Archive for the 'potatoes' Category

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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 »

Spinach tamagoyaki lunch

I first heard the phrase “refrigerator velcro” from Alton Brown, describing dishes like potatoes and eggs that bind together all kinds of leftovers from the refrigerator. Frittatas, fried rice, and potato gratin are like that for me, accepting whatever is available. Tamagoyaki, or Japanese rolled egg omelette, can also incorporate fillings like sauteed vegetables, nori, kamaboko, fake crab, meat, etc. Just start your first layer of egg normally, and put a strip of filling down on the egg just before flipping the egg into that first roll. Build subsequent layers of egg as usual, and you’ll wind up with stuffed tamagoyaki (an easy vegetable delivery vehicle for children). If you have leftover food scraps from making bento decorations, they can easily go into this kind of egg dish. What’s your favorite refrigerator velcro dish?

Contents of preschooler’s lunch: Japchae Korean noodles (transparent potato starch noodles, carrots, onions and bell peppers), sweet potato simmered in mirin and soy sauce, cocktail sausages, and tamagoyaki Japanese rolled egg with sauteed spinach and onion in the middle (see my tutorials for traditional tamagoyaki and shortcut tamagoyaki). The smaller container holds frozen Thai fruit cocktail, with papaya, pineapple, guava and nata de coco. To make the spinach tamagoyaki, I quickly sauteed some bagged, chopped spinach and leftover grated onion in the tamagoyaki pan, then added the first bit of egg directly to the pan with sauteed vegetables in it to form the first inner layer.

Morning prep time: 10 minutes, using leftover sweet potatoes and deli noodles, and pre-frozen fruit cocktail. In the morning I quickly made the two-layer spinach tamagoyaki.

Packing: The frozen fruit cocktail acts as an edible ice pack that thawed by lunchtime and kept the rest of the lunch cool. Packed in a 270ml Thomas the Tank Engine bento box, with a 100ml side dish container and two little four-pronged cat picks from Daiso that my son picked out in the morning.

Verdict: Good, over time. Bug ate everything but the noodles at preschool, saying that he ran out of time. He inhaled the noodles in the car afterwards, though, picking the carrots strips out.

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Published by Biggie on October 29th, 2007 tagged bento, eggs, for kids, lactose free, meat, pasta or noodles, potatoes | 17 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 »

Strawberry tree fruit & curry lunches

I packed number of unusual fruits and vegetables in our meals today, the most interesting of which is the striking red fruit of the strawberry tree (”arbutus berries”). I haven’t seen this fruit in stores, but our friend Vincent from the African island of RÃ©union picked them from trees in the neighborhood with Bug. I find them faintly sweet and a bit mealy when eaten out of hand, but they make a very nice jam or couli. We didn’t have enough strawberry tree fruit to cook up into anything much, so into the bentos they went, to be eaten out of hand. Suite 101 tells us they can also be made into “jellies, syrups, candied fruit, distilled and fermented drinks, such as wines and liqueurs. In Spain, they’re made into a highly flavored wine, called medronho.”

Contents of preschooler lunch: Honeydew nectarine, strawberry tree fruit (arbutus berries), sliced cucumber with herb oil from marinated bocconcini (we shared this), and a curry that Vincent made with chicken, potatoes, banana squash, tomatoes, mushrooms, chili, coconut milk, peanut butter, lemongrass, and keffir lime leaves, simmered with Parmesan cheese rind for flavor complexity. This particular honeydew nectarine was disappointingly mealy, but another one we had a day early was sweet and medium-firm with (not surprisingly) a hint of melon. There’s an interesting article on fruit hybrids here.

Morning prep time: 10 minutes, to reheat leftover curry that Vincent made, and cut the nectarine and cucumber.

Packing: I pre-heated the thermal food jar with hot tap water before packing to maximize heat retention, and dipped the nectarine in lemon juice mixed with strawberry banana juice to prevent fruit from browning without making it sour. Packedin a 560ml insulated bento set (240ml rice jar and 160ml side dishes).

My meal is the same, minus the cucumber. Packed in a 300ml thermal food jar and a 190ml metal side dish container.

Contents of husband’s lunch: The same curry, pre-frozen gemelli pasta, plum tomatoes, broccoli and orange cauliflower florets with red wine vinaigrette, and a mini pudding cup. The orange cauliflower tasted just like regular white cauliflower to me; I bought it at Safeway so it should be widely available. (Pasta is pushed to one side for the photo only; I re-covered the curry with pasta after the photo was taken.)

Morning prep time: 10 minutes of mostly microwave time, to warm the curry, defrost the frozen unsauced pasta, and quickly cook the broccoli and orange cauliflower in my microwave mini steamer (speeds cook time by 50%).

Packing: This lunch features a variation of the “rice lid” technique that I first described here, where you pack a container mostly full of your stew or curry, and cap it with a layer of rice to keep things warm and intact until eating. We were out of cooked rice, so I pulled out a little packet of pre-frozen pasta and microwaved it to use instead. I had serious doubts that pasta would work as a lid, so we purposely tipped it on its side in the car to really put it to the test. Result: it actually kept the very thick curry in place without leaking out of the loose rice container lid, but this definitely wouldn’t work with a thinner broth. The top tier is divided by a little plastic gelato spoon that I kept from a gelato takeout shop. It did double duty as both food divider and spoon for the pudding; it’s the perfect size for box lunches so I wash and reuse it. Lunch packed in a cheap Chinese thermal lunch jar, bought locally.

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Published by Biggie on August 17th, 2007 tagged bento, curry, food jar, for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, pasta or noodles, potatoes, poultry, thermal lunch jar, tips | 7 Comments »

Homemade gnocchi box lunches

Bug and I made homemade gnocchi for dinner last night, which he really enjoyed as it was like playing with play dough (modeling clay). Involving your kids in meal prep can be a fun way to get them interested in their food, as well as being rewarding family time if you don’t stress about the meal being fast or perfect. Check out the James Beard Award-winning website Spatulatta.com for videos of kids teaching kids to cook; there’s a lot of quality material there, including the Spatulatta Cookbook.

Contents of preschooler lunch: Homemade gnocchi with pesto sauce, Bartlett pears, Concord grapes, pluot (plum apricot hybrid), and kiwi. The grapes turned out to be unpopular with Bug because of their seeds and thicker skin. I love their complex, almost wine-like flavor, though, so Bug fed them to me.

Morning prep time: 7 minutes, using leftover sauced gnocchi. In the morning I just microwaved the sauced gnocchi to restore texture, and cut up fruit. (I boiled uncooked gnocchi for my meal to see how the two differed.)

Packing: Everything is cut into bite-sized pieces for easy child eating. I dipped the cut pears in lemon juice mixed with strawberry banana juice to prevent the fruit from browning without the sour taste of straight lemon. A little pink Shokupanman pick was supposed to help with the pears, but they were so soft that a fork was a better utensil (they fell apart with the little pick). Packed in a cheap three-tier 495ml box from Daiso, closed with the elastic bento band shown here.

Cooking: We made the gnocchi with potatoes and flour — that’s it. Marcella Hazan, the Soup Nazi of Italian cookbook writers, gives good guidance on making gnocchi in her definitive cookbook Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Boil 1.5 lbs of boiling potatoes (I used Yukon Golds) with skins on, put them through a potato ricer or mouli while still warm, and work in about 1.5 cups of all-purpose flour until it gets to a soft Play Dough consistency. Flour the work surface and roll into long ropes of one inch in diameter, then cut ropes into 3/4-inch segments. Use the concave tines of a dinner fork to shape the gnocchi (or just poke them with your finger to make an indent that’ll catch the sauce). Cook the gnocchi in small batches in salted boiling water — pull them out 10 seconds after they float to the surface. Gently sauce and eat. Check out the gnocchi recipes and tutorials by Simply Recipes and Cook (Almost) Anything Once.

My lunch: I set aside some shaped but uncooked gnocchi last night to test the difference between leftover cooked/sauced gnocchi and freshly cooked gnocchi in our box lunches. Result: the gnocchi I boiled this morning had a nicer texture but lost a little of their defined shape through the overnight rest in the refrigerator (next time will try freezing them). The refrigerated cooked/sauced gnocchi was fine but not optimal, and needed to be tossed with a little fresh pesto sauce in the morning before packing.

Morning prep time: Because I boiled my gnocchi fresh this morning in a small pot, it took about 15 minutes to make this lunch.

Packing: Packed in two 350ml tiers of a Lock & Lock lunch set, with the drink container holding banana-strawberry juice cut with water.

(Edit: After making this, I discovered that Donna Hay’s blog was having a gnocchi roundup, so I submitted it forÂ HHDD#14, hosted this time by Cafe Lynnylu. You can see the full gnocchi roundup here, posted Aug. 25, 2007.)

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