Archive for the 'corn tortillas or masa' Category

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Global grilled cheese lunches

There are so many different ways to make grilled cheese. Grilled panini, quesadillas, pupusas, croque monsieur, Welsh rarebit, cheese on toast — you name it. My three-year-old’s current favorite is a grilled cheese sandwich made in a waffle iron, an idea we found in Toddler Café: Fast, Healthy, and Fun Ways to Feed Even the Pickiest Eater (one of the cookbooks in my growing collection). Today’s lunches took us south of the border, with cheese and bean-stuffed pupusas made with corn masa, and cheese quesadillas on a flour tortilla. These are fun in a bento lunch if you’re okay with room-temperature grilled cheese, as they hold together as easy finger food for the younger set.

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Mini crab cakes (Handy brand from Costco, reviewed earlier), grilled asparagus with a sesame-soy glaze (recipe from Steven Raichlen’s How to Grill), raspberries, and pupusa wedges filled with bean and cheese. These were smaller slices of full-sized pupusas from a restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission district, but I’ve made mini pupusas for lunch before with assorted leftovers like pulled pork and cheese. I would have liked to include a non-spicy dipping sauce like crema sour cream, but the school lunchroom restrictions at his preschool rule out liquid dairy due to a food allergy.

Morning prep time: 8 minutes, using frozen crab cakes, leftover asparagus and pupusas. In the morning I heated the crab cakes in the microwave, the pupusa in my convection toaster oven, and cut the pupusa and asparagus into bite-sized pieces for little hands. (Read on for details and an additional quesadilla lunch.)

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Published by Biggie on April 10th, 2008 tagged bento, corn tortillas or masa, fish or seafood, for kids, sandwich or wrap, vegetarian | 19 Comments »

A trio of kid bentos

Looking back, I realize I haven’t been packing as many adult bento lunches lately as I’ve been focusing on cranking out Bug’s daily preschool meals in time to run out the door. Over the past month I’ve gotten more comfortable with our new morning routine, though, so I think I’m about ready to restart making my lunches in conjunction with his. Today we have a backlog of three of my three-year-old’s lunches; stay tuned for more of the mother/son lunches, the variations adjusting for different appetites and cuteness levels.

Contents of Wednesday preschooler lunch: Mac and cheese with grilled red peppers and green onions, wasabi and green onion smashed potatoes, grilled mushrooms, pineapple sausage, and sliced persimmon. This meal is too carb-heavy for my liking, but there you go.

Morning prep time: 7 minutes, using all leftovers except sausage and persimmons. A friend had left some mac and cheese at our house from feeding her one-year-old, so I nuked this with a splash of water to restore texture, chopped some leftover grilled peppers and green onions (scallions), and packed. I sliced and heated the sausage through in the microwave for maximum food safety.

Packing: I used a plastic food divider to separate the savory sausage and mushrooms from the sweet persimmon slices. (You can also use edible food dividers, or wash and reuse the plastic food dividers.) The lunch is packed in a 360ml Disney Cars bento box, which in turn went into an insulated Shinkansen lunch bag with a wide base designed to carry bento boxes flat, not tipped over on the side. I got the lunch bag at the Sanrio store in Stonestown Mall in San Francisco for US$15. (Click any photo for a larger view.)

Verdict: Good over time. Bug left a third of the mac & cheese, and half of the mashed potatoes. I guessed his body knew when to stop on the carbs!!!

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Contents of Thursday preschooler lunch: Pork tamale with husk removed, slice of crisp Fuyu persimmon, and apple wedges. No vegetables, though — I fell short.

Morning prep time: 6 minutes. I used frozen tamales, so was able to cook one quickly in a microwave steamer and slice the fruit in the morning.

Packing: To make the tamale as easy to eat as possible and avoid lunchtime frustration at preschool, I removed the corn husk wrapper before packing and cut up the tamale in the box. At home Bug usually likes some crema or yogurt with his tamale, but because his preschool has an allergy policy ruling out liquid dairy (milk, yogurt, etc.) I skipped the sauce altogether. While Bug is unimpressed with persimmon when it’s cut into wedges, for some reason he’ll eat it up when it’s cut crosswise like this to showcase the inside pattern (go figure!). I dipped the apple wedges in lemon juice mixed with Splenda before packing to keep the fruit from browning, and perched the persimmon slice on top. The lunch is packed in one 350ml tier of a Lock & Lock lunch set, and a 150ml Anpanman side dish container.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Bug ate everything but a couple of apple wedges at preschool, then downed the apples at a playground afterwards as a snack.

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Contents of Friday preschooler lunch: Chicken drumstick, frozen spaghetti cup, grilled mushrooms and red bell peppers, grape tomatoes, and green beans with vinaigrette.

Morning prep time: 9 minutes, using leftover roast chicken from Costco, frozen pasta from my emergency freezer stash, and leftover mushrooms/peppers. In the morning I made one dish in the mini microwave steamer: the green beans.

Packing: I wrapped the end of the drumstick in decorative aluminum foil to make a clean â€œhandleâ€, and used a little cow-shaped reusable plastic food cup (from Daiso) for the mushrooms/peppers. A reusable silicone baking cup squished into the remaining available space to held the green beans, and I plugged the gap with little tomatoes to keep the lunch stable during transport. Lunch packed in a 470ml Afternoon Tea box without the removable divider, to accommodate the drumstick.

Verdict: Too much food, and Bug burned out on the mushrooms and bell peppers that keep reappearing in his lunches. He demolished the chicken, green beans and most of the spaghetti, but left the mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes. If I were to redo this lunch, I could have done a leftover remake with the mushrooms and peppers by putting them into a mini gratin, mini frittata, fried rice, mashed potato or squash. Having at least one big divider in the box would have helped contain leftovers for after-school snacking, though — his leftovers slid all over the inside of the box, making them unappetizing.

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Published by Biggie on November 9th, 2007 tagged bento, corn tortillas or masa, for kids, lactose free, meat, pasta or noodles, potatoes, poultry | 14 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 »

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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Published by Biggie on August 31st, 2007 tagged bento, corn tortillas or masa, curry, fish or seafood, for kids, glutenfree, poultry, rice, salad | 10 Comments »

Tamalon and chili lunches

Welcome to new readers finding their way here from recent Boing Boing and Neatorama writeups of Lunch in a Box! Feel free to comment with any questions you may have — I do my best to reply to everyone.

Contents of preschooler lunch: Homemade chili with black beans, a slice of homemade tamalon (big tamal roll, details below) with Salvadorean chorizo and leftover purple kale, chipotle lime cream (recipe here) for the tamalon, plus cheese and a lime wedge for the chili.

Morning prep time: 5 minutes, using dinner leftovers. Morning prep was limited to microwaving the leftover chili and tamalon, and packing the leftover condiments.

Packing: I pre-warmed the thermal food jar with hot tap water while I prepped the lunch. Not pictured is the surprise animal cap that I used to cover and contain the little silicone cup full of grated cheese. In the past I’ve used these little animal caps (equipment photo here) to add a little fun or cover up something visually uninteresting, but today I found that they can be utilitarian as well — to keep loose food items from rolling around within the container without using plastic wrap. (OT, hooray for a waste-free lunch! It’s not something I always achieve, but it’s a good goal to aim for.) The lunch is loosely packed in a 560ml insulated bento set that kept the chili warm and the chipotle cream cool, thanks to a tiny ice pack cut from a flexible ice blanket (US$2.50 at Target). You can achieve the same effect with a commonly available food jar (think Thermos Funtainers in the kids’ lunch section) and a small regular container in an insulated lunch bag.

Contents of my lunch: Same as Bug’s lunch, but with the addition of a frozen mini pudding cup (Kiku brand) next to the chipotle cream and cheese to keep them cool and safe. This was actually yesterday’s test lunch for my post on edible ice packs, to see if the pudding texture suffered with the freezing. (It didn’t, by the way.)

Packing: Packed in a 300ml thermal food jar and 350ml Asvel box with one sub-container removed.

Cooking: The most interesting dish is the sliced tamalon, or big tamal roll, that I made for company over the weekend (a recipe is here). A tamalon is essentially a huge multi-person tamale with the ‘filling’ mixed throughout, wrapped in a damp kitchen towel and steamed in a huge tamale steamer (or Thai steamer) for over an hour. Unwrap it and eat with salsa or a juicy main dish. I first saw this on Rick Bayless’ Mexican cooking show, and then made a few from his informative Mexican Kitchen cookbook last year when I catered a party for 30 people. Much easier than filling and wrapping individual tamales for 30!!! I got my 14-inch stacked aluminum steamer very cheaply at a local Asian market a few years back, but I think the store must have marked the price wrong because they now sell the same one at about the same price as Amazon. The chili with black beans was an adaptation of a recipe in The New Best Recipe from Cook’s Illustrated (recipe here for people with paid online subscriptions to Cook’s).