Showing posts with label mozarella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mozarella. Show all posts
Empanada de atún bento
Labels:
bento,
blueberries,
cantaloup melon,
cherry tomatoes,
cucumber,
empanada,
grapes,
lettuce,
mozarella,
nectarine,
olives,
orange,
radish
·
Spanish flavours in today's lunch, as I decided to make empanadas de atún last night to pack in our bento boxes. As it was a kind of a "spur of the moment" idea, I didn't have the time to make it completely from scratch as my MIL used to do. Luckily for me, the "organised business woman" I am, has everything she needs in her fridge and cupboard to produce these savoury pastries in a relatively short time.
As my (Spanish) Sweetie grew up with these flavours and with MIL's comida casera, cooking up a Spanish dish is always a bit tricky. No matter what I do, I'll never make things exactly the way she did. And as she sadly passed away a few years ago, I can't ask her for advice anymore neither. Nevertheless, I had to shoo someone out of the kitchen last night, who had picked up the familiar scent, trailed it back to the kitchen and was intent on stealing a few scraps out of the hot pan. I guess I can consider that a compliment :o)
So both our bento have an empanada de atún on a bed of young lettuce leaves, radishes, cucumber, tomato/mozzarella skewers and a green olives skewer. It's nice to include raw veggies again, it reminds me that sunny days are on their way and that it will soon be BBQ weather again :o)
The dessert section has grapes, cantaloup balls, orange parts, nectarine and blueberries.
How-to speedy Empanada de Atún :
Ingredients for 8 empanadas:
* 3 garlic cloves (or less, if you're not a garlic fan as we are)
* 2 red onions
* 400g of canned tuna (I used tuna in olive oil, but on brine would work too)
* 2 (bell) peppers (traditionally you'd use green ones, but I used the two red ramiro peppers I had in the fridge)
* 1 jar (400 ml) of tomate frito (my fave brand : Solis)
* 2 hardboiled eggs
* 1 egg
* 2 puff pastry sheets
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Dice the onions and peppers and finely chop the garlic. In a skillet, fry the onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil, and add the peppers when the onions have glazed over.
Once the peppers are starting to tender, add the tomate frito and let it simmer for a while on low heat.
Meanwhile, drain the tuna and crumble it. Chop up the hardboiled eggs and add them together with the crumbled tuna to the tomate frito. Stir all the ingredients together and let it simmer a while longer. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and let cool a bit. The filling should now be rather consistent and not watery or liquid.
Roll out the pastry sheets. The ones I had in the fridge were round ones, which aren't the easiest to use. If you make your own pastry dough you can make roll it out in a sheet, cut out round shapes, reshape the remaining dough into a new flat sheet, cut out again, etc. (empanadas are normally presented as half circles, like goyza)... But I just cut the round doughs in four, filled them and then (painstakingly) tried to close them.
Whisk the egg and brush it on top of the empanadas, before putting them in the oven for about half an hour (depending on your oven).
The empanadas are delicious hot and cold, which makes them ideal for bento.
Lemongrass scampi & beef/pork patty bento
Labels:
apple,
beef,
bell pepper,
bento,
brocolini,
carrot,
cherry tomatoes,
clementine,
grapes,
green asparagus,
iceberg lettuce,
mozarella,
nashi,
plum,
snow peas,
sugar snaps
·
Two slightly different bento for me and P. today, as both the scampi and the minced meat had to be cooked up before they turned bad. I know that the date on the packages is indicative and says "best before" and not "unfit for consumption after", but still, I don't like taking risks.
My faithful sakura bento (I love that one so much, I keep using this one every single time) has some white rice topped with bellpepper flowers, scampis stirfried with scallions and lemongrass surrounded by carrot baran, a cherry tomato, brocolini and green asperagus covered with snowpeas, some cauliflower roses and carrot kinpira to the left. The whole veggie section is separated from the fruits by red lettuce leafs, and those fruits are the usual clementine, grapes, plums and nectarine.
P. has a lunch bento and a dessert sidecar today. The lunch bento consists of beef/pork patties with scallion and red onion, white rice topped with red pepper flowers and surrounded by red lettuce baran, brocolini with snowpeas and sugar snaps, carrot kinpira, a cherry tomato and the last of the mozzarella balls.
The dessert sidecar holds beside the usual fruits (clementine, grapes, plums, nectarine, apple and nashi), also a small cup of the spring edition M&Ms I found during grocery shopping last weekend.
Pasta Salad Bento
Labels:
apple,
bell pepper,
bento,
blueberries,
cappellini,
cucumber,
mozarella,
pasta,
plum,
quail egg,
snow peas,
sprouts,
sugar snaps
·
Because I turned the pasta into a salad, with different ingredients, I didn't add any additional vegetables to my bento.
The salad consists of cappellini pasta, spring onion, cucumber, tomato, smoked ham & lean bacon strips, a chopped up scrambled egg and parsley. I mixed a dressing of oliver oil and strawberry vinegar (a Taiwanese product I found in the Asian market, smells and tastes delish) into the pasta to avoid it drying out and getting sticky.
Some cucumber baran is separating the pasta from the different fruits : clementine, red and white grapes, red and yellow plum, nectarine, kiwi and the jelly like substance is a new strange fruit, the grenadillo. More about that below).
Sweetie took the owan tsukumi bento to the office today which has the same pasta salad as the sakura bento in the bottom tier. In the top tier there are mini tomato/mozarella skewers, green olives, quail egg, snow peas and sugar snaps, broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, bell pepper flowers and two pieces of manchego cheese.
No working day being complete without the essential vitamin break, I packed quite a few fruits in one of my new Kutusitanyanko boxes. The first really kawaii box, P. is taking to the office. As I have packed up both boxes in a solid colour furoshiki, it will be the lunchtime surprise. Let's see how that one will go :o)
Anyway for the fruits : half of the grenadillo (see more below), white and black grapes, red and yellow plum, kiwi, clementine and a piece of apple.
STRANGE FRUIT #2 - GRENADILLO
On my continuous quest of trying every strange thing in the supermarket, this is the latest instalment.
With a name like grenadillo, I thought the inside would be more like a pomegranade. As you can see for yourself, it is not.
Now on the inside, it doesn't look very appetizing, does it? Green/greyish jellylike substance with lots of seeds ... I sure know how to pick them :o) The taste however is delicate and sweet (if you can block out your apprehension - closing your eyes helps ;o)). I never had fresh passion fruit but it looks quite similar and I think tastewise they mustn't be too far off. I tried eating one of the seeds but it was like an apple seed, quite hard, so I don't think these are edible. Slurp it up and spit out the seeds seem to be the way to eat this baby. Upon googling the grenadillo, it appears that I should have cut it lengthwise instead of through the middle as I did. I don't think the cutting method alters the taste though.
More strange fruit tomorrow ... I got a last strange thing in the fridge :o)
The nameless bento
Labels:
bento,
brocolini,
cherry tomatoes,
clementine,
corn,
grapes,
kiwano,
kiwiberries,
meatballs,
mozarella,
nectarine,
plum,
sugar snaps,
vitelotte
·
This bento has a few leftover items in it : the sliced meatballs are from last night's dinner and there was still a bit of vitelotte mash left, so I took that one along as well. For the veggies I have red lettuce (under the meat), brocolini (finally found some in the stores last weekend), sugar snaps and two cherry tomatoes/mozarella/mini corn skewers. The fruit part of the bento has black and white grapes, kiwiberries, half a strawberry, blueberries, plum, nectarin, clementine and a slice of kiwano (see more about that below).
P. only took a fruit snack to the office today as a lunch meeting had been sheduled.
KIWANO
Ok, so most of my friends know that I can't resist anything marked new or looking unfamiliar while grocery shopping. I'm the dream of any marketeer : the volunteer human guinea pig :o)
Anyway, this fruit is the result of that weakness. I saw this strange looking thing in the exotic fruits section and I just had to buy it (truthful to my "try everything at least once" motto). Kiwano : the name sounded promising and called to mind images of sunny tropical islands. Needless to say that I had high expectations...
and it didn't live up to it. It doesn't have any particular taste and could best be compared to a lightly sweetened cucumber. Very fresh (even for a fruit that has to stay out of the fridge) but otherwise tasteless. It looks pretty as decoration but I will pass on this one next time around. Definetely not worth its price.
Spanakopita bento
Labels:
blueberries,
cherry tomatoes,
clementine,
cucumber,
duck,
feta,
grapes,
kiwiberries,
macaron,
mozarella,
nectarine,
plum,
sausage,
spanakopita,
spinach,
sprouts,
strawberries,
vitelotte
·
I might post of few of the bentos I made for the last two months. But before looking back it's more interesting to look ahead and more particularly look at today's lunch. :o)
Inspired by Blorgie1's mouthwatering Spanakopita snail bento picture, I decided to give that Greek pastry a try. Googling the name for recipes lead to many posibilites and variations, and unable to choose the "right one", I opted for making my own version of it. It's probably not traditional (nor very greek for that matter) but in the end, it's the taste that matters.
I have to admit however that I made the triangle just for the bento and haven't tasted it yet, but the filling was good in itself (yep, I'm the type of girl that can't help snacking on whatever she's making), so baked and wrapped in filo it can only be better :o)
P.'s bento for the day consists of a spanakopita triangle, two skewers composed of cherry tomatoes, smoked duck and mozarella, a grilled chicken sausage, vitelotte mash in a lilac cup, cucumber baran and beetroot sprout. The fruit section has a selection of mainly dark fruits : blueberries, grapes, strawberries, kiwiberries, nectarine, clementine and plum. I also added a mini blackberry macaron for sweetness.
How to Spanakopita, the BentoBliss way :o) :
The following ingredients make 4 triangles
* 250g fresh spinash
* 100g greek feta
* 100g mascarpone (I wanted ricotta but didn't have any available)
* 2 spring onions
* 2 garlic cloves
* 50 g of melted butter and 1 TBS of olive oil
* 8 filo sheets
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp chopped mint
* chopped parsley
* salt, pepper, nutmeg
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
Blanch the spinach, drain, squeeze the excess water out of it and chop it up.
Chop the spring onions and fry them shortly in a pan. They have to be a bit tender but not brown.
In a large bowl, mix together the spinach, the onion, the crumbled feta, the mascarpone and the herbs and spices.
Beat the egg lightly (as you would for making a scrambled egg) and add it to the mixture.
Take your filo sheets and lay the first sheet open, brush the butter/olive oil mix on the sheet and cover with a second sheet. Repeat until putting the forth sheet on top.
Cut the sheet in half lengthwise, add a fourth of the spinach mix on the bottom of filo rectangle and twist it into a triangle. It's the same method as for making briouats, see the pic below on how to do this.
Repeat the same procedure with the remaining 4 sheets to have 4 triangles in total.
Put the triangles on the baking tray lined with baking parchment paper, and bake them in the oven until the colour golden brown. The exact time depends on your oven, in my case, it took about 20 minutes.
My bento for today, has roughly the same ingredients as the one Sweetie got. I just left out the duck skewers for me and replaced the chicken sausage by surimi & tzatziki rolls.
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