Bento round up again.

As mentioned, there has been no time to blog lately. So here is a round up of some bentos from the past week.

Bento #22

Bento #22

This one has a nectarine with some cinnamon and a green tea muffin in the top compartment.

In the bottom there is a brown rice onigiri sprinkled with gomashio, some broccoli, and a chicken parmesan mini burger.

We are getting some excellent Norwegian broccoli these days!

Bento #23

Bento #23

This one has some left over apple cake, carrot sticks and store bought Thai fish cakes in the big compartment. The fish cakes are still frozen, but tha by lunch time.

In the small compartment, a heart shaped onigiri, broccoli and a nectarine.

Bento #24

Bento #24

In the top compartment, a tofu shiitake burger, carrots and a mango coconut muffin.

In the bottom compartment, two leek dumplings, some more carrots, some nectarine and a blueberry agar agar.

This was a very good one! Those tofu burgers are a lot of work, but totally worth it.

Bento #25

This last one doesn’t look so pretty, but it was really excellent.

The left compartment has some carrot kinpira, some panisse and a veggie burger made from this burger mix.

The right compartment has a pear ginger muffin, some edamame and some fresh pineapple. Tasty!

No posts this week…

I have been busy this week for all kinds of reasons, mainly the fact that my hubby came back from abroad and it’s summer and we have been trying to take advantage of the lovely weather when I haven’t been working. We went out with my stepdad today in his boat, and I swam in the sea for the first time this year. Lovely!

I have made some bentos that I will try to upload soon, and some other baking projects. I made this blueberry lemon poppyseed bread on Thursday (yum!), which I served my colleagues for our Friday afternoon coffee. I also baked an apple cake and some mango coconut muffins. I have been forgetting to take photos, however…

I made a very exciting discovery today at the great health food store in the new part of the Sandvika Storsenter mall, namely vegan white chocolate (link)! It was even marked down because of the use by date, but it’s not expiring for another month.

This is great, because now the hubby will also be able to eat my green tea white chocolate cupcakes, and the fabulous white chocolate butter cream in general. The white chocolate has real vanilla in it, and tastes very good. Success! I also picked up more short grain brown rice and a vegetarian burger mix, which I will try tomorrow.

Bento round-up of the week.

There’s been quiet a lot on my plate this week, so to speak, so I haven’t had time to upload any bentos. Here are some of my lunches from the past week, including one I made for my friend who’s moved in with me because she got a job near here for the summer.

Bento #19

Bento #19

This bento has “lompe” (Norwegian potato-based tortillas) rollups with turkey ham and herbed cream cheese, as well as some steamed broccoli, in the left compartment.

The right compartment holds a pear muffin, some carrot sticks, an apricot and a mini apricot blueberry agar agar dessert.

I made a bunch of these mini agar agar desserts in mini silicone muffin molds, and they are so tasty! Super quick to make, as you only have to boil the apricot puree with the agar agar for a minute. As I use frozen blueberries, and they are so small, they set in no time.

Bento #20

Bento #20.

This bento has a triple apricot muffin (I forgot to take a picture of these, and haven’t got around to blogging about it. Essentially I used the same recipe as for the pear muffin, with apricot puree instead of pear, dried apricots instead of raisins, and apricot jam instead of sugar. Oh and no yogurt, so they are vegan), another apricot blueberry agar agar and a quartered nectarine.

To the right, a star shaped onigiri with gomashio, a chicken parmesan mini burger, and some carrot sticks. The mini burger is made from ground chicken, onion, herbs, garlic and grated parmesan cheese. Very tasty!

Bento #21

Bento #21

A quick bento made from freezer stash here.

In the top compartment, the last pear muffin, some carrot sticks and a quartered nectarine.

In the bottom compartment, an onigiri sprinkled with gomashio, more carrot sticks, some edamame, and three leek dumplings (store bought).

My friend’s first bento

My friend's first bento.

In the big compartment on the left, there is an onigiri sprinkled with gomashio, some smoked salmon, and an apricot blueberry agar agar.

In the top right compartment we put a triple apricot muffin, and in the bottom right an apple cut into pieces and rubbed with some lemon to prevent browning. She loved it, and her colleagues were rather impressed

Magic Chickpea Flour, part 2: Socca.

I have been very excited here before about zucchini/chickpea pancakes. I just tried to make another kind of chickpea pancake today, a specialty from Nice called socca. It’s the easiest thing in the world to make, and utterly delicious. It’s really amazing how two ingredients turn into perfect pancakes like this.

My take on socca.

• 1 cup chickpea flour
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 thinly sliced onion
• chopped rosemary
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Mix sifted chicpea flour and water well, whisking to avoid lumps. Add oil. Add onions and seasonings. Leave to rest for 30 minutes or more, up to several hours, to allow the flour to absorb the water properly. Fry in olive oil in a pan at relatively high heat. It should be like a slightly thick crepe. Flip once it’s kind of golden on one side. This batter makes about 5 pancakes.

The real way to do this is apparently to fry/bake in a pan that goes in the oven, but I do’t have one. Also not sure how authentic the onions are. This onion-y stove top version turned out amazing though!

I served it topped with roasted vegetables. I tossed zucchini, broccoli, red bell pepper, garlic and rosemary with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, and roasted them at 200C. It was a light, lovely and delicious vegan meal.

The best muffins yet — pear/raisin/bran.

I made these today with my sister, and they are definitely my most successful muffins yet. She wasn’t so keen on ginger, so I only sprinkled the candied ginger on top of some of them, but next time I’ll add it to the batter. They are super moist, yet kind of crunchy on top. Delicious! It worked super well to just add the pured content of a can of pears to the batter, and I definitely want to try it with other fruits, such as peaches or apricots.

Pear/raisin/bran muffin.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup wheat bran
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 2 tsp maizena
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 cup mashed pear (I pureed  the content of a can of pears — after straining away the liquid — with an immersion blender, it contained 2 pears)
• 1/2 cup yogurt (use soy yogurt to veganize)
• 1/4 cup canila oil
• some (soy) milk if the batter is too thick
• chopped candied ginger

Mix up all the dry ingredients. Drain the can of pears, puree the pears with an immersion blender. Add all the wet ingredients to the dry. Add some milk if the batter seems dry. Spoon into muffin tins, sprinkle tops with candied ginger. Bake at 180C for 15-18 mins, until golden.

Amazingly easy apricot blueberry agar agar.

Apricot blueberry agar agar.

This is a super easy thing to make because I cheat a little…

• 1 can of apricots
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1 tsp agar agar powder
• frozen blueberries

Strain the apricots over a bowl. Puree the apricots with an immersion blender. Add the sugared water that you have saved in a bowl to the puree, to taste. I think I used about 4-5 tbsp. Add the vanilla and agar agar, bring it all to a boil. Boil for 1-2 minutes.

Put frozen blueberries in the bottom of your molds of choice (I use a silicon muffin pan, this makes 6 small “muffins”). Pour the apricot puree over, leave to set. Unmold carefully, as the blueberries are rather messy. Enjoy!

Two bentos.

My Thursday and Friday bentos, which I am only just now getting around to posting. These were both quite lazy… And towards the end of the week my freezer stash was somewhat depleted.

Bento # 17

Bento #17

I got some take away sushi for dinner on Wednesday, and with my bento in mind I got an extra order of avocado maki. I figured it would hold up well over night as long as I avoided the raw fish. I went to a sushi joint I haven’t tried before, called Happy Sushi, which is located i Pilestredet right by St Olavs plass. I don’t think I will go again… I had an utterly bizarre experience there with the lady making me order supplies for her on the phone because she didn’t speak any English, and the sushi looked rather sloppy. Next time it’s back to good old Le Meo Sushi, they haven’t failed me yet. Otherwise there’re carrot sticks, edamame, a green tea muffin, an apricot and some raisins.

Bento #18

Bento #18

Again, a rather lazy bento. The top compartment has one of the last green tea muffins, a kiwi and some edamame used as  a gap filler.

The bottom compartment has carrot sticks, the last of the meat balls I made a few weeks back, and a brown rice onigiri with vegetable furikake which pretty much fell into pieces before I even got it in the box. The brown rice definitely isn’t as sticky.

It’s weekend again, and I am trying to come up with exciting ideas for next week’s bentos. Already playing around with some muffin ideas in my head… Let’s see what I can come up with!

Bento #16

Bento #16

To the left, a small brown rice onigiri with vegetable furikake, steamed broccoli and carrot sticks.

To the right, some left over zucchini chickpea pancake sandwiched with some mango chutney, a green tea muffin, an apricot, and some raisins.

This turned out to be very filling, and for once I didn’t finish it at lunch. I had a super long meeting this afternoon, so I was really happy to have the muffin to nibble on at 3 o’clock.

I’ve tried packing bento in a couple of different formats now, and I have to say I really like this two tier bento box. (As you can see I use it almost ever day…) It’s the perfect size for me, and it has a shape that makes it easy to pack tightly. The compartments are not too deep and not too wide. Yay for cheap Urara bentos!

Another reason to go vegan.

I just read an article in the NYT about the benefits of an “eco-Atkins” diet, a vegan low carb diet based around soy, seitan, vegetables and healthy fats. It helped the study participants to significantly lower bad cholesterol. So that’s yet another reason I should probably go vegan full time… I doubt it will really happen, but at least I’ll try to stick to my approximate 75% vegetarianism…

Bento #15

Bento #15

Today’s bento is a bit of a gourmand bento… Extra colorful and dessert heavy. I stopped by the vegetable stand/Middle Eastern grocery called Izmir after work yesterday, and they had nice looking and not horribly expensive raspberries, as well as apricots and other nice stuff.

So this bento has one of the successful shiitake tofu burgers (which is really a meal in itself, with rice, tofu, sesame seeds and vegetables), a green tea muffin, some raspberries, two small apricots, broccoli and edamame. I feel a little bit bad using the entire big compartment for dessert….  I was very happy eating it though… Vegan and decadent, all at once.