Vegetarian bento #4 - Greek Salad

One of my favourite songs to listen to in summer is Rufus Wainwright's Greek Song (I am listening now as I type!), which is the inspiration for this bento - warm weather, beautiful people, cocktail glasses pearled with drops of water and colourful salads for lunch.Best of all, it's unbelievably simple.

For the top layer, I used some cucumber, cherry tomatoes, leftover feta and black olives

Those are pretty much the ingredients of a Greek salad, of course, but I have LOADS of lettuce from my veg box which needs to be used up before I go away tomorrow afternoon, so in the bottom layer I put a generous handful of lettuce and a little panda pot full of homemade lemon dressing.

Lemon dressing

(makes 4 little pots)

2 dessert spoons olive oil
juice of half a lemon
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp parsley (freshly chopped or dried)
salt
pepper

Put all your ingredients into a clean jar and shake vigorously, then decant into pots as you need it.

Vegetarian bento #3 - Broad bean risotto

Summer is making its first tentative steps into the UK, which suddenly gives me the urge to eat all things light and green. In my most recent food box, I received some lovely broad beans and I wanted to make the most of them.

Of course, 'light' isn't an adjective one usually uses to describe risotto, but I have found a great way of lightening it.

Here is how I made today's dish. This recipe is meant to serve four for dinner, but it works out at about six servings in my little geisha bento and I found that filling enough even after a workout!

Broad bean risotto

1 dessert spoon vegetable oil
2 celery stalks or 3 spring onions
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
200g aroborio or carnaroli rice
100ml dry white wine (I used sparkling)
1l vegetable stock
100g broad beans
30g parmesan, grated

Put the oil in a pan and gently fry your celery or spring onions and your onion on a low heat. At this point, put your stock in another pan, and keep it warm on a very low heat.

After a minute or two, add the rice and garlic, and stir for 5-7 minutes - the rice and venegetable shouldn't get brown, but it should start to become translucent, and the pot should start feeling hot. Pour in the wine - it should really sizzle - and stir. Once the wine is absorbed, start adding the stock a ladleful at a time, waiting until one batch is absorbed before adding the next. About ten minutes before the rice is ready (when you're down to your last 3 ladles), add the broad beans. When the rice is cooked, take the risotto off the heat, add the grated parmesan and stir it in vigorously for 2-3 minutes. You should now have something nice, glossy, and not too rich to put on your plates!


For the bento, I put some risotto in one section:

and filled the other one with lettuce and cucumber slices - I just love the combination of warm risotto and cool salad, but perhaps that is just me being weird....

Un peu de village life

As you may be aware, I live in London, one of the world’s biggest cities. Not only that, I am a devoted city dweller, who tends to prefer enjoying the countryside in transit – i.e. from the window of a train while whizzing from one city to the next.

So, it’s probably quite surprising that I decided to spend five days staying with a friend’s family in a village in Central France. 5 days without theatres/cinemas/galleries/nightlife. How did I manage it? Well, it was quite lovely! This is the house - isn't it gorgeous?

Mix and match bento #1

This is a mix and match bento because while my version has meat in it, it doesn’t have to. I just used what I had to hand – you could easily swap in some tofu or more veggies or whatever you fancy, or leave that element out altogether.

It’s still really grey and muggy here in London and I’ve been trying to find dishes that fulfil my need for stodge, but are still healthy enough for Weight Watchers. And on top of this, I want my meals to look summery. Yes, I am demanding!

Today’s bento has a roasted vegetable salad and a lot of protein in the form of cheese and a pigeon breast :) I need to fill up today, it's Tuesday and I have exercise planned before lunch, and an 8km walk after work (and before dinner). 

Top layer: This aubergine salad by Abel and Cole is simply delicious. I adjusted the oil quantities in the dressing to reduce the WW points and left out the red onion because I forgot, but it still tastes really good and is probably less, um, fragrant, if you know what I mean. 

Bottom layer: I dusted a pigeon breast with lemon zest, salt and pepper, pan fried it and sliced it up. I then filled the box up with shredded gem lettuce and added 30g of cheese to go with my apple for dessert. 

The whole thing (30g cheese included) came to a modest 7 WW points and I felt very full after eating it, so mission accomplished!