As spoiled as a child can be, my daughter told me the other day she wouldn’t want to eat the same thing from one day to the other. Ha!
Luckily, she forgets stuff overnight, and today’s bento is filled with our dinner leftovers. The bento box came home empty.
Menu: Simmered sweet potato with chicken thigh, Spinach goma-ae, Tomato Omelet, Riceixed with wakana sprinkle & dried jako (baby sardine) with sesame on top
Tangerine Mikan for dessert
For the past weekend, we went for a short trip out of Tokyo. We came back to our apartment on Sunday evening, resulting in the usual problem of not having enough food in the fridge for our daughter’s bento the next day.
In such circumstances, frozen stock comes in handy. This morning I defrosted bolognese sauce I made the other day and mixed it with macaroni. I put a lot of veggies (e.g. onion, carrot, celery, garlic) in the sauce, so it’s quite nutritious (actually I put them in the blender so that they almost get pasty, and that gives an amazing flavour to the sauce). I had a leftover cucumber and egg in the fridge, so I whipped this up:
The frozen star-shaped steamed carrots made with cookie cutters are also quite handy. I always make them in bulk with my Le Creuset Steamer and store them in the freezer. It’s really a lifesaver on a day like this!
Menu: Macaroni bolognese (steamed carrot slices on top), Cucumber sticks, Boiled egg
Japanese Nashi for dessert (also leftover in the fridge)
Menu: Grilled snapper in moromi-miso (bought from the street fishmonger), Spinach Omelet, Boiled green beans, Cherry tomato
Tangerine mikan for dessert
Omuraisu is a Japanese name for Omelet & Rice. The ingredients are still scarce in my fridge, so this is my ultimate effort to come up with something that is both ethtetically and nutritiously satisfying.
Menu: Omuraisu, Steamed broccoli, Cucumber & cherry tomato salad
Kiwi fruits for dessert
….that today’s bento was prepared from only a few ingredients left in our fridge/freezer?
Over the weekend we visited our friends in the coastal city called Zushi in Kanagawa prefecture. We had a great two day stay, relaxing by the seaside.
As a result, we didn’t get to do any grocery shopping. But I flashed my super mum card and fixed this bento – not too bad I’d say 🙂
Menu: Grilled Mutsu (Japanese bluefish), Goma-konbu, Cucumber sticks, Simmered daikon & carrot in chicken stock, Aonori seaweed omelet, Rice
Apple mousse & mashed pumpkin with cinnamon & raisins for dessert
Menu: Chicken soboro (frozen) & sliced green beans (leftover) donburi with flower-shaped carrot (frozen), Corn (leftover) omelet, Daikon & cucumber salad (leftover)
Apple mousse (frozen) & mashed sweet potato (frozen) with raisins for dessert
The literal meaning of Japanese word “tenuki” is pulling your hands out (te = hand, nuki = pulling out). It means being lazy or cutting corners. A great expression for my daughter’s bento today.
There are times when you just don’t feel like doing anything. It was one of those days for me, and I fixed up this bento in haste with only the leftovers in the fridge and some stocked up food in the freezer.
Menu: Roasted sweet potato with chicken soboro, Steamed broccoli, Baba hamu kyuri, Jako (dried baby sardine) & wakame sprinkle mixed in rice
Grapes & banana for dessert
My daughter did not complain 🙂
Menu: Simmered “kajiki” sword fish, Hijiki, Boiled broccoli and egg, Rice with sesame sprinkle
Apple for dessert
I cooked the simmered sword fish and hijiki last evening for dinner along with a couple of other dishes. When my daughter sat down at the dining table and had one look at what I prepared she said crossly, “Why do you always give me the same food as bento? Why do you always use leftovers for dinner?” 😳
Of course I intended to reuse the fish and hijiki for her bento the next day, but didn’t realise that my clever 4 year old was quite aware of what I put in her bento and feed her for dinner. She got the order wrong, but still she’s right, usually there is at least one dish duplicated between lunch and dinner within the same day.
Being a little miffed I asked, “Is there something wrong with the leftovers? Do you not like what I cook for you? Do you want me to stop making you bento????? (yes, I was getting more childish at this point against my 4 year old daughter) ” – and her response blew my mind away and stunned me.
“I love it! You are the best chef in the world, Mama!”
This, made my day 🙂
Menu: Simmered taro potato & chicken thigh, Boiled Moroccan green beans, Ham omelet, Rice with “shirasu” baby sardines
Apple wedges (in bunny shape) for dessert
Apologies for my little girl.
Hi my honey bee, what you see in your lunch box today is almost exactly the same as you ate last evening for dinner. But Mama made an extra effort to cut out the bunny shape out of your favorite red apple for dessert. Hope you’ll enjoy your lunch today.
Love, Mama
Menu: Fresh corns cooked with rice (with ‘ao-nori‘ seaweed powder on top), Cabbage millefeuille, La salade a la maman (mama’s tomato salad), Green bean omelet
Japanese ‘kyoho‘ grapes for dessert
Last night we had our good friends over for (early) dinner. Our daughter was so thrilled to have her friends over that she had a hard time focusing on eating at the dinner table. Inevitably her leftover has ended up in her bento box today.
The dishes I cooked this time somehow had a touch of French cuisine but with Japanese seasonings. I think our European friends liked this combination very much 🙂
– Fresh corns cooked with rice, in a Japanese “dó-nabe” earthware pot – I used this recipe from the website called Cookpad (sorry all in Japanese). I doubled the portion.
– Cabbage millefeuille – here is the recipe, also from Cookpad.
– La salade a la maman is a recipe passed on to me by my best friend’s mum who unfortunately passed away seven years ago. I’ve recreated her tasty salad numerous times since she taught me this wonderful recipe. It is one of the simplest, yet the most delicious salads I’ve ever tasted to this day. She told me she almost felt embarrassed to tell me the recipe because it was nothing special. But she always made delicious but effortless dishes. Everything she cooked for us, including this plain sandwich with ham (Jambon Beurre á Paris), was purely divine.
SMALL TOKYO KITCHEN 