Veggie bento #7 - Straight from the freezer bento

It’s thanks to my habit of freezing things that I was able to construct today’s lunch. I’ve been rather low on time lately, and planning and putting together bentos has been a struggle - hence the dearth of posts. However, a quick rummage in the freezer allowed me to put the box below together in just a few minutes.

Here’s what’s in it:

• 100g cooked sushi rice (defrosted overnight)
• 1-2 tbsp petits pois
• Carrot rounds (these were poached in orange juice, chilli and soy before freezing)
• Bean burger  
• Roasted butternut squash (leftover from last night’s dinner)

When I woke up this morning I packed the defrosted rice into my bento box and topped it with frozen peas, arranged the squash into one of the smaller compartments and popped a bean burger and some carrot rounds into the other. It took me five minutes, and can easily be reheated in the microwave at work. However, you could also microwave the various elements before putting them in the box.

Meaty bento #5 - Chili and cornbread

Sometimes life gets busy and you don’t have a lot of time for planning and preparing bento lunches. This is a great example of how you can use leftovers to prepare a cute bento – any stew and bread will do.

For my bento I used:

• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 portion chili con carne
• 50g rice
•  1 piece cornbread

I used the base of the removable section of the bento box to cut a half-moon of cornbread, then cut it in half to make a reasonable portion.

Because this bento box is rather deep, and to ensure a veggie element, I layered the bottom of both sections with chopped carrot, then on one side I added the chili, topped with a circle of cheese with nori to make a smiley face. On the other, I put the cornbread (with roasted chilli stripes) and some rice. The whole thing took me about 10 minutes to put together.

An even quicker version, which I made for my friend, was two tortillas folded into triangles and placed in a takeaway box with a portion of chili topped with cheese smiley faces.

Cute and quick, see.

Fish bento #7 creamy trout pasta

The other week I bought some lovely fresh trout and since then, I've been thinking of ways to incorporate it into a bento. Fishcakes seemed to pedestrian, and I have the tail end of a bag of pasta to work through, so I thought I'd try this out.

Is it a bento, or is it just pasta salad? I don't know. I like to think the attention to presentation, combination of colours and balanced nutritional factors makes it a bento, but thinking of it as plain old pasta salad doesn't make it any less delicious.

The other thing is, it's very quick!

Step 1 = poach a trout fillet (I poached an entire trout) in water until cooked. You need one fillet per person. Once cooked and slightly cooled, skin and flake your fish and and put into a bowl.

Step 2 = cook your pasta. I used farfalle. Towards the end of the cooking time, I added 2tbsp frozen garden peas for extra colour and diversity (and I love peas!).

Step 3 = make the sauce. Just mix 2tbsp of plain yoghurt with one of the following:

1/2 tsp horseradish
or
1 clove crushed garlic + 1/2 teaspoon dill
or
1/2 teaspoon wasabi

Step 4 = when the pasta and peas are cooked, drain them and combine with the flaked trout and creamy sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste and top with halved cherry tomatoes.