Archive for the 'glutenfree' Category

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Train-shaped nori seaweed

First off, I’d like to welcome new readers making their way here from Yahoo, where Lunch in a Box was fortunate to be Yahoo’s Pick of the day for October 17. Feel free to comment or ask questions even on old posts; I keep up with recent comments.

A while back a friend from my son’s playgroup gave me a package of novelty nori seaweed that she brought back from Japan. I tucked it away, thinking it would be a handy way to add some fun to a child’s meal with minimal effort. Each package has a number of sheets of nori that have been die-cut into Shinkansen train-related shapes. (Shinkansen is a Sanrio character that tends to be popular among young boys in Japan.) The package shows the nori decorating rice in a bento lunch, onigiri rice balls, and atop chirashi zushi. (Click on any photo for a larger view.)

I’ve seen pre-cut nori on eBay shaped like Hello Kitty, Pokemon, and other fun shapes, but there’s no need to order specially from Japan if you don’t have money burning a hole in your pocket. You can make your own using scrapbooking punches or scissors (Target often has different punches in their Dollar Spot, craft stores stock them, as does Amazon). I wonder if die cutters for scrapbooking would work too, but it wouldn’t be cost-effective to go buy one just for nori. If someone already owns one for scrapbooking, could you run a sheet of nori (or mamenori) through and let us know what happens?

This packaged pre-cut nori is really just a cute but pricey variation on a theme that I explored in my earlier post on making a stash of pre-cut nori to save time in the morning. Store it in an airtight container or freezer bag with dessicant packs that you can scavenge from other foods, new clothing, sporting goods, etc.

Contents of preschooler lunch: White rice mixed with shrimp-flavored furikake rice seasoning, topped with Shinkansen pre-cut nori. Shrimp, broccoli and sweet potato in mirin and soy sauce.

Cooking: The shrimp, broccoli and sweet potato were all actually leftover from a spicy Thai curry that was too hot for Bug (curry master recipe here). Sometimes when I make a curry that’s too spicy for my son, I just stir in yogurt to tame it. For some reason, though, Bug is sensitive to Thai spices and my yogurt trick doesn’t work. To deflame it, I picked out some shrimp and vegetables, put them in a strainer, and ran water over it to rinse off the spicy curry sauce. Having washed the flavor away, though, I quickly tossed them with some mirin and soy sauce that I’d simmered other vegetables in a few days before. Bug was able to eat the doctored leftovers, and I didn’t have to spend extra time cooking something totally new in the morning. Win, win!

Morning prep time: 4 minutes, using fresh rice and leftover Thai curry.

Packing: Because all of the non-rice items were flavored with the same sauce, there was no need to keep them from touching. I put the green broccoli between the two similarly colored foods for contrast. The lunch is packed in a 360ml Cars bento box.

Verdict: As I expected, the Shinkansen nori was a big hit — Bug was really excited about it when I showed it to him in the morning. He ate everything but the sweet potato and a a couple bits of broccoli at preschool, and finished the broccoli in the car. Thumbs down on the sweet potatoes; something about the texture seems to bother him (mashed is fine).

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Published by Biggie on October 18th, 2007 tagged bento, fish or seafood, glutenfree, lactose free, rice, tips | 18 Comments »

Lunches with pork mole sopes

To keep lunches from getting boring, find ways to transform dinner leftovers into different dishes (”leftover makeovers” or “leftover remakes”). Earlier in the week we had pork carnitas tacos for dinner, so I mixed the leftover carnitas with some instant mole sauce and made it into sopes. Sopes are little discs of corn masa (like tiny thick tortillas with a lip around the edge) with toppings, typically something like refried beans with grated cheese, onion and hot chili sauce. I ran these under the broiler to make them neater to eat on the go.

Contents of my husband’s meal: Homemade sopes with leftover pork carnitas (Del Real brand carnitas from Costco, full thoughts here), mole sauce and Monterey Jack cheese melted on top. Side dish of berenjenas con vainitas (Venezuelan dish of eggplant with green beans) and grape tomatoes. Not shown: a little sauce container with crema (sour cream) for the sopes. I got the recipe from award-winning cookbook The Book of Latin American Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz. From the book jacket: She â€œdescribes how the Spanish, Portuguese, African, and Middle Eastern influences have combined with the indiginous cooking of the Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations.â€ An interesting read with extensive commentary on each recipe.

Prep time: 18 minutes, using leftover carnitas and eggplant with green beans. The masa discs for the sopes were ready-made from my local Mexican market, so I heated them up to soften, mixed the already-shredded carnitas with instant mole sauce, assembled and ran them under the broiler to melt the cheese.

Packing: I put the side dishes in reusable silicone baking cups to keep the moisture away from the sopes, and used grape tomatoes as gap fillers to stabilize the lunch during transport. Packed in a 500ml Leaflet box with movable divider.

My meal: Contents are the same as my husband’s, with the beans packed in a smaller disposable food cup (”leisure version” — ha ha) to fit the smaller space. Lunch packed in my 470ml Afternoon Tea box without the removable divider (box bought for US$2 at Irving Housewares in San Francisco).

Contents of preschooler’s meal: Homemade sopes with chopped carnitas mixed with a little Lizano sauce, topped with cheese. Side dishes of green beans (he was not a fan of the olive-laden eggplant dish), an entire miniature Fuji apple, and a little cup of creme caramel (Kiku brand “Petit Pudding”). Not shown: a little squeeze bottle of crema (sour cream) for the sopes.

Packing: I cut the sopes into quarters to make them easy for little hands to eat, and cut off a thin slice of the apple at the bottom so that it would fit inside of the bento box. A tiny clear plastic spoon for the pudding cup is tucked in alongside the sopes. Lunch packed in a 350ml Power Rangers bento box.

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Published by Biggie on October 15th, 2007 tagged bento, corn tortillas or masa, for kids, glutenfree, leftover remake, meat, phyllo or pancake or other | 6 Comments »

Disposable lunches for airplane

I packed a couple of bento lunches in disposable containers for my in-laws’ airplane flight home after their visit. They’re a little busier than our normal lunches, but I’m pleased with the diabetic version for my father-in-law because of the limited food options for diabetics on airplanes. They tell me that they were the envy of the other passengers and flight crew. I usually appreciate the reusability of proper bento boxes, but this is the rare case when a disposable box was a better option — when the boxes won’t be coming home to me at all.

Contents of my mother-in-law’s lunch: Ham & cheese sandwich with mustard sauce on low-carb bread, TastyBite Jaipur vegetable curry, red bell pepper strips and poppy seed dressing, Swiss and Cheddar cheese slices, pink beans with sofrito, blueberries and pineapple, wrapped cheese triangle, and corn chips.

Prep time: 0 minutes the morning of, 15 minutes the night before (mostly spent staring at our assorted leftovers, trying to figure out what could go where and fill the gaps). The beans and pineapple were leftovers, as was the ready-made curry from a shelf-stable pouch.

Packing: Everything is disposable except the sauce container with salad dressing for the bell pepper. To keep the bread from getting soggy, I first toasted the bread and used cheese as a moisture barrier next to the bread so that the mustard sauce didn’t come into contact with it. The curry went into a disposable lidded condiment container. I rubber-banded the containers (3 for about $1 at Ichiban Kan in San Francisco), wrapped the two lunches together in a spare dish towel, then tucked two plastic forks into the flap on the top. I used the traditional bento box wrap shown on this illustrated how-to wrapping chart (Otsukai Tsutsumi). This kept the flimsy containers contained compactly so they could be thrown into carry-on luggage, and the dishcloth could be used as either a placemat or napkin.

Contents of my father-in-law’s lunch: This is the diabetic version of my mother-in-law’s, but with ham and mustard sauce solo (not in a sandwich), a salad with low-carb ranch dressing (by Eating Right), and Bengali smothered cabbage with mustard oil.

Packing: I used cheese slices as an edible divider to keep the ham away from the corn chips, and put the moist cabbage and mustard sauce in disposable lidded condiment containers. I now realize I wasn’t thinking enough about the restriction on liquids and gels when I packed this; my in-laws were probably lucky they didn’t have problems with the mustard sauce in airport security.

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Published by Biggie on September 26th, 2007 tagged beans, bento, curry, glutenfree, meat, salad, sandwich or wrap | 40 Comments »

Shortcut tamagoyaki or Japanese rolled egg

Sometimes I’d like to have tamagoyaki (Japanese rolled omelette) at home, but just can’t be bothered to spend the time it takes to make the individual layers. A recent Orange Page magazine story on make-ahead bento lunches showed how to make a speedy shortcut version of tamagoyaki in a round frying pan with no rolling, so I was intrigued. Essentially molded scrambled eggs, I made this the other day when I was making dashimaki tamago for four people using eight eggs. This many eggs would ordinarily mean making two separate rolls the standard way, but that was just too much to deal with on a tight schedule. So I tried out the super-speedy version and was pleased with the result. I wouldn’t serve it to impress guests or anything, but it’s definitely a nice tool in the speedy bento lunch toolbox. I used my standard recipe for dashimaki tamago, but this method is actually easier with tamagoyaki as there’ll be less leakage when the egg rests on the cutting board (recipes and full tutorial for both dashimaki and tamagoyaki here).

Scramble eggs normally over medium heat until heated through but not dry (click on photo for a larger view of the moist curds).

Spread a large piece of plastic wrap out on a cutting board, and turn out the moist egg curds onto the plastic wrap while still hot moldable. Tightly wrap the egg with the plastic wrap, and use your hands to form it into a log shape that’s slightly larger than a regular tamagoyaki roll. Let it sit, tightly wrapped, for 10 minutes so that the egg sets up in the right shape. Unwrap and cut into slices.

You can also use a bamboo sushi mat (’makisu’) to push the egg into shape, as shown here.

Tip: You’ll get best results with this method if you prepare the more solid tamagoyaki as opposed to dashimaki tamago, but dashimaki is also doable. The excess liquid in dashimaki tamago will spill out of the plastic wrap after molding (also during molding if you’re not careful). After you unwrap it, just dry the entire egg log by blotting lightly with paper towels and slice as usual. You can also make a variation by reducing the amount of dashi in the egg mixture, thus reducing the amount of leakage at the end.
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Published by Biggie on September 20th, 2007 tagged eggs, glutenfree, lactose free, recipe, tips, tutorial or how to | 30 Comments »

Tamale box lunches

Costco has changed the brand of frozen tamales they sell, and now they’re light, fluffy, and delicious (better than the old kind they stocked, which were a little too dense and heavy). Frozen tamales are great to have on hand for a fast dinner or lunch, especially if you have a large microwave steamer. Just pop them in the microwave for a few minutes, let sit for another minute, and they’re ready. These actually start to approach the quality of homemade! Evidently they’re from Del Real Foods — very nice. (Disclaimer: I have no commercial affiliation with Del Real Foods or Costco.)

Contents of my lunch: Steamed chicken tamale with containers of spicy salsa Taquera and Greek yogurt, plum slices, blueberries, and salad with pitted cherries, pine nuts, fresh mint and feta cheese (plus homemade apple-balsamic vinaigrette). We ran out of crema (Hispanic sour cream), so yogurt was a fine stand-in.

Morning prep time: 6 minutes, using leftover tamale and salad. I packed the tamale the night before when cleaning up from dinner, so in the morning I sliced the plum and filled the sauce containers (I was out of pre-filled sauce containers with salad dressing).

Packing: Quick reminder to pack salad dressing separate from the salad itself in a container so you don’t have wilted, soggy salad at lunch. Yuck! Lunch packed in two 350ml tiers of a Lock & Lock lunch set.

Contents of preschooler lunch: Same as mine, with a slice of crisp Asian pear (nashi) and a little container of yogurt for the tamale.

Morning prep time: 5 minutes, using leftover tamale from dinner and leftover Asian pear from an earlier snack for Bug.

Packing: Packed in one 350ml tier of a Lock & Lock lunch set, and a 220ml metal container from the Daiso in Daly City, CA. Daiso is a great Japanese dollar store with branches internationally.

Contents of husband’s lunch: Grilled skate wing (a.k.a. ray or stingray) with Nonya-style sambal sauce on top, on a layer of rice. The left hand side holds more of the same salad that I had, plus a couple of cherry tomatoes. The chili ray is the last of the leftovers that I used earlier in the week in lunches for Bug and myself — my husband was happy to get another taste of the spicy ray after all the effort he put into making it! Delicious.

Morning prep time: 9 minutes, using all leftovers. I microwaved leftover cold rice to restore the texture, then removed the skate wing from the bones to make it easier to eat (my husband doesn’t have a lot of patience for deboning fish when eating on the run).

Packing: I packed the sauced skate wing right on top of the rice layer, with the rice absorbing a little bit of sauce (â€donburi bowl styleâ€ â€” it wasnâ€™t so liquidy that the rice became sodden). Packed in a 500ml Leaflet box with movable divider.

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