Week 55

 Week 55 was all about feeling the season and staying in with family and friends

Liz made bento's with her four kids.

It is very much fun to make bento boxes on your own. But to make them for you kids so they eat healthier - wonderful!

But to get the kids enthusiastic as well and make their own bento boxes! Wow! You go mom!

Rose made her own spicy salad bento.

Using up all the left over veg from last week.

Add some cheese, cuteness and jalapeño ...  and - Bob's your uncle!

*** HAVE A HAPPY BENTO DAY!!! ***

Week 54

Week 54 was a busy week. The bento's are a way of presenting food - whether it is for taking out or enjoying inside. 

This is a "Tapas Table Bento" with per-packed cheese, celery sticks cut in pieces with trenches of  French & Spanish dried sausages with assorted nuts, dried dates filled with blue cheese, pate of wild boar made with cognac, olives with cubes of feta cheese and in the last bowl a mix of pickled onions and peppers.

Students made these "bento" hearts in cooking class! Oh, how I do love them too!

This is a bento made for pleasuring the memory of the wonderful times in Taiwan.

It consist of jao-zi (dumplings) made with pork and turkey meat. Spiced with 5spice, garlic, onion, soy sauce sesame oil and seeds, basil, water and seasoning.

On the side is a bento with 3 times soy sauce, 1 time jalapeño pepper, wasabi paste and ginger.

It is decorated with celery sticks and leaves, basil leaves and spring onion.

Very yummy!

*** HAVE A HAPPY BENTO DAY!!! ***

Week 53

The darkness of winter days is creeping up. Ingredients in our bento's change accordingly. 

 

Leftovers from last week. Rose made a striped bento. Top of the picture a trier filled with a Spanish tortilla of egg, bacon, chicken, basil and cheese with chili sauce stripes on top. And salt and pepper, of course.

Bottom: smoked beef slices rolled up, a celery stick filled with fig jam. A piece of pate made with pheasant, another celery stick with fig jam and a nice piece of goat's cheese with truffle.


Playing ukulele, drinking wine, eating snacks - with friends <3 

Burrito (or taco - I never know the difference) made with chickpea flour and filled with meat salad. Chick pea flour is low in carbs! (aka Good Food).

The meat salad was made by cutting left over sausages into thin stripes and mixing it with cream cheese, mayonnaise and finely cut celery sticks. And salt and pepper, of course.

This combinations is unexpectedly heavenly!

 Mushrooms (the brown kind - I am unfamiliar with the English name, in Dutch it is called a "kastanjechampignon") cooked for about 20 minutes in water, balsamic vinegar, some salt and glühwein (or something sweet). Filled with a pulpo (octopus) salad. The salad was made by cooking octopus for 2 hours in dry sherry, bay leaf, water, garlic, jalapeño pepper and seasoning. Then cut into pretty pieces and mixed with cream cheese, mayonnaise and topped with spring onion rings.  

"Left over dinner" bento... again.
Duck breasts and celeriac wedges mixed with horseradish sauce were finished and very very tasty. Just the red cabbage was leftover. 

On top: assorted nuts and Bleu d'Auverge cheese cut in cubes.
On the bottom: red cabbage cooked in Glühwein with a bay leaf, juniper berries, mixed peppercorns, salt and finely sliced pear.

Very yummy "taste of winter" combination!

*** HAVE A HAPPY BENTO DAY !!! ***