Red Snapper, Fudge, Tea Eggs

Wednesday Bento

I had kind of a bad day, so I'll just go straight to the recipes.

Poached Red Snapper

1 shallot, minced

1 tablespoon of butter

3 cups of Pinot Grigio or other white wine

2 small fillets of red snapper or other fish

salt to taste

Melt butter in large, shallow sauce pan.  Sautee shallots until clear.  Stir in pinot grigio.  Add salt and bring to a simmer.  Let it do its thing for a few minutes before adding the fish in.  Meanwhile, put the kettle on.  When the wine has started to lose some of its alcoholic flavor, add in the fish and pour boiling water into the pan until the fish is completely submerged.  Cover the pan and let the fish cook in the water/wine mixture for about 6-7 minutes, until fish is flaky but not tough.  When fish is fully cooked, remove from pan.  Discard poaching liquid and add a tbs of olive oil to pan.  Put the fish back in the pan over med-high heat for a minute or two to let the skins crisp up.  Let cool before putting it in your bento.

Tea Eggs

2-4 hardboiled eggs

1/4 c soy sauce

1 tbs of mirin

1 tsp of ponzu

4 earl grey tea bags

2-3 pieces of whole star anise, more if you're using broken pieces

1 cinnamon stick

black pepper to taste

red pepper flakes to taste

combine all ingredients in a heat-proof (i use glass) tupperware, and then fill all the way up with boiling water, ensuring that eggs are completely submerged.  Put the lid on the tupperware and give it a bit of a shake to ensure ingredients are all mixed up with the water and not settled on the bottom.  Let cool on counter then move to refrigerator.  Let steep for at least a couple hours.  The longer you let them steep, the stronger the flavor will be.

Probably Vegan Fudge

10 oz bag of dark chocolate chunks

14 fl oz can of coconut cream

First check the ingredients of the dark chocolate chunks to make sure they don't contain dairy, if you are particular about that kind of thing.  If you're not then whatever just dump it in a bowl.  Pour in the coconut cream and give it a bit of a stir, then pop the bowl in the microwave for about 1-2 minutes.  Take the bowl out and give it a really good stir with a whisk until it appears to be a thick, homogeneous mixture.  Grease up an 8x8 baking pan and pour in the chocolate/coconut mixture.  Cover with plastic and place in the freezer for like an hour, then demote to the refrigerator until fully set and you're ready to serve.  Keep cold.

extra touches:

i put the fish on a bed of sticky rice (short grain white rice mixed up with some seasoned rice vinegar) and included some little containers of soy sauce. i also sprinkled some honey-roasted almonds over the fudge and added some cherry tomatoes in the section with the tea eggs to act as an edible filler.

Quick Snack 2: Miso Soup

Miso soup can be made a lot of different ways with a lot of different ingredients.  It can take hours to make, or seconds.  I like the way that takes seconds.

you'll need:
-hot water

-a mug

-miso paste (whatever is your favorite kind)

-dried wakame

directions: drop a couple heaping tablespoons of miso into your mug and sprinkle in as much wakame as you like (keep in mind it's gonna expand so don't put in too much).  pour in enough hot water to fill the mug. stir it up and wait a little bit for the wakame to re-hydrate. drink it while it's hot!

Picnic-style Salads and Introductions.

I don't think I properly introduced myself or the blog yet.  My name is Claire.  I'm 23 years old and I've basically never worked a day in my life.  Since my parents go to work every day so I can continue to live in their house and spend their money on toys and games, I thought I'd give back by making a huge mess in the kitchen every day.  Really, it started when, for several days in a row, my dad came home saying he didn't want to eat dinner because he had a late lunch that made him feel sick.  My dad has his share of health issues from various causes, giving him a slew of dietary restrictions, so it makes sense that eating at the "crappy little deli downstairs" as my mom calls it, would make him sick every day.  So I started making bento-style lunches for him to take to work.  After about three days of this my mom got jealous, so, as of yesterday, I started making lunch for both of them.  I decided to make this blog to showcase my efforts and recipes, as well as serve as a log of my successes and failures (see: Irish Soda Fail ) for my own personal reference.  Of course, after this Friday, I'm going to be visiting my boyfriend and his family in Tulsa for a month with no kitchen.  So expect a long hiatus after Thursday.  Sorry, mom and dad.  I'll resume upon my return, and yes, I will apply for some jobs as well.

Bam. Introductions. Done.

Moving on to today's (tomorrow's?) menu.    My parents have their bento boxes with them at work right now, so I'll have to wash and pack them when they get home.  So no pictures of the finished product in this post yet because, well, it's yet to be assembled.

That being said, I've already cooked everything that I'm going to put into their bento for tomorrow. I like to cook early in the morning (around 10/11 am, after I get up) because otherwise I will procrastinate and have to make everything after dinner and be up until midnight making 3 things like I was last night.  Today's theme is PICNIC FOOD.  Which means various kinds of "salads".  Purely by coincidence, everything I happened to make today is vegan.  You can add animal products to these recipes if that bothers you.

FIRST SALAD:

Tofu "Egg" Salad (for sandwiches)

Ingredients:
1 block silken tofu, drained

2 chopped scallions, whites included

1/4 of a large green bell pepper, diced up small w seeds removed

1 tablespoon of rice vinegar

vindaloo seasoning to taste

hot curry seasoning to taste

1 teaspoon of turmeric for color

1 tablespoon fresh lemon thyme (just the leaves)

salt and pepper to taste

Put the tofu in a large bowl and break it up a little bit with a wooden spoon.  Add the vinegar and spices and give it a good stir.  Stir gently if you want it to stay kinda chunky like real egg salad, or just go at it if you don't care.  Once everything is combined (you'll know because it should become a pretty uniform yellow), stir in the scallions and bell pepper.  Transfer to a tupperware container and refrigerate until you're ready to use it or eat it or whatever you plan to do with it.

SECOND SALAD:

Roasted Turnip and Potato Salad

ingredients:

roasting bits:

3 small radishes, washed and quartered

4 small red potatoes, washed and quartered

olive oil for pan and for drizzling

salt and pepper to taste

arrange veg on a greased up, foiled up cookie sheet, as above.  drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper as you like it. Bake at 400 degrees fahrenheit for like 40 minutes or until you can easily puncture through one of the quarters with a fork.

dressing:

1 tbs olive oil

2 tbs of balsamic vinegar

1 tbs of chimichurri spice

when the veg are all roasted up, slide them into a bowl and mix 'em up with the above ingredients.  I strongly endorse buying the chimichurri mix and putting it in everything you cook.  It is especially good in soups.

Anyway mash up the veg a little bit with a wooden spoon while you mix in the dressing ingredients, let cool, then transfer to a tupperware and eat it later.

THIRD AND FINAL SALAD:

Daikon and Apple Slaw

2 apples (any kind.  i don't know what kind i used.  the cheap kind?)

1 chunk of daikon about the size of one apple

1/4 c dried wakame

2 tbs seasoned rice vinegar

1 tsp lemon grapeseed oil

1/4 c coconut milk

relatively the same size

wet ingredients

cut the apples and daikon into matchsticks and try to do a better job than I did. While you're choppin, put the dried wakame into a cup, add just enough cold water to cover it, and then cover the cup with a saucer.  let sit until all the water is soaked up.  combine all ingredients into a large bowl and stir.  transfer to a tupperware and refrigerate until you're ready to eat.

SIDE NOTE: i used some "fancy" ingredients in the above recipes, and I realized they probably aren't common pantry ingredients in most households. But they should be because they are all fantastic, which is why I provided links to where you can buy them.  They maaay seem kind of spendy if you are a cheap ass like me, but they tend to last a while (good spices are always a practical investment, and just a liiittle bit of the grapeseed oil packs a ton of flavor so it will last you like forever).

Ube Bars, Zaru Soba, and Inarizushi

Today's ingredients all came from Buford Highway Farmer's Market, the local international supermarket.

I'll start with dessert first, because this is the dish I am most excited about.  It features ube, or purple yam, a Filipino root vegetable introduced to me by my boyfriend's mother.  It's probably one of my favorite foods.  It's sweet and starchy with a much milder flavor than your typical sweet potato.  My parents have never tried ube before, so i wanted to make something simple that would showcase the natural flavor of the ube without having it get bogged down with too many other flavors in the mix.  I wanted to make something like lemon bars, and came up with this recipe.

purple yam bars
crust:
3/4 c butter cookie or graham cracker crumbs
1/2 stick melted butter
 combine the cracker crumbs with the melted butter and & press the mixture into bottom of greased 8" x 8" pan. I used these:

because i had a lot of them in the cabinet, leftover from my last buford hwy trip, but you can use any sort of cookie or sweet cracker crumbs.


filling:
2 large purple yams. cut into pieces
1 egg beaten
1 tablespoon of flour
1/2 of a 13.5 oz can of coconut milk

Bring a large pot of water to a boil then add the yams.  Boil for about 20 minutes or until tender.  The water will get really dark and cool looking like this:

  Drain and run under cold water. Peel the skins off of the yams and discard.  Transfer yams to a large bowl. add coconut milk to yams and mash. stir in egg, then flour. pour over crust, spread evenly. bake at 350 until knife comes out clean, ~25 min.  Finished looks like this:

The ube bars are the most labor intensive of this bento, the other two dishes are very quick and easy.

Zaru soba is cold buckwheat noodles with a very simple sauce.  My lazy recipe goes like this:

INGREDIENTS

1 package or bundle of soba

soy sauce to taste

mirin to taste

dashi or other fish sauce to taste (optional)

sesame seeds

1. cook the soba noodles according to package instructions.
2. drain and rinse with cold water. set aside.
3.  in a small bowl, mix up a hefty splash of soy sauce with another hefty splash of mirin.  add a little dashi or fish sauce if you're into that.  also add a little bit of cold water so the flavor of the soy sauce isn't too strong.
4. either put the sauce in a separate container to accompany the noodles or just pour it into the same container as the noodles.
5. garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

My inarizushi recipe is even easier because I used premade ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:
inarizushi no moto
microwave rice bowl
seasoned rice vinegar

1. microwave rice according to package instructions.
2. mix in a little bit of seasoned rice vinegar into the rice.
3. stuff the inarizushi no moto with the rice.
4. that's all!

Irish Soda Fail

Today my family went to the Renaissance Faire while I stayed home to catch up on some chores.  It's the Highland celebration this weekend, so I thought it would be nice to bake a nice Irish Soda Bread to include in my parents' lunch tomorrow.  I'm not sure if I can serve this one, though. The recipe wasn't bad, the texture came out real nice, but I dun goofed on measuring the salt--I put 1 tablespoon instead of 1 teaspoon.  The whole thing tastes like a mall pretzel.  But I'm pretty sure with the right amount of salt it would be pretty tasty, so I'll post the recipe I used here--for posterity, if anything, as I may try again with it on a later date.

The ingredients i used may seem a bit unorthodox if you're familiar with the traditional recipes of irish soda bread.  It's the end of the week so the cupboard is a bit bare. Being completely out of milk and eggs, I searched for a vegan recipe and found this one from Hellyeahitsvegan.com.  Of course, I was still missing some of those ingredients but I made do with what I had.  Here's my adaptation:

INGREDIENTS:

1.5 cups Rice Milk
1.5 tablespoons vinegar
4 cups all purpose flour (plus more for kneading)
0.5 cups sugar
2 tablespoons baking soda
1 TEASPOON salt
4 tablespoons of butter



DIRECTIONS:
preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  In a small bowl combine rice milk and vinegar and let it sit while you work on the next few steps.  In a much larger bowl, sift together flour, sugar, soda, and the TEASPOON of salt.  Use a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter into the flour mixture.

 create a well with the flour mixture and pour the ricemilk mixture into the center.  Give it a bit of a stir with a big spoon so that everything is just incorporated before you dump it out onto a large floured surface. I found the dough to be a bit of a big wet mess so I dumped a bunch of extra flour on it before I started kneading. Knead the dough as little as possible, then plop it onto your parchment lined cookie sheet.

 With a serrated knife, make a big X across the surface of the dough.  Put the pan in the oven and bake for around 35 or 40 minutes. It should come out looking like this:

 Let cool a bit before you dig into it.

Next time I bake this I will most likely use real milk, but probably any unsweetened nondairy milk would work if you like to keep things veg (in which case you'll want to sub some earth balance or whatever in place of the real butter but i suppose that's a given).

Wakame Salad

Wakame salad is my go-to breakfast because it is so easy and only takes a few ingredients.

I don't really measure anything when I make it, it is all to taste.  First, pour dried wakame into a small cup. Fill the cup with just enough cold water to cover the wakame. Cover the cup with a saucer and wait a few minutes for the wakame to rehydrate.  When all the liquid has been absorbed, add seasoned rice vinegar, sesame oil, and mirin to taste. I also like to add toasted sesame seeds. You can let it sit a little longer or eat it right away.

  This is also a good filler recipe for bento, when you need an extra side dish, as it is best in small portions (I.e. You probably don't want a giant bowl of it). Just be sure to have floss or a toothpick ready because the little seaweed pieces WILL get stuck in your teeth!