Archive for the 'vegetarian' Category

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Birthday cupcake

This is usually a bento blog, but I’m taking a quick break to post my son’s birthday cupcakes. This is my first venture into baking cupcakes — I usually cook, not bake. Anyway, I think they came out fine. They’re a spiced sour cream cupcake with pandan-flavored buttercream icing; blue to go with the Blues’ Clues theme.

Here’s the birthday boy looking apprehensive, but he was actually quite jazzed about the cupcakes.

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Published by Biggie on October 10th, 2006 tagged for kids, vegetarian | 9 Comments »

The pink pig returns!

Pig onigiri shaped with ice cream sandwich molds from Williams Sonoma (they also do triple duty as egg molds — see my prior post for details). My son happily ate everything in one sitting today — bento success! Not shown: plastic pick for the kiwi, and a small packet of Anpanman furikake. Packed in my small 260ml box.

pig-shaped onigiri with nori paste filling (Gohan Desu Yo! brand), topped with sakura denbu for the face and umeshiso paste for the eyes and nose
dashimaki tamago (tamagoyaki with dashi: step-by-step tutorial here)
kiwi

Mine has a couple of onigiri (one nori paste, one spicy tuna salad with furikake), tamago, cantalope, and tomato. Not shown: pick for the melon.

My husband said that the thermal lunch jar holds almost too much food for him, so I tried to lighten it up by packing a snack in one layer for noshing throughout the day. The curry is homemade green Thai curry with chicken, eggplant, carrots, purple beans, and Thai basil. The beans in the curry were dark purple when they were raw, but turned normal green in cooking. Interesting!

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Published by Biggie on August 23rd, 2006 tagged bento, curry, for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, onigiri or sushi, poultry, rice, thermal lunch jar, vegetarian | Comment now »

Quinoa salad x 3 bentos

Fighting the hot weather with some quinoa I had around from our year of gluten-free cooking. Three bentos today: this one was for my husband, with mine and my son’s behind the cut.

quinoa salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, orange bell pepper and asparagus
roast chicken
watermelon

Quinoa Salad Recipe: 1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 Tb or cube of dried bouillon (chicken or vegetable)
1 small tomato, seeded and diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, seeded and diced
1/3 cucumber, diced (I used an English cucumber, so no seeding necessary)
6 or so stalks of asparagus, sliced (tips reserved)
1 clove garlic, minced or put through a garlic press
dash of salt & fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
splash of black fig vinegar (optional)
less than 1/4 cup regular extra virgin olive oil
heavy splash of orange-flavored extra virgin olive oil (optional)

Prepare the quinoa according to the box directions (bring the quinoa, water and bouillon seasoning to a boil in a 1.5-quart saucepan, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the moisture evaporates, fluff with a fork). In the last 2 minutes of cooking, stir in the chopped asparagus. When the quinoa has finished cooking, stir in the asparagus tips. Put this all into a metal bowl by the window or cool place and allow to cool (fluffing periodically to help it cool)
Make any vinaigrette dressing you like in a separate small bowl, and adjust seasonings to taste. I used garlic, red wine vinegar, black fig vinegar, orange olive oil, regular EV olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. This would also be good with a splash of balsamic vinegar instead of black fig vinegar, or a squeeze of orange juice to bring out the orange olive oil. But play around and make your favorite.
To the cooled quinoa and asparagus, add the diced tomatoes, orange bell pepper, and diced cucumber. Add some of the vinaigrette dressing and stir. Taste and add more vinaigrette dressing as you feel necessary.