and how-to here; you can also use a shaped silicone ice cube tray for similar results). The chicken and mushroom filling took the remaining time — I was ambitious for this lunch as I was awake anyway. (Darn Squirrel! At least her brother Moose is chill.) (Click for cooking and packing details, plus an additional preschooler lunch.)

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