Bento 265

There is lack a of bento posts this week because #2 has exams. Today's the last day of exams so next week we'll be back with more regular bento posts.

This was a dinner bento for #1 for Monday this week. She had back to back appointments and I decided to pack a bento for her.

I made a huge pot of Oden and packed some for her dinner. I used a small three piece thermos bento to keep the Oden hot.


A side box of rice.


An egg from the Oden stock and some garlic fried long beans.


The Oden goes into the thermos flask to keep hot.


All packed and ready to go with a pair of chopsticks in the sleeve of the Bento bag.


Today's Oden has some deliciously fresh clams.






Yum! Yum! Love this dish.

Bento 203 & 204

It was Good Friday yesterday, a day of universal fast and abstinence. The bento was plain whole meal bread and an un-peeled banana each.

There has been continuous heavy downpour over the last one week. The cool weather has been a great relief but the destruction to the garden has been drastic. My herbs has literally drowned to death and some pots blown off their pedestals and broken. *sniff, sniff* My gardener will have a very busy weekend ahead.

Cool evenings call for warming food, ideally Oden. When my eldest daughter saw me cooking Oden for dinner last night, she was trilled! Must have been missing this delicious soupy dish for a long while.

This morning #2 got another over-ripe Kiwi (I've frozen the rest for smoothies because they taste a tad too soft now!). There were some marshmallows in the same top box too.

I packed the Oden without soup for fear of spillage. Clockwise: Hanpen, fish cake, chikuwa, konnyaku and an egg. To complete the box are two pieces of chicken nuggets in a silicon cup.

#1 begins her final semester examinations today. It's five hours back to back today and last night she asked me to pack a bento for her. *Hurray*

I fed her a hearty lunch before she got to college and packed her a tonkatsu sandwich. I placed some rollo rosa salad on a slice of whole meal bread and topped it with a piece of tonkatsu. On it, I squeezed lots of Wasabi mayo and covered it with more rollo rosa salad and another slice of whole meal bread. This method ensures that the bread will not get soggy. I used a food pick to hold each of the sandwich together before putting it into the collapsible sandwich box. You can't see the food picks, they are hidden in the middle.

I try to use this collapsible sandwich box for my eldest girl because she doesn't like to bring with her the 'bulky' bento box. Every time she asks for a bento, I will use this box so that when she finishes her food, she can just fold the top portion and it ends up less than a quarter of it's original size!


In the bottom box, there are some cut up oranges and apples. I packed a giraffe fork into the box so that I don't need to pack any cutlery for her. I had to use an extra LONG bento strap for this and it did look very STRETCHED!

#1 would have to eat her sandwich with her hands so I packed an oshibori for her and tied them up in a furoshiki. I didn't want to give her a 'childish' bento bag, I thought that this looked better for a young adult. I didn't take a picture of the oshibori box, it's like a huge anti-biotic, half red and half white. Not kiddish and suitable for her (I hope).


The handkerchief I bought was far too large and bulky for this collapsible sandwich box. Will probably have to re-size it.

BEC Rosary night @ home

No Bento today! #2 is officially on holiday for the next ten days. #1 has her last exam paper today and doesn't have the time nor appetite to eat.

I'm hosting Rosary at my house tonight. Twice a year my BEC has a special devotion to Mary, mother of Jesus Christ by recitation of the Rosary at our BEC member homes.

It's a time for prayers and great fellowship. It happens four days a week for the whole months of May and October.

The Rosary nights are something the children look forward to and you can find the young ones awaiting designation of their portion of 'duty' (their turn to say part of the Rosary). Even small kids as young as 3-4 years old look forward to their 'duty' during these periods. It's also a time for bonding for these kids. My children's best friends whom they grew up with are from our BEC.

Tonight is a special night because my God- daughter (adult) and her family are back on holidays from USA and came tonight especially to spend this time with us.

Incidentally, her son is also my God-son (5 years old) and another one of my God-son (10 months old) from another family also came and so did one more God-daughter (adult).

Hubs and I are God-parents to many and tonight 4 God-children are at my house! I'm very happy and feel so blessed to see not only my good friends but also some of my God-children, especially the ones from USA whom I've not seen for the past year.

They are also fans of my Japanese cooking so I made their favorite sushi. I also introduced Oden and Udon noodles to them and they absolutely loved it!! It was everyone's favorite!








I made Ichigo Daifuku for dessert. It was also a hit. Initially everyone was wary because of it's size but after convincing them to try, they also 'ta pau' home!













I also made the little kids favorite macaroni and cheese. Froze some for my kids Bento.
It's been a long night but an enjoyable one.

I thank God for the wonderful people who has brought so much happiness into my life!

Recipe for ODEN

Sometimes I don't know if my blog readers want the recipes to the dishes that I post up and I usually wait until someone asks for it. It takes some effort to put the recipe down and it's a waste to post something up that people may not use.

Anyway, I'm glad Terri asked for this recipe. This is my favorite Japanese dish! Love it, love it love it!!

I've improvised this from the original recipe because it's flavored to suite our palette. The basic recipe is the same except that I've used some local ingredients, otherwise it can get very expensive to eat this on a regular basis. This is quite a big pot of Oden, you may want to half the recipe.
I like my Oden with lots of soup so you need to get ready a big enough pot to contain all these:

Ingredients:
"A"
5 hard boiled eggs, shell removed (number of eggs according to number of people)
1 whole Japanese Daikon (white raddish)
1 piece of lotus root (lin gau cut into rounds)
2 carrots
4 US potatoes
2 packets of chikuwa (the local ones come in about 1" lengths)
2 packets of Konnyaku(cut lengthwise and then cut into twelve pieces)
2 packets of local fish balls (fried or otherwise)
1 piece Kamaboko (optional if you have enough local fish balls)
2 packets of fish sausages
6 pieces of atsuagé or I prefer to use Abura-age (fried tofu used in Miso soup)
12 pcs of dried Shitake (rinse and soak in hot water for 20 minutes - cut off the stems)
3 packets hanpen (cut into two triangles)


For broth:
12 cups of Dashi
1/4 cup of sake
2 tbsp of sugar
1/2 cup Japanese "light shoyu" - to taste (Usukuchi)
2 soup spoons of fish sauce (optional)

Method:

• Prepare all the ingredients in "A":
• Hard boil the eggs and remove shell.
• Skin and cut daikon, carrots, potatoes and lotus root.
• Soak and cut off the stalks of shitake.
• Wash all the fish balls and other ingredients.
• Blanch Abura-age with hot water and cut into half.
• Konnyaku has to be blanched in hot water for 1-2 minutes before use.

Once all the ingredients are prepared and ready:

• Prepare a BIG pot
• Pour the dashi into the pot and add the rest of sake, sugar, shoyu and fish sauce.
• Leave on medium fire and bring to boil.

• Meanwhile, put daikon, carrots and lotus root into a pot of boiling water for about 3 minutes. Then add US potatoes (they cook quite fast) in and continue boiling for 2 minutes.
• Pour away the water and add all the 'root' vegetables into the big pot of stock and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.
• Taste the stock and add shoyu and/or fish sauce to taste.
• Add in all the rest of the ingredients and allow to simmer for 45 minutes. Don't over-boil, allow to simmer all the time.

Serve hot or cold with prepared Japanese mustard or Dijon Mustard.

Note: You can add seasonal vegetables, chicken or pork into your pot of Oden. Serve with rice or Udon noodles.

I hope I've covered everything. The links are from the ever reliable Wikipedia.

Quick fix lunch!

Sorry there was no Bento post yesterday. Yours truly was coughing the whole night and only slept at 3a.m. By the time it was day break and the alarm rang, yours truly just slept through like a baby.

My poor kids, no Bento yesterday, came home ravenous. I prepared them a decent lunch to make up for oversleeping. They were very sweet, didn't even try to wake mummy up!!

On the top left is Japanese spinach with sesame seed dressing.

Also prepared their all time favourite Tonkatsu! Four of us finished the whole plate. Tonkatsu "Bulldog" sauce was on the side because #1 doesn't like it.



Served the 'evergreen' miso soup with mussels, wakame and abura-age.





Lastly I made a pot of my favourite Oden (eaten with mustard) for dinner, but also served some for lunch. Mmmm...delicious!!

I tried to upload this post last night but it was impossible. The traffic must have been very high at blogger.com because I couldn't upload my photos until this morning.

Dinner

Kids were out for their activities. Dinner was only hubs, myself and Daughter number 3.

Clockwise from top: Hijiki, Oden, Takuan, Natto and white rice.




Dinner was delicious!



On the right is Natto, another of my favourites!

Left: Larger picture of the Hijiki & Aburaage-Ni.

Another way to eat Oden

Boil some Udon noodles and just add Oden and viola an excellent hearthy dish for a rainy day.

[Udon]

Oden

My second attempt at Oden. I love Oden and my children and husband enjoyed it at dinner time. It was left over Oden to bring to school the next day.












[oden]