Archive for the 'beans' Category

(Chronologically Listed)

Tocino and simit sesame bread lunches

Contents of preschooler lunch: Sesame bread (Turkish simit or Greek koulouri), Filipino pork tocino (sweet cured pork), grape tomatoes, wrapped cheese triangle, and Sabra roasted garlic hummus from Costco. This was from the first batch of tocino I’ve cooked (from a frozen package); it was sweet like longanisa sausage and Bug downed it happily (he passed on the traditional vinegar accompaniment). Next time I’ll try packing it with some fried rice and fried egg to make Filipino comfort food…

Morning prep time: 3 minutes, using all leftovers.

Packing: I tucked a little pick into the center compartment for the pork, and the box’s built-in dividers and watertight lid contained the thick hummus without leaking. Lunch packed in one 350ml tier of a Lock & Lock lunch set.

Contents of my lunch: Sandwich of hummus, ham and thinly sliced cucumber on Turkish sesame bread. Venezuelan eggplant, grapes, and grape tomatoes.

Morning prep time: 5 minutes, using leftover eggplant.

Packing: The tiny tomatoes act as gap fillers to stabilize the lunch during transport, and the eggplant went into a reusable silicone baking cup to keep it away from the grapes. This was a bit of a poor choice on my part, as the lunch got shaken around before eating, and some of the oil from the eggplant leaked out of the cup. It didn’t get on the rest of the food, but with a little more shaking it probably would have. If I were to repack this, I’d either put the eggplant in a disposable lidded plastic cup or drain and dry the eggplant before packing it in the silicone cup. Packed in a 500ml Leaflet box with movable divider.

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Published by Biggie on October 23rd, 2007 tagged beans, bento, for kids, lactose free, meat, sandwich or wrap | 9 Comments »

Seafood soup lunches

In an effort to get through my photo backlog before Bug’s first day of preschool on Monday, here are some remains of a lovely Peruvian meal from Fina Estampa restaurant in San Francisco. The standout was aguadito de mariscos, a shellfish soup with cilantro sauce, rice and white wine. I packed my soup in a little thermal bento set, which is handy in that the lid of the thermos lifts off instead of screwing off, so it’s easy for little hands to open. Although similar sets sell here and here for about US$40 (ouch), you can duplicate this setup on the cheap by using a thermal food jar and separate bento box packed in an insulated lunch bag to take both hot and cold foods at the same time.

Contents of my lunch: Aguadito de mariscos (shellfish soup with cilantro sauce, rice and white wine), pink beans with sofrito, smoked ham, mustard sauce and fresh pineapple. The mustard sauce recipe is from Cookâ€™s Illustratedâ€™s The New Best Recipe, and the beans with sofrito is from Daisy Cooks! (The Cook’s recipe link works if you subscribe to their online edition).

Morning prep time: 5 minutes, using all leftovers.

Packing: I preheated the food jar with hot tap water while heating the soup in the microwave. Packedin a 560ml insulated bento set (240ml rice jar and 160ml side dishes).

Contents of Bug’s lunch: Yellow rice with Peruvian beef and vegetables, wrapped cheese triangle, and fresh pineapple.

Morning prep time: 5 minutes, using all leftovers.

Packing: I cut the beef and vegetables small for easy preschooler eating, then mixed it in with the rice and microwaved briefly to restore the texture of the refrigerated rice. A little plastic food divider (bought at Daiso in Daly City, US$1.50 for a good-size assorted pack). Packed in a 270ml one-tier Thomas the Tank Engine box with the hard plastic sub-containers removed to fit all the rice.

Contents of my husband’s lunch: The same as mine, with TastyBite-brand Jaipur vegetable curry (from a ready-to-eat pouch).

Packing: Instead of using a separate sauce container, I decided to take advantage of the secure built-in dividers in the Lock & Lock container and spoon the mustard sauce in right next to the ham. It worked out fine; the viscous sauce didn’t jump compartments, and it gave each bite of ham good flavor. Packed in a 300ml thermal food jar and one 350ml tier of a Lock & Lock lunch set.

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Published by Biggie on September 29th, 2007 tagged beans, bento, fish or seafood, food jar, for kids, meat, rice, soup or stew | 2 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 | 36 Comments »

Make-ahead lunch tips from Japanese magazine

A recent issue of Japanese cooking magazine Orange Page (529,447 circulation) featured a cover story on make-ahead bentos with zero morning prep aside from assembly. Now when they say make-ahead, they’re assuming that you have fresh rice, but you could also make this ahead of time and freeze in rice ball form or in the shape of your lunch container. Because the leftovers are already cold from the refrigerator, you can speed up your morning prep even more because you don’t have to let the entire lunch cool before closing the lid (for optimum packed lunch food safety). I’ve summarized the article below with general tips and recipe titles; click on either photo for an annotated view with English translations (edit: first photo link now fixed).

1. Retain flavor with oil-based sauces
(After cooking, cool, then store in the refrigerator together with the sauce. Drain before packing in a bento. Keeps for 2-3 days in the fridge.)

Mini hamburgers with oil-based sauce (salad oil, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, mirin and soy)
Beef and eggplant stir-fry
Chicken breast and green peppers grilled with sauce of miso, salad oil, sake and sugar
Stir-fry of pork and kinoko mushrooms with ketchup sauce (olive oil, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce)

2. Retain flavor with vinegar-based sauces
(Cook, cool, transfer to a storage container together with the sauce, and store in refrigerator. Drain properly before packing in bento lunch. Keeps in refrigerator for 2-3 days.

Japanese fried chicken (’kara-age’) with Asian pickling sauce (vinegar, soy, sesame oil, sake, sugar)
Swordfish with julienned carrot in curry pickling sauce (vinegar, mirin, soy, curry powder and salt)
Chicken breast with ume sauce (pickled plum, vinegar, mirin, soy)
Eggs simmered in abura-age soybean pouches (sauce: vinegar, Worcestershire sauce)

3. Make egg omelettes ahead of time
(Frittatas and tamagoyaki Japanese rolled omelette — make, cool, slice, and store in little containers in the fridge or freezer. To store in freezer, wrap individual servings in plastic wrap and put into a freezer bag. To pack a frozen serving, just you can either allow it to defrost in the refrigerator first before packing, or just pack it frozen in the bento box if you allow a few hours for it to defrost naturally. Will keep in the freezer for 2-3 weeks, or for 2 days in the refrigerator. Tamagoyaki tutorial here, and tutorial for a frittata using leftover pasta here.)

Tamagoyaki with sardines and mitsuba herb
Tamagoyaki with ’sakura-ebi’ dried shrimp and leeks
Tamagoyaki with flaked salmon and watercress
Frittata with ham and ‘eringi’ oyster mushroom
Frittata with ground beef and red bell pepper
Frittata with tuna and corn

4. Add volume with potato salad and pasta salad
(Pasta salad tip: After boiling the pasta, quickly drain and toss it with salt, pepper and a little vinegar to add flavor)

Potato salad with cucumbers, ham and onions
Potato salad with tarako (cod roe)
Potato salad with cream cheese and walnuts
Macaroni salad with cucumber, onions and sliced cheese
Macaroni salad with fake crab and broccoli
Macaroni salad with sausage and cabbage

5. Use dry pantry items for a “healthy, delicious menu”

Simmered soybeans (Japanese style, Italian style with tomatoes and sausage, “ethnic style” with green beans)
Simmered hijiki (Japanese style with carrots and abura-age soy wrappers, Western style with bacon and ‘renkon’ lotus root, or Korean style with tofu and nira leeks
Simmered daikon radish strips (Japanese style with carrots and kamaboko, Western style with corn and red bell pepper, or Chinese style with Chinese pickles)

6. Vegetable side dishes
(As with many bento cookbooks, these are separated by color for when you pack according to the 5-color rule of thumb.)

Red/orange: Marinated carrots with lemon and honey, pickled carrots with garlic, fried red bell peppers, red bell peppers with ground peanuts, cherry tomatoes marinated in herb oil, radish slices pickled with ginger
Green: Cole slaw, pickled cabbage and ginger, green beans with ground sesame seeds, long-simmered green beans, bell pepper strips with bonito flakes and soy sauce (’okaka’), fried bell pepper with shichimi pepper, broccoli with ’sakura-ebi’ dried shrimp, and Chinese cabbage (’komatsuna’) with spicy mayonnaise sauce

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Published by Biggie on September 18th, 2007 tagged beans, bento, eggs, fish or seafood, leftover remake, meat, potatoes, poultry, rice, tips, tofu | 27 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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