Bento #17

Last week, I put up a post on how to cook Okonomiyaki. As I had 1/2 a bag of flour left, I decided to finish it before the horrible weevils find their way to that bag of floor, especially in this damp weather. This time, I replaced the mushrooms with a little white squid and small prawns. Maybe I didn't add enough squid and prawns as I could not really taste that much of a difference, except the little bit more chewy when I bit into the squid. I think I will stick to the mushrooms the next time. Healthy and cheaper :D

Top tray : Okinomiyaki with squid and prawns
Lower tray : White rice with a sprinkling of the yummy nori bits, bonito flakes and some leftover egg furikake.
Right tray : Lovely seedless grapes

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Bento #16

Bento #16 is a relatively simple on as it is made up of mainly leftovers. The rice is from the same batch of Multi Grains Rice which I made earlier.


The meat stew is a plain one which is made up pork bits and I added a freshly boiled egg as mum says that it is not good to eat eggs which have been left overnight. Not sure why but when we were kids, she absolutely refused to let the sons eat them.



The veg is freshly stir fried as normally vegetables are all eaten up on the day they were cooked. I guess vegetables which have to be refried will be rather limped and none of the vitamins would have been retained. The veg dish was stir fried carrots, cabbage and some abalone mushrooms in a little garlic.



For desserts, I had a banana.. yum yum :)

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Mixed Grains Rice

I have never tried mixed grains before. At best, it was either brown rice or the Thai Red Rice. But after reading Babe's post on Mixed Grains Fried Rice, I simply had to give it a go. Got some advice from Babe and went shopping over the weekend. Actually, there were quite a few varieties of mixed grains at the Organic shops. I was actually at a loss as to which one to select. Finally, I went to this Organic shop in near OUG (Overseas Union Garden) market in Kuala Lumpur. The lady was very helpful and she recommended the Chinese Yam and Multi Grains Rice. This is the packet I bought. The cost of this packet was RM14 for 1 kg.


The ingredients inside the bag included Australian Brown Rice, Oat, Sorghum Rice, Job's Tears, Buck'wheat, Gordon Euryale Seed, Wheat, Barley, Red Lentils, Pearl Rice and Yam. Actually, I could not recognize more than half of the stuff inside the bag.

Her advice was to soak the grains between 1 hour to 2 hours before cooking. And as this was my first time eating this, she also recommended for me to add in 1 cup of white rice to 1 cup of the multi grains rice, in case I am not use to the texture.

Well, I followed her instructions to the letter and cooked up a pot of multi grain rice with the same portion of white rice. This is what I got. It was quite yummy but the best part of it, after eating a bowl of it for lunch, one can last the entire afternoon until dinner without any hunger pangs :D. A great diet meal.

The results .......

1 cup of white rice, 1 cup of mixed grains rice (soaked for 2 hours) and 2 and 3/4 cups of water. I steamed the rice instead of putting it into my lousy rice cooker. I reckon that if you did put it into the rice cooker, you may need to add a little bit more water. A bit of a trial and error.

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Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is one of those Japanese dishes that I like very much and I finally was able to get all the ingredients that I needed to make this. Okonomiyaki is really like a Pizza, japanese style. But when I did it, mine looked more like a pancake :D. This is how it out to look like, in a restaurant..

This image was borrowed from Travel To Japan website.

This is what mine looked like.Not sure why the entire photo color is orange but then it was only a camera phone.


Here's another picture of my okonomiyaki.


It was very easy to do and quite tasty. Here, this recipe was taken off a brochure they were handing out at that nice little Japanese shop at Mid Valley, The Gardens. Haha.. finally got the name of the shop.


I already halved everything in the recipe as I think one full pan of okonomiyaki is quite enough for 1 meal.

Ingredients

100g okonomiyaki flour
2 eggs
100 cc of water
250g of cabbage
50g of meat ingredient (chicken/beef/squid/prawn) - I didn't add any... coz I didn't have any in the freezer
50g of vegetable ingredient (mushrooms/onion/ corn) - I only used mushrooms and onion)

Garnishing

Brown okonomiyaki sauce
Mayonnaise
Dried Bonito flakes
Green seaweed flakes

Method

1. Slice cabbage finely
2. Finely cut up the ingredients that you want to add
3. Mix okonomiyaki sauce, eggs and water together in a big bowl and stir until frothy
4. Add cabbage into the mixture
5. Pour in all the finely cut ingredients into the batter and mix thoroughly
6. Heat some oil in the frying pan
7. When oil is hot, pour all the batter mix into the frying pan and fry in medium heat
8. When the bottom surface of the okonomiyaki has turned golden brown, flip it over
9. Once both sides have turn golden brown, serve it on a plate
10. Garnish it with the okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise
11. Sprinkle the bonito flakes and the seaweed flakes just before serving

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Bento #15

Went over to the Japanese Store at Mid Valley The Garden again over the weekend and bought a few cool stuff. I hope I still have the packet at home as I forgot to take a photo of the bag. It was a sushi rice mix, I think the bag only had Japanese words on it. The little white sticker with the few English words on it had quite a lot of things on it... including carrots, vinegar, etc etc. I must really go back and retrieve that bag soon, if I have not already thrown it away.

Anyway, I made a simple bento for lunch using whatever that was in the fridge. I noticed that I have been bento-ing more than I have been baking.... oh, I do miss baking... but bento-ing is fun and it is quick and simple too :).

I have also started discussing a new project I have in mind with my dear bento blogging friend Pat of Bento Pet. Hope to see my proposed project take off soon. And thank you very much Pat, for giving me the time and keeping an open mind on this (hopefully NOT) a hare brain scheme of mine. Keeping fingers and toes crossed.

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Top tray : Short grain rice with the delicious pre-mix that came complete even with the nori bits for garnishing and 2 sausages (steamed)

Bottom tray : Quail eggs (bought a rabbit craft cutter from MPH bookstore MidValley but the sumo were cut free-hand - notice how untidy they are heehee), cucumbers, crab sticks and grapes.

Bento #14

Ever since I found that little Japanese supermarket like outlet at the Gardens, Mid Valley, I have been going there almost every weekend. The people there are rather nice as they will take the time to explain to me what new products they have and also how to use some of the products. I have been buying quite a few interesting stuff from them each time.

One of the items I bought recently were rice cakes (I think that is what they are called). They are made totally of glutinous rice and they come in either rectangular pieces like those in the photo below and also in small disc forms. These can be either lightly fried in a little oil or put into sweet soups like the red bean soups to give it more body.


I also got some of these Egg Furikake. Looks very nice and interesting.


With just these two ingredients, I am ready to make my very simple Bento #14.

I just had to lightly fry the rice cakes and once they are done, i used a small piece of nori sheet to hold it up. Lightly smear some Japanese mayonnaise around the 3 sides of the cake and press it into a pile of Egg Furikake. And this is how it looks.


Cut up a plum or two, wash a bunch of grapes and some cherry tomatoes and you are ready.


And this is the end result, almost hassle free.

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Bento #13

I didn't think that I will be bento-ing yesterday as I knew I was going to have a company paid lunch but when I got back, I realize that I didn't have much time for a leisurely sit-down dinner before I had to rush off for my Monday night meeting with some of my business partners. After frying the rice and taking a quick shower after that, I only had time to cut up 2 plums and 1 kiwi fruit and stuff some rice into my bento box before I ran off.

I think it was rather rude of me but I cannot help it. I arrived at 10 minutes to 8pm and the meeting is to start at 8pm. So, without too much ceremony, I just took out my Bento and ate my dinner at the office, with 2 of them eyeing my food. I didn't ask if they have eaten as there was definitely not enough to share *evil grin*

Left tray : 2 plums and 1 kiwi fruit
Right tray : Fried Thai Red Rice (recipe in the previous post)

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Fried Thai Red Rice

I have normally eaten only white rice or brown rice. But the first time I ate red rice was at this eatery Ying Ker Lou - Hakka Cuisine in Sunway Pyramid which serves authentic Hakka Cuisine. The dishes were lovely and I am trying to get some photos to post it up on the blog. I remember taking photos with my camera phone but I cannot locate them now :(


Anyway, I found the red rice very nice indeed and decided to buy a very small packet (I think the 1 kg packet) as any packet larger than that will be a magnet to weevils (gosh, how I detest these little bugs). I cooked them the first time following the directions on the packet 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. The rice turned out pretty hard. Luckily none of us who ate it had indigestion that night.

Yesterday, I cooked it again but this time, with 2 1/2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. It turned out much better. As I was in a hurry to rush of for my Monday night meetings, I had only enough time to fry it all up with whatever I can find in the fridge. This is the result.


Ingredients
2 cups red rice, cooked
3 shallots - chopped
1 large carrot - diced
1 cup of frozen corn
1 fresh red chilli - sliced
4 pieces of mushroom sausages - sliced
2 eggs, beaten and scrambled
1 tbsp of mini dried shrimps

Method

1. After the rice is cooked, dish it out and fluff it to be cooled whilst preparing the other ingredients
2. Heat up the wok/pan and add a little oil.
3. Once the oil is hot, put in the shallot and fry until aromatic.
4. Add in the dried shrimps and then add in the sausages.
5. Put in the chilli, carrots and corn.
6. Add in a 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 sugar and some pepper
7. Put in the rice into the wok and mix all the ingredients into the rice.
8. Add soya sauce to taste.
9. Finally add in the scrambled eggs and dish it out.

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Bento #12

It has been raining incessantly for the last few days and eating out meant really getting drenched. Hence, I decided to do a bento on a Sunday :), just for the fun of it. Wanted to make only something simple as the later part of Sunday is really a damper as the next day is working day.

There were some chicken wings in the freezer, a tray of unagi which I bought yesterday, some cauliflower, carrots and capsicum. Alright, the menu is all set.

Whilst the chicken was left to marinade, I managed to send out 20 emails to friends, inviting them to download a free video from a website, watched one episode of CSI Season 8 on the PC and chatted with a few friends over the MSN. The rest of the stuff which I made was easy and quick. These were the results.

This first bento was for me.

Left: Chicken in teriyaki sauce, omelette and mixed vegetables in oyster sauce
Right : Rice with a sprinkling of Sakura Denbu.

The bottom set was for Tobiyama's dinner. The dishes were the same except his had unagi, as an extra dish. I suppose this sure beats running out in the rain for a decent dinner.



No bento for lunch tomorrow as I'll be attending the company's Mid Year Business Review and there is lunch provided....buffet lunch... yummy :)

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Bentos #10 and#11

These days are so packed, just like my bentos haha.. not really. I have been seriously trying to eat a little bit more healthily but every now and then, I do cheat.

Did I mention something about the 3 Hour Diet? Oh yeah, I did. I have yet to prepare any of the recipes recommended from their diet plan but I promise that when I do, I will definitely share it here.

I am trying to design bentos which is light enough to last me the entire day since the 3 Hour Diet recommends that I eat every 3 hours. So, these bentos are actually prepared with that in mind. I can tell you though, I am really enjoying this diet. Only time will tell if I will lose weight or actually put on haha.

Bento #10, Tuna, egg and weight watchers mayonnaise on wholemeal bread, dried garlic bread which I got from the Japanese shop in MidValley, The Gardens, a plum, a kiwi fruit and some cucumbers.

Bento #11 - Crab sticks, hard boiled egg, with only 1 yolk. I gave the dog the other yolk (doggies can eat egg yolks, can they?? che-cheh?? Help me on this one please) Salad is made from carrots, cucumbers, yellow bell pepper, purple cabbage, pistachio nuts, weight watchers' mayonnaise on a lettuce bed.

I had a banana and a small apple on the way to work. And dinner was just normal. I will tell you if it works... provided I don't cheat big time... teehee.. else I will have to call my friend to find out more about the carbo blockers.

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