Week 59

This week: some of my favorite ingredients- that for some reason not very many other people seem to love - AVOCADO AND PULPO! <3
In my favorite bento box brought from Japan by one of my favorite girlfriends - Ilonka! <3


It is a quite simple dish but the combination of salt - pepper and sweet - sour just makes the salad!

Avocado is sliced and topped with lime juice, fleur de sel salt and freshly ground pepper.
Pulpo is cooked (for quite some time) in red wine with a cork, garlic and onion.
Then cooled, stripped of all the tentacles, cut into pieces, dressed with lime juice - fleur de sel salt - freshly ground mixed pepper - Turkish spices (sumac) -extra virgin olive oil. And something sweet - a pinch of cane sugar. Leave to cool overnight. Yumm!

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

Week 58

This week ....

 Flowers made out of salad leaves rolled up with sliced cold meat.

For some rolls I added mayonnaise. For some I didn't.

I used grilled beef and grilled pork with mustard.

Easy. Yummy. Bento-y.

(Just no better pics than this one... sorry! )

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

Week 57

The Dutch are known for their cheese. 

But: Mussels are a Dutch delicacy! 

Mussels can be eaten when there is an "R" in the name of the month. 

Obviously this rule applies to the Dutch language. 

My good friend Frans is a wonderful (and sometimes experimental or crazy) cook. This time we ate wonderful mussels. In a spicy coconut sauce.

Pulpo (octopus)

One of my favorite "fishy thingies" is octopus.
I cook it for quite some time in red wine (preferably high in tannin), some sour element, garlic, jalapeño pepper, onion and some flavorings to taste. This time I also added a cork (from a bottle of wine). I read somewhere that that would make the octopus even less chewy. And I did feel that it was softer than previous times. Although I don't mind chewy.

I peel the octopus and cut it into bite size pieces. One trier was with cream cheese and black pepper.

The dark trier was with lemon juice and sea salt.

I ended up mixing them both.

Delicious salad!

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

Week 56

Using fall and winter flavors is a great way to use produce of the season.
It is economical and it suits the body.

The white trier is filled with a red cabbage salad. Topped with flakes of smoked trout and rings of leek.

The red cabbage salad is a recipe from Angelique Schmeinck of the Dutch food channel 24kitchen. The cabbage is sliced thinly. Lukewarm olive oil is poured over it. Flavorings can be garlic, pepper, salt and thyme. But I vary every time. Since cabbage keeps so well I use a small bit every time and experiment.
It has become one of my favorite salads!

The brown trier is filled with semolina and topped with a red port sauce and more rings of leek.

This bento box was brought from Asia by my good friend Ilonka. It is my favorite bento box. The volume, the colors, the triers and the seal are all perfect!

This bento has more the feel of
a warm day in fall. 

Chicory leaves used as boats to travel delicicous seafood into my mouth. The chicory boats are filled with crab salad, crayfish and topped with pomegranate seeds and finely sliced jalapeno pepper.

This combination is surprisingly wonderful!

The tower of Pizza! (This is a bit of joke...)

In cooking class the kids made macaroni, tomato sauce, leek rings, cooked mushrooms and grated cheese.

We made so much food- we couldn't eat it all at school.
Also it was so tasty the kids wanted to take some macaroni home to let their family members taste it too!

Each child was allowed to create their own cups of macaroni! So they could pile the cups any way they wanted. And me too! :-)

Since we don't have a lot of means they brought the macaroni back in plastic cups. By the time I got home, my macaroni was cold.
I put it in the fridge and wanted to reheat it the next day. I tipped it over and - thanks to all the Gouda cheese - I had a little macaroni tower! It is as crooked as the tower of pizza! (XD)

This is a bento for working at home.

Some left over semolina. Salad made with avocado, sliced red onion, garlic and pomegranate seeds. Slices of left over venison.

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