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.

Vegetarian bento #5 - Hangover bento

As a devotee of porridge in all its forms, I have been wanting to try this recipe for ages, and the UK Bank Holiday weekend provided an excellent opportunity.

I'm sure anyone who is even remotely interesting has experienced what I generally refer to as a cumulative hangover. It's what occurs when you start partying on Thursday night, average roughly three hours sleep each night and go clubbing with people who buy beer in jugs, and keep going until the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

Following on of these fun binges, I generally feel like consuming fewer calories and concocting less complicated lunches than normal. This usually means I end up hanging over a bowl of soup, but today, in honour of my new food flask, I decided to try rice porridge, as described by Maki Otoh (my bento guru!) .

This bento takes a bit of planning, but the effort involved is minimal and you can wander off and leave it while you drink water/stand under a cold shower/curse the world's wine-producing nations/gulp Berocca.

For my bento, I put 60g sushi rice and two tbsp dried adzuki beans into a pint jug and filled it to the top with water, then left it overnight to soak. 

In the morning, I crawled out of bed, tipped the whole lot into a pan with a good pinch of salt and brought it to the boil while making myself a cup of tea. Then I turned the heat right down and crawled back to bed. When it was time for me to shower (about 40mins later) I checked the pan to make sure it hadn’t dried out (you want this to be the consistency of breakfast porridge) and hopped in the shower. 

When I was ready to leave the house, I tipped half the mixture into my thermos, half into a takeaway box for the freezer, grabbed some toppings (chopped green onions, sesame salt, a pickled plum) and headed to the office. By lunchtime, it was just the right kind of warm – it’s also filling and comforting and totally guilt free.

Meaty bento #3 - Texan steak

 This week’s lunches are looking pretty carb-free: would you believe it’s simply because I am TOO LAZY to cook rice? But honestly, folks, that is the long and the short of it. I simply haven’t the time or commitment required to cook rice! Appalling, I know. Another factor keeping me away from the rice is the heat: it has been pretty hot here, which makes me crave lots of fruit, protein and veggies and less starch/carbs. 

The most labour-intensive part of the bento was the green bean stew. I get organic food boxes delivered fortnightly and to make sure the vegetables don’t rot before I have time to eat them, I cook them up and freeze them. This recipe took about an hour, but since I was doing it anyway I thought it would make a great addition to my bento.  

And now, a confession: I really have no idea what makes this steak Texan, but I think it is the marinade. I bought it pre-seasoned from Abel & Cole and I'm guessing it has some species of bbq sauce on it. So, if you want to replicate this, I suggest you marinate your steak in bbq sauce. But teriyaki would also be nice.

 The advantage of the steak is that it is thin-sliced, so it took less than five minutes to cook. I heated up the frying pan and dry-fried it for about two minutes on each side and it was cooked through, so you could probably even cook it for a little less if you want your steak rare (I did, but I got distracted!).

To go with the steak, I made a tamagoyaki – something I am getting so much more adept at these days – and a salad of grated carrot with a little tahini, soy sauce and honey. The green stuff is chopped cucumber grown in a colleague’s garden – so nice on a hot day! 

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....