Menu: Mixed omelet (sausage, broccoli & cherry tomato), Curry flavored chicken, Sweet potato & cucumber salad, Jako rice, Konbu
Apple mousse for dessert (freshly made but frozen right after. Still frozen in the pic)
Omelet (or sort of like Spanish frittata) is not the type of dish we’d typically eat with rice (except for omu-rice), but I ran out of ingredients in the fridge and ended up making it anyway. Actually our girl seemed to have liked it and came back with an empty bento box. Hurray!
Menu: Chicken meatballs, Corn omelet, Steamed broccoli, Cherry tomato, Rice with yukari furikake
Apple wedges & banana for dessert 
As requested by our little big girl, today’s main dish is meatballs. I used chicken thigh mince, chopped onion, egg, oregano and salt & pepper for the pâté, and soysauce, sake & mirin for the sauce. For bento it’s better to put rather strong seasoning/sauce, since the taste gets blunter when it gets colder, and it is better for preserving the food in the summer heat/humidity. I heard it’s better to put something alkaline in packed lunches for the same reason such as one of the Japanese famous confectionary called umeboshi (highly salty and sour pickled plums), but I just can’t eat them and never served them for our little one… She seems to have the similar taste buds as mine not being able to eat something sour, so it’ll take some effort to have her eat umeboshi…😓
Menu: potato with bolognese sauce, Hijiki, Boiled egg, Spinach & jako (small semi-dried fish) rice, cucumber and cherry tomato
Watermelon for dessert
This morning I prepared our little big girl’s packed lunch, making the most of our leftovers in the fridge. Bolognese sauce from last evening, hijiki from two evenings before (usually it lasts for a good few days given all the seasoning).
I’m sure my mother-in-law in the Netherlands would dismiss this leftover bento immediately with her strong preference to eat up all the food she cooked within the same day: another possible cultural difference in our lifestyle, or maybe just another usual in-law battle 😉
Menu: Hijiki rice, Spinach omelet, Octopus shaped sausage, Edamame/cucumber/cherry tomato salad
Kiwi fruits and banana for dessert
Menu: Salmon & rice with sesame seeds, Potato/spinach/bacon stir fry, Corn/okura/cucumber salad, steamed broccoli
Grapes with & without skin
Our little girl generally doesn’t like eating fruits skins that actually contain the most vitamins. Grapes are no exception, and I kind of spoiled her by peeling the skin off wherever I serve them to her. But today, I mixed in some unpeeled ones as well, hoping she’ll eat them all.
To my surprise, it worked! 🙂
Menu: Tofu hamburg steak, potato/carrot/cucumber egg salad, broccoli and furikake on rice
Apple wedges for dessert
Today’s main is tofu hamburg steak. Hamburg steak is a Western influenced Japanese dish which is one of the most popular dishes for children. It is based on tartar steak often eaten in a German city of Hamburg (apparently), and the mane is obviously derived from it. It is like meatloaf made of minced beef/pork (or mixed) but pan-fried instead of baked in the oven, and usually comes in oval shape.
I made this dish the evening before for our dinner. I used the mixed beef & pork mince, put a bit of leftover tofu in the pâté for more volume and lower calories, along with chopped onion (fried until golden), beaten raw egg (to hold all the ingredients together) and salt & pepper to taste. You can’t really taste the tofu because the flavour of the meat is much stronger, but you can definitely feel it in its texture that is much lighter and airy.
For the sauce, in the same pan as the steak, I poured in a table spoon of soysauce and maple syrup, and a bit of water (otherwise it’d become pasty) and bring to boil and thicken a bit. I’d put some herb next time, maybe chopped parsley.
Menu: Stir-fried chicken, coleslaw salad, edamame/shirasu rice with scrambled eggs on top, broccoli and cherry tomato
Kiwi and banana for dessert
Menu: Kiriboshi daikon, Cucumber/asparagus/chicken fillet salad, Pancetta & cheese omelet, and Shirasu rice (with nori seaweed laid out in between)
Apple wedges for dessert
Kiriboshi daikon. Yes, what is it? Let’s look at the formula…
Kiri（切り） = cut/sliced
Boshi（干し） = dried
Daikon（大根） = Japanese radish.
∴ Sliced dried Japanese radish.
To my embarrassment, this was my first attempt to cook kiriboshi daikon. I like my mum’s kiriboshi daikon very much, but never had an urge to make one myself. I used to think it was one of those side dishes that attracts no particular appreciation from anyone. It is always there on your dining table, very modestly, and you never really notice it.
But recently my perception has started to change. I always try to give my daughter healthy tasty food, and suddenly remembered a wise advice from my grandmother to eat kiriboshi daikon. In fact, I think it could be one of the healthiest dishes in the Japanese kitchen… To back up my statement, I did some quick research – apparently, it contains high dietary fiber, calcium, potassium, iron, vitamin B and B2, much more than the fresh Japanese radish because it is dried in the sun: kiriboshi daikon contains 15 times more calcium, 32 times more iron, 10 times more vitamin B and B2 than regular daikon. So, there you go. Very nutritious. If I don’t cook, our daughter will not learn how it tastes like and never get an amazing set of nutrients this dish can provide. That is why I decided to go for it.
Now, this is how it looks like. Bought this pack at a local supermarket. Even if it may look a lot, it lasts quite a while since it is dried, so you can use it little by little.
We usually cook it after soaking it in water for a while, just like the way you cook sun dried tomatoes or porcini in Italian cuisine.
This is how it looks like after half an hour so. This should be enough soaking. Take it out of water and squeeze that water out, but leave the water in the bowl for later.
Pour in a dash of vegetable oil, and quickly stir fry it.
Once it’s heated, pour in the water you soaked kiriboshi daikon with (just the amount that covers the top of kiriboshi daikon, like shown below). Cook until it gets softer (nicely crunchy, rather than just hard and chewy), for 10 minutes or so. Add the soaking water if it dries up.
Add some sliced carrots and cook further until the carrots are soft, for another 7 minutes or so. Here also, add the soaking water a bit if it dries up.
Once soft, for this amount shown in the image, add a tea spoon of sake, 2 tea spoons of soysauce, and 1+ spoon of sugar to taste.
I forgot to buy it this time but you can also add thinly sliced “abura a-ge (油揚げ)“, deep fried sheets of tofu, after you add the carrots.
Menu: Spinach goma-ae, simmered beef (dinner leftover), Okura/tofu/bonito flake salad, Boiled egg, Steamed broccoli
Kiwi fruits for dessert
Goma-ae is the type of side dish we eat frequently in Japan. “Goma” means sesame, and “ae” comes from a verb “ae-ru” which means to mix or to toss. 
The sesame marinade is very easy to prepare. Use 2 table spoonful of sesame seeds (usually you can buy roasted sesame seeds called “irigoma/炒りごま” in any supermarket here), grind them in a spice grinder to make sesame powder (or you can simply use pre-ground sesame called “surigoma/すりごま”), mix in a table spoon of soy sauce and a table spoon of sugar. Stir the three ingredients well, and the marinade is ready. This should be more than enough for a pack of spinach.
I usually boil spinach in boiling water (put the roots first for 10 seconds, push in the leaves afterwards and cook for a minute or so). Take the spinach out, place it under cold running water so that the boiled spinach maintains this beautiful bright green colour, and once cooled down, drain well by squeezing the water out of the spinach. Line them on a cutting board, cut into 4cm apart or so.
Then, in a bowl pour the marinade onto the spinach, toss everything quickly and coat the marinade evenly. That’s it!
You can also use green beans (15-20 of them depending on the size), or any other vegetable you like. When the portion of the vegetable is bigger, prepare more marinade, but just stick with the proportion: 2 ground sesame, 1 soysauce, 1 sugar. You can of course adjust this a bit to your liking.
Menu: Corn omelet, Grilled sawara (Spanish mackerel) with saikyo-miso, Steamed pumpkin, Cherry tomato/Avocado/Spinach salad, wakana rice
Japanese cherries for dessert
Corns are in season. Today, I added steamed corns in an omelet (corn pieces sliced off of the core). The crunchiness and sweetness of the corns go very well with the mild taste of the egg – one of those very kids-friendly menus I’m sure.
Usually it takes 7-8 minutes to steam a large corn (with one or two layers of the skin still attached). When in a hurry, I also use microwave – in this case rinse a corn (again with the skin), wrap it around in a plastic wrap, and heat it up in 700W microwave for 3 – 4 minutes.
SMALL TOKYO KITCHEN 