Paella

Since I was still on a Spanish or Hispanic (from #2) dish experimental journey, I tried my hand at Paella. I Googled for Paella and found this recipe.

It looked simple enough and I did have a Paella pan which I had not broken into yet.

To break into the Paella pan, I first washed with soapy water and then dried it. Heated it over medium fire. After that I poured in some oil and rubbed it in. Heated it through for about 5-7 minutes and allowed it to cool down, then washed off the oil with warm soapy water. Ta-da! Paella pan ready for use.

Saute-ing the onions.


In went the red and green peppers.

The chicken cubes with salt and pepper.

In went the rice and liquids.


Added the prawns and crab meat (I improvised a little).

Okay truth be told, it wasn't as great as it should have been. Being first time doing this I thought that I had to cook it the way I cook our local 'one pot rice' and so I ended up with a little burnt bottom. BUT...it tasted pretty good or so from the feedback from my husband and #2. #1 wasn't very excited about it and opted to eat the optional white rice I cooked for 'just in case'.

Next time round I won't worry about 'cooking down' the liquids! I would also add more seafood and meats because my paella pan had 2 cups of rice and had a wee bit too little seafood and meats. One more thing, I like my peppers with a little crunch, perhaps they should also go into the pan later and with less saute-ing time. Till the next attempt...Buen provecho! (Bon Apetite!)

Alioli

Tomorrow night my two elder girls complete their 3 month Spanish classes at UTAR.
To celebrate, the class and lecturer decided to have a little fellowship. Obviously the theme is "Spanish food".

I searched for ideas on the internet and found "Bread with Mushrooms and Alioli", a tapa.
The recipe seemed simple and making mayo actually is my forte.

Ingredients

• 4 or 5 ounces mushrooms, stems removed and sliced thin
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• A pinch of sea salt
  
• 1 teaspoon sherry wine
• Alioli (garlic
  
  mayonnaise)
• French bread, sliced into rounds

Preparation

Heat the olive oil in a pan that has a cover. When the oil is hot, add the mushrooms, salt and sherry. Cover, and lower heat. Cook until liquid is released from the mushrooms, about 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Toast bread slightly, just to dry it out a bit. Spread with alioli and top with mushrooms. Broil for about 30 seconds or until alioli starts to bubble.

I did some research on the internet for alioli and eventually concoted my own method.

This stone pestle is an "ancestral heirloom". It was my grandmothers and then passed to my mother's second sister and then my mother and finally became mine. It's a 'giant' of a stone pestle. I have 3 sizes and this is the largest.

There are about 10 garlic cloves in there.

The pestle is huge and heavy. *pound, pound, pound*


The first few drops of Extra Virgin Olive oil mixed in the crushed garlic.


Adding spoons full of Extra Virgin Olive oil.


Mix, mix and mix!


Managed to yield two bottles of Alioli.



Tastes fantastic! Can't wait to cook the mushrooms tomorrow now that the Alioli is done.

Bento 300

So I reached my 300th bento today. Thought I should take a break and buy my favorite meal instead. Lui Cha is basically lots of chopped veggies fried in dried prawns and garlic. Makes a healthy and hearty meal. Love the mint and basil concoction of tea leaves, peanuts, sesame seeds, etc.


Busy weekend ahead.

Bento 299

I was free mid day because classes were going to be long today. I made myself a bento.
Clockwise: Tonkatsu topped with mayo and tonkatsu sauce, steam rice, some more fried gyoza with dipping sauce and finely shred ginger and garlic tossed French beans and cherry tomatoes. Wow! What an awesome lunch!! The gyozaaaa...was delicious beyond words!!!



This Chicken and five vegetable dish was packed in a side dish. It's got lotus root, mushroom, carrrot, delicious Burdock, daikon and Konnyaku.

The Burdock is so, so delicious!!!

Lunch again

I brought home two boxes of Strawberries and before I could use them, almost 70% went soft and couldn't be used. So sad!!

The five I salvaged were wrapped with home made Anko for Mochi. I halved the strawberries and managed to yield 10 mochi.



The mochi was served as dessert for lunch yesterday.


Friends enjoyed a meal of Cha Soba and home made fried Gyozas.


Good friends and good food makes good company.

Bento 298

My internet was down yesterday so I had to do without indulging in my favorite pastime (or waste time as some would say).

This was #3 tea bento yesterday. A simple ham and Ciabatta sandwich. Nestled in between are some peanuts in a cup and surrounded by some cheese biscuits. There was a bottle of Yoghurt drink packed together.



This is the view of the closed box with a transparent cover.

No Charaben today, just lunch!

I feel stifled by limited ingredients and confined taste buds!
Charaben isn't working for me because it takes a whole lot of time for the same purpose.
The kid needs to have more variety if she wants to have Charaben!


I made Zaru Soba today. Boiled Japanese buckwheat noodles, made a dip and fried some Korean dumplings and crab cakes. Notice the ice-cubes? Didn't plan ahead so had to make do.


#2 and I enjoyed a simple lunch.

Roasted Bell peppers

This basket of Bell peppers cost RM5/= (US1.55) in Cameron Highlands. I decided that I should roast them before they get rotten. I love roasted bell peppers with sun dried tomatoes and pasta.


I halved them and rubbed some oil on each half and placed them on the oven pan. The seeds I set aside for planting.

After 15 minutes in the oven at 250 deg C. It smells sweet and smokey (heavenly too!).

I scrapped the roasted peppers into a metal bowl and covered it with cling wrap for it to self steam so that the skin will tear off easier.


Skin removed from the roasted bell peppers. The flesh is tender and sweet. Still smells smokey and tastes delicious!!! YUMMY!!


RM5/= worth of bell peppers yielded a whole bottle of roasted pepper. I filled the 680g bottle with Olive Oil to keep the freshness of the roasted pepper.

Bento 297

Confession! Trying to pack charaben bento is no simple task! It takes time, lots of effort, mind boggling bento accessories for mind boggling shapes. But the effect to my kid is just AWESOME! #3 keeps bugging me to continue to pack cutesy food for her. She's been eating everything I pack (also because it's within the confines of her palate choice).

I got this idea from a burger bento from Yum-Yum Bento Box.

This was yesterday's 3.00p.m. meal. Home made beef burger patty.



I had a challenging time with the 'face' because they wouldn't stick to the bun! Anyway there were some home made cookies and some jewel skewered seedless grapes on mangoes.


I used this Hello Kitty box because I didn't want the 'face' on the hamburger crushed.

#3 loved this and said that I must keep packing her cutesy food. Geeezzz...I don't know how long I can do this!

Bento 296

This morning at 6.15a.m. I flicked through the pages of Yum-Yum Bento Box for ideas. Okay, so it wasn't the best time to be browsing a Bento book of pictures looking for bright ideas to strike!


I had sushi rice left over and normally, I would mix sakura denbu and Kewpie mayo together with the sushi rice and pack it into a box for #3 to bring to school.

After yesterday's excitement over her bento box, mummy had to rise to another challenge today to pack a cutesy bento. Page 72 of Yum-Yum Bento Box struck my eyes!

I have some rice molds too and I could get out of my (lazy) comfort zone and begin using them...*wrinkles face*

I stuffed the rice with some tuna, chopped onions, mayo and freshly ground pepper. Topped each one of the different shapes with some sakura denbu. #3 kept nagging me to make an extra one for her to try, which I did and that resulted with Ooooo....s and Aaaa.....s. *so nice! so nice!* she exclaimed!

I used the triangle pocket bread mold to mold some tuna sandwiches. After yesterday's tonkatsu 'face' balls, it's starry eyes and a smiley face sandwich. *grins*

You would notice that there are no greens, that's because #3 doesn't eat any greens and anything green in the bento box would be a waste (at this time anyway). I filled the gaps with cubes of watermelon and stuck a skewer for her to use.

Bento 295 and Yum-Yum Bento Box review

Last week, I received a copy of Yum-Yum Bento Box for review from their publisher
- Quirk Books.



Yum-Yum Bento Box: Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches, by Crystal Watanabe (Adventures in Bentomaking) and Maki Ogawa (cuteobento).

I've posted close to 300 bentos in this blog over the last three years and seldom do you find charaben in my posts. No, it's not that I have anything against charaben but limitation of time, effort and creativity does douse any enthusiasm. Imagine trying to be creative at 6.00a.m. in the morning or close to midnight the night before drawing and plotting a charaben bento for the next morning.

I am a practical, no frills bento box packer and it's almost come to the end of my journey packing for my second daughter who is in her first year of college. All was well until she had her braces fitted and it's made her even more selective of what she eats. Of course each new semester welcomes a new and more active timetable, sometimes with classes back to back from one end of the long corridor to another.

I now have another challenge...to begin packing for my 11 year old girl. She's picky and selective about what she puts in her mouth. This year has been a little better because she's learn to eat a few new types of food besides her regular fish, soup, rice, tuna sandwiches and fried drumsticks. She's eating hamburgers, hot dogs, "bak kut teh", lasagna, chocolate muffins, bacon sandwiches and one or two more variety. She's okay with some fruits and some biscuits. With all the limitations, it's been really difficult to even think of beginning to pack for #3!


I think Yum-Yum Bento Box comes as almost an answer to my prayer. It's got a whole variety of cutesy display of food in colors, shapes, sizes and flavor. I doubt I will replicate any bento exactly (limited by food choices) but I should be able to use the authors ideas and variety to pack some 'eye candy' bento for #3.

I found this cute Ladybug Picnic bento on page 64 and I started out making it since I had some sushi stuff left from last night's dinner.


Hehehe! It didn't quite end up there though. I thought that punching twice using the eye and mouth puncher from 100 Yen would suffice instead of working with all the Lady bug spots and Nori accessories. So, I got something different and I'm just as happy because for me it was easy and fast.

Inside the pink balls (sakura denbu) of sushi rice is some chopped Tonkatsu and Mayo. There are two chocolates and a sliced orange.

Instead of cutting the sausages into Tulips, I simply used some cute skewers (which are usually in a drawer somewhere) to enhance the aesthetic view.

I worked on another bento box for #2. Usually, I would just chop up all the ingredients and mix it with the sushi rice to make it a "Chirashi sushi" style.

This time it's sushi balls filled with chopped Tonkatsu and Mayo surrounded with the various fillings for sushi. There's sliced simmered mushrooms, some edamame beans, sliced tamagoyaki, some skewered kyuri and carrots and left over Tonkatsu.



Picture taken with the box closed with a clear cover.


Food tastes better when they look good!

Yum-Yum Bento Box even appeals to a non charaben bento packer like me because I see that it provides me a variety of ideas, options, easy or detailed, to expand the way I want to with the availability of food and colors which appeals to my growing child.

I'm not sure if it's available locally at the major book stores but I'm sure you can order via Amazon.com or Kinokuniya at KLCC.



#3 came home ecstatic about her first 'charaben' bento today. LOL! She said that she wanted the same bento for dinner. *faints*


Other reviews or information found here:
Bentolicious
Bentozen
Hawai'i's Bento Box Cookbook
Maisie Eats Bento
Mothering Corner
Yum-Yum Bento Box

Bento 294

I was at the supermarket yesterday when I decided to make gyoza. I quickly picked up the necessary ingredients and went home to begin.

First I made the dough and set it aside. I don't have a formula for this but it's come out right each time and it makes me happy just like that.




Then I set out to make the filling which comprise of chopped leek, spring onions, Chinese cabbage, minced pork, ginger juice, sesame oil, salt, pepper and corn flour. I don't have a standard recipe for this either. I just put together what ever which is available and what I remember. So you can imagine, the taste of the gyozas do vary from time to time. LOLs!



I made about 60 pieces of these babies.


Testing time...boiled gyoza...yum yum!


I made today's bento from last night's leftovers again. Clockwise: Sliced oranges, some tonkatsu and some fried gyoza. Finally a small portion of clay pot rice.


A fulfilling meal indeed!

Bento 293

This bento is basically put together from last nights leftovers.

I made a delicious beef stew in the crock pot. I didn't use any recipe, just saute the onions, carrots, button mushrooms, celery, beef chunks and put everything into the crock pot with basil, beef stock and a can of chopped tomatoes. To finish off, I flavored it with salt and freshly ground pepper and then I added a small box of cream - that did the magic!

Clockwise: Mixed veggies in sesame sauce dressing, some cut apples, pieces of baguette and awesome-mest beef stew.

Bento 292

The food in this bento is completely store bought except for the extra cellophane noodles (tang hoon) which I added to the soup and the ladies fingers.



All the ingredients are made out of tofu and fish cake so there are fish balls - both boiled and fried, stuffed tofu and tofu skin and delicious soup to complete the meal.

Bento 291

This is my lunch today. It's a huge bento with a full silicon cup of rice. Ladies fingers again and some chili fried aubergines/eggplant/brinjal as we call it locally.


Fried tofu is oyster sauce and some sweet sour pork. A hearty meal for a busy mother.