Archive for the 'beans' Category

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Pork sopes

Contents: Homemade pork sopes with refried beans, pork with chile verde, monterey jack cheese, salsa in the little sauce container and Greek yogurt in the squeeze bottle shaped like an egg (we’re out of crema). The portion to the left has a boiled egg shaped like a fish, cheese triangle, sugar snap peas, carrots and watermelon.

Prep time: 20 minutes total for three lunches (making just one lunch would probably have taken 10-12 minutes). I made the sopes with all leftovers, so the most time-consuming part was frying the thick tortillas with thick edges (store-bought in sope form) and assembly. I ran them under the broiler to melt the cheese, making them more stable for packing. You can use all kinds of toppings for sopes — they’re quite versatile. Get creative! The shaped egg was the last of a batch I made earlier this week, so that was in the fridge in a mold.

Packing: I packed this large lunch (actually dinner) for my husband in a 940ml box, and put the juicy watermelon in a tiny lidded container to contain juices that might get on the sopes and make them soggy. Basically, packing this meal was an exercise in gap-filling, using sauce containers and hard veggies.

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Published by Biggie on May 17th, 2007 tagged beans, bento, corn tortillas or masa, for kids, glutenfree, meat | 31 Comments »

Peas and egg scramble lunches

Morning prep time: 8 minutes. Last night we had yakisoba (Japanese fried noodles with meat and veggies), so after dinner I pre-packed our boxes with the leftover noodles. This morning all I had to do was slice some fruit, and make a quick egg scramble with frozen peas to round out our lunches. Here’s Bug’s lunch, with the orange slices cut next to the rind to make it easy for little hands to eat.

Because the finished dish is going to sit at room temperature until lunch, Japanese bento cookbooks advise stirring the eggs with chopsticks like this until they’re broken up and thoroughly heated through for optimum food safety. This presents some packing complications, however. If you pack this loose egg dish with other food in a non-divided container where the lid doesn’t touch the food, the eggs/peas will roll all over everything else. My divided Lock & Lock container (below) was perfect for this, but I wound up needing to put a little “surprise animal cap” over Bug’s eggs after I took the photo. Wrapping the smaller sub-container in plastic wrap would provide the same stabilizing effect, just not as much fun.

Another tip I picked up from a Japanese bento cookbook was to use little individual servings of coffee creamer (or half & half) when making a small amount of eggs for a packed lunch. It gives a nicer flavor to the eggs than plain milk, but I don’t usually have cream or half & half in the house. It seems like a waste to buy a large container of cream just for a few eggs, so I pocketed a couple of these from a restaurant where they came with my coffee.

My lunch is the same, with a couple of strawberries. In a minor Leftover Remake, the fried noodles also incorporate Moroccan grilled lamb from dinner the other night, as well as bacon, zucchini, carrots, cabbage, onion, red bell pepper, green onions and beni shoga (pickled red ginger). Packed in a 350ml container, this was too small for me according to the bento box size guidelines , but I packed light as I knew we’d be shopping at Costco after lunch, where Bug and I snack on samples.

Quick speed equipment note: a nonstick mini fry pan and mini spatula are very convenient for cooking small amounts of lunch food (saves on cleanup too). Years ago I received a little 8″ frying pan in a cookware set as a wedding present, but I’ve started looking at it in a new light since working through a Japanese cookbook about making your child’s entire bento in just one mini frying pan (”Mini Fry Pan Hitotsu de Mainichi Tsukaeru Enji no Obento“, full review in my write-up of children’s bento books). Very handy.

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Published by Biggie on April 25th, 2007 tagged beans, bento, equipment, for kids, leftover remake, meat, pasta or noodles, recipe, tips | 24 Comments »

Lamb stew, Hoppin’ John bentos

I got the Daisy Cooks! cookbook for Christmas and have started experimenting. Her yellow rice was really standout (but best to cut back on the salt), as was the chicken with figs (photo soon). I’ve now got homemade sofrito in the fridge/freezer and achiote oil in the pantry, so I’m due for a Puerto Rican cooking frenzy! My son had some New Year’s leftovers:

Hoppin’ John (black eyed peas, rice, ham and veggies)
Puerto Rican yellow rice
ham
the requisite cheese cubes

Here’s another bento from last month — I’ve been lazy about photographing and posting our bentos lately. It’s all homemade except for the pita chips.

Macedonian lamb stew with spinach and vermicelli in the food jar to keep it hot
Southern cornbread (not sweet)
pita chips
hummus

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Published by Biggie on January 6th, 2007 tagged beans, bento, corn tortillas or masa, food jar, for kids, meat, pasta or noodles, rice | Comment now »

Barbequed brisket lunch

Well, my husband’s back to work (no more jury duty) but my son is sick at home — so we’re down to one adult bento today. Happily, we spent yesterday making Texas barbeque, so plenty of leftovers made with care. There was homemade potato salad as well, but putting a cold mayo dish in the thermal lunch jar with warm dishes seemed like a fast ticket to the emergency room.

barbequed brisket — my husband’s pride and joy (cooked for 10 hours or so) Lined the bowl with Press N Seal so as not to damage the bowl when I nuked it.
barbequed beans (cooked for 5.5 hours)
homemade cole slaw
Texas toast (with containers of homemade barbeque sauce for the brisket)

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Published by Biggie on September 25th, 2006 tagged beans, lactose free, meat, salad, thermal lunch jar | Comment now »

Rendezvous rib bento

Yesterday my husband made pork babyback ribs in the style of Memphis’ Rendezvous restaurant — very nostalgic for him. Not a fancy bento today, but maximum flavor and happiness. Also: barbequed beans with extra bacon, onions, molasses, etc. and a sauce pig of chipotle barbeque sauce that probably won’t get opened (he loves these dry ribs!). Not shown: a slice of plain white bread under the ribs, two oshibori packed outside the box for clean-up, and a lid to the bean container. Packed in my deep Chinese box to fit the ribs.

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